The Best of…Black Stone Cherry

Posted by Dave Musson on Nov 4th, 2009 in On Stage | 0 comments

Kentucky-fried rock n roll.

Before catching their recent show in Birmingham, On Stage chatted to Black Stone Cherry drummer John Fred Young about the finer things in his life.

Best news you’ve had today?

Well, I’m alive and that’s great – we made it through the night. I was actually kind of a bad wreck this morning, we had to get a ferry but we actually made it here, our glorious driver Frank (points to Frank) got us here so we’re good – let’s do a rock show!

Best thing about touring the UK?

The fans, they’re great. You saw outside all the people standing there waiting to talk to us, most of them have been with us since the first time we started touring over here and, honestly man, we feel really close to them now. Every time we come back they just keep embracing us, it’s awesome.

Best thing about being in Black Stone Cherry?

Being with my brothers, being able to tour and play music that you can depend on, and people that you also wanna kill, haha, it’s an honour to get to do that and not have to play for somebody else. A lot of talented, talented musicians play for an artist or something like that, whereas we’re four guys who grew up together sharing blood, sweat and tears man. We’ve been together since 2001 and every day you find something new about it. It’s a great experience, I feel very gifted to be able to do it.

Best song your band has written?

Sweet Home Alabama! Well, I’ll you what man, it’s probably our cover tunes – haha, we didn’t write them but I love playing cover songs. I think there’s great songs off our first album, everything off our second album’s great too, I like the B-sides…there’s a lot of different songs. I think my favourite songs switch every other month because it depends on what we’re playing – if we don’t play something for a long time, then I’m like “man, let’s play that song”. I often get burned out on a song, but if you don’t play it for six months and then come back to it, then it’s fresh and you’re like “this is the greatest song ever, why haven’t we been playing this?”.

Best line you’ve ever written?

I think all the words in The Things My Father Said and Peace is Free. Those two songs have moved more people worldwide and I hope we continue to write more songs that have the calibre of the meanings that those songs have for us.

Best thing about your fellow band members?

Ben’s ability to always keep us updated and keep everyone on schedule. John’s artistic ability with our overall boad spectrum of things we need – he does most of our t-shirt designs for example. Chris’ ability to smoke without a lighter! (Cue much laughing in the BSC dressing room). No, Chris is real smart with sound, he’s become smarter every day with it, and his ability to not put up with BS. Whereas me…(John answers this one) John Fred is all about charisma, he is the most charismatic person you’ll ever meet in your life. (Back to John Fred) And I can eat a whole tray of donuts too.

Best gig you’ve ever played?

I hope it’s tonight. Other than that the biggest show we’ve played was Download, but I just hope that we keep playing shows. There are some wjere you think you’ve been awful, but then someone in the crowd will say it’s the best show they’ve ever seen in their life. It’s really down to what the audience thinks about it.

Best band you’ve ever shared a stage with?

There’s a lot of them man, a lot of nice bands. More than anything, it’s great to tour with bands that are very talented, because for one thing it makes you have to work harder. But for us, you could be the best band in the world, but if you’re not a nice person and if you’re not a good person at heart then it takes it all away. Bands we’ve toured with…the Def Leppard guys were awesome, Nickelback were great and a lot of bands in America are great friends of ours man – we keep on meeting nice people, which is the best part of it.

Best gig you’ve ever seen as a fan?

We saw a DVD of our set one night, it was pretty bad ass, haha! There’s a band called the Robert Randolf Family Band they’re awesome. He fronts it, I think his cousin plays drums and there’s also his other cousin on bass guitar and they have an organ player. John and I saw them in Oklahoma after we’d played one night, we took a cab to this other venue and they were the most energetic, soulful band I’ve ever seen, it was awesome.

Best band ever?

I think the best band ever is the Beatles for me, you’ve gotta love them and Elvis if you love music. But if you’re talking about rock, I love Led Zeppelin, I love Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Skynyrd, the Rolling Stones but it’s hard to choose one. As far as a band that moved the world though, it has to be the Beatles.

Best album ever?

God man I don’t know – there’s been a lot of them. I couldn’t pick one, I really couldn’t. I really loved the White album growing up, so that one has special meaning to me.

Best song ever?

Wow…(Chris whispers Freebird in the background) Chris would say Freebird, I would say Stairway to Heaven’s the best song ever but there’s so many great songs it’s hard to say again. That’s a tough, tough question!

Best drummer ever?

I don’t think there is one…I think that as far as musicians go, especially drummers, there are so many different people who’ve done so many great things. I would like to say my favourites like Buddy Rich, Jean Crouper, John Bonham, and my favourite drummer of all time is my uncle Fred who plays in the Kentucky Headhunters and that’s partly because he’s my uncle, and partly because he’s bad ass!

Best movie ever?

Now that is hard too…Chris would say Green Mile but I don’t know. I’m trying to think of a real heart-throbbing movie, but I like comedy movies. Wayne’s World is a great movie, but then do you pick 1 or 2? You can’t ever recreate the first, but the second one has Aerosmith, Pearl Jam and Chris Farhley in it. I like movies that make you cry as well, when you watch movies that have great meaning to them then it’s important to feel that…but honestly man, I like Harry Potter! I’m a Harry Potter nut, I like that stuff.

Best ice cream flavour?

Chocolate.

Best pizza topping?

I like mushrooms.

Best day of your life?

Every day that I get to be alive.

Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Don’t switch small stuff.