A Conversation with Kevin Welch (continued)

PM: You mentioned Lucas coming into the fold as a drummer. What's it like having another generation on the road?

KW: Well, it's actually really good because Lucas is a really good photographer, for one thing. And he's got a really good eye. He's been designing these little films, these little road snippets. He just now started putting those up online. It's really, for me, very entertaining. [You can see a few of them here.]

Plus he's kind of the go-to guy whenever the three old guys can't figure out where we are or something. We go, "Lucas?" and he goes, "Yeah, you missed the exit back there," or whatever.

PM: [laughs]

KW: It's been really, really good having him out here with us.

PM: Yeah, I'd imagine that it would be a huge influence of some type or another, and yeah, it sounds like he's a hell of a guy on the road.

KW: Yeah.

PM: What about music on the road? Everybody listening to iPods? Or do people tend to listen to what's on the system in the van?

KW: I almost never listen to music.

PM: Not at all.

KW: Almost not at all, unless it's Chet Baker or--lately I've been listening to a lot of Hoagy Carmichael. But basically I never listen to music. And it's pretty much the same for Kieran or Fats. We were on some radio station someplace recently and they asked us what we were listening to, and when we told them, it was like utterly bizarre. I think I said, "Oh, I'm listening to Hoagy Carmichael." And Kieran I think was listening to Japanese flute music, and Fats was listening to God knows what, some kind of gypsy polka stuff from Poland or something. But Lucas does listen to--he keeps his iPod on. And I can't even tell you what he's listening to.

PM: Right, some youngin' stuff.

KW: Uh-huh.

PM: Yeah, that's how it gets, a lot of really great musicians just prefer not to listen to music when they're not making music, just prefer the silence, or prefer something offbeat, like Chet Baker or something like that.

KW: Yeah.

PM: It makes sense to me.

What about any books getting passed around the crowd?

KW: Yeah, in fact, that's a big deal. We do a lot of that. I'm reading this John Steinbeck, A Russian Journal. It's a piece of journalistic stuff that he wrote during a trip to Russia after the Cold War began, after the end of World War II.

PM: Right.

KW: That's a really interesting thing. I can't remember right now what the boys are reading. I think Fats is reading something about poker.

[laughter]

KW: It gets to where--like right now I've probably got eight books in my suitcase, and it's really bad. I have to forcefully make myself not go into used bookstores, because of weight.

PM: It's a killer.

KW: You've got to keep the weight down when you're traveling. We just got back from Australia, and I did the same thing. I had a stack of hard cover books on my bedside every night.

PM: Yeah, you'd think by now you'd learn, but no, it's one of those things you get addicted to.

KW: I found a bunch of Graham Greene--well, two or three Graham Greene books that I didn't own, I've got those in my suitcase now.

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