1. Most people will recognize your name as the writer and illustrator of the popular comic strip Nancy, so they'll be surprised to find out that you play and write country music as well. How did you get involved in country music?

People that are very close friends of mine in the music business knew all along that I wrote songs, and liked to jam and all that stuff, but if you didn't really know me very well then, yeah, it would be a surprise. Back in 1980, just before I got the Muppets job and worked for Jim Henson, I had a record that broke the Billboard Top 100 with a God-awful ballad (laughs) that I wrote and it made some noise.You know, when you're 20ish...you just write trying to sound like you know what you're doing! But, we got a little lucky... I think it was #2 in Detroit, #2 in Philly, and I believe a small label owned by Atlantic might have picked it up. That's too long ago now to remember. The girl that sang it, Carol Hahn, was fantastic, and did a beautiful job on a song that was about as good as a 21-year-old could write and I wasn't any Taylor Swift, trust me. Me and Randy Plude, a buddy of mine that is a very gifted classically trained pianist, put the song together. So, with just a little bit of success, we started to get offers from Kenny Rogers' Music Company, Neil Diamond's Publishing Company… asking us what else we had written. That's because once you find success then everyone calls. So we started getting holds on our material. I heard that even the great Anne Murray covered one of our songs .Before her record company put it out she came to her senses and never released it (Laughs)! Of course ,she has had such a great career not marred by any Guy Gilchrist song.:)) But we were ,seriously doing, well with our writing and I was wondering which path I would travel. Whether I would write with music, or with artwork. Then, Jim Henson came along and hired me after I auditioned, to work on the Muppets comic strip. I ,of course, went down a wonderful road. I have had a wonderful life, drawing so many world syndicated strips, writing 4 dozen books, television....but all of these years I never stopped writing songs. What wound up happening was that I would come to Nashville every once in a while and co-write songs with wonderful people like Jett Williams, Billy Swan, Eddie Kilgallon of Montgomery gentry, and was also performing with folks like Charlie Daniels, and The Marshall Tucker Band, having a great time. In June I said, I think I'm going to head to Music City for good because Nashville has been calling to me for the past 16 years.

2. What attracted you to the country music scene initially and made you want to be a part of it?

The honesty. Country music had always been a huge part of my life. When i grew up, there was AM radio. AM radio played Johnny Cash next to Zeppelin, Dolly Parton next to Creedence, Waylon Jennings next to The Eagles, next to The Doors, etc… So I've always loved Country. Of course I am a child of the 60's, and my mom is a child of the 50's and she had every Sun record by every Sun artist; Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins....and I loved all of the early Rock pioneers. I collected those records, and studied how they told stories.By the mid and late 60's they were all being played on country radio. Brenda Lee and The Everly Brothers, too. So much of the best of Rock and Roll was also Country.I always loved the story telling aspect of songs.And the guy that I was the most attracted to for his way of saying extremely complicated things so simply was Hank Williams. Chuck Berry ,one of the founding fathers of rock-n-roll, is also an amazing storyteller. His songs are cut across the board with no barriers. Hank, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holley. Man....that's story telling. All in rhyme, too. Like Dr. Seuss set to music! So when I started writing even as a little child I was drawn to the styles of country and early rock-n-roll as to how I was going to tell my stories. Country music is all about feelings, story telling, and painting a picture for everybody..... and that's what attracted me to it.
I am a storyteller. When I took over the Nancy comic strip I started to mention country music in the strip because I was a fan. Not just a fan of the music, but of the artist and the way they feel so blessed. The way a Country Artist gives back. To their fans, to children through children's charities. They feel just like me...that we must give. We receive so much. So many blessings. And, I began to mention folks in the nancy comic strip as a way of saying THANK YOU.

3. Knowing that you are a country music fan explains all of the references to the genre in the comic strip over the years. Which country music reference that you created in the Nancy comic is your personal favorite one and why?

Oh gosh. I don't have an answer for that. My answer is the one that I am doing today. I can tell you some interesting stories that have happened with some of the artists, though! Like with Charlie Daniels. I have mentioned Charlie so much that one day while still living in Connecticut, I got a call from a buddy of mine from Alabama, who I knew from his days playing Double A ball for the Red Sox. Now , we hadn't seen each other in 20 years! And he said, "Hey, I'm over here in downtown Nashville at the Charlie Daniels Museum and you have a wall." I asked him what's this was all about. He said..."Honest! There's a Charlie Daniels Museum, and you have a whole wall of your artwork here!" I had no idea. Charlie has since told methat they change those pictures out every two months or so because he's got so many pictures with me that he can't fit them all on one wall.
I've had Suzy Bogguss write me a letter. I needed a character to be a next-door neighbor to Aunt Fritzi, so I just drew Suzy. Suzy is one of the greatest people in the world. Amazing. She sent this letter and says "every award that I have ever wanted in the music business I have won. I have gold records…" and then she says, "and now my mom can see that I've made it because I have been in the Nancy comic strip."
I got a sweet one when Johnny Cash passed away. This story just gives me chills. I'll never get over this one. I drew Aunt Fritzi crying about Johnny's passing and listening to "Why Me, Lord?". I got a call from Kris Kristofferson's office and it was Kris saying thanks. He just told me how much it meant to him that I had memorialized ( my hero) Johnny Cash in the comic strip with his song. I cannot say how much that means to me. I have never met Kris. He is just such a huge inspiration. I'll never get over that one.
I once was onstage at the Grand Ole Opry with Little Jimmy Dickens. I have a big wall now with all of my artwork backstage at the Opry and one of my very favorites is the one I gave Jimmy. I presented strips to the Grand Ole Opry and one was a Sunday page that had Aunt Fritzi listening to Johnny Cash's "Live At San Quentin" and Nancy asks... "who's that ?" and Aunt Fritzi tells her "That's Johnny Cash. He sings songs for people that are in prison and tries to help those imprisoned." Well, Nancy says..."Oh!" then goes upstairs, and takes out her pad and writes "Dear Mr. Cash, I am stuck in elementary school and I was wondering if…."

4. The immediate reason that we are talking with you involves the release of your new Christmas CD. What can people expect to hear from the album when they hit play?

It's not an album. It's a single with a bonus "flipside' since when we used to have records, each 45 had a flipside. We are working on the album and will put it out this year. I finished two Christmas songs for the single release and I know it will take a couple of years for people to hear these songs , as I am an independent Artist without a major record label.
We released Merry Christmas, Sluggo as the A side with Christmas Light as a second song on the cd.

When I finished recording "Merry Christmas Sluggo," I remembered this old movie called Boys Town from when I was a little boy. Spencer Tracy was in it and played Father Flanagan and the troubled boy in the movie was played by Mickey Rooney. I wondered if Boys Town still existed and looked it up on the internet and sure enough it did. Boys Town has a campus in Omaha, and in 26 states there are outreach programs for it . I decided to dedicate the two songs to Boys Town.I thought I would see if I could raise some money for them with this Christmas record. So, we released the two songs to radio this year. We'll see in a few months how we did! I do know we have been heard on upwards of 100 radio stations.
5. Another single from the album is the very clever and fun "Merry Christmas, Sluggo." This song shows the much more light-hearted side to your writing. Can you tell people about this song?

It is about Sluggo ,
and like all little kids thinking he is tougher than he really is. I was like that. Anyway... he punches a kid in math class just to watch him cry. Now he knows that the big sled with the reindeer is going to pass him by, and he is crying because he thinks Santa won't bring him any toys. He tells Santa that if he wants to change! He wants so badly for santa to forgive him! It was so much fun to write and record! I wrote the song thinking about my own childhood and remembering a very special day back in Connecticut when I got Johnny Cash's "Live At San Quentin" album and how it changed my then troubled life. I did this song remembering Johnny Cash and a whole bunch of songs off of that record and had a ball with it. It's the first time I've ever used my cartoon characters in a song. I call it my Brand new Cartoon Christmas record from 1958!

6. One of the singles on the album is the very touching "Christmas Light," a song that offers hope with its lyric. What can you tell people about this song?

This song is more of a traditional Christmas song that is about our Savior, about unconditional love, and His love that shines down from heaven and changed the world and how we remember that light every time we put lights on our trees.

7. With these particular songs you are donating 25% of your publishing on it to benefit the Boys Town organization. Fill us in on what Boys Town is and where we can find information on how to help as well.

The reason I put the proceeds of the publishing is that hopefully these songs could get covered by other people too, who might be selling lots more records than someone like me ever might. So I wanted this to go on forever for Boys Town whether it was my recording or with someone else's recording. You can buy my songs at my website, or on ITunes, Rhapsody, Amazon mps...anywhere online.
You can get a lot of information on the organization on my website or if you want to go right to the source you can go to boystown.org. Boys Town is just outside of Omaha, Nebraska and they have a huge campus. The campus began in a little house in 1917 by a priest named Father Flanagan. What he saw at that time, was little boys that were being thrown into these reform school prisons and then by the time they would get out of the reform schools they would end up going to prison. For the most part there was no reforming, they were uneducated, and had nothing. What Father Flanagan did was get a court to agree to make him the guardian of these boys and so he was responsible for them. He then set up his own school, brought in teachers, taught them, and had athletics. More and more boys heard about it and before you knew it, it would go from one house to a bigger house, to a bigger house, and finally they found a little farm outside of Omaha and built the place. That is the same place to this day that now girls and boys who are in trouble, or in dangerous situations with drugs, homelessness, whatever storms of life that happen to be life threatening or life changing, can go to, and they will never ever turn you away.
What I remember from the movie was the little saying that Father Flanagan had, that sounds corny now, but it meant the world to me,when he said "there is no such thing as a bad boy." He believed that any child could be turned around... If they were educated and shown that they had value, were cared for, they could become good citizens. Have good lives.That is what Boys Town is all about to this day. This stat is unbelievable, but just last year half a million kids received help from this organization. I didn't have any idea about all of this. I just knew the original story and through my recording and promoting this record, the people of Boys Town have been just wonderful to me.I have learned so much about it. I encourage anybody who wants to learn anything about Boys Town to go over to their website, or visit the campus and see what this place is all about first hand and give a gift that is going to help somebody.

8. You have had many musical achievements in your country music career from your songs being cut by mainstream artists like Suzy Bogguss to appearing on the Grand Ole Opry stage and much much more. Which achievement is that standout for you and why?

I think that just having the opportunity to do what I'm doing right now is my fondest achievement. The fact that I've been only living in Nashville now for a few months, and that this town and the wonderful people in it has opened up their hearts to me and these two records. To go through all that you have to go through to get songs out, get them heard, and now we are doing these Christmas concerts, this is it! I love Christmas , so having a Christmas single being played on the radio is amazing to me and coming off the stage and signing Christmas CD's for people is amazing.

9. What is country music to Guy Gilchrist?

It's a rather large and substantial wing of my home. :)))

10. What piece of advice can you offer to someone that is looking to break into the country music industry?

Run!!! And run away quickly!!!!!! Don't do it. Just wait until Taylor Swift hits 30 and goes into producing !!!!. No, no, I'm kidding! I wrote an entire book about having a career in the arts that is available for free online called DRAWN TO SUCCESS. It's on my website free. I think there are 17 chapters out there now. As you probably also know I founded an art school in Connecticut, and ran it for five years.Ever since I was a kid staring out, writing and drawing for Weekly Reader I have been traveling around to schools all over the world. I always tell kids is that once upon a long time ago, all I had was this idea. This desire. This gift. The gift was a desire to express all of the feelings that I felt inside and one of the biggest dreams was to make people smile. I loved as a little boy that I could tell jokes or funny stories and make people forget about their worries, I could forget about mine... and I could be popular at school as the class clown.
When I was 8-years-old I was lucky enough to hear Dr. Seuss speak in person and he said, "
If you have a dream...and all you ever do is dream it...you'll get nothing. But if you have a dream...and go DO something about it...YOU CAN HAVE EVERYTHING!

I have been living that advice, and GIVING that same advice, my whole life. My advice then is if this is what you love then do it. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it ~! No matter what your age, your education, no matter what. DO IT! And just don't quit. It will be hard. Really hard. that'ds why so few make it. Maybe YOU will. Maybe you won't quit. Listen to YOU. YOUR HEART. Not anyone else. They don't know YOU... and what you're made of. They can't see inside your heart, only you and God can do that. If you have this gift of desire.... then just do it.

PLEASE VISIT TODAY'S COUNTRY MAGAZINE FOR INTERVIEWS, NEWS AND THE BEST OF COUNTRY MUSIC REPORTING.
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