With his latest release “See The Light” rocking the charts and his recent work with Brothers of the South (members of The Black Crowes/Allman Bros/Wet Willy) I had the chance to speak with Bo Bice. The legendary American Idol runner-up who rose to the heights of fan frenzy on that show a few years back, has always stayed true to his Southern Rock roots and is as grounded a musician that I’ve ever met in the few times I’ve caught up with him to do interviews.
AAM (CS): It’s great to speak with you again Bo. I know how busy you are with the shows and recording. Are you on the road right now?
Bo Bice: No, I just got back to my home in Nashville, I’m here for a couple of days with my family.
AAM: That’s one of the things that make you stand out, being a true Southern boy born in Alabama and living in Nashville with your wife and two children, who hit the world stage running as a phenomenon with American Idol a few years back.
Bo Bice: That’s one of the things about, I guess the avenue I chose to go with “Idol” is so distant really from anything I would have tried. I guess a good way to put that is that it was so far from me. And I don’t mean that I was over above it, I’m just saying that it’s so far from anything that’s me. So when I went on the show my attitude was truly that there was no false pretense, it was completely what you see is what you get. Because I didn’t know. Number one I try to treat everybody in life the way I want to be treated. And just work hard. So on “Idol” it was just really strange because I didn’t think I was going to go far, I figured well maybe if I can get on TV somebody will see me and we can get better gigs. So I didn’t go in there trying to win everybody over.
There’s things you don’t understand about that had gone through my mind like will people not take me seriously anymore, am I gonna be this American Idol kid. You know, I’m not really that. So I remember standing there and singing that Badlands song and that was the first time I kind of went ‘alright dude, no matter what happens, I did a Badlands song on American Idol.’ I sang ‘Whipping Post’ on American Idol. That was I think the first time that I was like not worried about what happens past this, what people think. And to be honest with you, when I’m standing on stage with Lynard Skynard at the finale singing “Sweet Home Alabama,” do you think I really cared what anybody ever said from now until the end of time about whether they think I’m cool or not because I was on American Idol. I’d say to them, “were you standing on stage with Lynard Skynard!” you know what I mean (huge laugh!) That was the first time, when I got to sing that Badlands tune, that I really felt like I didn’t care anymore about what’s said or about winning. The rest is all gravy.
AAM: Do you keep in touch with anyone from Idol?
Bo Bice: I speak to Scott, Jessica lives here in Nashville. Carrie lives here in Nashville, but I know we are so busy working, we’ve run across each other about four or five times since the show. But we’re working so we obviously don’t have time to hang out like we used to.
AAM: I know you played with the ‘It Was Forty Years Ago Today’ tour alongside Todd Rundgren, Lou Gramm, Christopher Cross and Denny Laine last month and of course played with ‘Brothers of the South’, but what else are you up to musically right now?
Bo Bice: I continuously write, it’s what you do as a writer. It’s like waking up and breathing, you know, sometimes songs will come out. Most of the time I write on the bus and in hotel rooms cause that’s where I spend a lot of my time! But some days like today it’s a beautiful day, I’ve been up since about 5:30, I’ve already done about three interviews, and I’ve been outside working. So you never know, it might come afternoon when I sit down and I pick up the guitar and pick. I might write a song and I might not. And then there’s some days that I’ll wake up and go “wow, I haven’t written a song in a week” and I need to hone my skills, you know? So you can, on days like that, put in what you call ‘work.’
AAM: How do you approach your writing?
Bo Bice: If you look at music like a sermon, God, you know God inspires me everywhere I look. It’s one of those things that like I’m not the perfect Christian, but I have to believe that the perfect Christian is the person that believes they’re not perfect. I’m working every day to polish myself to carve off the rough bits. But there’s something about rough bits that… There’s something about… Okay, to use this analogy, and people won’t understand it unless you’re a guitar lover. But I happen to be just fanatic enough about my addiction to guitars and cars, you know, so. But if you’ve got a guitar, you play it for 30 years, like a Strat, and it’s only going to get better. You play so your fingers get set in those grooves and it wears the finish off the neck just in the right spot. It becomes almost a part of you. Like a hammer that a carpenter uses daily shapes to the grooves in his hand. That’s almost what your craft is in songwriting.
And somewhere along the way I just get to, like I say, jump around like an idiot and pretend I’m a rock star! We have fun with that, you know? As long as the sun shines on my face and the wind’s on my back, I’m good.
AAM: There have been times in the past where some may say your life hadn’t been so bright personally during your bout with substances. Do you mind talking about that time in your life?
Bo Bice: Nah, it doesn’t bother me. I was the type of kid, to be honest with you… I think that’s what’s so crazy with me. Up until I moved out of the house, when I was about 3 months away from being 18, I had drank over in England. I had never done any drugs, smoked pot or anything. And when I was 18 I started pretty much partying. Just full out partying with, and I don’t want to say it was the wrong crowd, it was the crowd I was hanging out with, I was part of that crowd. It wasn’t that it was the wrong bunch. But everyone was doing that stuff, doing whatever. And I got wrapped up in it. Luckily, looking back I was never like, I don’t feel I was ever addicted to anything. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t doing stuff myself, it wasn’t like I just went to parties and it was there. I mean I’m not innocent. But it truly did, and I don’t think having good people in my life and then neglecting those good people in my life opened my eyes a lot. It was funny the way God worked in my life, because I’ve always been a Christian, I just didn’t do right, I wasn’t perfect. But I wasn’t like the walking Christian.
A lot of people get sober and then they find God. But for me, it was like I found a clear vision of God. And then just started going to church. This pastor, I had known him a couple of months, he had been coming into my guitar store. He never told me the first couple of months that he was a pastor, he just would come by and we’d play guitars together. And he started inviting me to church. One day his bass player was changing a light bulb and a light fell down and broke his arm. So he calls me up and he’s like “look, I need you to come in and sit in on bass for a couple of weeks. Of course I’m hesitant, and he’s like “you gotta come in.” So I went and I started going to this church and a month-and-a-half, six weeks later the guys arm was better. And I remember going up to the pastor and saying “well, it looks like you got your bass player back, I guess I’m just gonna sit in the pews, I’m gonna go ahead and watch.” And he said, “No you’re not! Grab your guitar and you get up here on stage!”
AAM: That sounds truly like a ‘God-thing’ intervention for you.
Bo Bice: Yeah I think it really truly was. Not going into the church on my knees like a lot of people do. And then, I can remember one day being there and everything clicked, you know? That’s one of the things I love about getting to do what I do is that I feel sometimes that this is my ministry without ministry. When I just play my music I don’t try to push my religion or my views. I mean, I’m not afraid to talk about my Christianity, and also just treat people the way you like to be treated. That’s about all you’ll hear me preach, you know!
AAM: So on a lighter note, what is your advice to all the budding musicians out there? Not only the Idol hopefuls, but to every Southern rocker out there looking at your success?
Bo Bice: My biggest advice to anybody, not only in the music business is, just remember all the people that you crossed when you’re up here on the way up, you’re gonna be seeing them. It’s a very small world, and just try to treat everyone good. But for me, I’m here to play rock and roll, man
