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Joe Bonamassa is a twenty-first century phenomenon, provoking much discussion about his
skills and motivation. He is enormously prolific both in playing gigs and in producing the
work of others and love him or hate him, he has attracted a new audience to blues music. The
following interview was put together by journalist, Thomas Steinberg who thought of the
questions, but Joe interviewed himself! An assistant to Joe started off asking the questions
and recording the answers but Joe took over and did it himself. Here is the result, edited by

Ian McKenzie.

When you look at the last 15 months in your
mind's eye, what has moved and driven you the
most?

JB: I learned two things since we were kind of put
into semi-retirement 15 months ago. As a musician
I’ve learned that I’m not a guitar player, I’m not a
singer, I’m not a songwriter, I’m an entertainer!
Because what I do requires an audience. I don’t sit at
home and play all day. I don’t sit at home and make

videos for social media. To me: I require a live
audience and I feel like I’m best if I have a live
audience! You take the live audience away, my
whole world kinda topples down like a house of
cards. What I’ve learned, what’s moved me and

driven me the most in the last year, is the fact we’ve
been able to raise over $600,000 for bands and
musicians that had been really affected by the
shutdown. And we’ve given away, you know, all of
that money and we’re still raisin’ money. And that’s
really driven me. The philanthropy has really driven
me and it gave me a new passion. And so far, you

know, “Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation“ raised over 1.5 million dollars for music and schools
and now are fuelling the musician’s programme, which both are very, very worthwhile causes.

Last year you released the very successful album "Royal Tea." In Germany it made it into the
top 5 of the album charts. What was it about the reactions to "Royal Tea" that amazed you the
most and perhaps also pleased you a little?

JB: I was very happy that people understood the concept of “Royal Tea“. I was very happy [about]
the fact that we went to London, [and] recorded at Abbey Road. Recording in the UK made it very
English sounding record and people got it. It would have disappointed me if we went over there and
we did it twice and people were to go: “Ooh, it sounds like a Americana record”. No, no, it was
really ‘Made In England’ and for that reason has all that culture and history of the studio. And living
in the town kinda just permeated into the music.

Now you are back with the brand new album "Time Clocks," an extremely multi-layered work
that on the one hand points back to your past, but on the other hand also points towards the