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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]T[/dropcap]he true success of a rock band is measured by decades of experience in musical creation and performances—but a band can only truly be honored when it manages to both innovate and maintain its core sound over the course of a long career. Blues Traveler, for instance, didn’t win a multi-platinum Grammy Award for lack of hard work—its strides in the blues rock genre have transformed the category into the scene that you see today. Many believe that the “jam band” scene of the 1990s blossomed because of Blues Traveler. Others praise its unique approach to improvisation during live shows or uniquely segueing one song to the next. But everyone can agree that Blues Traveler has approached its Southern rock sound in a way that few can emulate.

Blues Traveler, like many great rock bands, began as a simple garage band made of up high school students John Popper, Brendan Hill, Chan Kinchala and Bobby Sheenan living in New Jersey in the mid-1980s. However, it wasn’t until the group moved into a shared apartment in New York City following graduation that Blues Traveler began to gain notoriety at local venues. Soon enough, the band signed to its very first record label, and began touring the East coast following the release of its first self-titled album. Later on, following the group’s founding of the H.O.R.D.E. festival and its release of the next album, four, famous tunes such as “Run-Around” and “Hook” were conceived.

One could say that the rest is history, but Blues Traveler’s rise to mainstream success was only the beginning. The band’s movement across the blues rock board has been steadily climbing, leading up to its newest album release, Blow Up the Moon, early last year. CULTURE caught up with the band’s drummer, Brendan Hill, at a tour-stop in Minneapolis to discuss the current progress and future of Blues Traveler’s music, what he thinks about medical cannabis, and his own personal venture into the cannabis industry.

 

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Blues Traveler released its 12th studio album, Blow Up the Moon, in April and will celebrate its 30th anniversary in a couple of years. What are the secrets of this rare longevity?

We’ve been through pretty much everything together and I think we’ve stayed friends, which is a very important part of making music together. You want to be able to trust the other people you’re playing with.

This latest record reflects even a new approach to that trust, in which we’ve brought outside people [including 3OH!3, Plain White T’s, The Dirty Heads and Thompson Square] in to collaborate . . . I think it’s one of the most innovative [albums] for us, in our career, just because it spans so many different styles, musically.

 

“My prediction is, a few years from now, you’re going to see there’s going to be a huge artistic blossoming from those places like Washington, Oregon and Alaska because these artists and people that have been hiding or not using [cannabis] openly being able to say ‘this is my artwork that was inspired when I was able to consume legally.’”

 

Blues Traveler was associated with the 1990s jam band scene, which was somewhat synonymous with cannabis use. How have you seen attitudes to cannabis shift over the course of your music career?

It was just part and parcel of being in the scene back in the day. We were in the New York club scene and it was very prevalent. Most of the groups that we played with in the early days were jam band music that we all listened to–Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, even The Beatles–and all those groups sort of had that same acceptance of cannabis and it was just kind of part of the culture. So I think it hasn’t really changed that much from my perspective!

I think we’re seeing it become more mainstream. I love the shift that I have seen [away] from the ecstasy and cocaine which was kind of in my lifetime, in the ‘90s, and heroine and those kinds of much harder substances that were highly addictive and destroyed peoples’ lives.

My prediction is, a few years from now, you’re going to see there’s going to be a huge artistic blossoming from those places like Washington, Oregon and Alaska because these artists and people that have been hiding or not using [cannabis] openly being able to say “this is my artwork that was inspired when I was able to consume legally.”

I think it’s just a wonderful time to be in the forefront of this industry and it’s a great opportunity to do some good as well as to be a part of this exciting venture.

 

You’ve been a professional musician for the great majority of your adult life. Is your dispensary, Paper & Leaf, your first business venture outside of the music industry?

I’ve done production, producing of records and I’ve done a lot of [recording] engineering. I’ve been in other music groups. But outside of the music industry, yes.

[my partner had] never done anything like this before either . . . and we had a shared vision, so I think for us both this was a really exciting adventure to do but we kind of needed somebody else to bounce ideas off of that we kind of spoke the same language with.

 

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“There are so many reasons why cannabis should be legal recreationally for people over 21.”

 

Washington is one of only four U.S. states where recreational cannabis has been legalized. How does so-called “pot tourism” factor into the Paper & Leaf business model?

We’ve seen . . . people coming in from other states and even from Canada and other countries who are interested in just seeing what [cannabis] looks like. I think before Washington and Colorado legalized that Amsterdam was possibly the only place where you could actually go into a store and look at a menu and order something and feel like you weren’t doing something wrong.

It’s a really good thing for people to see that the stores can be done in a way which is very friendly, very artistically done and very welcoming, so when they go back to their home state they’ll be more likely to encourage their friends and family to vote in the positive for initiatives that might come on the ballots in the future.

 

“[Cannabis] should be accessible by everybody who needs it and then I think the recreational part is something that will follow hopefully quicker after that . . .”

 

How have the (non-regulated) medical and (regulated) recreational cannabis industries coexisted in Washington since the state’s first recreational licenses were issued last July? And how could the overhaul of Initiative 502 earlier this year help to effectively merge the two?

It’s been a fine line. There have been some excellent dispensaries that have been open for years and years and perhaps started on the underground but had been serving and doing everything correctly–basically serving as a co-op and a collective garden for medical patients that really do need the product.

I think the dispensaries that have followed the rules and have paid their taxes and had business licenses, I think with Initiative 5052, these will be the first ones to actually receive the next set of licenses . . . And I think that’s a really great way to do it. I think the state’s doing it basically merit-wise, which I think is a really good next phase.

I think there’s going to be quite a few more medicinal/recreational stores opening up–it could be in the hundreds, maybe even the thousands, but I do see that there is a big move for the medicinal market to be kind of rolled into the recreational, because now it’s kind of this slightly grey line. I think the state’s just saying that if you kind of lump it all together and you’re able to tax the medicinal customers slightly less but increase the amount that they can buy it’s a little more easily governed. That will also dissuade the black market and the other various elements which have given cannabis a bad name.

 

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Is the integration of medical and recreational going to become the new model for legal access to cannabis nationwide?

I believe that there are many states now that have medicinal marijuana on their ballots and the way Washington did it and Colorado was perhaps different than other states are going to do. I think recreational first and then kind of putting the medicinal into the recreational was just how it happened in Washington, but in states like Michigan, I think even Florida and New York State have medicinal initiatives coming up on the ballot [and] actually it might be better to start that way because those are the people that really kind of feel like they’re being persecuted for something which they believe is medicine, which I think is very accurate.

[Cannabis] should be accessible by everybody who needs it and then I think the recreational part is something that will follow hopefully quicker after that, because people will see that it’s not, in my opinion, as dangerous as alcohol—you can’t overdose on it. There are so many reasons why cannabis should be legal recreationally for people over 21.

 

It’s a really good thing for people to see that the stores can be done in a way which is very friendly, very artistically done and very welcoming, so when they go back to their home state they’ll be more likely to encourage their friends and family to vote in the positive for initiatives that might come on the ballots in the future.”

 

What could be the social and medical ramifications of such a proliferation of legalized recreational cannabis?

So many people are clamoring for it–there’s got to be a reason why. Let’s start studying [cannabis] and I think that will kind of force the hand of the federal government to de-schedule it as a Schedule III, I’m hoping, so doctors and pharmacists and chemists can actually start doing the research.

There’s so many unofficial studies about the effects of [cannabis on] chemotherapy, easing stomach pain and increasing appetite; and glaucoma, reducing stress on the backs of the eyes; to muscle aches . . . I think it would be so wonderful if we could finally say, OK, this does help treat X.

It just baffles me that we’re not doing research on a plant which seems like it has so many wonderful medicinal benefits and we need to change this–declassify it so that the researchers can actually start looking at this and not fear prosecution.

 

Finally, what does the near future hold for you–both with Blues Traveler and Paper & Leaf?

Very busy, I think! I’m a player, so I love being on stage, I love playing my instrument, I love recording–I love those aspects, which I don’t think will ever go away. There’s a kind of adrenaline you get when you’re performing on stage–it’s hard to replace that with anything else, so I think music will always be a part of my life and Blues Traveler is a wonderful thing that I helped to create and so it’s always going to be a part of my life.

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