Brighton Dome was lucky enough to have seen Kentucky locals, Black Stone Cherry, bless its stage with their driving, hardcore and energetic Southern rock last year. Touring their 5th studio album entitled, ‘Kentucky,’ the album went through some minor differences to its predecessors, one of which was a label change.
When drummer John Fred Young was asked why Black Stone Cherry changed from Roadrunner Records to Mascot Label, he had this to say:
We got fired! It was a wonderful experience because we couldn’t breathe creatively at all. Because of what’s popular, the label wanted to carve this cool, gnarly looking stone into this polished diamond. There’s always room for constructive improvement, but they were trying to get us to not sound so southern. We’re a rock band from the middle of nowhere Kentucky. We are who we are.
You wanted this album to be more true to your roots. Do you think recording in your hometown has made this album sound more like what you wanted?
Yes absolutely. When it went public that we weren’t signed, we suddenly had all these labels contacting us, so we met with 8 or 9 labels but Mascot was the one label we met with that was 100% creativity and letting us be who we were.
When writing your music, is it all of you collectively, or are there some of you more into it than others?
Since we were kids, we’ve all written the music and lyrics. I think that’s why a lot of bands have trouble, because they don’t share everything equally. My dad (drummer of The Kentucky Headhunters) actually told us from the start that sharing everything equally is what we have to do.
Do you think you have changed since you started out as a band compared to now?
Oh yeah, we were kids when we started touring. Playing with bigger and better bands made us tight, we figured out how to be a live band. But you grow as a person, we all have kids now, and that changes you too.
With families of your own now, how do you deal with home sickness while touring?
It’s bittersweet. As soon as I pull out of my driveway I’m homesick because I have a 2 year old girl, a wife, a family and it sucks. We made a wise decision to split up Europe and the UK. We used to do the whole thing in 5-6 weeks and go back home. We can’t do that anymore. So now we do the UK 3-4 weeks and then come back over and do Europe.
Before you go on stage, do any of you have any weird habits you do before performing?
We all have our idiosyncrasies. I have to stretch because if I don’t I`ll pull my whole ass apart. Chris normally likes to smoke and listen to music and John is normally doing something with cameras because he’s a camera guru and he’s always filming something. Ben normally keeps to himself as he’s quite quiet and likes to chill.
What’s the worst thing to happen to you onstage?
Weather. We`ve had sideways rain coming in but when it started to lightening we had to stop. The worst is power outage. Sometimes when we`re playing and there’s not an appropriate amount of power, we can trip the whole deal and blow it out. Getting pranked on stage is hilarious. The worst was with a band called Hinder, when I got a whole bottle of baby powder poured on me. It was hilarious until I started breathing it in. For the song ‘Peace is Free’ Halestorm’s Lzzy was singing with Chris, but her and the whole band brought pizza on stage and sang ‘Pizza is Free’. We brought table and chairs on stage with about sixty people and did an autograph signing.
Who’s been your favourite artist that you’ve toured with?
Probably Def Leppard, Whitesnake were incredible, Nickelback dudes were great and Motorhead were awesome. I feel like the bigger the band is the nicer they are. We did the Carnival of Madness this year, we had Halestorm over here and then in the States. We grew up knowing each other and since 2005 we’ve been buddies.
What are your favourite cities to perform in?
The venues on this tour are probably the nicest we’ve ever played. It’s the architecture. They’re set up for orchestral performances, ballets, and for a big, loud, noisy rock band to come in its pretty awesome that we get to do that. I love playing England because since I was a kid I loved English culture and castles and I wanted to be a knight as a child, and I’m lucky enough to get to play here.
Whilst touring, do you get the chance to site see anywhere?
Let me tell you what I’ve done on this trip; I’ve slept until five in the afternoon every day. I am on the worst schedule. I am on twilight vampire schedule. But when I do get on the right schedule I love going to see stuff like castles, I know you guys like castles over here. I’m into eerie, haunting stuff, I love ghosts. If you told me right now ‘Hey, all paid vacation to Romania to see Dracula’s castle,’ I would love that.
Do you prefer arenas or the smaller venues?
Every single show creates a memory. Some of the fondest shows we’ve done are the small, hole in the walls. We did a club in 2008 in Exeter on the Nickelback tour and it was in a basement and we were like, ‘is this it?’ We were doing arenas on that tour with them and the kids were just mental. Not to be all Disney about it, but its magical what we get to do, it’s incredible.
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