Seventeen years after scoring
the Grammy Award winning, harmonica laced Billboard Top Ten
breakthrough hit that came to
define pop music in the mid-90s,
Blues Traveler are still finding
unique ways to ensure that they
don’t give their legion of worldwide fans the “Run-Around.” On
their instantly infectious, musically expansive 11th studio album
and 429 Records/SLG debut, Suzie
Cracks The Whip, they remain creatively focused while dramatically
expanding their musical horizons
upon celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band.
John Popper (vocals, harmonica),
Chan Kinchla (guitars), Tad Kinchla
(bass), Ben Wilson (keyboards) and Brendan
Hill (drums, percussion) had a blast working for the first time ever with a handful of
dynamic outside songwriting collaborators
and the powerhouse production team of
Sam Hollander and Dave “Sluggo” Katz, aka
S*A*M and Sluggo–who have worked their
studio magic for everyone from rap rock
band Gym Class Heroes to pop princess Katy
Perry.
Blues Traveler trademark sound was electrifying fans around the world, to the tune
of approximately 30 million people and upwards of 6,000 live shows over the band’s 25
year history. Beyond the commercial success of their recordings, which have sold in
excess of 13 million combined units worldwide, Blues Traveler has long been known
for the extensive use of segues, multiple
song mash-ups and extensive instrumental
INSIGHT
jams in their live performances.
Blues Traveler’s road to posterity moved
from the burbs of Jersey to NYC in the late
’80s, where they became part of a jam-band
scene and shared bills with groups like Spin
Doctors and Phish, founding the Horde festival and pioneering the subsequent movement of neo-hippie jam music. Represented
early on by Bill Graham and son David, Blues
Traveler’s live reputation led to a deal with
A&M Records; their 1990 self-titled debut
eventually going gold simultaneously with
the album Four. While putting out a string of
popular albums in the 90s, the band endured
its share of mettle-testing adversity, from
Popper’s near fatal motorcycle accident (he
recorded and toured while in a wheelchair
for two years) and the tragic loss in 1999 of
founding bassist Bobby Sheehan at the age
of 31. True to its name, the band traveled on,
with Tad Kinchla on bass and Ben Wilson on
March 2015