Walter Trout is that rare breed, a true blues journeyman with an enviable resume and an inimitable voice on the guitar. His sound is lyrical, earthy, bold, capable of both energy and restraint, but always impeccably phrased and with an unearthly sense of playing with time, drifting on, off and around the beat in a way that just can’t be taught: that kinda stuff has to be lived and felt. I caught up with Walter ahead of his 2024 Australian tour.
Walter: Hi, Peter.
Peter: Hi Walter! We’ve talked before, but over the phone before all this Zoom stuff became a thing. So, I have a guitar website called iHeart Guitar and basically I’m a big old guitar nerd, so I was excited to talk to you again.
Walter: So we’ll have plenty to talk about!
Peter: Exactly. So I guess we’ll just jump into this. I’m really excited that you’re coming back to Australia. It’s been a while a lot’s gone on in the world since you last year, so woo-hoo!
Walter: Yeah. I’m anxious to come back. I love playing there.
Peter: Yeah, I was looking at the venues that you’re playing and there’s some really fun, interesting places, some good locations. And it’s not just hitting Sydney and Melbourne and then leaving, like a lot of players do.
Walter: Sure. That’s pretty much what I did last time. I came there, I did the, the Blues Fest and then I did Sydney and Melbourne. So I’m looking forward to getting out there a bit in some other places, you know?
Peter: So I’m calling you on my lunch break, here in Australia we have a music store chain called Manny’s that I work for, which is not famous Manny’s from New York, but was also started by a Manny…
Walter: I don’t think Manny’s in New York is even going anymore, is it? I don’t think so.
Peter: No it’s not. Another great guitar store that I missed out on seeing by being in the wrong country at the wrong time.
Walter: Well, I was there many times. I even before I got endorsed by Mesa Boogie, I actually bought a Mesa Boogie at Manny’s many years ago, a long time ago. ’cause I’ve been with Mesa Boogie since I was with John Mayall.
Peter: Wow. What was, that first amp?
Walter: It was a Mark One. And I was getting ready to go do a tour of Europe and I just decided I was in New York and gonna get on the plane the next day to go to Europe, and they used to provide me amplifiers at the gigs and half the amplifiers sucked and I was in New York and I thought, I’m just gonna go buy a Boogie and take it with me. And I never looked back. But then you know, I became endorsed by them and that was that.
Peter: Yeah. They’re such interesting amplifiers to me because they, they have so many like tricks and, you know, different ways to get a sound that I find them overwhelming because you can like turn a knob and then you’ve drastically changed what it does. And it’s like, oh, okay, now I’ve gotta find my sound again.
Walter: Yeah. I can tell you for example that I just completed my 31st solo album. Every one of my albums has been done on a Mark Series Boogie. Yeah. All the guitar tracks.
Peter: Well, what one are you using now? Or are there multiple?
Walter:Well, here here’s an interesting story. You know, for years the latest Mark series was a Mark V. And I was using the Mark V on stage and in the studio and one of my kids – who’s a musical genius – we’re riding in the car and he says ‘Hey dad, I wanna play you something.’ And he played me an old song of mine and he said ‘What amp you using on there?’ And I said ‘I don’t know, what year did that record come out?’ And he looked it up and I said ‘Oh, that’s probably my Mark IV.’ And he goes ‘I think that’s your best sound. Don’t get mad, but I think that sounds better than what you’re using now.’ So we came home, we set the IV and the V up in the garage next to each other and my God, the Mark IV wins and I’ve done the last three or four albums on my Mark IV. And that’s what I use when I play live. They’ve just put out a Mark VII. They skipped the VI and I have a VII, but I didn’t get it in time to even try it yet. They just said ‘Here, here’s a VII, try this.’
Peter: Do you do you bring these with you to Australia?
Walter: No. In Australia I’ll have to be using whatever they can provide me. Plus we fly every day, so it’ll be a different amplifier every night. So even though I’m the guy who’s known as the guy who doesn’t use any pedals, if I show up and there’s an amp that has no reverb, for example, I’m gonna use a reverb pedal. I’m not so anal about not using pedals that I’m gonna get up and sound like …yeah. So if I have an amp that doesn’t have a lot of overdrive, I’m gonna use an overdrive pedal, you know? So we’ll see what they come up with when I’m there.
Peter: You know something that blows my mind? I’ve got a 62 Strat reissue. I love that thing. It’s really authentic to what a 62 Strat should be, and so it’s noisy. It’s got single coil hum. What blows my mind is that when you come to Australia, the hum is a different pitch to in America because our electrical systems are different. <Laugh>. Yeah. And what blows my mind is it’s actually really close to a G note here. So it’s like, if you’re playing the key of G, we don’t really notice the hum!
Walter: Yeah. Well, you know, I’ll keep that in mind and we’ll do all our tunes in G ’cause I will be using my Strat. I will bring that. Yeah. And, and my son is coming with us and he’s a blazing guitar player, and he’ll be playing his Strat, so maybe we’ll just stick with the key of G you know?
Peter: I couldn’t imagine you without that Strat that thing, you know, it’s, it’s, when I see you, I also see that Strat in my mind.
Walter: Yeah. And the old Strat. I don’t take it on the road anymore. Yeah. you know, it, it’s like one of my children now. It has my spirit in it, and if somebody stole it, and I’ve had guitars stolen out of nightclubs stolen out of the van. I’ve had a few guitars stolen in my touring years, and I couldn’t, I don’t know what I’d do if somebody took that thing. Yeah. It’d be like losing one of my kids, you know. So that is home. It is safe in Los Angeles, locked up in a vault. The same vault that Slash has his guitars in. And John Mayer has his guitars in. It’s a special place that if you don’t know how to find it, it doesn’t advertise. But there’s a place up there for guys like us to store our stuff and you have to know that the place is there.
Peter: Yeah. You’ve probably talked about that guitar a million times. Can you give us the brief rundown on what it is, where you got it?
Walter: Well, I moved to California in 1974. I got here on Halloween. At the time I had a 335 and I wanted a Strat. I had had Strats before but I had a problem with my Strat and I sold it and got some money to move out here. Anyway, at first I started going around to clubs. I didn’t know anybody so I’d around to clubs and say hi, play guitar and sit in. And I went into a club in Corona Del Mar called The Quiet Woman. It’s still there. And they had a country band that was the house band on weeknights. And on the weekends they had a guitarist named Hollywood Fats. Look that guy up. That’s a legend right there. But I went in and these country guys, a lot of ’em played with Dolly Parton. They were great players, but honest to God, they had nobody in the band could even approach a decent vocal. They couldn’t even sing in tune, and I had a few drinks and I walked up and said ‘I know every song by Hank Williams, Patsy Klein, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Willie Nelson, I know every song by those guys. Let me try one.’ And I fronted the band and I got the job. I sang a tune, they hired me and I was the standup lead singer in a country western band, but this was old school country, not the kind that they have now.
And I said to ’em, ‘I play guitar, can I play guitar?’ The guy goes ‘No, we have guitar players, we have great guitar players.’ At the end of the second week, I took my pay and I went and bought that old Strat right off the shelf. It was a 73. And I said to him ‘Look, I just bought a guitar, I’d like to try it, can I plug it in?’ And I played, and Steve, the band leader, goes ‘you didn’t tell us you could play like that.’ So I became the lead guitar player! And I started turning them from a country band. I’m like, ‘Hey, after we do this Merl Haggard tune, let’s try a Chuck Berry one.’ I loved singing Little Richard songs. And I turned them into a rock and roll band, and then we got fired [laughs].
But that’s how I got that guitar. And it stayed with me. If you look at current pictures of it, how it’s beat up and yellow, well when I bought it it was blazing white. I’ve put a lot of miles on that thing, and on my new album that I just finished, I believe the back of the album is going to be just a photo of that guitar. I love that thing. But I keep it locked up and safe.
Peter: It’s not all the 70s ones were good guitars, you know, that was a difficult time for Fender, but when you find a good one, it’s a really good one!
Walter: Well, let, let me tell you something, man. I believe that every guitar is like a human being and you judge them from the content of their character, you don’t judge ’em from hype. And when I first went solo, I did an interview with Vintage Guitar Magazine, and this is what I said: ‘Look, you go out to Guitar Center, find a Mexican Strat that has a nice neck. It starts off, it plays really easily. Okay. Then you get yourself a set of Seymour Duncan Antiquities, you put it on there and for about $300 to $400 at the most, you have a guitar that will play as good and sound as good as any 54 Strat. And I said that in that magazine and I received death threats! And to this day, they have never reviewed one of my records! To this day!
And the funny thing is, you know, who just said this in an interview, Joe Bonamassa said the same thing a week ago, believe it or not, but everybody goes ‘Wow, isn’t that amazing?’ But when I said it 30 years ago, it was blasphemy! You know, Jimi Hendrix did not use 54 Strats. Lowell George did not use 54 Strats. Those guys used new guitars. And to me there are 70s Strats that are magnificent and there are 70 Strats that suck, and there are 54 Strats that are magnificent and then there are 54 Strats that suck! Every guitar has to be taken on its own merit. And that whole vintage thing drives me nuts.
But that’s just me. But to this day, they’ve never reviewed one of my records. And the only time I’ve been in the magazine since then was an article, ‘He’s in the hospital, we think he’s gonna die,’ you know?
Peter: That’s messed up!
Walter: So there was my rant!
Peter: Yeah, no, I love that rant! You mentioned Seymour Duncan. I actually used to work for Seymour. I did their social media for six years. I got to go over and spend some time in the Custom Shop with Seymour and MJ and watch ’em do their thing.
Walter: Oh, that’s great. I love both of them. You know, they’ve been great to me. On the guitar that I’m using now, the one that I will bring to Australia, I have custom pickups that Seymour made me. Seymour got in touch with me and he said ‘I hear you’re gonna retire your old Strat.’ And I said ‘Yeah, I’m not gonna take it on the road anymore.’ And he said ‘I’ll make you some pickups that’ll sound just like it.’ And I have these pickups on there and they say ‘SSD for WT.’
Peter: I love those guys. The way they can compensate for differences in guitar woods and other factors, they know all the tricks and physical things you’ve gotta do to make a pickup respond to make this guitar sound like that one. It’s like magic.
Walter: Yeah!
Peter: So that looks like our time up, so thanks so much Walter. It’s been great to talk again. I can’t wait to hear the new record. When’s it come out?
Walter: Well, it’s supposed to come out early next year. And here’s the thing, if it comes out early enough, we can do new songs on our Australian tour. But because of a little thing called YouTube, I can’t do the new songs until the record comes out. And my new album, I have some amazing guests that I’m unable to speak about now. And my wife, who’s been with me since album number two, so she’s been here for 30 albums, she has told me I’ve made the album of my lifetime. So we’ll see.
Peter: Great. I can’t wait to hear it.
January
25 – Brisbane, AU – Princess Theatre TICKETS
26 – Cairns, AU – Tank arts TICKETS
27 – Sydney, AU – Factory Theatre TICKETS
28 – Newcastle, AU – Lizottes TICKETS
30 – Canberra, AU – Harmonie German Club TICKETS
February
1 – Melbourne, AU – Memo Music Hall TICKETS
2 – Adelaide, AU – The Gov TICKETS
3 – Perth, AU – Freo social TICKETS