Zach Ernst in interview « Antone’s is a story we keep writing »

Founded in Austin in the mid-1970s by Clifford Antone, Antone’s established itself as a landmark of modern blues, a space where the blues converses, night after night, with a generation of Texas musicians in the process of defining themselves. From Muddy Waters to Albert King, from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jimmie Vaughan, from Gary Clark Jr. to Jackie Venson, the club has always been a place where you learn by playing, listening, and sharing, according to a very concrete idea of transmission dear to its founder, who passed away in 2006.

We had the chance to meet Zach Ernst, who has been leading the venue for ten years now. He looks back for Blues Actu on this remarkable collective story, on the responsibility of keeping Antone’s alive today as a fully active club, faithful to its roots, and on the release of the anniversary album The Last Real Texas Blues Album. Antone’s has a past, but it is very much focused on the present and the future.

🎙️ Zach Ernst in interview with Cédric Vernet

Hello Zach, you first discovered Antone’s as a student in Austin, taking Clifford Antone’s class. What did you take away from that experience, musically and personally?

Before I moved to Austin, Antone’s was very intimidating and Clifford Antone, as a person, felt larger than life. I quickly found that if you truly cared about music, Clifford was very approachable and generous with his time. He was the biggest music fan I ever met and always willing to share information about the people and records he cared about.

You are now one of the people carrying Antone’s legacy forward. Do you remember the moment you realized that responsibility was yours?

It may have been during our first anniversary at the new location, in the summer of 2016, for the 41st anniversary. That was the first time in a long while that the club had put together a large lineup poster like in the old days, and I had the challenge and opportunity to bring in, all at once, as many musicians connected to the club’s history as possible. Spending time with all the figures and characters at Antone’s, not to mention all the blues musicians who stop by every year, made it clear how personal this is for everyone and how deeply people care about Clifford Antone’s legacy. We have a whole team of people who take that responsibility very seriously.

“So many of my favorite musicians have passed away in recent months”

Antone’s just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Does that feel like the end of a chapter or the beginning of a new one?

So many of my favorite musicians have passed away in recent months, and it’s incredibly hard when most of the artists you care about were making music in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, because they’re all getting older. Every time that happens, it breaks my heart a little and reminds me that we can’t stop looking at our history and making sure all these people feel the love from Antone’s.

I’m excited about the next phase, but all our activity around the 50th anniversary was a great excuse to celebrate everything that happened during the club’s first fifty years. We’ve just announced a 50-year lease extension at our current location, so in that sense, it really feels like the beginning of a new chapter. There’s still a lot of work to do.

How do you keep the spirit of Antone’s alive without turning it into a museum piece? In other words, how do you balance memory and modern energy?

I am always looking for new musicians, young musicians who have the sound. McKinley James blows me away, and we also featured Kam Franklin on our album and in shows around the country, she’s an amazing singer. And both of them really care about the history: Barbara Lynn, Miss Lavelle, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King. All of it. We also book all kinds of bands, from every genre, throughout the year, and I hope that young people who come into the club see the photos and posters on the walls and that it sparks some curiosity. It’s always a balance, but as long as the legends are still out there working, I’ll find space on the calendar to bring them in.

You’ve said before that the blues is a kind of “common language.” What tells you that an artist really speaks that language?

I can tell within five to ten seconds of someone singing or playing if they know the language or come from the Antone’s school. You don’t even have to have ever set foot in the club. It’s just a feeling, there are subtle ways to quote a vocalist or a soloist to show everyone else, “oh, they know Lazy Lester, they know Magic Sam”. It takes a lot of listening and learning, but in the end it’s really all about loving and appreciating the masters of the craft.

Your project “The Last Real Texas Blues Album” pays tribute to that tradition. What were you trying to capture with that record, and why choose such a bold title?

The goal was to get as many people from the club’s history into the same room as possible and simply roll tape. There was very little discussion about who would do what or which songs we would play. It was all about capturing the feeling of being onstage at Antone’s, and Jacob Sciba did an amazing job capturing that live energy.

The album title is a reference to Last Real Texas Blues Band by Doug Sahm, which has always been a major stylistic influence on me and everyone around here. It’s the Duke/Peacock sound, the San Antonio sound of the 1960s, blues with a horn section and people who love T-Bone Walker, Bobby Bland, and so on. But of course there’s a double meaning to the title, in that I’m not sure anyone will take as much time or go to as much expense as we did to make a record like this again. A lot of the musicians are older, of course, but it’s more than that.

It’s also something of an inside joke, and a guiding line for what we want to do. We never meant to say that we’re the only ones who can make this sound anymore. Whenever Jimmie Vaughan makes a record, of course it’s Texas Blues, and of course it’s real. To be totally honest, I was thinking a lot about Doug Sahm, and the album title started as an inside reference for the musicians in our small circle, and we eventually really grew attached to it.

You recorded it “live to tape,” a pretty raw, old-school approach. Why make that choice today, when everything is so polished and digital?

The answer is in your question, because everything is so polished and digital. We knew we could make something unique and different without all of that, and that it would sound great. It gave the sessions a context, a purpose, and a way to tie all the material together.

“If you can play, you can play!”

The album brings together veterans and younger musicians. What did you learn from putting those generations in the same room?

It taught me that if you can play, you can play. There was very little effort or tension in the performances. Once we got the musicians together, the work was mostly done. If you put McKinley James in a room with Anson Funderburgh and Derek O’Brien and tell him to play and sing, of course he’s going to give you his very best. It’s very similar to what Clifford Antone did with young musicians, putting Stevie Ray Vaughan with Albert King, Gary Clark Jr. with Lazy Lester or with James Cotton and Pinetop Perkins, it’s all the same.

Austin has changed a lot, and some say the city has lost part of its musical soul.
How can a place like Antone’s still serve as a cultural compass today?

Hopefully, when anyone walks into the club, they can see how much we care, how much we love the people, the music, and the history. Whether you’re new to the city or you’ve been coming to the club since it opened in 1975, we’re just doing our best to put bands onstage and make it comfortable for everyone, onstage and off. I think that lack of pretense is what people loved about Austin’s music scene going back to the first boom in the 1970s.

You’re also working on a museum space above the club. What do you hope people feel when they walk into it?

I don’t want to give too much away yet, but hopefully it will inspire people to listen to some old records, or for kids who play guitar to really study musicians like Hubert Sumlin or Luther Tucker. There will be a lot of history, plenty to dive into for people who are ready to learn.

When you book an artist at Antone’s, what’s the first thing you look for, technique, soul, or life experience?

All that I care about is soul.

If Clifford Antone walked back into the club tonight, what would you want him to see or hear that would make him proud?

I’m sure he’d see some old friends, whether it’s Ilse at the door, she’s been with us since the late 1980s, or some of our regulars. Or maybe he’d see young people in the audience having a great time. We’ve been doing this for ten years now, and sometimes it can feel like the future is uncertain, or you don’t know if you’ll be able to keep going another year, the bar business is tough. With that in mind, the simple fact that the club is open, filled with photos and artifacts put together by people who care so deeply about its history and his legacy, is enough.

🎥 Our video selection

Rediscover this documentary on Stevie Ray Vaughan at Antone’s – Austin, Texas. Excerpt from the rare DVD Antone’s Home of the Blues. Featuring commentary by Tommy Shannon, Chris Layton, and Angela Strehli.