From Jersey to Texas:
One Man's Steel Odyssey
By Vinny Smith
I am not a musician, only a fan – a junkie, actually, with a pedal steel guitar addiction. In 1995 I wanted to hear the sweet sounds of ringing, twanging steel guitar live and in person every single night and that just wasn’t going to happen in the San Francisco suburb I lived in at the time. Nashville was where I decided I had to be, so off I went. I even bought my own steel – I was that addicted. I convinced myself I would learn to play and form a killer band. Well I never even came close to figuring it out, but man did it look awesome set up in my living room. At least it did until I loaned it to someone who never returned it. But alas, my steel dreams were not to be. Instead I settled for living vicariously through the dozens of steel players I met while I lived there. The urges eventually faded a bit but lately they have been coming back strong. I tried to get into a twelve-step program but I only got as far as a two-step.
It seems fitting, then, that my first interview for this website is with Danny Crelin, a New Jersey-born pedal steel player with Dallas, Texas-based band Eleven Hundred Springs. I recently had the great pleasure to sit down with him before their show at Safari Sam’s in Hollywood. We talked about everything from hockey to mob movies to heavy metal music but mostly about the steel guitar and related topics. What shone through the most, though, was his genuine love for the steel. He has a healthy respect for the instrument and for those who play it and is constantly striving to learn more. If you ask me, it has paid off. Shortly after Danny and I finished up he and the band went out and rocked the house.
Vinny Smith - New Jersey isn’t exactly known as a breeding ground for pedal steel players so let’s start with an obvious question. How does someone from New Jersey end up playing steel guitar?
Danny Crelin - I was in a country band playing regular guitar and we were lacking another instrument very badly so a friend of mine gave me a lap steel to kind of mess around with and it just kind of went from there. I got my first pedal steel shipped to me and I was basically playing it out within a month. It was just a little student model that had a lot of twang and it just progressed from one steel to another. I just had a knack for it somehow. I don’t understand that myself.
VS - And you just kind of got pulled toward Texas?
DC - As I got more and more involved with the steel and felt more confident with my playing and all that, I moved to Richmond, Virginia and kind of built up some more and got a little better at playing and more competent. At one point Stonewall Jackson came to town and I got to back him on stage for a couple shows. I just kind of got that bug that I wanted to do something more. Then Dale Watson came to Richmond. I was sitting right in front, right between him and Ricky Davis who was playing steel for him at the time. So I’m sitting there going left to right, right to left, watching both of them and I was like, "Man this is what I want to do, this is how my life’s going to go, I want to do this." And you know what? If I would have been scared to deal with it and said, “Man I don’t know if I should,” I’d be kicking myself in the butt the rest of my life. I just packed up and left for Texas. And that’s pretty much how I roll. I swore on my life that I would never say that I’m afraid to do something or not want to do it because I’m unsure about the future. You could be working on a 9 to5 day job and have no idea if you’re going to get fired the next morning. You can either choose to be miserable or be happy. I choose the latter.
VS - How did you hook up with Eleven Hundred Springs?
DC - I was playing with Jamie Richards at the White Elephant in Fort Worth and Eleven Hundred was playing at Billy Bob’s the same night. Jordan (EHS’s fiddle player) was at the White Elephant having a beer. We had been in touch on MySpace because I had played with Johnny Lee at one point and he’s a big Johnny Lee fan. So he shouted out my name and I just went over and we formally introduced ourselves. A month later I got an email from the band on MySpace saying they needed me for a couple gigs if I was available. I was off that weekend so I went and after the first night they offered me the job so I jumped at it.
VS - Good move; it’s a great band. Now as far as musical talent and ability goes, it tends to run in families. Do you have a musical family?
DC - Well my earliest memory is my grandfather had this old Kaye acoustic guitar. He’d set me on his lap and he’d start singing You Are My Sunshine and all these Hank Williams songs. He always had country music on the radio at the house. One of my grandmothers had this immense record collection and it had everything from big band to blues to Sinatra and a lot of classical but she also had Patsy Cline albums and Hank Williams. I would say those two were probably my biggest musical influences as far as in the family. Nobody else played an instrument; they were the only two that even remotely were into music as much as I was. My whole life’s been music ever since. I remember that acoustic guitar and I always wondered what happened to it. It’s just a weird thing; I have no idea where it went to. But yeah, my grandfather used to sing You Are My Sunshine all the time to me so now when Jordan does it in the middle of Orange Blossom Special on stage it’s kind of a special little thing for me to sit there and hear that.
VS - So you don’t have any brothers and sisters that play?
DC - No I’m an only child and I think a lot of people are probably thankful for that.
VS - Have you done a lot of recording in the past?
DC - You know, I really haven’t done a whole lot of recording as far as any major bands. I did a bunch of sessions in Richmond for various people. The biggest thing I’ve ever done was the Eleven Hundred CD. I just never got myself into a position to where I was close enough with a studio to be able to go and record and all the bands I played with were using mostly session guys. With us you get the real deal, which is cool. What you hear on the CD, you’ll get a little more amped up version live, but for the most part it’s pretty much what we do.
VS - Do you write songs?
DC - I’ll write lines down, just little hook lines that come up. I’ve got this whole box full of little sheets of paper and napkins and stuff where I just get something going through my head and if I’ve got a pen handy I’ll write it down and throw it in the box. Maybe one day I’ll just give it to Matt (Hillyer, lead singer and songwriter) and let him tear at it and put all these different papers together and figure something out of it so who knows?
VS - Lloyd Maines produced Eleven Hundred Springs' current album, Country Jam. Was the fact that he’s also known for being a great steel player intimidating?
DC - I’d say the most intimidating thing about that whole session was not the fact that he’s a great steel player, it was more of a time issue for me. I’m pretty frugal so when it comes down to it it’s like time wasted is money spent and I’m more concerned about that. I didn’t really want to dwell on a whole bunch of things and waste time. But Lloyd is what I’ll refer to as “the voice in my ears” and what I mean by that is that when I had the headphones on in the studio Lloyd would sit there and I’d run through a line and he would just kind of be like, “Why don’t we try it like this?” He’d be just talking me through stuff, he’d be like, “Try this lick here and see what it sounds like.” Lloyd was just awesome, he really builds your confidence up and he makes you feel like you’re doing the right thing, like you’re doing what you can do. He’s going to get more out of you, which he should. It was a real treat to get to work with him.
VS - Do you feel like you got any more or less attention due to you both being steel players?
DC - I was in there for two straight days and mostly in those two days Matt and I were the only two in there. He was doing lead guitar parts and then I’d go in and do the steel and then he’d work on some vocals. For the most part I feel like I got plenty of attention and I’ve gotten quite a few compliments from people who have heard the CD that said, man, it’s nice to hear the steel guitar out front in the mix.
VS - Is that something you think Lloyd brought to the table?
DC - Yeah, I think so. If I stunk on the CD then you wouldn’t be hearing the steel or Lloyd would have gone and back did it but it’s nice to know that 100% of the steel on that CD is me and that’s a great feeling.
VS - It’s nice to hear the steel get proper attention.
DC - It’s a great instrument, it really is. I almost feel blessed to be able to play it, because I hear a lot of guys say, “Man I tried playing that and I just could not do it.”
VS - I know, it’s got foot pedals and knee levers – all kinds of stuff.
DC - And it’s not like I’m saying I know everything about it because I don’t but I’m learning something new every day and I’m not afraid to try new licks on stage that’s for sure, I’ll do that in a heartbeat.
VS - At this point is music your main gig?
DC - Yeah, but I’ve also been helping out at Rains Steel Guitars which is a builder in Fort Worth. It’s owned by Gary Carpenter who’s played with Reba McEntire, Ray Price, you name it he’s played with them. He’s the go-to guy in Fort Worth for sessions and gigs. Gary’s been teaching me for the past two and a half months, how to build steel guitars. So not only do I get to play one at night, I get to build them during the day. It’s more of an apprentice deal so I don’t consider it a job. It’s another thing that I feel blessed about that I had somebody who picked me up and said, “Hey, you need to learn this.” So that’s what I’m doing. So now I get to hang out with him all day and while he’s fine tuning steels, he’s throwing off these licks that are just blowing my mind and I’ll sit there and listen to what he’s doing and then I’ll go home and just start playing. It’s really helped my playing out a lot just being with him.
VS - One of the steel players I knew when I lived in Nashville did the exact same thing; he worked for a steel guitar builder.
DC - It don’t hurt, you know. Plus we get a lot of big name steelers stop in when they come through town so I’ve gotten to meet a lot of my heroes.
VS - That was the next thing I was going to bring up. You list Buddy Charlton as your mentor.
DC - Buddy Charlton played with Ernest Tubb in the sixties and seventies. He replaced Buddy Emmons which are pretty big shoes to fill. Buddy Charlton is probably one of the most proficient steel players I’ve ever heard. He lives in Fredricksburg, Virginia, about an hour and a half from Richmond. I had gotten to the point where I was pretty much teaching myself to play so I just got up one day and gave him a call, scheduled a lesson and then I spent the next year and a half, like maybe every other weekend driving up there and getting lessons. The lessons were supposed to run for 45 minutes but would always go over to almost two hours. He never charged me a dime more and he would just get excited that I was getting what he was teaching me. So I’ve got a box of tapes that I’m putting on CD’s right now so I can still go back and hear some stuff that I might have forgotten. When I told him I was thinking about moving to Texas he just started going, “Well, that’s where you need to be, you’re not doing anything around here. You gotta get off your butt and go while you can.” He really gave me the confidence to go and do it and thank God he did because I’m making a living playing guitar.
VS - So was that one of the biggest pieces of advice you got from him?
DC - Yeah, that and then he showed me how to do a palm harmonic where you can make a train sound. He goes, “You’ll need to learn this because if you ever get a gig with Hank Thompson you’re going to be playing that a lot.” When he said that it just kind of made me think that for him to make that statement, maybe he sees potential in me. I never got to play for Hank Thompson but I got to play with some pretty good people.
VS - Sounds like a great experience.
DC - He never got frustrated while he was teaching me which was cool. When I first started I had a guy in Jersey and no matter what I did, if I hit something wrong he would get mad and it just discouraged me. So like after four or five lessons I said, “I’m not doing this with you anymore,” so I just did it on my own. I bought all these instruction books, I listened to country twenty-four hours a day and then one day I was listening to the radio and some blues came on so I just started playing along with that and next thing you know I’m playing all different styles. I don’t limit myself to one box; I can go out there and play what I gotta play.
VS - So if you didn’t play music for a living, what would you do?
DC - Man… I have never even thought about that at all.
VS - Well that’s pretty cool in itself.
DC - Now I could tell you if I didn’t play music for a living I’d be building steel guitars but if you’d asked me that before the Rains job I would say I really have no idea because I’ve done so much in my life as far as employment.
VS - So basically it would be just get a job and earn a living.
DC - It would just be find something and go with that part of my life and whatever happens happens, you know, that’s just the way I roll.
VS - Any family or kids?
DC - No. No kids. I’m single and loving life.
VS – Is there a family in your plans?
DC - I was married. But you know... things change.
VS - This seems like a pretty good life, traveling around playing music.
DC - Yeah it is. You get to meet a lot of neat people. That’s the whole thing too, being out here, we’re building up a fan base and it just gets bigger and bigger every time. People have been nothing but really cool and they dig the band, they dig the music.
VS - I saw on your MySpace page you have Slayer and some bands like that in there. Do you listen to that kind of stuff also?
DC - (Laughs) Yeah, yeah. When I was a teenager I saw Metallica at Lamour in Brooklyn, which is a nightclub. I used to see bands like Merciful Fate and Slayer because I just did not get the L.A. glam scene at all. I liked the more aggressive, faster drum beats. But I’m still a metal head, man; it never leaves your blood. When I was a teenager my parents got divorced and it got me through some tough times. It made me forget about that stuff.
VS - I think it had that effect on a lot of people.
DC - Lamour had a show once and the bill said it was Charlotte and the Harlots. As soon as the tickets went on sale I bought four of them because I just had a gut feeling. Sure enough me and my buddies get up to the show and Iron Maiden was warming up for their World Slavery tour – the one they did for their Live After Death CD. They were doing the warm up for that that night and there were only about 300 people in there. That club holds 4500 easy so we had our own personal Iron Maiden concert in a nightclub which was awesome. I’m also a huge (Swing bandleader) Louie Prima fan. Big Time. If there’s anyone in the world I could have met and had dinner with or talk to, it would have been him. I’d love to play steel behind a swing like that. That’s something I’ll put in the CD player and drive on down the road and just blast it. You just never get bored of hearing it. I like Sinatra and a lot of big band music. Definitely country, I mean take your pick. I’m a huge Burrito Brothers fan, Gram Parsons. Gram he’s another one I wish I could have met. And definitely Elvis.
VS - When you have free time how do you like to spend it?
DC - Well the funny part is I really don’t have a lot of free time. Between traveling with the band and working with Gary at the shop 12-14 hours a day, when I’m done with that I get home, shower and collapse, then get up and start it all again the next morning. So as far as free time, if I do have some, I’ll go out to shows - mostly in Fort Worth. I know a lot of people so I’ll get to go and hang out with the bands. Most recently I went to go see Jason Boland and got to hang out on their bus for a while and listened to their new CD that nobody had heard yet. I like those guys, man. And Dale Watson came up to Fort Worth before we left for California and I had dinner with that great bunch of guys.
VS - Dale’s a good guy. I met him a couple months back.
DC - Man I’ll tell you what, I call him the King of the Honky Tonks because in my eyes, that man has a great voice, he’s a fantastic guitar player and he’s got a great band. I first heard him back in the 90’s when I was living up in New Jersey. I probably will be a fan of his for the rest of my life.
VS - Same here. Let’s talk hockey a little bit. Do you have a favorite team?
DC - Yes I do. As a matter of fact since I moved to Texas I have two favorite teams. My first is the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins were always my favorite team; there was just something about them. My new favorite team is the Dallas Stars because I’m right up the road from them. I’m going to go hit a few preseason games. I think they have a game with the Penguins coming up so I’m kind of psyched about that. I’ll be kind of neutral in that game but I’ll be screaming my head off. I just love hockey in general.
VS - So do you play hockey yourself?
DC - No, no we played street hockey when I was a kid. I really want to get out on the ice and skate around and just slap the puck at the net, have some fun and not get checked because I don’t know if my bones can handle it at this age. (Laughs)
VS - Yeah, I know that feeling. I know you like mob movies. What’s your favorite one?
DC - I would have to say – and this isn’t being cliché or anything but the first Godfather would be number one. Goodfellas is another. Joe Pesci was just a nut in that; he’s just psycho. Even though it’s about Vegas, Casino was a great mafia movie.
VS - That’s a great one too.
DC - I went through a little obsession where I started looking for books on John Gotti and all that. I read Sammy the Bull’s biography and that got me wanting more. There’s not that much out there on Gotti; just those books that the prosecutors all did. But yeah, as far as mafia movies, Godfather, Goodfellas and Casino. Then of course you go back to the James Cagney days, the original Scarface, the new Scarface – just-pick ‘em. I don’t like stupid cliché mob movies though. It’s just that mob movies are cool.
VS - Do you have a favorite scene? Something maybe you quote from?
DC - Yeah. “Go get your shine box,” from Goodfellas. They’re at the bar and Billy Bats comes in, he’s like, “Hey Tommy, go get your shine box.” Jordan and I do that, we recite that scene constantly.
VS - I like one from A Bronx Tale.
DC - See, I forgot all about that movie, I haven’t seen that in years. You know you resemble De Niro, I’m sure you’ve heard that.
VS - Actually, people say I resemble Joe Pesci.
DC - Nah, you look like De Niro. I get I look like Junior Brown all the time.
VS - Yeah, you do. He comes to L.A. every so often.
DC - You should go up to him and say you look like Danny from Eleven Hundred Springs. (Laughs)
VS - If you were retired, what would you do?
DC - I would be living somewhere in Italy drinking vino and just enjoying the sun. I went there a few years ago with Rodney Hayden, spent a whole week in a bed and breakfast, played one show and the rest of the time I was swimming and sightseeing. Maybe California too, I don’t know. Sometime later this year I’m going to come back out here and just hang out for a week and just kind of go to places around here like the Chateau, check out John Belushi’s room if I could ever get in there. It’s just a lot of my heroes are dead now so it’s like I kind of want to get a piece of them. That’s the best way to do it; just go see where they hung out and what they did. I mean you walk out this street (Sunset Blvd.) and honestly, Belushi’s probably been up and down this street a thousand times looking for drugs or whatever and here I am standing on the same sidewalk that he’s been on. Now he’s not here and I am.
VS - So to wrap this up, what is the best part about being a member of Eleven Hundred Springs?
DC - Getting to hang out with four other souls that are really cool dudes. They’re not afraid to try stuff and play some ass-kickin’ music. Just being in a band of this caliber and seeing the reactions of people who’ve never heard us before. We’ve actually played in Dallas with a metal band on the same bill. They opened for us; that crowd stayed around and when they heard us they were just like – wow. Because we’re not like your average country band, we brush on all styles but we can also rock the mic. I’m very proud of being able to play with these guys. That was my life-changing experience the day they sent me that email and asked me to come out and play. It’s like fate’s right hand.
