Hello, Brian. This is Brian Ripple from Bozeman Magazine. I am here with Rob Lethert from the BoozeHounds, and their manager Chris. We wanted to ask you a few questions concerning your upcoming appearance at Rockin the Rivers this summer. I believe Sunday, August 14th.

Rob Lethert: Hey man, How’s it going. We came and saw you in Missoula at the Highside. We Helped you Pack in some gear and visited for a while. We gave you a CD of all the songs we stole from you.

Brian Henneman: (Laughing) Oh Yeah, I remember that.

Rob: I have been telling the Rockin the Rivers people to get you out here for five years. It is great you are finally coming. Do you think you will have any more shows in the area around the same time?

BH: We will have something. I am not sure how close to the ‘area’ it will be. But we will have something. We are not coming all that way just for one show. I don’t exactly know what or where but, we are filling all that stuff in as we speak.

Boz Mag: For the people who will be at Rockin the Rivers and do not know the Bottle Rockets, can you tell them what to expect from your part of the weekend?

BH: (Laughing) Ahhh, Good Question… Ah, I don’t know um, pretty much an old school rock band I’m thinkin. There aint nothin’ fancy. Just a rock band from the days where rock music was enough.

Boz Mag: How old were you when you started playing music?

BH: Oh Geez, let me think about that. Uh, I got a guitar when I was a little kid. Probably about nine years old. But I didn’t know what in the hell to do with it. So I didn’t really start learning how to play until probably about nineteen seven… I got an acoustic guitar, I am trying to remember what year that was. 1976 or something like that.
So I had a guitar before that, but I didn’t really do anything with it except take it apart and spray paint it and put it back together. But then I got one that I finally learned how to play in like ‘75 or ‘76 so that is when I started figurin out how to play chords and stuff.

Boz Mag: Is that about when you started getting together with friends and starting bands and stuff too?

BH: Nah, not yet. Well actually I did get together with one friend and we did try to do something, but I knew so little on the guitar that we didn’t get much done.
I didn’t start getting together with other guys till later than that, probably around… Oh man you’re racking my brain,,, we’re going way back. I am thinking of old photographs of me with guitars and crap. Uh, Late ‘70s. It was after punk rock. So probably ‘78 or ‘79, something like that.

Rob: Pre Bottle Rockets were you in a band with the drummer Mark Ortman? and what was the name of that band?

BH: Yeah, actually we were in two. The first band was called the Blue Moons. That was our like, cover band. We ended up writing a couple song, but nothing much came of that.
Then after that we were in a band called Chicken Truck.

Rob: Chicken Truck. I kept thinking it was trailer cow. (laughing)

BH: No, wrong animal.

Rob: Is the Bottle Rockets’ most current album ‘Lean Forward’?

BH: Yeah

Rob: That’s a great album. It is one of my favorite ones. I have all the Bottle Rockets stuff. Don’t you guys have ten albums?

BH: (Laughing again) Uh, man, I think it is ten. There might be more. I think it is ten. (counting out loud) Yeah it is our tenth album.

Boz Mag: You have ten albums with mostly original music. Where do you come up with the motivation to write so many songs?

BH: Oh sh*t I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that if you do it, you do it.

Rob: When you were younger were Neil Young and Doug ??? your influences?

BH: When I first got a guitar I don’t know what my influences would have been back then. Just rock and roll in general. When I was a kid we are still in the ‘60s really. We had the Beatles and sh*t like that going on back then.
When I finally learned how to play it was probably all about Lynyrd Skynyrd at that time. You’re talking ‘76 and around there.
Then when I really got serious about it was after the punk rock sh*t hit, which took a couple of years to get to the mid west. You know, we didn’t have it right when it came out. So probably the Ramones were the first band I saw on TV that made me really want to get playing.
Then after I learned how to play guitar came Neil Young and guys like that. After I had figured out which end of the guitar did what. By that time I was way into guys like Neil Young.

Rob: Can you tell us a little about your Trash Picker guitar? What is it exactly?

BH: (Laughter once again) Well, it is all made of trash I can tell you that. That’s a fact.
Everything on it is a part that was destined to be thrown away or whatever. The neck was given to me by a friend of mine. I had a bunch of spare parts I had collected over the years, and there is this guy I know in Vermont, his name is Preston Lee, and he builds guitars and I got ahold of him and told him I am going to send you a box of parts. Make me a guitar out of it. The rule is you gotta use every part I send, and everything you add to it has gotta be something you were going to throw away anyway.
So he usually builds Telecasters and stuff like that. So he had a piece of board that wasn’t big enough to make a tele out of, so he made the body out of that.
I sent him this crazy amalgamation of parts. Seven knobs, three switches, there is all sorts of shit and he figured out how to make it all work.
The coolest thing though was the lacquer. Which was, he took it that far. It was a mixture of lacquer from other guitars that he didn’t use it all and he was going to throw it away as a refuse can, so he just blended that up and sprayed the guitar with that.

Rob: How many pickups does that thing got on it?

BH: That’s the thing. It has four pickups on it. Four pick ups, seven knobs,  three switches, two input jacks.

Rob: So it has a lot of different variations of what you can do with it?

BH: Well that’s the thing. It has four pickups on it. Four pick ups, seven knobs,  three switches, two input jacks, and two use able sounds. (Laughter)

Rob: Is that the guitar you mainly play or are you still using the Peavey’s?

BH: Nah, I have been playing a lot of different stuff lately.  The Trash Picker, I am continually dinking around with it. You know when you have four pickups it is like picking lottery numbers. I keep dinking around with it but I do not have that thing working the way I want to right now.
I have been using Telecasters again. I just got an SG. A ‘73 SG custom that I really dig, so you know, I got a bunch of stuff. I haven’t really been sticking to anything I have been switching around.

Boz Mag: What about your amps?

BH: I have been using the same Fender Blues JR. for about five years now. That thing won’t die.

Chris: How was touring in Germany? What was it like playing over there?

BH: It is Great! It is just Really Great! It is all good, but it is very true that in Europe it is a whole different thing over there.
People are into it. It is more like America in the ‘70s when you go to Europe. People get it. More excited about it, take it more seriously. It is more of a real live viable form of entertainment.
You don’t really see people playing on their damned telephones while the show’s going on over there. That’s an American thing.
They don’t talk at shows either. They listen to the music. It kinda freaks you out the first time you experience that. They are paying attention. They come to see the band.

Boz Mag: Do you get out and see a lot of live music?

BH: Not as much as I used to. But I get plenty of it in my line of work. I guess I mostly see what’s going on when we’re out playing.

Boz Mag: Do the Bottle Rockets play a lot of Rock Festivals in the States?
BH: We are actually doing more this year than we have done recently. So we have been getting pretty many lined up.

Boz Mag: It seems like a good way to get a lot of cross exposure. But maybe playing for a lot of people who aren’t there to see you.

BH: Yeah sure, there not, but that’s OK. That is how people find things out. Without some new people looking at it you will be playing for the same damned people your whole life.

Rob: Do the Bottle Rockets have the same line up as the last time we saw you out west?

BH: I am trying to think. It is the same line up since 2006. I think it is the same guys.

Rob: Keith Voegele, John Horton, and Mark Ortmann. Mark has been with you since the beginning right?

BH: Oh Yeah, that’s us.

Rob: The Bottle Rockets are my favorite band just to let you know. The BoozeHounds love you guys.
Led Zeppelin’s the only band I think that’s better that’s you guys.

BH: Yeah, but they don’t exist
anymore.

Rob & Chris: That’s why your our
favorite.

Boz Mag: So who are you listening to these days for inspiration Brian?

BH: Oh Man, Its kinda like I go through different things. I keep going back to older stuff. You know, I can’t find much new stuff that is knocking me out.

Boz Mag: That’s why you guys are so good? No competition?

BH: (Laughs) A new guy, well he is not really a new guy. He’s like a new guy that’s an old guy. But he is a guy I just saw recently and he is friggin phenomenal. I had seen him before but had forgot how phenomenal he is. Chuck Prophet. You see him live and it will change your life. He’s friggin great!
He has been around since Green on Red in the late ‘80s early 90’s. Something like that, so there is my ‘new’ guy.

Rob: Do the Bottle Rockets have a new album in the works?

BH: Actually this summer there is a live acoustic album scheduled to come out. We recorded it almost two years ago now.  It turned out really good. It took a long time to get it mixed. We recorded it in this weird format. The night we recorded it we weren’t sure we were going to make it into a live album or not, but once they figured out how to transfer the format into something else they can work with and blah blah blah… and finally two years later it is going to be coming out this summer.

Boz Mag: Nice. Do the Bottle Rockets allow audience recording at your shows, you know, tapers?

BH: Oh Yeah. You cant stop em so you might as well let them have at it.

Boz Mag: It looks like at Rockin’ the Rivers they have you sandwiched between Pat Benetar and Marshall Crenshaw.

BH: We (the Bottle Rockets) are actually playing as Marshall Crenshaw’s band too. We are his band.

Rob: So it is a double show for you guys. Awesome.

Boz Mag: And maybe you will get lucky and Pat Benetar will know a couple Bottle Rockets songs and will come up and sing with you too. (Laughter in sues)

Boz Mag: Any advice for up and
coming bands?

BH: Don’t do it. Get out, Quit,
Stop, It just gets you nowhere.
Get a real job. (More Laughs)

Rockin the Rivers is Aug 12-14. Music & Camping passes are on now sale at: at: www.rockintherivers.com  -  The Bottle Rockets are on Sunday, Aug. 14th.