BlindJoe: The future Is Bright #BATeenCast

Good Morning everybody once again we're with Blind Joe. Blind Joe how are you doing this morning?

Doing fantastic and how are you all doing?

Excellent.

Jeff Thompson is with me. Morning Jeffrey.

Ah did we lose him?

Am I here again?

Ah Jeff your back.

[Laugh]

Alright. I am doing good. How are you guys doing?

Excellent Jeffrey.

Great man.

Well we're chatting with Blind Joe after his final performance on the NBC show The Voice.

Yeah I did a little song called ìMama's don't let your babies grow up to be nervous"

[Laugh]

Talk a little bit about how that went and how you feel about it.

Ah man, you know, I think vocally it was alright, differently not my best performance, I was a little under the weather I was having some throat issues and I was definitely nervous as always. I think a combination of being under the weather and the nerves really got to me. You know, I am not proud of the performance but I think Blake made the right decision. Yeah, I mean it's disappointing. You never want something like that to end. Goal for me was you know top ten. I was hoping, but it is what it is. I was pretty upset when it happened initially but things are really looking up for us man. Things are going great I really can't complain about anything you know. We're in a position right now we're able to do things independently and that's always a plus rather than be subjected to the machine, you know. There are ups and downs, pros and cons if you will to being with a label and I am happy where we are at. So life is good. We just started a Go Fundme account what we are doing is trying to raise money to record a professional CD. We've got Rick Beato on board who's an excellent producer. He's done some work with Shinedown and I believe he has done some work with Tim McGraw and Seven Dust just went platinum with Parmalee they are a newer country band. That's awesome now a days you don't go platinum. So he's a he's willing to work with us and we are going to be going out and working with him here in the next couple of months. Getting a real record together and the fans have been very very generous in helping us out with that. We've almost reached $5000 we got a $15000 goal and we are just about up to 5 grand right now and we have only had the Go Fundme up for a couple of days. So that's amazing to me.

[Inaudible]

Sorry Jeff go ahead.

No go ahead.

I am just wondering where folks can go to look at the Go Fundme account?

Sure, itís Gofundme.com/blindJoe. GOFUNDME.COM/BLINDJOE.

And they can contribute in any

In anything else, if you can give a dollar give a dollar, if you can give a thousand I will personally fly to your house and kiss you on the lips. [Laugh]

There's an incentive.

I'm on it, I'm on it.

Yes

I don't even have to fly man youíre in Minnesota.

[Laugh]

Youíre selling out. Youíre selling out up here in Grand Forks.

Way to go.

Grand Rapids. We ah we there are a couple different business. Grand Organics and the Deer River Clinic and Hospital and McBride Chiropractic all got behind us and heard that we were going to record a CD and decided they would do kind of a benefit thing for us. We put the show on sale and yeah we sold out man unbelievable, Unbelievable. We will be at the Saw Mill Inn Friday night which is what's the date? I don't even know what day it is anymore guys.

[Laugh]

Friday night

That's tomorrow.

Tomorrow night yeah. That would be what the 20, 20 something

No one said there was going to be math here.

Yeah I know right.

Right or dates.

So yeah, we are really looking forward to that and that's going to be nice all ages family friendly kind of thing. We are going to have some free food, of course, you know the bar will be there and we are going to do a 10% off a hotel room with your ticket stub. It's just going to be a great time. I am really looking forward to it.

Nice.

Tell us about what's in store for you out on the road over the next few months.

Oh Yeah, sure. So what we're doing ah after we do the show in Grand Rapids, we are going take Halloween and hang with the family and stuff, and then we are headed out on an east coast thing. [Cough] Excuse me. So that will start Wednesday in Baltimore Maryland and take us through New York and Virginia and hope a bunch of different places we are hitting it hard man. Um, there are some dates in the Carolina's and Ohio gosh I can't remember them all right now. I know December we're in Florida for quite a while and that will take us up through about the 20 of December. We will end the tour in New York Mill Minnesota and then we will take Christmas off. After Christmas we are going to do a New Yearís weekend run in North Dakota and then we'll ah after that fly down to Waco Texas for a private company party that we are going to be playing. Then we will go to record and after that we'll do ah a few more dates in North Dakota, Minnesota in February probably be back on the road after that so. So Yeah it's going to be great man, I mean this is the kind of thing you dream about happening to you, you know being able to just get out there and meet the fans. You know if I was still on The Voice I wouldn't be able to do this.

Absolutely right.

So cool to just be able to be playing these more intimate venues were people can come up and say hey and shake your hand, take a picture and.

So has the flurry of activity kind subsided a little bit since?

No.

Obviously not with your touring.

Not even remotely man. It's busy, busy, but I am loving it. I got to tell you guys this if this doesn't make the podcast I understand but, I signed two different pair of boobs in Wyoming last weekend. First two sets of boobs I have ever signed. Kind of felt like a rock star. I am not going to lie to you.

[Laugh]

Hey that's got to be right up front in our intro I think.

It wasn't too bad.

You told me you weren't going to tell him you signed my boobís man.

[Laugh]

Your chest

I left you out of it.

Now you let the cat out of the bag man so three pairs of boobs I signed last weekend.

[Laugh]

Or two pair and just one other boob.

[Laugh]

Yeah

Oh man

At least he did it in braille.

That's right

[Laugh]

I love it.

Oh that's dynamite.

Actually the road is just starting isn't it?

Yeah, yeah everything you know I mean that's what I am hoping. Man that's what Leann and I are hoping for that everything is just kicking off and I think with the release of the record which will be sometime next year. I think that will just make things move ahead that much faster. It's going to be great. I mean everybody super excited and you know I mean I got nothing but positive response from everyone you know just telling me to keep going man. Bright future it's going to be awesome, they can't wait for the record. So you know here's hoping that this doesn't die down for a long long time.

You're also creating jobs man because they are looking for Tech Specialist up in northern Minnesota now.

[Laugh]

Oh man.

You know when some doors close others ones open. All I can imaging when you're describing the road trip is John Belushi going "Road Trip"

[Laugh]

That's right.

Yeah

Load up the bus and that's got to be exciting.

Yeah, it's great man. I mean it's you know, it's like I said it's what you dream of. So yeah we are going to load down our 2013 Dodge Avenger roll out man.

Now Pete was asking me. Tell us about that new Fender amp.

Oh my gosh yeah, the thing is beautiful. It is a Fender acoustic SFX the newest model. It's nice man. I think, It's not a very ah I mean it's powerful but I think in total it's a couple hundred watts maybe 300 watts or 200 something like that, the sound that comes out of that thing is fantastic. So I use it for a stage monitor and it's got some great reverb built into it. It's got an XLR for the mic and of course a quarter inch for the guitar. Sounds like a dream.

What kind of guitar do you play?

I play a Taylor.

Oh nice.

What model?

I know you were going to ask me that.

Don't worry about it.

[Laugh]

I don't remember. It's not the most

You actually played that on The Voice on the Mama's song

Yes, yeah yeah I played it on if it hadn't been for love as well.

Nice

Yeah yeah

I was telling Jeff

(Inaudible)

There we go. I've got an old guild. I was telling Jeff that my son, I've got a 30year old son who learned everything I could teach him on the guitar in about 15 minutes.

[Laugh]

He is into electric and he plays a mean lead and he shreds. He picked up my old Guild. It's a 1970-1971 big Dred knot Guild acoustic, Beautiful guitar but it's been through hell. Also he just paid about 300 bucks and got the thing refurbished, it sounds like gold.

Beautiful.

Really nice

That's awesome.

Nothing like the good old acoustic.

Taylor were some of the best

Oh yeah, theyíre excellent guitars. They're not to terribly expensive either. You can get them pretty expensive, but I think the one that I had or the one that I have is gosh, I don't know how much I paid for it, Probably 1300 1500 something like that.

Yeah

Yeah it's a great, then Iíll tell you guys this [cough] excuse me. Speaking of guitars I got a guy that contacted on Facebook from North Dakota. He makes guitars different style guitars some out of barn wood, some out of cigar boxes, some out of cake pans and he was cool enough to make me a cake pan guitar, which is fricken awesome. This thing it's got a build in pre-amp and everything like that and it's a guitar made out of cake pans. Like he found a junk neck and redid the entire neck and then did the body out of cake pans, put all the electrics in it built the whole thing himself. It's beautiful his name is Beau Theige. Of course I can't remember how to spell his last name. But ah I think if you were Google North Dakota guitars Beau, BEAU is his name THEIGE I think. The guy is just phenomenal. And then get this I am checking my email a couple of days ago and this guy his name is Todd Taylor from Seattle emails me he is with Peavey guitars and he is actually building me an acoustic lap steel guitar.

Wow

He is going to send to me, which I am so looking forward to man. I started out on slide guitar when I was a kid. I had a Hawaiian steel and yeah I really can't wait to get my hands on that bad boy. I think my wife may divorce me.

[Laugh]

No doubt.

But it's going to be fun.

You need to find somebody who can sound proof some of those rooms.

Yeah right. In the apartment we live in there's ah there's really no way to do it.

No.

Speaking of guitars. I was up in Aiken Minnesota

Yeah

Is it Aiken no McGregor, Rabbit Lake? I don't know if you know that area.

I am not really familiar, I know Aiken.

Yeah I was up in Aiken Minnesota and I was this was back when I had some sight and I was riding my bike around and there was a sale. I went up to it, the guy saidî I accidently left the sale out there from last monthî. It's been sitting there for a month. I went up there and he said "Well I have an old guitar in the house" he came out he had a Kalamazoo a 1937 Kalamazoo.

Oh my Gosh.

Arch top and it was cracked, a fret missing, a nut missing so I gave him 10 bucks for it.

What?

I spent down here at Crazy Jim's in Anoka I spent about 370 bucks and had it all redone. It's a, has a V neck, it looks exactly something like the old boys would play way back.

Oh man.

Weíre talking crossroads, you know.

[Moan]

I kind of hate you right now Jeff.

[Laugh]

Something that Robert Johnson would be playing.

Yeah man.

When he walked out with that I just said don't smile, don't be excited,

Yeah exactly, just like.

Negotiate. Talk him down a little bit.

Yeah itís all dirty.

[Laugh]

So Joe on the album what do you envision coming out in the album as far as content and theme and that kind of thing?

Well we're going to keep it family friendly. If you have heard my music you know it's a lot of bar songs and stuff like that and obvious with The Voice we reached a much broader audience and with doing the school assemblies that I am doing and stuff. You know we need to cater a little be more to the family friendly side of things. But it will still have that edge. I made it very clear to Rick and he's differently on broad that we are still keeping that rebel edge and the plan is to cut "If it hadn't been for love" and ìOld time rock and roll" we may also do " Mama's don't let you babies grow up to be cowboys" I haven't decided on that yet. That's been actually getting a lot of attention which I really didn't expect.

Through iTunes?

No not on iTunes but just on Facebook and Twitter and everything in general. People have been Tweeting me and sending me massages and stuff saying ìHey I rea...