It is I, Maris The Great! I shall now ask questions and you will now answer female mortal!

ERICA BROWN: You got it

With so many musical styles to choose from, what attracted you to The Blues?

ERICA BROWN: I’ve been in a lot of different bands. When I finally happened up on Blues music, it kind of hit me like a rock upside the head. I realized all of sudden that this music was “home.” I realized it was who I was and what I was supposed to be doing. It was like coming home and I’ve never left.

You’ve had a diverse musical past, haven’t you?

ERICA BROWN: Yes. I’ve been in Rock and Roll bands, Pop bands, I’ve been involved a couple of bands that played very eclectic stuff. I’ve even been in a couple of Country bands.

Really? I find that hard to believe Blues mortal!

ERICA BROWN: Oh yeah, in fact I remember one time when we were playing a show up at what was then the Blackhawk Casino by Hyatt, in Blackhawk. We’re doing our show, and everything’s groovy, but this fellow in a cowboy hat keeps hollering from the bar at us to do some country music! So we end the song we’re doing, and I signal to the band to not start the next tune yet. I looked at the guy and said in effect, “be careful what you wish for” and then launched off into “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, a cappella! It took everybody by complete surprise, and
the guys in the band had no real idea how to follow me (except Scotty, who copped the rhythm and gave me a beat) cause’ no one knew I was going to do such a thing! When I got done, the place exploded! It was soooo
cool! He was so blown away, he tipped me $20.00! God, I love doing stuff like that to people!! It had to be the absolute highlight of my week! All the various types of music I’ve done has gotten me to where I am now.

At what age did you start singing?

ERICA BROWN: I’ve always been musically inclined. I played flute in grade school, junior high and high school. But I never sang for a living or even got money until 1984. I had went to see a band called Split Decision. They were the most amazing band I’ve ever seen. I loved them so much I was almost like a groupie. They had this amazing singer by the name of Co Co Brown. She was amazing. She absolutely mowed me down. As I watched them play, I thought to myself, “If I can do this, I’ll be happy for the rest of my life” (laughs). It was then that I really started pursuing it as a profession.

What were you thinking of pursuing prior to that experience?

ERICA BROWN: I was going to be an executive. I was going to have a big, oak desk with my name on the front, that said “Erica Brown, don’t mess with me” (laughs). I had went to University of Phoenix for management. That was my career path until The Blues overtook me.

What year did you move to Denver?

ERICA BROWN: I moved to Denver in 1976, straight out of high school. I was a little, country girl from Missouri. I was raised in a small town in South East of Missouri called Sikeston. We were the quintessential po’ folks with the old black man sitting on the porch. His name was Jimmy DeBerry. He had a peg leg and he would sit out front, with a guitar and strum and sing. I had always been around The Blues,. I even lived it. We chopped cotton. When we weren’t chopping cotton, we were picking cotton, cuz that’s how you earned money to live. That’s what you did. When I moved here it was like “Wow! Big city!”

What was your first official band?

ERICA BROWN: Officially, it was the Ivory Summers Band around 1987.

Really? I KNOW David Summers.

ERICA BROWN: Oh yeah, David Summers is an awesome bassist!

Yeah, he had a sweet, 5 string bass named Cleo!

ERICA BROWN:Yeah! So I stayed with them for awhile. Then I went on the road for two years with a band called Hot Flash (Laughs). I find that highly amusing now, being 46 years old, but anyway, I was their lead vocalist.

What kind of music?

ERICA BROWN: We were a rock band. We did Guns N’ Roses, White Snake and all kinds of music. It was awesome!

How were you accepted? There aren’t a lot of black, female mortals doing Rock and Roll.

ERICA BROWN: It was killer! I would have people come up to me and say I did Guns N’ Roses better than Axl Rose (Laughs). I eventually left that band and when I got home, I got more into the R&B dance thing. The late 70’s and definitely the 80’s was a great, fertile time for R&B. Janet Jackson and Madonna were killin it. It was a wonderful time for me. I felt like I could do anything. I was in a couple of bands around here with really great musicians, Ron Ivory being one of them and Henry Hudson being another. I was going out all the time, seeing all sorts of live music. I just wanted to absorb the scene. It was fabulous!

How did the Denver local scene differ at that time, as compared to now?

ERICA BROWN: For R&B bands, it was killer. There used to be bands that would come through town. They would play at a place like what used to be called Basin’s Up (now called Lucky Star). They would play Tuesday all the way through Saturday. They would have Sunday and Monday off, travel to the next venue and start all over again.

What kind of lessons did you learn from being a touring band?

ERICA BROWN: Never assume too much and never assume people won’t like you. I remember I was in South Dakota. We were playing a VFW. I was terrified, for some reason. I was like, “Oh my god, I’m the only black female, we’re all gonna get lynched!” My keyboardist got flat pissed off and said “would you do what I hired you for?!” So I got pissed off and I stormed on that stage and gave one of the best performances of my life. I have never looked back. It was at that performance that my stage fright left me and has never come back.

Didn’t you do celebrity impersonations for awhile?

ERICA BROWN: Yes! I did Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner. I still have the CD’s with the backup music for it. I did a lot of private parties. I did a lot of corporate parties too. Sometimes I would do birthday parties, where someone wanted to give Tina Turner as a gift to someone.

You were that good?

ERICA BROWN:Oh yeah, I would blow people away. At one point I was probably making $250.00 an hour. I once won tickets to see the real Tina Turner in concert by entering an impersonation contest.

Tell me the story

ERICA BROWN: When Tina Turner came here in ’97, I didn’t have enough money at the time to buy tickets to go to her show. I was desperate to go, because she is one of my heroes. I wrote Barry Fey, but go no response. May D&F at the time (prior to turning into Foleys) were sponsoring a Tina Turner look-a-like, sound-a-like contest. One of the grand prizes was two tickets for the concert. Since I was already doing impersonations of her anyway, I thought I might as well go for it. I had a friend who, at the time, was a makeup artist. He made me up and we went out there. There must have been 100 people out there dressed and made up in their versions of Tina, waiting in line for this contest. So we just got a number and got in line. What I had done was make a tape. I took my time, sat down and made this tape that had two songs. The first half of the tape had “Proud Mary,” the second half had “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” I also brought two sets of clothes and two different wigs. When it was my turn, I walked up on stage and they turned the tape on and I immediately went into “Proud Mary.” Then, half way through the tape, the song suddenly stopped and I ran off stage, flipped my wig off, flipped the great, big one on and rushed back up just as the music for the other song started. So, what I ended up doing was represent the 60’s Tina Turner and the 80’s Tina Turner. It just blew people away! (Laughs) So there were three sets of tickets that could be won and I was one of the winners. My daughter and I ended up going to see Tina Turner.

Did her show live up to your expectations?

ERICA BROWN: It was awesome! She worked it, boy!

As you watched her perform, what was it about her that you would aspire to become?

ERICA BROWN: She is a total professional and has energy like no female performer I have ever seen. She had two, young girls on both sides of her dancing and they had to work to keep up with her. She is the total entertainment package. You can’t keep your eyes off her when she’s on stage. She is everything you’re supposed to be. She looks good, she sounds good, she has the whole thing down. When you leave one of her shows, you know you’ve seen something special, and that’s what I want. When people come to see me and have paid their hard earned money to watch me perform, by God I owe them a show!

So what would we see if Erica Brown was a national star?

ERICA BROWN: Huge backdrops, lots of long, flowing clothes…

You’re known for changing clothes throughout your sets

ERICA BROWN: Absolutely. Even when we are playing outside or for only an hour, I’ll rush off stage and change somewhere in the middle of the set. All my clothes are “quick in” and “quick out,” so I’ll change and come running back on stage. People love it. It’s all about entertainment.

If doing Tina Turner was so rewarding, why stop?

ERICA BROWN: Because I wanted to do me.

Yeah, but can’t you do both?

ERICA BROWN: I did for awhile, but the need to do my own music outweighed the need to do someone else.

You have been involved with some very notable bands. Tell me about them.

ERICA BROWN: FORESKIN 500 came about in 1995. Mark Brooks, one the front guys of the band, called me after someone had referred me to him. He was looking for a KLF type of singer and that’s what he told me when he called. He said “I don’t know if you’re gonna like what were doing, because we are a little different.” I was like, “I’ll try anything once!” So it was an awesome band and they made great music. We are even on the movie soundtrack for “The Fan” with Wesley Snipes and Robert Denero. There’s three, whole minutes of me singing! (Laughs).

Tell me about CHERRY BOMB CLUB

ERICA BROWN: CHERRY BOMB CLUB was an outgrowth of Foreskin 500. Dave Moore was the bassist for that band and after it broke up, he wanted to put another project together. That’s how the CHERRY BOMB CLUB came about. We went out to New York City and did the CMJ music festival. We were a hit out there. We actually did quite well. At the same time, I started to do the Blues project.

When was the first time you realized The Blues were “it” for you?

ERICA BROWN: Probably when I really listened to Ko Ko Taylor. She continues to blow me away. She just has that “thing” that I can’t describe. I never had really thought about doing it myself. Then, when I started listening to her, I really realized it was “it.” This is the shizit. This is the shizzle krizzle! (Laughs) The way it came about for me was I had done a play for a gentleman, who actually filmed it for his Master’s (degree) thesis project. He did the whole, grand scale thing at the Black Box Theater on Auraria Campus. I had just finished doing it when my current drummer and bass player, Scotty and Rich called me and asked me what I was doing. There was also a guitarist named Tommy Butters who also called me. They all argue now on who called me first, but one of them called me and said they had lost the vocalist in their band. They wondered if I could sub for them until they found someone else. So I said, “Sure!” At the time they were called J.D. KELLY AND THE LOVE BANDITS. I had always loved what they were doing and had sat in at various times. They would let me sit in whenever I wanted to. I’ve sat in with Sugar Bear, I’ve sat in with Hazel Miller, I’ve sat in with everybody, but never had my own band. So they asked me to help them out and I said “sure,” but it ended up working so well that we all looked at each other and said, “Why don’t we just do this?”

So was it you that decided to change the name of the band to your name.

ERICA BROWN: No, it was there idea to slap my name on the band. I wasn’t down with the idea because it seemed too pretentious at the time. But we all understood that I had a lot of name recognition out there. It made sense to use my name.

So this isn’t really you with a back up band, but a real group?

ERICA BROWN: Yep. My name may be up front, but this is a band in every sense of the word. We discuss everything democratically. This is not a dictatorship. If we all have to deal with anything major, we all sit down and talk about it. Everybody has input. That’s why we’ve lasted as long as we have. We’ve lasted 6 years. We’ve payed our dues by playing in clubs for free or for very little money.

So tell me about the first album you did as a band.

ERICA BROWN: That would be “Body Work” We released that in 2000.

You did a lot of covers on the CD. Why?

ERICA BROWN: At the time, we didn’t have enough originals to fill up an entire CD, so we chose covers we liked, like “The Weight” By Robbie Robertson, We did a song by a lady by the name of Miss Lavelle White called “Never Found A Man.” She absolutely rocks!

So between that album and your brand new one, you had two guitarists die.

ERICA BROWN: Yes. Our first guitarist was Tommy Butters. He had a small drug problem that might have eventually got the best of him. I never read the official coroner’s report, but we think he might have O.D’d. If that’s the case, I’m sure it was an accidental. I’m positive Tommy would not have meant to kill himself.

Did anyone know he had a drug problem?

ERICA BROWN: I’m sure the other guys knew. At the time, I don’t know if I had been in the band long enough to really know, or for them to tell me Tommy’s business. It came as quite a shock to me. Tommy would get up on stage and just play…he was an amazing guitarist. If he had a drug problem he did it on his own time.

Where was his body found?

ERICA BROWN: At home. His wife found his body. She called me and I was the first one over there after the Coroner had come and taken his body away. She was destroyed because they were really close. It was so sad, because I just loved Tommy.

How did his death affect the band and your perception of your place in the music biz?

ERICA BROWN: Well, I never thought for a second that I would or should stop. That would never be an option for me. However, it was a tough time for all of us, because we all loved him. It was very hard. He was very well respected in the music community.

So then you had another guitarist die.

ERICA BROWN: Yes, Billy Ryan was…it’s hard to describe his genius. Billy would just put his head down and just go to work. He would just rip and shred on the guitar. He was amazing. If either him or Tommy were still with us, we would have never had to look for another guitarist, and never would have. Billy unfortunately had a massive heart attack in his sleep.

How did two deaths effect the band?

ERICA BROWN: We had to keep moving forward. The person I credit most with it is my drummer Scotty. He’s always been the one pushing things along. So then we auditioned a few folks before going with Bob Pellegrino, who had written two songs with me for “Body Work.” He was wonderful, but eventually wanted to go in a different musical direction. We all completely understood and respected his decision, but again we needed to keep moving. Another person that has really been a stopgap for us is a guy named Sundance. He is from Louisiana and is famous in his own right. He is an awesome guitarist. Even though he had his own projects, he was always there for us when we needed him. If we were in a pinch and needed a guitar player, we would call ‘Dance. So he joined us for awhile, but only until we could find someone who wanted to play with us permanently. So, we eventually got Bob Yeazel who was in a band called Sugar Loaf. They had a hit back in the day with “Green Eyed Lady.” He was with us a year and even played on the new CD, but was going through some personal stuff. He was working great for us, but he needed some time to step back and decide what was best for him. We see him all the time. We maintain good relations with everyone we’ve worked with. Currently we have Marc Larson in the band and he is incredible. You saw him play. He is awesome. The one thing about us is even though we’ve went through a number of guitarists, we’ve never had a mediocre one. All of them have been great.

You had health problems involving your voice. How did that start?

ERICA BROWN: It started in 2001, when I thought I was going deaf. People would talk to me and I’d go “what?,” “huh?” I thought there was something wrong with my hearing, so I decided to go to the doctor. So I went and had a checkup. It turns out that I actually have above average hearing, so the Audiologist sent me to the ENT to let them check me out. So my first Dr. was Dr. Myers. When they look at your vocal chords, there is this disgusting, little thing that they have to put up, through your nose, to get down to the back of your throat, so they can look down there to see if everything is all right. So the results of that test were a discovery that I had a cyst on one side and a nodule on the other.

Was that a surprise to you?

ERICA BROWN: No. I had gotten to the point where I’d sing over a weekend and actually be hoarse by the time Monday came around. It would take me several days to get my voice back. So I wasn’t surprised when I found out my vocal chords were all screwed up. The Doctor originally wanted me to take 6 weeks off from singing so they could heal. But try as I might, it just wasn’t possible because the band was so busy.

So what did you do?

ERICA BROWN: Well, after a month or two watching the situation, but not really being able to do anything about it, Dr. Myers decided to have me undergo microsurgery to clean my vocal chords. He put me with a lady named Dr. Mona Abaza. She is double degreed in what she does and is one of the best in the country. I was actually very fortunate to get her. She had another nifty, little machine that featured a long, metal wand that looks like a cattle prod. They put it to the back of your throat and it has a camera on it. It looks down at your vocal chords. After you’ve had it done a couple of times it’s not so bad, but it’s a gagger for sure. So after running that procedure on me, she scheduled me for surgery, which I had done shortly thereafter. The surgery went fine and I had beautiful, pink, vocal chords once again. We all thought everything was OK. I couldn’t perform for about a month, so the whole band geared down. I went back for my first checkup, and everything looked great…except we hadn’t seen the biopsy results yet.

Uh Oh.

ERICA BROWN: The next day, the nurse coordinator, Pat called me up and told me I had to come in to see them. I was like, “Why? I was just in there yesterday.” She was like, “Just come back in.” And I was like, “Is something wrong?” And she said “Just come back in. We need to talk to you.” She later told me she couldn’t take the chance of having me do a dead faint on the floor when they had to tell me they found cancer. So I went back in and they told me about it.

How did you react?

ERICA BROWN: I was floored, kind of numb and detached. I felt like I was having an out of body experience. They were absolutely stumped. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink much. I don’t have any bad habits that I’m willing to talk about (laughs). They couldn’t figure out what was going on. I actually ended up being the subject of the University’s Grand Rounds of all the laryngologists. Dr. Abaza wanted to present my findings and let them look at it. Everyone was stumped. The first pathologist that looked at it thought he was making a mistake, so he had his supervisor come look at it. but even though it didn’t present like cancer, it was, indeed cancerous. So the only option was to either do radiation or go back in and do surgery again. There were risks with both and of course, I was worried about being able to sing. They’re attitude was, “Lets save your life first, then we’ll worry about the music.” Of course, what they didn’t realize was music and life are one in the same for me! (Laughs). So I opted for the surgery, went back in to make sure they had gotten all of it. I’m glad I did it.

How was your singing ability after recovery?

ERICA BROWN: Well, we didn’t want any of this to happen again, so they put me with two wonderful vocal coaches, Kate Emerich and Jennifer Spielman, who have offices at DCPA. I kind of had to relearn everything and learn how to do it right. So when I first returned to singing, I would reach for a note and maybe I would hit it and maybe I wouldn’t. And sometimes I would hit a note, but then my voice would go off in a different direction. It took a little while for that to go away.

So by the time this was over, how long had you been away from performing?

ERICA BROWN: I think we were down for a total of three months. At first, we thought people would forget us. There was no chance of that. I got all kinds of wonderful flowers and cards. I remember Dave and the gang, of The Little Bear, in Evergreen, sent me a huge bouquet of flowers. It was really weird because being around so many flowers was potentially harmful for me. If any of that pollen were to make me sneeze, it would destroy my vocal chords, which were very fragile at the time. I was on all sorts of medication at the time. I was on stuff to keep me from sneezing or coughing. I was on pain medication, allergy drugs, medication for acid reflux. They say a lot of vocalists may have a touch of acid reflux because they are always pushing from the diaphragm. But in the end, I got through it just fine. I’ve been moving along ever since and I sing now better than I ever have.

How often do you have to go for checkups?

ERICA BROWN: At first it was every week. I’m now up to every three months. I originally believed that if you made it to two years with no cancer, you’re considered cured. The doctor told me it’s actually five years, but if any problems are to recur, they usually will do so within the first year. They really wanted to keep a watch on me because if another white spot were to have popped up, we would have known we were in trouble.

So aside from dying guitarists and cancer, why did you wait so long to record and release your new CD, Rough Cut Stone?

ERICA BROWN: We were busy doing live shows and figuring out how we all interacted together. We wanted to see if we would ultimately be together long enough to invest that kind of money. But we are very happy with the new CD. It’s called Rough Cut Stone. We recorded it at FTM studios, in Lakewood Colorado with an amazing man named Steve Avedis. I call him Mr. Spock, because he has the sharpest ears in the business (laughs). He really knows how to get a good performance out of me. Whether it’s going back and tweaking a piece, or if something wasn’t emotional enough for him, he would just stop me and go “Could I hear that again?” He was just wonderful.

There aren’t as many covers this time.

ERICA BROWN: Nope. we have only one cover. The rest are originals. The cover is “The Shape I’m In,” by Robbie Robertson and The Band.

How did the songs come together for the CD?

ERICA BROWN: The whole band contributed to the new songs. I’m a lyricist, so one of the songs on there I wrote called “Hard Faith.” Bob Pellegrino wrote the music and came up with a lovely melody. “Daner’s Place” is about a club that used to exist somewhere on Colfax. A lot of rock bands used to go there and my drummer Scotty wrote a song about it. He had the lyrics and the melody in his head and we all just kind of worked it together as a band. Our friend Sundance wrote a song called Payin’ Dues.” The lyrics go (sings) “sittin on this mountain, payin dues.” It’s a duet between Scotty and me. It’s a great, slow, Blues burner. It cooks! It’s one of our best songs live because at the end of it, he sings this long note and I step back, crouch and go into this note that seems to go on forever. I slowly come up from the floor and by the time I’m at the top with this note, people are going insane! It’s so cool (laughter). There is another song, my keyboard player Jim Ayers wrote, called “Bring Back The Quarters.” It’s probably my favorite song on the whole CD. It’s about his grandfather during the depression. The song is all about how the government would come in and buy your livestock from you for a quarter or a dollar. Then they would kill the animals.

Why would they do that?!

ERICA BROWN: Because the families could not afford to feed the animals to keep them alive. So the government would come in and pay them to kill the animals. So the song goes “When we sold the family farm, we sold our dreams” It’s a deep, deep song.

You’ve mentioned before about becoming the songs you sing

ERICA BROWN: People always talk about the energy I put into songs. That’s because I become the songs I sing. If I’m singing a song like “Should’ve Come Home Last Night,” which is about a woman that’s cheatin’ on her husband, I become that woman in that song. I should have come home last night. Love should have brought my ass home last night! (Laughs) But did I do that? Nooooo (more laughter). So now I’m like (singing) “Should’ve come home last night”…Damn, I should have come home last night, cuz now I’m walkin’ through the door and I’m seeing his face and he’s like, “where were you?” And I’m like “Ah, damn!” I love this man and I would not hurt him for the world. But I did the things you do not do. I made him worry needlessly and I hurt him. I should have never done it. Will he forgive me for this? I don’t know. I don’t know. Gotta roll the dice and see. That’s what I mean by becoming the songs. That’s what I try to do with every song I sing.

You’ve had label interest, haven’t you?

ERICA BROWN: Yes! We got an email from Northern Blues Music, which is a Blues label. The email came from a gentleman named Fred Litwin who is the president of the label. He said that he had heard us and was told to check us out. He told us to send him our stuff, which we did. We will see what happens. We’re kind of excited about it cuz Northern Blues Music is Otis Taylor’s label. They are highly respected, and work with good artistes. We would be in good company if we had a chance to work with them. It would be awesome for us.

Are there any mortals you’d like thank?

ERICA BROWN: Well I know I’m going to forget a lot of people, but the first person I want to thank is Miss J.C. She is a DJ on KUVO (89.3 FM) and has a show called “Rockin’ In Rhythm With Miss J.C.” ( 7- 9:00 PM every Friday ).She bills herself as the “Senior citizen of the airwaves.” She has always loved the band and is a wonderful woman. She had actually been interacting with us professionally without knowing that we both knew someone in common. She and I were on the phone one night talking. My band was going to open for Tinsley Ellis at The Bluebird Theater one night, so I called Miss J.C. to tell her. She said “I might try to come down to that show, cuz that’s just down the street from me.” I was like, “Oh yeah? Where do you live?” and she said “Steele Street.” I was like, “Oh really? My mother and sister used to live on Steele Street. In fact it was 1412 Steele.” And she goes “That’s my building!” So we continue to talk about it and it turns out she knew my mother and sister really well and all this time neither of us knew it! (Laughs). In fact, Miss J.C. had been to my mother’s funeral and the reception afterwards. I was so out of it, that I didn’t even remember seeing her there. And the funny thing was, she said she used to come down to my Mom’s place and the two of them would sit and talk for hours about everything. She was like, “I loved your Mother!” So now her and I have this family connection together and it is absolutely wonderful.

Who else?

ERICA BROWN: Kai Turner on KRSX (103.5 The Fox FM) has a show on Sundays, from 7-10:00 PM called “Strictly Blues.” He refers to himself as “The Blues Vassal” and considers himself a servant of The Blues. He plays our stuff all the time and has been behind us from the start. When “Body Work” first came out, he was playing it. People would hear it and say “Who are those guys?!” He has given us a lot of exposure and has been wonderful. Then there is Kevin Gerahty at Brendan’s Pub (20th & Larimer). That was one of the first “for real” clubs that we ever played as a band. We started out playing Kevin’s club on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We were excited because we were getting a shot in a real, live Blues club. So we started packin’ them in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I don’t think we ever had a bad night, but we wanted to play weekends. So finally, we managed to talk him into letting us play on weekends and we’ve been playing them ever since. I also want to thank my sister Lora. There were times, when without her, there would have been no me. She has been my sister, my back bone, one of my biggest fans from day one. I love you. She has been so much more than what they say a sister is meant to be. And then, of course, there is my daughter M.J. She has been with me since…well from day one when I was pregnant with her! (Laughs). She has always been there for everything. I immersed her in the music lifestyle and she just soaked it up. Nothing I do is too strange for her.

So ultimately, when all is said and done, why do you do this?

ERICA BROWN: We have always gotten great responses from people. One lady came up to me and said I gave her goosebumps. Another time a lady came up to me just crying. I mean she was just bawling. I was like, “What’s wrong?” She had been watching me sing and said I had moved her to tears. I remember thinking to myself “That’s why I do this!”

Of all the mortal fans that have come up to you, which was the most memorable?

ERICA BROWN: I was at Herb’s Hideout one night (21st and Larimer). My band had played there, but the night I went in there, we weren’t playing, I was just going in to hang out. Everybody was all excited because I was down there. Since I wasn’t working, I could have something to drink. When I’m working, I only drink hot water, so everybody was excited to see me. I was standing behind this guy, who is a fan of mine, who maybe had a just bit too much too drink (laughs). He suddenly turned around because he wanted to speak to me, when all of a sudden what ever he had in his stomach decided it didn’t want to be there anymore. My life suddenly went into slow-motion and his vomit came out in an arc and I could see it coming at me in slow-motion. And suddenly it’s like “whack!” all over this long, black coat I was wearing. (Laughs) Luckily, my coat was made of vinyl so it washed off, but I had spew everywhere (Laughs). He was mortified and repeatedly apologized, but I thought it was so funny, that all I could do was laugh and laugh. Everybody else was outraged, but all I could do is laugh. I was like, “Now I know I’m living The Blues, I’ve been thrown up on!” (Laughter)