I've also been working with the Challengers Club in the inner city of Los Angeles for 15 years now, I guess, and it's essentially an inner-city recreation club for boys and girls.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I grew up in the Boys & Girls Club. That's where I really started playing all sports, and that's why I'm a big advocate for the work they do.
Small clubs aren't as lucrative, but spiritually, they're my favorite places to play. It's a homey kind of thing. I refer to it as the Church of What's Happening Now.
Pizza Express has been a real godsend for me. I've been working there for several years, six weeks a year. You can go to work every night and play. It's a nice little club. It's just about the right size for me, about 150 people.
When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a 'Golden Gloves' program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions.
I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.
When I came out of the military, I had a club in Memphis and I started using the The Bar Kays as my club band. They were still only in the middle school - but I'd take them on the road with me on the weekends, sometimes.
The band I've played with for 10 or 12 years now, we've been all over, but we mostly play in LA.
Fortunately, I was still living in Los Angeles at the time. So I went out to World Gym and got a membership.
The Boys and Girls club was basically a second home for me, and I always credit it with keeping me out of trouble. From the ages of 6 to 16, I was there nearly every day.
Other than Caroline's in New York, I pretty much haven't done clubs. That was primarily because I always liked the people and audiences at theaters and bars better.