Gary James' Interview With Steve Miller Band Guitarist
Kenny Lee Lewis



For over thirty years now Kenny Lee Lewis has been part of Steve Miller's band. How did he get such an opportunity? What's it like to be part of The Steve Miller Band? What does he do when he's not on the road? These are just some of the questions we asked Kenny Lee Lewis.

Q - Well Kenny, I don't see too many interviews with Steve Miller. Why is that? He must be shy or tired of talking.

A - Well, you gotta understand he's been in the business fifty-five years. He's been doing 'em for long time. He starts to peter out near the end. He wants to use his time for himself I guess. The only interviews he's done recently were Dan Rather and Howard Stern, and I think he did one other, and that's about it.

Q - I'm surprised really that there still is a Steve Miller Band. I recall reading an interview with him in the 1970s, in maybe Creem magazine where he was saying how much he hated the record business. I thought he'd make a few more records, get out of the business and do something else. That he's still around is kind of remarkable.

A - Well, it's testament to a man where his heart precedes him. That is about the highest compliment an artist can get.

Q - Do you remember just a few years back when Steve Miller played the Chevy Court at the New York State Fair? Over 30,000 people showed up to see him.

A - Yeah. I think I remember that. It was a fun gig.

Q - How often does Steve Miller tour?

A - Well, we tour every year. We did have a break from 2000 to 2004. That was when a concert promotion company called SFX was hitting real hard and heavy-handed with all the artists, telling them who they could and couldn't have as an opening act. What they were going to charge for parking. All this stuff was just kind of heavy-handed. He just said, "Okay. Fuck all you guys. I'm going to go home. I'll see you later." So, that's what happened in 2000. But in 2004 he had a box set that Capitol was coming out with and he wanted to promote it, so he decided to do Jay Leno. He liked Jay. So, we did Jay Leno. I did all the back line. I did all the clauses in the contract which is the transportation. I did the union contracts. I did everything and then I played the gig on top of it. He really had a good time. We also used a couple of the older guys from the original band, Gary Mallabar on drums and Gerald Johnson on bass. That was fun. Then he said, "Well, I think I want to do this thing for the Fender Museum, the Kids Rock Free program, which is a free music program for underprivileged kids. We did a fund raiser for them. Then he just really started to get the taste for playing again as a performer. He said, "Now they're talking about the New Orleans Jazz Fest. Can we get the same deal down there?" I was like, "You know Steve, I don't want to be your octopus. I just want to play with you and sing." (laughs) "Let's hire our old manager back, get the crew back and go back out." In 2004 we did that and we've been out consistently ever since. To answer your question, we've been out every summer since then. Played the sheds. Doing good business. The last couple of years we had Peter Frampton two years in a row. That was doing record business in a lot of the smaller shed markets. We weren't doing stadiums or anything. Then we had Marty Stuart last year, which was fun. And we were going to do him again this year, but the whole thing fell apart because of COVID. Right now we're just completely off.

Q - Once this COVID pandemic passes, how do you think it will impact the group?

A - Well, right now we're gonna have to rebuild from the bottom up again. We have to win confidence back in our fan base. Plus, we're coming out of an unemployment situation where they're not going to have disposable money. So we're going to have to sneak back into performing through the internet, which I've been doing. I did a stream last Saturday and I didn't make a fortune, but I sure had fun. I played on a real stage with fog and lights. It was great, and then I'm doing another one in Pennsylvania for their State House there. That'll be fun and I'll track that and I'll show Steve how we're doing it and keeping social distancing the whole time and wearing masks all the way up to the time of performance. It's faith, and people don't mind paying a security key ticket price online and you can suggest they do their own party. Rent a hall and put a big screen up. Have a party. We'll be on 2D instead of 3D.

Q - Is that how you're making a living these days since you're not on the road?

A - No, not a living. But I am making a little money. I'm still doing sessions. I'm a producer. I have a studio at the house. Doing a few commissioned songwriting things for commercials. Mixing. I do it all. I even made guitars and amps and worked at Guitar Center. I sold 'em, built 'em, played 'em. I've done it all. That's how I survive.

Q - You're a man of many talents!

A - Well, I'm just a survivor. I just had to learn how to put food on the table for the kids, make sure I took care of the family. So I did about every facet you could think of in the music industry.

Q - You got to be a studio musician despite the fact you couldn't read music.

A - Hold on. I don't know where you read that. I've read music since I was in college. I think you're thinking about Steve. Steve can't read. I read and write music. I'm actually a music director, that's what I'm doing in the gig in two weeks with all those celebrity players I'm playing with. I write all the charts. I write up the notations. I arrange. I do all that.

Q - I was going to add that you could get away with not reading for Rock musicians, but probably not with middle of the road singers.

A - No. I mean, you didn't have to. I know a couple of people who were pretty big musicians in the studio scene in the '70s that don't read, which I won't name right now, but they're huge. They don't read notation. They can get through a chart, but they pretty much play from memory and feel. They're just so good they keep getting hired back as much as people that read notes and were able to go play movie soundtracks and television and commercials. Studio time was expensive back then. If you had an orchestra you had to get everything in one take.

Q - You write for TV and movies, is that correct?

A - Yeah.

Q - What films have you had your music in?

A - If you're talking about my original material, Pump Up The Volume with Christian Slater in 1990. There was a movie called Spring Break that I got a song in. I think Suzanne Sommers was in it. Protocol with Goldie Hawn. I even had a song with Gordon Liddy. (laughs) It just goes on and on. I get royalties from that as a songwriter, but then I also get royalties as a player. I played in movies like Rocky III, doing cues for that. Taps, which was a military movie.

Q - You played in Rocky III?

A - Yeah, just cues. Cues like when they were working out. I worked for Bill Conti, who was the musical director and arranger and he hired me as a bass player. There's numerous TV shows. My wife and I did the theme for Evening At The Improve, which was a frequent comedy show for many years. That was fun. There's been cooking shows. Little smaller shows that I had a lot of cues on. Those were back in the day when you could get that stuff. Now it's hard to get that because the sound libraries that they have on the internet now that have little pieces of snippets of music that you go browse. You pay your synch license, put it all in the A mix and you can do it at three in the morning. You can score like a whole B movie right now in the middle of the night just by buying little cures out of a library. Everything is on robot. You don't even talk to anybody. You just pick what you want, put it in your cart, stick down the A mix, pay your synch licence and you get your whole movie scored.

Q - You believe the internet has been a good thing for independent artists?

A - Not for me so far. I'm working on it. I'm working on a YouTube channel that I'm developing right now that I'm hoping to turn into like a small TV station. I'm hoping to put up something every day, some sort of lesson or master class. A cooking thing, a philosophy thing, whatever, and hope that I get enough subscribers that I can monetize it, press the button and start getting ad banners. If I could do that then I could be having that as an income stream.

Q - When you say cooking, are you talking about someone else doing the cooking?

A - No. I'm a chef. I have shows on YouTube that I've done that have gotten a lot of hits. I have a lot of people that follow me on Facebook. I just put up stuff for free that I do and they all wonder where my cookbook is, where's the show, what's the recipe? And I'm also thinking of having celebrities on, doing the dishes with me and then performing and actually playing on the show with me. So, that's another show in the works.

Q - You're a busy guy! You produce local acts in your studio or name acts?

A - Mostly local acts. I don't have any name acts 'cause my studio is just a garage studio and Pro Tools. It's not set up to be a place where you'd want to work for weeks and weeks on end. Plus, we wouldn't want 'em. (laughs) We like our privacy.

Q - So, what do you get out of that? You can't be making too much money out of that.

A - Well, I charge an hourly rate. I've got a guy now who wrote hits for Steve Miller and he's here today recording some of his other stuff and doing guitar dubs. He was just in the area and he wanted to use my studio 'cause he loves what I do as an arranger and producer. So, not only is he using my studio, but he's getting my ideas musically. But I'm charging an hourly rate. I'm getting paid.

Q - You and your songwriting partner, John Massars...

A - Way back.

Q - Got eight songs on Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" album. I don't want to ask you what you get in royalties, but they must still be pretty good.

A - No, because nobody is buying the "Abracadabra" album anymore. They're sharing files. That's the problem.

Q - That's right. When they were buying albums were the royalties good?

A - Yes. I bought a house with those royalties. I bought my house from Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon, and he had recorded and wrote all of the hits from "Hi Infidelity" in that house. That was in Woodland Hills in L.A. Then he bought a villa from the money he made from his eleven million seller album and I bought his house and it had a studio in it already. I did that with the royalties I made from "Abracadabra". One thing I failed to mention is I'm also a published writer. I had a novel on Amazon. I'm actually out selling the sequel to that right now. So if you want to check it out, it's called Skeleton Dolls. This part of the trilogy is called Children Of The Tower. It's kind of a Stephen King / Dan Brown sci-fi kind of thing. I've got another career as a writer I'm working on.

Q - How do you find the time to work in a studio, cook, write, play in a group?

A - Well, I wrote the books in the middle of the night in back of the bus when we were going over those shitty roads in New York. You get like air every time you go over a pot hole. I couldn't sleep, so I was just sitting in back of the bus while we were touring and I'd write.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.



The views and opinions expressed by individuals interviewed for this web site are the sole responsibility of the individual making the comment and / or appearing in interviews and do not necessarily represent the opinions of anyone associated with the website ClassicBands.com.