birth of the Headhunters as it were? Well, what happened basically is in high school, Richard, Fred and I, we played to- gether. I graduated in 1972 and initially I thought I would stick - my parents decided they wanted to move from Edmonton back to Louisville. Initially, since I had a girlfriend in this area, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I will stick here.” I was 18, and I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll just stay down here and live on my own and play with the band. Somehow, I musta got scared and I moved to Louisville. So in ’72, we kind of parted ways. I tried to drive down and play with them as much as I could, but it just didn’t work out. I got a job at a printing company which was a mistake, but it taught me what I did need to do. So there was a period from 1972 to 1977 that we would play periodically, jam together, but I wasn’t really ‘in the band’ anymore, you know. We did do a little 45 record in 1973 as Itchy Brother, but due to my job in Louisville and logistics and timing, we just couldn’t play together. So in 1977, they were starting to make some head- way as Itchy Brother, writing songs, and going to Atlanta and meeting people and starting to do some really good things, and I guess at one point in Atlanta, the bass player, Tim Speck, decided he didn’t want to do it anymore and he quit. So they came back to recharge, regroup and they called me in Louisville, where I was living then and told me their dilemma. They said Anthony would switch back to bass if I would come back and play guitar. And it just worked out timing- wise that I was ready to make a move, I was ready to jump. I didn’t want to work a regular job anymore myself. I said, ‘I’m going to play music, for sure.’ I’d been kinda puttzing around, so to speak, in Louisville, playing off and on and it was time to make the move, and so I came down and started playing with those guys and Itchy Brother spent two years really trying hard to get a recording contract.
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We made some headway and got in the front door of Swan Song Records, and met Mitchell Fox, but after John Bonham died, Swan Song went downhill. Peter Brandt just basically put everything on the back burner and sometime around ’81, Michael, I had to end up getting another job, basically. The band just couldn’t really make enough to make a living. I started playing with Ronnie McDowell. Richard started writing for Acuff/Rose. Fred went to work for a country singer by the name of Sylvia. But the cool thing is in 1981, when I started working for Ronnie McDowell, who tried out for his band the same day I did? Doug Phelps. (Laughs) And so it was like with Ronnie McDowell musically, even though it wasn’t what I was used to, it was a great learning experience, as it was with Richard writing with Acuff/Rose and with Fred doing what he was doing. In 1986, we decided to put together Itchy Brother” again. Andy Kenny didn’t want to come back and do it so we de- cided to ask Doug Phelps to come jam with us, and when he did play with us, it felt good, but we decided not to call it Itchy Brother, just out of reverence to Andy Kenny, you know, and we become the Headhunters in March of 1986. And that’s the way that hap- pened. In my basement in Glasco, Kentucky. Richard, Fred, me and Doug Phelps. And when it warmed up, we went back out to the practice house.
Wow. So from the time you decided to be the Kentucky Headhunters, how long was it until you got your record deal? Really, about three years. Actually, three and a half years. We started in March of ’86 and by October of ’89, our first album came out.
Yeah, Pickin’ on Nashville. Back then, it seemed a long time, and now, me just telling you this, it just don’t seem that
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