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Up to that point it seemed like they were jamming. Right there, I knew I wanted to go to school and
learn about what this music talk was. Because, if you can't communicate with these other musi-

cians, you can never get to really making the music.
LL: Let’s talk about your latest release Raising Cain. Would you tell us about your vision and
concept for the album?

CC: I was just writing tunes that I felt would be good to play with my particular band. I was trying
to write tunes that would be a good vehicle for what they do, live. I hadn't made a record that they
had been on in a few records so I wanted to have great tunes that would be fun for us to play and
would really show all the things they do all the time musically. I felt that the topics should just be
universal things in day-to-day life that everybody can kind of immediately understand. That's about
as planned out as I went with that. That's the only plan I really had. Then as I started writing the

tunes, they seemed to dictate what would come next. I just followed that.
LL: Would you tell us about your guitars and rig you play on the album?

CC: It's the same equipment I use when I play live. It's a Music Man RD 112 from the 70's. It's half
solid state and half tubes, 50 watts. The only thing I did to make it different is I put an EV speaker
in there instead of the stock one. I've been
playing that amp every gig since 1987. My
guitar is a 1980's 335 that Herb Ellis and
Terry Holmes had Gibson send me in

1989. I changed the pickups in it because
it wasn't a guitar for sale it was like a
printed stamp Not for Resale on it. The
pickups that were in it were microphones
and you could talk into them. So, this
guy’s wife smashed his 335 to bits and I

bought the guts from that guitar at a local
music store. Then the guitar was awe-
some. It went with that amplifier, they
paired up really well together. I never had
to think about another amplifier since my
first record in 1987. Everybody else seems

to buy a new amp every three years or so
and I feel very lucky that that's still my
stuff.

LL: You wrote all 12 tracks on the
album. Can you tell us which one or two
you like the best, and why?

CC: I think ‘Hush Money’ and ‘I Believe I
Got Off Cheap’ because I never wrote

tunes with any kind of humour in there,
before. I like that, a lot, about those tunes.
I was thinking of Johnny Guitar Watson
when I wrote ‘Hush Money’, and I was