It’s been more than 50 years since Foghat unleashed its freewheeling rock and roll, steeped in its blues beginnings. Sonic Mojo is its first studio album in seven years, and the first with lead vocalist/guitarist Scott Holt joining founding drummer/bandleader Roger Earl, longtime lead guitarist Bryan Bassett, and bassist Rodney O’Quinn.
Holt, who played with Buddy Guy for years and has enjoyed a solo career, has been part of the Foghat family for years, co-writing songs and playing in the side project Earl and the Agitators. He replaced Charlie Huhn.
How did you officially join the band?
I was at the band’s studio in Florida, where we were writing and getting ready to put together the new record with Charlie singing. But, one day, Charlie sent an e-mail saying that he was retiring, so we immediately pivoted from writing to learning the Foghat catalog, because they had gigs coming up.
I’ve been in their camp since about 2016, when they were working on Under the Influence. The way we hit it off, it was a really creative environment, and it inspires me to write. Bryan and I fire each other up. It’s a really fun situation.
How did you work out the guitar parts with Bryan? He plays killer lead and slide.
With the catalog stuff, we try to re-create the guitar parts faithful to the way Dave [Peverett] and Rod [Price] did them. I think Bryan would agree that we feel it’s a responsibility to the music and the fans; when you come to the show, you want to hear “Slow Ride,” and you want it to sound like it did on the radio. You don’t want to hear our jazz interpretation (laughs.) Bryan plays the things that Rod played and I play the things Dave played, with a certain degree of poetic license. I’ve always approached those from an improvisational standpoint. With my past work with Buddy Guy and my solo stuff, there was never any kind of worked-out solos. You just responded to the music. I’ve been doing it for 30 years, so I don’t know how to do it any other way at this point (laughs).
Foghat sprang from Savoy Brown, led by guitarist Kim Simmonds, who co-wrote three of the songs on Sonic Mojo shortly before he passed.
We listened to those tracks, and “Time Slips Away” was hard to listen to the first time. It’s a direct song about mortality written by a guy staring it square in the face. It was such a beautiful lyric. He sent us demos – vocals, maybe a rhythm guitar, and a drum machine or click track. They were real stripped-down, but they gave us a lot of room on how to treat the song.
Which guitars did you play?
On the record, I played a G&L ASAT I’ve been using forever and just love. When I got the gig with Foghat, I celebrated by getting a guitar from LsL Instruments. They built me a monster. It’s shaped like a Telecaster but has two humbuckers with split coils, to get a single-coil sound if I need to. Those are the two electrics I played. On “I Wish I’d a Been There,” I used Bryan’s acoustic; I can’t remember what it is, but it’s an amazing guitar.
There are some musical surprises on Sonic Mojo.
A band is a unique mechanism. You can’t unplug one component then plug something else in and expect to get the same result. Certainly, when I stepped into this band, my background is the blues, and that’s my wheelhouse. My references are blues guys. We sat down to work the arrangement for “Drivin’ On,” and Roger and I were talking. I said, “I think we ought to go like Slim Harpo, and maybe a little bit John Lee Hooker.” That’s my language. Bryan and Rodney [also] know the blues.
To me, Foghat is a celebration of American music. I’ve gone back and listened to everything in their catalog. They didn’t just do blues – they did R&B and rockabilly things. There’s a strong Chuck Berry thread through the whole history of Foghat. They don’t just celebrate one lane of American music; they grab from everything, which appeals to me. I’ve always found that more interesting than being a one-trick pony.
This article originally appeared in VG’s December 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
