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Zac Brown Band’s Clay Cook lives for the music
The guitarist and Berklee School of Music instructor talks about the band and the Fenway Park concert on July 15.
By the time guitarist Clay Cook joined the rock-country Zac Brown Band in 2009, when he was 31, he had been playing all sorts of music for a very long time. Growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, he got his first guitar at 7, stuck with it until high school, when he switched to drums, moved to Boston to study at Berklee, where he changed his principal instrument back to guitar, then went pro.
Among the musicmaking he took part in was singing, playing, and writing songs in the Lo-Fi Masters with his college pal John Mayer; playing guitar in the Marshall Tucker Band (longtime lead singer Doug Gray is his uncle); touring with Shawn Mullins; and playing guitar in Sugarland. There’s also been a solo performance career and an ongoing stint producing and engineering records. He currently teaches the online course “Music Production Analysis” at Berklee.
He’s also back on the road with Zac Brown Band, who return to Fenway Park on July 15. It’s no doubt a favorite venue for them as, over the years, they’ve sold it out 12 times, with this show making it 13.
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Cook recently checked in, via Zoom, during a tour stop in Toronto, to discuss his life in music.
Boston.com: What were you listening to as a kid?
Clay Cook: My stepdad had an amazing record collection that went from Chuck Berry to rock ’n’ roll to some heavy doses of ’70s. He would make mix tapes, so that’s what we heard in the car. And I was a fan of Eddie Van Halen and Slash. Of course, we always had the Marshall Tucker Band around at our house.
What do you recall of your time at Berklee?
My first intention was I wanted to be the guitar player for “The Tonight Show Band” or for “SNL.” That was my goal. But I was only there for two years, because by then I had already accomplished everything I wanted to do there.
What led up to you joining Zac Brown Band?
There are variations of the story. I was kind of at a crossroads in my life. Musically I felt like I wanted to be a part of something, but I wanted to be in a newer band. I’d been in The Marshall Tucker Band, and I loved it and the songs were great, but at that point the band was basically doing hits, not creating anything. And I wanted to be a part of a band with guys my own age.
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I’d heard that [Zac Brown bassist-turned vocalist] John Driskell Hopkins was responsible for bringing you in.
Hop and I shared a studio space for years, and he would always say that Zac was ready for me. The last straw was when Hop’s wife was having a baby, and my best friend, Matt Mangano, filled in for him on bass. Matt called me and said I’d be happy out there. So, I called Zac and we worked things out.
You’re also a vocalist, and you’ve been known to cover Marshall Tucker’s “Can’t You See” at Zac Brown Band shows. Is that still happening?
We started adding a cover of The Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle” last year. I get to do that one so I don’t have to sing “Can’t You See” every night. [laughs]
The band’s most recent album “The Comeback” was released last fall. Is that making up most of your current sets?
No, but we do four or five songs from it. We also have Caroline Jones onstage with us, and Robert Randolph Band is with us on the road, and at some point, they’re integrated into the show.
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You’re in one of the biggest, most popular bands in the world, and you get to make your own music on solo projects. Was this kind of success a dream when you were starting out?
I always pair it with just being a professional musician. I always thought that I would at least be that. This has just been a different avenue for me. I don’t consider myself famous. I can go in to any grocery store in the world. But Zac cannot do that, John Mayer cannot do that. I don’t know if I ever expected to be playing stadiums. I thought I would end up being in large theaters, if I was lucky. And here I am, obviously well beyond that. Sometimes I have to pinch myself when we walk out onstage.
What’s going on in your head when you walk out onstage at Fenway Park?
Most of the time, I’m hyper-focused on the job, so it’s hard to step back and feel the moment. But Fenway is different. Early on, maybe the second time we played there, we said, “Hey! Look at this! Don’t let this pass you by!” And for some reason, at Fenway we always have a moment where we just kind of bask in it for a split second before we get to work.
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