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Three Dog Night gained fame in 1969, releasing a record number of chart topping hits including, "One," "Joy to the World," "Black and White," "Momma Told Me (Not to Come)," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," and many more.

In an industry full of one-hit-wonders Three Dog Night has had 21 consecutive Top 40 hits, 18 straight Top 20 hits, 11 Top 10 hits, and three number one hits.

The band's current line up consists of founding members and lead vocalists Cory Wells and Danny Hutton, as well as keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon, guitarist Michael Allsup, bass player Paul Kingery and drummer Pat Bautz.

We sat down to speak with Three Dog Night founding member Danny Hutton to talk a little about the band's history and its up coming album.

Up & Coming Weekly: How does it feel being on tour once again after all of this time?

Danny Hutton: You know, except for about four years, we've always been on tour. We've got about 80 dates a year, which is real comfortable for us now. It takes us a day to get there and a day to come back so that kind of fills up the year.

It feels great, you know? We're doing it at a nice relaxed pace. We don't set the amount of gigs but that is about the right amount of gigs that are the most comfortable for myself and especially Cory. Cory is a fisherman, so he likes to go out and spend a little time with his grand kids.

U&CW: What kind of audience has the tour been attracting?

DH: It is amazing. We have got people who missed us the first time around and are a little older, we have all the people our age, the baby-boomers, and then we've got their sons and daughters. We've even got some of their grandchildren. We get a really big mix. Of course it all depends on where we play. We play with the London Symphony Orchestra sometimes and that obviously will attract an older crowd.

U&CW: Now that your shows are attracting people of so many different ages, including children, do you feel that you now have to watch what you say while on stage?

DH: Yeah, but we do now, anyway. I don't think we're ever too crazy in that area as far as blue language. We tend to watch ourselves a bit more because we're not those crazy guys in their 20s anymore, with rock 'n' roll and chicks, that whole deal.

U&CW: You have a new album coming out later this year. Can audiences expect to hear some songs from the up coming album on this tour?

DH: No, I don't think so. Not yet. We're still getting the songs down that we want to do, but we do have a couple of more recent songs from the album we'd done with the London Symphony Orchestra, so we'll throw in a few of those.

U&CW: How will that work, without actually traveling with the London Symphony Orchestra?

DH: Our keyboard player uses synthesizers to simulate the string section. The funny thing is, we found out after a while that the samples he used for the strings are in fact from the London Symphony Orchestra, the people we played with. He is actually playing the London Symphony Orchestra on his keyboard.

U&CW: Do you have a favorite road story?
DH: (laughter) Not one I can tell you. Hmm, let me see. I guess one of our big thrills was playing at the Washington Monument on the 4th of July. We played with the Beach Boys and couple of the Moody Blues, and America. There was over half-a-million people. That was quite an amazing day. We had Ringo on drums. Then we all jumped in a plane and flew down to Miami Florida and played for about 100,000 people that night, so we played for about 600,000 people in one day. Quite an amazing event.

U&CW: What can you tell us about your up coming album?
DH: I don't want to give away too much. It is going to kind of revisit our past. We are trying to get sort of that feeling from that era. We want to get a bunch of friends. Rodger McGuinn from The Byrds, and Stephen Stills from Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Robby Krieger from The Doors. We're all going to get in the studio and hopefully have some fun.

U&CW: Having discovered so many great song writers in the past, will you be testing out new song writers with your latest album?

DH: We don't know. As you probably know, with the record business, everything completely shuts down around Christmas and New Years. Everyone is gone. So we are planning to go in the studio in February. We are still negotiating as far as what we absolutely want to do. I want to get some great new songs in there and the record company is leaning toward some established hits, so we have some time to work it out.

U&CW: None of your songs sound the same, was this the result of a conscious effort?

DH: You know what's funny? We ended up doing back then what everybody does now. You know people with their iPods? Instead of having theme albums, people will pick all these different singles with all these different kinds of sound. We used to get slammed by people. "They jump all around," "they don't have one identifiable sound," but that is kind of what everybody does now with their song lists. I think we always just went for a good song.

We are lucky enough that everyone can kind of play and sing anything, so that is why, I think, they came out the way they did. We were on the pop charts, on the country charts and on the R & B chart. We were on just about any chart you could be on and I am very happy it worked out that way.

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