Q & A with Leonomadic: lead singer, slide guitar, and harmonica player for MAMA.

DN:Where did you find the inspiration for the name of your new album, Bayoutopia?
Leonomadic: I found the inspiration for the name Bayoutopia one day in Slidell, Louisiana standing on the top sundeck of a mansion we were demolishing. I was eating lunch observing the total devastation around me...piles of debris and pockets of busy workmen teaming about furiously. Katrina had left her mark...At night we stayed in a gutted home in town covered in mosquito nets. My house mates were a random cluster of America’s Most Wanted from all over...Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica...Cali...Oklahoma...New York...the Creole neighbors next door would share stories at night with us about how the post disaster culture attracted so many convict types. "Naw'lin’s been a pirate cove for five hundred years, and it will be a pirate cove in five hundred years from today. Got that good time curse y'know...that rum curse…" said one of the old timers I ran into drinkin’ booze down by the riverside one night. Surrounded by the complicated and dangerous people at that time that I was, I thought the name was fitting because amongst the truly terrible devastation everywhere, a warm almost holy camaraderie seemed to over ride differences between folks. 'Brothers in Arms' evolved into a new level of understanding for me...truly wonderful...but then there were the twisted politics and the missing payroll and all that business that only a pirate cove could absorb and disregard. Lot of gangsters down there. Relentless, unapologetic hustle... take heed in Naw'lins people. Pretty sure the hustlers came up with 'the big easy'.

DN: How long have you been in MAMA and how was the band created?
Leonomadic: I was working in Reno doing maintenance and security for a dive motel on 4th Street and helping a pal on his property in Tahoe. Jonny contacted me via email one afternoon with a 'please call soon it’s important'. We hadn't had a conversation in years ... I called right away. It was then I learned about Pop Sweatshop's new studio set up and about a small set of monster riffs he had been working on. When asked to sing on them, clearly I was honored and accepted. Jonny and I had worked together and in neighboring projects for years off and on. At the time I was just learning slide...working on transposing some of my street harp riffs to the open tunings and for the first time being able to accompany myself being that harps is a wind instrument...you are either singing or playing...so i had a slew of new tunes as well.
He offered to fly me out but the weather was beautiful and I needed a walk so I told him to save the money, and decided to hitch. I figured it would take me a couple of days and I could put the money to better use during my stay. During the journey I took the time to consolidate my lyrics and sharpen my new tunes. A couple of days later I arrived in Denver and was handed an iPod with the tracks mixed and pimped ... ready for vocals. Took the cash, a pair of studio headphones and toured Denver in the summer...figuring out the arrangements as I walked from bar to bar reconnecting with some old friends and such. The experience was so cool because I had never had that type of opportunity to really dissect arrangements before throwing them to the fire in a performance high pressure situation. I think they turned out great...very fulfilling. Papa was a Ghetto Star, Carny Law (who's lyrics i wrote in Lovelock, Nevada about hitching to Denver anticipating a potential reunion with the fabulous Susan Phelan), Crow Upon the Rail, Wide Eyed Blues, and Cougar were the keepers in the end.

DN: Who are some of the bands that influenced you when you were growing up?
Leonomadic: My first love was AC/DC but the artist that cast a spell on me was Stevie Ray Vaughan. I saw him at the Seria Mosk in Pittsburgh in ‘86. I was a kid and my buddy Bill Collage got a hold of some tickets so we skipped the second half of the day and drank beer with the big kids downtown all afternoon before the show. That show changed my life. I have been utterly compelled to write songs ever since. I have never really been that concerned with much of anything else besides girls and travel.

DN: Do you have any projects that you are working on right now or any in the future? Any plans to tour?
Leonomadic: We are working on a second record we are calling Toxikinesis.... Alan...our DJ buddy/genius in Denver thought the meaning of the word applied to me somehow... he's a funny man. Look the definition up…It’s been said that, good or bad, I tend to rub off on certain folks. I don't really know if I’m supposed to be concerned with whether or not that is good or bad. I hope to be a good influence to most and a bad to the devil but only God’s grace can guide me through that I suppose. I have certainly been force fed the effects of both. We plan on playing on lot in Las Vegas until we can find a good tour. Any offers?

DN: Any cool stories you would like to share with us about the recording process?
Leonomadic: That month was of the most peaceful and spiritually rewarding times in my life. Jonny and I succeeded in overcoming a career-long pissing contest and actually relished in the surrender process that collaborative artists tend to struggle with so often. What a great thing.

DN: What was the most challenging part of making this record?
Leonomadic: Jonny has a very successful and profitable project in Denver with his destroyer rockabilly unit The Velvet Elvis. Between that and geographical separation the launch had a pretty extended timeline. Plus it was hard to tour. We needed to find an additional guitarist or bass player because (besides the slide) he did all the guitar and bass work on the record. Ian P. Gilchrist our bad ass engineer did some bass as well.

DN: Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge for offering support creating this album?
Leonomadic: I wrote the lyrics to my son who I lost in a nasty divorce. The songs are lessons to him from his daddy who misses him so much. I figure the in-laws got the budget to somehow twist me out of his life but maybe he can hear his old man on the radio...Can’t twist that out of anyone’s life. I'll get him back...I just need to stay the course and stack enough money for a court battle. I will never give up that dream…never.