Eric Schenkman, best known as the guitarist for the band the Spin Doctors, is releasing his third solo album, Who Shot John?, on Friday, January 11th. Digital downloads can be purchased at this link or from his website EricSchenkman.com.

I had the chance to sit down with Eric before his show at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, N.Y. and discuss his new album, his 30+ year music career, and a special connection he shares with his father and grandfather that few music legends can claim.

KG: Congratulations on your third solo album, Who Shot John? The name of the album is an idiom; could you explain the title and how it applies to your new music?

ES: Yes. It's a colloquialism. It's an old saying; it means kind of like “cut the bullshit,” “let's just cut to the chase,” maybe is a better way to say it. I heard about it down South when I was working with the Spin Doctors in the early ‘90s. I think it might have come from Jim Dickinson—who interestingly enough, his son is playing drums with me tonight. It's just an old saying. I think he said, “Don't give me none of that ‘Who shot John stuff.’” So I had that phrase in my head and I was playing with a zydeco band, with this guy from Lafayette years ago, and I came up with that line and the music and then it set in my head for about 25 years. Then this year, it just kind of popped out and a friend of mine said, “Who's John?,” and I was like, “I don't know,” and I was working with Cody, and he was like, “My old man used to say that,” and so it's sort of an interesting little narrative about an old saying.

KG: Is this a recurring theme throughout your album?

ES: Well, not really, but it's a sign of the times, right—which is another tune actually on it. All of the songs somehow relate to now, so yeah, there's a lot of crap I'd like to try to cut through. It's hard to understand what's going on without trying to cut through some crap somewhere, and the politics is so incredibly bizarre, so, it's a bit thematic. It's sort of a combination of, you know, inward and outward—inner conflict and outer conflict—but with a peaceful sense of liking the world I live in and wanting it to at least work for people.

KG: How would you describe the sound of your music?

ES: It's like blues/funk/soul in the rock idiom—any combination of those four words. It is blues-based music—guitar blues-based music—but funk and pop and soul songs. The blues kind of exists in all those music for me, so I just gravitate towards anything that I can kind of put together that I can feel the blues in, but try to push the boundaries in different directions. You know, so I have a song that's kind of like a funk/soul song, but it's very bluesy. They're all like that; there's like this sort of folk song, but it's got a lot of blues in it too. So that's the common thread—a blues vein if you want to think about it that way.

KG: Is there a song on your album that is most personal to you?

ES: There's a bunch of them. “Only A Fool” is the most personal song to me. They all are, but that one is… it's hard for me to write a complete lyric, and for lack of a better explanation, I actually finished that lyric. So it's actually probably about as specific as I can get with the truth, so yeah, it's personal to me. It's just another relationship song—trying to figure out how to get through a relationship with somebody—you think it’s great and you hit a couple of snags and then typically you sing a song about it because you can't figure out what else to do, you know, if you’re me.

KG: How does this album differ from your previous two solo albums?

ES: Oh, massively. The one before was really a jazz record—it was more of an experiment actually—so it's completely different from that because there are no trombones on it at all, and the one before that has more in common—the Chrysalids record, it was called Make A Sound—but it's not nearly as sort of focused. I'm really happy with this record, it really kind of just says who I am, where I'm coming from at this moment, whereas those other two, one I was trying to really discover this stuff about music and try to push my boundaries, then the one before that was more just trying to make what I thought was a record. This is actually a record that's really more like, it's playing me, you know?

KG: You really got to express yourself.

ES: Yeah, it's a pure expression. It's about as pure of an expression of me that there is out there, and I'm happy with it.

KG: You are a songwriter, singer, and guitarist. What do you consider yourself first?

ES: Guitarist, because I've been playing the guitar for my whole life and I've only been singing for about half my life, but I’d say, if you asked me what I like to do the most, I'd say sing. It just makes me happy; it really is a way to get out of yourself. The guitar sometimes like leads you into yourself, but singing I find is just absolutely an outward expression, it’s like pure joy—no matter what mood you're dealing with—and people relate to it more immediately. It's just kind of a source of happiness really for me at this point. I’m like, you know, an aspiring singer.

KG: And what about songwriting?

ES: Songwriting is something that I just kind of do. I am really about exploring my skill set, singing and playing the guitar, but also really kind of like waiting around and working slowly. I know a lot of songwriters that will just instantly write a song or, it's like a factory or something, and I absolutely do not work like that. I'll get an idea in my head and it might just sit for a long, long time and bother me. So a lot of times, it's frankly a hassle to do this, because you get these ideas that are frustrating—you don't feel like you can really finish them properly—so if I wait, and I'm careful, I can turn out a song. This is how it works for me. I kind of try to listen to where the ideas are going. It’s very satisfying.

KG: This year marks Spin Doctors’ 30th anniversary. 30 years—what are your thoughts on that?

ES: Um, I’m an old guy, not that old, but you know. It's really wonderful, actually. We've been playing together for 30 years and we still work regularly, and the band actually sounds better than ever. We're doing a 30th anniversary at the Brooklyn Bowl on November 8th and we're gonna actually get to play a whole night, which we don't normally get to do. In the last sort of five years, we sort of stick to a 90-minute set; we don't always play the same set. It's a thing about our band, we rarely play the same thing exactly the same, but it keeps it interesting. We rarely play club shows like that anymore and I hope that next year we do more of this. We'll do another record in the spring, probably and so, I hope we get back around to clubs. We'll probably play a whole lot more next year and the year after, and year after. So I'm excited about the 30th, definitely. Hopefully, there's more Brooklyn Bowls in the future because we can play for longer. I’m a bit selfish like that. I’d rather play 20 songs than 10 songs, like, I'm not the kind of guy that's gonna get off stage; I'll stay.

KG: Yeah, I heard that you love playing live.

ES: I do, yeah. It's not very good for your ears necessarily, but you know this is what we do. It's our job. We make music. And actually after having a hit like the Kryptonite record you have to actually remind yourself that that's what your job is. Your job is not making money. You don't make money when you do this; you make music. Sometimes music makes money, but you really need to have a passion for it. I'm stuck in it, man; I'm not gonna do anything else.

KG: Well, you’re doing so good with it; why change now? Did you guys ever think you'd last this long?

ES: No, I don't think so, but we're happy about it. You know, you just don't expect it to last that long. We were just kids in New York, half of us living in the same apartment, writing the songs and stuff. Yeah, but it's great. It's great that it's still going.

KG: You have a weekly residency where you live in Toronto, right?

ES: I do. Yeah. I moved to Toronto to take care of my mom; she’s old and has dementia. I got a Wednesday gig; I’ve been doing it for almost two years. A lot of the songs in this new record of mine I kind of worked out on that gig in a live environment so they've been explored a bit already before they were recorded—which I find is really good for songs. I'll give you an example, “Two Princes” was the second recording of “Two Princes.” When we recorded it once it was a lot faster and when we recorded it for the Kryptonite record, about a year later, it was actually our A&R guy, he said, “Slow it down,” and so we slowed it down and it's like magic. So sometimes with a little bit of time, if you just relax long enough to take a little time you can maybe take a second look at the thing you're looking at and that's really when you can kind of like craft it just a little bit; make it so you're not trying to rush it out the door. So, “Two Princes” is a great example.

KG: “Two Princes” is one of my favorite Spin Doctors’ songs.

ES: It’s one of my favorites too. “Two Princes” and “Jimmy Olsen” are my two favorites. I’m actually going to do a little series on YouTube kind of detailing how those guitar parts were played because I don't think I've ever seen it online, and now you can get the tracks and pull them apart. So I'm going to do that. I’ve got all sorts of plans.

KG: Blues music has really influenced you, who has been your favorite blues artists?

ES: All of them. I think probably the Delta guys like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson—the very early blues guys—because they traveled around with their guitar and played for people that danced and carried on all night. I've been doing that for a couple years now and the Spins did that early on too; we were very club active and we did a lot of playing all night long. In New York, we’d play three sets in a night, and often if you play three sets the third set is really very good; you get really loose and that's really when you discover stuff. It's great to make a living, it's great to do this, but it's those little things around the edges where you can become a better musician and you can actually experiment with it, play with it, and be creative with it, and tell stories with it, and there's a lot of stories on this record.

There's lots of stuff on my new record for everybody. It's coming from a very strong blues place, and it's not blues for the faint of heart either; it's hard, it's real. You got a lot of different perspectives on my take on the blues. Blues is American music, it's historical music, and it's our music; it's part of our legacy as a country, as a community, so this is a really good exploration of that.

KG: What was your favorite part of making this record?

ES: Traveling around. I went to Newark and recorded with my drummer friend, Van, and I went down to Mississippi and I worked with Cody, and then back up to Canada to work with Shawn, we produced the thing together and drove back and forth between Kitchener and Toronto—which is like a couple hour drive either way—and then I did a lot of singing up in Northern Ontario. It took me about 10 months to make this record because, as I said, it's sort of like an incubator. I traveled around and took my time; that was what was really fun about making it.

KG: What are some of your favorite memories from your 30+ year career?

ES: Well, Woodstock ‘94 was really fun to play. We played a huge festival in England in ‘94 also called Glastonbury, and we were like second last on the bill at night. There was a lot of people there, probably 80,000, or something like that. We played Saturday Night Live; that was a huge thrill—every time I did TV with the Spin Doctors was an amazing thrill. We played Carnegie Hall with Roger Daltrey—that was also really major—and I partied with John McEnroe… things like that. Definitely the concerts though, you can tell from my answer that my favorite things are all performances.

KG: You are a true performer.

ES: Yeah, it's just a joy for me. My dad was a musician, and his dad was a musician, and all three of us played at Carnegie Hall at least once.

KG: Oh, that's incredible!

ES: Yeah, my grandfather was a violist and a conductor. He conducted the Richmond Symphony, and my dad was a concert cellist. He was the first cello in Toronto, which is why I ended up living there.

KG: All string instruments…

ES: All string instruments, yeah, they were horrified when I picked up a guitar. We’re supposed to play violin in that family, but we all played the same venue. I just considered that I could do this for my lifetime because that's what my parents do, and that's what my grandpa did.

KG: So they were great influences on you. So, are you self-taught?

ES: I went to, you know, the school of hard knocks. I taught myself up until I was about 15; I read everything I could possibly read, I started studying with people, and then eventually I ended up in New York. Kind of quite by mistake, I ended up getting a music degree in jazz and contemporary music from the Mannes School of Music, which wasn't really something I did on purpose. I happened to meet a guy who was putting together a program and I happened to say, you know, “Can I be in that?” He said, “Yes,” and I ended up with a music degree because if you just tell me that I can learn a bunch of stuff about music in a really great sort of environment like that, I'm going to go for it.

KG: So do you play other instruments as well?

ES: Guitar, sing, bass… I'm interested in all of them really, except for the flute. I don't really like the flute.

KG: I actually played the flute. (laughs)

ES: My mother used to teach the flute, that's why I don't like it.

KG: Because you heard it all the time?

ES: Yeah, because she taught it on Saturday mornings, it's like, you wake up in the morning… you know?

KG: Oh, that's funny. Well, I'm sure your father and grandfather were really proud of you.

ES: Yeah, they were. It was sort of fun to talk shop with your old man. It's kind of a cool thing. Yeah, it was good. We got on well about it.

KG: Is there anything else you’d like to add about your new record or what you're working on?

ES: We're trying to advance the title track, “Who Shot John?” into the orbit right now for people to listen to for the next couple of months until it comes out. It's going to be available on orange vinyl, and CD, and digital. I kind of thought the orange vinyl was kind of appropriate, because the last song on the record is called “Agent Orange Blues” and it's just kind of like a punk/blues song about my take on what it's like turning on CNN and sort of being in the world right now, today. It's also an interesting song because it was sort of written really in the very take that you're listening to. So, I just like to say that music can be very useful in figuring out what the environment is that you're living in. This record is, for me, since Kryptonite, it's the record that really speaks to that the most. I really like it—and I'm a pretty harsh critic of my own stuff—so I would encourage anybody to check it out.