Greg T. Walker is a southern rock icon. He was a founding member of Blackfoot and an early member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, he’s back now with Two Wolf, a band that fuses his southern rock roots with modern Texas blues for a unique new sound. Greg recently took some time to talk about Two Wolf, Blackfoot and much more.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Greg T. Walker interview –
On guitarist and vocalist Lance Lopez recently leaving Two Wolf – He needed some time to take care of his health. He’s always had mostly a solo career. Never been a real band guy, like dedicated to a band. I’ve known him 10 years, I think I’m speaking the truth. But we wish him, well. He sent us a note and voluntarily removed himself from the band. He just needs to focus on his health, his mental health and physical health and get focused back on his own music. So, we wish him all the best and great success.
We already have a member in place, and I’ve got some schedule rehearsals coming up very soon. Right now, he’s learning things over the phone with Kris Bell. I don’t know how to do that myself, but just file sharing. Just click here. I’m like, “You lost me”. But we’ve got somebody in place that Kris has known for many, many years and was in a band with back some years ago when Bo Bice came off American Idol. Kris was in the band for several years and this new guy also was on a guitar, so they’ve had a long musical friendship. I think it’s gonna be epic.
On choosing to recreate Blackfoot material on Two Wolf – Originally my preference would’ve been one Blackfoot song, maybe two at the most, because of course they’re all my favorites, it’s a great catalog. We’re a new band, we need to be playing original music. But the guys, of course they’re guitar players, so they’re more into the guitar functions, the power chords, scorching leads and majority won. I said, “Okay”. So, we wound up doing three. In hindsight, it turned out good. I was afraid people may think, “Wow, you didn’t have enough of your all-new material”. Quite the contrary. We have plenty of material. It does pay homage to Blackfoot of course.
On recording the unreleased Blackfoot song “Traveler” – It revolved around the bass lick. The bass is very prominent in that song, and so (Jackson Spires) came up with an idea for lyrics, and then we wrote the lyrics together. That had never been put out on an official record. I recorded it one time on a full CD that got released. But we never really pushed that record very much. It was a solo project I was doing. Jackson was still living at the time, so I said, “By the way, your name’s gonna be on the album because you helped me write this song”, and I’m grateful for that.
On if he had a vision in mind for the sound of Two Wolf – Really when you’re in a band and especially in our case, making a debut record, you want to give it the best of everything you have and hope for the best. But honestly, I wouldn’t know how to play any other style. Myself and the other guys the same way. They just love rock and roll. There’s no light rock or medium rock. We call what we do hard rock, kind of in your face. No pretense, no apologies. You love it or you don’t like it at all. It’s no middle ground, I don’t think so. We didn’t set out intentionally to, to prove a point. We just put in the best of what we had to offer. We only had a couple of tracks left over that we did not put on the record. So maybe the next one. It’s always a writing project in progress.
On how the band writes – In this case, this debut album, it was pretty much individual songs written by, Khris had some, I had some and Lance, next time around would be the same thing. We’d just do pre rehearsal and go, “Alright, who’s got ideas?” We play for each other and it’s like, “Pretty cool or nah or great”. So, we narrow it down to the best of what we come up with. But it’s always a band effort. It’s never about one guy. I don’t care how great you play, how great a writer you are, it is all the sum of its parts. But there’s always that standout person in the band that gets all the attention. It’s like, we have just as much input as you did, really. So, we’d like to be honest and upfront about that. Credit’s given what credit’s due.
On if he and Kris will collaborate more going forward – I sent him oh, a dozen sets of lyrics a while back, made copies I had that I had never put music to, and he told me which ones were his favorites. So, I, I’m quite sure on the next record, Kris and I will have a couple of songs that we write together as well as individually. I don’t know about the new guy yet. I know he’s a great player. I haven’t dug that deep into his personality to even ask him that question yet, but my gosh, he’s been playing all of his life, so I would assume he’s got to have written some songs and maybe a lot. I’ll soon find out.
On how his Native American heritage influences his music – It’s nothing that was done intentionally. It just, I am who I am. Truthfully, I didn’t know a whole lot about my culture growing up because it was kind of a shameful thing to talk about. Especially one of my grandmothers, she’d take a peach switch and wear your butt out with it if you even said the word “Indian”, it’s like, don’t ever say that. That was a different generation you were looked down upon. But as I grew older, in my early teenage years, I had this thirst for knowledge. I was able to talk to my grandfathers then. Especially one of them in in particular, and once in a while he’d get tears in his eyes and I would know just to get up and walk away. He told me a lot of things and a lot of good things, so I became very proud of it. I was kind a late bloomer, to be honest with you. I wasn’t waving the flag when I was five years old, it came later on in my late teenage years.
On the latest version of Blackfoot with no original members – That’s a bone of contention for sure. When Blackfoot split. I think it was already calculated behind the scenes that the other of us did not know about. Kind of caught us by surprise, but there was already a band in place as soon as we dissolved the corporation Rickey (Medlocke) went out. Rickey’s a great player. He is a great musician. Lifelong musician, but a band is the sum of its parts. So, you can have the best players on each instrument. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna be a great band. Sometimes it can clash. We used to say you could replace Charlie or Rickey with Eddie Van Halen and it would’ve been a train wreck. Or replace me with Getty Lee who plays circles around me. It wouldn’t have been the same. But anyway, he did that for about 10 years and there was a constant lineup of players, all really good, accomplished players too, with names. It just didn’t sound like the original Blackfoot.
Then Rickey joined Skynyrd and is still with them today. Then there were different incarnations of the band going out on the road from time to time. I never knew any of them at all. Never met them. I saw a couple of clips on Facebook, and I’m like, “Hmm, I don’t know about that”. if you’re gonna do it, do it good, right? And do it real good. Don’t just do it because you’re covering songs. When you have a club mentality, you’re gonna be that way the rest of your career. As far as I know, that has ended altogether. I think it’s a Rickey Medlocke Band, I don’t even know the players. I think he’s only done a few dates. But, Skynyrd will wind down eventually. They kind of are now. So, any of those band members are doing little side projects and good for them.
On why he and Rickey left Lynyrd Skynyrd to reform Blackfoot – Simply, we had been friends with those guys before joining the band. Actually, Rickey joined first and then I came three months later. We liked the music at that time. Those early albums kind of reflect that, even though they were recorded after we did what we still call the debut album that came out like, I think the third one. But it was a matter of it was a different kind of rock. It was a little bit more laid back. I won’t say it had any country influence whatsoever. It was a different kind of music, and it was roots rock for sure, and well done, impeccable musicianship in that band. But I missed Blackfoot because I was used to that hard driving rock. Then we had a few tracks that we did with Skynyrd that was like that. Not all of them. I said, “I just wanna rock”. I told Rickey my desires and he agreed. So, we left at the same time. We hugged each other, and we stayed friends right up to the plane crash and there never any hard feelings, but we did a couple of shows together. We like Lynyrd Skynyrd, it was just always great, “Man, how you been? You’ve been fishing lately”, just like old times.
On if he would ever play with Charlie (Hargrett) and Rickey in Blackfoot again – If it was a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, absolutely. Of course I would. I don’t have any ill feelings at all about that. As far as a reunion, it wouldn’t be possible because Charlie’s had back issues for 25, 30 years and a couple years ago he, even locally, he got to where he played less and less. We took him on the Rock Legend cruise a couple of times, and he would come out and do like three songs, and he had to go sit down behind the amp line. But could he play? Oh my God. He gives you chill bumps to this day, he hasn’t lost anything in his hands, but we stay in touch. We’ve been playing phone tag now for about three or four weeks. He came here back in March this year, he said, “I wanna come over and, and play”. I said, “okay”. So, we went out in my studio, it’s a rehearsal studio and a drummer, Rusty (Valentine) came over, he lives close by. Charlie said, “I wanna play 10 Blackfoot songs”. “Okay, you name them”. So, we went out there and we played 10 Blackfoot songs. I gotta be honest with you, I had chill bumps on my arms sometime. I couldn’t believe how great Charlie plays to this day. It sounded just like the record. It’s the same tone, it’s the same, it’s all in his fingertips. He walks in with his little cube amp, it’s like this, you can see that dimension. It’s half the size of a Fender Twin. It’s got like a 10-inch speaker, it’s 20 watts or something like that. And I said, “Charlie, I’ve got two half stacks over there”. He said, “No, this is fine”. So, he built his guitar that he plays now because it’s lighter and it helps his back. It’s like a Telecaster body and very lightweight and I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh”. And he did the first chord and it like knocked me against the wall. I’m like, “God almighty”. It sounded just like a Les Paul through a Marshall. Everything he plays sounds like a Les Paul through a Marshall, his fingers, it’s all in his fingers. Big, giant hands. I don’t know how somebody with hands that big can even play. You’d be hitting three strings at one fingertip. Unbelievable.
On touring plans with Two Wolf – We’ve got the Rock Legends cruise coming up in February. That’s three shows we have six Southern Rock Woodstock shows already on the calendar. We have another show, a one off in Alabama. I think that’s in May. So, we got nine or 10 on the books already for next year. I hope that’s just the start of big things. We love to play and we want to get out and promote this record. It’s doing well, but you’re in this business, it’s nothing like it used to be, you don’t make any money. But we released the CD first and it did very well, and then they released the vinyl October 17th and it’s doing very well. I’m happily surprised.
