“I wanted to be a neurosurgeon because I was always interested in the brain and brain disorders. I enjoy fixing brain and spine problems. 99 percent of the time things go smooth. One percent of the time something happens and it is very high pressure. You have to be calm. You can’t lose your focus or your temper and get through emergencies. I have always been interested in music. I grew up in New Orleans and played guitar and bass a little bit and was good friends with Ben Jaffe who owns Preservation Hall. We went to second lines in the 9th ward, it was different than anything I had ever seen. I enjoy hearing new music and finding new bands and being surprised. I am blessed to live in the same neighborhood as Callaghan’s and can hear great bands every week. It would be tougher to live here without venues like Soul Kitchen and Merry Widow. It is more satisfying to go out and watch live music than to watch TV and it adds to the quality of life. Talented musicians make life more interesting here. When we started SouthSounds in 2010, Mobile was a different place, it has grown a lot since then. We started with just a few local bands and a few bands in from Birmingham. Instead of being in a field, beach or parking lot, we had it in the venues to show what we have here. It was based off South by Southwest in Austin. It had gotten so big that some of the southern bands didn’t find it worthwhile to go anymore, so we decided to showcase southern bands. We are in a good place geographically and it is a good size in Mobile. The South had become a hotbed of music in 2010 and no one was showcasing it. We got bands like St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Hurray for the Riff Raff very early. We just missed the Alabama Shakes because they blew up three months before we could get them. It has taken a while for it to catch on, but you only need to do it once to get it. Bands and fans from other parts of the country come down and enjoy Mobile and the bands form relationships here. The quality of music here is so good and there is a wide range. There are tons of good bands that never make it to radio, but here you can see a great band with 200 other people and then buy the musicians a beer and talk to them after the show. People do SouthSounds once and they do it every time. Music ability, songwriting, and the bands we think will blow up are the factors for picking bands. We also showcase great local bands that could be regional. This festival is a lot of work but we are working with such great people to make it happen. It is less stressful than playing golf.”