Action-film star Steven Seagal learned to play blues growing up in Detroit

The only thing black about Steven Seagal is his seventh-dan black belt in aikido, but this 55-year-old star of more than 30 action films is also a blues guitar player who counts many legendary bluesmen among his best friends. He has his own energy drink named "Lightning Bolt" but Seagal would rather talk about blues legends like Lightnin' Hopkins, and his two traditional blues albums. He took time from filming a movie in Romania to speak about his upcoming Seattle gig.

Q: Most people know you from your action movies and might be surprised to hear that you are a blues musician. When did your interest in the blues begin?

A: It's what I was born to do, and it's what I love the most. I always travel with a guitar, usually three guitars. Grabbing the guitar is the first thing I do in the morning, and the last thing I do at night.

Q: Where were you first exposed to the blues?

A: I came up in Detroit and there was a lot of blues. I didn't learn blues from a [expletive] record; I learned it from the front porch. There were all these people from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas and I learned from them. You won't see many white people who play what I play with my fingers. I never used a pick in my life.

Q: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was something of a mentor to you, was he not?

A: Gatemouth never said anything nice about nobody, but what a great player. I'm the only one he was nice to. He would show me techniques, which he didn't do for anybody. I really don't know why he was so nice to me. He gave me one of the greatest compliments one night when he said, "Son, I ought to take your white ass out on the road. I could make you a performer, because you can play." When Gate would come to California, he'd stay with me. I'd hear some noise in my house at four in the morning, and he would be in his room watching "Bugs Bunny" cartoons. He'd say, "Give me some Wonder Bread, with Welch's grape jelly."

Q: You've jammed with a lot of legends. It must take some chutzpah to get onstage with B.B. King.

A: One time I was playing at B.B. King's in Memphis and B.B. and Little Milton came in. Little Milton hadn't heard me play before. I was doing this Lightnin' Hopkins thing. Milton looked at me and nodded, like he was trying to say, "This mutha ain't white." I know B.B. well. I knew Son Seals real well. I knew him when he had two legs, then he lost a leg, and then he got a fake leg.

Q: Your movie image — action hero, aikido star — is so different from the persona of a blues player. How do you switch gears?

A: I don't try to play fancy or fast. I try to play stupid, and I use a lot of Albert Collins-type humor. I'm very quiet about it. I'm kind of reclusive as it is; I never like to blow my horn.

Q: The blues does not come up as a theme in your many movies.

A: I'm working on a blues movie this year with Sony. I think it will be called "Prince of Pistols." It's about the struggle between white bigots and blacks in the Mississippi Delta.

Q: You work out several hours a day to keep in shape for your movies. That's pretty much the opposite lifestyle to your blues brethren.

A: None of them blues cats live that long. Almost all the blues cats carry guns, and most have been shot multiple times. Gatemouth carried a gun until the day he died. They all gambled and ate hogshead cheese. I don't do much of that. About the worse thing I do is that I don't sleep. I've tried to have a good life.

Q: You've been a longtime fan of Jimi Hendrix, and have tried to make a movie of his life on several occasions.

A: I love Jimi, and he came from the blues. Listen to "Red House" and tell me he didn't come from the blues. The whole Jimi story is so screwed up. I'm good friends with his brother Leon Hendrix.

Q: You also collect guitars. Have you visited Seattle's Experience Music Project and seen?

A: No, but I'd like to. I've had a couple of Jimi's guitars. I have one Jazzmaster that Jimi owned. He had a hundred or so guitars, but this one is special.

Q: Not having ever seen your show, give me an idea of what stuff you might play.

A: I'm just going to play some blues; that's first- and second-nature. I've played so many times over the world, but I don't think I've ever played in Seattle. I don't have any memory of it, at least, but I might have been drunk.