JIM THORPE — Foghat is an English import, but drummer and founding member Roger Earl’s musical sensibilities are distinctly American.
“I grew up listening to American music,” Earl said. “This is home.”
America is also home to Foghat’s final two performances of 2016 — the band will wrap up the year in New Mexico, but before that they’ll play Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe. The 8 p.m. Dec. 3 performance brings Earl back to a Northeastern Pennsylvania venue that brings back fond memories.
“It’s been a number of years since we’ve played there, but I’ve always enjoyed playing the venue,” Earl said. “It’s a really great sounding room. I have a number of friends out there — Craig MacGregor, our bass player who is fighting cancer at the moment, lives close by, so we might be able to drag him out.”
Fans can hear MacGregor’s playing on Foghat’s newest studio album “Under The Influence,” which includes a new version of the band’s hit song “Slow Ride.” It was done in one take, with both MacGregor and Nick Jameson, the original bass player featured on “Slow Ride,” contributing to the track. The current iteration of Foghat knows the tune from years of playing it live, and it’ll be part of their set Dec. 3, along with other hits like “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and selections from their aforementioned 2016 effort “Under the Influence.”
Earl had nothing but compliments for the musicians he has surrounded himself with in today’s Foghat.
“Bryan Bassett, our lead slide guitar player, he’s also produced, engineered and mastered most of our records over the last 15 years,” Earl said. “Charlie Huhn, our lead vocalist and lead guitar player, he’s probably one of the best contemporary rock ‘n’ roll singers out there. We have a lot of fun — everybody gets on really well and when we do drink we’re a bunch of happy drunks. Not before we play though.”
Earl joked that the Foghat date at Jim Thorpe is one of the few he’d be able to comfortably drive to his Long Island, N.Y. home. His musical sensibilities when forming Foghat in 1970 with Dave Peverett, Rod Price and Tony Stevens were American, and now he is too. No matter which side of the pond he calls home, Earl’s life experiences have taught him to speak the language of rock ‘n’ roll fluently.
“It’s rock ‘n’ roll,” Earl said. “Rock ‘n’ roll will be around for forever, I think.”