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By Jeb Wright
Transcribed by Eric Sandberg
Photos by Mark Walter
I first met Rodney O’Quinn when he was playing bass for Pat Travers. In fact, Rodney set up the phoner I did with Pat. We hit it off and loved running into each other on the road. He is a goofy, funny and talented musician…with a heart of gold.
When I heard that he had been hired as the new bass player for Foghat I smiled. Foghat and Rodney are a match made in rock ‘n’ roll heaven. He has the groove, the right attitude and the sense of humor for Foghat. Just how well he fit in was proven by his performance on the band’s latest live effort Live at the Belly Up.
After years of literally promising the bass player…a guy I call a friend…a feature interview I finally took the time and did it. I should have much sooner. It is a great chat that I think our readers will enjoy! .
In the interview that follows we talk all things Travers and Foghat and even discover how a Mid Life Crisis that lead O’Quinn to take a high profile gig in the first place!
Jeb: Before we get into Foghat I wanted to ask about something you said before, and maybe you were joking, but, did you really join the Pat Travers Band because of a mid-life crisis?
RO: Actually, I would kinda have to say yeah. I had gotten off the road. I had done the whole playing clubs like crazy. I was fortunate to belong to one of the big dog club bands out of the southeast. Our main stomping grounds were Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas and Tennessee, but we did venture up to New York and over to Michigan and in-between.
It was a band called Eli and we were big dogs; a lot of players came out of that club circuit. Clint Lowery, who plays guitar with Sevendust, was in a band with his brother, Corey, called Still Rain. Corey was also in Stuck Mojo. Another guitarist from a band called Double Drive, Troy McLawhorn, plays with Evanescence, and the drummer I played with in Eli, Will Hunt, plays drums for Evanescence right now.
I was a little bit older than some of those guys and had actually got off the road around '95ish because I had a kid and it was time to get serious. I needed to be around for my kid. With Eli, we used to play about 240 shows a year.
Jeb: That's real busy.
RO: It was very, very busy and I was, "OK, time to be responsible" (laughter). Fast-forward to sometime in '07… I had this itch that I really needed to scratch and someone told me that Pat Travers was looking for a bass player and I said, "Pat wouldn't remember me by name, but if I get in a room with him, he knows who I am."
And that's pretty much how it all went down. We got together, swapped a couple of stories, played a song or two and he said, "Hey, you want a gig?" I said, "Awright."
Jeb: That simple?
RO: That simple.
Jeb: Were you guys based out of Florida, where Pat lives or did you know him from the road?
RO: At that point in time, Pat and his whole band lived in Florida. Pat's drummer and I played club gigs together when he wasn't on the road with Pat. I was gettin' that itch and my joke with him was, "Hey, the first chance you get…push the bass player down a flight of stairs."
They were on tour in Europe and Pat was getting ready to kill the guy himself and I was getting phone calls saying, "We dropped your name and Pat wants to meet with you. Randy Lane, the drummer, was living in Florida. We played together for a while but, eventually, he wanted to go home to Texas. Sandy Gennaro, who was living in New York was available, so it was just me and Pat in Florida and we all flew in to do gigs.
So, to get back to the quick answer, yeah, it was a mid-life crisis.
Jeb: How long were you with Pat? Ten years?
RO: Eight and a half.
Jeb: Were you supposed to be the settled down family man then?
RO: That's the funny thing. Back then my wife knew I played occasional club gigs on the weekends and all of a sudden I told her, "Hey, I joined Pat Travers and I'm going to be playing a little more" and she said, "Yeah, OK, whatever". I said, "I'm gonna be travelling" and she said, "OK, whatever".
I literally kept telling her about all these gigs I had, and the night I was packing my suitcase, she's freaking out. "What are you doing? Where are you going?" I said, "Honey, I've got a gig tomorrow." She said, "I know, but why are you packing a suitcase? You'll be home." I said, "The gig's in California! I won't be home!" it was quite an adjustment for my wife.
Jeb: I'll bet!
RO: She didn't think of things that way. She's a little bit younger than me so she missed the cut-off on Pat Travers. She didn't know who he was.
Jeb: So I got the word from my Foghat buddies that Craig [MacGregor] was stepping aside and there was a new guy stepping in named Rodney O'Quinn. I said, "Hey, I know him. Knowing his personality, he'll fit right in!”
RO: I had met Craig occasionally when we did gigs together but I actually played a show in his hometown [Fleetwood, PA] while he was off the road and he and his wife came out. At that point in time he was real excited about getting involved with training service dogs. He had become passionate about this and wanted to get a job in this field.
He said, "You know if I start doing this it's going to be seriously full-time, I just can't go on the road anymore". He and his wife kept saying, "You'd be perfect. Would you be interested if I put your name in the hat if I chose to do this?" I said, "Well OK!"
I grew up cutting my teeth on playing bass to Foghat. I joked with him, "Dude, you don't know how many E-strings I broke on my tennis racquet trying to play air bass to Foghat?"
Of course, by the time it all unfolded, it really turned out to be a health issue as to why he had to get off the road. I'm honored that he picked me. After we met, literally the next day he called Roger [Earl, drummer and founding member of Foghat] on the phone and all he said was, "Mini-Me, Mini-Me" ]laughter].
That's how it all happened and I'm very honored that he picked me. He told Roger and everyone, "No, nobody else. Just him".
Jeb: Where Pat Travers is a band leader and hires guys for his band, Foghat is a little different in that members have passed away. Brian was hand-picked, you were chosen by Craig and Charlie's (Huhn, Lead vocalist and guitarist with Foghat since 2000) been in the band probably longer than Lonesome Dave (Peverett, founding singer and guitarist) was.
RO: Here is a cool story...One night Dave and Roger went to see Humble Pie in concert. They were curious about who the band could have hired to sing Steve Marriott's parts. It was Charlie Huhn and they were impressed. Years later, when it was time for Foghat to get a new singer Roger recalled seeing Charlie at that gig. He reached out to him and Charlie joined the band. Foghat doesn't just hire guys to replace guys that aren't here anymore. Everyone is hand-picked to be here.
Jeb: The way you're describing it is that it's a kind of legacy.
RO: Yes, especially to me, it is a legacy. Like I said, I grew up playing these basslines and for Craig to say, "I want you" means a lot to me. When I step out there, I know I'm representing Craig and that's the way everybody feels. I've heard Charlie in interviews many times say that we're here to pay homage to the people that created this music.
Jeb: Now I'm not a bass player, but it seems to me that Craig played all over the place. Where you'd think he would be playing in 4/4 lock-step with the drummer, he'd be somewhere else, almost like he was playing a solo. Does that fit in with your style of playing?
RO: That's always been kinda my thing. I always know when to lay it down and when to let it breathe and part of letting it breathe means adding a little extra to it. That was a big reason I was a Pat Travers fan, too, because of the lines Mars Cowling (English bassist with Pat Travers from 1976-1982, 1989-1993) played on those records.
Jeb: I love him. It's a shame we lost him recently.
RO: That was very upsetting to me. Craig's passing we knew was coming but Mars was a private guy, we talked all the time and we were very good friends, but he never let on to anything. Last year in Miami, he came to one of my shows and we were talking and cuttin' up, and later his wife told me that, two months earlier, he had had a triple bypass and coded twice on the table! Mars never mentioned it.
Mars looked at her and said, "Why did you tell him that?" She said, "Because he's your friend!" What's upsetting to me is, I guess he had heard some news in February that he didn't have a good prognosis and he called me and said we should make some plans to get together for dinner. We do that every so often so I didn't think anything about it. Not long later I called the house to say, "Hey, let's do something next weekend", his wife got on the phone and told me that he's in the hospital and it's not good. Two days later he was gone. That was very upsetting to me. We talked a lot and he was such a great human being. But the basslines he recorded on those first eight albums are legendary.
Jeb: I don't know what it was with Polydor (Pat Travers' original record label) but a lot of their bands didn't break as big as they should have. Those first eight albums and Foghat too, because they were Blues based, really stand the test of time. Some of those Metal and Pop bands of the time sound dated, but that Delta Blues influence gives those records a timeless quality.
RO: Yes. That's very true.
Jeb: Were you a Blues guy?
RO: Yeah, I actually was.
Jeb: So you and Bryan Bassett (current Foghat singer/guitarist) get along.
RO: I grew up playing with guys that were older than me. I played my first club when I was a junior in high school. I was turned on to Montrose, Travers and Savoy Brown. I'd go out and play ball with my friends and then I'd go out and hang with my older musician friends and got into that stuff.
Jeb: I was into the music of the day and then I would get into the people who influenced them and so on, and I end up going all the way back to Muddy Waters. Was it always the bass for you?
RO: Yeah. Well, I wanted to be a drummer, but I found out real quick, "Nope, I don't wanna do that" (laughter). But I want to tell you, honestly, how I became a bass player. My best friend got a guitar, and he had joined a band with some other kids at school. It was as simple as, "Hey man, we've got this band, but we need a bass player. You should get a bass". I was like, "OK, yeah, I wanna play bass!" That's how it all started.
The irony of it is that, out of the kids that started that band, the keyboard player and I are the only ones who are still doing it. It wasn't long before I started playing with some of the older musicians because bass players were hard to find. I moved up the ranks pretty quickly.
Jeb: Bass players are hard to find, huh? It may be even harder to find a good one.
RO: Maybe that was the difference. Maybe I was good!
If there is anything I would change, when I look back, I played in Jazz band for three years in high school. Every branch of the military had military musicians and they would all come around the school recruiting. They chased me for three years to join them, but I was too cool for that!
I really wish I had gone that route because I would have got paid to rehearse, paid to exercise, paid to play gigs and travel all over the world. And by now I would have been out of the military with a retirement pension and health care.
Jeb: You did something with Pat Travers where you played a series of shows with Pat, Derek St. Holmes, Ronnie Montrose and Mark Farner. I think it was called "Rodney O'Quinn Plays With All The Greats".
RO: It wasn't called that.
Jeb: It should have been!
RO: It was actually called "Guitar Gods of the 70's" but I do like where you're goin' with this (laughter).
Jeb: How did that come about? Did you have a hand in putting that together?
RO: Yeah, I put that together with a promoter out of Kansas City, Frank Moyer of AME. We were booking dates for Pat and we started kicking the can around on the idea of putting a package tour on. The trick was keeping the price down. I got with Sandy (Gennaro) and Kirk (McKim) and we agreed to be the core band, supporting each of these artists.
We pitched it to festivals as four 45 minutes sets. You'd have a small opening act or two, but the rest of the day you had nothing but heavy hitting acts. Playing with Ronnie, Mark and Derek was all great. You get to play all the cool stuff. C'mon!
Jeb: So you played about 180 minutes of solid, classic hits.
RO: Yeah. It was pretty frick'n cool.
Jeb: When you play with different people, they have a different vibe; different energies, a different feel. Was it emotionally exhausting playing with four different guys over the course of a couple hours?
RO: It was kind of tough. You were 45 minutes on and 30 minutes off but I personally didn't get much of a break because the way this thing was put together I was the tour manager for everybody. I was the point of contact for everyone.
Not only did I have a hand in everything before the show, I had to get each artist after their set situated in their dressing room and make sure they had everything they needed. I barely had time to take a leak and change a shirt!
Jeb: I know you're not just a musician; you're a hard core music fan. Imagine if someone had told you, when you were sixteen, that you would have that kind of day.
RO: I would have never believed it. I'm a very fan oriented person and I talk to a lot of people, telling stories. I do believe that I am fortunate. I am blessed. There are a zillion musicians that have unbelievable talent and they're really lucky if they ever get out of their bedroom with it. They're really lucky even if they just get to play the local club scene.
A lot of it has to do with being in the right niche. You're either in a circle or you're not. As you climb up the ladder there are so many seats at the table. If you can get in with a club band, you can play a bunch of clubs. I moved up from that to Pat Travers. There aren't many seats at that table. Now I've moved up to Foghat. There are not many seats now. They're at yet another level. The next step up might be to get with a Whitesnake or Def Leppard. Think how many seats are at that table. Not very many.
I am very fortunate and blessed that I've been able to do what I've been able to do. I know guys in my hometown who are just unbelievable musicians. They probably look at me and go, "How the f#ck is that clown doin' it? (laughter)
Jeb: I want to take you back to your very first gig with Foghat. I know you're a pro, but a new job is a new job. Were there any nerves?
RO: Actually, before the first gig, they were doing two days at Seaworld in Florida. Since they were already close by, and Craig had already said I was the guy, I went over there and sat in with them on about eight songs over the course of the two days. No rehearsal, they just gave me the setlist and I learned all the songs.
They asked me which ones I felt comfortable doing and I let them choose. They brought me out cold and said, "We’re going to bring out a friend of ours..." I will never forget, when we were doing "Honey Hush", the guitar tech was standing next to Mac (Craig MacGregor). We came to a part that had a lot of punches and Mac looked at the tech and nods and said, "He nailed it". Hearing him say that meant the world to me.
Jeb: Being in Foghat is kind of like being in a family.
RO: Totally! They're all about family. They really are. I was out with them when my father passed and they just said, "Go". Even when things were touch and go and we had these gigs coming up, I said, "I can make it, but I'll have to hurry back" and Linda (Linda Arcello-Earl, band manager and wife of Roger Earl) said, "No, don't worry. We'll grab so and so to cover and everything's going to be all right. You stay home. You do what you need to do". That means a lot.
Just recently we played Disney World and they brought all the girls that work in the office and their families out to have a day at Disney World, on Foghat. When we played Mexico, a lot of the office staff got to go there. When they worked the deal they made sure everybody in Foghat could bring their family. That's the way they are. That's very important.
Jeb: That was that mega-gig, with everybody.
RO: Well it was meant to be a mega-gig, but a lot of things went south and it ended up being only four bands, and Foghat was one of them. It was like a perfect storm of bad things happening.
First, there was the bad press about the tainted alcohol was everywhere and people were freaking out about that. Then, although a travel advisory had already been in place for years, the government issued a new one, and that made people panic. There were like, four things in a row that just scared the hell out of anybody and everybody from even thinking about doing it.
They tried to move the date back and change the location, but there were enough people who had already bought tickets and made vacation plans that they ended up making a special deal with a handful of bands and we were one of the one's who said, "OK, we'll do it."
So it was us, Queensryche, Mickey Thomas' version of Starship, and Blue Oyster Cult. The people who were there were so gracious because they thought the whole thing was going to be cancelled. The super big bands didn't end up going but hey, I got eleven days in Mexico and I only had to play two shows!
We played one show as Foghat and the second was basically an all-star jam by the pool. I was swapping vocal lines with Mickey Thomas while playing "Play That Funky Music"! How cool is that?
Jeb: So, has the mid-life crisis worn off? Are you happy playing with Foghat?
RO: Dude, dude, my mid-life crisis started in '07. It's 2018 and I'm still here. I think it's still here! The irony of it all is that it took a mid-life crisis to get me back doing what I was meant to be doing. I'm very fortunate, I have a lot of followers, I've made a lot of friends and a lot of fans. I interact a lot with people, so I guess it shows I'm doing what I was meant to be doing.
Jeb: When you weren't a full-time musician what was the career path?
RO: I bounced around a little bit. When I first moved back closer to my hometown, I worked for my dad, doing land clearing and development. That business was getting so competitive that you were selling your soul for nothing and my dad was getting a little bit older and didn't want to push that hard. And old buddy of mine, who had been in the window and door business forever and a day, was fixing to open a new branch. He knew I wanted to try something different and he knew my ethics so he offered me that opportunity. At the time, other people in the business balked at it, but my friend insisted he was making the right choice.
Three years later, I was second to the top in sales in the whole state of Florida. I was just knocking it out of the park during the big boom. I rode that wave for a while but when the economy started to turn is when I started getting that itch to perform again (laughter).
Jeb: That experience must have helped you with Pat Travers because you really did manage the business end of it.
RO: Yeah. Of course Pat ran the band. I ran everything by Pat, but I managed the business. I'm the guy who got out there and made sure we had a steady calendar. The proof is in the pudding. When I left the band we were doing 80 or 90 shows a year. Since I left, they're doing maybe 40.
Jeb: I saw that version of the Pat Travers band a few times and that lineup was tight as a tick. I could tell Pat was feeling it because he was playing with a spark and a smile.
RO: That was such a great time and I can hold my head up high, because I've always been a Travers fan, still am. Nobody plays guitar like Pat. When Pat is on, he is ON. He owns it. I know, from the fan's response, that the lineup of Pat, me, Sandy Gennaro and Kirk McKim was like the second coming of the Pat Travers Band in its heyday. That's what fans would tell us. I listen back to some recordings of that time and I can hold my head up and say, "Yeah, we definitely kicked some ass."
Jeb: Being a given that maybe two-thirds of the audience were hard core PTB fans and the rest were friends or spouses that were dragged to the show; it must have been fun getting those people's attention. That band could not be ignored.
RO: It was fun. I could always see who the diehards were but there were always a lot of folks that were not. It was a pretty awesome feeling towards the end that you had won them over and had them in the palm of your hand.
Jeb: I'm going to put you on the spot. What were the first Pat Travers and Foghat albums that you bought?
RO: To be honest, the first Travers album I got was Go For What You Know, the live album, but as soon as I got it, I instantly went back in time and bought all of them. That came out in'79 when I was twelve. When you think about it that was a great era for live albums; Go For What You Know, Foghat Live, Frampton Comes Alive! Whether you were a Kiss fan, or not, Kiss Alive, the first one, was just pure energy Rock and Roll.
Jeb: Double Live Gonzo
RO: Oh yeah, man! My buddies and I had a half-pipe in the back yard and we would skate to Double Live Gonzo all day.
Jeb: I interviewed Pat once and I had brought my tattered copy of Go For What You Know for him to sign, and he told me that that the shot of him on the cover was not of him performing live. It was taken in a studio with him standing on a box.
RO: Well, there are things you learn later in life that can shock you and blow your whole image of everything.
Jeb: Crash and Burn is probably my favorite PT album.
RO: Yeah, Heat In the Street and Crash and Burn. Those two studio albums are phenomenal.
Jeb: Agreed. And your first Foghat album?
RO: Foghat Live! I've still got the original vinyl. Once again, once I heard the live album, I immediately went back and bought all the studio albums. I was a huge, HUGE Foghat fan.
As an influence, Mars was such a great player. He had an unorthodox style that fit Pat's music perfectly. His style might not have fit with other bands but it definitely worked for Pat. Now Craig was just a solid, R&B, boogie type of bass player and if you go back and look at earlier Blues and straight Rock and Roll albums, like Montrose, and his style would work with all of them.
So, when I heard Craig, I said "Yeah...I wanna rock!" The funny thing is, as much as I loved Mars, I didn't try to learn his parts starting out. I thought, "Lemme just appreciate this" (laughter). The only Travers song I ever played in the clubs was "Snortin' Whiskey" (Crash and Burn, 1980) and when they called me to say Pat wanted to meet me and here's a song list, I thought, "Oh shit, I've gotta learn all this stuff!"
Jeb: When you're voting on the setlist, please give "Home In My Hand" a little more of a nudge. That's the underappreciated live song.
RO: We're playing it! Last year was the 40th anniversary of Foghat Live so we actually played Foghat Live in its entirety. So we had "Home in My Hand" back in there. We just had a rehearsal the other day because you have to change things up a little bit. You can't change 'em too much because there are a handful of songs you have to play.
This year is the 40th anniversary of Stone Blue (1978) so we're adding a couple of more songs from Stone Blue, of course we always play the title track. We've added "It Hurts Me Too", "Chevrolet" and we're bringing back "Sweet Home Chicago." But "Home in My Hand" stayed in there. That was one of the questions, "What should we get rid of" and I said, "We need to keep "Home In My Hand".
Jeb: Foghat kind of screwed themselves on their studio albums. People like them, but ask them about their favorite, it's FOGHAT LIVE!
RO: They captured the energy. It proved the fact: they're a live band.
Jeb: Are you on the new one?
RO: I played on a couple of tracks on Under The Influence (2016). It was pretty close to being done when I came around. There were only a couple of songs left that needed something. Since then I did play on Foghat Live At The Belly Up (2017).
Just recently we shot a video for the release party show at B.B. Kings in New York and the audio came out only OK. Good enough for a DVD but not for a CD release. We were scratching our heads about what to do because we wanted to have a CD/DVD combo pack.
Of all things we just actually just played a show at the Arcada Theater, just outside of Chicago. Savoy Brown was on the bill with us so Kim Simmonds, who played on a few things on the studio album, was there, so we decided to record there and are now in the mixing process to include the Arcada show as a CD with the New York show DVD.
Jeb: You've also got a little bit of a Traveling Wilbury's thing going on with Earl & the Agitators. I think you're Earl III? It's kind of funny saying that this is Roger's "Blues band". I heard there might be an album coming?
RO: There is already an EP out and we're recording some new tracks but I don't know if we're going to combine them with the EP tracks or make a whole new album.
Scott Holt is a guy who played guitar with Buddy Guy, so it's really Earl & the Agitators featuring Scott Holt. He is Earl I. Bryan is Earl II and I'm the Crosseyed Earl III (laughter) and Roger bills himself as Earl IV.
The way that this is evolving, it's growing; we already have added Earls V and VI. Earl V is Tony Bullard out of Virginia Beach who used to play with Jimmy Van Zant and Black Oak Arkansas. That's our thing; to branch out and get more players involved.
If Bryan, Roger and I are available, we do it. If we're not around, other guys step in with Scott and play shows. It's a constantly evolving and revolving all-star band. My joke is that everybody has to have a number and on the website we'll have Earl #9 and it'll be a picture of a squirrel.
Jeb: My first interview, 1500 years ago, was with your drummer. That's how Roger and I met. I've interviewed Roger many times since and have had the privilege of hanging out with him. I've got some of my own stories, but I wanted to ask you...what is Roger like off the stage?
RO: Roger is a very genuine, caring human being. Very loving. You don't meet up with Roger without lots of hugs. You don't leave Roger without lots of hugs and appreciation. I'm amazed at the amount of appreciation that has been shown to me and I'm the new kid on the block. You are very welcomed within this organization.
Jeb: Maybe that's why people don't leave.
RO: Bryan's got twenty-five years, Charlie's got eighteen and, by the end of the year, it'll be three for me. Of course Roger's been there the whole time! Linda goes all the way back to '76, before she and Roger were married. She started working for Foghat a month after Craig originally joined. But it goes deeper than the band. Our office organization, our crew guys...our guitar tech has been with Foghat for eighteen years, the sound guy...our travel agent...she's been with us for twelve years. We have other people in the office...our accountant...she's been with us sixteen years.
It proves my theory. People are always asking me, If you hear of any good gigs becoming available, let me know". I always tell 'em, "If it's a gig worth having, ain't nobody givin' it up!"
Jeb: Well, what's next? More shows?
RO: We've got a busy schedule this year and they're still coming in. We're already booked on next year's Rock Legends Cruise #7. Foghat and Earl & the Agitators will both be playing, and Tony Bullard and I actually do a side thing together on the cruise as well. We did it on cruise #5. Our "Play One, Drink One Jam". It was such a huge success there was almost a mutiny on cruise #6 because we weren't there!
Tony and I do what we do best. It's kind of a Rock and Roll meets Hee-Haw show. We were playing a two hour time slot in the Pyramid room on the cruise ship on Cruise #5. In that two hours we sold more alcohol than all of the other Pyramid room events across the the rest of the four-day cruise combined!
