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A Dirty Dozen with BOONE FROGGETT from OTIS – July 2024

| 1 August 2024 | Reply

According to a recent press release: “Rock band OTIS released its new single, “Last Fool in the Line,” on July 16.  It’s a ferociously rockin’ song that was written by the band and is the band’s first release of original, new music in seven years. Recorded in a live full band take at The Rock House in Franklin, Tennessee, the single was produced, engineered and mixed by renowned Grammy Award winning musician Kevin McKendree (Brian Setzer, George Thorogood) and mastered by Ty Tabor of the acclaimed US rock band Kings X. Kentucky born and bred, OTIS, which formed in 2015, is a young, hard rocking quartet who performs and plays their exciting music like they’ve been around for 40 years. Alongside Boone Froggett (guitars / vocals), John Seeley (bass), Alex Wells (guitar), and Dale Myers (drums), these tight-knit guys stay connected to their homegrown roots having been around traditional instruments from a young age in piano, fiddle, and guitar instilling in them an appreciation of country-rock, bluegrass, blues, soul, and folk music. It’s always fun to watch a young, talented band come into its own and blaze their own trail and that’s exactly what OTIS is doing.  You are invited to come along for the ride.” We get Boone to discuss new music, influences, and more.

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Our current single “Last Fool in the Line” is a really fun song. It’s got this swampy swagger to it, and we got to interject our love for southern soul music of the late 60’s into our signature sound. We recorded the song live on the studio floor, so there’s a lot to listen to, I even find myself hearing new nuances each time I listen back to it. Particularly the interplay between the Bass & Drums. John Mark Seeley (Bass) and Dale Myers (Drums) play such a nasty groove on this one! However, I did pull one studio trick on this track. I doubled my slide solo and it’s the only overdub on the track other than a few vocal edits. Happy listening!

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

My late grandfather David Froggett Sr. was an award-winning old-time Fiddler, and my father David Froggett Jr. is a great honky-tonk style guitar player. Between the two they had me on stage at eight years old, I never had a chance, haha! Music has been in my blood from the very beginning. But the moment that really set me on my path was discovering a B.B. King cassette tape in my father’s collection, once I heard that big voice and B.B.’s distinctive one note vibrato I was on a mission to emulate what I heard on tape. It was like a message from another world, and I still feel that way about 50’s Blues music.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

The guys and I are from a rural area in south central Kentucky, and it happens to also be the home of The Kentucky Headhunters and these guys have collectively shaped the path of my life a few times over. I remember my first time seeing them live as a teenager and they came out on stage and played “Love That Woman” from the album Songs From The Grass String Ranch. Guitarist Greg Martin was playing a Lucite Dan Armstrong guitar in open G tuning! I remember thinking “this is it; this is what I want to accomplish.” They have this mystique as a band that is just amazing, they put on a show without realizing it and I was just at the right age to grasp on to something like that, they were my Zeppelin, and they still are today.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

That’s a tough question because we’re inspired by such a wide variety of music as a band, but I’ll take a stab at it and say Bobby Rush! I had the opportunity to meet Bobby at the King Biscuit Blues Festival in 2023 and next to Billy F. Gibbons, Bobby is the coolest person I’ve ever met and at 90 years old he’s also one of the most energetic people I’ve ever met. I think he could teach us a thing or two, haha! Especially in the blues world all our heroes are evaporating. We recently just lost John Mayall the godfather of British Blues. So, as a genre we have a tough job ahead of keeping the music authentic and learning the culture of the blues from someone like Bobby Rush is the key to that.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour? What do you like to do to unwind?

For me, I really enjoy visiting thrift shops and antique stores I collect Blues records, vintage paperback books and Horror VHS tapes! I love digging up a good deal, haha! As a band we enjoy visiting historical sites, seeing other bands, and just hanging out. We all truly enjoy being around each other and we hope that translates on stage, we want everyone in the crowd to feel that they are a part of the “OTIS Family.”

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

I would describe us as a progressive Blues-based, Rock & Roll band! We’re undoubtedly torch bearers of our influences, and you’ll hear the roots of where we come from in our music. But it’s not like hearing a legacy Classic Rock band or a tribute band, it’s a new high-energy Rock & Roll experience. I always get discouraged when I read things like “we already have (insert classic rock legacy artist here) we don’t need another one.” There’s a whole new generation of young Rock & Roll bands who are influenced by Foghat, Led Zeppelin, Skynyrd, all the greats and we’re trying to pump new blood and energy into the genre, those type of remarks are hard to overcome. In the current music industry it’s really difficult to get someone to listen to a new Rock song vs. country or R & B. The market for what we do has been dwarfed by other genres because there’s not a lot of places to hear new Rock music on the radio.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Alex Wells is most definitely the guitar fiend in the band, he never sits his guitar down. Hotel room, green room, or parking lot he always has a guitar in his hands. John Seeley is no stranger to beer before or after a show. We just need to find out if Dale Myers can cook or not, haha! We don’t generally find ourselves in a situation where we have time to cook on our own. We travel in a sprinter van, so the majority of our time is spent on the move.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

I tagged along on the Rock Legends Cruise with The Kentucky Headhunters early this year and it’s a crazy experience. The lineup is so over the top and everyone does meet and greets and is pretty accessible and that’s an experience you generally don’t get at a typical live show. I got to hang with our old friend Billy F. Gibbons, Jimmy Vivino and even got to watch Canned Heat from the side of the stage but the one that got me was meeting Michael Anthony (Van Halen, Chickenfoot, Sammy Hagar) his voice and playing is so iconic and he’s an incredibly nice guy. I was watching Billy F. Gibbons from the side of the stage and Micheal got up to sing “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” it sounded exactly like the record one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. We talked briefly after he got off stage and it was hard to form words after seeing something like that, that doesn’t happen to me often! At the end of the day we’re just trying to pay our bills and get back home, haha!

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

That’s a funny question! Around 2020 the band hit a couple of speed bumps which brought about a three-year hiatus. Up until that point I had always thought “if something happened where I couldn’t tour, I’d really like to work for The Kentucky Headhunters.” Then 2020 came and a really crazy chain of events happened one being a worldwide pandemic, another being two departures in the band and I found myself wondering what the immediate future held, not long after that I got the call to be a social media manager for The Kentucky Headhunters and soon after a position came available on their touring crew and it has been the perfect environment to rebuild Otis from. And I’m so grateful to those guys for stepping up and giving me such a unique opportunity, to go from getting the short end of the stick to being as busy as I’ve ever been, has been a wild ride, haha! Sometimes you just have to let the universe take care of you.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

I actually really enjoyed your previous question If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why? I have never been asked that question and it was a lot of fun to answer. The one question that wears me out is the classic “what is next for the band?” Because it’s so hard to answer its rock & roll anything could happen, life is so short and it’s hard to read the future and I try to never give an answer about the band that is misleading.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

One thing I would’ve liked to have done differently is to have properly released our first album Tough Times: a Tribute to John Brim internationally with the correct amount of marketing money. We were just kids, and we were a little green about the industry, so we printed 1,000 copies and made it available digitally. But I really feel that we captured some magic on that album, and it was a little ahead of its time. I don’t think the blues market was quite ready for anything that progressive but also nasty and unrefined! The great part is that we own the masters to the recording and the story of that album could still unfold! I’d like to get even more notoriety and recognition for John Brim and Kentucky’s blues heritage.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

I’d have to go with the 1977 Muddy Waters album Hard Again I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much live spirit from another album, you can tell that they were all having fun and it made for an incredible Blues album and staged Muddy’s big comeback. That album has been a road map for the guys and I time and time again, If you ever feel lost or in the ditch as a player you can always revisit the classics Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Bobby Blue Bland. That classic music always pulls me back to where I need to be.

OTIS LINKS:

OFFICIAL SITE

FACEBOOK

X – TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

Category: Interviews

About the Author ()

ToddStar - that's me... just a rocking accountant who had dreams of being a rock star. I get to do the next best thing to rocking the globe - I get to take pictures of the lucky ones that do. I love to shoot all genres of music and different types of performers. If it is related to music, I love to photograph it. I get to shoot and hang with not only some of my friends and idols, but some of the coolest people around today.

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