Daryl Stuermer - Maybe my site hasn't changed enough to keep the fans interested. (Laughing)

John - Well, I don't know about that. (Laughing) Your site is very clean and that is what I have always liked about it and it is very easy to read. For the record, you did an interview with me when my site was a little small and just starting to come up and I really appreciated that. It was a fun interview.

Daryl - No problem John thats great.

John - So, let's start off with "Sweetbottom." You know what I like most about the album is you really whale on the guitar and you can imagine a lot of the stuff that I get from great players who stay below that line because they are too afraid to do anything else. They are also use to being in that position in Smooth Jazz and I love these guys and I support them on my site but when I am listening to your album I think holy snapping turtles, these guys are really having fun up there!

Daryl - Well, that's the thing and I think it is also because it is a live performance. I don't know what other people do in a Smooth Jazz band but also "Sweetbottom" is not really a Smooth Jazz group.

John - No, you guys are kind of like a fusion.

Daryl - We were a group from the seventies in a sense the fusion thing was alive and well. Actually, part of the deal was to stretch out a little bit especially with groups like Chick Corea and people like that at the time that were doing that. So it actually allowed us to do that as well. Here we are some twenty-five years later, plus in a way coming back and doing some of the same stuff especially when we play regionally, around my area that is what they expect. They are not coming to see "Sweetbottom" the new contemporary or Smooth Jazz version they are coming back to see the band that use to be. Although, I think we are actually better now and I think everybody is much more experienced and they know what to do. I feel that everyone has also grown individually but everything that is on the record, on the "Sweetbottom" reunion record, is stuff that we actually played back then. We decided that we would essentially do the same songs and we picked songs from that era that we actually covered and also songs that we didn't play that were originals. So at least when people would hear us and at least were fans from that era would say, "Oh, I remember when these guys use to do this."

John - Yeah, they remember specific songs like for instance, "The Whisperer." I listen to that and the keys coming in and I think I remember. It sounds to me like the fusion of the seventies but it sounds very current at the same time obviously.

Daryl - Plus I think that some of the keyboard sounds are a little bit better than they use to be or maybe it is just the sound itself. We can't help but play the way we play now but we are playing songs from that old era. What I had to do was actually get some CD's of these songs that we wanted to cover. I went out and bought David Sanborn's first album from 1975 and it had "The Whisperer' on it and a song called "Duck Ankles." We did three songs off of that CD that we played back then and we had to decide which of these three songs would we like to play and which really represents some of the stuff we use to play. So we picked this one by David Sanborn which was actually written by Don Grolnick, his keyboard player at the time and we did that song.

John - You know you were the one that told me that Don Grolnick was dead. You were the bearer of bad news but anyways please go on that was a great tune.

Daryl - Was I? Sorry (laughing) Yes, it was a great tune and he was always a great writer and I thought that represented that era for us. I think on the CD if I remember correctly we have two cover songs and one is "the Whisperer" and it was written by Don Grolnick and was originally played by David Sanborn and then we do "Freeway Jam" at the end of the record which was an encore. It was a song that was made famous by Jeff Beck and keyboard player named Max Middleton. We actually played a lot more covers than that when we did the live performance but we decided to put more originals on the CD.

John - Just getting back to that thing for me, it is just really refreshing and I listen to this and it is an album that I love playing loud. Speaking of "Freeway Jam" that is a good way to exercise my road rage as I play that one extremely loud. "The Whisperer" makes me very happy also.

Daryl - That is the song that opens the record and that is also the song that we open the night with. That was our first tune and it is nice because it starts a little bit mellow and then it picks up more and more. It is just one of those songs that grow dynamically.

John - Dwayne does the vocals on "Beggers Festival" right?

Daryl - Yes, he does.

John - So did he sing a lot with the band in the early days?

Daryl - Yes, he did. My brother plays bass mainly but he was a vocalist as well and there is another vocal on there as well called "You Know Me Too Well" which he actually wrote the lyrics and he sings it. As you know "Begger Festival" is not a vocal with lyrics but "You know Me Too Well" which does have lyrics and he wrote that tune. We wanted to spread it out and everyone wrote at least one song a piece.

John - "You Know Me Too Well" has a real nice smokey bar feel to me..

Daryl - To me it sort of sounds like a combination of a lounge tune and a Gino Vannelli type tune.

John - Yeah, which of course you played with.

Daryl - Yes, it has some similar chords that the Gino Vannelli songs would have. Like I said, my brother was mainly a bass player but he also sang in the band. We went through various stages and this stage with the "Sweetbottom" record was the band from 1973-74 until I left for Jean-Luc Ponty which wasn't too much later. I was with the band for about two years with this particular lineup and then I went with Jean-Luc Ponty and I would keep coming back into my hometown and play with them again. This band was from 1974 until about 1981. I kept coming back and forth and this was the lineup at that time.

John - I like your song" The Archer," it is a real journey. I like songs that carry me and when you are listening to it and all of a sudden you stop what you are doing and start staring at the speakers and think that is kind of cool. It has a slight Genesis feel to me because it is a journey song.

Daryl - It was pre-Genesis and this song was written and I have a recording of it on demo from 1974. I had to go back and go into my archives and actually find some of these songs and I really wanted to play them close to the way we did it.

John - What do you have them on reel to reel?

Daryl - I have them on reel to reel which now I have transferred over to a DAT and I transferred them over to a CD. So, prior to doing the actual reunion itself I have to archive all these tunes and I really got into it and found what songs I think would still hold up today yet would kind of have the retro sound to it. "The Archer" was one of them and it was written in 1974 and I have demos from live performances of 1975. It is funny that a lot of the tunes that we did there these were songs that in 1975 we went out to L.A. and we tried to shop this stuff around but of course in those days we couldn't get a deal with any of these things, a record contract. In fact, today we couldn't either. (Laughing) It was kind of fun to at least be able to put these out on a record now because we never could have done it before.

Part Two

John - With an album like this that stretches the boundaries. It's just too adventurious for some Smooth Jazz stations.

Daryl - That's true. You know with instrumental music if you want to get a lot of air play at least on a lot of the Clear Channel stations if it's not in a sense a little bit held back you will not get air play. All the research they do or whatever you want to call it tries to keep the music almost background. Maybe you can say inoffensive! (laughing)

John - Do you play the guitar everyday?

Daryl - I do. I play essentially everyday. If I'm working in my studio there's a certain time that I'll pick up my guitar and just play. It's not that you still practice anymore at least I don't but a lot of people that I know just pick up their instrument everyday and play. It doesn't mean that you are practicing scales.

John - So you're playing, creating not really practicing.

Daryl - Some times it's just noodling around. I don't pick up the guitar and think I better practice today it's almost unconscious. I just do it. When I'm watching television and my wife and children will tell you, I usually pick up a solid body guitar because their not loud and it's not acoustic but anyway I'll just sit there and just noodle and play while we're all watching television. When a commercial comes on I play along with the spot. My daughter always laughs and says "you know that song?" and actually I'm just learning it now. (laughing) After a while you get to know the commercial and you know what key their in. The funny thing is one day I'm sitting there and a Toyota commercial came on and it was a Phil Collins song that I played on so that one was easy. (laughing)

John - What tune was it?

Daryl - It was 'Can't Stop Loving You.' It's not actually Phil's song Leo Sayer put it out in Europe first I think. So if I watch television tonight I will be playing guitar for at least a couple of hours. If there's a tense moment on E.R. of course I'm not going to play but if it's just lightweight stuff I play the guitar all the time. I'm kind of obsessed by it. I'm in my studio right now and I've got my peddle board on and I have my amp out and I'm going through some of this Phil Collins stuff that I'm doing.

John - Last time we talked you told me about one of the best moments in your career was first getting on stage with Genesis. Do you still get that great exhilarating feeling when you're out with Phil or Sweetbottom?

Daryl - When we finally did our first show with Sweetbottom it was amazing because we hadn't been together in twenty-five years. It was a combination of feelings. I was really excited and really nervous. We didn't know how we were going to pull it off. You never know until you get out there. It almost seemed like it was a new band because I felt the nervousness of a new band even though it wasn't. It's an old group in more ways than one. (laughing) It just came off so well though. It was great. That's why we decided to do a live album because everyone just stretches out and really plays. So every time we get together with Sweetbottom it's always a little anxious before you get up there and play. You're a little bit nervous but you're also excited. Before the show with fifteen minutes to go I'm always thinking I can't wait to get out there. Especially because we don't do it too often.

John - Are you still in contact with Jean Luc Ponty?

Daryl - Yes.

John - Think you'll ever work with him again?

Daryl - We haven't talked about working together. He's going to be here in Milwaukee actually when I'm gone out with Phil. Last time he played here was last summer and I went up to his sound check with my guitar and played a few songs with him and learned a few songs with him and then played with him that night. It was great because it was the last few songs of the night during the encore. One of the songs we did that night was actually a song we did way back called 'New Country.' It was really fast, so fast I could hardly play it. (laughing) In my twenties I could do it easier. Also I'm not playing some of those same violin lines that I used to. So it was hard but it was fun. We had a great time. The audience went nuts and he did not have a guitar player so having a guitar up there changed the sound a bit in the group. He has an excellent band. I wish I could see him more often.

John - I know you were working on a project with your drummer John. What ever happened with that?

Daryl - Believe it or not we're still working on it. I just got really busy doing some other things. He's an excellent singer and he plays a little bit of guitar and he writes most of his stuff on guitar. He's an excellent drummer. So we're writing songs together and I'm producing the project as demos so we'll see if other artists want to record the songs. We're also going to try to get a record deal for him.

John - It reminds me of another story about this drummer who had all these secret talents, he could sing, he could write, he could be a successful solo artist.

Daryl - Yeah, like Phil. I know. (laughing) And then he writes "In the Air Tonight" (laughing) that's the same thing with John. He kind of writes in the same vein kind of like Peter Gabriel or Coldplay. He's a big fan of Radiohead and so he writes from those angles and I come in with whatever baggage I have with me. (laughing) I actually help him in a sense become a little more accessible. A little more Pop I guess because of my playing with Phil Collins.

John - I really sense that you would like to discover more young talent. To find them, produce their stuff, write with them and create these artists.

Daryl - Yeah, that's a big part of me but it's not in the Jazz world it's more in Pop. I don't mean ultra commercial music. The people that I like today are people like John Mayer, Coldplay and Dave Matthews. I like things that are a little more sophisticated. I don't like the whole dance R&B kind of thing as much as I like John Mayer.

John - So you probably won't be working with a Diva?

Daryl - It depends what she looks like! (laughing) I'm not into that kind of thing. It doesn't mean that I don't think it's legitimate. I know that a lot of these people are really good like Christina Aguilera; I think she's really an excellent singer but I don't relate to that kind of music as much as I do with the other stuff. When I heard the new Coldplay album I liked it right away in fact my daughter turned me on to them. She has good taste in music and she's only fifteen. She also likes Sarah Mclachlan and Dave Matthews.

John - It can be a wonderful rights of passage for a child to introduce their parent to music - now they are teaching us.

Daryl - That is so true.

John - With John Mayer the first thing that hit me is his guitar chops.

Daryl - Yeah, I'm really surprised at his maturity. You can tell that he has a respect for what came before him. He cares about melody like he cares about rhythm and the lyrical content. All those things are great things to care about. (laughing) It's not just about a beat or a filthy ugly lyric. I'm not a prude but I don't find sensationalist lyrics that interesting.

John - I put Norah Jones in the same category as John Mayer. How they both have this deliciously lazy vocal delivery that usually comes in a singer three times their age.

Daryl - Yeah, I don't know where they get it. Every time I'm just a little bit down on the youth of today I hear people like this and it reassures me that we're not going to go down the tubes. I get the same thing when I meet young people who care about politics and care about what happening in their world. There are a lot of them out there. I get to meet them because I have a twenty-two and a fifteen year old daughter. When I meet some of their friends I think well I guess we're going to be ok. (laughing)

John - Do your daughters friends get intrigued by your music life? Some I'm sure are a little young for the Genesis thing. Do they say my dad really loves you?

Daryl - Well my twenty-two year old daughter has a lot of friends who know more about it but yes you're right my fifteen year old daughter has friends who will say things like "my dad thinks you're really cool." (laughing) But a lot of the kids know about it too because they see the history that is sometimes portrayed on some of these shows like on MTV. I'm not saying they are huge fans of Genesis but they can remember hearing songs like 'I Can't Dance.' It was out in 1992 but they were still mature enough to have heard that tune. I also get kids coming up to me and asking me to sign something for their dad.

John - So maybe you don't get people coming up to you in the produce department asking you to sign their lettuce?

Daryl - (laughing) Not to sign a lettuce.

John - I want to ask you about one of the Sweetbottom songs 'You Got To Jive To Stay Alive,' it's got some good energy. It's a great sax song.

Daryl - Yeah, I love it.

John - What was your sax guy Warren Wiegratz doing when Sweetbottom was down.

Daryl - Well, Sweetbottom went through several stages after I left then the group broke up and became another group called Oceans and they put out a couple of albums. He's in a band right now called Streelife which is a local group in Milwaukee.

John - Yeah, I noticed that they have the website on the Sweetbottom album.

Daryl - Yeah its www.streetlifemusic.com .If you go to streetlife.com it'll take you to a porn site. (laughing)

John - So Warren has been busy with the porn. (laughing)

Daryl - (laughing) Yeah, music for porn films.

John - (laughing) Well, he probably made more money doing that! Those bastards make too much!

Daryl - (laughing) I know now everybody's going to go to that site. Warren's band plays at all the Milwaukee Bucks games. He always plays the American national anthem. He's also in a studio here in Milwaukee that does a lot of commercials. He's an excellent musician who plays sax as well as keyboards. He plays all the keyboard leads in Sweetbottom. The keyboard player Kostia was not there originally and as you know he plays with my group. You know Sweetbottom went through several keyboard players. Warren played most of the keyboard parts in the old days. Kostia didn't come to America until 1990 but in America back in the seventies he would have been our guy. He would have been in Sweetbottom but of course he wasn't here. Anyway we couldn't find a permanent keyboardist for Sweetbottom we couldn't ask anyone back because no one lasted long enough. (laughing)

John - As you know from my last interview with you I'm a big fan of Kostia's slower New Age stuff. Is he ever going back to doing that?

Daryl - Well, I'm working on a record right now.

John - Michaela (Daryl's wife) told me that it's contemporary Jazz.

Daryl - Yeah, it's going to be more Contemporary Jazz with a bit of a retro feel to it because Sweetbottom kind of got me in that mood. The album's actually going to be called 'Electrofit' and it will feature the old Rhodes piano so it'll be a little more basic. I really like it since its very groove based as well as melody based. The record should be out next year. After I finish that record Kostia and I want to do a duo record with acoustic guitar and acoustic piano. As far as a solo piano record for Kostia I don't know.

John - He has an amazing sense of melody.

Daryl - A lot of people put him in the New Age category but he's better than that. It's a little bit Classical as well.

John - Are you listening to 93.3 WJZI the Milwaukee Smooth Jazz station?

Daryl - I do because now I know the guy who's running it called Steve Scott that used to have a station here in Milwaukee in the seventies and eighties called Breezin and they used to play a lot of Sweetbottom and Oceans music. He's a lot more open but he wants to play certain things and sometimes he can't but he sneaks it in. (laughing) He's been sneaking some of my music on the station as well. I appreciate that he's kind of a maverick in that world. Milwaukee has its own personality and he's trying to bring some of that personality to the station instead of it being just another generic Smooth Jazz outlet.

John - I have to track him down and do an interview.

Daryl - A lot of people are controlling the Smooth Jazz sound and those are the people who want every radio station to sound the same. I think it's important to project some of the local personality into that station. Steve Scott is actually the guy who came up and announced us for the album. I wish I could have put his announcement on the CD because it was kind of funny and clever. He went on for two or three minutes.

John - With something like that it's hard because no matter how good the speech is you don't want to hear it over and over again.

Daryl - Plus it's a little bit inside. People who come to this night club know what he's talking about or have heard Sweetbottom before know what he's talking about but the album goes a lot further than Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

John - Who else will be playing with you and Phil Collins?

Daryl - Well, the drummer is Chester Thompson.

John - Oh, great Chester is still in the fold.

Daryl - Yeah, he's back with us. Leland Sklar is back with us. He was with the band from 1985 to 1990. He's one of my best friends so its' just great to have him in the band again. Keyboard player named Brad Cole has been in the band since 1990 and we have a percussionist. Luis Conte couldn't make it this time because he's working with James Taylor right now so we got a guy named Ritchie Garcia. He worked with us when we were doing some of the Tarzan stuff. We also have six back up vocalists. (laughing) That's a lot of people. Also Gerald Albright will join us for the promo shows for 'Brother Bear.' He's a great sax player and a great guy to be with.

John - So what you said last time we talked still stands as far as you're concerned that if Genesis ever got back together it would basically be Peter (Gabriel) back as lead vocalist with Phil by choice being mostly the drummer?

Daryl - I think it really comes down to Phil just wanting to play drums. He will do that if they get a singer and I don't see who else would do that other than Peter. I think that would be a smash tour. Think about it you have three big names there, Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. I guess in a sense it's more up to Peter Gabriel whether he would want to do that. Phil has already put it out there saying "if you want to tour again as Genesis I'll do it as a drummer." Phil though now has settled more into his family life so maybe he wouldn't want to come out on the road. He only has so much time in the year to do something. His son now is two years old and he really wants to be home. Everybody's got their own things going.

John - Well maybe I'm just too big of a Genesis fan to look at this realistically but I'm thinking sooner or later something is going to happen. It could be a week of gigs or even a televised gig.

Daryl - Yeah, I think with the DVD thing now it could be a special show with a 5.1 surround sound mix. That I could see happening. I should clarify it doesn't mean I have inside information or someone's asked me to do that or it's even ever going to happen but personally I could see that happening. It's probably more likely that your suggestion of a live televised show would happen than anything else. There have also been suggestions that Phil should do an unplugged version of all his songs because sometimes they come out better that way. You hear the chords better, the melodies better than the big show in the arena. I think a song can air out more and you really get a chance to hear where all these sounds and chords come from.

John - And sometimes they're literally reinvented. Look at Clapton's 'Layla."

Daryl - Oh yeah.

John - I heard that you recently watched the Genesis 'The Way We Walk' tour DVD. That must bring back a lot of memories?

Daryl - Yeah it does because that's like ten or eleven years ago. When I watch it I think I didn't really know that was going to be the last Genesis tour. Which was kind of sad because you would like to know is this going to be the one. With the last one you'd think you would try a little harder to take everything in. It doesn't mean you actually play any different it's just how you look at it. It's just how you feel about it. When that tour was over everybody thought maybe in three or four years we'll do another tour. About two to three years later Phil Collins said, "I'm not singing with Genesis anymore" (laughing) that's what he said to me. (laughing) It was just one of those off the cuff kind of remarks. I said, "What?" We were on tour at the time and he and the manager were talking and I heard Phil say, "Oh, what will we tell the public?" I came up to him and said, "What are you talking about?" And then he said it. (laughing) That's how I learned about it. That's the way a lot of things go. I remember when I did my first tour with Genesis in 1978 and I asked Mike Rutherford what was in the future and he said, "We don't know, we never know from year to year whether we're going to do this anymore." That was 1978 and they did it that way all the way up to 1992. The American mind sort of plans ahead more. (laughing) Maybe I shouldn't say it that way because maybe it's just this bunch of guys. Maybe it's just Phil, Mike and Tony. Maybe they just think that way collectively.

John - Have you talked to Mike (Rutherford) and Tony (Banks) recently?

Daryl - I have not. The last time I talked to them was a year ago. They have a show in England called 'This is Your Life." I did one with Phil Collins ten years ago and they surprised him he thought he was there for an interview and all of a sudden there are all these people there that he knows. So they did that for Mike Rutherford last year and I was part of that. So I say Mike, Tony and Phil there and the engineer who had done all the records and all of the x members of Genesis going way back to drummers before Phil Collins. There were two guys who played drums before Phil.

John - Was Anthony Phillips there?

Daryl - Yes. Anthony Phillips was there and Steve Hackett and a lot of the crew members. The drummer Kenny Jones was there. Also we all kind of sat in and played together at Phil Collins wedding. Phil Played drums and Gary Brooker of Procol Harum played keyboards and sang. Robert Plant sang and Eric Clapton was on guitar and it was kind of one of those great all star gigs.(laughing) Also no one has this on film which is really too bad.

John - I guess it was only meant for a few people.

Daryl - I guess so.

John - We touched on this last time we talked but I really like when the Genesis box sets were released and the members were all back together in the same room because they could be. You can't always have that.

Daryl - True. That's the other thing about doing 'This is your Life' you really find out that no one left in really bad terms. There were no bad feelings. Peter Gabriel left the band and there was no argument about it. It was time to go. It was like an amicable divorce. In that band everyone is still talking of course not too many of the guys hang out or anything but they never did before either. It wasn't that kind of thing. Everyone can be in the same room, talk and have a good time.

John - I did an interview with Randy Meisner and he told me how it got near the time he left the Eagles. How he got in a fist fight with Glen Frey. It was dramatic!

Daryl - (laughing) Wow!

John - This is rock n roll history! Good or bad it all makes up what makes this machine work. Do you sometimes look back and think wow what a ride!

Daryl - I do. I feel like one of the lucky ones. I don't come from a city that's known as a music capital. (laughing) I was very lucky to get an audition. When I hooked up with Jean Luc Ponty it was because I was playing in a night club in Milwaukee with Sweetbottom five nights a week. It was a good group, I was having a great time and I was making enough money to get by and one night Frank Zappa's Mother of Invention all came in and sat in with us and the keyboard player, George Duke.

John - Who's now very famous these days as a Producer.

Daryl - Yeah, he liked my playing so he recommended me to Jean Luc Ponty. That's when everything started rolling. It was kind of a fluke that all that happened. I was fortunate that I got the audition but I was also fortunate that I'd practiced. (laughing) I learned to play well enough that I passed the audition.

John - You know one of the biggest responses I've ever received from any interview was your story on auditioning for Genesis and you getting the gig because of course you were a good player but also you were the only one who knew the Genesis stuff. (laughing)

Daryl - (laughing) Well, I don't know what happened in England. Mike Rutherford tells me that there were thirty guitar players that auditioned in England so I don't know if any of the guys who auditioned in England knew the songs but they certainly didn't in New York. I was the first out of five American guitar players to audition. They sent a tape first with four songs. (laughing) Four songs is not alot to learn.

John - Not for a guy who plays a long with TV commercials. (laughing)

Daryl - (laughing) Exactly.