True to the Roots (10 page)

"To me it just feels so good," Green says. "It just feels so normal and right. I'll hang out with you. I'll talk to you. There are certain people out there who get drunk and take it too far, and they don't know how to behave, but there's a difference between not knowing how to behave and wanting to shake somebody's hand. I think it's a thrill for people to want to feel like they know me. In what I do for a living, it's great to be able to say hi."

But Green, absentmindedly rambling in roughly concentric circles around a tiny village on a starry Texas night, is a little concerned with the view in some quarters here that he is somehow abandoning the music that made him so popular in his native state.

"Here's what I think," he says. "If you're only writing for the radio, then you're going to get precisely that. If you're only writing for the fans—the super fans, the ones who will come see you no matter what—then you're going to get stuff that your diehard fans are going to love, then you're going to have a hard time connecting with the mainstream. And if you're only going to write for yourself, then you're going to get to sing a lot of songs all by yourself.

"My goal in life has always, always, always been I want to have my music hit the ears of as many people as possible, and, like it or not, I just want you to have a choice. I've never been a person who said I only want a certain group of people to understand me, I only want Texas to understand me or I only want Southern people to understand me. I've never said any of that. I don't believe that. Music is so universal. It's such a common thing but such a complex thing that, if you can really make a connection, if you can really make a strong bond, then it doesn't matter if you're on a record label or if you're famous or anything like that—people are going to get their hands on it, and I'm living proof of that. I mean, we didn't have anything, and we could draw ten thousand people, fifteen thousand people. That says a whole lot. That says that these guys, whether you like it or not, whether they're 'real music' in whatever circle you ride in, this band was pulling it off."

If Green ever had a never say never moment, it was in a line from an old song that is now thrown in his face: "I gave up on Nashville a long time ago."

"That's what people always get on me about," he says. "I was eighteen years old. It was the first song I'd ever written. I was just writing stuff down because I'd never written a song before, right? I'd never been to Nashville. I'd never gone to try to pitch songs to people or get a record deal. I just thought I was writing about this entity that I kind of vilified in my mind because, at the time, all I got to hear on the radio, when I first started writing music, was Garth Brooks, and I couldn't stand it. I thought, oh, my God, everything sounds just alike, there's no spirit, there's no soul and there's nothing tangible there. It all sounds the same.

Feels the same, looks the same, tastes the same.

"I love Robert Earl Keen. I love Jerry Jeff Walker. I love all these really great writers, and they can write this really catchy stuff that I can sing along to and tap my toes to, and they could write this stuff that was ten miles deep off the side of the ocean. . . . All I wanted to do was the same thing and take it as big as it could go. That's all we wanted to do: take this music, that has a tangible, earthy feel to it, and at the same time write about emotion. At times I can just get off and go preach and have that side of myself exposed. All of it has to come out and find exposure. Sooner or later, you either get a hit record or you go broke, one of the two. I don't give a crap which happens first."

Nowadays, Green and Nashville get along pretty well. His reputation has stretched beyond the boundaries of Texas and earned him frequent play on mainstream radio. His commercial success offers hope to other musicians but also carries with it a certain perception that he has somehow sold out. It's a charge that only mildly rankles him. He insists his outlook hasn't changed.

"This record [
Lucky Ones
] is, in my mind's eye, the most serious record I've ever done," he says, "but, at the same time, my brain will not let me think of it as anything but the best writing I've ever done."

The conversation drifts to other Texans who might be able to surf on Green's waves, so to speak. After all, his first gold record was titled
Wave on Wave
, though not for that reason.

"Jack Ingram is as
bad
as anybody," he says. "He's one of my best friends in the world, and Jack just is so revealing about himself and about the truth and the way he writes the truth. That's the way it works, too. If you're fibbing in your writing or if you're making up some bullshit and if you're trying to get it across in your songs and your performances, then people will know, or at least the smart people will know.

"I don't know. Then there are the songs you write hoping people will take them with a grain of salt, and those are inevitably the songs that people take quite seriously. But Jack is a master, man—Jack is the best showman in Texas music. There's no doubt in my mind, as far as four piece bands are concerned, nobody can top him. If you've got a four piece band out there, then don't follow Jack Ingram because it's going to be tough."

Texas can be comforting, but, as big as it is, it's not America. Green is taking Texas to America. I make passing reference to Gary P. Nunn's "What I Like about Texas" and note that not everyone knows what the Llano Estacado is.

"Yeah," Green replies, "but they want to hear about it. When it comes to me and guys like Jerry Jeff, Willie Nelson, a few of the other guys, they already know we're from Texas. They come to get that, and the ones that don't, they just want to hear what the stink's all about. To me, at home in Texas, it's more fun to sing about Texas because the crowd is 99 percent there and ready to hear it. Out there [beyond the borders] it's more like 60, 65 percent, and I'm just trying not to force anything down anybody's throat. There's nothing fun about going to watch somebody preach. I don't want to hear anybody preach politics at the concert I paid twenty-five bucks to go to."

Pat Green has become a force of nature, and forces of nature are a way of life in Texas. He's seldom deep in an intellectual sense, but then neither were Merle Haggard and George Jones. His is music for the people, and somehow he's been able to get it to them.

He's still a dreamer. It's just that his dreaming has moved from a dance hall to the national stage.

Who Are "Those Guys"?

St. Augustine, Florida I February 2004

Those Guys—the band Those Guys—and I go back a long way, and, yes, I have fallen victim to the double entendre of asking, "Who are those guys?" It was at a place called the Sunset Grill in St. Augustine Beach, where a friend and I showed up to see the band and the ones playing on the stage obviously weren't, well, Those Guys. Turns out there had been a mixup, and the owner of the joint had scheduled two bands for the night. Those Guys had reached a settlement that involved a partial payment in exchange for letting the other band play on that particular night, and since they knew I was coming down, they were waiting for me outside but had somehow missed us when we walked in another entrance—or something like that.

"Oh, yeah, you mean the band Those Guys," the waitress had said.

Some years ago we met by happenstance. I showed up on a Wednesday night to have dinner at a little restaurant situated just south of Flagler Beach, right on the water. I've never quite gotten it straight whether the name of that place is High Tide or Snack Jack's because both names are on the sign out front. I think maybe High Tide is a little motel and Snack Jack's is the seafood shack, but I'm not quite sure. On this particular Wednesday night Dave Besley and Walt Kulwicki were performing. Practically no one was there, so I started requesting songs and singing along, and the next thing you know we were friends. I liked their music, and when we started talking, I discovered that they liked mine.

I do know this. Every little town in the United States of America ought to have a band like Those Guys. They play pretty regularly in several bars and restaurants in the area, and this little regional series of gigs has been going on for so long that kids who once started listening to them while they were in college regularly return years later with kids in tow to reminisce about how much they enjoyed the band during the good ol' days. Playing to what is perhaps the most modest possible incarnation of a cult following, Besley and Kulwicki, joined by a frequently changing assortment of other musicians who drift in and out, mix in their own songs with crowdpleasing covers of everyone from the Beatles to Simon & Garfunkel to Hank Williams to David Allan Coe.

Kulwicki inspired me to learn how to play guitar because watching him made me realize that a guitar can be part of a man's body. He hits notes on that black guitar in the same fashion that most people hit notes with their voices. I couldn't reach that level of instinctive mastery if I played every day for ten years, but watching him has led me to dream, and this dream has inspired me to try to play guitar every day for five years.

"That's what's cool about playing guitar, especially for kids, because of their attention spans," Kulwicki says. "Teach them things. Major and minor chords. Major chords are happy; minor chords are sad. You can teach them things that will stick with them until they're old enough to go back and appreciate it and learn from it, even though they didn't know what you were talking about when you first told them stuff."

In my forties that's the stage I'm at now; now I know what he's talking about. Occasionally, I'll have moments of revelation, but mainly I strum away at the basic chords, blissfully unaware of the difference between happy and sad.

I usually see the band while I'm in the area writing about races at Daytona International Speedway. We keep in touch via e-mail on and off, and when I walk into the Sunset or Creekside or the Oasis, it's not unusual for Dave to yell out at me in the middle of a song, which then makes it necessary for him to introduce me to the crowd. A lot of people get introduced to the crowd at Those Guys shows. That's because there are lots of familiar faces.

When I watch bands, at the least the ones that I know have written their own songs, drawn into performing an endless series of covers because members of these hard drinking crowds keep requesting them, I can't help but wonder if it annoys them. I ask Besley, a talented songwriter, what he thinks.

"It doesn't kill me," he answers, "because I think, for me, the main goal is to perform music that people enjoy. I hope we get so famous someday that we get tired of performing our own music."

"It doesn't tick me off," Kulwicki chimes in. "What makes me feel good is to look out there in the audience and see somebody mouthing the words. That makes the whole deal."

Fortunately for Those Guys, many of their fans can mouth the words to their songs. The regulars are familiar with songs like "Goose Creek," "Smile for the Camera," "Southern Sky," and dozens of others.

"What really feels great is to see somebody out there and they want us to play one of our songs in particular, one that you know meant something to them, that touched them and became one of their favorites," says Kulwicki. "We've got tons of fans whom we've gotten to know over the years. People who follow us around, and when they walk in the bar, they wave and greet us like friends because that's what we are, old friends.

"The crowd definitely drives me. I'd rather play for twenty people who care than twenty thousand who don't."

The band records at Besley's home, which he calls Single Wide Studios.

"I have no regrets yet," he says, "and I don't think I ever will. If we get successful and rich as hell, I don't think a lot of things would change for me. Different people have different values. I might be driving a big fancy car, I guess, but, no, I think I'd still be driving a piece of junk.

"I haven't had that many jobs, but I can't think of many that I wasn't having fun. I wasn't ready to go to work every day and punch a clock. Even on a bad night it's still better than that."

"Making a living is part of it," adds Kulwicki. "Every job has its ups and downs, whether you're pumping gas, making music, as long as you're having fun."

"I look forward to coming to play," adds bassist Danny Roberts. "That's what I think about every day when I've got a gig."

While most of those gigs are in the area around St. Augustine—from Daytona Beach to the south to Jacksonville to the north—the band does make occasional trips to other areas. The life of a traveling band can be a bit treacherous. There are lessons to be learned from being on the road.

"Two or three times a week we have major problems that either turn out great or turn out horrible," says Kulwicki.

"We did a Winn-Dixie grand opening in the world's hottest parking lot in Kingsland, Georgia, one day. It was the most god-awful experience. We played as a three piece, me and Dave and Artie (Artemus Pyle, once of Lynyrd Skynyrd). I was sick as a dog, and from that day on I've never been able to work in the heat of the day. Blacktop parking lot."

"In Kingsland, Georgia, there's a Ramada Inn, with twenty-one beautiful, flatscreen TVs and ten pool tables," said Besley. "First time we went in there, we talked on the phone with the guy who booked us. Got there, the manager said I have no idea what you're talking about. So, we got together with this guy, got everything worked out. Went ok. Next time we show up, and there's another manager: 'Oh, the guy you met that night's not the manager anymore. I'm the new manager. I'm going to book you through the summer.' Nine gigs, thousands of dollars, motel rooms, and we showed up the next time, yet another manager, and, 'Yeah, we're not sure about it,' and the next week after that they said, 'You guys are off the table.'"