“If it sounds like I’m at the bottom of a barrel in Saudi Arabia, I am. I’m laying here on the couch,” Leo Kottke said in a low, scratchy, jet-lagged voice.

Recovering from a 10-day stint in Holland, Kottke is relaxing in his Minneapolis, Minn., home.

“I had this friend named Sam who went from being a pornographer to a cop, not necessarily a more acceptable role in society,” Kottke said. “He worked nights and his clock was torn apart. He would park his patrol car behind a construction sight and sleep.”

One morning a body was found at the sight Sam had been sleeping. The murder was rumored to be mafia related, but Sam never knew what happened. “That’s the kinda cop I like. He was already dead. What could Sam do?” Kottke asked.

Being jet lagged is not what Kottke considers a good feeling, especially since he had been back in the States for 10 days; but losing sleep is a small price to pay for touring in Holland.

“I’m kinda a hit in Holland. It’s always interesting to see what the French are going to do there,” Kottke commented off-handedly. “The French are continually making fools of themselves, like to unilaterally decide to break treaties in the Pacific, but I have an audience there.

“France is really goofy, the people are like the caricatures we imagine them to be in the way the live,” he continued. “They are presumptive, arrogant and stubborn. They define dangerous.

“You know in Holland, you can go to a hash bar and order right off a menu,” he explained. “While the French are blowing up the South Pacific, they are screaming at Holland that it should be limiting its hash limit. They have no idea of reality. They still think Napoleon was the cat’s meow, but he was really a psychotic freak. But, they have produced some of my favorite music and writers.”

12-strings

Going into a record store in search of a Kottke CD can prove to be time-consuming. His music fits into so many different genres that no one knows exactly where to put him.

Since the late ’60s and early ’70s, Kottke, a self-taught guitarist, has developed his own style with the influences of folk, bluegrass, jazz and rhythm and blues. He has created a category for himself that is so distinct that Kottke himself can’t explain what he plays.

“I can’t describe it. I should have an answer, but I don’t. It doesn’t fit in anywhere,” he said.

Known for his trademark playing on the 12-string and slide guitars, Kottke is able to speak freely about the advantages and disadvantages of being a self-taught player.

“One advantage of being self-taught is having the freedom of forming your own voice,” Kottke said. However, that freedom can be contradicted by the biggest disadvantage — not knowing anything.

“You are a musical moron. You play by instinct and ear, and that’s stupid,” he said. “There are basically two kinds of players — those who play horn lines and those who play fingers (piano). I play fingers.”

In almost 30 years of playing the guitar, Kottke has come a long way from his days of being a “musical moron.”

Besides producing 24 top-selling albums, he has toured the States, Europe and Australia several times, worked with Terrence Malik and Allen Sharp on the big screen and performed music for BBC’s documentary on Raymond Carver. He is also in the Guitar Player Magazine’s Hall of Fame.

Now it seems there is only one thing Kottke has left to conquer — to learn to sight read music.

“By this time I should know more harmony and be able to sight read but can’t,” he said. “I could when I played the trombone, which was hell, but not with the guitar.”

Standing in Leo’s shoes

It has been almost a year since Kottke released “Standing In My Shoes,” his eighth album with Private Music and his 24th since he began recording.

This album was created when Kottke decided he wanted to do a “rhythm record.” It has been, without surprise to the label, one of his biggest sellers. But Kottke doesn’t typically care about sales.

“I don’t pay much attention because I don’t have to,” Kottke said. “It [‘Standing in My Shoes’] has sold more than the last two [albums] and has received a lot of air play. It’s a great big storm in a little tiny tea cup. But none of them mean anything. What means something is playing. A record is a photograph. You look at them to remember stuff.”

With so many photographs, there comes a fear — the fear that playing for so long, especially when vocals aren’t core to performing, will cause the music to begin repeating itself.

“That’s what you’re afraid of — the danger you’ll find yourself producing the same stuff. It’ll always be the same old shit…,” Kottke trailed off for a moment or two.

“[My music] has quite a bit of variety,” he said suddenly. “I like coming up with ideas so much that I don’t care. When I start to repeat myself, I’ll lose interest and something to watch out for.

“Vocals were never a real interest,” he added. “My real interest is in the guitar. I’m hooked. I’ve become more interested in lyrics but am constantly drawn by the guitar.”

As a matter of fact, those fans who want to hear Kottke talk go to his performances. Speaking is one of the main differences between his performances and albums.

“I talk to the audience to help curb the set,” Kottke said. “You never know what you’re going to play and running blind if you’re not talking to the crowd. It’s important if you’re a soloist.”

John Prine and the giant orange

About the same time Kottke’s career began, folk singer/songwriter John Prine was emerging from the mail rooms of Chicago, Ill., and began to take the stage too.

The two met about this time and became friends and collaborators. Over the years, Kottke and Prine have been seen performing together at many memorable occasions.

“Working with a friend is great,” Kottke said. “He’s done it long enough to know how to do it, and we both get along.”

During one tour with Prine they were driving separately to their next venue when they passed a “place that was selling big fiberglass roosters. John stopped. This place had life-sized everything in a field — bears, Paul Bunyon and a big orange.”

Prine and his companions began wondering around this field looking at the life-sized fiberglass objects when they heard muffled voices. At first, they thought it might have been a radio in the distance.

“They finally figured out that it was coming from the orange,” Kottke said. “They found a door and opened it, and two girls came out of the orange on roller-skates. They had been in there for four hours and wouldn’t have been let out until Monday. The body can’t go that long without water. He saved them. Saved by Prine from the giant orange.”

Blowing up the music industry

After Kottke recovers from his jet lag, he will begin touring the States again and will make concrete plans for a new two-record release — one a guitar instrumental and one with Kottke just speaking.

“I do like something about making records, but they’re a way of seeing where the hell you’re at, and it’s not always a pleasant experience,” he said.

But the music industry in general isn’t the most pleasant experience.

“It’s like a G.E. or Beatrice Foods. It’s becoming so corporate I hardly recognize it. It’s become highly homogenized and subjected to marketing principles,” Kottke said.

“It will start struggling because you can’t run things that way. All labels will struggle with few getting anywhere, and there will be fewer acts signed. They will begin to sound more like each other than now, but someone will come along and blow it up, but I don’t know when.”

Leo Kottke will be performing at the M-Shop Friday night at 8 and 11. Both shows are sold out.