It's a little difficult to get 27-year-old G. Love to admit to having any challenges while touring.
But that's understandable for the Philadelphia-born native, considering he started out playing guitar and harmonica on the streets of his hometown while still in high school.After some prodding, however, Love does come up with a couple of concerns -- there's the struggle to maintain his health while traveling from town to town, but the difficulty in achieving spontaneity in each performance is the main obstacle.
"You start out as a local band, playing once or twice a week tops, then all of a sudden you're on tour around the country and the world, doing three to four shows a week," Love (real name: Garrett Thomas) said during a telephone interview from Minneapolis. "How do you maintain that same energy from show to show? It comes from moving and acting like a unified team, from constantly improvising."
G. Love & Special Sauce will bring its blend of folk, blues and rap to Salt Lake City Saturday at the Fairgrounds Horticulture Building. Doors open at 7 p.m. The opening act is Long Beach Dub Allstars (a k a the surviving band members of Sublime).
Though G. Love & Special Sauce has steadily cut albums and toured since 1994 -- this year's "Philadelphonic" is its fourth to date -- the singer confirms that the band is underground for the most part. It's not hard to see why, with little or no radio play along the Wasatch Front. Most who attend Love's shows either buy the albums or hear about the band through word of mouth. "But not on MTV."
The band's previous tours have been mostly independent, but sharing the bill with Long Beach Dub Allstars is a natural, since Love was supposed to play on the last record that Sublime cut before the death of lead singer Brad Nowell (Love couldn't resolve scheduling conflicts). "Dreamin'," Love's next single, is dedicated to the late Sublime singer.
Love views his beginnings, when he was singing on the streets, as a very rewarding time. He would play up to eight hours a day, while working a part-time job to make ends meet. When he wasn't performing, he was practicing. When he wasn't practicing, he was writing music and putting up fliers about upcoming shows. But he was never so entirely focused on his music. "When I started writing songs, I had this feeling like I wanted to play them for people. I wanted to record them and be in the spotlight subconsciously. I followed that feeling, and it led to me and my band having some great success with it."
Love began playing guitar at age 8 and wrote his first song in ninth grade. Influenced by Bob Dylan and John Hammond Jr., he began playing harmonica in a wire rack and became interested in the hip-hop sounds of Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys.
G. Love & Special Sauce cut its self-titled debut album live in 1994, with songs like "Cold Beverage," "Blues Music" and "Shooting Hoops." To date, the album has sold 350,000 copies in the United States and still sells an average of 1,000 copies a week.
Fans may remember G. Love & Special Sauce from their last show in Salt Lake, when the band opened for Widespread Panic.
But Love isn't exactly resting on his laurels. The singer vowed to play 250 shows in a year, as of this past July. So far, the group has performed 80 to 90 shows thus far and expects to hit 100 by Thanksgiving.
"I'm on top of my game," Love said. "My band is on top of their game. I almost feel like we've been hesitating -- now it's time to really bust out!"
Tickets are $22 and can be purchased at Graywhale CD Exchange, Salt City CDs, Zumiez in University Mall and Heavy Metal shops.