Letters From Jett is a southern rock band with individual members that have a long history of musical backgrounds. The band consists of Heath Molton (vocalist), Gunnar Molton (drummer), Lucas Peterson (bassist), and Trace Foster on lead guitar and keyboards.
The band released Heartbreaks and Hangovers in April and have enjoyed immediate success and acknowledgement that the struggle by each band member was worth it. The band plans on a heavy dose of touring in 2019 as they promote Heartbreaks and Hangovers.
Music Madness Magazine caught up with Trace Foster to talk Letters From Jett, music and how he feels about his latest musical endeavor. Foster is a guitarist, guitar tech, producer, engineer, and heads his own label and has worked or played for artist such as Melissa Etheridge, AC/DC, Faith Hill, Cheap Trick and Keith Urban. Trace also spent seven years working for Joe Perry of Aerosmith in his studio and on the road.
Music Madness: You get to do what you love and that is an amazing thing. Not only are you a musician, it appears you have built your life around music.
Trace: I do everything, man. I have engineering credits on an Aerosmith record. I have my own label. I produce and engineer a bunch, I play guitar. The more my life kept going, the more I wanted to do. I don’t know. I’m never satisfied, ever. I think that’s where my drive comes from the fact that I’m never happy. I just think there should be more.
Music Madness: Let me ask you, Encompassing of all those skills and knowledge…does it make you a better artist overall?
Trace: I think so. The thing is… I have a curse. I’m totally cursed and I have to tell you what it is. What I do is when someone comes and they want me to produce and engineer a song for them, mix it, whatever, you know, I’ll say, “I just want to hear you play an acoustic guitar.” ‘Cause that’s an old Beatles’ trick. If it works on an acoustic guitar, it’s a good song. That’s the basis of it.
My curse is this. When somebody plays me something, I don’t hear the acoustic guitar and a guy singing, I hear everything around it. That’s why I want to hear just the basics, so I can fill in the gaps myself. Which if you think that’s not a curse, that’s great. The problem is sometimes I hear so much in my head, I’m just like, “Oh my God. How am I going to even get there?” (Laughing)
I learned a long time ago that I don’t ever say no, that’s my other problem. I worked for Melissa Etheridge. I was her guitar tech and live I was her third guitar player and keyboard player. I did everything. This guy Kenny Aronoff called me up one day and said, “Hey. I’m doing this tour with the Smashing Pumpkins. I need a drum tech. Know anybody?” I said, “I’ll do it.” “Your a drum tech?” “Absolutely.” I’m not a fricken drum tech, but I did a great job because I just know what it should entail.
Music Madness: Did you break into the industry as a guitar tech?
Trace: No. Actually, in the late 80’s, I had a record deal. It fell through and I was living in Los Angeles, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. And a friend of mine, that I was working with locally, just helping local bands, you know. It was called The Pirate Crew, which was a bunch of LA guys that knew what was going on.
They would hire, let’s say if Barry Manilow came to town for rehearsals, instead of having to have all his guys there for the full time he was there, he could hire us, because these guys were all like off the road techs at the time. So it kind of helped with their costs and wouldn’t have to be at hotels, because they all lived in LA.
I wasn’t a tech at the time, but I knew what the heck I was talking about. So they kind of hired me to help ’em out. I met a guy who got me into working with Melissa Etheridge in the studio and that’s kind of how it started and I was planning on going back and doing my own thing. She was like,”Look, I’ll pay you to go on the road with me…” And I’m like, “Eh, I don’t really want to do this.” She said, “Look, you can tune my guitars. You can play guitar and keyboard during the show.” And I went, now that sounds like something I might want to do and it was great. I was with her for 13 years.
Music Madness: Wow. Long time.
Trace: Yeah. Here is the weird thing. I work for Angus Young of AC/DC. You don’t really get a bigger guitar player, you know. That’s like the biggest there is. I never wanted to work for any of those guys. I didn’t want to work for Joe Perry. I wanted to be Joe Perry.
Music Madness: Absolutely.
Trace: Growing up, I wanted to be Joe Perry. I just thought, “Oh, he’s the coolest guys ever.” I didn’t want to be a tech. I didn’t want to do this stuff. I wanted to play music, but every time I turned around I was getting a better offer, and then another offer, and then another offer and I was always doing something until the next thing came along. You might be the same way. I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Music Madness: I am laughing, because it makes perfect sense.
Trace: Right. So I’ve got all these skills as a guitar player, as a producer, as a visionary, and all this stuff and these people don’t want that right now. But it is sure nice to pay the bills. That’s kind of nice. That kind of works. I’ve been around the world 13 times. I’ve been to almost every country. I was thinking about that today. It’s just amazing, you know.
Music Madness: Where else can you do that? That’s the thing I always tell people. I’ve always been the same way, very similar. Sometimes it may not be good fortune, but I always know, if I can be around the things I love, then the things I need, the things I want will evolve out of those things. Sometimes I have remind myself, step backwards three steps to go forward four steps, you know.
Trace: That’s exactly what it is, right. It’s like my mom always used to tell me. She died when I was young. Both my parents did. My mom always told me, she said, “I know you want to be a big rockstar, but how many big rockstars are there, really?” I said, “Well, there’s only really a handful of them, you know?” And she said, “So why don’t you not concern yourself with that? That’s the ultimate goal, but don’t be so focused on that that you miss other opportunities that are just as cool.” I would sit in sound checks for Joe. I have video of me playing with Aerosmith. How many people can say they have a video of them playing guitar with Aerosmith?
So I mean things like that. My friends are always like, “Dude, you are so unbelievable. That’s so amazing. Oh my gosh. The things you’ve done.” And to me, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not. It’s like I still don’t believe I’ve done what I’m supposed to do. My goal is to win a Grammy. That’s my first stop as a producer is to get a Grammy. I think we’re going to do it with these guys. I’ve got a weird, sneaking suspicion that some stuff is going to happen. I didn’t pass up any opportunities. Sometimes that was good, sometimes that was bad.
Music Madness: I just love music. I love all kinds of music and I get so into it and I was just like, oh, you know, there’s got to be a better way and I just kept plugging away at it.
Trace: Yeah, man. That’s exactly what it is. Again, if you can step back and look at everything from, as a whole, from afar, and not pigeonhole yourself. I guess that’s the word my mom used to use. “Don’t pigeonhole yourself into that having to do that. What about this?”
Music Madness: I am totally shifting gears…the “Sweet Melissa” video is out, congrats. The black and white with the simplicity of it seemed to really work with the vibe of the song.
Trace: I had that video in my head. And so again, it’s one of those things that I wake up and I go, okay we gotta do this. That was done with a cell phone.
It totally worked. Our drummer, Gunner, he was holding the camera and I literally held him and moved him where I wanted to go. So that’s why it’s real steady, except for one little spot that’s in there. But it’s all real steady ’cause I said whatever you do don’t move your arms. Lock your arms and I’ll move you like a steady cam. And we did.
Music Madness: That’s impressive. Just like real people making videos on their phone.
Trace: Man it’s real people. Real people doing it like you, man. You know. And helping each other along the way. I’m that guy as well.
Music Madness: All right, man, let’s talk some music. Let’s talk some new stuff. Let’s talk about the album. What kind of response has the new album Heartbreaks and Hangovers received?
Trace: It has been great. I would really love to tell you a quick story about how it all came about, if you don’t mind.
Music Madness: Absolutely.
Trace: It’s really kind of important in the whole story. I started my own little record label probably a couple years ago. I built a studio on my property. I decided to start a small little label, like I said, ’cause I wanted more things to do and I searched for years for somebody to work with. I live in Oklahoma; these guys are from the Fort Smith, Arkansas area about 40 minutes from me.
I was told about Heath and his band, they were a different name back then. I was told about them, said, you gotta see these guys. Anyways, a couple months later I finally went. No lie, within 30 seconds I totally saw a record. I saw this thing done, ’cause I knew these guys had it. There’s something about Heath. I’ve met Springsteen, I’ve met Robert Plant, I’ve met all these guys. And some of these guys, man,there’s just something about them. You can just feel it and Heath is that guy. The greatest thing about Heath is he has no idea he’s that guy. That’s what I love about him.
So I had a talk with them, and I said, listen I want to produce. I want to engineer. I want to do all this and I won’t even charge you. I’ll just do it on the fly, and we’ll see what happens. I go, I’m just feeling it man. I gotta do this and they said, okay. We started working on it and they literally took my lead. If I said, hey, I don’t like this part, let’s change this. They were like you’re the boss and because they were open, it was an incredible experience for all of us. That record took eight months to make,’cause I was in and out doing other stuff. But it took eight months and it’s the first thing that I’ve ever done that I can listen to today, and not wish I’d done something different. It’s still perfect in my mind. I think it’s a fantastic record.
Music Madness: Awesome.
Trace: So the reason that I’m actually doing the thing that I’m doing, I had not planned on being in this band. Farthest from it. But after recording it, I started realizing the guitar player’s parts were just not good. Not for what I was hearing and they said, well why don’t you just play in the band?
My thing was I’ll do it ’til I can’t do it. But I’m here to tell you man, I’m making it the highest priority I can because there’s something there.
Music Madness: Absolutely. So with everything else you have going on, how are you able to tour.
Trace: It’s hard. And here’s one of my thoughts, AC/DC, if and when they go back out. I really don’t know what’s going on in the camp right now. We don’t do seven shows a week.
Music Madness: True.
Trace: You know. So maybe it’s something where if we do two, like we used to, that gives me a couple more days that we can schedule some gigs around the city that AC/DC’s in. There are ways to do it, I just have to be a little creative. I have to go out and work really hard.
I told them I would never get in a van and drive across country, so what did we just do? We got in a van and drove across country.
We’re actually negotiating a European release right now. They want it in Europe. They think it’s gonna be huge in Scandinavia. Why even release something when you can just download it? It’s actually money in our pockets and money for us to get over there is what it is.
Music Madness: Oh very cool.T
Trace: It’s like every day something cool happens to us. We’re like okay, pinch me we’re still here.
Music Madness: That’s awesome. It always comes back around. As big as this industry appears, it really isn’t.
Trace: It’s a small world. Totally. We’re not going to be those guys. We’re not going to be anybody that would ever go, “Those guys were jerks.” Everyone’s gonna say, “Man we want those guys back. Those guys were fricken awesome. They are totally respectful. Took care of us. Respected our business, our place. Couldn’t do enough for us while they were here. “That’s our goal.
Music Madness: So when are you guys back on the road? What is the agenda for 2019?
Trace: We’re doing little bits and pieces here right now. We have a show I think coming up in Phoenix in December. There’s a show in Mississippi in December. Kind of spotty right now. We’re looking at I think the first or second week of January we’re gonna get the new year kicked in and then we’re gonna hit it pretty hard.
We’ve actually got a couple people booking shows for us right now and we’re really lining stuff up and I think it’s gonna be good. We realize we want to pick small areas of time. I know Florida is gonna be huge for us because of the whole Skynyrd thing and Molly Hatchet. It’s kind of who we are. It’s kind of that vibe and I just think that Florida of all states are gonna totally get us more than anything else right off the bat and so far it seems to be working.
Music Madness: How was your recent experience in Florida?
Trace: It was amazing. I mean we’re definitely coming back soon. I can’t say exactly when because we got to wait until she confirms it, but we’re gonna be back there. We’re gonna comeback down there and we’re gonna kick more butt. Before you know it, we’re back there as headliners and then we’re back there in bigger venues. That’s the goal.
Trace thanks for your time we definitely want to talk guitars next time we get together. Letters From Jett return to Florida January 24, 2019 at the SWFL Event Center in Bonita Springs. Be sure support this talented group of musicians.
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Photos by Brian Kreuser and Interview by Steve Carlos