Meet the Son Volt guitarist now teaching music to high school students, and doing landscaping on the side

Time was, Dave Boquist lived the rock ‘n’ roll dream, touring non-stop across the country and the world. He is one of the original members of the alternative rock/country group Son Volt.

Boquist stopped performing with the band after five years, but the onetime social worker and bartender still finds time to play and nurture his creativity long after the never-ending touring ended.

Now a music teacher at two Twin Cities charter schools and a sometimes landscaper, Boquist, 67, is one of the most unassuming guys Eye On St. Paul has ever met over a cup of coffee.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Q: Tell me about your connection to St. Paul.

A: I’ve been there more than 20 years. Now, I’m living on Selby Avenue.

Q: How did you get your start with Son Volt?

A: Well, that history seems like another lifetime away, because that was, let’s see, nearly 30 years ago. I had been a social worker in my formative years until I was about 26. And then I decided I just wanted to focus on music. So, I took a variety of jobs. One of them was working at the Loring Café. I was initially a busboy, then I worked my way into a bartender position. A lot of musicians would come through, and it was during that time that I was also going down to the Uptown Bar for a thing called Picking and Grinning. Maggie MacPherson, who booked there, would invite various people to come and play like a set of three or four songs. I was learning songs, and so I went down there, and that’s the way I met a lot of musicians. I think I played a little banjo, a little fiddle and stuff. The Jayhawks took an interest in me and then I did a brief stint with the Jayhawks.

And because of my banjo playing, fiddle playing and guitar playing, people who were making records started to call me and ask me to play on their record. And there was a guy who booked music at the Loring Bar who told me, “Why don’t you take a night like once a month and just invite whoever you want and play?” So, I started to invite my brother, Jim, and some of the Jayhawks guys, and we’d just play mostly cover songs. And I got a little bit of a reputation.

And my brother was touring with a guy named Joe Henry, and Joe Henry was opening up for a band called Uncle Tupelo. So, my brother was getting to know the Uncle Tupelo guys, and when Uncle Tupelo broke up, Jay Farrar called my brother and asked him if he wanted to form a band. And Jay also knew about me through the Jayhawks. And that’s how Son Volt came together.

Q: What made you decide to give up social work for music?

A: I think the scene here in the ‘80s was so energizing to me. And what was happening with Twin/Tone [Records], what was happening at the Uptown Bar, was so exciting to me. You know, Curtiss A. The Replacements. Soul Asylum. And I realized, you know, I’d love to do that.

And I was kind of doing something that really didn’t make me feel great. I was always trying to fix things and fix other people, and I realized I’m not fixing myself because I’m not happy.

Q: So, why leave the band?

A: While there was a creative component while we were making records, while were touring it was not creative at all for me. And five years of grueling touring was tough on me. It sounds cliche, but, you know, I started drinking too much. I developed a drinking practice.

There were a lot of rewards from being kind of on the top of the food chain of what they called alternative country or Americana. However, it was a real struggle creatively for me.

Q: Do you still play?

A: Yeah. There’s a guy who I’ve made four records with named Eric Athey. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he called me up out of the blue because he was a Son Volt fan. I think it was 2003, and he asked me if I would help him make a record. The last record we made was this past September. I still play with Curtiss A once a month, a blues gig at the Minnesota Music Cafe.

The experiences that I’ve found most enriching aren’t really by hanging out in the music scene.

I get way more enrichment right now from teaching and giving lessons. I’m teaching at two charter schools. One of them is called Face to Face Academy and the other is called Jennings Community [School]. I’d been a handyman and a landscaper since 2000 and I can’t shovel snow anymore. I retired from snow removal. I still do landscaping and handyman work. But teaching taps my creativity. I have anywhere from two to seven students [in class at a time], and I’ve bought instruments, piano, electronic drum kit, bass, two or three acoustic guitars, for the kids to use. I put an instrument on their lap, put somebody behind the drum kit. And if they’ve never played at all, I can show them one simple thing that they can do. A part. And this is what I do, like an original song every day.

Q: How rewarding is that?

A: Tremendous. It’s kept me in the game. I’ve done it for seven, going on eight years. Some of these kids are at risk and are facing real issues.

One of the first things I had to do ... I was giving a private lesson to one of my students after class. She wanted to learn how to play a Fleetwood Mac song. That was the last time she was in school. That evening, her ex-boyfriend came over to her apartment, murdered her, her father and her sister. He stole her baby and left it, I think, with his cousin and killed himself. This was kind of a well-known murder suicide on the East Side.

Fortunately, that hasn’t happened again.

At Face to Face, the music class always learns a song to play at the graduation. I have one kid, he’s a really good drummer, and he had never gotten on a drum kit until my class. It turns out he’s a natural. He just took to it. But he’s not going to be drumming. He’s going to be rapping. But it’s not a typical rap song. It’s kind of an empowering rap song. So, he’s going to be doing that.