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and did a lot of touring around North America and Europe with Mike, throughout the 90s and kind
of an interesting aside to that is in the last few years since Lee passed away, Mike and I have
become more acquainted and have gotten to be friends and Mike and I have played some shows
together here and there, so that's been a lot of fun.

BiTS: Good, that's terrific. Tell me something about how Moreland and Arbuckle got going.

DA: Well, when I was playing locally here early on, my original band which was called Morning
After and was with several dudes who I'd gone to high school with or I knew from around the area,
was kind of fairly standard blues-rock, and we played some traditional stuff, but we played a lot of
the kind of blues-rock stuff that you hear like Hendrix and Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan and
things like that. I always had a really strong interest in the more traditional vibe. I really loved

Delta blues and the really early Chicago blues stuff and started to really get into the North
Mississippi hill country blues sound, and I really wanted to play more of that and so when Aaron
and I's paths originally crossed, he was doing that. He was playing acoustic more, kind of really
heavy-handed Mississippi blues style stuff and so we had a kinship over wanting to gravitate
Eddie Mac Scoundrels at the Blues Club
towards that sort of music, and so that was kind of what brought us together and was the basis for
our musical relationship.

BiTS: You were together, I think, for about 15 years, is that right?

DA: We were. We started playing together in 2002, and then the band parted in 2017.

BiTS: You travelled all over the world, playing and singing and
performing, was there any outstanding gig that had
something that you remember as being one of those cases
where you're standing on the stage playing or singing

and you think what on Earth am I doing here, this is
wonderful?

DA: I think I've had a lot of those moments over the
years. I've been lucky enough, like you said with M&A,
when I say M&A, I mean Moreland and Arbuckle, we
got to do a lot. We toured all over North America and

Europe, the UK, Australia. We even went and played for
the troops in the Middle East at one point back in 2008. I
think there were a lot of those moments. I think maybe one of
the biggest ones was we played the Suwałki Blues Festival in
Poland, one year, and something like 15,000 people came to that festival, and so that was definitely

one of the bigger moments and the crowd was going nuts, and I remember that as being one of the
wow moments, you know [laughing]. Crazy, we're here, you know. I can think of plenty of others
over the years, but I'm lucky to get to do what I do, and we had a lot of great shows with that band
and a lot of great experiences over the years.

BiTS: But a few years ago, Aaron decided that he was going to spend more time with his family, is
what they usually say these days. How difficult was it to reform a band?