The Tedeschi Trucks Band has taken the mantle as the premier American jam band. They have sold out shows around the world and continue to put out engaging music. Keyboardist Gabe Dixon recently took some time to talk about their newest release Future Soul which is out March 20.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Gabe Dixon interview –
On how he joined the band – I got a call at the end of December in 2018 to say that their keyboard player, Kofi Burbridge, was in the hospital and having some health issues. They needed someone to sub for him for a couple of months. So, I jumped at the opportunity because I love that band, and I thought this will be the most fun two months of my life. Then sadly he passed away in February of 2019. So since then, I’ve been in the band.
On if it was a different approach on Future Soul than I Am The Moon – Yeah, absolutely. The process was different, the circumstances were different. With I Am The Moon, we really started writing that during the COVID Pandemic and we had a lot of time and that album was really more of a concept album that, Mike Mattison came up with this concept to base the record off of the Layla and Majnun. Persian epic poem. So, all the songs for that album were written with that in mind. It was a lot more, as far as the process of writing and the process of recording, especially, it was a lot more freeform. We’d just hang out all day and record, and maybe we take a break and then get started recording again at 11 at night and wouldn’t finish up till three in the morning sometimes, down at their place. We were all producing it. Derek (Trucks) and Bobby (Tis) were the technically the producers, but it was a really a group effort and everybody just put their thing into it. But with this album, with Future Soul, it was a lot more regimented and disciplined. Oh, and by the way, I Am the Moon had 24 songs on it, and it was like a four album, epic thing. But this album we really wanted to go back to a more traditional, like short and sweet. Songs the only 10 or so songs on the record kind of thing.
Bringing Mike Elizondo in really changed the character of our approach [00:03:00] really. He has a much more regimented, “We’ll start it. 10, we’ll finish up at dinner time”. And that’s it. Then we’re done for the day. I actually really liked that process a lot. I enjoyed the fact that it was a little less aimless and a little more predictable. Maybe you hear that on the album too. I think that that the process of even the overdubs, which we did, so we recorded the tracks in Jacksonville at Derek and Susan (Tedeschi)’s studio, and we recorded the overdubs at Mike Elizondo place in Nashville, which is also where I live. Even the overdubs were very like structured. We had Vocal Day, we had Horn Day. It just it was nice to have Mike Elizondo to help make decisions. I feel like all the greatest producers, they’re good at bringing out what’s good, what’s great about the artist, but they’re also, they’re there with a decision when a decision has to be made and he was always really good about that.
On the creative process of the band – There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I think e everyone comes up with ideas on their own, but also, we’ll get together. As we go along on tour, sometimes we’ll be at soundcheck and there’ll just be a really fun idea at soundcheck, and we’ll capture it with a voice recorder or whatever. Maybe that ends up being the seed of a song that we work on later together. But I guess, since I’ve been in the band, there’s been a core group of people who have been the writers, Derek and Susan and Mike and me and Falcon (Tyler Greenwell) has contributed songs as well.
On the previous record you had Derek and Falcon and Isaac (Eady) and Brandon (Boone) and I wrote a song called “Pasaquan”, but it’s hard to say that there’s a specific process. Mike, Derek, Susan and I went to their farm in Georgia in early 2024 and we just set aside about a week to sit there and write songs. Mike had already brought in a couple that were basically finished. Derek had a couple starts and I had one, it was what was finished and Susan had a couple ideas, and we just put it together that way. But, I think what happens is when it’s time to make the record, we say, “What have we got”, to everybody, and so I just happened to have a couple that I wrote by myself that I wasn’t sure, if I wasn’t gonna record with this band, I would’ve done them on my own record, but I just really liked him, so I brought him in and Derek and Susan and everybody really loved them. There was one song where Derrick just this melody on guitar, like the melody for an entire song, but he had no lyrics. So, I just took that and I wrote all the lyrics and that song became “Ride On”, which is the last song on the album. It’s a disjointed kind of way of putting it together. But at the end, we just edit and edit, and until we feel like we’ve got what we need.
On playing the new songs live – It’s refreshing to play something new. It’s fun to bring them to life. We actually did a few of them, this is unusual, I think, for this band, we started playing them live this past fall, some of them. Like “Future Soul” and “Who Am I” and “Devil Be Gone”, and “I Got You”. So, we already had played almost half the record live. But I think it’s just it’s just we start putting them in when they feel ready to play. We played “Be Kind” the other night which was good.
It’s interesting to hear the reaction because people tend to react to things they know, because they’re familiar with them. So, if they’ve never heard a song, if the audience and they hear it, they don’t know sometimes whether they like it or not. We will get applause, but we don’t get, we find that people start loving them more and more, the more familiar they get with them. It’s always a little bit of a walking out on the edge to, to bring a new song out. We like it though.
On if the Beacon shows are more special because of the Allman Brothers legacy – I’d say so, absolutely. We always feel the Allman Brothers spirit when we’re at the Beacon, and especially this year because they, the Allmans, traditionally played in March or in the kind of springtime area. This is really the first time we’ve done that. I think usually we’ll play in the fall or later in the spring or in the winter. I think that yeah, we feel it and we feel it when we go backstage and we see the big giant poster of the Allmans in the catering area and we see the poster of Allman Brothers played 200 and however many shows there over their career. Here we are, by the end of this one we will have done 75 shows at the Beacon. I think I’ve only been a part of, I’ve been a part of maybe 45 of them, or 50, I don’t know. But we love it, the spirit’s there, and we played the songs. We did “Come and Go Blues” the other night. We did “Dreams”. We did “Statesboro Blues” already in the four shows. We’ve done at least three or four Allman’s tunes.
On honoring Joe Cocker at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction – It was great, man. I honestly it, I didn’t expect this, but when right before we played, when they played the video, I just started getting emotional. It does feel like a real honor to be able to pay tribute to him. It felt like the right band to do it. We have connections in this band to Joe, Alecia Chakour, who’s one of our singers, her dad was keyboard player and musical director for Joe for years and knew that whole group of folks since she was a kid. Obviously the band has a history with Leon Russell and do doing that Lockn’ thing with the Mad Dogs movie and everything. It was a little nerve wracking for me personally because I was starting all three songs on the keyboard and, it was a pretty high-profile thing. But, I shut my eyes and and tuned into it. It was really great. I thought the guests were awesome. Just it was a trip to do, “With A Little Help From My Friends” with Cyndi Lauper that was great. Chris Robinson, who just took, tore the roof off the place, he is such a great, they’re both such great performers, and Teddy Swims, God, I had such a good time. I really loved Nathaniel Rateliff’s voice on “The Letter”, he and Susan just man I, and I think we had Bobby Torres playing with us too on the Conga, who was in Joe’s, the original Mad Dogs tour and played on the recording of “Feeling Alright”, I got to play that iconic piano thing with him playing congas and it’s just it was a dream man. It was really fun.
On playing the Concert For 9/11 alongside Paul McCartney – It was a positive night. It was a really, I think it’s something that everybody needed at that time. I remember feeling, and so many people just wanted to do something to help the country, and for me, getting to go and be a part of that concert and use my musical talents to be a part of something that’s helping raise money for firefighters and help the country stand back up and be, together and united. I was just, it just felt so happy and satisfied to be able to do that. I think it, everyone was so scared and terrified and freaked out up to that point. That concert just really brought people together and the vibe was so positive and. I was really happy to be a part of it.
On releasing solo singles – I’ve started the approach lately of just releasing songs every few weeks and then when I feel like I have enough, I packaged them as an album. I put out another song, was it last week, called “Violins”, and I’ll have another one coming out, I think maybe in April or May or and I’m gonna be doing some work recording with Oliver Wood, who I co-write songs with. I love Oliver. He’s one of my favorite songwriters. He and I have three or four songs we’ve written that we’re gonna record. Probably in June or May. So if I can get those done quick enough, I’ll follow, I’m chasing my recordings, and then I find that works for me rather, at this time in my life, rather than going in and recording a whole album of my own and because that way I can continue to keep people interested. The last record, I put out two EPs digitally and then I turned them plus one other song into just a vinyl only release. So, I may do that again. I’m not sure. I just like to keep making music, because that feels like what I’m here to do and it’s satisfying to me.
On playing solo shows – I’m playing a show of my own in Nashville in June, on June 27th at 3rd and Lindsley. So that’ll be a great chance to split up the year. I’ve gotten to where I do two Nashville shows of my own every year. I do a holiday one in December, and I’ll do one in the summer. We’re actually taking a good bit of the summer off with TTB. We did the same thing last year, I can be home with my kids for summer break and all that stuff. I’m doing a thing at the Peace Center in Greenville with Maia Sharp and Lucy Silvas, kind of a songwriter-in-the-round type of thing that it’s always a fun thing to do. I slot it in when I can, I did a winter tour in the Northeast this January and February with my trio and just staying busy.
