Key to the Highway: Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) and John Cowsill

Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill photo by Pamela Springsteen

Americana Highways’ Key to the Highway series

Fans always clamor to learn more about their favorite, most beloved musicians and those who travel with them. There’s such an allure to the road, with its serendipity, inevitable surprises, and sometimes unexpected discomforts. This interview series is a set of questions we are asking some of our favorite roots rock Americana artists to get to know more about them and what they’ve learned and experienced on the road for music. We are sure they have key insights to share and stories to tell. Here’s one from Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill.

Americana Highways: How do you like your coffee or other morning wake-up beverage?

John Cowsill: It’s funny. I’m not a big coffee drinker. But here is the sweetest thing that happens in our home. Vicki usually gets up first. I sit in bed and enjoy the fact that I can. I wake up, I’ll read the news answer emails and texts. And every morning without asking, Vicki has brought me a coffee and puts it on my night stand and sits on the side of the bed and gives me a kiss then leaves. I yell to her thank you soooo much! It’s the sweetest thing. If I’m alone, I don’t make myself a coffee. It’s more ceremonial when she makes it. I often do not finish the cup.

Vicki Peterson: I am a bit of a coffee-aholic. I will drink it black, but the first cup is usually with steamed milk: cow’s milk or oat milk. I don’t NEED coffee; it doesn’t really “wake me up,” but…I make it in the morning as if it’s a Tea Ceremony or something.

AH: What’s the most interesting or strangest motel/hotel or place you have stayed (while on the road for music?)

JC: Tough question. I’ve stayed in so many. I can see them in my head but I can’t come up with the names. Sorry. But I will say I’m a bath tub junkie so Four Seasons and Ritz Carltons are my faves! Vicki I stayed in Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn once, famous for being the room where Gram Parsons died. I wrote a song that night—I should give Gram writing credit.

AH: If one CD is stuck in the player in the van for the entire tour, what do you hope it is? And why?

JC: Ha! Nice try. It will be a CD I burned of all my favorite songs on: Everly Bros, Roy Orbison. Stevie Wonder, Elton, Johnny Cash, Charlie Pride, Glen Campbell, Tom Petty, Beatles, BeachBoys, Blue Shadows, Billy Mumy, Mike Kinnebrew, Gillian Welch, Andrea Bocelli, Kim Richey, Jim Keller, Earth Wind and Fire, Sly Stone, Temptations, Smoky Robinson, AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac, …

VP: If it’s a van tour it should be something that can keep people calm…perhaps a field recording of birdsong. No, that could backfire…hmmm.

AH: What’s one personal item you must have with you on your road trip?

JC: My ID and a back up. Not kidding. I’ve had those fedexed to me A Thousand Times. But if you’re asking creature comfort, I’d say a mushy pillow. The only problem is when I bring one from home the chances of loosing it is a high percentage.

VP: If it’s a tour with other people in the vehicle, then the answer is headphones. If it’s a personal road trip? Q-Tips!

AH: What is your relationship with food? How do you handle this on the road, and what’s your favorite dish on the road, (or restaurant, and what do you order there)?

JC: I’m not a foodie. But I can go to a pub and be quite content. Hell I can go to a market and get a rotisserie chicken and a baguette with a stick of butter and I’m happy. I like comfort food. Chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and apple sauce is the best! I won’t order gravy in a restaurant. It’s usually made from a bouillon cube eeewwwww… needs to be from the drippings.

VP: I have been a vegetarian since the Reagan Administration, and that used to be a challenge when on the road, especially in the American South and Germany— where it seemed like even the coffee was brewed with ham. Luckily, that is not the case anymore and I can eat almost anywhere. Road food is feast-or-famine. Either you cannot find food, or time a meal to work with stage time (has to be at least two hours gap for me), or there is more food backstage than any group of humans can sensibly eat. For a moment there was an organisation that took left-over deli trays and the like and brought them to homeless shelters, but I think that ran afoul of food safety regulations. Too bad. I liked that idea.

AH: If you could pause your life for a few weeks and spend some time living in a place you only have passed through, which would you choose, and why?

JC: Naaah. Just take me home. I was with The Beach Boys for 23 years doing 180 shows a year. When I leave to go on the road it’s the beginning of my trip to get back home. I’m just in the circle back mode to get to my awesome bath tub and comfy bed! I like to travel but what can I say? I’m a home body as funny as that sounds.

VP: The woods of Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire. John and I honeymooned in Maine and just loved it. Stunning natural beauty, a sense of privacy, a perfect re-set. It’s a good question, though. There are many places one passes through as a touring musician that can’t be fully appreciated from a bus window. I found most of rural America to be lovely…the highlands of Scotland, Bavarian forests, Scandinavia…. Okay, there are lots of places I want to revisit!

AH: What quote or piece of advice have you gotten from someone on the road that has really stuck with you?

JC: I was setting up my drums on stage a while back when I hear this argument breakout with some local crew guys. One is screaming “you’re an asshole!” And man the other guy got real calm and thoughtful looking down then looked at the guy yelling and says “okay, yes I’m an asshole but you don’t know how my day’s been going. So yeah I’m an asshole right now today. But you’re gonna be one tomorrow or maybe the next day cuz it just wasn’t going right for you.” And then he says… “everybody takes a turn being one. So cut me some slack.” I just loved that. Perspective, people!!!!!’’

VP: “Brush your tongue.” (Note: advice not given directly to me, but to someone else in a van.)

Find more information about their new album, and tour dates for Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill here: https://www.vickipetersonandjohncowsill.com and our coverage here: Song Premiere: Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) and John Cowsill “Is Anybody Here?”

See other Key to the Highway interviews here: https://americanahighways.org/category/interviews/key-to-the-highway-series/ (click here for: Todd Park Mohr Jim Lauderdale Vince Herman Jimmy Smith Ben Nichols Bruce Cockburn Charlie Musselwhite Nicki Bluhm Jim White Danny Barnes Patterson Hood Jerry Joseph BJ Barham Rodney Crowell Todd Snider Elizabeth Cook Tommy Womack Eric Ambel, Dan Baird, Robbie Fulks, Malcolm Holcombe Jon Langford Steve Poltz, Lilly Hiatt Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Sadler Vaden )