Right About Now

G. Love on the hustle, The Hustle and the rebirth of cool.

G. Thang: "Rich Dad Poor Dad — ever read that jawn? I read it and it totally kicked me in the ass."
Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Depending on how you look at him, Garrett Dutton, aka G. Love, is either miles from where he started or right where he's always been.

Still stitching blues to his hip-hop. Still living in Philly. Still hanging out on the front porch of his mom's place in Avalon every summer.

A lot has happened to him over the years. A lot has not happened. Ten years after "Cold Beverage" was a hit and the debut album went gold, Dutton finds himself at a new kind of starting line: new record, new label, new endeavors, new philosophy.

He chose the Famous 4th Street Deli for this interview because it's right around the corner from his house. He sips a Cel-Rey soda and dishes on "the hustle."

Call it the G. Love game plan, 2004.

"One of my mottoes in life is, like, "Live with the best and plan for the worst.' If I'm gonna get some free shit, I'm gonna try to get as much as possible," he says with a smile. "You know, being a musician, sometimes you get a lot of free shit. Like free sneaks and free jeans and free sunglasses. I try to get as much as possible and just keep it, but I'm always thinking, if things get really bad I can just sell these sneaks." He's contemplating dropping his Gibson endorsement deal for one with Fender for just that reason. He wants more free shit.

That's not the whole of the hustle, of course. He's no longer solely reliant on the fickle music business to bring in the bread; today's G. Love is diversified: real estate deals, artist management, acting, even guest commentating for the X Games on ESPN.

"I'm with William Morris [talent agency] for my music, but I'm also with them for my acting," he explains. All those album covers over the years provide the clue: Dutton is confident his style, good looks and charisma will take him places.

He and his band, Special Sauce (drummer Jeff Clemens and upright bassist Jimmy Prescott), shot a concert scene for the movie Cellular. Dutton just heard that it ended up on the cutting room floor. He'll have to settle for four songs showing up as incidental music in the movie.

"I know I'll land something one of these days," he says, undaunted by an IMDB entry that's all soundtrack work. "I read for a lot of cool shit. I read for 8 Mile and The Entourage, that new HBO show. I read for a Charles Manson movie."

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

In business news, Philadelphonic, the management company he runs with Jason Brown, is currently shopping its one client, San Diego singer-songwriter Tristan Prettyman, to major labels.

"I just want to elevate my whole game and get the fuck out of Philly," says Dutton, half-jokingly. He's got the standard issue love/hate attitude for the city. Still, if he's gonna leave, he says, "I'm moving out in, like, bigtime style. You know what I mean?"

On his new CD — no surprise, it's called The Hustle — G. Love lays down the law over a boozy blues riff: "Everything's a hustle but love."

Dutton expands on the theory: "It takes every ounce of hustle you have for you to get up and get a chance to get on stage or get a chance to get in front of a microphone in a studio. But once you get there, it has to be about the love. You know, it can't be about the business."

If it was all business for Dutton, he'd probably drop his genre-fusing tendencies for something a little more marketable. He wants mainstream success. He craves the money and the spotlight. But he makes music a certain way and he's not going to change that.

"I've always stylistically kind of not fit into any genre, so radio play's kind of been against me," he says — although he's quick to acknowledge the love he's felt from WXPN and Y100 .

"Cold Beverage" — that catchy, lighthearted ode to lemonade, iced tea and root beer — caught fire in 1994. It proved that success for G. Love and Special Sauce and their rootsy urban blues sound is possible, but superstardom has thus far eluded the band.

Still, the stars aligned for them once. Maybe it can happen again.

"That's totally how music is, I think," says Dutton. "It's all timing. When we came out with our first record, we kind of just filled a gap that was just waiting to be filled, to bring hip-hop into garage rock 'n' roll."

The years and albums that followed — sometimes with Special Sauce, sometimes without — built on the foundation laid out by that first album. Comfortable ska and Caribbean rhythms made cameo appearances, and that sweet Philly soul developed a recurring role. But the G. Love sound remains front and center, with steely guitar slides and urban beats and rhymes. The hope was and is that the world would come back around to him.

"Music always comes in cycles. I think if you stay true to what you do, you're gonna have times when it's not popular and when it is popular," says Dutton.

"Right about now," he figures, "ten years since we dropped our first record, it's almost like the door's open again, because the climate of what's popular is back to what I do a little bit. It's kind of a good time for me."

If Dutton seems optimistic — even for a guy who once praised I-76 in song — it's because he's on the other side of some bad times. For one thing, a month after 9/11, Sony called to tell him he was dropped. Around the same time, things fell apart between himself and the mother of his child, Aiden, now 3. He's felt the impact on his life — "It's amazing what taking care of someone else does for you" — and his songwriting.

Where 2001's Electric Mile dealt with broad subjects (religion, racism, world peace), The Hustle is distinctly personal. Guitar-plucking ballads like "Loving Me" and "Sunshine" — and even rowdier rock songs like the first single, "Astronaut" — are fraught with pain and introspection.

"The break-up of my family was kind of the emotional breath that went behind the record," he says. "I thought I was gonna die, man. This time last year I was pretty put out."

The Hustle's got lyrics about leaving and about being left. There are also thank-you-note songs to the woman (or women) who helped him get his head straight when he was on the rebound.

More often you'll find straight-up good-time tracks ("Back of the Bus" and "Booty Call" come to mind) that ease up on the lyrical weight and go heavy on the groove. "I have a pretty big bag of tricks at this point," he admits.

Dutton prefers inspiration by osmosis. "Say, like, I just happened to be on a road trip, and I put on a Johnny Cash record or whatever. I'm just like, oh! It just inspires me. And then I find myself writing some stuff like that. Same thing if I'm listening to a Tribe Called Quest record, I'd be like, Damn, I really gotta work on my rhyming, and focus back in on that. Or listen to Bob Dylan — I gotta work on my harmonica playing."

Making music seems to come easy for Dutton, but that can only take you so far without a label. The moment Sony called with the bad news, the hustle was on. He started investigating his options and setting up appointments with producers and studios across the country. The tour he'd already had booked around that time turned out to be the most financially successful in the band's history.

After fielding a few offers, the band finally signed with Brushfire Records, a Universal imprint run by their old friend surfing/guitar-playing phenom Jack Johnson. Probably the first time anybody ever heard of Johnson was his guest appearance on the 1999 G. Love and Special Sauce single "Rodeo Clowns."

Having a friend and collaborator as his A&R guy puts Dutton in a unique position. Is he feeling any pressure to produce a hit?

"There's always a lot of pressure," he says. "Not even pressure, just desire to have something that doesn't compromise what you do but somehow catches on. On the radio."

"I don't care if I'm with my friends or not, if I don't sell X amount of records, it might be awkward for those guys to say, "Yo, I don't think we're gonna make another record with you,' but if they're losing money on it that's what they're gonna say."

So there he is, G. Love at the crossroads.

"My next two years of my life are basically totally wrapped up in this little piece of plastic, you know?" he says.

"And I know how good it can be if it's a good run. And I know how shitty it can be if it's not being well-received. It's kinda subtle but it's an energy thing. If I'm out on a long promotional tour on a record that's not doing well, I'm probably going to get sick and run down. But if you go out on one that's doing well, you're just going to be so propelled by this energy. It makes you a superhero."

G. Love plays with Jack Johnson, Thu., Sept. 16, 7 p.m., sold out, Festival Pier, Penn's Landing.

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