Suck and Blow (21 page)

I was smitten with her, but she had a boyfriend—now her husband, Chris. She called me Johnny and I loved it. When Chris called me Johnny, I loved it considerably less. She'd always try to go motherly on me and feed me vegan food options—which were pretty good—and then she'd show me movies of animals being slaughtered and I'd say, “Yes, but they're delicious.” Even so, she ended up being a really cool friend.

But at her premiere I met Christopher Walken and went up to him and said, “I'm your biggest fan.” He said, “Of course you are.”

Ken Ober, who was a friend and appeared in our best-known videos, was once doing something for the LA Lakers and walked by Magic Johnson's locker. He saw Magic Johnson's Mennen Speed Stick and stole it. I asked him why he did it, and he showed me that there was a single armpit hair on the Mennen Speed Stick. He built a little shrine around it.

Ken was a good guy, one of the sweetest people. He was exactly like me because even though he got into this line of work, he still cared about things much as fans do. We're all fans at some point,
and he proved it by building a shrine to Magic Johnson's armpit hair. It was the high point of his apartment, and I kind of loved that about him.

But what I still need to come to grips with is that the people I see on TV or the movies are people who are weird, just like me, and sometimes they get to do special things just like me.

Bill Murray wants to be funny; it's what he does. It's not all he does—he's not the Terminator—he just has the instinct to be that guy I look up to. And there's an instinct in me that has no social acknowledgment, where I could put my hand in Bill Murray's food and yell, “I touched Bill Murray's food!” (No, Bill, I haven't ever touched your food.)

Whenever I meet famous people, I tend to become this bumbling fan. I treat them the way Chris Farley did in that
Saturday Night Live
skit in which he hosted the “Chris Farley Show” and mostly just said to his guests stuff like, “Remember when you were in
Ghostbusters
and you said, ‘Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown . . .”

I think it really helps when people come up to me and treat me the way I fear I treat Bill Murray. People come up to me, and I can't tell a joke without them going way too nuts over it or they won't let me tell a joke because everything I'm saying is super-profound. I run into people like that, and it really kind of helps because what I realize is that whenever you're doing something that's seen by a lot of people, it takes on an impact, especially if they saw me when they were young. That's what I'm running into now, and that's something Bill goes through on a much larger scale.

Michael J. Fox was hosting this benefit a couple of years ago, and he had me attend to be part of the band. Elvis Costello was there, for God sakes, and I could barely talk to him, but I held my own, I think. But it was still that kind of thing in which I went home and giggled to myself that I was normal around Elvis Costello—so you can't quite count that as normal. I was close but I wasn't quite there.

Roger Daltrey came all the way from England to this benefit, and Michael J. Fox forgot to call him up on stage. I was talking to Roger, and he suddenly said, “Wait, that's the song I'm on.” So Roger Daltrey showed up to get blown off by Michael J. Fox.

Michael J. Fox had all these musicians around him because he likes to play his guitar, and as the first song was being counted off, right there in the first note he cried out, “Wait! I'm not plugged in!” And then the song started.

Those two moments made it really awesome because I was watching someone I'd seen on television since I was teenager, and television is super-important to me. It's the parent that never has a job. Yet here he was, so intimidated by the musicians around him, myself included, that the guy I'm intimidated by was not even plugged in.

The older I get, the more I've gotten used to people putting me in that position where I can be Fonzie for a second and hit the jukebox and make it go on. That's a fun opportunity, and I don't want to waste that. It also helps me see the position that someone like Bill Murray is in.

Ultimately it's about empathy, and that goes two ways. There's empathy for someone who looks up to you for stuff that isn't quite true, and there's empathy for someone you're looking up to that isn't quite true, and everyone wants to come through for whomever's looking up to them. But they also want a chance to interact as a normal human, so there's a schism of your empathy. There's an empathic schism, and it's weird and takes time getting used to.

One of my favorite comedians is Larry Miller, and in getting to do
Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,
one of the fun things was that I got to be on with Larry Miller. I couldn't stop freaking out about Larry Miller; it was almost unnatural. Why is this rock-and-roll-band guy freaking out about this balding comedian? He's wasn't cool or trendy, but when you get into stuff, you care about people who are good at it. I always wanted to be a comedian, and he's just funny.

Adam Carolla is a really cool guy, and the great thing about him is that he makes you feel normal. He remembers very well that he's a carpenter. He feels like a carpenter, and the fact that he's famous is very weird to him. He's one of the few people I can really identify with in that way because he can express it. I think everybody's who's famous feels weird that they're famous, but you get used to it because it's what you've got to do; you learn how to handle it. But I think Adam feels first and foremost like a carpenter—and he loves cars, so maybe he feels like a gearhead too.

Me, I'm a musician. And in the discipline I come from, musicians aren't necessarily known. They do the backup stuff; they're the backup band. That's the musician I prepared myself to be when I was growing up. I was trying to be famous, don't me wrong, and to the extent that I've succeeded, I'm happy with it. But the discipline I came from requires that you're there first and foremost to play music.

That's why things sometimes get weird when people want to debate me about whether I'm me or not.

I was once getting my driver's license, and there was this girl with her mom. She whispered in her mom's ear, and I could tell what was going on. The mother said, “I'm sorry you just look so much like him.” I responded, “No, I am him.” But they didn't believe me, so then I wanted to prove I am who I said I am. Except I was in line at the registry of motor vehicles and had just turned in my license, so this was the one place I had no ID. Finally I got my license and held it up: “See! I am me!” And the mother said, “Oh I don't care.” That was quite a zigzag of my ego.

Something I noticed after I moved to Quakertown, Pennsylvania, in 1996 was that people would ask, “Why would
he
live here?” speaking in the third person about me. And I wanted to answer,
Why? Was there a chemical spill?

There also were people who would demand proof: “No, you're not John Popper. Prove you are.” That took me a while to work out in my head. You want to show them a license, but then you realize they're making you do stuff. So where I came down was, “No, I don't need to prove to you that I'm me.” I agree with the mom—I really don't care either.

I like working the job and saying, “Look at me! Look at me!” But I also don't want to get upset to the point where I'm obnoxious.

A few years ago a girl was convinced I was in Sister Hazel, and there was no talking her out of it. I actually got my Wiki page out on my phone with a picture of me to show her, and she said, “No, it's okay. I just like your band.” And I said, “I know, but I'm in another band.”

I'll admit, though, in a moment of weakness I was trying to impress a girl I was with.

Originally I had said, “Thanks,” but the girl I was with asked me, “Why don't you tell her who you are?” I said, “Because it doesn't
matter. Why don't I be in Sister Hazel for her?” When in doubt, be Hootie. I've been called Hootie plenty of times. Let them call you Hootie. If it makes them happy that you're Hootie, just be Hootie.

Then this other girl started to feel slightly annoyed that I wouldn't admit I was in Sister Hazel. So I said to the girl I was with, “See, this is why I don't do this.” And then I said to the first girl, “I
am
in Sister Hazel. I'm sorry—it's just this girl I'm with thinks I'm in Blues Traveler.”

That's something Lukas Haas taught me. If it's really important to you that I'm Hootie or that I'm in Sister Hazel, then I am. I'm in Marcy Playground too. As long as you're happy about it.

20

JOHNNY APPLEHARP

My fate is to walk the Earth, distributing harmonicas.

They call me Johnny Appleharp.

During the band's first trip to Europe in 1991 I was hell-bent on placing one at the place where Attila the Hun was toppled at the Battle of Chalons in France. I'm a big history buff, and I was reaching back through history to kiss Attila the Hun's ass. So I had to go to a museum to try to locate it. I was trying to speak French, and it was a spinach field and our van got stuck in the mud.

I've left a harmonica at the Acropolis, Napoleon's tomb, Louis Armstrong Park, Buddy Holly's grave, Graceland, and the Pyramids of Giza. I also placed one where I thought Julius Caesar was stabbed on the Senate steps. It turned out it was configured differently back then, so I may have buried it where Caesar walked by or went to the bathroom. But, hey, it's the spirit that counts.

I placed one in Heroes' Square in Budapest because that was my homeland and I had returned. I vowed never to return until I had a gig in Budapest. It was a very tiny gig, and the band who was supposed to go on before us conveniently got amnesia and forgot to show up until after we played so they could headline, which is a pretty cool trick, actually. But I was able to place a harmonica where Arpad, the Magyar chieftain, led his little tribe to Budapest and founded Hungary.

I've given them to plenty of actual living, breathing people as well. When I lived in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, I kept a basket of harmonicas by the front door to give out as tips or when people would come by and ask for them, which was a bit strange.

I gave one to Bill Clinton. I gave one to George W. Bush, but his people took it away. You're not allowed to assault the president with a harmonica—apparently I could have stabbed him with it or something.

I gave one to Mitt Romney at one of the Republican conventions. He was the governor of Massachusetts at the time, and none of us knew who he was. He said, “Here's a band who feels the way I do about the Second Amendment,” and then he looked back and winked at us.

I gave one to Quentin Tarantino, who used it in his acceptance speech at the MTV Movie Awards for
Pulp Fiction.

I handed a few to Dave Letterman throughout our career, and he'd play them during commercial breaks. I gave one to Jay Leno. I gave one to Jon Stewart on the
Daily Show,
and he said I was made of harmonicas.

The only man who ever refused to take one from me was Hugh Hefner. I went to the Playboy Mansion, and there was Hef in his robe. I said, “I'm a big fan, so I'd like to give you something,” and he told me, “Oh no, I don't take those.” I was kind of stunned because no one ever denied a harp from me before—admittedly, that is a little conceited of me—who the hell am I? But the question I had was, who else has offered him a harmonica so that he made this a policy? Did they used to hand them out like candy in the sixties, but he had bad trip with one? Was he going cold turkey after snorting them or ingesting them in some way? And then being Hugh Hefner, you assume he was thinking about doing something dirty with one. Maybe what he was thinking was that it could give him hepatitis or a communicable disease?

Speaking of
Playboy,
I once had Anna Nicole Smith come up to me after a show. This was the first time I had met her, and I noticed her right away because she was six feet tall and gorgeous in this enormous leopard-print-leotard thing. As she walked up to me, I was trying to intellectualize,
I don't succumb to the charms of women like that. I'm
above that.
This is what you tell yourself when you're a fat guy.
There's more to me than just looks.
I guess somebody had given her a harmonica I'd signed, and she came up to me, pulled it out of her cleavage, and asked, “Could you sign this for me again—I put it in my boobs and it sweated off.” And I looked at her with everything rational I could muster and said, “Okay!” and greedily signed it like a little boy. We got to hang out a few times afterward, but Anna Nicole completely floored me, and that was a good use of a harmonica.

I gave one to Steve Lemme from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, who was really excited about it until he found out that I also gave one to Kevin Heffernan from Broken Lizard. Then he was crushed. Apparently he thought he was the only person who ever received a harmonica from me.

I was in LA doing Broken Lizard's podcast when they were telling this story, and then this drunk guy came up. He didn't know us; he just started bothering us because we were doing
something.
So to get rid of him I said, “How would you like a shiny new harmonica?” So I gave him one, and that just destroyed Steve again.

When you throw a harp out in the crowd, that's its own little adventure. It all started because when harmonicas break, you can't fix them. Howard Levy, who, in my opinion, is the best player out there on the blues harp, treats the reeds on his Golden Melodies and tries to repair them, but I find that once you bend a reed, you fatigue it to the point at which it will never be the same again.

So we came up with this ritual where we'd throw old ones into the crowd. It's like when baseball players have got a bum ball and toss it into the stands. So by and large we throw them out there and then I sign them.

Here's the bitch. Harmonicas started out at $10, and I signed a 50 percent endorsement deal, which is the best Hohner offers. You could be Moses and they would not let you have any more than a 50 percent deal. Eventually it crept up in price to $40, and I was Hohner's biggest customer by far. I would buy more harmonicas than any six music stores in the country. They had my picture all over the thing, so I was paying twice as much money for the privilege of a package with my face on it. The picture should have just had me giving myself the finger.

The band pays for them collectively. So there have been nights when the sound is bad and I'll throw a whole set into the crowd to punish us—there's 250 bucks we'll never see again.

This seems like a fine moment for some brief harmonica theory, with the core idea being that, as a diatonic player, I require twelve harps for a complete set. Diatonics are built around chords. When you exhale on a C diatonic harp, you get a C major chord; when you inhale, you get a G dominant chord (which is major except the seventh is flattened). What we blues-style players tend to do is use that G dominant as the root chord and the C as the “four” chord in relation to the tonic (G), so we'll use a C harp to play songs in the key of G. This simple transposition makes a lot of traditional blues riffing possible and is commonly referred to as crossharp. The diatonic approach requires twelve different harps, one for each key. Every bluesy harp player and folk player from Little Walter to Dan Aykroyd to Bob Dylan or Neil Young uses them.

Chromatic harmonicas are almost an entirely different instrument. They are not built around chords but rather to have all notes available as would any other instrument. They achieve this with a button that shifts air access to equivalently arranged scales a semitone higher to cover all the notes in the Western twelve-tone scale. Concert greats like Toots Thielemans and Stevie Wonder favor this instrument, as do most symphonic harmonica players (it's probably best not to incorporate the slang term “harp” when discussing symphonies, as they have actual harps in their arsenals). Robert Bonfiglio comes to mind, or Blackie Schackner, who made every harmonica sound you've heard in the
Brady Bunch
or late-sixties television.

Anyhow, after decades of buying harmonicas only to literally throw them away, things finally changed in 2015 when Fender debuted my signature model. They got together with the Seydel company from Germany, which is an even older harmonica company than Hohner. They're laminated brass, and I've been able to give my input all along the way because I'm the one who's going to be using them. It's pretty cool. Rather than paying 50 percent, I actually get a small percentage of sales. These harmonicas aren't disposable; they have replaceable reeds, which come with a low price, but it feels free compared to what I was used to.

Now we may have to get cheaper ones to throw to the crowd, and I'll feel like an asshole doing that because what was fun was the purity of taking the harmonica I just played and then tossing them out there.

There are perils to throwing harmonicas from the stage. You have to gently lob them because they can be like throwing knives. They have weight in the center, so if you really whip them, there's a spinning aspect.

In the old days we used to really try to get distance. And I don't have good arm, so I'd give them to Chan. He could hit the end of a really large room any day of the week. But that changed one night in Boston when someone threw it back at him and hit him in the mouth. He left the stage bleeding, and I really milked it: “Maybe we can get him back out to play,” and eventually he did.

After that we tried to throw them lightly, but invariably we'll hit somebody in the head. That happens from time to time when they take a weird hop. Lawyers get involved.

One night at a H.O.R.D.E. concert this guy ran up to me with this bloody impression of a harmonica on his forehead and said, “Dude, I totally caught one of your harmonicas!” He clearly hadn't seen a mirror, so I signed that thing right away before he could sue us.

The hot girl in the crowd wants one—I don't know what she's saying, but she seems really smart—but invariably that girl is terrible at fielding the harmonica. Everyone around her snatches it, so it takes four or five to get to her. And if you finally get it to the hot girl, she immediately gives it to her boyfriend—“Look at what I got you, honey!”

What I hate is when one lands right in the hands of the little hippie chick and then two frat guys' elbows pincer her on each side of her head. Then she gets that blank look in her eyes and goes down into the crowd. The scary part is that you never see her again. There isn't a bloody stain; you don't see a body—she's just gone. Where does she go? I never know where they go. I'm worried they'll be waiting for me on the other side.

These days people are bringing their kids to shows, and you'll get one to that little kid and then you'll see his sister, all horrified: “He got one!” So then you throw her one. Then you realize this is a Mormon family and they've got fifteen kids, so the parents give you a look like,
I'm sorry. We know we have too many children, but you have to equip us.
I actually feel sorry for them because I'm giving them harmonicas in different keys, so the ride home sounds like traffic in Hong Kong. Have fun with that, Mom and Dad.

As I've said for nearly thirty years now, the harmonica is like life: sometimes you suck and sometimes you blow.