Dan Wheetman photo from A COWBOY LULLABY At Rubicon Theatre
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 Dan Wheetman of Marley’s Ghost and the John Denver Band.
Americana Highways: How do you like your coffee or other morning wake-up beverage?
Dan Wheetman: I have a cup of English Breakfast tea first thing in the morning. Coffee is a sacrament. I wait till after breakfast. I have an Olympia Cremina lever espresso machine and a iZpresso hand grinder. I like a good medium roast or a lighter “dark roast.” Too dark and you burn all the flavor from the bean. First cup is a latte.
AH: What’s the most interesting or strangest motel/hotel or place you have stayed (while on the road for music?)
DW: The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California is pretty strange but stayed across the street from an all night bail bonds office that proved too interesting. All night circus.
AH: If one CD is stuck in the player in the van for the entire tour, what do you hope it is? And why?
DW: Water Music by Handel, Neville Marriner and Academy of St Martin in the Field or The Band’s second album.
AH: What’s one personal item you must have with you on your road trip?
DW: My pillow.
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)?
DW: My food world has opened up considerably over the years as I’m a vegetarian. After years of cheese sandwiches I started eating fish in self preservation. Heck, now you can be vegan, gluten free, paleo, breatharian. Simple to eat well… harder to find really good coffee.
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?
DW: I played with John Denver in Sendai, Japan and wished I could stay. I fell in love with Japan. But for a “time” in my life, I was in a band with Jerry, our keyboard player, way back in the early’ 70’s. We had a job at a bar with a five piece band two nights a week, and the band made $25 a night. We played on the streets in San Francisco on the weekends, pooled the money and all lived in a big four bedroom farm house in Dixon, California that’s was $85 a month. That was a very special time.
AH: What quote or piece of advice have you gotten from someone on the road that has really stuck with you?
DW: A useful but funny piece of advice was never call home and tell your wife how much fun you’re having. Ask, “How was your day?” But one thing that stuck was that music doesn’t owe anyone anything. If you’re able to make a living at it be thankful, be true to the music and trust.
Find the latest information here on their website: https://www.marleysghost.com
See other Key to the Highway interviews here: https://americanahighways.org/category/interviews/key-to-the-highway-series/ (click here for: Todd Snider 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 Elizabeth Cook Tommy Womack Eric Ambel, Dan Baird, Robbie Fulks, Malcolm Holcombe Jon Langford Steve Poltz, Lilly Hiatt Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Sadler Vaden )
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