Huckabee performs at the Surf Ballroom. Charles Ommanney / Getty Images for Newsweek.

 

October was a good month for Mike Huckabee. He won the Value Voters straw poll; he shot to second in Iowa; he was forced to upgrade his Web site servers three times; and he raise more money than in any previous totals--in the past week alone. But the real news--for your music-obsessed Stumper, at least--was that Huckabee broke out his bass for the first time since August for his Oct. 26 set at the historic Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

 

I'm only half-kidding. In my view, Huckabee's music is more than a novelty. It proves that he's a politician with a passion other than politics--a human being, in other words. With that in mind, I sat down with Huckabee before the Surf show to talk about his life in rock 'n' roll, how music informs his policy--and what his bass playing says about how he'd lead as president. Excerpts: 

How'd you get started with music?
I started when I was 11 and I wanted a guitar really badly. I wanted my parents to get me one for Christmas and they really couldn't afford it. I'd kind of given up. Christmas 1966, I was 11 years old. Christmas morning, I open my Christmas present-and there it was! An electric guitar from the J.C. Penney catalog. Included an amp, a strap, everything. It was $99 for the whole thing. Took them a year to pay off. I played 'til my fingers bled.
 
Why did you want the guitar in the first place?
The Beatles were coming on! The Beatles came out, like, in late '63 and early '64,  and from that time on I wanted to play. I guess every kid of my generation did. About age 12, it occurred to me, a lot of people were playing guitar but very few people were playing bass. So it occurred to me: if I took up bass, I'd probably always be able to be in a band. So that's what I did. Switched over to bass and I've been playing ever since.
 
You never went back?
I still play six string. I've got several guitars. I fool around on them occasionally, but not very often. I'm not great. I can play rhythm, hang in there with somebody.
 
Is there something specific about bass, other than the practicality of being in band, that really drew you to it?
Well,  of course, now I understand musically that it's really a percussion instrument. It's really a foundation instrument. A lot people think of it as one of the guitars.  But truthfully, it locks with the drums. I also played drums, later on. I picked up drums and played in some bands as a drummer. Which was a real easy transition. Because you're head is there and you understand the rhythm patterns. But I like it because it gives me more opportunity to improvise, and I like to play improv. I don't read music. I read key signatures, but I don't read music.
 
Were you the type to practice constantly?
When I was young? Yeah. I'd practice all the time. I was in little combos and we'd practice several nights a week, play little sock hops and dances and stuff like that. And it was cool because we were the only kids in my school that were, you know, older than us. But we were in junior high and we had a rock band, so that was nice. [Laughs]
 
How many bands have you been in over the years?
Six or seven probably. A couple of bands in junior high. Two or three in high school. But once I got to college I just didn't have time. Then I got married, kids came along. Picked it up occasionally. Sold a lot of my stuff for a long time, when my first child came along... Man, I had some great stuff. Could've paid my kids college tuition with that stuff if I'd kept it. A '67 Gretsch Tennessean. And a Fender Jazz bass.
 
What do you play now?
That's a Tobias. It's made by Gibson. Comes out of their custom shop up in Nashville. Although now the Tobiases are made in Conway, Arkansas. Because the CEO of Gibson, Henry Juszkiewicz... I was up there touring, got the guitar, had a visit with him. I said, "Henry, how come these guitars are being made in Nashville"--'cause they were trying to expand their line--I said, "There's only one governor in America who plays your product. Why don't you bring your factories to Conway?" So they moved the manufacturing to Conway.

Has playing music helped you perform as a politician?
Oh yeah. I was an incredibly shy kid growing up. I couldn't stand to be in front people. Playing meant that I had to get in front of people. And it was part of that process of me learning to get over my shyness and sense of, "I'm not good enough." 
 
How do you think voters see your interest in music? Is there any sort of political appeal?
It's not so much political appeal.  There's several things about it for me, personally. For me, playing music has certainly given me a sense of discipline, the value of learning, teamwork. There's a lot of lessons about music that I wish every kid in America had. One of the strong passion I have is that music and art should be a part of every kid's education, K through 12. And we actually did that in Arkansas when I was governor. One the few states where every student K through 12 has to have a music AND art education by a certified teacher every week. And the reason I think that's so important, it's not a fluffy thing. Some people say, "Eh, this is extraneous or extracurricular." I say, "No, it's essential." Because education ought to be left and right brain development. The education system has failed today because we've shifted to a completely left-brain educational environment. And we're cheating kids from the development of the right side of the brain, the creative side.

The future economy is a creative economy. It's not a manufacturing economy. It's not technology. It's what to do with the technology we've discovered. So if you have a whole generation of kids who don't understand their own sense of creativity and being able to expand their horizons from what's right there, we'll not be competitive. Six thousand kids a day drop out in America. I'm convinced it's just because their flat bored. These aren't dumb kids, they're bored kids. And part of it is because a lot of them are right-brained kids that no one's stimulating. No one's touching their talent.  They're telling them, "You've got to be a mathematician, you've got to be a scientist." No, what they've got to be is who they are. They may a dancer. Or an actor. They may be a poet. They may be a writer. A musician. Isn't who they are just as important as the mathematician or the scientist? Absolutely.
 
Will you still keep the band together when you're president?
Absolutely. Why else do you think I'm running. It's the only way we'll ever get a White House gig.
 
A lot of people I've talked to say that a politician having a passion outside of politics really humanizes them. Is that something you agree with?
You have to be a real person. You have to have a life. Politics is not a life. Sometimes people substitute politics for their lives. I think that's a terrible thing. I need to be a human being. You know, I'm a musician, I'm a runner, I'm a hunter, I'm a fisherman. I love those... those are my four hobbies. I don't get to do them nearly as much as I like. But I do ‘em enough, and I'm going to keep doing them no matter what because I refuse to become subhuman in order to run for office. I refuse to do that. One needs the balance in life. Every person needs to have an equilibrium.

For me, as a spiritual person, I look at it as Christian. I need to have a relationship with God, with the Earth, with myself and with others. It's the whole realm of relationships. There's a vertical, there's a horizontal. The vertical is God and the Earth. That's why I'm a conservationist; this is His creation. Then, there are people on the planet other than me. I need to be right with them. I also need to be right with myself. And I can't be right with me if I'm not right with others, and I can't be right with others if I'm not right with me. If I hate myself, I'm going to hate you. If I hate you, I'm going to end up hating myself. And for me that creates the kind of balance that people need.
 
What does being a bass player say about what kind of president you'd be?
Understand the foundations. Understand that everything that is visible and seen has to have a solid foundation on which it rides. Whether the train has to have the track. The beautiful architectural facility has to have the foundation. It may not be the most visible. But without it, everything crumbles. So for me, the bass guitar is a wonderful metaphor for even government. While there's a lot of things out there that everybody believes in terms of policy, there's got to be the basic core values and principles that are the track on which you run. If you don't have a track, you're train is going to derail. It might be a great locomotive. It may look nice, have great dining cars, wonderful comfort. You gotta have a track.