The Tedeschi Trucks Band Really Are Married to the Band

On March 28 at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET, Yahoo Live will live stream Tedeschi Trucks Band's concert from Orpheum in Madison, WI. Tune in HERE to watch!

You may have heard it before. A band member gripes about how tough it is being in a band, comparing it to being married to their three band mates. While there may be some truth to that, for Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, the husband and wife guitarist and singer/guitarist fronting the Tedeschi Trucks Band, it's reality -- and they've got nine other guys in the band.

"It's great," says Trucks, "but I guess it has to be the right couple for it to work. We waited a good 10 years before we decided to have a band together. We were already married and had kids. I feel like in a lot of ways we put off being in a band together to make sure we knew each well enough. It's funny, you know each other well enough to get married and have kids, but you're still unsure about a band," Trucks laughs. "That's almost a bigger decision. You're going to be right in each other's faces at all times and there's no place to hide with the type of music we're trying to play and the kind of band we want to have. It takes brutal honesty to get it the way we want to get it."

While such closeness at home, in the studio, on stage and on the road between gigs might push lesser couples to the brink, Trucks says the five years of fronting a band with his wife has been a positive experience. "It's really been good for us," he adds. "It forces this level of honesty that I think even being married you can get away without having. It's been pretty great."

During the summer months, when their 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter are on vacation from school, they join mom and dad on the road. "They travel with us quite a bit," Trucks says, calling from his Jacksonville, Florida home, adding that it takes a village for his band and family to function. "They're in public school, so we can't just yank them out any time. So when we're on the road and they can't come, my mom, who lives four doors away, she kind of moves in and my brother and his wife are six doors down, so it's a small village we have here. We really couldn't do it otherwise," he says. "I don't think we would have put a band together like this if that wasn't in place."

Making things easier is the fact that the couple's two-story, $400,000 studio/rehearsal space is in close proximity to their home, so they don't have to actually leave home to go practice and record. "It's on the property," Trucks says. "It's about 150-foot walk from the backdoor to the front door of the studio. It's actually nice. It's just far enough away where you feel like you're going to work."

Tedeschi and Trucks have certainly been working. In January, the pair were selected by none other than his Royal Bobness to perform at MusiCares Person of the Year all-star tribute to Bob Dylan. The band is close to finishing its third studio effort, is on the road now for a series of spring dates and is gearing up for the Wheels of Soul Summer Tour with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Doyle Bramhall II.

As for the Dylan tribute, Trucks was particularly honored to participate. "Dylan had reached out and put together a list of artists he wanted to perform his songs," he says. "Somehow me and Susan ended up on that list. That was pretty cool. Having him ask for us and pick the tune he wanted us to play." Dylan chose "Million Miles" for his 1997 album Time Out of Mind. Not only did Tedeschi and Trucks enjoy performing the tune, but attending the event was pretty special. "Being there and getting to spend time with Willie Nelson and Bonnie [Raitt] and this pretty amazing group of people in the room -- that was a great hang," he says. "And, then when Dylan got up and gave his 35-40 minute speech, it was a total master-class. It was pretty scathing, too. He was naming names. It was pretty amazing. I was already a fan, but I became a super fan at that point."

The Tedeschi Trucks band has yet to incorporate that Dylan tune into its live set, but Trucks says it's a possibility. "Now that Sue learned those six or eight verses, I'm sure she'll want to use them again," he says with a laugh. "That's a lot of homework for a one-off."

 

As for the next album, Trucks says this time around the band is keeping the songwriting duties mostly in-house, with the exception of some assists from Bramhall II, who they consider to be an honorary 12th member of the band. "It's the most representative of what the band does live," Trucks says. "This one is the first time that I think we were able to just capture the full spirit of the band. And, also all the tunes are written by the band. If not everyone is the band lending a hand, it's a good bulk of the core of the band."

On the band's previous efforts, 2011's Grammy-winning debut Revelator and 2013's acclaimed follow-up Made Up Mind, Tedeschi and Trucks co-wrote songs with a few outside writers, including the Jayhawks' Gary Louris and Eric Krasno of Soulive. "This one is a very much a band record. We had Doyle come down and me and him wrote three tunes together, but outside of that it's all [drummer] J.J. [Johnson], [keyboardist/flutist] Kofi [Burbridge], [vocalist] Mike Mattison, me, Susan, [drummer] Tyler [Greenwall]. Everybody inside the group." TTB also includes vocalist Mark Rivers, saxophonist Kebbi Williams, trumpet player Maurice Brown, trombonist Saunder Sermons and bassist Tim Lefebvre.

While the band has previewed some of the new tunes live, Trucks is a bit hesitant to perform too much of the new material, since the new album won't be released until late this year or early 2016. "You don't want to play them all too soon," he says. "We'll probably only play two or three and only play those occasionally. Everybody's kind of chomping at the bit to play them all, but if we get out and perform all 10 or 12 tunes by the time it comes out, people will be exposed to them all and it kills a little bit of the impact.

"In this day and age when everything is available the next day," Trucks adds. "It's a little tough if you don't want to spoil the surprise."

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