G Love is back, and he’s excited – his new album Lemonade is proving to be quite the hit – it’s already achieved the highest chart position yet for any of his albums, while the crowds are coming out and giving him mad props at shows around the United States.

“I do feel like we’ve been the underdogs our whole career and we have to keep climbing up the mountain to get on the radio, or the TV show, or a tour, and it’s always been hard work and now things seem to be coming a little easier for us,” he comments. “It’s the best thing in the world. The reason why Elvis and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones achieved what they did is that when they first put out a record and the very first minute that the world heard that music it took off, and they rode that energy wave, and all that energy from the people that loved their music propelled the music itself, and what they were able to achieve on the stage and in the studio. Hopefully the energy that I’m getting now will translate into being able to make even better music.”

Part of the renewed interest in the group can be put down to the influence that G Love has had, with fans like Jack Johnson effectively taking him under his ever-expanding umbrella, giving G Love and Special Sauce the base from which to grow that, in a fifteen year career, has perhaps not been there before. It may have taken a decade and a half, but overnight success is finally coming. “We kind of gave Jack an open door to walk write into the business of making records,” G Love says of the support that he originally gave to Johnson, taking him on tour and featuring him on 1999’s Philadelphonic.

“He just exploded and he was one of those guys from the very first moment that just clicked and clicked huge all around the world, and that’s been this crazy thing to witness and be involved in a little bit,” G Love explains. “Jack is the kind of guy that’s real, sharing, and an all-round good guy and anything I’ve ever helped Jack achieve he’s repaid me a thousand-fold. Since he blew up he’s definitely grabbed us and taken us for a ride, and definitely revamped my career in the last five years.”

Whilst it wasn’t exactly ‘happening’ to quite the same degree as now, G Love is adamant that musically it’s always been happening for the three-piece. “The reaction of the people that dig what we do was always really genuine,” he confirms, “and even when I was thinking ‘fuck this, I’m sick of all this shit’, it was always the people that brought me out of that.”

Now has come time for Lemonade. Given that the northern summer of 2005 found G Love singing “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” on behalf of Coca-Cola’s Zero ad campaign, is this album a response to that? He laughs. “I always drink lemonade when I’m sitting on the porch playing my guitar, and I’ve always put lemonade into my songs, and funnily enough I wrote a song called “Lemonade” that is on the album. But, no, I didn’t do it in response to the Coke commercial.”

However, how that came about is the perfect example of his relationship with Johnson, with him initially being approached to do the commercial. “Jack doesn’t do any kind of commercials, or put his music into films [except for the soundtrack to Curious George, which all his music]. It was going to be between us or Ben Harper, and it ended up falling into our lap, and it was cool. Jack’s manager filmed it [the commercial], so it was like a family thing anyway.”

He says that seven or eight years ago he might have been concerned about the perceived lack of credibility, but these days with the likes of Bob Dylan and B. B. King, and a lot of other less notable musicians besides, doing commercials, it was simply a case of being a good way to make money, and get extra exposure for G Love and Special Sauce. Funnily enough, it harked back to G Love’s time as a busker on the streets of Boston.

“When I was a street musician, the biggest break that I almost had was making jingles for commercials. I thought that was going to be the biggest break I was going to get. To do the biggest commercial in American pop culture history was a no-brainer.”

Whilst it was in Boston that he based himself, G Love was still part of the nascent hip-hop scene in Philadelphia in the early 1990s, alongside the likes of the Goats and the Roots. “I’d moved to Boston to pursue my music because I needed to be in a place where I didn’t know anybody,” he says. “I met my band up there, and I remember coming home for Christmas holidays, and around the corner from my house the Roots were recording their first video for an independent label. I had just met my drummer literally the week before, and I was doing my hip-hop thing and saw these guys doing their hip-hop thing, and we grew up all in the same neighbourhood. I knew what school these guys went to, and it was a natural thing – when we sent our demos out we got discovered out of a music conference in Philadelphia, and we went back to Philly to record our first record, and that’s when we met everybody.

“The Roots were real arseholes, and real hardcore, and didn’t want to know some white boys who were rapping. Over time we’ve got to know each other and we’re all cool, but back then everything was pretty hardcore. Back then hip-hop was pretty hard, still, and we were some of the first white boys making hip-hop style music that wasn’t real hard, and there was a racial thing too – ‘what’s up with these white boys?’. But you stay around and prove yourself, and everybody is so cool and supportive.”

Now, though, it’s rappers from the outside that are exciting him the most. “The white rappers out right now, like Matisyahu, are the most exciting to me. He’s an MC, and he’s toasting, and the band Atmosphere – that’s really been kicking my ass. That to me is the most exciting records that I’ve heard at the minute.”

G Love’s Lemonade is out now, with the band touring Australia. Dates:
Sunday October 15 - Fly By Night, Perth
Tuesday October 17 - Prince of Wales, Melbourne
Wednesday October 18 - The Forum, Sydney
Thursday October 19 - The Zoo, Brisbane