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BiTS: Now I gather that you have recently gone back to the Alligator label, but they were the first
company you signed up with. Is that true, or am I mistaken?

TE: Well, I have been with two other record labels prior to that - a very small blues and jazz label

named Southland Records. That was the very first one when I was in a band called The Heartfixers
and then after that, I was with Landslide records for three albums in The Heartfixers and then in
1988, 34 years ago, I got with Alligator Records, and I’ve been with Alligator most of that time
although I have left to do stuff with other labels as well.

BiTS: When you were touring the world when you first became professional, is there some

outstanding gig that you can remember where you
were standing on a stage somewhere in the world
and you thought, my God, what on Earth am I doing
here?

TE: Oh yes. All the times that we’ve opened for
artists that were heroes of mine and then I’d be the

opening act and then next thing you know they
would call me up onto the stage to play. Some of
those people were Albert Collins and Buddy Guy
and Otis Rush, Son Seals and Koko Taylor, James
Cotton and rock bands too like Allman Brothers or
Gov't Mule or Tedeschi Trucks.

BiTS: That’s a wonderful list of names you’ve just
given me there. It’s always one of the sadnesses of
my life I never got to see Albert Collins play live.

TE: He was a very nice man. He was very nice to me as well. We kept in touch.

BiTS: I want to talk to you about your latest record but let’s talk first of all about “Ice Cream in
Hell”. First of all, why the title?

TE: The one before the new one. Those are two things that don’t really exist together, ice cream in
hell, so it’s kind of like a saying, almost like grateful dead. Obviously, if you’re dead [chuckles]
you’re not going to be grateful. ‘Ice Cream in Hell’, so the singer says we’ll get back together when
they serve ice cream in hell, which means it’s never going to happen. That was the title song of that
album which we did prior to the new one and that album came out in, I think, 2020.

BiTS: I gather that when you were out promoting the album, you were doing that when COVID hit

and you got badly caught some distance away from home.

TE: Oh yes, and it was a bad situation, but we had to come home and I’ve been home ever since and
I’m going to start again soon.

BiTS: When you were at home you spent a lot of time, I think, writing music. I read somewhere
that you wrote in lockdown 200 songs. Is that right?

TE: Yes, I have. I came back from Ice Cream in Hell tour and I was very discouraged because all the

tour went away and I had all this time and I didn’t lose my playing abilities, so I designated every
morning from seven or eight in the morning until noon as the time I would write songs and I came