In the latest clip from our backstage Mountain Jam interview with Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, the Tedeschi Trucks Band leaders look back on their decades on the road and open up about some of the biggest lessons they've learned during their time in the music business.

As far as Trucks is concerned, rock 'n' roll survival is partly earned simply by paying attention. "Most of the biggest lessons are learning from mistakes," he pointed out. "The ones you've made or that people have made around you, or mistakes that were made before you even started playing. I think it's important to kind of watch what goes down, you know? We've both been on the road a long time, and you see a lot of lives and careers and storylines come and go you; see people who are all bright-eyed and have all this talent, then you see their ego get ahold of them, or some addiction, and then you seem them crash and burn or you see their musicianship fizzle. You realize it's all something you have to tend to -- you have to be aware of looking at the long view, not believing the hype and not letting people blow smoke at you and buy into it, because we've seen it. Most of the lessons are just paying attention and learning from the potholes that other people have hit -- trying to avoid those."

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Trucks came up in the Allman Brothers Band family. "Being around the Allman Brothers camp -- there's many books that are currently out about the band," he laughed. "There are a lot of stories there to learn from, and some of those, I was around for. A lot of the best learning stories you'll never read, because the history is too thick, but those are things you definitely key in on, and you try not to repeat mistakes. I think our band is a big example of that. We're trying to buck the trend in a lot of ways -- trying to raise the family, trying to keep a band together where everybody likes each other. You do it for the right reasons, and you realize you really can't compromise."

See More from Our Interview with Tedeschi Trucks Band

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