New tour brings Blues Traveler back to Greater Boston

Chan Kinchla used to sequester himself in his room with his guitar for hours and practice. Four decades later, during the pandemic, Kinchla found that same teenage lust for his instrument.

“When you are always preparing for shows or writing new songs, there’s not a lot of time to woodshed and discover new chops, new licks,” the Blues Traveler guitarist told the Herald. “I played guitar just for fun, learning solos from Steely Dan or Jimmy Page or Jerry Garcia, figuring them out note for note.”

“I was doing [expletive] I used to do in high school,” he added with a laugh. “I had no agenda. I didn’t know when the pandemic would end. So I just started playing guitar everyday for hours.”

Kinchla didn’t need much practice. Blues Traveler has recorded 14 studio albums including the six-times platinum “Four.” Since the ’80s, the band has played 2,000 live shows for 30 million fans – Blues Traveler plays the Lynn Auditorium Wednesday, May 17. But he enjoyed putting in the work.

“I felt just like I did when I was running home from school to go hide and play guitar all afternoon,” he said.

That school was Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey. Soon Kinchla wasn’t hiding alone. He met singer/harmonica player John Popper, bassist Bobby Sheehan, and drummer Brendan Hill when all four were in their teens. Before they made it to their 20s, the four had formed Blues Traveler and were gigging in New York City clubs.

“There was this great scene in the Lower East Side of Manhattan with so many bands, like the Spin Doctors,” he said. “We were kind of a trainwreck, but we were relentless and so slowly but surely we bent the New York club scene to our will.”

The hits would come: “But Anyway,” “Run-Around,” “Hook.” The big gigs would come from founding the H.O.R.D.E. festival to 30-plus years of July 4 headlining gigs at Red Rocks in Colorado. The one constant has been the chemistry of the group when they just get together and jam.

“Through ups and downs, through various tragedies, through good times and bad times, we would always fall back on how much we love playing with each other,” Kinchla said – Sheehan died of an accidental overdose in 1999, then the band regrouped with Kinchla’s brother, Tad, on bass and keyboardist Ben Wilson.

The pandemic forced the band to put playing with each other on hold for the first time since 1987. So it begs the questions, Was that first show back a trainwreck?

“It was Red Rocks!” Kinchla said with a huge laugh. “It just worked out that way. Sure, enough we walked out to a packed, sold-out Red Rocks. And it went really well. We were as shocked as anyone, but honestly the crowd and us were just so happy to be there that it carried everyone through.”

Hopefully Blues Traveler won’t get that kind of break for a long time – the band has two dozen dates booked that run into the fall. So Kinchla may not get to work out all of Elliott Randall’s guitar solo on “Reelin’ In the Years.”

“That solo is amazing,” he said with a chuckle. #

For details and tickets, visit bluestraveler.com