Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Col. Bruce Hampton, lead singer/guitarist of blues-rock band The Quark Alliance, about — among other things — playing music for four decades, the importance of chemistry and why married men make more reliable musicians.

CP: You’ve been playing music for 45 years at this point. How do you keep things from getting boring?

CB: Man, I just feel like I’m just starting. I feel that there’s still mystery to it every day and every time I play. It’s always amazing. It always carries me — there’s always something new. I could play the same song every night, but there’s always something new in it for me. Music is the only thing on the planet I find interesting every day. Boy, there’s just so much to explore and there are so many types. I feel like I’m just starting. I’m 61 today in a couple of hours, and I feel like I’m just starting to understand it a little bit. I like it all, as long as there’s the emotional quirk and it’s pure music. That’s what I love, the purity of it. I like every form, from bluegrass to country to folk to rock to Latin. I never get bored with it. I’ve probably heard every master of every field and have all their records. At one point, I had 5,000 records.

CP: How did you get into music?

CB: At six or seven years old, I was listening to a Nashville station and I’d hear John Lee Hooker and B.B. King every night. Then Little Richard and Chuck Berry came along a few years later. Those were my early influences. I ‘m just learning what not to do, and there’s been a long time learning that. I’ve never known what to do, and I’m not good enough to humble. I feel like I’m a student just starting to get it a little bit. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve gotten to play with the greatest musicians on the planet. I just wish I was 20 years old now. I heard Merle Haggard say in an interview that he felt like he was 7 years old, and he was turning 70. He felt like he was just starting to figure it out. It’s just mystery on top of mystery every day. You can play the same chords and the same scale every day, but there’s always something deeper and more meaningful to it every day. Music is still the best thing on the planet to me.

CP: How did you form the Quark Alliance? It was in 2006, right?

CB: That is correct, sir. I never know how I do anything, I just start showing up and stuff happens. There’s no conscious effort to it, it’s just who keeps showing up. I had surgery and was taking six months off. I lightly came back, and I was seeing who was available at the time. I didn’t know any of the guys. I always liked Kris Dale’s work, and I heard he was in Atlanta, so I heard about him. The drummer, Mark Letalien, I had never met, but I knew him in Florida since we lived about 40 miles away, though we’d never met each other. Perry I’ve known for about 10 years, and he’s played with just about everybody I know. He teaches music at FSU, so every week we get together, the poor guy has to drive all the way to Atlanta where we start touring. He’s superman.

CP: Were all your other bands formed in that same free-form way?

CB: I always try to find somebody who’s a solid citizen with no issues and is able and willing to work and puts the music first without any of the neurosis about making it. We just like to play it and let nature take its course. That’s always been my attitude instead of trying to “making it.” I wouldn’t want to -I’m not in show business, I just enjoy playing and performing. You get people who have issues with that and get rusty pretty quick. The intent of playing music is to play music. If you get paid, that’s great, but if you don’t, that’s great, too.

CP: You were involved in the Horizons Of Rock Developing Everywhere (H.O.R.D.E.) tours, which ended back in the late ‘90s. Do you think there’s interest in getting something like that started up again?

CB: We’ve been talking about putting it together on and off for awhile. There’s a desperate need for it, and there’s talk about making that happen, but I don’t think we’ll get Phish, Dave Matthews and Widespread again for $200 a night. They’ve all gone on to better things. I don’t know, I just don’t know of any great bands anymore. This generation of the past 10 years hasn’t produced a lot. To me, music’s at its lowest point it’s been at since 1963. I feel a change coming, and I hope it’ll get back to where it was because it sure is horrible right now. Maybe you know bands I don’t. I don’t hear any great young bands.

CP: There’s a local band that just got back together again for the first time in 10 years, and I think you’ve played with them: The Kings of the Killer Fish.

CB: I think they’re great. I thought they should have been huge stars. I’m so happy to hear that because back 15 years ago, I thought those guys had the chemistry to make the whole thing go. In music, there’s no good or bad, there’s just that chemistry. It’s an amazing thing. The Beatles had it and the Rolling Stones had it. If you messed with that chemistry too much, the whole thing would fall apart. If you had a great playing rhythm section instead of Paul and Ringo, it wouldn’t have worked The Beatles were decent players, but their thing was the songwriting and the chemistry. The Stones have to have Richard and Jager to make it work. Without those two and the drummer, it wouldn’t work. Chemistry is it. I love the chemistry of our band because they’re all gentlemen. They’re all pros and they’re all married, so I know they’re coming to play. Most musicians are pretty flaky, and you wonder what their intention is. You need to come through and play every gig like it’s your last, if you’re able to.

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