Page 19 - BiTS_05_MAY_2023

JO: Well, what it is, I'd been playing gigs in Scandinavia. I've been four times and I love all them
old guitar instrumentals. They are some of the first things I learned when I started, and we just
decided to record – it was recorded in Sweden – we just decided to record some instrumentals
and it became this new thing.

BiTS: How did you select the tunes that you play on the album?
JO: Well it's just stuff that I've done live, you know, for a long time, or just things that we've done
live and stuff that I like other people doing and thought, oh, we’ll have a go at that.

BiTS: So favourites then really.

JO: Yes, there's a great Welsh guitar player called Mickey Gee and he used to do ‘Cannonball
Rag’, so I wanted to do ‘Cannonball Rag’, you know.

BiTS: Do you have a favourite on the album?

JO: Favourite track on the album is probably ‘Cannonball Rag’ because there's a really wonderful
guitar player called Redd Volkaert, and he played guitar on it with me and he's one of my
favourites and it was a real honour to have him, Bill Kirchen, Billy Bremner, Geraint Watkins
play on the record and a great Swedish guitar player called Michael Skandov, and he played some
stuff with ABBA, believe it or not.

BiTS: Oh, really? That's very
unusual.

JO: But he's a great guitar player
and he's into all the Shadows stuff
and he played on ‘Apache’, Michael
did. Nice guy.

BiTS: What are your plans to
market the album? Are you touring
with it or what?

JO: Well, we play all the time, I
mean we average about 300 gigs a
Geraint Watkins year in the UK, Europe and we've
played in America and my main
outlet is selling the record on gigs
you know. That's my main thing with it like.

BiTS: So give me some idea of where you'll be playing over say the next two or three months.

JO: Well, we've got 32 gigs in April.

BiTS: Wow!

JO: In England, Wales, Scotland. I've done Sweden for this year. We did Sweden and Norway in
January, February. Going to the States again in September. We've booked on all the festivals
Colne, Upton, Gloucester, Old Bush Blues Festival. We’ve got loads of festivals, Tenby Blues
Festival, Stockton Blues Festival Bosworth Blues Festival, plus pubs and clubs as well.

BiTS: Do you book all these gigs yourself? Have you got management or is it you?

JO: I do everything myself.

BiTS: Wow, that's a lot of hard work.