Here is the interview from "Today's Country" that aired in Canada last night. Jon helped me with it but keep in mind that is was late when we did it and some words might not have been the same.

DJ: Tonight we are thrilled to bring you a grammy award winning group that has stated from the beginning that its not about fame and the fortune its always about the music. Ladies and gentlemen live on Today's Country to launch their new live album recorded exclusively in Canada please welcome THE MAVERICKS

Clap/ clap/ clap

Paul: Should we go up front Robert and say that that was when we were very young when it was about the music and not about the fame and fortune?

Robert: Right now, im about lining my pockets and who knows me and who doesn't, and who I know , who im rubbing elbows with.

DJ: I figured that intro might incite a little discussion so..

Robert: I'm figuring that sounds like a Raul quote, I've got to check that. I work with him all day, I probably know that quote!

DJ: on behalf of your fans here nationwide in Canada, thanks for coming back on the show and thanks for the gift of the new live cd.

Robert: Thank you, well I mean really its a gift both ways, we were pleased own Canadian label Universal. I'm pleased that they would put something like this together, and make it an opportunity that we could seize and do with, it's been great, the audiences were great and they're all on tape.

DJ: Now from what I understand, you and Paul were the catalyst for this record. You got talking to the lead of Universal records....

Robert: I guess there is some truth to that, I hadn't really thought about it.

Paul: We talked to Ed Harris, about that saying it would be nice to capture the band live, and again to reiterate what Robert said, the audiences especially in Toronto and Ottawa, all our Canadian experiences have been great [Robert agrees] and Massey Hall especially, the times we had been there before, it seemed like a logical choice, we had talked about doing a live album and it was one of the first places that came to mind.

Robert: And might I add that a lot of these things come about as just conversation, a project like this could be pub talk, its just ideas and every bodies got them. I hadn't really thought about the origin of this except we the band has a lot of people to thank in terms of our management office here in Nashville and the label in Canada. I say thank you for thanking me and then I thank you. Paul: A mutual thanks. Theirs a lot of love in this room! "Get your hand off my leg!"

Robert: "Get your hand off my thanks"

Laughter

DJ: I want to kick off the big show with the song I consider to be quintessential Mavericks. What a Crying Shame...Tell me a bit about the song, we'll rip into it for the fans.

Paul: I guess it was a landmark song for us, when the same named album came out WACS it was our first single that got radio air play in the US and Canada on that, its a special song for us.

Robert: Right, by the time we recorded this live, it had become a quintessential Mavericks live song. It's placed in the set not at the top of the show but towards the back, and the response is.....

Paul: Its the last song on the cd too, I guess we're playing this backwards, what's it going to do when we play it backwards?

Robert: When we play it backwards, It'll say I buried Paul!

OWACS.............Live

DJ: Your live with the Mavericks, were talking about the new album, recorded in Canada for Canadians by Canadians

Robert: Slap a big maple leaf on that!!!! Jeezzz Louise! I feel like Adam or Eve, running around with that leaf tacked on the way it is!

DJ: I want to ask if it caused you guys any stress capturing this live sound on tape. Did you think about it when you were doing the taped shows? You only taped a few shows.

Paul: we only taped two shows, there always is a certain amount of stress, I like it a bit, it puts you on the edge and you're a little more conscious of what you're playing. But there was a lot of stress going into the show that Robert talked about in the lines notes. We almost didn't have the show, because of the weather, our truck got there just an hour before we played so....

Robert: The stress was more , could we actually do a show period.

Paul: When it got there, it was a relief we could actualy do the show, so it took some of the stress away.

DJ: I was at that show, and rumors were buzzing around, everything was late, the truck was late: we were saying "Oh Man! The show might not happen!" It was packed with fans. Robert: There also is the expense of setting all the recording gear set up, so you've got money riding and people who've come a long way and worked very hard to make this show happen so it was very worrisome and frustrating for a while.

Paul: These shows that were recorded were the last two shows to date cause we took a year off. I think Toronto and Ottawa.

Robert: They were indeed the last two shows which reached the end of a seven year period of our life, and we took our first year off in seven years, were we got away from The Mavericks music plus the entity. We all stood back and asked who am I individually and what do I do plus what my life is about.

Paul: We got off the bus, Timothy Leery speaking

Robert: We definitely got off the bus and stepped away from all this

There Goes My Heat............Live

DJ: Let me ask you about your time off. You must've just lied on the couch for a month?

Paul: Well, almost, there was some time for us all to decompress, and get used to not having to get back on the bus and tour. We all loved that but we really did 4 years solid with ought any time at home to decompress. Then we all got into different projects some together some separately and had a pretty productive time individually and brought us up to recording the latest album. I'll say it was the best space we had mentally and musically as a band since very very urly days. Everything was fresh and new, going into the studio

DJ: I guess you get a chance to step back and experience something outside the realm of country I guess you'll be all that more geared up the next time you hit the studio

Robert: It was a good brake for all of us. Part of it was that laying on the couch thing, and spending time with your family whether its with your children or your wife or whatever. Or kinda getting in touch with reality again, the road is not very real, and I can appreciate that more now, being away from it. Its not a bad place.....

The wine, the women, the song

Robert: Just hope your wife doesn't meat the women!, All joking aside I just found its good to touch home base plus put your feet back on solid ground. That set us up for the new album, the new studio album.

I Don't Care If You Love Me Anymore [not live]

DJ: Having a bawl with The Mavericks lets go back in time to your first album From Hell To Paradise and the medley you recorded for the live record. Tell us about that. Paul: We started an acoustic version of FHTP, I dont know where that came up

Robert: I can tell you

Paul: was it on a radio show where we do an acoustic performance?

Robert: I don't know, I know part of it inspiration is that there had been a song by Brother Phelps where they did the motorcycle thing. The song had this lick in it that was very derivative to our band's full electrified version of FHTP and we felt like we had to separate ourselves from that type of vibes, and we found the acoustic interpretation was a lot more sensitive to the lyric plus the spirit of the song, the recorded version is closer to the sentiment of the song. It's like the A version. We're not a medley band, our medleys are more like an accident and it feels good so you repeat it. I know you can become a bit repetitive, do the same shtick over and over.

Paul: I don't think we've ever done a medley of our own songs

Robert: I hope we never do

Paul: It's either public domain songs or...

Robert: Greatest classic tracks

Paul: Songs we wanted to let people know we were ripping off when we wrote

Robert: Don't ever call us a medley band, and yet there's right there for you to consume and enjoy.

Medley: FHTP and Guantanamera

DJ: The fans in Canada have waited long enough, you've got to tell us about AYEDIBMD, its a seven minute live version!

Paul: it's the self indulgent version solo's every where

Robert: We haven't credited each song to the particular night it was recorded but I will say this one was recorded in Ottawa. We got into the space where it was the last night of the tour, Raul was a little hard to read. He was in his own space. We were playing what would have seemed a normal 31/2 minute version of the song, and he continued to throw the solo's back to nick or Jerry or to himself which is interesting and it turned into this musical menagerie of sounds, and it gets into a moment of white noise. I find it interesting, I didn't know if it was my first choice and the Toronto night was a typical live version. But this is extended 7 minutes all the bells and whistles, very live and I'm proud to say we didn't do anything except balancing this record.

Paul: No over dibs Robert: We didn't over dib a thing and if you listen to it you could hear a lot of places where we could fix things. You hear the real Mavericks thing, its pretty raw and we like that.

All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down......Live version 7 minutes WAY COOL!!

DJ: Coming up in the clubs in Miami, before the record deal, were you guys playing a lot of cover tunes in your act?

Paul: In the very beginning, but they were old. Never current country tunes. Tonight the bottle let me down was probably one of the earliest tunes we did in the Miami days.

Robert: It was that song or similar feels, country shuffle done to a rave up, all in, with a lot of chugging kind of Maverick effort, power or whatever we put into it. We would take traditional shuffles plus beef them up musically. The cool thing about The Bottle Let Me Down is that it harkens back to the earliest Maverick club sound and its still intact now 7 years later on this live night of music here in Canada.

DJ: Something you play in your shows fairly regular

Robert: Pretty regular, every night we want to give up a few songs that are sort of a reference point. So the audience can get an idea of what it is we are drawing from. A reference to the way M Haggard can be interpreted with a rock"roll feel or a jump swing Louis Prima kind of vibe. We're not pure Haggard and not pure Prima, not pure rock'roll.

Paul: Hybrid

Robert: Its this hybrid, it features JD on the piano. Its fun its simple its 3 chords, largely 2 chords, we go to the third cord for the ending. So its 2 cords .... you cant go wrong. It's M Haggard by the Mavericks.

The Night The Bottle Let Me Down.........live very good!

DJ: During every show that you guys do, the spotlight shines on Raul with his cuban heritage, that is represented on this live record with Rancho Grande

Paul: That's a song we've been doing which goes back to the very very early days, the club days plus the original music, alternative music clubs we would play and we played it nice and sped up to keep up with the bands we were playing with at the time. It's a classic old number and Raul nails it, he can add the dramatic singing to it. Robert jump in anywhere!

Robert: Oh really, you needed my help? The cool thing about this is it was definitely not a set piece during the tour. It had pretty much disappeared from our tour for the past two years, rarely coming up, only in some eyeball night. I think it was an effort by Raul to throw us a little bit and it worked. I didnt expect him to call that one up, midset. It's a no fail thing. Paul: Did we make it through the solo's on that one?

Robert: We did

Paul: Its amazing

Robert: It's got these weird solos, so that if JD or Nick changed the form of the solo, I wouldn't know that cause they'd be add libbing I think often Raul and I count our way throughit and force them to fallow us.

Paul: I would watch you guys do that!

Robert: They would just be singing to each other lalalalalalalalalalal {Robert hummimg} We would just be humming to each other so we would'dnt break form, or follow them off the deep end. I don't know why it made the record. We had the chioce of a fill nights worth of music and the band just went lets go for it. So this whole release is an effort to offer some of the more unusual less often heard songs, as well as a couple of hits.

Paul: We didnt want to put a record of songs you've heard on the radio

DJ: which for any fan who's been to your show, its the melting pot and that's what makes your show stand up.

Robert: This is the carrots we're throwing into the stew. Enjoy!

Paul: The jalapenos

Thanks to all of Canada

Rancho Grande...........live very good!!!