The pandemic hit the music business hard. It had a particularly had a massive impact on bands whose bread and butter is playing live. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes is one of those bands. They’re back out on the road in the US now and, after a gap of over four years they’re about to return to the UK for a date at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Friday July 7th. If you’re based in Holland, they all have dates at The Paradiso in Amsterdam on the 8th and Bospop Festival on the 9th. So it’s a perfect time for us to have a chat with Johnny to find out what he’s been up to during and after the pandemic. It’s a transatlantic phone interview, so expect a few pauses. There’s also a bit of shared working space noise at the end. So let’s cut to the chase. Just click on play for a few insights from Southside Johnny:
Maybe you already know that Allan’s a bit of a Southside Johnny fan. Ok, a lot of a Southside Johnny fan. So, we decided to invite Johnny to contribute to the 2017 High Fives. And he did, with not one but four sets of High Fives chosen by our random category generator. That’s the kind of value you get at a Jukes gig. Take it away, Southside…
5 songwriting heroes
Cole Porter
Tom Waits
Steven Van Zandt
Bob Dylan
Smokey Robinson
5 places he’d play every night
Paradiso, Amsterdam
Shepherd’s Bush, London
Birchmere, Alexandria, Virginia
Stone Pony Summer Stage, Asbury Park, NJ
Anywhere in Cleveland, Ohio
5 people he’d like to meet
Mark Twain
Big Bill Shakespeare
Barack Obama
Willie Dixon
My mother’s father
5 favourite harmonica solos
Big Walter, “Walking By Myself”,
Sonny Boy Williamson “Don’t Start Me Talking”,
Little Walter, “Tell me Mama” and “Lights Out”,
Paul Butterfield, “Born in Chicago” and a thousand others.
5 covers he hasn’t done yet
Way too many to list. Happy New Year!