2) What projects did you work on with Gene?
Outside of the Adam Again albums, I worked on a few others with Gene and Terry Taylor. I played on the Scaterd Few album, a Choir song or two and several others, but not too many outside of Adam Again.

3) How do you think Gene impacted the music scene?
He was definitely involved in a lot, Tooth & Nail records and some others ones, but they would probably be able to answer that better than I would.

4) How did the songwriting process in Adam Again work?
Up until our record Dig, it was all Gene, and we were totally happy with that… I mean, ya know, I love Gene’s songs. When we were recording the Dig album I had started a couple of side bands because Adam Again didn’t play live that often and I wanted to play a little more. So occasionally I had a little side band and I would write a few songs, then around the Dig album I would give some of my ideas to Gene and he would change them around a bit, make them better than I could (laughter). So, I guess those songs are co-written on those two albums, Dig and a little on Perfecta. They were basically just riffs of mine, or songs that were in other forms that I just gave to him to do whatever he wanted with them. So it was a bit more of a collaboration at the end, but the majority of songwriting in Adam Again was all Gene.

5) Three words you would use to describe Gene?
Yeah, I don’t know if I can give you three words, but I can… ya know, I loved Gene, as a person, as a friend and as a brother. I loved his music, we played together long before Adam Again when we practiced in Michele’s dad’s church. They let us practice 4 or 5 nights a week, and he’d have a new song at almost every practice and I just loved playing with him. You know, in all these years I’ve never really done an interview like this where I had to put all these thoughts into words. Musically I looked up to Gene so much, I just thought he was fantastic, he was great, I mean he could play anything. He was a great keyboard player, a great guitarist, but in a different sense then a lead guitar player or something like that, I can’t imagine a greater rhythm guitar player. A lot of people don’t know that he could play drums, I admired his musical abilities and his gifts in the studio. He was one of the most intelligent people that I knew, it seems like when we would hang out he would read 3 or 4 different newspapers a day.

6) As a friend how did Gene influence you?
Oh my gosh, he influenced my life in so many ways. The music I will make the rest of my life will always be influenced by Gene. When we first met he had this huge record collection, stuff that I had never heard of that wasn’t even on my radar, so he influenced me with that and with how I perceived music. As time went on I always appreciated how at a young age he was aware of things like social justice, that was real heavy on his heart, and he brought that to my attention for the first time. His political views, his views on his walk with Christ and probably a lot more that I can’t think of right now or even put into words. I think about Gene all the time and I still miss him a lot, not just because of the music we played, but I miss his friendship dearly. Next to my wife and kids he was one of the most important people in my life.

Ten Songs photo shoots, provided by Todd Zeller

Story by Steve Ruff
Picture by Greg Lawless

Talking to Greg Lawless was really cool. He is by far one of the most gracious guys that I have been able to speak with, and he was extremely nice and very eager to help out in any way that he could. I was honestly disarmed by how pleasant he was. Dialoguing with Greg about Gene Eugene (see upcoming special edition) was interesting because he had known Gene for so long and he spoke so fondly of him. I remember when we ran the story with Allan Aguirre in the last issue, and how Allan told me that Greg had played on their first album. He’s been around the industry for a long time and had the opportunity to work with several great bands and artists that were forerunners in the scene. I was able to catch up with him about what he is doing now.

I asked Greg if his solo album, Prayers and Lowsongs was the only thing he had released. He said, “Yes it is. We decided to put that on the Gene Eugene Tribute album, and I wasn’t really comfortable putting it out there then, but we did it at the time to show that we were going to continue to make music and carry on after Gene’s passing. When I asked him if he was still playing he responded, “I don’t have a band or anything. I moved to a small town in Oregon about 15 years ago. For a few years I would fly down to the Green Room if we had a recording or a gig to play. Also during that time I played solo acoustic gigs in coffeehouses, or opening for other bands, and I did that for a long time. A couple of years ago I felt that had kind of run its course, so I’m not doing that anymore. Now, musically, I play all the time but I’m not recording. I have two kids, and I was never able to make a living playing music, but my family is real important to me… so we moved up here and I played when I could and just worked and raised my kids and stuff. Now my kids are both grown, married and doing well on their own. I would love to play with some people again so maybe I’ll just see what happens with that.”

Greg’s solo album was an acoustic singer/ songwriter disc that was filled with poetic lyrics and really gave a chance for his guitar playing to shine. The music was minimal, so nothing really overshadowed his playing, and it was pleasant to hear him by himself. As far as what he’s into now? “I’m trying to kind of learn to play in a new way. I think I’m going in a different direction. I don’t know if I’ll be doing the solo/acoustic thing anymore. Things are kind of up in the air for me, musically anyway. I’m hoping in the next year or so, believe it or not, I want to start a jazz trio. There’s some new stuff out there that’s really inspiring, not straight ahead jazz, but stuff that uses the harmony of jazz, not really the swing and rhythm. Something like a guitar, bass, drums and maybe a trumpet or sax. At this point in my life that is the music that really challenges me, it feels right to me and I feel like there’s a lot of potential for me to grow in that music. It’s the direction that I’m going and probably the direction that I’ll be going for quite some time. So, if I do get anything together in the next year or so, it will be something like that, and at that time I will probably throw up a MySpace page.”