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Countless kids have grown up bouncing around their bedrooms strumming tennis rackets as their favorite bands blared from their stereos, or nowadays, jamming to Guitar Hero. You picked up an actual guitar at the age of 9, and within a year started touring.
I was fortunate it was something I took to quickly and naturally, and I've always enjoyed doing it. I was around a decent music scene here in Jacksonville growing up, so there were always good musicians to play with and everyone was always open to having me sit in and eventually tour with them. You know, a lot of it is, you have to have a natural inclination to it. But a lot of it is right time, right place. You know, there's no education like being in it and around it, and hearing great music from the albums my parents were playing in the house, like Eat a Peach and Fillmore East--just being inundated with great music from the start. So that's kind of the recipe for it.

You've said that having two people who viewed music as religion probably had more to do with who you are as a musician than actually having an uncle in the Allman Brothers Band?

Yeah, well, I mean it's a combination of both. The Allman Brothers' music was such a huge part of that. My dad having been at some of the Fillmore shows, had seen Duane play. The reverence he felt about that band when they were completely locked in, and the stories about some of those shows, that's where I got my deepest appreciation for music in the beginning.

But the Allman Brother Band eventually found its way across your professional path, too. What did it mean to you when you started playing with them?

I sat in with them a few times early on, but I never thought I'd get the call to fill the guitar chair. It just didn't seem like the timing was going to be right, or it would ever open up again. It was Dicky Betts and Warren [Haynes], then Warren left. Then it was Jack Pearson and Dicky, and I figured that would be that. Then when Jack split, I got the call. I was like 18 or 19, so it was completely unexpected. I'd just done my first record with my own band, so I was deep into that, and I wasn't going to stop doing what I was doing. But the opportunity came, and it was one of those thing you can't pass up. In a way, being blood related, it's kind of your duty [laughs]. Not in a bad way, but in a good sense. It was an honor, and it's worked out really well. We've had a lot of pretty magical moments on stage. And I think the band, since Warren rejoined, and having Oteil Burbridge there, and Marc Quiñones, it's definitely a full-on second life.

And in recent years you've started playing w/ Clapton too?

Yeah, you know, another one of those opportunities that you can't turn down. When Clapton asked me to do a tour with him, you know, you kinda have to jump [laughs].

Part of what's striking about that pairing is that your slide work has a similar quality to Clapton's playing, in that you both lend a human voice to the instrument.

Nice! I mean that's definitely one of the things that I've tried to key in on over the past 10 or 12 years, is thinking like a vocalist when I'm soloing. And I've noticed that too when I'm out with Eric, that he's a very emotive player. Also, he's like a lot of singers, they're not giving you everything or throwing out their whole bag of tricks trying to impress. They're trying to get to the point, and I think that's what's great about his playing. You always know he's got more ammunition in his back pocket.

But all those projects translate to a lot of work. You only saw home 40 times last year?

It was actually the year before. Last year I was home for about a month just working on my record and my wife's record. So I was home a little bit more than normal. We have young kids, so we just try to make it work. Last year when Clapton was rehearsing in the south of France for two weeks, we flew my mom and my wife and our two kids over, and they were there with us. They were in London with us, and Tokyo...we did a lot of family traveling to keep it together. My son wasn't in kindergarten quite yet, but since he's started, it's a different beat. It's a little different juggling act now.

A lot of people don't realize the dedication and the drive that takes. What drives you?

You know, we're just really fortunate. We get to do what we love. And it's actually working at the moment. You realize the window can shut really quickly, and to keep a band together you have to stay moving, and some of that comes from loyalty to people who've been with you for 15 years.

But on your present tour, the Soul Stew Revival, you not only get to see your wife, you actually take the stage together. How did you guys come up with it? Do you just have sick jam sessions at home and one day decided to take it on the road?

When we're home normally it's so kid focused--school and baseball and dance with our daughter--there isn't time for too many impromptu jam sessions, and it almost came out of that fact. Kinda like, 'well you know, in the summer time it'd great to be able to keep the bands on the road working and have the family all together. Why not throw everybody on a few tour busses and hit the road?' So it started as an excuse to bring everyone on the road, and it's turned into what I think could be a really great band. We're still feeling it out and touring, but I think eventually we could get a few great records out of it.

Let's talk about the new DTB album releasing in January, Already Free. You recorded this one at home?

Yeah, we built an amazing studio on our property last year, and I had a month off at the end, which was the longest I've had since I started playing, and I was planning on doing nothing, but the studio had just been finished. So we started heading in. I had [lead singer] Mike Madison come down... Warren came down. We got into this thing of writing a bunch of tunes every day and tracking them, and it just became this really prolific time. We ended up with 25 or 30 tunes, and we didn't go into it thinking 'let's do an album.' But we just got so much done, and it sounded and felt so good, that maybe halfway through, it struck me, 'well, let's just pretend we're doing a record and finish it.' And I'm really happy with it. I think it's the most honest and natural record that I've ever been a part of. A lot of the tunes were written the morning they were recorded. We'd get up in the morning and write, and that night it'd be recorded and we'd have a rough mix.

The first single is a great Bob Dylan cover, "Down in the Flood." Why'd you choose that song?

That was the last song we recorded. We'd pretty much finished the record and had a few days before hitting the road again. And Steve Berkowitz, the A&R from Sony, had a few songs that he thought the band would sound good on. I'd always been a fan of "Down in the Flood" but I hadn't thought about it for a while. And I'd been working on this simple intro and outro and realized the two married together pretty well. So the last day we were in the studio we just decided to try it out and see if we could get a good take on it, and it ended up being one of the most powerful songs on the record. And also, that lyric, post-Katrina...I think is pretty timely.

I really hate clichéd questions, but it'd be interesting to hear this one answered by a guy who was a guitar prodigy at 9 years old. If you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?

You know, the other day I was trying to think of that, and I have no idea. My father was a roofer, and I did that a few times and, let me tell you, it was not fun. [Laughs] It's pretty hot down here in the Florida sun. It's hard to imagine, man. My kids are 6 and 4, and it's hard to imagine life before them, and I met my wife on the road. So it's hard to wrap your head around what you'd be doing if you weren't doing what you're doing. I'd like to think I'd find my way to doing something creative, but being in Jacksonville, Florida...I might be in jail [laughs]. Who knows?

--Christopher Lopez

Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, and the Soul Stew Revival play the Pompano Beach Amphitheatre December 28 at 8 p.m. For more info click here.