Has there been a more aptly titled CD than Popa Chubby's 2005 live recording of "Big Man Big Guitar?" But Popa Chubby is much more than that. He's a gifted and prolific artist who comes across as articulate, very intelligent, and socially conscious. He is also a devoted family man who lives in New York with his wife Galea, who is an accomplished musician in her own right, and their twin teenage daughters. And yeah, he's a big strong guy who's as comfortable on a Broadway stage as he is at a Daytona Beach biker bar.

Born Ted Horowitz in 1960 he grew up surrounded my music in a tough Bronx neighborhood. He dabbled with the drums at a young age but when he finally picked up a guitar at the age of sixteen he found his calling and never looked back.

In all of his assorted biographies and press kits there's the story of how Popa Chubby got his name. It happened in 1990 at a jam session with Bernie Worell of P-Funk. Here's a direct quote from the big man himself: "He was singing a song called 'Popa Chubby' and he pointed at me. Popa Chubby basically means to get excited. the core of my music is about excitement. I think music should make people feel alive." The name captured the essence of what his music has come to represent.

The past decade has seen a bevy of recordings from Popa. On the popular Blind Pig label there's "How'd A White Boy Get The Blues?," "The Good, The Bad, and The Chubby," "Peace,Love, And Respect, the aforementioned "Big Man Big Guitar," "Stealing The Devil's Guitar," and most recently "Deliveries After Dark." Also mixed in with this is a disc called "The Hungry Years" which is a collection of Popa's early work, "Electric Chubbyland" a powerhouse tribute to Jimi Hendrix, and a new release called "Vicious Country" that saw Popa teaming up with his leading lady Galea.

Popa Chubby will be bringing his high octane band to the Bank Street Cafe in New London on Saturday May 9th. This phone interview happened on April 15th just days after Popa returned from a European tour.

BH - That was a long tour of Europe you just wrapped up. How'd it go?

PC - "Oh it was off the hook man. It was great. We did thirty-six shows in five countries and it was just really phemonenal. I wrote this in my blog. I did a tour blog called forty days of rock that is on my myspace page. I've been touring since the early nineties and in fifteen years of touring this had to be the most memorable tour I've ever done."

BH - Why is it that bluesmen like yourself do so well in Europe?

PC - "Well first I want to correct you. I'm really not a bluesman. I play rock and roll. I grew up with Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. And I came to the blues from the back door. I love it and appreciate it but I don't make the claim to be a bluesman. There are many people who play the blues way better than I do. But I think part of it is that I've enjoyed a great bit of popularity in the U.S. as well. I had a hit single in 1993 with 'Sweet Goddess of Love & Beer.' The U.S. is a different kind of market. It's a pop driven market. And in Europe people really attach to you as a personality and once you have a fan they're with you forever. But I have to say it's the same thing here so I'm not going to say one is better than the other. I'm going to say it's all good."

BH - Did you notice a change in Europeans since the new administration took over?

PC - "Oh yeah. They're happy Bush is out and they're happy Obama is in just like everybody else is. Here's the deal: There's a great scene in The Untouchables where Robert DeNiro is playing Al Capone. And he's sitting there and he lies to the press and says 'we don't do crime and I'll tell you why. It's bad for business.' George W. Bush was bad for business plain and simple. And that's what makes the world go round you know? It's the exchange of commerce, exchange of energy, exchange of ideas, exchange of music, and there's hope for that now. So even though the economy is bad and there are a lot of problems, there's definitely an overall feeling of hope in the air globally. I feel it and I think it's everywhere."

BH - You touched on these issues with your 2004 CD called "Peace Love and Respect." But I guess we all had to wait another four years.

PC - "Yeah well you know what? You all should have listened to me back then!" (laughs)

BH - You mentioned the economy. Has it affected you at all?

PC - "To be honest with you man, it's never been better for me. People need music. They need it! The only thing we deny in this country is the importance of the arts. When the government does fund arts they fund shit that personally I have no interest in. And I think a lot of my fans have no interest in. But people need it. It's like soul food plain and simple."

BH - Yeah, I've noticed you've been booked into bigger venues. Do you feel like you've made a leap forward in the industry?

PC - "You want to know the truth? I don't think of it in those terms. For me a gig is a gig. And whether you're playing for five people or five thousand people it's still an opportunity to do what you do and make people feel good. I'm grateful that I can do some bigger shows. In Paris, for instance, we sold out a three thousand seat venue. In New York I'll play B.B. King's for three hundred and it's all good. I'm just grateful that people support me. See that's the thing. You have to remember the most important thing is that it's all about the public. It's not about you and that's where so many artists are wrong. And I'm speaking from a place where I turned forty-nine a couple of weeks ago and I've been doing this for a while. I went through those changes too where I thought I was important. I'm not important. The music is important. And if you have that attitude I really feel like the people are not going to disappoint you. They are going to come out because they're going to have a good time. And that's what it's all about."

BH - I see that you play B.B.'s a lot. Weren't you in the house band at Manny's Car Wash back when that club was still around?

PC - "I was every Sunday for three and a half years."

BH - What are some of your favorite New York City venues these days?

PC - "Dude there are none anymore. I play B.B. King's twice a year and really that's it because all the clubs have closed down. I mean back in the day there was Manny's there was Tramps there was Chicago Blues, there were a lot of good venues man. And now New York, I have to say, it's not really happening.

BH - What about places like Joe's Pub or the Mercury Lounge?

PC - "Joe's Pub is probably the worst. It's a very pretentious concert venue. It's the worst place for sound in New York. I've seen two or three bands there including Junior Brown who had the most miserable show there. The Mercury Lounge is for original bands who don't want to get paid. So there's a bunch of shit like that. Back in the day when I started playing in rock bands you could play at HeeBee GeeBee's and if you drew people they'd give you a little bit of money. That doesn't happen anymore. There's not a really healthy scene for young bands coming out. And there's also, I have to say for the most part, a lot of young rock bands that are all doing the same thing and there's not a lot of originality. I'm looking for originality. I'm looking for something that's going to kick my ass with three chords."

BH - Did you ever play the Wetlands?

PC - "Oh all the time. It was a very cool club. I played there a lot and I saw a lot of great music there."

BH - Let's talk about the CD's. You must be proud of "Deliveries After Dark."

PC - "I am because on that CD I reclaimed who I really was. And like I told you, I'm a rocker."

BH - I loved your version of the theme from "The Godfather."

PC - "You know that just happened at a sound check. I started playing that and I went wow this is fucking great. I should do this! Why not a surf version of the Godfather? I'm the kind of guy who likes to state the obvious."

BH - Also the song "You Can't Stop Love" is a very sweet song for a tough guy like yourself.

PC - "Well an interesting thing about that is that right before I did that record I was feeling kind of disillusioned and then I got an offer to play Shrek on Broadway as funny as that sounds. So I went and I investigated that. I invested a month of my life and I'll tell you that experience gave me that song because I really identified with that character so much. And it also made me realize that I never wanted to do fucking Broadway ever and that I wanted to play rock and roll more than anything in my life. I went back to the stage to play my music with a vengence after that. So every experience yields something and as a songwriter you get a song out of it."

BH - Instead of Broadway what if you were offered a part in a movie?

PC - "I've actually been in several movies. I had a small part in 'Analyze This.' I had an offer to be in a Woody Allen movie. I auditioned for 'The Quick and the Dead.' And recently I met James Woods who contacted me and tells me he wants to use me in his next film."

BH - So what are you going to do?

PC - "You know I'll tell ya. It's not my bag. I'll do it but the process of making a movie is tedious and boring and uncreative for the most part. You shoot the same scene fifty thousand times after waiting around for like two and a half hours. For me the beauty of being on tour and playing rock and roll to people is that you get on stage and I can be me. I read an interview recently in Guitar Player Magazine with this guitar player who I will not name and the gist of the article was that he was the best there ever was. And I kind of laughed at that because I thought 'well I'm definitely not the best there ever was but I'm the best Popa Chubby there is.' And that's what I've sought to be and you've got to be happy doing what you're doing and that's the bottom line."

BH - Let's talk about "Vicious Country" the CD you made with your wife Galea.

PC - "Oh that was a really fun project I did with my wife. It was a side project and we did kind of an outlaw country record. My wife Galea is an afficionado. She's an encyclopedia of music period.

She's from Canada and her father was a trucker. She turned me on to a lot of country music but I'm not talking about mainstream shit, I'm talking about the outlaw stuff like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. So we made this record and it's been a really great trip. We did a huge tv show in Paris, she and I, where we were 'album of the week.' And it's just been all good. It's been a lot of fun. And now I'm just in the process of signing a new record deal with Provogue Records which is a Dutch label that has artists like Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout, Pat Travers, and Rick Derringer. And I'm making the hardest hitting blues/rock record you've ever heard in your life."

BH - You've had a nice run with Blind Pig Records don't you think?

PC - "Yeah well Blind Pig may still release it in the states. I was with a label called Dixiefrog for the last twelve years in Europe and I just left them for Provogue. In the U.S. Blind Pig may indeed release the new record. I've been in conversations with them. It's a weird time in the record business. Record companies for a long time made a lot of money off of every artist they put out. So now that things are a little different they're still making money but they're greedy and they're crying and they're just trying to grab all they can and leave the artist with nothing. My advice to any artist is to do as much as you can yourself."

BH - Let's get back to "Vicious Country." I loved Galea's version of "Harper Valley PTA."

PC - "Oh yeah it's great. Galea rocks. She's the best bass player for that kind of music I've ever played with. She plays the best three notes in the business and she's trying to get it down to two."

BH - It must be nice to have that kind of working relationship and support from your wife. I'm sure there are plenty of musicians that aren't as lucky.

BH - "I've been lucky because I've found the right woman. You really got to find a woman who's not going to make you have to choose between her and your music. And Galea's been cool because she's as into the music as I am. And my kids are too man. My kids are total rockers. They're listening to great bands like System of a Down and they just turned me on to all this great music. They're really cool and they're really accomplished musicians in their own right. I'm really happy to watch their musicality form naturally without being forced because there is so much shit for kids out there that's contrived right now you know? There's like these School of Rock things and they just have an agenda. And I think it's so important for kids to find rock and roll just the way I did. Pick up a record and get totally transfixed by it. Then find an instrument and not want to put it down. It's great to watch them stuggle with the same things that struggled with when I first started. Like for me when I first started playing the big thing was that I wanted to be in a band. The big thing was how am I ever going to find other people to play with? That process must have taken ten years until I finally hooked up with some guys who I could actually make music with. So it's pretty cool to see it come full circle."

BH - Are the people you record with like Steve Holley and A.J. Passas the same people you tour with?

PC - "A lot of times yes. Steve Holley and I have been working together about fifteen years. Steve is probably one of the two or three most accomplished studio drummers in the world. Steve played with Wings and Elton John and Junior Brown and he's been in the Ian Hunter band for the last eighteen years. So Steve and I recorded together a lot and probably will continue to do so. But I always like to get the guys who I'm playing live with on the album because you just get a vibe and a feel. If you use studio musicians somtimes it's just so sterile. I really always want to get that something special on record that you can't really put your finger on and I think that's where it comes from."

BH - One last thing Popa. I think I should warn you that New London is a tough little town and the Bank Street Cafe can be a tough little club. What can we expect from you on May 9th?

PC - "I'm going to blow you motherfuckers away!"

There you have it. Popa Chubby really is the kind of guy who likes to state the obvious! Could there possibly be anywhere else you'd rather be on the evening of Saturday May 9th than the Bank Street Cafe in New London, Connecticut? Do you have any doubt that this badass guitartist will blow us motherfuckers away? Didn't think so!