Derek Trucks took the blues world and the guitar universe by storm a few years back as one of the meanest slide guitarists this side of Duane Allman, and that while still in his teens. And Trucks has all the reason in the world to be influenced by the late, great Duane. Derek is the nephew of Allman Brothers drummer and founding member Butch Trucks. Derek started performing live with his own band - and touring - by age nine. He would eventually sit in with and be tutored by the Allman Brothers Band, and particularly slide master Warren Haynes, during Haynes' lengthy tenure with the band. Naturally, not long after Haynes left the group, Trucks became his replacement.

Those were pretty big shoes to fill, but Trucks, now in his early twenties, has more than held his own on numerous tours with the legendary rock/blues outfit. He also tears it up on Croakin' At Toads, a live release by uncle Butch's side band, Frogwings, and has released a couple of solid solo outings, namely Derek Trucks (1997, Landslide) and Out of the Madness (1998/2000 House of Blues). These releases allowed Trucks to stretch beyond his basic blues roots to incorporate elements of Charlie Parker- and John Coltrane-style jazz into his incredible chops, something he also does ably with his own touring band. And remember, this is all on slide guitar!

If you haven't been able to find a copy of Derek's work yet, never fear: Columbia Records will release a new disc, titled Joyful Noise, on September 3, 2002 - Derek's first outing with a major label.

We caught up with Derek on a break from his touring with the Allman Brothers. This is what he had to say about his fretwork, his forebear's, and his future:

BluesQuest.com: Derek, how many shows do you play each year, with or without anybody else.

Trucks: I think last year it was probably close to three-ish.

BluesQuest.com: Three hundred?

Trucks: Yeah, about three hundred. It's usually always at least two hundred. We try to stay busy.

BluesQuest.com: How many are with your own band?

Trucks: The majority of them. Last year, I did probably 50-plus shows with the Allman Brothers and then maybe two-dozen with Phil Lesh. But other than that it was this band.

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BluesQuest.com: Who are the guys in your band?

Trucks: It's Yonrico Scott on drums, and we've been together about six years; Todd Smallie on bass, about seven years; and Kofi Burbridge is playing B3 and flute, and he's close to two years now. And Javier Colon on percussion and vocals, who's only been with us probably close to a year.

BluesQuest.com: Do you do a lot of writing?

Trucks: Yeah, we try to you know. Writing, to me, is just having confidence and throwing an idea out to the band. A lot of times it comes in waves. Sometimes you feel like giving it a shot and other times you just want to play and let it go that way. So it seems to happen in waves. Sometimes the band will just really get in the flow of things and everyone will just be spitting out ideas. That's always a nice time when that's happening.

BluesQuest.com: Your last release as the Derek Trucks Band was a couple of years ago. Have you recently been able to pull that back into your own control? Trucks: Yeah. Well, that's what we just got free of. I think House of Blues Records went bankrupt, just the record end of it. And so, we were just kind of stuck in limbo while they were in the bankruptcy courts. We're always out touring and we've been ready to record a record forever, so we just kind of snuck in and did this last record. Since everything is cleared up, hopefully we can head back in soon and start again.

I think with a band like this, much like the jazz groups in the '60s, you want to be able to record when the moment hits you. You know when everyone is playing good and the tunes are coming, you want to go into the studio and record. Whether you're in Chicago or wherever, you find a studio and you do it, because that's when you catch the real magic, you know? Not waiting until someone tells you it's time to record, but doing it when the moment hits you. I hope to be able to approach it that way, in the future, with this band. Just whenever the spirit hits us, head in the studio and throw down two or three tunes, and just make it an ongoing thing like the live shows. That's what happens a lot: There will be four nights in a row where everyone is just playing and tight and that's when you should be in the studio recording with each other.

BluesQuest.com: Does the band stretch out live? Do you change the tunes around? Do you improvise a lot?

Trucks: Yeah. We try to do a different set list every night. But we try to make it different every night for ourselves. We never do the same set list. We'll do a few tunes a few nights in a row, but we try to change it up. So, each time we hit a tune, it's fresh and not just running through the motions, because music should be constant invention. Each note should sound new to you every time, even your own instrument. I think maybe it was a Sun Ra quote or something where he was saying that each time you touch your instrument, it should be like the first time you ever played it. You know each note should be a complete surprise to you.

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So, that's the approach. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it feels like you can't find anything new but on the nights where it's really locking, I think everything sounds really fresh and that's the ultimate goal. And that's the beauty of trying to do the improvisational thing: there are good nights and bad nights. Life isn't always good. I don't think the music should be good every night either 'cause to me, then it would be a lie. If it's the same and it's good every night, then what's the point? You gotta have the dark and the light. You gotta have the rain.

BluesQuest.com: Do you go so far as to change the structures of each song?

Trucks: Oh, yeah. A lot of times there's a form and within that you can do whatever. And then sometimes the form is destroyed on purpose. You know if the moment hits you, you just go wherever. We definitely toy with all of it, at any given time.

BluesQuest.com: Are you, or is there somebody in the band that is cueing everybody else?

Trucks: Over the years, from me and (drummer) Rico playing together, there's a lot of subtle cues that he and I have together. It can be just a note, or just a head nod, or just the feeling in the air. So, there's a lot of subtle cues.

BluesQuest.com: What do you recommend for guys and girls that are out there learning to play guitar that are inspired by the kind of instrumental experimentation that you and your band do. How do people get to this point?

Trucks: You know I think it's just a matter of what hits you musically, what you like listening to. For me, I think, until I was 14 I was just doing it because it felt right. And I was out playing in blues bands, and I enjoyed it but I didn't really think about it a lot.

I remember hearing "Kind of Blue," and somebody had a videotape and I remember 'Trane stepping up and taking a solo and it just wiped me out. I was like, 'That's what I want to search for,' and then from there it was just constant listening to everything that struck me, whether it was Coltrane, or Wayne Shorter, or Cannonball Adderly - everything from that whole period of Blue Note Records. And then I branched off into world music and classical music. And then you always come back to your roots, which for me was the early Delta blues stuff, up to Elmore James and then moving back to Son House.

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As far as moving forward as a musician, it's just keeping your ears open and just keeping it fresh, at all points. If you're doing something that doesn't feel right, then it's either time to change your approach or change what you're doing musically.

And we've definitely gone through that many times. If something's not working, you just let it sit for awhile and try something else. And in saying that, you don't want it to be self-indulgent.

You don't want to just play and wander aimlessly, there's gotta be a point to it. You should be telling a story musically. And for me, as a guitar player, I listen to fewer guitar players than vocalists or horn players because, when I'm playing slide especially, I'm trying to think as maybe even a gospel singer. You know I started listening to The Sacred Steel Players - the guys from the church - and that just opened up a whole new thing for me. Incorporating that into the openness of this band has really been an amazing step for me. It's been really nice 'cause I realized that it's all essentially the same, whether it's blues, or jazz, or whatever, as long as it's played for the right reasons. You can play blues over a jazz tune, or you can play jazz over a blues tune, as long as it's coming from the right place. The possibilities are endless.

BluesQuest.com: By the time you were 14, you'd already done a lot of traveling around and playing. You had already been a working musician more or less, right?

Trucks: For about five years I think, at that point.

BluesQuest.com: And we're talking about a few nights a week or how often?

Trucks: It was pretty solid, you know. There would be two-month long tours and then you know two or three days a week, otherwise. Fitting in school and everything else, too.

BluesQuest.com: You're from Jacksonville?

Trucks: Yeah. Jacksonville, Florida.

BluesQuest.com: And your parents are down there?

Trucks: They're still there, yeah.

BluesQuest.com: And, obviously, at a very early age they realized that you were going somewhere with this thing.

Trucks: Well, I was lucky to have parents that were supportive but not pushy. Especially, doing the blues bar scene, at 10 years old, I would see a lot of young kids that were playing that had like stage moms and stage dads that were like, 'You need to do this, you need to ham it up to the crowds.' And my father was always going, 'If it feels good, then do it. And if you wanna go home and play baseball tomorrow, we can do that, too.'

It was never pushed on me, which I felt very lucky 'cause then I got to kind of progress at my own pace and not worry about career and all the ugliness that goes along with it because that's the stuff that destroys music: when the ego, and the money, and everything else gets in front of what you're really trying to do. And at that point, I was 9, 10, 11 years old, I was just doing it 'cause it felt right. My demeanor wasn't very outward otherwise; being on stage wasn't exactly the most natural thing. The music that was the reason I was there.

So I was lucky to have people around me that supported that and didn't try to change that 'cause I see a lot of people who get changed from musicians to entertainers and then it's almost like there's no way back. I haven't seen many people make the leap back and it seems to me that you can do it for a lot longer, and learn a lot more, and grow a lot more, if you're interested in music and not being an entertainer. But then there's some masters that have bridged the gap perfectly, people like B.B. But that's a whole other school.

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BluesQuest.com: Did you play slide right from the start?

Trucks: Pretty early on, yeah. I think being nine and having small hands it was just easier to get things across [with slide]. Things that I would hear I could play much easier on slide.

BluesQuest.com: In the beginning were you learning all by ear or did you have teachers?

Trucks: Yeah. It was by ear. One of my father's friends taught me a few things, just the basics - how to tune it; 'Here's your E chord, here's the names of the strings.' All the really basic stuff. And then I remember him bringing over a slide and just showing me the B.B. King box. You can play out of this, and you can play out of this, and then from there it was just listening and trying to learn from everyone I played with.

I've been very lucky, over the past 10 years, to get a chance to hang with so many great musicians. For me, the people that I learned the most from were the people that I played with every night, this band, and people like Jimmy Herring, and Oteil Burbridge - those people. Whenever I'm hanging with Jimmy, especially early on, I would always pick his brain, and we would just hang, and talk about music. And I would make him sit down, every once in a while, with a pen and paper and just write shit out because those guys are human encyclopedias. I definitely learned a lot by ear and a lot by just hanging with a lot of great players.

BluesQuest.com: Did you study Duane Allman, his licks?

Trucks: Not really. I mean I always listened to him a lot early on but I would never pick out a lick and just try to imitate it. I think a lot of times if you listen to something enough, you just know how to play it anyways. There's many times where I've just burned out a record and then 6 months later I'll be playing something and then realize where it came from. I'll be like oh, yeah, whether it's Duane, or Coltrane, or anyone you know. There's notes floating around in your head and while you're playing you just figure out when to fit it in. But there's definitely a lot of his stuff that's very evident in my playing just because he was the first and biggest influence, especially early on, when I was 9 and 10, it was Duane, and Elmore, and Bobby Bland, and those people that I was listening to.

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BluesQuest.com: And then, at a point, with your uncle being in The Allman Brothers, you got to be around the band. Obviously, Duane was gone by that time, but you met Warren. And how did he influence you or what kind of things did you pick up from Warren?

Trucks: I definitely loved playing with Warren. And the first time I saw him it was amazing 'cause I just kind of assumed that role, when Duane passed, that it just kind of passed. And seeing Warren, it was just kind of like a resurgence of that energy. So, it was definitely kind of a wake up call that way, as far as realizing that at any point you can do it again. You can awaken some energy and make it happen. As far as a player, I think at that point I was kind of already moving along on the path that I was on so, I think we kind of grew together in that sense.

BluesQuest.com: His style is more rooted in the blues, to me, whereas you have gone a lot more toward the more jazzy kind of thing.

Trucks: I think so. I think his is rooted in the rock era that he grew up in, in the blues-rock era. I think that's definitely his roots. And for me, growing up in the '80s, I don't think I was very rooted in any of that. So, I feel lucky that I can actually look all the way back. You know I can look all the way back and feel that my roots are in the '40s, '50s, and '60s, even though I wasn't around then. There's kind of a sense of freedom growing up in a period where all the music was horrendous 'cause you don't have to really answer for it you know. I don't think any of the stuff that was going on when I was 9 and 10 years old was very interesting musically, for me. It just didn't strike me the way that listening to Howlin' Wolf strikes me. So, I don't feel very tied to anything, really.

BluesQuest.com: Especially as a teenager, you certainly must have had some friends that were listening to current music. How did that affect you? What did they say to you?

Trucks: They didn't know what to say to me. I was listening to Sun Ra, at that point. We would hang out but not usually musically. But, actually, I found out that a lot of the reason that young people listen to horrendous music is because that's all they're exposed to. So I would take a few of my friends that I saw that were pretty open-minded even though they were listening to pretty crappy music and try to turn them on to some real things. And most of the time, they would be very receptive, whether it was turning them on to Stravinsky, or Coltrane, or anything. If it was real, it would usually get through to them.

So, I think that's a big chore for people, too, is trying to enlighten people to the real music of the world 'cause I think it changes people. I notice peoples' brains start to work a little different when they're not putting all that negative energy into their heads. A lot of the music, the past 10 to 20 years, has just been really negative. The thing they're trying to portray is negativity. And I think anything that you put in your body and mind is going to come out in who you are and what you play. So, I think it's very important to try to turn people on to the real stuff.

When you're listening to Wayne Shorter or John Coltrane, you're not thinking about violent thoughts. It's a whole different thing, it's just expansive you know. The possibilities are endless so, I think it's very important to try to turn young people - especially young people - on to the real music. There's so much great music that's been done before us right now, you don't have to go out and buy the newest release. There's 10,000 great records that you could find any day and it can just completely change your life 'cause that's what did it for me. It was just always finding new music and always wanting to find new music, whether it was pygmy music in Africa, or Tuvan throat singers, or a great horn player, or whatever it is.

BluesQuest.com: Just one more thing on the Duane and the Warren thing: How do you handle the Allman Brothers stuff? And what do you bring to that band?

Trucks: I think in a situation like that I have to approach it slightly differently because I don't want to go in there and try to change things. It's a situation where I feel when I'm with them, I have to kind of respect the history, musically, of what they've done, and still not try to photocopy what went on but just try to bring some fresh energy to it. So right before I started playing with them, I started listening to the early records a lot and just tried to get that vibe and bring that back. I think before Duane passed on he was definitely heading away from just the standard stuff. He was really starting to listen and widen his ears. So when I first got in that band and started playing with them, I started talking to Jaimoe about it. I felt like I could really stretch more than I originally thought 'cause I think that's where it was heading before he split. But it's an amazing experience to get to play with those guys. I definitely enjoy it and just feel honored to be able do it.

BluesQuest.com: Are you in open tuning? Do you open tune?

Trucks: Yeah.

BluesQuest.com: Okay. Duane tuned standard, right?

Trucks: He did both, I believe.

BluesQuest.com: And what does Warren do?

Trucks: Warren is standard.

BluesQuest.com: OK, and what tuning are you in?

Trucks: I always play in open E tunings so it's a little bit different than the standard but it's just a straight E chord, which is tuned from the bottom E, B, E, G#, B, E. And that's just kind of the way I've always learned to play slide. And I've kind of converted everything else there. So, it's just kind of a different approach. And for me, it really opens things up, both with and without the slide, because you're not stuck playing the same patterns as everyone else. You can't really watch a regular guitar player and cop the patterns because everything is kind of switched on you.

When I'm playing I'm usually thinking as a horn player or a vocalist, and the singer is kind of more of a gospel-tinged thing. And it's usually more single-stringed, and just one note, and just moving it around the neck rather than single-note lines everywhere. And the approach is usually more flowing and lyrical.

It's a lot more one-stringed; you can do so many things with it. You can listen to Mahalia Jackson and just try to cop licks, and it really becomes more of a vocal than a slide. And that's one of the reasons that I think the slide is appealing to me. You can really emulate the human voice. There's some masters of that: Avery Jan and a lot of guys that play in the church. And that's been a huge influence, lately, for me. And just simple little one-lined things. That's just kind of a really straight ahead blues approach. And then for me, when your mind set changes, it's just going from the real lyrical things to just single-note, just thinking more melodically and linear up and down the neck.

It becomes kind of seamless because with the tunes we play, you can approach it either way: straight-ahead blues or [jazzier]. Kofi, our flute and keyboard player, is a be-bop player. So, I'll take a blues solo and he'll completely take a straight-ahead solo. So you can really do so many things over it. Just kind of a little food for thought, these are just different ways to approach the same beast.

BluesQuest.com: Do you use A-positioned licks at all or are you just using all E-positioned stuff?

Trucks: I use both. One of the things I learned from Jimmy Herring, if you have chord changes or something that you wanna play over, he would actually draw it out. He would take a piece of paper and draw the whole neck, up to the 12th fret, and label each scale. And you can see it because if you're playing in the key of A minor or whatever it is, just by drawing out the scale you can find a thousand chords within it. Without ever leaving the scale you've got all the notes in the scale and all of the scales overlap. So, the A-position, E-position thing I think is just a real simple form of seeing that, when you're playing in standard tuning. But in open E it's really no different but instead of being in one place on the neck, the notes would just move up.

You can learn in any tuning. It's just essentially breaking it down to the notes that you're playing. But for me, just visualizing the tunes that you're playing and the scales that you're playing gives you so many possibilities. And with a slide, it's the same thing.

BluesQuest.com: Is there a way for you to explain how you might take a standard slide blues lick and make it jazzier?

Trucks: Kind of but you know, for me, when I'm playing, I don't really separate it very much because it's kind of essentially the same. You know when I listen to jazz players and blues players, one is just stretched out a little more. When you listen to T-Bone, and B.B., and Charlie Christian, it's essentially the same thing. They just kind of took different paths and they have different bands behind them. For me, it's kind of hard to separate it and just play a straight blues lick or play a jazz lick. I try to not think of them in the categories. Some people do approach it completely different, they'll say this is when I'm playing a blues, here it is. When I'm playing a jazz, here it is, but I kind of have a hard time splitting the two up.

BluesQuest.com: So you don't think to yourself, 'I'm playing more traditional, I'm being a little Delta here,' and all of a sudden switch to, 'I'm gonna jazz it up. I'm gonna throw in some ninths, and some 13ths'?

Trucks: Well, occasionally, you throw an odd note to change things up but essentially when we're playing, you just try to think of the most melodic thing or if you're thinking about a curve ball, when to throw an odd note in, you'll approach it that way. But it's usually not thinking in styles. And I'm lucky enough to have a band that is so versatile that it's just kind of seamless. It's not like Jazz 101, Blues 101, it's just music, and groove, and everyone's coming from different places, and hears where it beats. So, I think that's kind of our approach.

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BluesQuest.com: Can you explain some of your favorite curve balls?

Trucks: Well, I think real simple curve balls, I don't know what we're dealing with but if you're just playing a blues scale and just throwing in the odd 9th, or 13th, or anything can change it up instead of just a straight blues scale. You can just add an extra note here and there, just squeeze in a note that is a little odd instead of sticking with a blues scale. And you know that's kind of the approach of a lot of players but I don't hear too many people anymore that just kind of stick on the blues scales. It seems like most people have kind of moved a little past it.

BluesQuest.com: Primarily, do you tend to stay on one string a lot of the time, when you're playing slide lines?

Trucks: A lot of times, yeah. I mean it really depends on the mood, or the evening. It depends on what I'm listening to right before I go on, sometimes.

BluesQuest.com: So in any given song, regardless of whatever key the song is in, you might throw in any one of the twelve chromatic notes, at any point?

Trucks: Yeah. Obviously, if you're playing through changes you don't want to throw in something wrong, unless you are playing chromatically because then you could get away with just about anything. You hear a lot of jazz players just walk up to a note and squeeze everything in there. But, yeah, I think we give the music a lot of freedom that way, too. But there's definitely tunes that are in different modes that you try to stay free of certain notes just because it'll ruin the mood of it. And there's actually a tune that we play now, which comes from a Pakistani tune. It's a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan tune and they go in between like the major and minor modes.

And in their music, the rule is you can play certain notes ascending and certain notes descending. So, there's certain notes that are OK to play when you're playing up the scale but it changes when you're going down the scale. So, it's kind of whole unique way of thinking about things. So, they'll be playing, basically, over one chord and just droning but they'll be playing two or three different scales within it. But there's set rules in when you can play this note, and when you can play that note. So, it's pretty fascinating to check that out and the freedom they have within that is amazing because they're so on top of it, you never hear them slip. And if they do, it's so musical that it doesn't really matter.

So that's another avenue that I've been trying to explore lately: a lot of the Indian classical melodies. It's just based on a melody and there's different rules, such as the rule that says you can only introduce the major third after you've gone through this amount of notes. It's just pretty wild. It's a whole different approach. Rather than just saying, 'Here's a groove and now play over it.' And it's really kind of wild to watch the music kind of meld around these things, 'cause everyone's just kind of following the leader and if someone decides to throw in the major third, then it'll change from there. And then the melody will kind of just move along. That's a tune that we've been trying to throw in lately. It's definitely a challenge to try to think that way, especially when you're used to just playing out of modes and playing certain scales over certain tunes. When you start throwing two or three together, it's definitely a different approach.

BluesQuest.com: What's the name of this tune?

Trucks: I don't even know what it would be translated. It's a long name.

BluesQuest.com: So, besides that method of playing, do you think in terms of modes?

Trucks: Occasionally. There's certain tunes that you're kind of forced to think in terms of modes. A lot of the music that we play is very much based on like the kinds of blues sessions when they threw away playing through all the chord changes, and just stuck to like one or two modes, and just the sketches around the form. I think a lot of what we play is based around that, whether it's a blues tune or some of the jazz tunes we cover. Whether it's "Soul Water" or "Mr. PC," just playing out of a straight minor blues mode or whatever you choose.

BluesQuest.com: So, you'll stick with the minor blues through the whole song?

Trucks: A lot of the times, yeah. I mean if Kofi or Todd decide to change it underneath, then you change with them. And the beauty about playing with Kofi is he's just got so many alternate turnarounds and changes. Stuff will just be melding underneath you. And so, you just have to listen for the change 'cause it's pretty obvious when you hear a change from a minor to a dominant seven. You know that you can start adding certain notes and taking away certain notes.

BluesQuest.com: Do you have some favorite turnarounds that you find yourself using again and again?

Trucks: On a lot of the turnarounds, I just get with my bass player. As long as the underneath is tight, it can be anything. And I don't think we have many that are set. A lot of times we'll be doing a blues in B-flat, and Kofi will yell out, 'G, A, B, C' and then you know you're back on the one. So, the beauty of having a band that's willing to sit tight on stage and listen is it can be completely intimate, which is really a nice approach because if you have people that are willing to listen, then you can change it every night. And you can fall into some that are just great. There's so many jazz turnarounds. There's books and books of them. To show one or two is not even scratching the surface.

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