"It's a great love song," says Thomas of "Fooled Around and Fell In Love," "to this day, it's one of those songs where I get people that come up to me saying 'we heard that song when we were on our first date,' or 'that was the song that we played at our wedding,' so it suits a lot of romantic occasions." What did Thomas think of re-recording it with the Bluesmasters? "It was fun," says Thomas. "I still include the song in my live shows, so I've been continuously performing it live. It felt natural to re-record it with a little bluesier intent. When we originally recorded it, we might have been trying to step outside of the blues, expand Elvin's musical horizons, and make it sound more like a pop song. So it was neat to go back after all these years and make it bluesier."
Riding The Starship
After leaving the Elvin Bishop Band, Thomas saw his solo career sidetracked by a random phone call. "Like so many things that have happened in my life, it was a twist of fate," says Thomas of joining the Jefferson Starship. "I had left the Elvin Bishop Band and was getting ready to go down to Miami to pursue a solo career. I got a phone call from Jefferson Starship asking if I'd be interested in singing with the band. I didn't know a whole lot about them, I knew who they were and I knew some of the hits, but I can't say that I was much of a fan. My musical intentions were completely different, but the way they laid it out for me...Grace [Slick] and Marty [Balin] had both left the band, drummer John Barbata had been in a really bad car crash, so he was out of action…so the remaining members had decided to carry on, but really changing the band and taking a new approach to the music."
"Aynsley Dunbar had just been hired on drums," Thomas says, and the addition of the former Bluesbreakers drummer "influenced my decision to join because I thought that it would be neat to be in a band with Aynsley" (who is also currently the Bluesmasters drummer). So after jamming with them a little bit, it was almost like a new band, starting out from scratch. I just tried to apply my musical style that I had developed with the Elvin Bishop Band to the harder-edged rock 'n' roll that the band was writing at the time, and it seemed to work out alright."
Burning Up The Charts
"The first few years with the Jefferson Starship, we hit it pretty heavy," says Thomas, and the band scored hits like "Jane," "Find Your Way Back," and "Laying It On The Line." Remembers Thomas, "it wasn't really until the mid-80s that we made a conscious decision to try and make a more commercial album, bring in a different producer, and use some of the new recording techniques that were just coming into play...sampling, and sequencers, synclaviers, and stuff like that. I guess it worked out too well for us," he remembers, "we had a string of number one singles which was awesome, but we never had any idea that something that incredible would happen."
Jefferson Starship, even before its evolution into just plain 'Starship' in 1985, had rarely found an audience with the music press. "In the minds of the critics, it was something of a 'sell out'," says Thomas of the band's commercial fortunes, "so the hit singles were a double-edged sword...but I'll take them!" Thomas says, "when you're in the middle of making" the songs, "you're not thinking, 'well, it's time to sell out!' The music was reflecting the influences, the things I was listening to at the time." Several Jefferson Starship songs have since become classic rock radio staples. "The songs have staying power," says Thomas, "I've noticed that people in their early 20s are discovering 1980s rock, so we're seeing a lot of younger fans in the audience that are interested in Journey, Foreigner, Starship...it seems to be quite popular with twenty-somethings."
The Bluesmasters featuring Mickey Thomas
How has the response been to The Bluesmasters featuring Mickey Thomas album? "Honestly, it's been great," says Thomas. "I didn't realize that there were so many blues stations out there that played strictly blues music...we're getting a lot of airplay on the blues stations, the reviews have been great. It's been kind of surprising," he adds, laughing, "after all those years in the Starship, I'm not used to seeing good reviews. There's something to be said for getting back to your roots, creating something that is true to your heart."
Will we be seeing a second collaboration between Mickey Thomas and the Bluesmasters? "Absolutely!" he says with certainty, "we're planning it, we're already talking about songs, so there's definitely going to be a Bluesmasters two, and maybe later this year, a Bluesmasters tour, which I'd very interested in doing." (Phone interview, 04/29/10)
