Veteran's Day

“People are tired of things being so fancy,” reckons Seasick Steve, the down-to-earth rocker with a John Deere cap who found fame in his seventh decade thanks to a three-string guitar, a hellraising turn on Later... With Jools Holland and a gold-dust backstory about his time as a train-hoppin’ hobo.

“It’s not that they want the techno and all that to go away,” he continues, “it’s just that it made a little bit of room for music that is raw. Everything got so fancy, even the rock bands are fancy. Then me and my band get up there and go, ‘Yeeeah!!’ [he roars] and bang on shit instruments and people love it! They're hungry for something like that. So that thing about the new album title, You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks – well, that’s what it’s about.”
If there’s one thing Steve is, it’s true to himself. Genius and authenticity shine through in his music. Jack White spotted this, and invited the old dog down to his Nashville home to record two whiskey-soaked tracks late into the night (“He’s like some weird, scattered conductor. I really like him!”), while John Paul Jones – yes, of Led Zeppelin fame – is now playing with Steve for, one presumes, much the same reasons. For a man who first tasted celebrity long after his beard turned grey, it’s all rather surreal.
“I used to play at home. No-one was listening!” he laughs. “I’d play for my dawg. My kids, when their friends would come over, would say, ‘Oh that’s just my dad...’ as they walked past. I was like a lava lamp in the corner.”
One thing he has trouble coming to terms with is his fame.
“I get so shocked that, wherever I go, people know who I am. I think it’s the police or something coming to tap me on the shoulder! It’s bizarre. The only bad part of it for me is that I can’t go outside at festivals. And I love festivals! They remind me of carnivals. I used to work at carnivals and I remember the smell of the grass in the mornings when we’d be banging in the tents. When I’m playing festivals I’ll be up early at six in the morning wandering round the main arena, inspecting the scaffolding, or looking at the trash on the ground. I like it! I just wish I could go out near bands and stuff. I’m goin’ have to get myself a Big Bird costume!”
Fame is a strange beast, and one which Steve is keen to warn the young pups of the music world away from: “I remember I played in 1964 and I got pretty good pay – $200. Still, 47 years on, a band is lucky to get $200. It’s rough, man. So just enjoy the music. Ain’t nothing may not ever happen other than that. Play for the love and not because you wanna be on Idol or have a record deal or whatever, because if you do that, and you don’t get either, then all of it was a waste of time,” he says. “But if you love playing but you don’t go nowhere with it, you still got what you wanted.”
Steve’s never been in it for the money. And that’s the reason why, he says, he’s not afraid of ever becoming a parody of himself.
“I’m still hungry for it. It’s like a fairytale. There won’t be no oldies show for me. If I can’t go out and fuckin’ sweat bullets for people, then I’m gonna stop that right away. And that’s a promise. I’m on fire. The minute I’m not, that’s when I’m gonna go home and get a dog. I’m not afraid of that.”
In fact, it sounds like he’d quite enjoy it.
“I was born an optimist,” Steve concludes, with a grin. “That’s what makes you a survivor.”

You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks gets a live airing on July 31 when Steve joins Rodrigo y Gabriela at O2 @ The Park in Marlay Park.