Gregg Rolie may not be a household name, but you'd be hard pressed to find a house that didn't have his music. Gregg is a keyboardist, vocalist, producer, and Rock 'N Roll Hall Of Famer. He co-founded Santana, Journey, and Abraxas Pool, as well as releasing solo material. His latest album, Roots, was released last year. The aptly named album combines the songwriting skills Gregg picked up in Journey with the "animalistic rhythms" of Santana to produce an amazing album. I had the chance to talk with Gregg and get his perspective on the music scene and what it takes to not only survive, but thrive. Considering the amount of albums and the number of years he's been around, Gregg Rolie is someone that knows music.

Chicago-Music-Scene.com: Out of everything you've done, what's the most satisfying?

Gregg Rolie: I would have to probably say Santana, simply because it was first. It was one of those basic things that you're striving to do is to get on the radio and get people to hear your music. And it's a difficult thing to do. It was easier back then than it is now, but it was still difficult. And the day I was driving down the Bayshore Freeway in San Francisco Bay Area and flipping channels and I heard this thing that sounded familiar. I'll never forget it. I stared at the radio, 'Damn, that's me.' It was "Jingo." I never forgot it. I almost drove off the road. You're like, 'Wait a minute, that's me.' And then you start digging it, 'Hey, this sounds good on the radio.' Now this is me driving the car listening to me on the radio. This is what I always wanted to do. It was just a very exciting moment.

CMS.com: What event or experience made you stop and think, "Wow, I'm a rock star?"

GR: I never looked at it that way. I really haven't. You know, it's kind of put upon you more than it, at least it is for me, more than I would consider it that way. Probably getting in the front of lines and getting nice tables in restaurants is pretty cool.

CMS.com: So, what's the downside to be considered a rock star?

GR: Sitting at that very table and having someone ask you for an interview right in the middle of a bite, or an autograph. There's just a lack of privacy here and there. I have not experienced it, I would never want to experience to the effect of like Michael Jackson. My God, what a horrible life that would be. You can't go anywhere, you can't do anything. Is that what it's really about? I don't think so. It's not what I set out to do and I've had a pretty easy time with it really. I've never had trouble with crowds, even with I was Santana and Journey and it was at the top of its level. Never got accosted, I never worried about it.

CMS.com: What's more difficult, switching gears from Santana to Journey to solo career, or when you first started out with Santana?

GR: I think the most difficult thing for me was going from Santana to Journey, because it was such a total removal from what I learned and the way I started out playing. Journey became vocal-based and major chords and rock 'n' roll. Santana was based on blues, jazz, rock, Latin, you know, all the above, more toward the rhythmic. And Journey was a little more mindful. The good news is that Journey taught me to write better songs so when I apply the more animalistic rhythms of Santana, or any Afro-Cuban rhythms, to that kind of structure, I can make a better song.

CMS.com: What do you know now that you wish you had known then?

GR: The maturity to make better decisions maybe, you know, in my life. But then I wouldn't be who I am now, I'd be somebody else. So you really can't go back and do that. I feel pretty good. Everything's been pretty good in my lifetime, so it's pretty hard to do that. You make mistakes and you learn by mistakes and it builds character. So is that such a bad thing? I don't think so. Unless of course it's murder or something. Then you lost, you're over the foul line, that's it. So I don't think I'd do anything different really. Maybe not as much excesses of certain things, but I'd do it all over again. I'm an animal.

CMS.com: You've been extremely successful with your various bands. To what do you attribute your longevity?

GR: Number one, I'm not afraid to work, at all. Actually, the hard work is the struggle of it, the building it, I kind of enjoy that. If it was all given to you on a platter, it wouldn't have the same meaning.

CMS.com: It seems like a lot of bands don't careers anymore. Why do you think that is?

GR: I think it's just the nature of the industry at this point. I also don't think the music is as classic, classically based. I mean you can not put Jimi Hendrix and Kid Rock in the same genre or the same caliber. You just can't. And yet they try to in the various mediums that are there. They're trying to prop it up and you just can't.

CMS.com: Who do you think is responsible for that?

GR: Well the industry is hell bent on selling whatever they've got out there. And I think they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot. Quite frankly, they're not creating real careers anymore. If you last about four years, you're doing pretty good. It's always been that with the music industry here and there. For instance, Journey got four tries at doing an album before it hit. You wouldn't get four tries nowadays, you might get one or two. They're not there to help you build a career. They're there to help themselves. I think Elton John put it pretty well, 'These record companies, these large record companies are thieves.' They have so many ways of manipulating things. There are some music people out there. I can't put them all in the same bag. For instance, Clive Davis is a music man. And the guy, he does build careers. I have to hand it him. And there's a handful of guys like that out there. But for the most part, it's starting to be run by accountants, lawyers, and bottom-line people. Bean counters, they can't even tap their foot to music.

CMS.com: Does it hurt a band when one member becomes the media focal point?

GR: Yes. I think it destroys it.

CMS.com: How can you overcome it?

GR: It's pretty hard to. How do you? The media needs something like all of human beings, they need to categorize. They can't deal with it unless they can put it in a file cabinet. And so, they need somebody, this is the focal point of this, the main thing. It's like an outline and then it gets carried away. You know, you're seeing your name in lights all the time and that was kind of why you got into the business in the first place to be a big star. And your name is all over the place, it can swell your head up pretty good. It gets bigger than what you planned on. It just gets more and more and you might not realize that you've made the change, but you took the deep step. I think it's just the way it is. The way it's always been. They need something to put a handle on that they can write about and they grab the guy that's supposedly out front. Even though, chances are, and most likely, without the other people in that group, whether they did five percent, ten percent, fifty, it doesn't matter. It wouldn't have sounded the way it did.

CMS.com: Other than playing out as much as possible, do you have any insider secrets to help a band succeed?

GR: Shoot the singer first. Laughs. No. I would think the main thing is to try, you have to stay the course. You just have to stay the course. And you have to go out there and play as much as you can. And don't give up on the dream. You've got to make it better and better and don't blow yourself out of the water before it gets there. It just takes a long time. You gotta just keep plugging away it at. It's as simple as it is trying to make it better. And keep the focal point right and stay unified. You can't let one guy start ruling it around. It will ruin it.

CMS.com: With sites like Chicago-Music-Scene.com and Chicago Local Radio that provide bands an extra outlet to get out to the public, what kind of impact do you think that will have on major labels and the industry?

GR: Obviously, they're scared to death of it, that's why they bought MP3.com. Or was it Napster? Yeah, well, Napster was just theft. I'm sorry it's just theft. That's all there is to it. It's like me being a contractor and I build a building and someone comes along and says, 'Well, it's free, it's here.' It's wrong. What I do like about the Internet is the information that it can provide that you can't get elsewhere in the mainstream. Because the mainstream is so expensive, and bought and paid for. It's kind of like FM radio was to AM radio in the 60's. FM radio opened up everyone's eyes. I heard music I never even knew existed. And that's kind of what the Internet can do. It can open up stuff, instead of just the same old bottled stuff that's fed to everybody. Unfortunately a lot of what radio is seems to be an advertisement for a large corporation. I'm selling drugs now, you know gasoline. It's gotten that those advertising dollars rule the roost. They've narrowed down who they're going to play to. If you talk to disc jockeys about it, there's guys that have been in the business a long time and it's just not the same. In a nutshell what I see is this: FM radio opened everyone's eyes to whole new way of doing radio and before they use to call it top forty AM, but top forty was actually ten. Top ten, that's all you got. That's all they played. So, out of the millions of people who want to be in music, ten people made it. That's pretty tough. So it opened it up to all kinds of stuff. Now, it's starting to narrow down again. There's more stations, but they're narrowing the format and they're not exploring new areas for people. And they're scared to go anywhere because they need dollars to run. It's a business. So the Internet is here, kind of like FM radio was. That's how I see it, to open up the floodgates. There's a lot of material out there and somebody will get out there that's worthy of hearing.

CMS.com: Any final advice for someone looking to start a career in music?

GR: No, not necessarily. Like I said, you've got to keep your nose to the grindstone. It is just a hard road. But then you know, one other thing; without risk there aren't many rewards. That's the way it is. If you bet heavy, you can win heavy and you can lose heavy. It's up to the nature of the individual.