“It’s always been a blessing and a curse because we’ve had our own sound. It’s given us our little niche, but it’s made it hard to fit into other people’s themes. We’re white boys playing blues and rapping and we’re trying to do it with a certain level of authenticity.”

Lying on a bench in a hallway of my Melbourne university, I am chatting to Garrett Dutton —that’s G.Love to you – about the difficulties he and the Special Sauce boys faced when they first got started. As clusters of chattering design students clatter past me to class, I touch on the comments he has made in the past, specifically about the negative response they got, back in the day, from fellow Philadelphians The Roots. Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, MC for the iconic band, “wouldn’t even shake my hand,” drawls Garrett.

Fast forward nearly fifteen years and G. Love finds himself “hanging out on side of the stage when [The Roots are] playing [a] festival and it’s funny. Now that we’ve all been in the game for [so long], you realise that everybody’s out here making a living, making music and it’s working. Time gives that respect amongst bands. Now it’s like, the only one I have to prove it to is myself, every night on stage. Can I go out and turn on, rock a crowd and be the best musician I can be?”

It certainly seems he can. While G. Love and Special Sauce might have done the hard yards to put their genre on the map, they are regular fixtures in Australia’s Blues and Roots season. “This is our fourth or fifth time,” and have made some solid friendships on our shores. “The first time I jammed with John Butler was the Blues’ n’ Roots Festival. I’ve met a lot of great musicians down there: Xavier Rudd, Donavon Frankenreiter …”

A surfer since he was eight years old, I suggest that the trip down under this time sounds less like work and more like holidaying and catching up with mates. Garret laughs, his lazy accent proving quite attractive to this girl’s ear, “It always is!” The tourist mentality quickly gives way to the serious musician though. “This time is really special, ’cause Charlie Musselwhite and *John Hammond * are going to be playing. They’re big blues legends. I just produced John’s new record so I’ll probably sit in with him and he’ll probably sit in with me and we’ll perform a song from his new record.”

We discuss the community that he has found himself in. Frankenreiter, Harper , Butler, Rudd, Johnson – all those surfer boys always seem to be working on something together, supporting each other in some way. I wonder if it’s that ethic that prompted the FasterLouder competition where young acts could upload their original tracks for a chance to support G. Love and Ozomatli in sideshows for this tour. His confusion is evident as I put this to him. “I don’t know about that…” Explaining the concept to him quickly, Garrett apparently thinks it’s a sterling idea and tries to claim credit. “Oh yeah! That’s right, that was my idea!” he laughs.

This leads to a chat about his mate John Butler’s JB Seed project, where John and his partner Danielle Caruana provide opportunities for upcoming artists. Garret explains how he tries to offer the support that he might have appreciated when he started out.

“One of my missions is just to inspire people to play music, and help people that maybe think, ‘Hmm, maybe I’ll do it for a hobby, but I don’t think I can make a living out of it.’ I think I can pretty much tell when people are pretty great, so I’ve been able to encourage some [of them].” He sounds terribly serious, then lowers his voice and says cheekily, “Like Jack Johnson,” prompting a laugh from both of us.

Garrett has been credited with giving Jack the push he needed to release some music of his own, and now G. Love and Special Sauce are releasing their music on Jack’s label Brush Fire. “[We’re] just finishing up a new record called Superhero Brother , which is coming out in the States in June – so I imagine it will come out in Australia a couple of months later.”

What departure has this album made from his previous release, Lemonade ?

“It’s a G. Love and Special Sauce record so there’s not a lot of collaboration and that’s of course the main difference. Let’s see, are they much different? I don’t know, for me each song is a new road to travel, so for me it’s always different. There’s definitely some Beatles influence on a couple of songs, that we’ve let come out in a big way. Besides that, we’re trying to be as groovy as possible, with as much harmonica as possible. I’ll just keep doing my thing, I guess.”

G. Love and Special Sauce continue their national tour this week, following much-talked about appearances at the West Coast Blues & Roots Festival and Jack Johnson’s Sydney love-in.

Wednesday 19 March – The Palace Theatre, Melbourne (w/ Ozomatli)
Thursday 20 March – Enmore Theatre, Sydney (w/ Ozomatli)
Saturday 22 March – East Coast Blues & Roots Festival, Byron Bay
Sunday 23 March – The Tivoli, Brisbane (w/ Ozomatli)