Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is guitarist extraordinary Eric Johnson. Eric, you
Speaker 1: posted instructional videos on YouTube during COVID. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well, it was kind of a crazy time, and so,
Speaker 2: you know, with everybody being kind of insulated, I thought
Speaker 2: what could I do to help? And I just thought
Speaker 2: doing all these lessons and asking people to contribute to
Speaker 2: the food bank because I'm you know, hearing about people
Speaker 2: not being able to eat. I mean, it's just like man,
Speaker 2: you know, so I thought, well, that's a little something
Speaker 2: I can do, and it kind of gives way to like, well,
Speaker 2: what else can you do? You know what? What can
Speaker 2: you keep doing? You know, and because a lot of
Speaker 2: people are struggling, you know, so I just tried to
Speaker 2: do something and it's something that people could get something
Speaker 2: out of, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you make a lesson, what goes through
Speaker 1: your mind? What do you want to teach?
Speaker 2: Well when I did, I did a series of twenty
Speaker 2: nine lessons for that, and basically I just tried to
Speaker 2: impart the little pieces of the puzzle that helped me
Speaker 2: garner and and create my style. Am I playing or
Speaker 2: my concept of music. And so I tried to keep
Speaker 2: it in little encapsulated pieces. I'm like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: and they usually were only like two minutes three minutes long,
Speaker 2: and I would show an example, and I would just
Speaker 2: show like a little thing each time, like oh, here's
Speaker 2: how you hold the pick, here's how you touch the string,
Speaker 2: and here's your intention philosophy or you know, all just
Speaker 2: all the different apertures of how to make music. And
Speaker 2: so I just try to leave it in little tiny
Speaker 2: mintory vignette chapters and did twenty nine of them and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, for those who haven't seen them, give us
Speaker 1: an example.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I would do one like on, here's
Speaker 2: how I hold the pick, you know, and here's how
Speaker 2: I strike the string, And then I would play a
Speaker 2: little piece of music showing that. I would sometimes I say, well,
Speaker 2: here's if you don't quite strike it correctly in my opinion,
Speaker 2: and here's when you strike it correctly, and I'd show
Speaker 2: the difference in how it would sound, or how fretting
Speaker 2: the instrument makes it different, the sweet spot of how
Speaker 2: you use your hand to fret the instrument. Like violin players,
Speaker 2: they want to really have a positive intent in their
Speaker 2: contact of the string to help their tone. It comes
Speaker 2: from both the picking and from the fretting. And or
Speaker 2: I do one on muting, which is it's kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, when you paint, you paint all this stuff,
Speaker 2: but then there's all the stuff you don't paint that
Speaker 2: creates the velocity of stuff you do paint. So when
Speaker 2: you're playing an instrument, you play the instrument, but then
Speaker 2: you have to mute and basically turn off all the
Speaker 2: parts that you're not playing. So that means you have
Speaker 2: to use your hands to mute the strings where you're
Speaker 2: not playing, so that you can provide a purity to
Speaker 2: the notes that you are playing. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: muting the space between the notes, you know, so it's
Speaker 2: cleaner and pure sounding.
Speaker 1: Well, guitar playing, is it nature or nurture?
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a good question. I think that anything people
Speaker 2: do in life, if they have a passion or an
Speaker 2: interest or they a connection with it, then they automatically
Speaker 2: have interest and enthusiasm and more galore to get out
Speaker 2: there and go for it, you know. But I think
Speaker 2: there's a people, maybe a certain talent that's intrinsic in them.
Speaker 2: But I think it's mostly purported by your interest in
Speaker 2: your just dedication because you love doing it, you know.
Speaker 1: So how did you pick up the guitar?
Speaker 2: When I was three years old? My my, this is
Speaker 2: many many years ago. My dad had some you know,
Speaker 2: back in the days before cable TV. He's like, he
Speaker 2: built a fifty foot antenna outside and he had some
Speaker 2: gentleman come over to help him set it in concrete
Speaker 2: and stuff. And at the end of it, one of
Speaker 2: the men named Marris Young, he got out of guitar
Speaker 2: and plugged in outside and we had a little party
Speaker 2: because oh they finished the TV now you know, the
Speaker 2: area or whatever, and he's playing all this Elmore James
Speaker 2: and Jimmy Reid stuff, this distorted tone. I was just like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's just an incredible sound. But soon
Speaker 2: after that I started taking piano lists, and so I
Speaker 2: kind of set aside the interest in guitar and just
Speaker 2: studied piano for seven years. But and then I really
Speaker 2: got back into guitar when I was eleven, because that's
Speaker 2: when the you know, my brother had a friend named
Speaker 2: Bobby Spiller that played guitar, and he brought his band
Speaker 2: over and they're doing all these Adventures tunes and really
Speaker 2: early pop tunes like in sixty four sixty five, and
Speaker 2: I just was really enamored with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, piano, to what degree do your skills remain and
Speaker 1: to what degree can you still read music? Well?
Speaker 2: I can read music. I'm a pretty poor reader, mostly
Speaker 2: because I don't keep it up, but I usually kind
Speaker 2: of learned by ear. I still play piano, and I
Speaker 2: play piano a little bit live, especially if I do
Speaker 2: like solo acoustic tours, but I usually play a considerable
Speaker 2: amount of keyboards on my records, and I love piano.
Speaker 2: Piano is kind of like my favorite first instrument, even
Speaker 2: though I'm not a great pianist by any means, but
Speaker 2: I have the potential inside me to kind of understand it.
Speaker 2: So I try to push myself and do it as
Speaker 2: good a job as I can on playing it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, at this late date, there's so many different
Speaker 1: kinds of keyboards with different sounds from rolling, there are synthesizers.
Speaker 1: Are you also a fan and do you delve into that?
Speaker 1: Are you more of a purist?
Speaker 2: I like acoustic piano mostly so usually when I if
Speaker 2: I do use it live, I'll try to find a
Speaker 2: really good synth that has a very nice natural acoustic
Speaker 2: grand piano sound, and every once in a while I'll
Speaker 2: use like a Fender road setting, but mostly I just
Speaker 2: go for just a natural sound. And when I do
Speaker 2: the solo acoustic tours, I'll actually use a grand piano.
Speaker 2: We'll just mike it. But I like synthesizers and everything
Speaker 2: to do. It's just not really something I've gotten into.
Speaker 1: Okay, so your brother starts playing, how much was it
Speaker 1: the Ventures? Because if you go back there, there was
Speaker 1: really a line of demarcation between The Ventures, the Four Seasons,
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys, and all of a sudden January sixty four,
Speaker 1: the Beatles come along. So how influential for you was
Speaker 1: the British invasion in the Beatles?
Speaker 2: Oh? It was huge. It was huge. It was just
Speaker 2: like this incredible new entrance of music and people's personas
Speaker 2: and lifestyle and stuff, and it was fascinating. I think
Speaker 2: that no matter what I took in, it was always
Speaker 2: I always was really looking for guitar stuff at that point.
Speaker 2: I was just just had an insatiable desire to learn
Speaker 2: more about guitars. So, you know, originally I think Nooki
Speaker 2: Edwards of The Ventures was a huge hero and somebody
Speaker 2: I learned to play from. I would just pick out
Speaker 2: his records note for note, and then then I got
Speaker 2: into the Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and you know John
Speaker 2: may On, the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, and just
Speaker 2: sit and learn learn it note for note, which is
Speaker 2: I think a great ongoing chapter in somebody's evolution, you know,
Speaker 2: to copy. I mean I remember when I was a
Speaker 2: kid playing starting to play shows, and everybody's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're just playing exactly like you know, Eric Clapton or
Speaker 2: But I think I encourage kids to do that because
Speaker 2: that's how you are able to study that screen of
Speaker 2: expertise of how somebody does what they do, and then
Speaker 2: you you you go from that. You don't want to
Speaker 2: stay there. It's just, you know, you want to be
Speaker 2: your own person, your own own artists. But I think
Speaker 2: it's just a valuable step. So that's what I did.
Speaker 2: Those were the guys that started me. But I liked
Speaker 2: the Beatles, I mean in the Rolling Stones. I loved
Speaker 2: Brian Jones, like the early early early Rolling Stone stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, back in those days when we all picked up
Speaker 1: the guitar, the big thing we did was we put
Speaker 1: on the record and we kept dropping the needle. We
Speaker 1: might slow the record down. Is that how you learn
Speaker 1: the notes?
Speaker 2: Or Yeah, it's way different than nowadays. If you got
Speaker 2: into a really hard lick a ope, okay, put it
Speaker 2: on sixteen. I can't play that fast, and then you'd
Speaker 2: have to like think in your mind, okay, I'm going
Speaker 2: to transpose that up to octaves or whatever. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a way different day than nowadays. It's like that four
Speaker 2: minute mile thing, you know. And as we have more
Speaker 2: and more we go forward. I mean, you know, if
Speaker 2: you look at people and what they do a motocross
Speaker 2: where they jump up in the air and they flip
Speaker 2: the bike and they flip themselves but they're not even
Speaker 2: connected to the bike. Then they come back and they
Speaker 2: joined the bike and do that. I mean like forty
Speaker 2: years ago, fifty years ago, that's not possible, but you
Speaker 2: know it's possible now, you know, with the you know,
Speaker 2: the advent of computers and people being able to slow
Speaker 2: stuff down and just you know, completely dissect something on
Speaker 2: a sonic level. It is really it's a faster learning process.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: And did you ever take lessons?
Speaker 2: I took piano lessons for seven years, and I took
Speaker 2: guitar lessons for two or three months and I got
Speaker 2: in trouble for something I did. I don't know exactly
Speaker 2: I can what was it did, but my parents grounded
Speaker 2: me and they said, okay, we're grounding you and we're
Speaker 2: taking away your guitar lessons, which I was like, oh no, God,
Speaker 2: don't do that, you know, because but what i'd and
Speaker 2: so what it forced me to do, said, well, I
Speaker 2: can play piano. So I sat down with the guitar
Speaker 2: and the piano, and I started hitting the notes on
Speaker 2: the piano and I would find him on the guitar
Speaker 2: and I would just one by one find all the
Speaker 2: notes on the guitar on each string as relating to
Speaker 2: the piano. So I and then I realized there was
Speaker 2: a symmetry there, and then I was say, oh, I see,
Speaker 2: so all I got to do is transfer that over
Speaker 2: here and then I can kind of look at the
Speaker 2: guitar from a musical standpoint.
Speaker 1: Okay, but there's some basic things, you know, making a
Speaker 1: g chord, which fingers you use, slide which fingers you used?
Speaker 1: Did you just stumble in or someone say no, this
Speaker 1: is the way to do it.
Speaker 2: Well, I had a friend named Jimmy Shade who was
Speaker 2: ahead of me on guitar, and he would come over.
Speaker 2: He was about three years older than me, and he
Speaker 2: was playing in bands and stuff, and he'd come over
Speaker 2: and show me a lot of stuff, and he had
Speaker 2: a great ear. He could pick anything off a record.
Speaker 2: And so between me just trying on my own and
Speaker 2: him showing me stuff, I was able to kind of
Speaker 2: just keep going forward.
Speaker 1: And at this late date, if I play you a record,
Speaker 1: how long will it take you to learn that record?
Speaker 2: What depends on the piece of music, But it's I'm
Speaker 2: able to do that. Just sit and, you know, work
Speaker 2: on it and learn it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're playing guitar. What guitar are you using?
Speaker 2: Well, it's my very first guitar ever played, probably when
Speaker 2: I was just turned eleven. Was went over with my
Speaker 2: dad to a friend of his and they had a
Speaker 2: little stell Acoustic and they let me borrow it for
Speaker 2: a few weeks, and my first song I learned was
Speaker 2: Your Cheating Heart. But then I had to give the
Speaker 2: Stella back. But because I was so enamored with the
Speaker 2: ventures I was, I pleaded with my dad that I
Speaker 2: could get an electric guitar. So we went down to JR.
Speaker 2: Reid Music in downtown Austin and he bought me a
Speaker 2: white Fender. Well he we got on loan a Fender
Speaker 2: music master, took it home and it was I guess
Speaker 2: my dad was playing on the buy it, but it
Speaker 2: was kind of like he was like, I don't know it,
Speaker 2: we'll check it out. And I was. It was sitting
Speaker 2: on the bed and I was jumping up and down
Speaker 2: the bed and the guitar fell over on the ground
Speaker 2: and put a big scratch on it, and my dad said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I guess we have to buy it now. And that's
Speaker 2: how that I got the guitar. I don't know if
Speaker 2: he was playing, if that was, I don't know how
Speaker 2: that all went. But he was kind of like, hey,
Speaker 2: you put a big scratch on us, and now I
Speaker 2: guess we had to buy it. But that's how I
Speaker 2: got the guitar.
Speaker 1: And what do you do for the amplifier?
Speaker 2: You know what? I did not have an amplifier, but
Speaker 2: we had a voice of music tape recorder, and I
Speaker 2: found out that if you put in record play and
Speaker 2: then you put it in pause, you're putting it into
Speaker 2: a monitor position. Although it's not running the tape, but
Speaker 2: it would monitor whatever he did, and then I would
Speaker 2: plug the It had guitar jacks on its I'd plug
Speaker 2: that and it actually had a killer tone, and I'd
Speaker 2: just crank up the tape recorder and sit there and
Speaker 2: play through it. And I actually blew the speakers in
Speaker 2: the tape recorder, which is kind of crazy. But that
Speaker 2: was my first amplifier thing until my dad and I
Speaker 2: were we were at a shopping center in Austin and
Speaker 2: there was this tiny little music store and right in
Speaker 2: the window they had this huge Fender Deluxe amp for
Speaker 2: seventy five bucks. I remember that, and my dad bought
Speaker 2: that for me, So that was my first I was
Speaker 2: probably about twelve when I got that amp, and I
Speaker 2: finally I finally got an amp.
Speaker 1: And do you still have that guitar in that amp?
Speaker 2: No, that would be so cool to have that. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like your toys from when you're five years old,
Speaker 2: you know, you think about them, Ah, that would be
Speaker 2: You don't realize those little things in life are so big,
Speaker 2: so important, so much more important than all the big
Speaker 2: facade of all this. Ah, that's this and that or
Speaker 2: you know this this is the little things that means something,
Speaker 2: But no, I don't.
Speaker 1: Okay. So you're growing up in the late fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: you're in Austin. Austin has always been the weird part
Speaker 1: of Texas. What was it like growing up then in Austin.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't realize at the time, but it was
Speaker 2: a beautiful place because it had an influx of so
Speaker 2: many styles of music, namely country, but there were blues
Speaker 2: artists coming through there, and there was a lot of
Speaker 2: clubs playing rock music. And there was just a lot
Speaker 2: of live music, which proceeded why I got the name
Speaker 2: Live Musical Capital of the World. It was amazing how
Speaker 2: much there was going on there, and it was all different,
Speaker 2: and of course you had the cage and influence, and
Speaker 2: by the time I was getting serious about guitar, there
Speaker 2: was just all sorts of things to you know, people
Speaker 2: to go see. There was I learned to play a
Speaker 2: lot by Johnny Richardson from Georgetown Medical Band. I'd go
Speaker 2: hear him every Tuesday night at the Jade Room because
Speaker 2: he was just a wonderful player, one of the great
Speaker 2: rock players, and him and Jim Mings and John Stahley
Speaker 2: were just the great players of Austin during that time,
Speaker 2: and I'd just like admire these guys and go here
Speaker 2: and play, and you know, they'd kind of let me
Speaker 2: sneak in in the back when I was fourteen and
Speaker 2: hear these people. But it was amazing. I remember the
Speaker 2: first time I went to LA when I was like nineteen,
Speaker 2: I was like, where are all the live clubs? There
Speaker 2: seemed to be less there as far as rock music
Speaker 2: than there was in the central part of Texas, but
Speaker 2: just a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So what did your parents do for a living?
Speaker 2: My dad was a MD. He was an antesthesiologist, and
Speaker 2: my mom was a housewife.
Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family.
Speaker 2: There's five of us, And where are you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2: I'm the youngest, you're the youngest. Yeah, do you get
Speaker 2: any advantage?
Speaker 1: Usually the youngest. They're very leaning with the young Yah.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know if I got a
Speaker 2: lot of any advantage, but it was you know, my
Speaker 2: mom was very supportive of the music because she was like,
Speaker 2: whatever makes you happy, and my dad, I think initially
Speaker 2: was not because he was worried when he saw I
Speaker 2: got so serious about it. Coming from being a doctor
Speaker 2: and and rightly, so you know, it's like all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you start growing your hair out and lose
Speaker 2: interest a little bit in pursuing school and want to
Speaker 2: play rock music. I can see how, you know, because
Speaker 2: you know, no parent knows, Oh yeah, it's okay, because
Speaker 2: he's going to do okay, you know, they don't know.
Speaker 2: And but later later when he saw that things were okay,
Speaker 2: I think he became supportive about it.
Speaker 1: And so you get really into music. You go to
Speaker 1: public school or private school.
Speaker 2: I went to public school until tenth grade, and then
Speaker 2: I went to a private school that's no longer here,
Speaker 2: but it was called Holy Cross High School. And one
Speaker 2: of the main reasons is because they would let you
Speaker 2: grow your hair long. You didn't have could you could
Speaker 2: drink cokes and class and it was kind of just
Speaker 2: real liberal kind of school where at that time, I
Speaker 2: guess a lot you know, kids might not understand now,
Speaker 2: but there used to be a dress code and your
Speaker 2: hair couldn't be too long. And I was like, oh man,
Speaker 2: I can't do that. I got to go to I'm
Speaker 2: going to go to this private school so I can
Speaker 2: grow my hair out.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, you're doing that. What are your four older siblings doing.
Speaker 2: Well, my brother he was he had already started college
Speaker 2: and at one point he went into the Navy for
Speaker 2: ten years and was on nuclear subs and stuff. My
Speaker 2: other sisters, well, one of them got married young and
Speaker 2: moved to Alaska, and the other two went to college.
Speaker 2: One became a CPA and one became a nurse.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were in school. Are you known as
Speaker 1: the guy who plays the guitar?
Speaker 2: Well, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I would play a
Speaker 2: little bit at talent shows and stuff. There was in
Speaker 2: in junior high school there were there was a gown
Speaker 2: named Marina Jenkins and me. Uh, we were probably the
Speaker 2: only two people playing guitar at that time in junior
Speaker 2: high And I think I played a little bit at
Speaker 2: talent shows and but yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, were you the type of kid who picked up
Speaker 1: the guitar and then suddenly stopped playing sports and stopped
Speaker 1: hanging with their friends and was practicing for five hours
Speaker 1: a day. What were you like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is what happened. I was really I was. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just never really did sports. I mean I loved
Speaker 2: you know, uh, swimming and water skiing and and and
Speaker 2: stuff on my own outside of school, But I didn't
Speaker 2: really pursue sports in school. By that time, I was
Speaker 2: so immersed in music. I would just I remember in
Speaker 2: ninth grade, I just tried to race home so I
Speaker 2: could see where the action is on TV. You know.
Speaker 2: That was at three point thirty and I got out
Speaker 2: of school like at three fifteen, so I had to
Speaker 2: run home. I wanted to see that. But by that
Speaker 2: point I was so immersed in guitar that you know,
Speaker 2: And there's two sides to everything. I think I missed
Speaker 2: a lot of high school. You know, I don't mean
Speaker 2: physically missed it, just you know, just my heart wasn't
Speaker 2: in it, and you know, your heart can be it
Speaker 2: in different ways. It didn't necessarily mean the subjects, but
Speaker 2: you know, just people and getting to know people and
Speaker 2: just having the experience of that community of even when
Speaker 2: you're a kid. But I think I was so just
Speaker 2: transfixed by music that I would I just kind of
Speaker 2: was a little bit absent as far as I would
Speaker 2: just sit in school waiting for it to be over.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, so what point did you start playing
Speaker 1: in bands and what did that look like? Well?
Speaker 2: I started when I was I remember when I was
Speaker 2: like twelve, I played in this band called The ID,
Speaker 2: but we and I didn't even know what the name meant.
Speaker 2: The bass player named the ID, but we never really
Speaker 2: played any game. I think we might have played one gig.
Speaker 2: But after that, when I was thirteen, I played in
Speaker 2: a copy band called The Sounds Alive, and you know,
Speaker 2: my parents would come to some of the shows and
Speaker 2: I'd try to not fall asleep because some of the
Speaker 2: gigs went late, but that it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 2: But on vacation, I think I did that till I
Speaker 2: was fourteen. I went on vacation to Alaska with my
Speaker 2: parents for a month, which was really wonderful to go
Speaker 2: to Alaska. And when I came back, the rhythm guitarists
Speaker 2: had gotten better, and while I was gone, they said, well,
Speaker 2: we're firing you because the rhythm guitars has gotten better
Speaker 2: and he's learned how to play Jeff's boogie and we
Speaker 2: don't need two guitars. So I got fired from that group.
Speaker 2: And that's when I started just practicing more on my own,
Speaker 2: and I met a drummer named Vince Marioni and I
Speaker 2: entered a group that he led. When I was about
Speaker 2: late fourteen or fifteen years old, and we started working together.
Speaker 1: Okay, so take me up to graduating from high school. Well, I.
Speaker 2: When I was in tenth and eleventh grade, Vince and
Speaker 2: I played together with Jimmy Bullock and we did this
Speaker 2: and Jay Aaron we played around, opened for some famous
Speaker 2: groups and we're doing quite well. But I guess after
Speaker 2: that kind of that kind of was not. It kind
Speaker 2: of went into kind of an idle thing, and I
Speaker 2: just started kind of working on my own until I
Speaker 2: met Yeah. I was just kind of jamming with people
Speaker 2: and doing all sorts of odds. And I was playing
Speaker 2: in another copy band when I was in twelfth grade,
Speaker 2: but didn't really want to do that too much. I
Speaker 2: didn't really enjoy it that very much. And right after
Speaker 2: twelfth grade is when I met the Electromagnets, which is
Speaker 2: Kyle Brock and Bill Maddox and Steve Barber, and I
Speaker 2: joined their group because they were really inspired by Chick
Speaker 2: coreas him of the Seventh Galaxy Record with Bill Connors,
Speaker 2: and so that's what we started playing jazz fusion stuff
Speaker 2: right after I graduated from high school.
Speaker 1: So you graduate from high school, what's the dream at
Speaker 1: that point and what about college.
Speaker 2: Well, I tried college. I took two classes, embarrassing to admit.
Speaker 2: The first one was calculus. I went to one class
Speaker 2: when I can't do this, And the other one was
Speaker 2: astronomy because I was interested in astronomy, and I did.
Speaker 2: I completed the class and almost made an A. I
Speaker 2: think I made like an eighty nine or something. I
Speaker 2: almost made an A minus in it. But I found
Speaker 2: it very interesting, and I like astronomy. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just decided, you know, I just want to I
Speaker 2: think I'm going to learn music. And the guys in
Speaker 2: the Electromagnets had gone to music school and they were
Speaker 2: kind of ahead of me as far as knowing music theory.
Speaker 2: So I was learning from them and I just decided
Speaker 2: that that's the way I wanted to go, you know,
Speaker 2: life experiences. And we just started going on the road
Speaker 2: and playing anywhere we could get a gig.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's like more than fifteen years before you
Speaker 1: get your first record deal with Warner Repues. You know
Speaker 1: what's happening in that fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Well, we started the Electromagnets, that configuration of it. We
Speaker 2: just started playing and playing playing, you know, our manager,
Speaker 2: Park Street put out Electromagnet record, but we kind of
Speaker 2: put it on our own because we really couldn't get
Speaker 2: anybody else to put it out. And we did fairly
Speaker 2: well with it, and the gigs got better and better.
Speaker 2: At some point we just kind of disbanded started doing
Speaker 2: different things, and I guess that was, like, you know,
Speaker 2: seventy six. I just I said, well, I'll just kind
Speaker 2: of put my own group together. And oddly enough though,
Speaker 2: I'd rehired the drummer and bass player from Lectro Mantis
Speaker 2: to when they were available to just do this trio
Speaker 2: of my own band. And I just started playing around
Speaker 2: and playing these pop tunes and singing and some of
Speaker 2: it was kind of like not great, but some of
Speaker 2: it had was pretty good. But I just started playing
Speaker 2: clubs around Austin and that grew a little bit to
Speaker 2: where we started having people coming out, and it's just
Speaker 2: you know, and then the configuration changed all the time.
Speaker 2: Drummer Steve Meta, bass player Rob Alexander, it just kind
Speaker 2: of different. People would get together and play with me
Speaker 2: and just started trying to grow that audience. And I
Speaker 2: think it's, uh, it just was years and years of
Speaker 2: doing that and trying to get something going, and of
Speaker 2: course I signed with a manager in Texas. I had
Speaker 2: offers to sign with a manager in New York and
Speaker 2: one in Texas, and Nat Weiss was in New York
Speaker 2: and he took me to New York and I got
Speaker 2: to meet all these people like James Taylor and John
Speaker 2: McLauchlin and Lenny White, and that's where I met Kat
Speaker 2: Stevens and where I got to work with Kat on
Speaker 2: his record a couple of records after that. But at
Speaker 2: the manager in Texas was really want me to sign
Speaker 2: with and for some reason I decided, well, I'll come
Speaker 2: back to Texas and sign with this this person, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, that's just kind of the
Speaker 2: way I did that. And then that turned into interesting
Speaker 2: situation where it's all subjective. You know, we made I
Speaker 2: made a record called Seven Worlds, and yeah, it's kind
Speaker 2: of had to go through the gateway of the manager
Speaker 2: to decide what to do and what not to do
Speaker 2: should it come out, should it not come out. So
Speaker 2: I just had it was a kind of a waiting
Speaker 2: game for years until I tried to get out of
Speaker 2: the deal.
Speaker 1: How'd you finally get out of the deal.
Speaker 2: Well, I had a lawyer, and it was I just
Speaker 2: just wanted to, yeah, just to go my own way
Speaker 2: because it didn't seem like things were quite working out,
Speaker 2: you know. But it can get complicated sometimes because it
Speaker 2: is subjected. Somebody puts money into you and they think
Speaker 2: they're doing the right thing, and you're sitting around waiting
Speaker 2: for something to happen. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people in history when you know it's I think it's
Speaker 2: important and for kids to you know, to remember that.
Speaker 2: You know, you start your trajectory of music first off,
Speaker 2: there'll never be something more important than just doing the
Speaker 2: music and turning people on. You know, you get in
Speaker 2: your head, I'll want to get the record deal or
Speaker 2: I want to have more people out there, but no,
Speaker 2: it ends up turned out when you look at it,
Speaker 2: you go, that's not the important stuff. The thing is
Speaker 2: just enjoying playing for other people. But at the time,
Speaker 2: you know, you're, oh, you know, you're so you know,
Speaker 2: you want this, this and that and get that record
Speaker 2: deal whatever. But I think that it's important, you know,
Speaker 2: Like I heard the story of like Loretta Lynn. You know,
Speaker 2: when plan A fails, you go to plan B. If
Speaker 2: plan bevitan't why you go to clans Cee. She sold
Speaker 2: records out of her trunk, you know, because nobody wanted
Speaker 2: to hut, you know what I mean. It's like, so
Speaker 2: I think that's what I ran into. You know, you
Speaker 2: get into a thing where all got to wait for
Speaker 2: this record, especially in that time. It's different now, but
Speaker 2: in that time, oh, you got to get signed to
Speaker 2: you know, Sony Records or whoever. And you can sit
Speaker 2: around on the chair at the soda fountain waiting to
Speaker 2: be discovered to be the next star, you know, and
Speaker 2: your life can pass by. You know. The thing is
Speaker 2: you got to go to plan B and C, which
Speaker 2: means just put out the record yourself, you know, build staircase,
Speaker 2: your thing. And so what I saw that I was
Speaker 2: not getting anything going at the time, and it was
Speaker 2: just not working out. We're getting a lot of rejections,
Speaker 2: and I was like, well, let's just do what we can.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Plan B. But you have to filter
Speaker 2: that through other people going no, no, we got to
Speaker 2: wait for the big pie in the sky or whatever.
Speaker 2: But so it was just a lot of waiting game
Speaker 2: until you just get enough interest to where somebody goes, okay,
Speaker 2: we got to take a look at this person, because
Speaker 2: they've got something going on.
Speaker 1: You know, let's go back. How did that waste find you?
Speaker 2: He saw a video of electro Magnets playing. We did
Speaker 2: a show. There was a studio TV show in Atlanta
Speaker 2: in like nineteen seventy five or six of us just
Speaker 2: playing on It is called maybe Soundstage or something, and
Speaker 2: it was it was a popular video TV show in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and we were one of the guests on one of
Speaker 2: the TV shows. And he saw it and he called
Speaker 2: me and asked me to come to New York. And
Speaker 2: Nat had worked with Brian Epstein and stuff with the Beatles,
Speaker 2: and he was quite a well known lawyer that had
Speaker 2: kind of branched. He had come up with this record
Speaker 2: label called Nimperor Records, And so I went up there and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, they had Andy Pratt, there were other axity mean,
Speaker 1: yeah that's his label. Yeah, but you go and you
Speaker 1: have this brush with fame, and then you go back
Speaker 1: to Austin and it's like you're in your own world again,
Speaker 1: or you know, is anybody ever calling you in that interim?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's interesting. I It's just I guess
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's the way it worked out. But
Speaker 2: the person they wanted to come back to that, I
Speaker 2: don't know. You got to come back to Texas. It's
Speaker 2: going to be great, great, great, great great great, And
Speaker 2: you know, maybe they meant well and maybe they had
Speaker 2: a vision. I don't really know, but I'm the one,
Speaker 2: you know that that's to come back.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I could have said, no, I'll just stay up here
Speaker 2: with see what happens with Nett Whist and stand New York.
Speaker 2: But so when I did come back to Austin, it
Speaker 2: was then and things kind of slowed down, you know,
Speaker 2: because we had that we had some velocity and we
Speaker 2: were playing gigs and drawing hundreds of people and stuff
Speaker 2: and it was going great. But I kind of just waiting,
Speaker 2: you know, for that next move, you know, but that
Speaker 2: move had to be just uh designated by someone else,
Speaker 2: you know, and that then you can get frustrating sometimes.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're living in Austin, you're making any money,
Speaker 1: you're living at home, you screeping buy what's going on?
Speaker 2: No? I actually I I was able to kind of
Speaker 2: uh yeah, which is kind of irony, I think back.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly how I did it, because I
Speaker 2: was playing this original music, and I was able to
Speaker 2: make enough money to to make rent and get by.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't making a lot of money by
Speaker 2: a stretch, but I was able to survive, which was
Speaker 2: kind of a blessing in itself when you know you
Speaker 2: don't really have you know, you're not a super high
Speaker 2: statue of artist, but you're able to play your own
Speaker 2: music and go around play gigs. But I was able
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, And do you ever think of giving up?
Speaker 2: I never thought about giving up playing.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I guess I got frustrated with what to do or
Speaker 2: how to do things to get things rolling better. But no,
Speaker 2: I just I enjoyed it too much, I think, and
Speaker 2: the enjoyment is what got me through, regardless of what
Speaker 2: happened with the career stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, So meanwhile, as you're doing varying thing, music itself
Speaker 1: is going through a lot of changes. We have the
Speaker 1: guitar heroes of the late sixties, we have prog rock
Speaker 1: in the seventies. We have corporate rack, we have disco.
Speaker 1: I mean, are you living your own world? Are you saying, well,
Speaker 1: where do I fit in with these other genres?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I just did whatever I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it had an influence on me, but I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel any pressure to try to mimic or
Speaker 2: get with the times or anything. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: just do whatever I felt like doing guitar, you know,
Speaker 2: as far as musically, whatever I felt was the best
Speaker 2: I could do.
Speaker 1: So seventies, you're with the band, you don't get a
Speaker 1: record deal until deep into the eighties. What's going on there?
Speaker 2: Well, it just never kind of came together with the
Speaker 2: management in Texas. So I eventually was able to get
Speaker 2: out of that and I just kept playing. There was
Speaker 2: a period where I couldn't really play live. I just
Speaker 2: did solo acoustic gigs for a year or so. But
Speaker 2: then I met my manager, Joe Preestnitz, wonderful man that
Speaker 2: started manage me and managed me for thirty eight years
Speaker 2: until he passed away a couple of years ago. But
Speaker 2: we just kind of started designing a thing of just playing,
Speaker 2: playing gigs and just trying to get things rolling. And
Speaker 2: really it was another few years of just I was
Speaker 2: fortunate that ever since I was fifteen years old, I
Speaker 2: knew Christopher Cross. We've been friends, and he got signed
Speaker 2: to Warner Brothers Music, and so he told Warner Brothers
Speaker 2: about me, and they were kind of like luke warm interested,
Speaker 2: But I just kept playing and playing and playing until
Speaker 2: finally Austin City Limits asked if I wanted to do
Speaker 2: a show on there in eighty I think it was
Speaker 2: late eighty three, and I did it. In eighty four,
Speaker 2: I did. I had my own show on Austin City Limits,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, there was a point where
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers decided, well, maybe we'll work with this guy.
Speaker 2: So they brought me to La to live and start
Speaker 2: kind of grooming me. So I spent another from eighty
Speaker 2: four to eighty five just like hanging with record execs
Speaker 2: and producers and arrangers and trying. They were I think
Speaker 2: basically they were trying to figure that. I think they
Speaker 2: were interested in me, but they were like, what do
Speaker 2: we do with this guy? We don't even know what
Speaker 2: to do. We don't know if this you know. But
Speaker 2: they were interested enough to keep things rolling, but not
Speaker 2: enough to really push the button on it and stuff.
Speaker 2: And that was as they were. So I kept doing
Speaker 2: demos and sending them in and and trying to find
Speaker 2: a producer to do my first record with Warners.
Speaker 1: Okay, before you moved to La how far can you work?
Speaker 1: You talked about doing the gig in Atlanta, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: was it a Texas thing or how far away from
Speaker 1: Texas could you work?
Speaker 2: We started, we started getting gigs Louisiana, Alabama, a little
Speaker 2: bit Oklahoma, but there was a real hotspot for us
Speaker 2: in South Carolina and Charleston. We played Charleston a whole
Speaker 2: lot for some reason. We just got a really good
Speaker 2: crowd going in Charleston, but we played Florida and just
Speaker 2: kind of the Southern states. We just kind of it
Speaker 2: just kept kind of growing slowly.
Speaker 1: So you had an agent who was booking these.
Speaker 2: Days, Well, I did with the manager in Texas. He
Speaker 2: had his own agent that booked me originally, and then
Speaker 2: after that, Joe Priestins would just kind of book me
Speaker 2: on his own. My manager because he had come from
Speaker 2: a booking agency called Rock Arts before before he went
Speaker 2: into management, so he would just book me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're cutting demos looking for a producer. How do
Speaker 1: you end up making that record?
Speaker 2: Well? I think we just kept doing demos and hopefully
Speaker 2: they just kept getting a little bit better, and I
Speaker 2: think it came down to two people that I was
Speaker 2: going to work with, either Bill Payne from Little Feet,
Speaker 2: which would have been kind of really cool to do,
Speaker 2: our Dave Tickle, who worked with Crowded House, and we
Speaker 2: decided for the moment, you know, to go with Dave Tickle.
Speaker 2: And Dave was He's a very talented producer and engineer
Speaker 2: and pretty well known, and so I think that that
Speaker 2: really made Warners feel a little bit more confident. So
Speaker 2: I think at that point they said, okay, let's make
Speaker 2: this record. So that's when we started making Tones in
Speaker 2: eighty five.
Speaker 1: And were you happy with the final record?
Speaker 2: I was, yeah, I think it was a snapshot of
Speaker 2: where we were. It didn't it didn't encapsulate everything, but
Speaker 2: I think it's an interesting record.
Speaker 1: So how does the record the record comes out and
Speaker 1: then ultimately a relationship with the company ends. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that, Well, yeah, I don't know. I think they
Speaker 1: brought me into the office, you know, because the record
Speaker 1: did okay, not great, but they came they brought me
Speaker 1: into the office and they said, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: really going to drop you yet, but we're not sure
Speaker 1: what to do. So we're going to suggest that rather
Speaker 1: than make you could stay here and make your second record,
Speaker 1: but we don't really have a lot of people that
Speaker 1: are that interested in getting behind it. So we advise
Speaker 1: you to just leave the deal and we'll let you
Speaker 1: let you do it, you know. So they were kind
Speaker 1: of like on the fence. They're like, well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't really let him go, but we'd kind of
Speaker 1: rather for his own sake, just to go somewhere else
Speaker 1: because we don't really we're not really our heart's not
Speaker 1: in it, you know. So I took their advice and
Speaker 1: I just didn't do it. Well. How disillusioning was that.
Speaker 2: Well, it was, it was. It was. It was kind
Speaker 2: of a bummer because I felt like, you know, for
Speaker 2: all the ups and downs, I had some kind of
Speaker 2: family with these people, and they were good people. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're just doing what they think is right. And I
Speaker 2: think they were probably just looking for something to be
Speaker 2: a big hit. You know. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: record companies that it's it's not like Concord Jazz where
Speaker 2: they'll put out stuff, you know, and you know a
Speaker 2: lot of the big labels like, well, we want to
Speaker 2: concentrate on the stuff that's really going to do something
Speaker 2: or at least we think it's going to do something,
Speaker 2: you know, And I think if they didn't know, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, let's put our energy elsewhere. But I
Speaker 2: met two guys, Lee Abrams and Denny Somak, who had
Speaker 2: started Cinema Records and they were distributed by Capitol Records,
Speaker 2: and they said, oh, we'd love to do a record
Speaker 2: with you. And so I signed a deal with Cinema Records.
Speaker 1: And how did you meet those two big radio guys, Lee, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let you I don't know.
Speaker 2: They just those guys. Yeah, but they loved like rock guitar,
Speaker 2: and they loved the Yardbirds, and they liked that kind
Speaker 2: of off the cuff stuff. So they called Joe Preess
Speaker 2: when they say, man, you know, we just really like
Speaker 2: what he does and we we'd like to do something together,
Speaker 2: which is yeah, it was kind of like really, you know,
Speaker 2: because you're already of field, but you know, and they
Speaker 2: were just into it from on this maybe a side
Speaker 2: gig of theirs or something. And so they they had
Speaker 2: started this record company and said let's make this record.
Speaker 2: We really, we really would like to do that. And
Speaker 2: so that's when I started putting together a via music.
Speaker 1: Okay, So did they sign you to Capital first or
Speaker 1: did you make the record and then Capitol decided to
Speaker 1: distribute it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's interesting what happened. I was with
Speaker 2: Cinema and I'd gotten well into the record and Cinema
Speaker 2: dissolved for some reason. I'm not sure why Lee and
Speaker 2: Denny dissolved it, but so there was this there was
Speaker 2: a pivotal point where it defaulted the Capital to at
Speaker 2: which point they could have gone we're not interested, or
Speaker 2: we're interested to pick it up. And what happened, and
Speaker 2: just there was so much money invested in it that
Speaker 2: Captain went, well, there's we got this money invested in it,
Speaker 2: so let's just go ahead and see it through. So
Speaker 2: it was kind of by default that I ended up
Speaker 2: on Capital and they just they said, well, we're going
Speaker 2: to just let's just see this through. So they they
Speaker 2: they did that, and they and I just kind of
Speaker 2: ended up on Capitol and I and I was about
Speaker 2: halfway through the record and I just kept working on it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was an interesting time at Capitol. Hill Milgrim
Speaker 1: came from Elektra. He really pushed you to what degree
Speaker 1: you did you believe that was fortuitous and to what
Speaker 1: degree did you feel Hale supporting you.
Speaker 2: Well, it was I didn't really know Hale at that point.
Speaker 2: I was working with somebody else. I didn't really have
Speaker 2: much contact with him. They just kind of consented to
Speaker 2: let him do his thing. I was the first time
Speaker 2: I got to produce the record myself, and I was
Speaker 2: just really intent on making a strong guitar record. I
Speaker 2: figured I've got to really make my stamp in this way.
Speaker 2: So that was my main concentration, and that's what I did.
Speaker 2: It was probably the beginning of my just incessant doing
Speaker 2: stuff over and over and over, trying to get it
Speaker 2: just just right, you know, which is that's good in
Speaker 2: a way, but not good in other ways. You know,
Speaker 2: you can it can be a diminishing and return thing.
Speaker 2: But I just kept that until I made the best,
Speaker 2: the best record I could. And I went a little
Speaker 2: over budget for even though you know, maybe at the
Speaker 2: time it wasn't that over budget, but for me it
Speaker 2: was not being a big artist. But and then I
Speaker 2: just turned it into to the record company. They didn't
Speaker 2: really like the I don't think they liked the record
Speaker 2: very much. In fact, I got got kind of chewed
Speaker 2: out at Capital when I turned it in, they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, they chewed me out for going over budget
Speaker 2: and they didn't seem very interested in the record. But
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, it was kind of like a just not
Speaker 2: a very good vibe. And I was like leaving there
Speaker 2: and said, well, at least I did the record. At
Speaker 2: least I'll put it out. I don't know what's going
Speaker 2: to happen, because it didn't feel very good, you know.
Speaker 2: But I met this guy on the way out named
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Shane who was worked in the radio department at
Speaker 2: the time, and he came up to me and he said, man,
Speaker 2: I heard the record, and he said, I just love
Speaker 2: this record. And he says, I don't care what anybody
Speaker 2: thinks here, I'm going to make sure that people hear
Speaker 2: this record. I'm going to make sure it does something
Speaker 2: because I just think it's really nice. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: that's cool. And he lived up to his word. I mean,
Speaker 2: that guy, single handily initially a capital turned the wheels around.
Speaker 2: It was, I mean and starting. I think I owe
Speaker 2: a lot of gratitude to him for getting things going
Speaker 2: because he just he was relentless. He just went to
Speaker 2: every radio station in America and tried to get them
Speaker 2: interested in something on the record.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the record Clisse of Dover was used in
Speaker 1: many other areas before it actually broke on the radio
Speaker 1: because it was an instrumental uses. You know, the track
Speaker 1: did not break until a period of time after the
Speaker 1: album was out. So what was going through your mind?
Speaker 1: Were you think it was over? And then were you
Speaker 1: surprised or what? You know?
Speaker 2: I didn't. I just went back to playing gigs and
Speaker 2: I I just felt that I did the best I
Speaker 2: could on that record, and I thought it was a
Speaker 2: good record, and I thought, you know what, I did
Speaker 2: the best I could, and I'm just going to go forward,
Speaker 2: you know, and not no put too much emphasis on
Speaker 2: what the reflection is, you know, because people that heard it,
Speaker 2: you know, the fans had heard it seemed well, we
Speaker 2: really like it. So that was that was you know,
Speaker 2: making me feel okay, regardless, So.
Speaker 1: When it becomes a hit, you know what goes through
Speaker 1: your mind.
Speaker 2: Well, I was surprised really in a way. The uh
Speaker 2: it's interesting that we I just didn't expect it really,
Speaker 2: you know, being an instrumental song, and but it just
Speaker 2: kind of fit in a little niche you know, on
Speaker 2: the radio. It was just like perfect timing on the
Speaker 2: radio where they it was able to be used right
Speaker 2: before the news or whatever. But and as you say,
Speaker 2: I think it was used in sports events and other
Speaker 2: stuff that kind of gave it some momentum. But I
Speaker 2: was surprised, and it just kind of kind of kept
Speaker 2: kept getting taking off more and more. But it was
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you've been slugging it out for twenty years, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: do you finally feel like you made it? I mean,
Speaker 1: your touring goes up a big step, there's more of
Speaker 1: a profile. What's it like being you at that time?
Speaker 2: Oh? It was great. We were able to play auditoriums
Speaker 2: and theaters and stuff, and gigs were gigs were great
Speaker 2: and we had good attendance, and uh yeah it was
Speaker 2: It was great. And the whole climate at Capital change.
Speaker 2: So you know, we'd walk into Capitol right, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: how you how's it going? How can I get you something?
Speaker 2: You know, it was kind of funny, you know, that
Speaker 2: way it can change. But uh yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1: So and so why did it take so long for
Speaker 1: the follow up?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. I think it's that sophomore
Speaker 2: edit effort, and I was like, oh, now I got
Speaker 2: to really really make the best record, And you know,
Speaker 2: I would have done things a lot different than I
Speaker 2: did on venus Ayle. I think the record turned out okay.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of songs on it that I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know about that, but a lot
Speaker 2: of it. I actually never really listened to my music
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 1: I listened to.
Speaker 2: It a few months agoing, wow, that's really there's some
Speaker 2: there's some that's you know, some people think that that's
Speaker 2: my best record I did, but that's subjective. But I
Speaker 2: just got into this thing of doing it over and
Speaker 2: over and over and over, which I mean really honestly,
Speaker 2: that was the epitome of just going overboard. We recorded
Speaker 2: the whole record in Austin and it actually sounded pretty
Speaker 2: darn good and I should well I don't use it.
Speaker 2: It should, but I mean I could have just gone
Speaker 2: with that, you know, but I don't know. Let's go
Speaker 2: to LA and go to A and M studios and
Speaker 2: spend tons of money and it's going to be great,
Speaker 2: and let's redo it and just go for broke, you know,
Speaker 2: which I don't think is the Obviously, you can get
Speaker 2: lost in the rabbit hole, and you know, if you're
Speaker 2: if you're a huge group, then you have a little
Speaker 2: bit more uh, you know, latitude to do that. Although
Speaker 2: I still don't think it's the way to do it, really,
Speaker 2: but you know, I wasn't that big of a of
Speaker 2: an artist to go do that. I spent a ton
Speaker 2: of money making that record. I mean just ridiculous amount
Speaker 2: of money. And I think you know, you mentioned Hal Milgrum.
Speaker 2: I think he hung in there with me, but I
Speaker 2: think I put a lot of stress on capital, you know,
Speaker 2: just spending taking way too I mean four years. I
Speaker 2: mean I had worked on I didn't spend four years
Speaker 2: making the record. Although that's what the that's what's written.
Speaker 2: Oh he spends four years. I'd spent two and a
Speaker 2: half years making the record, which is crazy enough. You know,
Speaker 2: we spent a couple of years on just touring and
Speaker 2: then I finally started the record again. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: spent over two years making that record. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think that that was the way I could.
Speaker 2: I think I could have done it in other ways
Speaker 2: and been a little bit more efficient without going down
Speaker 2: the rabbit hole. But that's the way I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Then Okay, Hail gets blowed out. You lose your champion,
Speaker 1: the sound of music, rock starts to fall by the wayside,
Speaker 1: hip hop becomes big, and suddenly you're on independent labels.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you missed your moment?
Speaker 2: Well, And I think I'm responsible for a lot of that.
Speaker 2: I don't know about missed the moment. I mean, because
Speaker 2: it's like, how do you equate all that stuff? But
Speaker 2: to your point, I think I'm responsible that if you
Speaker 2: create momentum, you have a certain obligation to keep that
Speaker 2: momentum going. So you have to look at the whole
Speaker 2: degree of everything. What are you doing, How are you
Speaker 2: handling this stuff?
Speaker 1: How? You know?
Speaker 2: Like, don't just disappear for six years and come out
Speaker 2: with a record and think you're the Beatles and everybody's
Speaker 2: going to remember you. Don't get so lost in experimentation
Speaker 2: that you just got a bunch of you know, Like
Speaker 2: I at that point, I was working on the record
Speaker 2: after Venus Ale was I was turning in tapes to
Speaker 2: Capital and I think they were half baked, and I
Speaker 2: didn't really know what I was doing, and I was
Speaker 2: kind of you know, just fishing. So I think to
Speaker 2: your point, yeah, music was changing, but I think during
Speaker 2: music changing, I wasn't. I could have spent more time
Speaker 2: just being careful of that momentum, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think I was just kind of a little bit not
Speaker 2: quite uh the I wasn't quite on course then, So yeah,
Speaker 2: capitare like, well, he's already spent you know, a ton
Speaker 2: of money and he's just doing demos. So they kind
Speaker 2: of got out of the deal, you know.
Speaker 1: But how depressing is that you reach the pinnacle not
Speaker 1: only do you not continue to have sex, I mean
Speaker 1: success use you might have sex and uh you lose
Speaker 1: your deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And at the time I was like, how
Speaker 2: dare they? You know, But then you think they go, well,
Speaker 2: you know this, I'm partially responsible for that too, because
Speaker 2: you you have to you have to bring it, you know,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's hardball and you have to be real
Speaker 2: careful and maintain that that bulliancy. And I'd just spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time making these half baked demos, and
Speaker 2: they got scared because you know, it's like that all
Speaker 2: this money is going out and he's just turning in demos.
Speaker 2: So I think now it was just a yeah, just
Speaker 2: you have to you have to take responsibility, you know,
Speaker 2: to make a really strong product. You know, you can't
Speaker 2: just rely on your laurels.
Speaker 1: Okay, many people have that peak, pass it and go straight,
Speaker 1: they get a street job. Did you just pick up
Speaker 1: like nothing happened.
Speaker 2: No, Well, I think emotionally it hurt me a lot.
Speaker 2: I just think I just kind of decided to go, well,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna, you know, keep going forward and keep
Speaker 2: experimenting with music and see what I can do. But
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think it was. It was. It
Speaker 2: was a trying time, and at the time, I don't
Speaker 2: think I I think at the at the time, I
Speaker 2: think I was a little bit more in like this
Speaker 2: entitlement place where well, you know, I've gotten there, so
Speaker 2: I should just be able to stay there without any
Speaker 2: any extra energy, which is not true. You have to keep,
Speaker 2: you know, for a better or for words, you have
Speaker 2: to kind of keep earning your keep as you move
Speaker 2: through the evolution. So I think, you know, and that's
Speaker 2: that was one of the lessons I had to learn.
Speaker 1: Well, needle to say, the landscape has worked. Everybody, even
Speaker 1: Nearrick Clapton's on an independent label at this particular point
Speaker 1: in time going back, you mentioned Jeff Beck, So who
Speaker 1: is your favorite? Who do you think is best from
Speaker 1: that era?
Speaker 2: Well, if you're talking about just somebody that's just got
Speaker 2: that hemispheric guitar concept, I really got to say, it's
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendricks and Jeff Beck. It's really hard. I mean
Speaker 2: there's a lot of great players, Page and Class and
Speaker 2: Peter Green and of course all the blues players, all
Speaker 2: the Kings and God, I mean there's tons of them,
Speaker 2: and that's just in blues and pop and rock. But
Speaker 2: there was something amazing about Hendrix and Beck that I
Speaker 2: don't they're just trailblazers and created a new flame that
Speaker 2: arose out of very few library books. You know, they
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot to work with to create what
Speaker 2: they did. Now we can go look at twenty man
Speaker 2: thirty fifty manuals on playing guitar, but I think at
Speaker 2: the time they had like two paragraphs go oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well then i'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to
Speaker 2: make this up myself. And it's amazing if you look
Speaker 2: at it in that picture of what they did with
Speaker 2: what they had to work with. So I would say them.
Speaker 1: So talking about Beck who ultimately played without a pick,
Speaker 1: What was your take on that as a guitarist.
Speaker 2: I thought it was great. I enjoyed him when he
Speaker 2: played with a pick too, and so I like both
Speaker 2: both effects. I think both effects are great, and really
Speaker 2: you can do certain things with each one that you
Speaker 2: can't do with the other.
Speaker 1: How about yourself, when do you use a pick and
Speaker 1: when not?
Speaker 2: Well, A lot of times when I play acoustic, I
Speaker 2: don't use a pick. When I play electric, I use
Speaker 2: a pick, But sometimes it's hybrid playing where I use
Speaker 2: a pick but I use my fingers at the same time.
Speaker 1: And what about Eddie Van Hill and the leader guitarist
Speaker 1: with tapping, etc.
Speaker 2: Oh, this's amazing. Yeah, he probably was principally one of
Speaker 2: the first people to reinvent guitar after the original guys
Speaker 2: in the sixties, as far as bringing a whole new
Speaker 2: dimension to it.
Speaker 1: So how do you write a song?
Speaker 2: Usually just by jamming, just kind of playing around either
Speaker 2: on piano or guitar and just coming up with something
Speaker 2: and then seeing if a melody arises out of that.
Speaker 2: I kind of let it just do its thing, and
Speaker 2: usually it spells out whether it should be a vocal
Speaker 2: or an instrumental.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, do you just leave the tape recorder
Speaker 1: on every time you pick up the guitar.
Speaker 2: No, no, I just kind of play around and see
Speaker 2: what's coming up. Sometimes the the ideas just come. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure from where. I don't even know if you
Speaker 2: can take credit for them, but they just kind of come.
Speaker 2: But and then you're left with the custodial work of
Speaker 2: finishing it out, connecting the dots. But sometimes the bigger
Speaker 2: picture just kind of happens.
Speaker 1: And do you pick up the guitar and knowing you
Speaker 1: want to make an album, or you playing every day?
Speaker 2: I usually play every day, Yeah, for how long at
Speaker 2: different times. Some days it's for hours and hours, some
Speaker 2: days just thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: And it never feels like work to you.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think when I have to get ready for
Speaker 2: a tour, and then I'm really, really I have to
Speaker 2: do Oh, I got to work on these songs and
Speaker 2: this technique, you know, it's not so much the free
Speaker 2: form of just playing for fun. It's working on a
Speaker 2: particular repertoire of music. So you're kind of you're more
Speaker 2: bound of, well, this is what I got to work on.
Speaker 2: That sometimes I don't feel like doing that, but I
Speaker 2: have to.
Speaker 1: And for those who are unfamiliar with your music, how
Speaker 1: would you describe it?
Speaker 2: Well, it's I think it never really landed on any
Speaker 2: one style. It's I never really figured out what I
Speaker 2: like best. And there's so many players that are so great,
Speaker 2: so there's always something to learn, and you can always
Speaker 2: be a student of music. So I kind of just
Speaker 2: anytime I can, you know, learn something like a country
Speaker 2: and flavored thing, or blues or jazz or rock. I
Speaker 2: think it's just kind of all over the map. Maybe
Speaker 2: I have an identity crisis or something.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there were the people in the eighties
Speaker 1: like Ingville, Moms Stein or whatever, people were known for
Speaker 1: playing incredibly fast. And I've been to see you, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's incredibly fast, but I can't believe
Speaker 1: you can play all those notes and get that sound out.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that, you know, a lot of what
Speaker 2: I do is I just learned from my heroes, and
Speaker 2: I kind of I took certain things from Jeff Beck,
Speaker 2: certain things from Mark Clapton and Jimmy Hendrix and Keith
Speaker 2: Richards and Brian Jones and Noki Edwards and Wes Montgomery
Speaker 2: and all the people that I like. I would inculcate
Speaker 2: that into one recipe and that's how I kind of
Speaker 2: came up with my style.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you have to talk about learning the
Speaker 1: repertoire but someone's mind would be blown that you can
Speaker 1: hit all the notes and there are no clams. I mean,
Speaker 1: what degree do you have to practice that or if
Speaker 1: you put in so many hours in the past that
Speaker 1: it's just natural.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a there's probably a lot of clams. And
Speaker 2: nowadays with YouTube, you know you you're there's no stone
Speaker 2: left unturned. Everybody can see one of your moments that's
Speaker 2: less than best. And I definitely I'm not the most
Speaker 2: consistent player in the world. But uh uh, it takes practice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it takes practice. And yeah, just working on the melody,
Speaker 2: the harmony and the rhythm, just working on all the aspects.
Speaker 1: In your personal life. Are you married not now? I'm not.
Speaker 1: Now do you have children?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: To what degree do you believe your dedication to the
Speaker 1: guitar and the career sort of shut those avenues.
Speaker 2: Down more than I wish they had, to be honest,
Speaker 2: I think I'm it's speaking very candidly. I think I
Speaker 2: was so obsessed with music that I kind of lost
Speaker 2: track of life a little bit, you know, just like
Speaker 2: spending every waking moment chasing music. And I think it's
Speaker 2: important to have a balance in life.
Speaker 1: And to what degree are you a gearhead?
Speaker 2: Ah? Less than I used to be. I went through
Speaker 2: a period where I mean, I still like, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff that sounds good, but I don't try to put
Speaker 2: as much emphasis on that now because it's kind of
Speaker 2: another rabbit hole you can get into.
Speaker 1: So how many guitars do you own?
Speaker 2: All right now? I don't own I've sold a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff. I probably owned maybe eighteen or twenty guitars
Speaker 2: at the most.
Speaker 1: And what did you how'd you decide to sell and
Speaker 1: how'd you decide what to keep?
Speaker 2: Really just stuff that feels magical, that makes me want
Speaker 2: to play, that's sounds good, and pieces that are sentimental.
Speaker 1: And so what are your favorites.
Speaker 2: I have a Martin that my father bought me when
Speaker 2: my guitars got stolen in nineteen eighty two, and he
Speaker 2: replaced when he bought me this Martin. That's a very
Speaker 2: cinemal guitar to me. I have another acoustic that chedd
Speaker 2: Atkins gave me any guitars that were gifts, They're kind
Speaker 2: of very special to me. My favorite I just have
Speaker 2: like this. I work with Fender and I have an
Speaker 2: EJ Virginia model that's out on the market now and
Speaker 2: I play one of those. As far as an electric guitar.
Speaker 1: So to what degree did you customize it make it
Speaker 1: different from usual Fender fare?
Speaker 2: It's almost totally stock. On one of them. I put
Speaker 2: a switch where I can have the bridge pickup be
Speaker 2: humbucking or single call, but the some of the are
Speaker 2: just stock.
Speaker 1: And then how do you set up guitar? You like
Speaker 1: heavy gauge, light gauge, how's the action? To what degree
Speaker 1: do you change what comes off the assembly?
Speaker 2: I try to lower the action a little bit and
Speaker 2: I use a medium gauge string. Yeah, just kind of
Speaker 2: set it up as good as I can.
Speaker 1: Well, you're a Fender guy now, but you also have VS.
Speaker 1: Three thirty fives. I mean, giving your take on this
Speaker 1: sound and the playing of different brands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gifts ins are great. I love using those in
Speaker 2: the studio. They have just an absolute wonderful lead tone
Speaker 2: to them. I sometimes prefer the strat for a rhythm sound.
Speaker 2: It's a little cleaner and clearer sound, and so a
Speaker 2: lot of times live I'll use a strat predominantly because
Speaker 2: it covers more bases.
Speaker 1: And what about effects, I use a.
Speaker 2: Lot of old funky effects because the analog w sound
Speaker 2: better to me. Oh, the old funky ones.
Speaker 1: But how many amste own? And what are you into? Yeah?
Speaker 2: About eighteen or so? I guess eighteen, nineteen twenty. I
Speaker 2: use a lot of old Fenders and Marshalls, but I
Speaker 2: do use this new amp called a two Rock, which
Speaker 2: are really nice.
Speaker 1: What makes it special.
Speaker 2: It's it's a real clean kind of well, it has
Speaker 2: a lot of bravado for like a crunchy rhythm kind
Speaker 2: of tone. It's kind of in between a Marshall and
Speaker 2: a Fender. So I like to use a three way setup.
Speaker 2: I'll use like the Fender for clean and the two
Speaker 2: Rock for kind of a crunchy rhythm, and then the
Speaker 2: Marshall for my lead tone.
Speaker 1: And you're on the road now because you want to be,
Speaker 1: or because you have to be.
Speaker 2: Because I want to be. I guess, Yeah, how much
Speaker 2: you work in these days? Well, we did one long
Speaker 2: tour at the beginning of the year and then I
Speaker 2: have another long tour starting in a few weeks, a
Speaker 2: couple months, and then that'll probably be it for the year.
Speaker 2: I have some sporadic shows after that, and then I'll
Speaker 2: be doing some tours at the first and next year.
Speaker 1: And when acoustic and win with a band?
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't done any acoustic tours lately, but don't
Speaker 2: have any planned right now. But I have some new
Speaker 2: acoustic tunes that i'd like to put on a record.
Speaker 1: And when do you decide to make a record.
Speaker 2: When I feel I've got enough music that's worth recording
Speaker 2: I have right now. But I released a double record
Speaker 2: about a year ago, and now I have twelve new
Speaker 2: basic tracks that I've just completed, but I need to
Speaker 2: finish them off.
Speaker 1: And I see you in a studio now. People can't
Speaker 1: see we're audio only. Is that your studio?
Speaker 2: It is? It is? Yeah, it's a place I started
Speaker 2: building many years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well even you know, I'm only looking at the monitors.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty extensive for a whole studio. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if you can see it, but
Speaker 2: it's got a console back here. There's a console back there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what kind of console is that?
Speaker 2: It's called tone looks and I have a Neve and
Speaker 2: API stuff in there too.
Speaker 1: And what kind of speakers are you using.
Speaker 2: For modern They're ATC's, yeah, which are really nice speakers.
Speaker 1: You do a lot of covers. How do you decide
Speaker 1: what songs to cover?
Speaker 2: Just songs that I like? I like doing Hendrix songs.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I try to do Stevie Wonder songs and I
Speaker 2: shouldn't really because it's like out of my legue. Really,
Speaker 2: I love Stevie Wonder. He's probably other than the Beatles,
Speaker 2: He's probably my favorite pop artist there ever was. But yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's just a song I like, or if I
Speaker 2: want to like do something crazy, do a song that
Speaker 2: would not make sense for me to do, but I'll
Speaker 2: rearrange it so that it works for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what about singing? You've been criticized in your
Speaker 1: career for some of your vocals, although I think forty
Speaker 1: Mile Town from Avia Music hom is great. So you
Speaker 1: have any self consciousness or you just do what you do?
Speaker 2: I just do what I do. But yeah, it's it.
Speaker 2: I'm no great singer really.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just decided to sing, you know, I could have
Speaker 2: very easily just gone well no, no, don't sing it
Speaker 2: elite singer, but I never I just I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's had to just kind of do it. But I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say I've got a huge handle on singing, per se.
Speaker 1: And how's it worked out economically for you? You had
Speaker 1: a big get, but then you spend money at Capital.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you own your own publishing, do
Speaker 1: you have any royalty income coming in? I do?
Speaker 2: I do, yeah, And then I do you know? I
Speaker 2: work with different artists on different companies for a gear
Speaker 2: you know that's put out my design, and then certain
Speaker 2: video things and stuff like that. Yeah, but it's worked
Speaker 2: out pretty well.
Speaker 1: And what other gear do you make other than guitars?
Speaker 2: Well, I have my own type of Jim Dunlop pick,
Speaker 2: and then I have several different models of guitars with Fender.
Speaker 2: I did have a fuzzy intered out with my name
Speaker 2: on it, but it's been discontinued at this point.
Speaker 1: And what's special about your picks?
Speaker 2: Well, they just a certain material. They're a Jazz three pick,
Speaker 2: which they put out anyhow. But then there's a version
Speaker 2: I have with the plastics a little different.
Speaker 1: And certainly those of us who lived through the nineties
Speaker 1: are aware of you. Are you happy of your with
Speaker 1: your present status, or would you still like to reach
Speaker 1: more people and feel that there's more a runway ahead.
Speaker 2: I think I would like to just do a better
Speaker 2: job at what I do. And that doesn't mean play
Speaker 2: faster or crazier. It just means make music that would
Speaker 2: be is as valid to make as I can make
Speaker 2: and and make people feel good. Because the whole all
Speaker 2: the rest of stuff, I mean, I've done okay, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm I'm doing all right. If if if
Speaker 2: it was in my destiny to play to more people
Speaker 2: or whatever, it'd be fine. But it's it's not. It's
Speaker 2: not like a it has.
Speaker 1: To be that way.
Speaker 2: It's just it's more just how can I do a
Speaker 2: better job at what I'm I'm doing? Because I think
Speaker 2: things when you get older, it's like you can't really say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a musician and guitarist and I do
Speaker 2: this thing, and there's all this It's like there's something
Speaker 2: about that. It's like in the movie The Wizard of
Speaker 2: Oz when they pulled the curtain back, you know, and
Speaker 2: when oh, there's you know, he's back there pushing levers
Speaker 2: it's not what you thought it was. And as you
Speaker 2: go through life you realize that this stature or this
Speaker 2: entitlement or this thing and all this stuff you know
Speaker 2: that we put so much prominence on, it's like, that's
Speaker 2: not it, And what's it is just you know, developing
Speaker 2: that thing inside yourself to do the best you can.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of like going to the hub of
Speaker 2: a bicycle wheel and then you take care of all
Speaker 2: the other spokes if you If you can do that,
Speaker 2: you know, and then people enjoy that, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think the biggest turn on for me is if
Speaker 2: I go on the road and I can see that
Speaker 2: people I'm making people feel good, or if I get
Speaker 2: a letter from or email that says, wow, you know,
Speaker 2: you helped me through a tough time. I mean that
Speaker 2: there's nothing to compare with that right now. So that's
Speaker 2: really my bread and butter at this point. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying the other stuff can't happen or shouldn't happen.
Speaker 2: It's just it's not. It's it's not it's not my
Speaker 2: important currency right now as much.
Speaker 1: And are you just doing your own thing or do
Speaker 1: you know other guitarists, other musicians, and hang and play
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I like to jam with other people and stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, Mike Stern and I made a record together
Speaker 2: and I would love to make another record with him.
Speaker 2: He's a great musician.
Speaker 1: And any other guitarists out there that people should be
Speaker 1: paying attention.
Speaker 2: To, well, everybody, you know. I love Bill Frazelle and
Speaker 2: Julian Lunge. Geez, there's so many. There's a lot of great,
Speaker 2: great players. Josh Smith, that's great. Yeah, there's a there's
Speaker 2: a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Okay, who's coming to your shows at this point?
Speaker 2: It looks like the crowd's gotten older, that's for sure,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's cool. I think we get but
Speaker 2: we do get, you know, we do get kids coming
Speaker 2: out to this, young kids sometimes that are interested in
Speaker 2: playing guitar. I thing.
Speaker 1: So it's mostly fans. People were pretty familiar with your music,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, And then you talked about doing videos.
Speaker 1: You made your own personal videos. Are you doing any
Speaker 1: other kind of instructional teaching thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just finished one for a company called Truefire
Speaker 2: and it's coming out in August, and that it was
Speaker 2: a pretty it's a very comprehensive, Like ten song, I
Speaker 2: wrote all these this music for the instructional video to
Speaker 2: kind of show my technique, and that's coming out the
Speaker 2: end of August. It's an interactive thing.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. Eric, I wanted to thank you for taking
Speaker 1: the time to speak with my audience. Gonna lead you
Speaker 1: with time to practice today, so thanks for talking.
Speaker 2: About Thank you, Bob, thanks for doing this.
Speaker 1: You bet. Until next time, it is Bob left stets