Black Stone Cherry:
Rock ’n’ roll raconteurs

May 20, 2009

Every once in a while, a band comes along that stands above the crowd. Among the countless faceless acts struggling to find listeners’ ears, they assert themselves, carving out an identity that belongs to them and no one else. Hailing from a small town in Kentucky, Black Stone Cherry is one of those rare bands. Their sophomore effort, Folklore and Superstition, released in August 2008, is a good-natured, Southern-fried slab of hard rock tunes steeped in the stories and lore of their heritage. People around the world are catching onto these guys. The band will spend the summer touring Europe, where they have built quite a following, before coming home to the States to take part in the “Rock and Rebels” tour featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock. This follows a spring tour with 3 Doors Down, Hinder and Theory of a Deadman. When that tour recently came through the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center in Salisbury, Md., Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki sat down with guitarist Ben Wells after the band’s much-too-short 20-minute set to discuss the stories behind some of the songs on the new album and more.

Live-Metal.net: Good Set.

Ben Wells: Thank you very much.

It’s like a tease, though, it was so short.

It was a little short.

I was gonna see you guys play up in Towson [Maryland] a couple months ago on your headlining tour. Are you gonna reschedule that?

Hopefully so, man. I know that’s still in the plans to reschedule that. We don’t like canceling shows, so hopefully we can do that one again. How far is that from here?

From here, it’s a couple-hour drive. I live a little closer.

Awesome. We’ve never been here before.

Yeah, we don’t get a whole lot of big rock shows down this way.

Cool.

I really want to see you guys play a headlining set because I’ve seen in a couple of your opening sets, you guys doing some jams and things like that. Do you do more of that kind of stuff when you’re headlining?

Oh yeah. We extend all kinds of stuff. It’s cool.

I actually interviewed you and [bassist] Jon [Lawhon] a couple years ago. It was up in Philadelphia when you were on the Black Label Society tour.

Yeah, man, Electric Factory?

Yeah. I guess at that point it was just a couple days into the tour and you hadn’t even gotten to see Zakk yet. At some point, did you?

Yeah, yeah, we did. He was cool, man. That was a fun tour.

How is this tour going?

It’s going good, man. Beyond the short sets, it’s good. The crowds’ve been awesome. Everyone gets along really nice. It’s fun. It’s fun to be out here. We’re getting ready to go back out overseas next week, so we’re excited about that.

Yeah, you’ve done pretty well over there, right?

Yeah, we’ve spent a lot of time over there. We’ll be over there for about seven weeks this time, so we’re going to some new countries that we haven’t been to. It’s just crazy how fast people have caught on to us over there. So we’ll keep going back as long as they want us.

What’s been the most fun place?

I don’t know. Each place is different. All of the U.K. is fun. But Germany is awesome, Sweden. A lot of people ask what my favorite place is, but I’m like, we’re not done yet. So I don’t know.

It’s wherever you haven’t been yet.

Yeah, exactly. Ask me in 30 years.

Later in the summer, you’ve got the big tour with—

Yeah, Skynyrd and Kid Rock. That’ll be awesome, too. We just played with Skynyrd a couple weeks ago in Mississippi. Those guys are awesome, and that’ll be a fun tour.

I really love your new album.

Thank you very much.

You recorded in Nashville. Why did you decide to do that?

That was awesome. The studio is probably one of the best studios, honestly, in America at this point. It’s owned by great people and it’s got everything you need as far as equipment. The guy that owns it, John McBride, he’s a huge vintage gear collector, so any kind of vintage microphones or amps or guitars—whatever you want, he’ll get it for you. Beyond them being awesome people to work with and having some of the best technology, it’s close to home and it was probably one of the best studios. I know a lot of bands are going there and recording—Kid Rock, a lot of country artists, Alter Bridge, I think Creed’s doing their new album there. It’s a hotspot.

You worked with Bob Marlette as the producer.

Yeah, he’s actually doing the new Skynyrd album. He was great to work with, man. We sat him down the first day and were like, “Look, man, we’re kind of leery about producers, so here’s how we want it to go,” and he was really awesome to work with. He became like an extra guy in the band. He’s a good person to bounce ideas off of.

I just love the whole idea behind the album, Folklore and Superstition, all the stories, so I thought I’d ask you about some of the songs and the stories behind them.

Yeah.

“Reverend Wrinkle.”

A few people back home, it’s their personalities coupled into this one character we invented, Reverend Wrinkle. We’ve got some characters back at the house, some odd people, but we love ‘em to death. We had a lot of fun writing lyrics this time. We never try and take anything too seriously. We don’t want any deep thinking stuff. That’s just not who we are. It’s kind of tongue-in-cheek stuff. We just had fun writing the music and made up stories and it took people’s personalities, and it was just cool. It makes it interesting for the listener, too. It’s not just the same old thing.

I love the big riff in that song and in a lot of your songs. Is that where your songs usually start, with a riff?

Pretty much, yeah. It’s always music first and then lyrics and melody.

What about “Ghost of Floyd Collins”?

We live close to what’s called Mammoth Cave. It’s like the seventh wonder of the world. People come from all over the world to come tour this thing, but it’s like right in our backyard, so sometimes we tend to take it for granted. Back in the 1920s, there was a cave explorer named Floyd Collins in a time period of what was called the “Cave Wars” because everybody was trying to find passageways into this Mammoth Cave. He was like the world’s greatest cave explorer and he was trying to find his way in there, and he was trapped inside. He was trapped inside for a couple weeks and they lowered him food and stuff, and obviously back in the ‘20s they didn’t have any way to get him out, no machinery or anything. So the press made kind of like a mockery of him being trapped. They set up a carnival and there were people coming in and taking pictures. It was like, there’s a guy down there trapped and needs help, and they were making this big spiel about it. So it was kind of a messed up deal. Anyway, that’s right near us and people say that his legend is kind of like still around in that cave, in that area. On the first album, we had “Rain Wizard,” which was a local tale, and then now we have “Floyd Collins.” So we’re gonna try and keep the tradition going.

There’s another song, “Long Sleeves,” that’s almost like a companion piece to “Lonely Train.”

Yeah, it’s kind of a military song. Well, it is, actually. We have several friends in the military. We don’t know what it’s like. We’ve never been and we can’t even begin to express what they feel. But it’s kind of like what we would assume those people are going through and seeing it through their eyes. So yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Is “Things My Father Said” autobiographical from someone in the band?

Not anybody in the band. A couple of us have lost our grandfathers, but we’ve got a lot of friends that lost their dads at a young age. People all over the world, it’ something everyone, whether they like it or not—it’ll happen. It’s gonna happen. We’re all gonna die. So we wrote that song, man. It’s a very emotional song. We just shot a video for it, actually. It’s getting ready to come out and we’re so excited about it ‘cause it’s a very raw and emotional video. I think that song is for a lot of people out there ‘cause a lot of people can relate to it and a lot of people really like it. It makes us feel good. That’s what we want to do, is help people out and touch their lives some way. So that song’s definitely doing the job.

A couple of my favorite songs are the ones where you throw the biggest curveballs, like “The Key” and that breakdown section.

You should see that live. Live, we really extend that out and do some cool stuff. Yeah, we had fun with that in the studio. We just found a bunch of things that made noise and recorded it. And a song like “Sunrise,” too—

That’s the next one I was going to mention.

Goes from hard rock to reggae. That’s something we always try and do, is just top ourselves and see what we can do and surprise the listener ‘cause in today’s music world, there’s a lot of boring music out there and we’re just trying to, like you said, throw curveballs and keeping it interesting.

I could probably keep going and ask you about every song on there, but I know you’ve got a signing to get to.

Yeah, we do meet-and-greets. Our fans, gotta take care of ‘em. We love ‘em.

©2009 Live-Metal.Net