The Whinin’ Boys duo was founded by Mike Mercier and Jeff Gonzales. They have captured the light bluesy-rock sound of Hot Tuna – a band which was formed as a side project in the late 60’s by 2 members of Jefferson Airplane. 52 years later Hot Tuna is still performing today. The Whinin’ Boys have really allowed us to gain a deeper appreciation for this band and other musicians they play tributes to. Along with performing as a duo, individually they have an extensive list of collaborations with other artists that you can see on Jeff’s website. I had a lot of fun interviewing Mike and Jeff. Here are some of the highlights.
How long have you guys been together as The Whinin’ Boys? And how did this all start?
Mike: About 2 years. Before Covid hit I was doing this solo thing in my basement– and I thought to myself ‘I gotta start playing with other people. I have to interact with other musicians’, so I put an ad out on Craig’s List. I got picked up by this one band that were starting to form a blues band. I joined them playing rhythm guitar, harmonica, and vocals. Then our bass player got sick so we put an ad out for a bass player.
Jeff: I like to play bass and I spotted their ad. Then the drummer – an elderly gentleman – who blew his knee out. So that particular band didn’t last long.
Mike: When the band broke up, Jeff invited me over to his studio – just to jam – and he (Jeff) tells me I don’t have to bring my guitar! And then when I get there I realized why – Jeff is playing bass, rhythm and lead all at the same time! That’s basically when we started playing as The Whinin’ Boys.
So you guys never met prior to this at all?
Jeff: No – but we lead these parallel lives – from work, to music, to even knowing the same women (chuckle)… so every time we would start talking we would have either identical experiences or would know the same people – plus we’re the same age which is interesting. We didn’t reside in the same area. Mike is from Kingston and I’m from Delmar. I do believe that people with similar interests seem to find each other for whatever reason. There’s a certain energy that seems to connects people.
Tell me a little bit about Hot Tuna
Jeff: Hot Tuna has been around for 52 years and still on tour today! Jack (Casady) and Jorma (Kaukonen) were in Jefferson Airplane. And Jorma would teach Jack the music he learned from the Reverend Gary Davis – a great black artist who died in 1972. Those ragtime artists from the 20’s and 30’s really started all the great music out there – right up to rock n’ roll. It all came out of that ragtime blues genre. Ragtime was the piano aspect – It was brilliant music. The black artists got it all started and then white artists like Ry Cooder, Roy Bookbinder heard it, then the English kids heard it and came over – and now all of a sudden we have the birth of rock n’ roll.
Where are you guys from originally?
Mike: Kingston originally and I went to college in New Paltz. I moved to Woodstock for about a year and half, escaped from that area and came to Albany. I failed miserably at my first few jobs but I found my calling as computer programmer (chuckle).
Jeff: I’m in Delmar
Was it your love of Hot Tuna that drew you guys together initially?
Jeff: No, but at the first rehearsal – we ended up doing 5 or 6 Tuna songs and we just kind of looked at each other and said – “why don’t we just form a Hot Tuna tribute band?” I never did a tribute band, and Mike never did one, so we’re like – why don’t we do the tribute thing? So that’s what we did. That’s really how The Whinin’ Boys got started. Then we branched out. We started with 3 albums of Hot Tuna, and now we just completed another 3 albums of blues with some slide guitar. All the albums are on my website.
What is it about Hot Tuna that you guys like so much? The riffs? The message?
Jeff: The style was just something that really grabbed us. Jorma was one of the first white guys that learned directly from Gary Davis – I mean you could hear it. I studied a lot of that music and played it when I was a kid in the 70’s. The stuff he (Jorma) was listening to was the same stuff I was listening to. But once I heard Jorma’s music I was like “wow”. It’s that finger-pickin’ guitar, that ragtime blues, country blues, open right-handed technique that’s really cool and that’s what drew me.
When me and Mike got together I hadn’t really played any Hot Tuna in years. I mean – we had a couple duos where we did a few songs but…I had to re-learn all these Tuna songs that I was playing as a kid! It was a real joy to play the songs again.
Mike: And the same exact thing for me as well. I had the chance to see Jorma in the 70’s in Poughkeepsie as a solo act. It was just him on a chair, a guitar, and a microphone. It just blew me away. You can see videos now of that same period that I saw him on Youtube.
Are there any other bands you really enjoy and pay tribute to?
Jeff: We’re working on a David Bromberg set – his tunes from the 60’s and 70’s. It’s very similar to our first 3 Hot Tuna albums. The following 3 albums we made after Tuna are straight-up blues with a lot of slide guitar along with Mikey playing harmonica and singing. So even though Hot Tuna really got us started, and at any point we can do Hot Tuna songs, we now have about 4 different sets of music – all based on that same acoustic approach.
It sounds like its primarily the blues that you two really enjoy?
Mike: We both love all kinds of music. Blues has always been close to my heart. As of lately we’ve started flushing out my original material in a grungy rock n’ roll kinda format.
Jeff: I mean most bands are based in a little blues – look at the Rolling Stones. Pink Floyd was named after Pink Anderson and Floyd Council – two black blues players. They wanted to be a blues band. Muddy Waters wrote – I’m a rolling stone – that’s where The Rolling Stones got their name from. Muddy said ‘the blues had a baby and named it rock n’ roll’.
Rock n’ roll came out of the blues, so again it goes back to ragtime, which leads to blues, electric blues, the English kids are coming over, now we have rock n’ roll.
Mike: So in the 80’s I did a project called the Albaniacs. That was a duo as well but we billed ourselves as two-man, five piece, midi-blues band.
And that’s where my technical background came in. I was doing all this computer stuff on the side. Basically you’re connecting the computer to keyboards and a drum machine. We were the first midi blues band in the Albany area.
Jeff: And that was really early on.
Mike: Yeah, people would walk into the bar and look at our set-up like it was a space shuttle. Wires were everywhere connected to this computer, which was about the size of a suitcase. The bottom came off and that was your keyboard. So I was able to combine both of my loves, computers and music.
What makes for a satisfying performance for you guys?
Jeff: It’s the exchange of energy between us and the audience. That’s really all it is. I’ve done probably 8000 gigs, I don’t care if we’re playing for 3 people or 300, if we have a good exchange of energy that’s all we need.
Mike: We’ve played gigs in places that are full of people and no one is even paying attention. Jeff is like – ‘get used to it’. And I’m like ‘wow’. We never go back to those venues. But then we had a gig over in Lake George – for only about 6 people – but they loved us! It super energized us and we killed it.
Jeff: I’ll play any gig once. You have to do that when you first start out to get the experience.
Is it the uppity crowd that doesn’t pay attention when you play?
Jeff: No it’s just that they’re not musically knowledgeable. There just isn’t any etiquette there. In the 70’s when went to hear live music we would sit there and listen – really give the band our attention.
Any funny stories you’ve had over the last few years?
Mike: There was one gig back in 1985 with The Albaniacs where we incited a girls rugby team to tear up the joint. They were really digging the harmonica. Lol.
– Interview by Heather Wentworth
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100051088967784
http://www.jgonz777.com/whiners-tuna.html
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.gonzales.984
Upcoming The Whinin’ Boys Gigs:
4/28 @ Artisinal Brew Works in Saratoga, NY 6:30pm
4/29 @ Crossroads Brewing Co. in Catskill, NY 4pm
5/6 @ Roe Jan Brewing Co. in Hillsdale, NY 6pm
5/20 @ S&S Farm Brewery in Nassau, NY 6pm
5/25 @ Saratoga Winery n Saratoga, NY 6pm