The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Outlaws’ Monte Yoho shares insights, memories
Hughie to New York. I stayed in Tampa. Ironically, Huey’s trip to New York to play with a singer songwriter put him in the same circles as Henry Paul but they didn’t know each other then. Henry was in New York and getting ready to come down to base out of Florida. He had a band called Sienna- it was around 1971. I got a call from Henry Paul who I never met before. He needed a drummer for Sienna. The members were all guys from New York. They came down and we started playing clubs around North Tampa. As soon as we got going all the members of the band went back to New York, so that left just Henry and me. Henry asked who I knew and I suggested bringing Frank and Huey in. We played around Tampa as a 4 piece band for about a year until we got a call to play at a little club in Cocoa Beach called the Pillow Talk Lounge at a Motel called the Satellite Inn. This was around 1972. We decided about that time to change the name to the Outlaws because it sounded better, it fit better with what we were doing, it was a little more macho, and the timing was right since we were in a new place establishing a new name. We got Billy Jones to come down from Colorado and join us and that was the final formation of the Outlaws. That was the five piece band that went on to sign a deal with Arista Records: Billy Jones, Hughie Thomasson, Henry Paul, Frank O’Keefe, and Monte Yoho. never come about. Then around 2005 I think I got a call from Hughie and he said well, I’m leaving Skynyrd and would like to put the band back together and we need you in the band. Then I talked to Henry and he said yeah, it’s taking a chance but let’s find out if we can make this work – it’s worth a shot. So between the three of us and a lot of phone calls we dropped everything we were doing and went out to Nashville to rehearse. So that’s how we came back and we had a pretty decent year. The band sounded good and we had a lot of fun. Henry got really busy the next year with BlackHawk and left after 2005. The rest of the band stayed together through 2006, 2007.
MT: So what happened around 2006, 2007?
MY: We stayed out there. Henry was touring with BlackHawk. Hughie and I toured with the Outlaws. Henry felt like he wanted more time with his group, BlackHawk. Really, it was a creative thing for him. The reunion tour was fun but he wanted to focus more effort on BlackHawk. Hughie, David Dix, Randy Threet, Chris Anderson and I stayed out there with the Outlaws until Hughie passed away in 2007. We didn’t do anything for about 6 months and that’s when Henry agreed to come back to the band. We put the band back together again in 2008 and we did really well.
MT: Tell me about the other band members. How long has the current lineup been together?
MY: Of course, Henry and I had this long history together as original Outlaws but then we had Randy Threet playing Bass and Chris Anderson playing guitar. They were with us pretty much from the reunion through the 2008 re-formation of the band. Randy had been the bass player in BlackHawk for many years before he joined us for the reunion. We decided to get a keyboard player and used Dave Robbins, also from BlackHawk. We had a guitar player named Billy Crain for a while, who played with the Henry Paul band. He was Tommy Crain’s brother who was a longtime member of the Charlie Daniels Band. This was structured so we could tour with the same members for BlackHawk and the Outlaws since the two bands tour together. The music is completely different, but we have a lot of fans now crossing over. Outlaw fans are now BlackHawk fans and vice versa.
Billy Crain eventually had to leave the band. He adopted some children and really just wanted to go home. He loved it out there but the road became a strain. So about 2014, Billy left and we got an old member of the Outlaws from the mid-80s, named Steve Grishom. This completed the Legacy Live album Lineup.
MT: What would you say are the key differences between the reunion tours and early days of the Outlaws?
MY: I think the key difference is that we didn’t get to share the reunion experience with Billy Jones and Frank O’Keefe. I was just haunted by that at times thinking how cool would it be if we could all be up here, if Billy and Frank were still here and we were all together sharing in this experience. That was the bitter sweet part of the reunion – not having Billy and Frank with us. That made me sad but the spirit of the band overrode the sadness for me. It was such a thrill to be on the stage again with Henry and Hughie and that turned it into a real positive experience.
MT: Legacy Live features cuts that were considered “anthems”, such as Green Grass and High Tides and There Goes Another Love Song. But there are also new songs. It’s About Pride in particular has received great reviews. What inspired that song?
MY: That was written by Henry Paul. I can’t speak for Henry, but every night we play that song he does a little intro about what it means to him. He talks about the time period we were on the road with our friends The Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Leonard Skynard, and Charlie Daniels. We were in a pretty unique little circle of Southern Rock. We were fortunate to be in such company and travel with these people. It was more of a dedication to that working environment and brotherhood that we shared for so long and how proud we were of it all. That pride is still there. It’s what keeps us going to this day – the pride that came out of that experience, the comradery, and the brotherhood.
MT: How has the approach to songwriting evolved for the band since the 2005 reunion?
MY: We are doing one more studio record with the label that did Legacy Live and the writing has changed a lot. I’m not that much of a writer anymore but Henry now finds himself in a different positon as a writer. It’s not the kind of commercial writing you see with the songwriters in Nashville who try to write hit songs for different people. Our records have to be written pretty much for our core audience – the people that have been with us for years. If we get lucky and pick up some new ones on the way, greatbut with that in mind Henry has to write for our core audience. The songs have to represent something they’ll understand and appreciate and maybe have been a part of over the history of this band. Henry tends to bring in other writers too. Chris Anderson and Steve Grisham each write and contribute to the material. The majority of the material comes from Henry Paul and our old guitarist, Billy Crain. Billy is a very successful songwriter besides being a guitar player and former member of the Henry Paul Band. They write really well together and are both at the same level. They were at the same place at the same time and are both really good songwriters. We don’t go out and just solicit songs for our records anymore because the Outlaws are just not about that. We’re a band that has a long history and a core audience that still remembers that time in the ‘70s. I think they want to remember and want to hear songs about that time. Henry does a great job accomplishing that. He’s writing now with Billy Crain, Steve Grishom, Chris Anderson, and Dave Robbins to a certain degree and they come up with great stuff. A great example is it’s About Pride. That song was a collaborative writing effort and that’s the way we will do it again next time.
In the early days we were shooting for an audience and approaching the songwriting from a commercial standpoint, although at one point we rebelled. The reason we didn’t have more hits was that we rebelled quite a bit. We never cared for outside ideas. Clive Davis brought us song after song but we were not a commercial rock band. Sometimes I wish we had been – the rewards would have been quite significant! Now we build on the old songs and remember the Legacy through new songs.
MT: What do you see as the next chapter for the Outlaws?
MY: I see the band following up with a really good studio album and touring very extensively for years to come. I never know my own capabilities. I would like think I could go on forever but we know that won’t happen. For my part, I’ll go until I can’t go anymore. This is the final frontier for me. When I’m not able to physically endure what’s out there and what has to be done, it’ll be time to quit. But until then we’ve got another record and a lot more touring to do.