Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is guitarist Extraordinary Tommy and men Will. Tommy
Speaker 1: has a new album, Living in the Light. Tell me
Speaker 1: about the new album.
Speaker 2: Tommy, Thanks, Bob. How are you today? By the way,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty good.
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be talking to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, Well, the same here the new album,
Speaker 2: Living in the Light. It's just it was something that
Speaker 2: I'd been writing a few songs on the road and
Speaker 2: I was home taking a walk along the Percy Priest
Speaker 2: Lake here in Nashville with a friend of mine, and
Speaker 2: he said, well, you just walked three miles and you're
Speaker 2: not even raising a sweat, you know. He said, Man,
Speaker 2: you look so well. You must be living in the light.
Speaker 2: And the moment he said that, I was like, that's
Speaker 2: a great phrase, living in the light. I love that.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of what started the ball rolling on
Speaker 2: the name of the album and all that and the
Speaker 2: direction of everything. Just that one conversation. And I had
Speaker 2: written some songs and one called Scarlett's World. Scarlett is
Speaker 2: my oldest granddaughter, she's seven, and you know, I was
Speaker 2: just thinking one day, what the world will be like
Speaker 2: when she's twenty one years old, you know, what will
Speaker 2: our world be like? And what is Scarlet's world going
Speaker 2: to be? So that kind of gave me some a
Speaker 2: kind of a theme to work towards. And I have
Speaker 2: another granddaughter named Georgia, and so I wrote the song
Speaker 2: Little Georgia for her. And then basically I wanted to
Speaker 2: work with a man named Van Vance Powell who's a
Speaker 2: great producer, a great engineer, and I like working with
Speaker 2: people who have, you know, a great experience behind the
Speaker 2: sound desk and all that. And I listened to a
Speaker 2: lot of his work with Chris Stapleton and Jack White
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, and I thought this, if I
Speaker 2: could get to work with him, it would be wonderful.
Speaker 2: So we contacted him, and I could only get him
Speaker 2: a year in advance. I could only get him for
Speaker 2: four days, so I had to get the whole album done, finished,
Speaker 2: and mixed in four days, and we did it. We
Speaker 2: finished at like six o'clock on the day on the
Speaker 2: fourth day. We finished everything. So that's how it came
Speaker 2: up about some of the songs on there that are
Speaker 2: that are going to come out on video where that's
Speaker 2: the take And I only did it once and we
Speaker 2: filmed it and there it is. That's how that came out.
Speaker 1: Okay, what is the process? Do you wait for inspiration
Speaker 1: or do you say, I haven't had an album in
Speaker 1: a long time. We're always thinking about recording in the future.
Speaker 2: I never think about recording when I'm writing and stuff.
Speaker 2: A songwriter like me, even though I very rarely write lyrics,
Speaker 2: my songs are still songs to me. They still tell
Speaker 2: the story even without words, and that's kind of how
Speaker 2: I approach it. I always my brain does this automatically.
Speaker 2: When I start writing a song, I'm looking for the
Speaker 2: lead singer's part in the melody, in other words, and
Speaker 2: then I'm looking for the band to do interesting chords underneath.
Speaker 2: So the lead can have the same kind of melody,
Speaker 2: but the chords can change underneath, and so that makes
Speaker 2: the song have a certain repetition that your ear loves,
Speaker 2: but your senses want to feel something a little different,
Speaker 2: So you do the same melody, but you change the
Speaker 2: chords underneath. Things like that, And I always think that way.
Speaker 2: I always think of, you know, how can I make
Speaker 2: this be repetition but yet interesting all the way? And
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: You know, so in terms of writing, are you writing
Speaker 1: all the time or thoughts come into your brain or
Speaker 1: do you say I'm going to write now, let me
Speaker 1: sit down and write.
Speaker 2: I wish I could just turn it on. But the
Speaker 2: truth is, Bob, a songwriter waits patiently for something to
Speaker 2: happen you. You wait for you either get a real
Speaker 2: good idea that comes to you because of something. Normally,
Speaker 2: for me, it's somebody I meet, something I hear, or
Speaker 2: something I watch. And I know I've written many songs
Speaker 2: from watching films and I just get I get inspired
Speaker 2: by a story or a character or how a movie
Speaker 2: is made. I remember when I watched Lincoln, the beautiful
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg film, and because of that song, Because of
Speaker 2: that movie, I wrote the song Old Photographs. And when
Speaker 2: I was writing the song, I was an old lady
Speaker 2: in Ireland sitting playing piano. That's what I was in
Speaker 2: my head, and the song came to life in that
Speaker 2: kind of way. And I was also reminded of my
Speaker 2: grandparents who have been gone for I don't know, sixty
Speaker 2: five years or something. And I was reminded of when
Speaker 2: I used to visit my grandparents and my grandmother would
Speaker 2: take out the little cookie tin and open it and
Speaker 2: there'd be all these old photographs in there, and she'd
Speaker 2: tell me stories about everyone in the photo and photos
Speaker 2: of my uncle's that never came back from the war
Speaker 2: and things like that. And that's kind of how that
Speaker 2: song appeared, because that movie put me in that frame
Speaker 2: of mind. You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's drill down a little bit further. You're sitting there,
Speaker 1: you're watching the movie. Do you start to write the
Speaker 1: song in your head while you're watching or do you
Speaker 1: try to maintain the mood after the film ends? And
Speaker 1: how long after is the period of inspiration before it
Speaker 1: feeds away or does it never feed away?
Speaker 2: If I'm totally engrossed in the film, then I'll stay
Speaker 2: there till the end, and then if I feel like
Speaker 2: I can write something or I've got an idea, then
Speaker 2: I'll just pursue it. You know, I'm like a dog
Speaker 2: with a bone, and when it comes to it, if
Speaker 2: I've got one good idea, I'm going to I'm going
Speaker 2: to chew it to death until it becomes something. You know,
Speaker 2: but it has to be My instincts have to tell
Speaker 2: me that it's good enough, you know. I remember when
Speaker 2: I was writing Scarlett's World. And it started out like
Speaker 2: a ballad, and I liked the I like the melody
Speaker 2: because it was one note. And then the chords changed
Speaker 2: underneath dude, and then I thought, ah, that that's all working,
Speaker 2: but it's too sad. So I made it into like
Speaker 2: a rock and roll groove, and then it became dum
Speaker 2: dun d du that, and then it started to live
Speaker 2: under my hands, and I ended up writing the rest
Speaker 2: of the song. And actually I wrote a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff to put in the song, trying to be clever,
Speaker 2: and most of it I threw out because the song
Speaker 2: itself just needed to tell the story and that's it.
Speaker 2: So all the other stuff that I was trying to
Speaker 2: be clever creating, I ended up tossing out because it
Speaker 2: just wasn't working.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. Let's say you're watching Lincoln. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you can go to a theater. You can watch it home.
Speaker 1: When you watch it home, you can watch on demand.
Speaker 1: Stop just to get my story straight here, You could
Speaker 1: be watching the movie get inspired at home and stop
Speaker 1: the movie and say I got to pick up my
Speaker 1: gets are? Is that how it works?
Speaker 2: You possibly could, but I don't think i've ever done that.
Speaker 1: So is when you say you saw the movie Lincoln,
Speaker 1: since that is what did you see it at home
Speaker 1: or did you see it in the theater?
Speaker 2: I saw it in the theater.
Speaker 1: Okay, you stay for the whole film. When do you
Speaker 1: start writing the song?
Speaker 2: When I get when I get back to where I'm staying.
Speaker 1: And is it possible that Let's assume you saw the
Speaker 1: movie and then you were in a situation for twenty
Speaker 1: four hours where you just couldn't sit with your guitar.
Speaker 1: Would you lose it or would you still have the inspiration?
Speaker 2: I've lost it a million times. Yeah. I've also written
Speaker 2: a song called the Wide Ocean was on my album
Speaker 2: Tommy Songs. I wrote that song completely in my head
Speaker 2: on a flight from New York to Beijing. And because
Speaker 2: I can play the guitar in my mind, I can
Speaker 2: hear hear it and sense it and hear the inversions,
Speaker 2: the melody and all that, I can hear it all
Speaker 2: in my head, and I can visualize where the melody
Speaker 2: is and all that. And then I got to Beijing,
Speaker 2: got straight to the hotel, got my guitar out to
Speaker 2: make sure that my hand's new where they needed to go,
Speaker 2: and it was fine.
Speaker 1: Let's just assume you're in that situation. You get into
Speaker 1: the hotel, we start to play, you turn on your
Speaker 1: phone or you have some recording device to make sure
Speaker 1: you have it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have voice memo on my iPhone. That's my
Speaker 2: I've got all my song ideas on that. And you know,
Speaker 2: during COVID, when we were in lockdown, I was approached
Speaker 2: to write music for a film called The Tiger Rising,
Speaker 2: which was a quick in Latifah movie, and the guy
Speaker 2: who was the producer of the film was a big
Speaker 2: fan of my music. He particularly liked my song The
Speaker 2: Mystery and wanted to use some of that song in
Speaker 2: the film. And I said, well, why don't you send
Speaker 2: me some of the film and I'll see if I
Speaker 2: can write something full exactly for the film. And so
Speaker 2: I ended up doing the whole film and I wrote everything,
Speaker 2: with the exception of the opening theme, which was written
Speaker 2: by an LA guy. But I wrote the whole thing
Speaker 2: and recorded bits of it on my iPhone, texted to
Speaker 2: the music director of the film. He orchestrated it with
Speaker 2: his keyboards and all that, and we dropped it in
Speaker 2: the film bit, you know, three minutes of the film
Speaker 2: to see that it all worked, and that's how we
Speaker 2: wrote the whole film. And then when locke Down was
Speaker 2: finally let go of and he was able to travel,
Speaker 2: he came here to Nashville and we recorded the songs
Speaker 2: for real with me in one studio and I did
Speaker 2: all the guitar parts, and then we overdubbed the orchestra
Speaker 2: the next day and put it together.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you do get inspired and you are writing
Speaker 1: A how quickly do you work? And B how much
Speaker 1: do you or do you not change it thereafter?
Speaker 2: I'm usually a pretty fast rider. But it really really
Speaker 2: depends on how inspired I am. But when I play
Speaker 2: my own songs, say if it's a song I haven't
Speaker 2: played in a while and I play it, the first
Speaker 2: thing I noticed is, oh, yeah, I recognize it is
Speaker 2: the construction of this song. I recognize that that part
Speaker 2: there needed this, you know what I mean. So you know,
Speaker 2: I'm still thinking like a pop songwriter. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: whether it's country, bluegrass, jazz, whatever, I don't care. I
Speaker 2: always think like, I want got to get this to
Speaker 2: the people. This song is for people to hear. It's
Speaker 2: not it's not trying to be clever for the sake
Speaker 2: of being clever or whatever it's. It's trying to write
Speaker 2: the best song that I can, and I have to
Speaker 2: satisfy my my barometer, my my quality control, which is
Speaker 2: right here, you know. And and so because I look
Speaker 2: at it like this, Bob, they're up in here is
Speaker 2: all the all the clever guys. They're all throwing ideas
Speaker 2: and they've got things going and they're you know, but
Speaker 2: this this guy down here is the one that has
Speaker 2: the final say.
Speaker 1: Just for those weeks, since we're audio only, you're talking
Speaker 1: about the guys in your head and then talking about
Speaker 1: your heart having the final say. So, yeah, you work quickly.
Speaker 1: Do you go back and change it before recording or
Speaker 1: you just go and write something else.
Speaker 2: Now, I don't play it for anybody until I know
Speaker 2: it's absolutely one hundred percent done, and then I can't
Speaker 2: wait to play it to people, because there is no
Speaker 2: greater feeling than playing your new song to an audience.
Speaker 2: That's the most exciting damn thing that I know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about classic rockers. They'll go on the
Speaker 1: road and they play new music. The audience goes to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. When you're playing live and you're playing new music.
Speaker 1: You find the audience is unfamiliar with the music, but
Speaker 1: they're receptive or they're less receptive.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're very receptive. And I usually opened my show
Speaker 2: with something brand new every time. You know, it's very
Speaker 2: rarely that I would come out and play, you know,
Speaker 2: a very well known song of mine or something like that.
Speaker 2: I do enjoy it sometimes, like for instance, on this
Speaker 2: last tour that I just did where I played in China.
Speaker 2: We did ten shows in China, and my song Angelina
Speaker 2: is you know, it's really that's the song that people
Speaker 2: are always waiting for. And when I played in the show,
Speaker 2: I just play the first chord and sing a little
Speaker 2: intro and people yell and scream, and then I go
Speaker 2: into the body of the song and they applaud again,
Speaker 2: and we know this song, we like this song. So
Speaker 2: what I did on my shows in China is I
Speaker 2: opened the show with that song and then I went
Speaker 2: off into other things just for fun, just to try
Speaker 2: something different. But normally I would open the show with
Speaker 2: it with two to three brand new songs in a
Speaker 2: row that people have never heard before.
Speaker 1: Okay, to go to China. How big are the venues
Speaker 1: you play and are the people familiar with your work.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The venues are called Lifehouse. They're like rock clubs,
Speaker 2: and some of them are like a thousand people standing,
Speaker 2: six hundred people sitting, that kind of thing, and they're
Speaker 2: really nice. And the in house product, the PA, the
Speaker 2: sound production, and the lights and everything are really first
Speaker 2: class and they're really modern and my team makes good
Speaker 2: use of them, believe me. So a normal day in
Speaker 2: China would be we would get to the city where
Speaker 2: we're playing about lunchtime, check into a hotel, eat something,
Speaker 2: have a nap for twenty minutes, then go to the venue.
Speaker 2: My lighting director would go early so because he's got
Speaker 2: a program the light and then me and my sound
Speaker 2: man who's my tool manager, we go to the venue
Speaker 2: about three o'clock and we get set up and then
Speaker 2: we do a sound check and I come out and
Speaker 2: plug in and play as if the audience are already
Speaker 2: in kind of thing. You know. I don't waste time
Speaker 2: noodle around on stage. I get to you know, get
Speaker 2: to the business of getting the sound as best as
Speaker 2: best as we can get it. And so I do this.
Speaker 2: I play a few tunes and I play with a
Speaker 2: similar intensity of the show. So we can see where
Speaker 2: things are going. Once we're all happy with the sound
Speaker 2: and everything, then we eat something and then I usually
Speaker 2: do a meet and greet. I meet like one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty people, sign their guitars, sign autographs, get a photo,
Speaker 2: and then it's showtime.
Speaker 1: Okay, So on the road, it's the three of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, it's my lighting director and my sound man.
Speaker 2: Who's my tool manager?
Speaker 1: Okay, you're meeting these people? What are the one or
Speaker 1: two questions they always ask?
Speaker 2: Will you play Angelina? Will you play Lewis and Clark?
Speaker 2: You know, I hear the same kind of you know,
Speaker 2: and can you give me one of your picks?
Speaker 1: So if I'm there and I asked for one of
Speaker 1: your picks, what are you going to say?
Speaker 2: I'm going to say I've got a pocket full of
Speaker 2: Just hang on a second, And I.
Speaker 1: Mean, do you have a merch table at your gigs
Speaker 1: where people can buy them?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, I was only talking about China. We definitely
Speaker 2: had merch there, but the promoter took care of everything.
Speaker 2: You know. It's a whole different world compared to touring
Speaker 2: anywhere else. You can't compare it, you know, So.
Speaker 1: Tell me some other things that are different about touring in.
Speaker 2: China, Well, Pristadoff, the people pay extra for the IP
Speaker 2: ticket and for that they get a chance for me
Speaker 2: to sign their guitar and then they get a photo
Speaker 2: with me, and that takes time. So we set the
Speaker 2: maximum at one hundred and fifty people, So that's one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty guitars I have to sign, and then
Speaker 2: they regroup and they shuffle them through and we get
Speaker 2: a photo together then and then that's another one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty people like that and getting a photo and
Speaker 2: all that, and then that's it. So you could not
Speaker 2: do that here in America. You just couldn't do that
Speaker 2: because you know, the Chinese are very much aware that,
Speaker 2: you know, they have to be you know, corralled and
Speaker 2: told this is how it works. And if you don't
Speaker 2: do it this way, you're out trying to thing, you know.
Speaker 2: So but it worked really well. I mean I would
Speaker 2: meet one hundred and fifty people, sign their guitars, then
Speaker 2: they'd come back around and we do photos with everybody,
Speaker 2: and that whole thing took forty five minutes. You know,
Speaker 2: that's like impossible.
Speaker 1: If you sign one hundred and fifty guitars, does it
Speaker 1: tire out your hand for playing later.
Speaker 2: Now, I in the last two hours, I just signed
Speaker 2: I don't know, two hundred straps, a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: vinyl and some CDs.
Speaker 1: I have not seen your signature. There's some people make
Speaker 1: a few scratches and you know, hey, you know that
Speaker 1: person signed it, but you could never read it. And
Speaker 1: there are other people they spell out their whole name.
Speaker 1: So how do you do it?
Speaker 2: Well, if I'm just writing on on like a record
Speaker 2: or a CD, I'll just write Tommy CGP. They know
Speaker 2: who that is. If I'm writing on your guitar, I
Speaker 2: write my whole name.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you feel about doing all that? That's
Speaker 1: not literally playing music? It certainly generates some cash. Do
Speaker 1: you see that a's just something you have to do,
Speaker 1: something you wish you didn't have to do, or something
Speaker 1: you like to do.
Speaker 2: No, I enjoy it because it makes people happy, and
Speaker 2: it gives me a chance to interact with people, even
Speaker 2: if it's just short. You know, I enjoy it. And
Speaker 2: I don't get to China that often, and it's just
Speaker 2: I don't know, I like it, and I know that
Speaker 2: not many artists do stuff like that because they want
Speaker 2: to be you know, they want to remain a mystery
Speaker 2: to the public, and I don't give a damn about
Speaker 2: that bullshit, you know, so I'm happy to sign, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm happy to sign people's guitars. And the other thing
Speaker 2: that I like is that you just never know what
Speaker 2: kind of guitar are you're going to come across. And
Speaker 2: sometimes I'll be sitting there and they've got guitars going
Speaker 2: on the table and I'm signing and the next one
Speaker 2: and then this, you know, beautiful old Gibson will appear
Speaker 2: and I'll want to play it. Stuff like that. But
Speaker 2: you know, seeing people so it gets so happy is
Speaker 2: a great, great part of my day that that's for sure.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people, especially when I'm doing
Speaker 2: interviews about touring life, people are like, you know, you
Speaker 2: meet people before the show, aren't you trying to get
Speaker 2: in the zone, and aren't you you know, don't you
Speaker 2: want to be alone? And blah blah, And I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 2: you don't get it. You walk into a room with
Speaker 2: fifty people who are enthusiastic and excited to meet you.
Speaker 2: There's a level of mojo, of excitement, of positive energy
Speaker 2: that's going to seep into you. You know you're going
Speaker 2: to take it on. And then and you do something
Speaker 2: that you know is going to mean a lot to
Speaker 2: this person. You get a photo with them, you talk
Speaker 2: with them for a minute, you sign the thing, and
Speaker 2: you look in their eyes and you be real, you know,
Speaker 2: just and when it's done, then you take all that
Speaker 2: good feeling and you give it back to them from
Speaker 2: the stage. You know, I'm stealing their energy to create
Speaker 2: something through me and give it back to them.
Speaker 1: Okay, every audience is different, and I've certainly been to
Speaker 1: shows where the act is never connected. I've also been
Speaker 1: on shows on stage where the act is aware that
Speaker 1: the audience isn't paying attention. They look to the band
Speaker 1: members whatever, and they win the audience over. What's it
Speaker 1: like for you? To what degree are you connecting with
Speaker 1: the audience when you're playing and worried about where they're are?
Speaker 2: Well? I think probably. I mean, I try to connect
Speaker 2: with the audience the moment I walk on stage, I
Speaker 2: look at them, I yell hello, and I waved my
Speaker 2: hand and I look at them, and then then I
Speaker 2: get playing and I can tell if they're into it
Speaker 2: straight away, you know, once I once I get playing,
Speaker 2: and I'm I'm like two or three songs in, I've
Speaker 2: already opened the door, and you know, I've already started
Speaker 2: to really kick it up. And I never feel I'd
Speaker 2: never feel disconnected from my audience, never, But you know,
Speaker 2: there are I remember playing a show in England about
Speaker 2: twenty years ago and there were people in the front
Speaker 2: row and there must have been something going on with them,
Speaker 2: and the guy kept looking kept looking at his watch,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's right in front of me, and
Speaker 2: his wife's kind of trying to keep him calm, and
Speaker 2: he's you know. Anyway, we played the last song and
Speaker 2: everybody just jumped to their feet and they were like
Speaker 2: really yelling we played a good show and everybody was
Speaker 2: doing this. And that guy, that girl that were right
Speaker 2: in front of me, he looked really distracted. They took
Speaker 2: that chance to run, and so as they were running
Speaker 2: out to go to the door, I said, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad to see you go goodbye. You know. I said
Speaker 2: sorry to have kept you like that, you know, That's
Speaker 2: what I was saying to them. So, you know, I
Speaker 2: felt bad about it later, but that's how I felt,
Speaker 2: and I let it out, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're very skilled. There are some people who play
Speaker 1: their most well known material and while they're playing it,
Speaker 1: they're thinking, oh God, I got to do my laun tree.
Speaker 1: Is there enough time to catch the plane when you're playing,
Speaker 1: which demands a lot of dexterity with your fingers whatever?
Speaker 1: Are you always one hundred percent focused or are you
Speaker 1: so practice that your mind is drifting elsewhere?
Speaker 2: No, I I try not to let my mind wander.
Speaker 2: It's a bad thing to do because if you do that,
Speaker 2: you will make a mistake. For sure. You know you'll
Speaker 2: do something like is this a third time I played
Speaker 2: the bridge? You know what I mean? So you don't
Speaker 2: want to do that. So this is why I'm tired
Speaker 2: after a show. It's not that I'm physically like I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm very physical when I play, But that's not what
Speaker 2: wears me out. It's up here where I get worn out,
Speaker 2: and so my brain is tired. It takes a lot
Speaker 2: of brain power to push myself to play these kind
Speaker 2: of complex arrangements, but then go off into improvisation all
Speaker 2: the time and be inventive right now this very second
Speaker 2: and push it and push it. And you know, because
Speaker 2: you're always waiting for the magic to happen. So you're
Speaker 2: always pushing to try and get the magic to happen,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it just shows up and holy smoke, what
Speaker 2: a great night, unbelievable. But then you have the problem of, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got to do it again tomorrow. Shit, how am
Speaker 2: I going to beat this? You know? And that happens
Speaker 2: to me a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea what triggers magic or just
Speaker 1: some nights it's there, sometimes it's not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, most of it is depending how open I am,
Speaker 2: you know, and depend on what's going on. The truth is, Bob,
Speaker 2: I expect it to be magic every single time, and
Speaker 2: when it isn't, I have to get through that, and
Speaker 2: I have to still try to play well because if
Speaker 2: I if I struggle and the struggle people don't even
Speaker 2: know I'm struggling. But if I do struggle because I'm
Speaker 2: just not coming up with the ideas that they're pleasing me,
Speaker 2: then I just try to play well and pick the
Speaker 2: good songs and the good arrangements and try to play
Speaker 2: them with all my heart. Because you can't manufacture that mojo.
Speaker 2: It's got to come from wherever it comes from. And
Speaker 2: so I'm always I'm always expecting it to be magic
Speaker 2: and hoping that it will be, but it isn't all
Speaker 2: the time, and so in that case, you better have
Speaker 2: some good songs to play.
Speaker 1: Okay. You know, when you have an outstanding night, does
Speaker 1: the audience know or they just think it's another great
Speaker 1: Tommy Emmanuel show.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting question. And I think some people
Speaker 2: in the audience know when when you're flying your kite
Speaker 2: pretty high, and I think some people know when I'm struggling.
Speaker 2: But in general, the night that I think I suck
Speaker 2: and that I played like crap, someone had come up
Speaker 2: and say, God, that was the best show I've ever
Speaker 2: seen you play, and be like, oh god, Okay.
Speaker 1: I remember talking to Jeff Beck once and complimenting him
Speaker 1: about how he doesn't make any mistakes. He rolls his eyes.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I make mistakes all the time. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, everybody does.
Speaker 1: That's my question. One. Do you make mistakes? And does
Speaker 1: anybody other than you catch him?
Speaker 2: Pretty early? People, if I make a mistake, I'm really
Speaker 2: good at covering it up. I'm good to turn it
Speaker 2: into something else. And there are sometimes when I've made
Speaker 2: a mistake on stage that I'll finish the song and
Speaker 2: I'll say to the audience, I really didn't play the
Speaker 2: bridge really well. Do you mind if I play it again?
Speaker 2: And so I play it again and get it right?
Speaker 1: You know, how do you cover up a mistake? What
Speaker 1: made a mistake be.
Speaker 2: A mistake? Might be that I just didn't get to
Speaker 2: the note with the clarity that I needed because my
Speaker 2: mind wandered for a second or something or whatever. And
Speaker 2: so but you just keep moving, you know, because songs
Speaker 2: go by like this, you know, songs going here's the verse,
Speaker 2: here's the or is that you know, songs that have
Speaker 2: a movement to them. And if you, if you, if
Speaker 2: you fluff up one little bit or whatever, just keep going.
Speaker 2: You know, when I was really young and I had
Speaker 2: my own band and was playing back in Australia a lot,
Speaker 2: if I had a bad night where I made a
Speaker 2: few mistakes or whatever, it'd take me three days to
Speaker 2: get over it. You know, I'd be I'd be down
Speaker 2: in the dumps about it and feeling like a you know,
Speaker 2: a complete loser. But these days, I mean, I make
Speaker 2: I'd probably make mistakes every night, but some nights, uh,
Speaker 2: some nights are just magical and they're the nights that
Speaker 2: that are really hard to emulate the next night, you know.
Speaker 2: So to me, I'm always trying to find ways of
Speaker 2: making my improvisation interesting and to build something right in
Speaker 2: the spur of the moment, you know. And then that's
Speaker 2: why I still play songs that require whole sections of
Speaker 2: where I can play as long as I want. I
Speaker 2: can start this solo here in this tune and I'm improvising,
Speaker 2: and i can go, go, go if it's flowing. If
Speaker 2: it isn't, then I'll do something else and get to
Speaker 2: the next verse.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about the mental energy and the mental
Speaker 1: strain and wearing out of your brain to do a show. Yeah, A,
Speaker 1: when the show is over, what is your routine? And
Speaker 1: B how long after the show can you fall asleep?
Speaker 2: Half an hour?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah? Nowadays? I mean I'm seventy years old. I
Speaker 2: still use a lot of energy, and I play anyway
Speaker 2: between ninety minutes and two hours, you know, And I'm
Speaker 2: pouring my whole life into every note, you know. And
Speaker 2: so when I'm done with that, I packed my stuff
Speaker 2: up and they take me back to the hotel and
Speaker 2: I'm ready to sleep in half an hour.
Speaker 1: Wait, you're in front of a thousand people, let's say,
Speaker 1: who think you're God, who give you a great reaction.
Speaker 1: There's a vibe there you can't get anywhere else whatever,
Speaker 1: and it makes you feel good, especially on a night
Speaker 1: when you're hot. You know, when the magic is working.
Speaker 1: How can you disconnect emotionally so quickly?
Speaker 2: Because I have to do it again tomorrow, you know.
Speaker 2: And also I was there in the moment. I was there,
Speaker 2: I was present, and I appreciated it, and I gave
Speaker 2: it my best. Now I've got to do that again tomorrow.
Speaker 2: So what's important now is that I get some rest
Speaker 2: so that I can be at my peak again at
Speaker 2: eight o'clock tomorrow night. You know, that's how I look
Speaker 2: at it. I mean, when I was younger, I went
Speaker 2: out drinking and partying and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: all like everybody else, and I didn't need near as
Speaker 2: much rest and nourishment, you know. But these days it's
Speaker 2: so important to me to be in good shape and
Speaker 2: have time to play. And you know, I do all
Speaker 2: my own guitar tech stuff. I changed my strings, I tune,
Speaker 2: I set my guitars up how I like them, and
Speaker 2: I'm totally dedicated to that.
Speaker 1: Are you like a gear head? There are certain people
Speaker 1: they can pick up any instrument. They once it's in tune,
Speaker 1: they play, that's it. Other people it's got to be
Speaker 1: exactly right before they'll play or you know, are happy now?
Speaker 1: Where are you on that spectrum?
Speaker 2: I can get music out of a golf ball, you know,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't matter. But if like most guitar players,
Speaker 2: who who I hand my guitar to to feel it
Speaker 2: or to play it, they're like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 2: so beautiful to play. I said, it's supposed to be,
Speaker 2: you know, it should be set up so you don't
Speaker 2: want to put this thing down. It's so beautiful, you know.
Speaker 2: So basically, I break a few rules to make things
Speaker 2: how I like them. And I'll get the neck of
Speaker 2: the guitar and I'll over straighten it till the strings
Speaker 2: are buzzing, and then I'll let it off until the
Speaker 2: strings stop buzzing. Then I'll leave it there and the
Speaker 2: action is like low and flat, but you know, and
Speaker 2: I'll just watch it, you know, just to make sure
Speaker 2: that there's no bad buzzes going on. But you know,
Speaker 2: you'd be amazed how many people they just get used
Speaker 2: to the action of their guitar, and then they start
Speaker 2: talking about couple tunnel and repetitive strain and all that,
Speaker 2: And I play the guitar and I go, I don't
Speaker 2: wonder that thing would wear me out in five minutes.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to get the next straight, and
Speaker 2: you've got to get the next sitting at the right angle,
Speaker 2: you know, so the guitar can speak and you can
Speaker 2: play it all day and all night.
Speaker 1: Okay, so relatively speaking, you know, I've read online you
Speaker 1: like a later gauge, but how high action? What gauge strings?
Speaker 1: And how did you end up coming to what you like?
Speaker 2: I like twelve to fifty fours when I'm using normal tunings.
Speaker 2: When I'm using low tunings, I use bigger strings. I
Speaker 2: use thirteen to fifty six or thirty into sixty, depending
Speaker 2: on the on the guitar. As far as strings go,
Speaker 2: you've you've got an experiment and you've got to find
Speaker 2: what strings work best for your guitar. You know, how
Speaker 2: does when you put the string on, how does it sound?
Speaker 2: How in tune can you get it? How does it
Speaker 2: feel when you come up the neck here? And you know,
Speaker 2: all that sort of stuff. So I find I find
Speaker 2: the brands of strings that I like and the gauges
Speaker 2: for which guitar on I'm music, you know, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: every guitar is different. You know. I carry three on
Speaker 2: the road with me and they're they're they've all got
Speaker 2: the same pickup and microphone system that comes with the
Speaker 2: mate and guitars that I use, but they all sound
Speaker 2: very different, you know, different tunings, different kind of strings,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. And that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: You know. You don't want to have the same sound,
Speaker 2: the same tuning in every song of the whole show.
Speaker 2: You know. I'm trying to keep people engaged and and
Speaker 2: do things that surprise them. So I have a guitar
Speaker 2: with real big strings tuned down low, and so when
Speaker 2: I go into the song, it's like all there. It's
Speaker 2: it's big and wide, and my sound man puts this
Speaker 2: beautiful long reverb on it, and you know, it just
Speaker 2: sounds like you can jump inside the sound. It's so big.
Speaker 2: And that's good for me because it takes me to
Speaker 2: another place as a player and as a performer. And
Speaker 2: I use things like sustain and holding chords and things
Speaker 2: like like that that really makes people feel real calm inside,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So let's say you go to the Maiden factory and
Speaker 1: you're picking out guitars at this late date, certainly in
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, maybe in the seventies, everyone varied.
Speaker 1: Do you find that every instrument still has its own
Speaker 1: particular sound or it's more uniform these days?
Speaker 2: Oh, every interest, every instrument is it definitely has its
Speaker 2: own voice. But you know, Martin D twenty eight, I've
Speaker 2: probably played a thousand of them, and I haven't played
Speaker 2: a bad one. They've all been good. You know. Gibson
Speaker 2: J forty five is one of my favorite guitars. I
Speaker 2: love those guitars. But the mat and guitar for me
Speaker 2: is that's my voice right right there, and it's the
Speaker 2: best guitar I know for show up, plug in, get
Speaker 2: a sound in five minutes, Okay, let's go. You know,
Speaker 2: that's nothing I've played out there comes close to that.
Speaker 2: And my soundman, Steve and I we we set everything flat.
Speaker 2: You know, there's no processing, there's no digital clever stuff.
Speaker 2: There's just two signals and both of them are with
Speaker 2: a bass on five, middle on five, travel on five.
Speaker 2: Everything's flat, and then we work from there, and it's
Speaker 2: just it's so easy to get a sound when you're
Speaker 2: not trying to make a sound that that isn't really real,
Speaker 2: you know, like it's been hollowed out, and and it's
Speaker 2: there's a fake bass going on. A lot of guitar
Speaker 2: players use optive divider where they where they put like
Speaker 2: a bass sound from a bass guitar and those low frequencies,
Speaker 2: they put that on a couple of their their low
Speaker 2: strings on the guitar, and so it's this big, massive
Speaker 2: sound and it's great, but that's not how a guitar sounds.
Speaker 2: That's how guitar through processing sounds and that suits some
Speaker 2: people and I like it for a short time, but
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to put my whole show through that,
Speaker 2: you know, so I try to keep it as simple
Speaker 2: as possible. Two signals flat there, it is amp and
Speaker 2: pre amp.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're not working every night live. Does a day
Speaker 1: go by where you don't play or do you play
Speaker 1: every day? And how much do you play every day?
Speaker 2: Well, it depends. Like I just got back from a
Speaker 2: long tour and a lot of shows, and the first
Speaker 2: thing I did when I got home was started playing
Speaker 2: some of my guitars that I haven't played in a while,
Speaker 2: and I've played quite a bit today, so I do
Speaker 2: play every day.
Speaker 1: How many guitarist do you have?
Speaker 2: I have a few I've got. I don't really know
Speaker 2: how many I have, but it's because I've never counted them.
Speaker 2: But guitars come and go. In my life, Bob, I've
Speaker 2: given away so many guitars and given a lot of
Speaker 2: my favorite things up for you know, different charities and
Speaker 2: things we do auctions and stuff like that. Plus I'm
Speaker 2: an ambassador for guitars for Vets, so they've received quite
Speaker 2: a bit of my personal collection and to try and
Speaker 2: raise money for them. And so guitars come and go.
Speaker 2: You know what I would think.
Speaker 1: I think there are certain guitars that you say I've
Speaker 1: never partoned with this.
Speaker 2: I have felt that way about certain guitars. But the
Speaker 2: older I get, the more I realize, really I could
Speaker 2: live without that guitar. I could just get another one,
Speaker 2: or I could, you know, try something else. I try
Speaker 2: not to get like too attached to stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, since you started on your contemporary the music business
Speaker 1: has completely changed. Yeah, people who know Tommy Emmanuel put
Speaker 1: you at a top of the list are really reverent,
Speaker 1: but not everybody knows who you are at this late
Speaker 1: date in terms of career ambition, career aspiration. To what
Speaker 1: degree do you think about that.
Speaker 2: One of the things I have to tell you that
Speaker 2: I really love about my life is the fact that, yes,
Speaker 2: I can tour the world. It was my dream when
Speaker 2: I was young to be able to travel. I've always
Speaker 2: felt like a citizen of the world, and I dreamt
Speaker 2: of playing in all the places that I play now.
Speaker 2: Right But the good thing is I'm still invisible, and
Speaker 2: I love that I can still get in my car
Speaker 2: and go down to Starbucks, have a coffee and sit
Speaker 2: in the corner and read a magazine or hang out
Speaker 2: with some friends of mine or whatever, and nobody, you know,
Speaker 2: screams and yells and calls the police. I'm still invisible,
Speaker 2: and I love that. You know. There's a song that
Speaker 2: I did with Ricky Skaggs on my album Accomplish One,
Speaker 2: and it's a song written by a friend of mine
Speaker 2: and I played on the original back in the seventies,
Speaker 2: and it says, I won't ask much of your time
Speaker 2: or that you recall my name, because fame is just
Speaker 2: a momentary curse. But if you recall a song or
Speaker 2: two that lingers when I'm gone, then I guess a
Speaker 2: song and dance man could do worse, you know, And
Speaker 2: that's me. I'm a song and dance man. I play
Speaker 2: because I love to play, but I don't I don't
Speaker 2: always play for myself. What really blows my dress up
Speaker 2: is when I play for you. When I see what
Speaker 2: I do affect you, That's why I love it, And
Speaker 2: so that gives me a sense of purpose. It gives
Speaker 2: me a sense of I'm here for a good reason,
Speaker 2: and I've been given whatever it is that I've got
Speaker 2: for a very good reason, for the benefit of everyone else.
Speaker 1: I can understand you're wanting to keep theme at arm's length,
Speaker 1: but I never met an artist who didn't want their
Speaker 1: artistry to reach more people.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm always trying to reach more people, Bob. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Whatever I can do to get myself out there and
Speaker 2: get this music out there, you know, that's that's what
Speaker 2: I'll do. You know, And you know, I know from
Speaker 2: some of your previous podcasts where you're talking about how
Speaker 2: the music business has changed and how it's really hard
Speaker 2: for people to there's no mailbox money anymore so to speak.
Speaker 2: You know, if I don't tour, then how can I
Speaker 2: keep my team on a wage? How can I help
Speaker 2: my ten year old daughter through school and college in Australia,
Speaker 2: you know, and all that sort of stuff. That's how
Speaker 2: I make a living. That's how I pay my bills.
Speaker 2: I tour.
Speaker 1: How'd you end up in Nashville?
Speaker 2: I came here in nineteen eighty to meet my hero,
Speaker 2: Chet Atkins, and we just hit it off straight away.
Speaker 2: And when he dropped me at the airport, he said,
Speaker 2: you'll be back and this is where you belong. And
Speaker 2: that's all he said to me. And I never forgot that,
Speaker 2: you know, And we stayed in touch, and he he
Speaker 2: had people because we were both with the same label
Speaker 2: with Sony. When Chet signed with Columbia, I was on.
Speaker 2: I was on Columbia out of Australia, and we had
Speaker 2: four platinum albums in a row in Australia and I
Speaker 2: won every award there was to win. It was just
Speaker 2: like it was unbelievable. And I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people kept him in touch with what I was doing.
Speaker 2: And so in ninety five I was part of the
Speaker 2: Sony Country Music showcase that took Australian country music artist
Speaker 2: to Nashville for for the CMA week you know, where
Speaker 2: all the artists go on and do their do their thing. Well.
Speaker 2: So on the bill was you know, a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of singers, songwriters including Keith Urban and mark O'Shea and
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of Australian artists, and I was I
Speaker 2: was viewed by those artists as the token instrumentalist, so
Speaker 2: let's get him on first and then we'll get the
Speaker 2: real real stuff going, you know, which was which suited
Speaker 2: me great because it was where we were playing was
Speaker 2: a club called the Ace of Clubs, and that that
Speaker 2: place is always you know, pretty heavy drinking people and
Speaker 2: YAHOOE people. So I was on first. Everybody was still sober,
Speaker 2: and I came out and hosed the shit out of
Speaker 2: them for like twenty minutes and they went nuts and everything.
Speaker 2: And I'm back in my dressing room and incomes chat
Speaker 2: with all the people from Columbia, you know, and they
Speaker 2: had never seen anything like what I did, and they said,
Speaker 2: are you on tomorrow night? I said yeah. So they
Speaker 2: brought down like fifty people or something and they were
Speaker 2: all down the front and chat chet Atkins there in
Speaker 2: the audience, standing like at a rock gig, and it
Speaker 2: was beautiful. And I played the second night and about
Speaker 2: a week later, my phone rang. I was back in
Speaker 2: Melbourne and Australia. My phone rang and it was chat
Speaker 2: and he said, boy, these Columbia people are excited about
Speaker 2: you and would you like to record together? And that
Speaker 2: was the start of our recording project. And so that's
Speaker 2: how that came about. He because we'd known each other
Speaker 2: since nineteen eighty. Prior to that, I had written a
Speaker 2: fan letter to bless you. I had written a fan
Speaker 2: letter to Chet when I was eleven, and I sent it.
Speaker 2: I sent it to him and he wrote back. He
Speaker 2: wrote back and sent me a photo signed and everything
Speaker 2: in you know, it was amazing. That was nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 2: so you know, it was sixty six, and you know
Speaker 2: he was the busiest guy in town who was producing
Speaker 2: everybody and running RCAA records, and you know he took
Speaker 2: time to write back to some kid.
Speaker 1: So he come to the stage and you meet us,
Speaker 1: beautiful beating you euro What was that like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, it was wonderful. And so I
Speaker 2: rang his office. He'd given me his office number, and
Speaker 2: up on music row and I rang and he answered
Speaker 2: the phone and I said, I'm looking for mister Atkins.
Speaker 2: He said this is he and I said, chat, it's
Speaker 2: Tommy Emmanuel, thinking he'll he won't have a clue who
Speaker 2: that is, you know, and he goes, hey, Tommy, I
Speaker 2: was just listening to your tape. I've got a friend
Speaker 2: here and he likes you picking and blah blah blah
Speaker 2: the way he went and he said, are you in town?
Speaker 2: I said yeah, I'm up the road at the Holiday Inn.
Speaker 2: He said, well, come on down. I'll see you right now.
Speaker 2: So I jumped in the car and went down to
Speaker 2: his office and I'm waiting downstairs and his secretary Caroline
Speaker 2: gets on the intercommon she says, there's a boy from
Speaker 2: Australia here and he says he wants to see you,
Speaker 2: and I hear Chet's voice. He says, is he a fingerpicker?
Speaker 2: And I hold my thumb pick up, you know, and
Speaker 2: she says he says he is, and he says I'll
Speaker 2: be right down. So a couple of minutes later, down
Speaker 2: he comes down the stairs and there he was. I mean,
Speaker 2: he looked exactly like he did on his records, and
Speaker 2: I just couldn't believe I was meeting him, you know.
Speaker 2: And he came up to me and he put his
Speaker 2: arm around me and he said, you want to pick
Speaker 2: a little and I said yeah. So he took me
Speaker 2: into side room and he said, what do you want
Speaker 2: to play? And I said, how about this? And I
Speaker 2: went straight into me and Bobby McGhee like the arrangement
Speaker 2: that he recorded on an album called chet Atkins Alone.
Speaker 2: It was a beautiful version, and I'd learned it and
Speaker 2: I was playing it and he was watching real carefully
Speaker 2: in there. When the chorus came round, he just joined
Speaker 2: in and played beautiful harmonies and it was just like
Speaker 2: it was so magical. What he played made me sound
Speaker 2: really good. So there was the lesson and it was beautiful,
Speaker 2: and he asked me to play a few other things,
Speaker 2: and then he took me upstairs and he said, I
Speaker 2: want you to meet the greatest player that walks the
Speaker 2: earth right now. And so he took me up to
Speaker 2: his private office and in that room was a guy
Speaker 2: named Lenny Brow. And Lenny was sitting there playing and
Speaker 2: I knew exactly who it was. I knew everything he
Speaker 2: was doing. I listened to him a lot and the
Speaker 2: three of us sat there around the table playing tunes,
Speaker 2: and I heard chedd Atkins play beebop licks that were
Speaker 2: just mind blowing, like Charlie Parker and you never hear
Speaker 2: him play like that. I heard it, and I had
Speaker 2: no idea he could do that, but he was so
Speaker 2: into that stuff and played it so well, and there
Speaker 2: were little quotes he'd be playing a tune, he'd play
Speaker 2: a little bit of dizzy fingers or something in the
Speaker 2: in the middle of how high the Moon, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. It's brilliant. And then he asked me
Speaker 2: to take Lennie to where he was playing and take
Speaker 2: care of him and all that time.
Speaker 1: So he took Lenny to where he was going. Then
Speaker 1: what happened?
Speaker 2: Then I stayed and watched Lenny play two sets and
Speaker 2: then took him home where he was saying, what.
Speaker 1: Was your next interaction?
Speaker 2: Okay, my next interaction with him?
Speaker 1: Wait, so you show up music, you have this amazing
Speaker 1: experience and you wave goodbye and you don't have any
Speaker 1: contact for years.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Oh well.
Speaker 2: And he's communicating it all living in Australia. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I could call him anytime, but I was busy,
Speaker 2: and so was he. You know, he was busy as
Speaker 2: one armed fiddler, as he used to say. But I
Speaker 2: came over in ninety three to make an album called
Speaker 2: The Journey, which was my third album for Sony, and
Speaker 2: it was recorded and done in l A. And Chet
Speaker 2: was playing at Ventura Concert Club and outside of LA.
Speaker 2: He was doing a show there and I got tickets
Speaker 2: and I went to see him and saw the show
Speaker 2: and everything. Because I've never seen him play live, only
Speaker 2: what we did at the office, I've never seen one
Speaker 2: of his shows. And it was beautiful. And I asked
Speaker 2: him if he would play on my album and he
Speaker 2: said sure. And he said, but you'll have to come
Speaker 2: to me. I've got a studio in my house. You'll
Speaker 2: have to come to me. I said, no problem. So
Speaker 2: we got all the backing of the track and my
Speaker 2: lead parts and everything, and then I flew from LA
Speaker 2: to Nashville and went to Chet's house and he recorded
Speaker 2: a couple of solos. The funny thing was he heard
Speaker 2: the track and everything and he goes, oh, this is
Speaker 2: a bit modern for the old man. And I said,
Speaker 2: don't worry, Chief, You'll just take a solo. Just just
Speaker 2: be yourself. You know it's going to be fine. And
Speaker 2: his first first take is the one I used because
Speaker 2: he played an incredible solo, was beautifully tasty and just gorgeous.
Speaker 2: You know. He did two more takes and I ended
Speaker 2: up using the first one when I when I mixed it.
Speaker 2: But we had a really lovely time together and I
Speaker 2: had to leave that night to go back to LA
Speaker 2: And then then we ended up doing the album the
Speaker 2: day Fingerpickers Took Over the World. That was recorded at
Speaker 2: Chess House, and that was a two week project and
Speaker 2: I did all the pre production with Randy Goodrum, the
Speaker 2: keyboard player, and and then we programmed like a bass
Speaker 2: drum and a high hat just to get with a
Speaker 2: boot keep time kind of thing. And then I overdubbed
Speaker 2: brushes and bass and rhythms and stuff and made it
Speaker 2: sound like a band. And then Chet and I did
Speaker 2: our parts. And I had to get back to Australia
Speaker 2: for a tour, and so I basically mapped out all
Speaker 2: the bits where Chet had to take the melody, take
Speaker 2: a solo, harmonies in here, stuff like that. I mapped
Speaker 2: it out and left it with him because he'd been
Speaker 2: in hospital having cancer treatment and so he was in
Speaker 2: recovery from that, and basically when he was feeling strong
Speaker 2: enough he would come down and work on the strust.
Speaker 2: He ended up getting it all done, and I finished
Speaker 2: my tour. And then when I got back to Nashville
Speaker 2: and got into my bedroom because I was I used
Speaker 2: to stay at the house, the Chetney owner's house, and
Speaker 2: on my on my bed was his guitar and his
Speaker 2: microphone and a note from him saying, you may wish
Speaker 2: to take the guitar to mix and if there's anything
Speaker 2: I'd missed, just drop it on. You know. He knew
Speaker 2: I could, I could play his part, and so I
Speaker 2: ended up putting some harmonies on one song that he'd
Speaker 2: forgotten to do. And but I never told anybody.
Speaker 1: Okay, you grew up exactly where in Australia all over.
Speaker 2: I was born north of Sydney, up in the air,
Speaker 2: up in the coal mining near the city of Newcastle,
Speaker 2: and then we moved out out west and that's where
Speaker 2: we started playing music. And I was the youngest one,
Speaker 2: and so my eldest brother Chris, was a drummer, My
Speaker 2: sister Virginia was playing the lap steel, and my brother
Speaker 2: Phil was the lead guitar. Player, so my job was
Speaker 2: to play the rhythm and cover the bass part. We
Speaker 2: just didn't know that's what I was doing, so there
Speaker 2: was no bass guitar in the band. I covered the
Speaker 2: bass part when I played rhythm and played because there
Speaker 2: was the sound that we heard on the record. We're
Speaker 2: just trying to make that sound. And basically I had
Speaker 2: to do that playing rhythm and with the bass part.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of how my style evolved because so
Speaker 2: that's the way I heard it. I heard it as
Speaker 2: the rhythm player playing that low part, but it was
Speaker 2: actually the rhythm, normal rhythm, but with a bass player. Well,
Speaker 2: I just no one mentioned the word bass guitar or
Speaker 2: bass player to me. You know. We just were listening
Speaker 2: to records and we listened to the music on the
Speaker 2: radio and trying to emulate it. So that's how I
Speaker 2: developed the way of being able to play a bass
Speaker 2: part and a rhythm part at the same time. And
Speaker 2: then when I heard Chat on the radio, I immediately
Speaker 2: knew he was playing everything at once. And people were like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: it's a recording trick, you can't do that, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I could hear it. I just didn't know how to
Speaker 2: do it, you know, And it took me a while
Speaker 2: to work it out.
Speaker 1: So how did you learn how to play?
Speaker 2: I just was inspired by the songs that I heard.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. The real inspiration comes from the music.
Speaker 2: It's not always the artist, it's generally always it's generally
Speaker 2: the music that inspires you. And so if you're like me,
Speaker 2: and you're not going to quit me just because it's
Speaker 2: getting hard or something, then you're not going to make it.
Speaker 2: But I, when I started working out how to make
Speaker 2: that sound, it came together somehow. It was rough, and
Speaker 2: I was, you know, pretty ignorant musically, but I could
Speaker 2: figure it out. And so I worked out how to
Speaker 2: play Windy and Warm and freight Train and Oh the Warbash,
Speaker 2: Cannonball and a few of those kind of songs and
Speaker 2: Merl Travis's Cannibal Rag and nine pound Hammer, Blue Smoke,
Speaker 2: sixteen tons and stuff like that. And I'd play both
Speaker 2: the parts, but i'd play with a straight pick as well.
Speaker 2: I would use the straight pick and my three fingers,
Speaker 2: and that's how I was doing it until in sixty
Speaker 2: five a guy gave me a chedd Atkins record, and
Speaker 2: on the cover of the record, I saw he had
Speaker 2: a thumb pick on, and I went, ah, that's it,
Speaker 2: you know. And as soon as I put a thumb
Speaker 2: pick on, it was like someone opened the gate and
Speaker 2: the horse come running out, baby, because it set me free,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, I realized, oh god, this
Speaker 2: is outworks, you know. So it was just discovery. They was.
Speaker 2: I was just.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know the basic chords. How do you learn
Speaker 1: the chords? Was there a book? Did someone show you?
Speaker 2: No? Other showed me how to play D and G
Speaker 2: and A seventh and E and B and all that.
Speaker 2: And the more songs I learned, the more chords I
Speaker 2: had to learn. And it wasn't long before I started
Speaker 2: getting the relationship between the chords and things. I could hear,
Speaker 2: Oh that song in D, that's D, and that's the
Speaker 2: sound of a B minor and that's a E, and
Speaker 2: I start recognizing the sounds. So I never had any
Speaker 2: any training, any teaching. And I don't read music. I
Speaker 2: play everything by ear, and I hire people to write
Speaker 2: my books because that's what they do and they're really
Speaker 2: good at it and all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 2: it's still all by by ear.
Speaker 1: Okay. So you talk about everybody in the family playing,
Speaker 1: having a group. What did that look like? How often
Speaker 1: did you play? Did you travel?
Speaker 2: We traveled all the time until dad died in sixty
Speaker 2: six May of sixty six, And yeah, my dad was
Speaker 2: forty nine when he died. He had a massive heart
Speaker 2: attack and was gone, and it just he was here
Speaker 2: one minute, gone the next. But we had We started
Speaker 2: touring in sixty one and we made our way north
Speaker 2: and we basically had what we call a forwarding agent,
Speaker 2: which was a guy who booked the hall and put
Speaker 2: up posters, and then he would move on to the
Speaker 2: next town, booked the hall, put up posters and that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. That's how it worked, and we would
Speaker 2: be like three weeks behind him, and so that's what
Speaker 2: we did. When then we finally got on TV, we
Speaker 2: got on radio and all that sort of stuff, and
Speaker 2: we just tried everything we could to get into the
Speaker 2: show business. And when dad died, my mother had to
Speaker 2: make the decisions. She had six children, and she said,
Speaker 2: do you want to just stay here and go to
Speaker 2: school and we'll have a normal life here, or do
Speaker 2: you want to go on the road. And we all
Speaker 2: said we want to go back on the road. So
Speaker 2: we ended up getting a job with a touring country
Speaker 2: kind of variety show, and that was good experience. We
Speaker 2: learned a lot about putting a show together and comedy
Speaker 2: and lights and all that sort of stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was good. But we ended up getting shut
Speaker 2: down because the child Welfare department thought that we were
Speaker 2: slave labor, you know, we were we were being taken
Speaker 2: advantage of. And of course we were only there because
Speaker 2: we just loved to play on stage, that's all, you know.
Speaker 1: But okay, so how old were you when it got
Speaker 1: shut down?
Speaker 2: Okay, So we started touring just before I was six,
Speaker 2: and I turned six on that tour, and so that's
Speaker 2: sixty one, and up until dad died sixty six, it
Speaker 2: was five years. And then we carried on a little
Speaker 2: bit longer. Then I ended up. We ended up settling
Speaker 2: in another town and we got into normal schools, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't long before my brother and I put a
Speaker 2: band together with some local guys and we were playing
Speaker 2: every weekend, playing the dancers and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was twelve years old, and I'll never forget
Speaker 2: I was teaching Tuesday and Wednesday nights to try and
Speaker 2: make some extra money to help mom out because we
Speaker 2: were renting a little house and it was really weird.
Speaker 2: I'm twelve years old trying to teach adults how to
Speaker 2: play DG and a seventh and tap their foot and
Speaker 2: strum and it was just really weird, weird being a
Speaker 2: kid and teaching adults, you know. But yeah, it was
Speaker 2: an interesting period.
Speaker 1: Okay, But when before your father passed, in the time
Speaker 1: after that, you were on the road without him. What
Speaker 1: about school?
Speaker 2: We did correspondence. We did school through the mail. There
Speaker 2: was an organization in Australia which was a British school
Speaker 2: called Blackfriars and it's called Correspondence School. So we would
Speaker 2: we would get a week's worth of work. So here's
Speaker 2: here's the Monday, here's Tuesday, here's Wednesday. So we get
Speaker 2: it all in one brown envelope. And we would do
Speaker 2: our schooling daily and my mother made us read every day.
Speaker 2: She made us do the times tables with math, maths
Speaker 2: and and all that sort of stuff. And then she
Speaker 2: would test us on history stuff and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. And so that's what we did. When we
Speaker 2: got to a normal school, we were okay, we weren't.
Speaker 2: We weren't the sharpest knife in the in the draw.
Speaker 2: But we were definitely we had some good education from
Speaker 2: traveling around and talking to people and understanding our a
Speaker 2: bit more other world works, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're settled down, you're going to regular school,
Speaker 1: you got a band playing on the weekends. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: long does that go on? Do you graduate from school?
Speaker 1: What's the next transit?
Speaker 2: Now there's no graduation. I uh so I got into
Speaker 2: high school. My first year of high school, I had
Speaker 2: a lawn mowing business, and I was teaching guitar two
Speaker 2: nights a week. And I also we had a band
Speaker 2: and we played Friday Saturday nights, and so I was,
Speaker 2: I was busy. I was. I was doing lawn mowing
Speaker 2: after school and then teaching at night, and then playing
Speaker 2: on the weekends and doing school as well. So we
Speaker 2: were we were really busy, you know, just trying to
Speaker 2: make ends meet. And but my my goal and my
Speaker 2: dream was to get to the big city of Sydney
Speaker 2: and to become a studio musician. That's what that's what
Speaker 2: I wanted. I wanted to be like the big guys
Speaker 2: who who were you know I saw on TV and
Speaker 2: read their name on a record and stuff. That's what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. I just didn't have a clue
Speaker 2: how to do it. But anyway, so what I did
Speaker 2: is I made the decision to move to Sydney. In
Speaker 2: the start of my third year at high school, I
Speaker 2: befriended some guys who were part of a kind of
Speaker 2: religious organization and they were they were really nice people
Speaker 2: and everything, and they said, oh, there's a place where,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of our friends stay and it's
Speaker 2: quite close to Sydney Harbor and you can rent a
Speaker 2: room there if you want. It's like nine dollars a
Speaker 2: week and blah blah blah, you know, and I said, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: So so they were going down the following week and
Speaker 2: I said, I'll come with you. So I handed my
Speaker 2: books in and told my mother that I was leaving.
Speaker 2: You know, she was pretty distraught, I can tell you,
Speaker 2: because she wanted me to finish school and get my
Speaker 2: high school certificate and all that sort of stuff, and
Speaker 2: I just didn't want any part of that. I wanted
Speaker 2: to be getting some experience and being around people who
Speaker 2: were a lot better than I was. And so I
Speaker 2: moved to Sydney. And my first thing I did is
Speaker 2: got a newspaper and got a day job five days
Speaker 2: a week as a messenger boy. And then I went
Speaker 2: and auditioned for a guy who was a country singer
Speaker 2: and an actor. He was in a drama series called
Speaker 2: Homicide on TV in Australia, but every weekend, Friday and
Speaker 2: Saturday night he would be playing in clubs and Sydney
Speaker 2: and drawing quite a crowd. And the guitar player that
Speaker 2: worked with him was leaving for something a bit more lucrative,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, And so I auditioned and I got the
Speaker 2: job because I knew the songs. I knew all how
Speaker 2: to play all the guitar parts, and I knew all
Speaker 2: the harmonies to sing. And you know, he nearly swallowed
Speaker 2: his tongue on the first run through because he looked
Speaker 2: at me. I was fifteen year old kid, and he said,
Speaker 2: I can't believe I'm doing this, you know, like you're
Speaker 2: way too young for this and all that, and I said,
Speaker 2: let's just give it a go. You know. We went
Speaker 2: straight into the songs and I just I did everything
Speaker 2: that I felt was the right thing for the song,
Speaker 2: and he loved it, and so he offered me the
Speaker 2: job straight away. I started working for him on the
Speaker 2: weekends and that was that was my first introduction into
Speaker 2: the music scene in Sydney in the sixties, you know.
Speaker 1: So what happened after that?
Speaker 2: Then I got a job working in a band with
Speaker 2: my brother and it was it was four piece band
Speaker 2: with a girl singer and we were called Shiloh. And
Speaker 2: I had to learn all the Chuck berrys songs. I
Speaker 2: had to learn all the Credence tunes and you know
Speaker 2: little Richard music, Ray Charles. I had to learn all
Speaker 2: these different things and get myself an offender telecaster and
Speaker 2: an ant Fender amp and all that. It was great.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much. And when
Speaker 2: we ended up on this kind of circuit in Australia,
Speaker 2: the hotels were run by the same company. It was
Speaker 2: a huge brewery company that ran all the hotels. So
Speaker 2: they used an agent who have moved bands around Australia
Speaker 2: and so we ended up playing like a three week
Speaker 2: residency at this really nice hotel the Gold Coast, and
Speaker 2: we just stayed upstairs and went down to the beach
Speaker 2: every day and swam and then played at night. And
Speaker 2: then we moved somewhere else and we were there for
Speaker 2: three months and then we moved somewhere else and it
Speaker 2: was great experience and it was good money. It was
Speaker 2: the first time I got some savings and ended up
Speaker 2: buying got a loan from my first car and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I was sixteen, keep going. So that lasted
Speaker 2: about a year and a half, and then I moved
Speaker 2: back the band kind of. We disbanded and Phil went
Speaker 2: off to work with another artist. And because my brother
Speaker 2: Phil was really in demand in those days. He was
Speaker 2: just really good at playing great lead parts, and you know,
Speaker 2: he could play rock and roll music, country music, and
Speaker 2: he'd have a go at anything, and so he was
Speaker 2: getting a lot of a lot of work. I went
Speaker 2: home to be with my mother and working a local
Speaker 2: garage for a while.
Speaker 1: So wait, wait, wait, wait wait, what was going through
Speaker 1: your mind? You were living the life of a king
Speaker 1: at age sixteen on the road. Are you're back living
Speaker 1: with your mother with no high school degree working in
Speaker 1: a garage?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 1: So what was your state of mind? I would think
Speaker 1: you were depressed about that.
Speaker 2: Oh I wasn't depressed, not at all. I was happy
Speaker 2: to be with my mother. And anyway, here's what happened.
Speaker 2: A show came to town and I knew the people,
Speaker 2: and well, let's just say I met a young lady
Speaker 2: in that show that I wanted to be with, and
Speaker 2: so they offered me a job and I said yes,
Speaker 2: just so I could be with her. And that's what
Speaker 2: I did. I quit my job in the garage and
Speaker 2: loaded up my car and joined them. And it was
Speaker 2: a traveling show where we drove everywhere. And I did
Speaker 2: that for like three years, I think, and then I
Speaker 2: eventually moved back to Sydney.
Speaker 1: When I was before you got back to Sydney. What
Speaker 1: happened with the girl?
Speaker 2: She she didn't want to stay on the road, so
Speaker 2: she ended up leaving. And but I'd already I'd already
Speaker 2: committed to her father, who was the guy I was
Speaker 2: working for, and so I had I stayed on and
Speaker 2: kept working with him because I was playing in the show.
Speaker 2: I was playing banjo, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, working the lights,
Speaker 2: doing fixing the flat tires, I mean, I was doing everything.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was It was a good learning time
Speaker 2: for me and I got a lot of good experience
Speaker 2: on the road. It was hard work and not much money,
Speaker 2: but I eventually left and moved back to Sydney, where
Speaker 2: I pursued my my my playing and my and I
Speaker 2: wanted to learn more, you know, I wanted to improve
Speaker 2: and I'd just done as much as I could on
Speaker 2: my own kind of thing. And now I was hanging
Speaker 2: around with guys who played jazz and who played fusion
Speaker 2: music and great rock and roll music that I'd never heard,
Speaker 2: you know, And I recall it was about seventy five
Speaker 2: seventy six. By that time, I'd learned like every Neil
Speaker 2: Diamond song that there was, and every Creedence song. And
Speaker 2: I had many different jobs. I was a singer in
Speaker 2: a band. I was a bass player in a band.
Speaker 2: I was a drummer in a band. I had to
Speaker 2: go with everything, okay, and continue with the narrative, okay. Well,
Speaker 2: So I moved into Sydney and I started developing my
Speaker 2: style that I have now. I started working on arrangements
Speaker 2: of songs where I could like move the bass around
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. I have an arrangement of a
Speaker 2: great old song called Blue Moon. And I was living
Speaker 2: in a house with three other musicians, and one of
Speaker 2: them was a saxophone player who grew up, you know,
Speaker 2: with jazz and he he heard me trying to work
Speaker 2: out this arrangement, and he said, why don't you put
Speaker 2: the bass through the changes? And I said, well, what
Speaker 2: do you mean? And he played, you know, he said,
Speaker 2: what you're trying to do is this, So he with
Speaker 2: his right hand he played dirty, Dirty, there's the melody,
Speaker 2: and the left hand went boom boom boom boom boom
Speaker 2: boom boom boom boom, and the bass moved around while
Speaker 2: the melody played on top, and you could hear the chords.
Speaker 2: When the bass changed and the melody moved, you could
Speaker 2: hear that that's the chord. And I just didn't think
Speaker 2: that way, and he showed me that, and it just
Speaker 2: like opened a door for me. And then I met
Speaker 2: a guy who was big into Where's Montgomery and people
Speaker 2: like that, and turned me onto that kind of music.
Speaker 2: So it was exciting for me. And you know, George
Speaker 2: Benson had just come out with Breezen and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden people were into instrumental music
Speaker 2: and everything. So I had to pursue that way to go,
Speaker 2: you know, And I ended up really pursuing my songwriting
Speaker 2: as well, and I got signed by Universal, who were
Speaker 2: Actually it wasn't Universal then. My first my first publisher
Speaker 2: was Northern Songs, which was Paul McCartney's company, and I
Speaker 2: got signed by them, and then I got moved to MCA,
Speaker 2: and then that eventually became Universal. So I got signed
Speaker 2: in seventy eight and I'm still with Universal after all
Speaker 2: those years.
Speaker 1: Okay, I did you have a manager? How'd you get signed?
Speaker 2: I didn't have a manager. I got signed because I
Speaker 2: was playing on people's records as a studio player, and
Speaker 2: people were looking for songs. And I would play some
Speaker 2: of my songs to people and they'd say, holy shit,
Speaker 2: have you got publishing? You know? Said no, Oh, okay,
Speaker 2: you got to talk to this guy. I don't. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I did it all myself by just networking
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. You know.
Speaker 1: So, at what point in this story does it become
Speaker 1: Tommy Emmanuel doing what you're doing now?
Speaker 2: Well, I started doing solo stuff and writing for me
Speaker 2: to play solo. In the early eighties, I started writing songs.
Speaker 2: I was already pursuing songwriting for to get a hit
Speaker 2: record with some artists, you know, and I did. I
Speaker 2: got a cover with Sheena Easton, and I had a
Speaker 2: cover with Olivia Newton John and in those days, if
Speaker 2: you could get a song on a Livy Newton John record,
Speaker 2: you were doing well. And that was my that was
Speaker 2: my goal. And my good buddy Steve Kipner, who wrote
Speaker 2: Let's Get Physical and Twister Fate and heart Attack and
Speaker 2: all those great songs, I wrote with him a lot,
Speaker 2: and that was great. And I really grew as a
Speaker 2: writer because of people like him and learned so much
Speaker 2: from him. But then I started writing songs for me
Speaker 2: to play as instrumentals, and I found the courage to
Speaker 2: put them in put them in my set when I
Speaker 2: was when I was playing like wine bars and places
Speaker 2: like that, I would play some of the songs that
Speaker 2: everybody knew, like a Beatles song or whatever, and then
Speaker 2: I would play one of my songs and people were
Speaker 2: coming up to me after the show and saying, Hey,
Speaker 2: I really like that that new song you played. Did
Speaker 2: you write that? I was like, yeah, yeah, Wow, that's
Speaker 2: really good. You should keep that, you know. So I
Speaker 2: started to get positive feedback and which gave me the
Speaker 2: courage to keep doing that, you know. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I ended up in some pretty big rock bands in Australia,
Speaker 2: playing guitar in the band, but when the band came
Speaker 2: off the road, I would go and do my own
Speaker 2: solo thing, and you know, and that was the beginning
Speaker 2: of what I'm doing now. So that was like the
Speaker 2: mid eighties. That's when I started doing that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing with John Farnham and others. Did you
Speaker 1: like that music?
Speaker 2: I loved it? Are you kidding? Every song is killer?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're not a country Chad Akins purist. You
Speaker 1: like rock too.
Speaker 2: I love any music that has soul. You know, when
Speaker 2: people ask me, you know, what guitar players do you
Speaker 2: listen to? My answer is I very rarely listen to
Speaker 2: many guitar players. I'm not that interested. I'm interested in
Speaker 2: good songs and I don't really care where they came from,
Speaker 2: you know, And I love singers. You know. That's why
Speaker 2: I loved working with John Farnham, a guy named Doug Parkinson,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was in a band called Dragon
Speaker 2: because I love their songs. I loved their music and
Speaker 2: you know, you could train a monkey to play my
Speaker 2: parts in the songs. But I love the songs so much,
Speaker 2: and I learned so much about how important having a
Speaker 2: great melody and a great hook and just really nailing
Speaker 2: it in a way that reached out and grabbed people.
Speaker 2: And I just learned a lot about the importance of
Speaker 2: every song. Song's got to be a killer, Every song
Speaker 2: has to be a winner. You know, the days of
Speaker 2: having a record with two hits on it and the
Speaker 2: rest of it's all just fillers. That those days are
Speaker 2: long gone. And so, you know, I remember just trying
Speaker 2: to write, you know, twenty five good songs to pick,
Speaker 2: fourteen to go on an album and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know, So when did you only start playing yourself
Speaker 1: as opposed with other people or does it agree you
Speaker 1: ever did that?
Speaker 2: I think probably the last the last tour that I
Speaker 2: did with a band, with a rock band was eighty seven,
Speaker 2: and then I started playing my own music. I got
Speaker 2: my own band, and it was mostly electric, with a
Speaker 2: few acoustic songs. You know, it was most electric. And
Speaker 2: so the funny thing was, Bob, when I made my
Speaker 2: first solo album, I recorded it between midnight and five
Speaker 2: in the morning because I was offered some free studio
Speaker 2: time because I played on someone's record for them as
Speaker 2: a favor, and the guy who owned the studio said,
Speaker 2: you can have the studio from midnight till six am
Speaker 2: or whatever, free of charge. So I recorded my album,
Speaker 2: then we mixed it and everything, and I took it
Speaker 2: into EMI and I said, this is my album and
Speaker 2: I'd like to get it out. And the guy listened
Speaker 2: to a couple of tracks and he said, there's no
Speaker 2: market for solo acoustic records. There's no market for it,
Speaker 2: so it may as well forget it. I said, all
Speaker 2: I want you to do is put it out, you know,
Speaker 2: just get it distributed, and I will create market. And
Speaker 2: he's like, you'll create a market. I said, yes, I
Speaker 2: will create the market. And so I must have convinced him.
Speaker 2: But you know, as luck would would have it, I
Speaker 2: was getting good crowds under my own name in my
Speaker 2: own country, and I was so lucky because the people
Speaker 2: who were my agents were part of a big chronic
Speaker 2: conglomerate that were international promoters as well. And in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight I got offered the John Denver tour and
Speaker 2: it was like the most perfect tour for me because
Speaker 2: it was like fifteen to twenty thousand people a night
Speaker 2: and I got to come out there and play twenty
Speaker 2: minutes as this new artist to the public. Who you know.
Speaker 2: Ninety nine percent of them didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2: They'd seen they they recognized me from the TV shows
Speaker 2: I'd done, but they didn't really know much about me.
Speaker 2: So it was great. I got a new audience, and
Speaker 2: within like a month of doing that tour, my album
Speaker 2: debuted in the top ten nationally and he and I
Speaker 2: were like so amazed. You know the guy, that's the
Speaker 2: guy who said there's no market for or music, and
Speaker 2: I told him I'd created That's what happened. And then
Speaker 2: I toured with another couple of artists, and then in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety I got offered the Eric Claptain tour with
Speaker 2: his album Journeyman, which I love that record, and Eric
Speaker 2: was so nice and his band Nathan and Greg Fillingaines
Speaker 2: and oh Steve Ferroni on drums, and it was just
Speaker 2: fabulous band. And every night we just got standing ovations
Speaker 2: and we got a great response. And the funny thing
Speaker 2: was the English road crew guys were a bit upset
Speaker 2: that we were going over so well. And the very
Speaker 2: first night I played the and I got two standing
Speaker 2: ovations at the end of the set, and when I
Speaker 2: came off, the tour manager came straight up to me
Speaker 2: and said cut your set down by blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and that's all he said, you know, And I said, yes, sir.
Speaker 2: And the next night I played two minutes shorter, still
Speaker 2: got the same standing ovation.
Speaker 1: And was this solo acoustic No, no, this was.
Speaker 2: My band, and then a couple of acoustic pieces in
Speaker 2: the middle. And then here's what happened after that, after
Speaker 2: that too. After that Aeric Claptain tour, my ticket sales
Speaker 2: went up like they doubled, tripled it. They were the
Speaker 2: stepping stones for me to getting to a level where
Speaker 2: I could sell out some decent sized halls in Australia.
Speaker 2: And on one tour I would come out and sign
Speaker 2: autographs after the show and meet everybody and all that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff, and people started saying to me, we
Speaker 2: really loved the show, we loved the band, but the
Speaker 2: best part of the night was when you just played
Speaker 2: on your own. And enough people kept saying that to
Speaker 2: me that I thought maybe I should give that a try.
Speaker 2: So I rang my agent and I said, book me
Speaker 2: back into that area where we were after the Aeric
Speaker 2: Claptain tour, and that those that you know and just
Speaker 2: call it Tommy Manuel solo and he said what and
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, it's just me on my own. Oh,
Speaker 2: you reckon, that'll work and I said yeah, And sure
Speaker 2: enough everything sold. I got the same size crowd as
Speaker 2: if was a band or a band or no band.
Speaker 2: I got the same size crowd and people had a
Speaker 2: great time and it really spurred me on. And then
Speaker 2: I finished up with the band in ninety six, I
Speaker 2: think it was, and from then on I've been solid.
Speaker 1: Okay, the elephant in the room is you're in Australia.
Speaker 1: Like that little river song from Las Vegas, Hilton, It's
Speaker 1: twelve thousand miles away. Yeah, I certainly know. Like Kadinsky
Speaker 1: told me, the big carture promoter or a label person,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I like being a big fish
Speaker 1: in a small pod. And then also, I've been there
Speaker 1: and everybody's thrilled that I came. I came that far.
Speaker 1: So to what degree are you in Australia thinking about America,
Speaker 1: thinking about the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: I've always thought about the rest of the world. I've
Speaker 2: always felt like a citizen of the world, and I
Speaker 2: just I'm one of these people that I've always had
Speaker 2: a sense of confidence that it's not arrogance. It's just confidence.
Speaker 2: And as I say to people who you know, big
Speaker 2: promoters or my management, you know, I'm like, you just
Speaker 2: helped get me out there, and I'll deliver. I promise
Speaker 2: you that I will deliver. If you can get me there,
Speaker 2: I'll do the rest, you know. And that's how I've
Speaker 2: always been.
Speaker 1: So what point did you start playing outside Australia.
Speaker 2: I used to go to LA. I would finish finished
Speaker 2: playing on Saturday night and Sunday I'd fly to LA
Speaker 2: and on I'd get in on Monday and I would
Speaker 2: play the Baked Potato Mony, two shows on Monday night,
Speaker 2: and then i'd fly back on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're talking commitment here. And I never
Speaker 2: made any money, but I started to build something. And
Speaker 2: then I started coming to the chet Atkins Convention. In
Speaker 2: ninety six was my first year there. And when they
Speaker 2: saw me at the CHET Convention, all the different guitar
Speaker 2: societies wanted me to come and play. So we put
Speaker 2: a whole package together where I went into Kentucky and
Speaker 2: played in Louisville and Lexington and all that, and then
Speaker 2: I went up to Cincinnati and played up there for
Speaker 2: the Ohio Fingerpickers Club blah blah, and then I went
Speaker 2: down to Orlando to the Fingerpickers down there, and then
Speaker 2: I went across to LA and played in mccabs and
Speaker 2: and all that. So I started in America right around
Speaker 2: the country, but just in all little small things that
Speaker 2: helped me. You know. I got connected through the chedd
Speaker 2: Akin Society people and they were really wonderful. But it
Speaker 2: was small, but it was a good start, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't long before, you know, it was less than two
Speaker 2: years of doing that that I was, you know, playing
Speaker 2: to six hundred to eight hundred people and playing in
Speaker 2: the town theater in these small towns. So it built,
Speaker 2: it built pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: When did the international business beyond Australia and the United
Speaker 1: States start?
Speaker 2: It started in the nineties. When I went to LA
Speaker 2: to record, i'd come back, I'd go and play in
Speaker 2: San Francisco. I was getting some airplay on KKSF and
Speaker 2: on the Wave, those smooth, kind of smooth jazz stations.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of records that people really liked,
Speaker 2: and I was getting some play. So I was going
Speaker 2: over there and doing stuff like listener appreciation shows and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. There was no money involved, but it
Speaker 2: was good experience and it was a way of building
Speaker 2: an audience.
Speaker 1: You know, what about you say you went to China,
Speaker 1: Maybe should I say where haven't you been? Have you
Speaker 1: basically played everywhere South America?
Speaker 2: Well, at the moment, we're trying to get to a
Speaker 2: stage where we can go to Brazil, to Mexico, to Chile,
Speaker 2: places like that, just finding a venue, finding a promoter,
Speaker 2: and being able to people know about me there. I
Speaker 2: just can't get there yet.
Speaker 1: What about Europe and other parts of the world.
Speaker 2: I have a wonderful career in Europe. I'm so grateful.
Speaker 2: Europe is as has been a wonderful place for me. Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium,
Speaker 2: up to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, all those countries and
Speaker 2: Russia and Ukraine and all those places have been so wonderful,
Speaker 2: And I'm so sad that I can't go back there.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't go back to Russia right now,
Speaker 2: I can't go back to Ukraine. And that makes me sad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just you know that the world is changing so quickly,
Speaker 2: really is.
Speaker 1: Okay? You're in Nashville Music City, Yeah, to what degree
Speaker 1: are you plugged into the player culture of Nashville, or
Speaker 1: to what degree you're Tommy Emmanuel and you just happen
Speaker 1: to live in that Shville.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of my favorite players are here, and
Speaker 2: I have a lot of good friends here. And when
Speaker 2: I'm home, I find out who's playing where, and I
Speaker 2: it's the only time I get a chance to go
Speaker 2: and see other players. So whenever Guthrie Trapper is playing
Speaker 2: with his trio, I always try to get to see
Speaker 2: Guthrie and he doesn't The band don't play much anymore,
Speaker 2: but Brent Mason's band, the players. I used to go
Speaker 2: and sit in with them a lot and go see
Speaker 2: those guys play. And and and Jack Pearson is another
Speaker 2: great guitar player locally who I used to love going
Speaker 2: and play play the first set with Jack, he would
Speaker 2: he would always play some acoustic and then he'd switched
Speaker 2: to the band with with with electric, you know. And
Speaker 2: and I do the opry about four times a year,
Speaker 2: and and I I do the rhyme in every two years,
Speaker 2: and I've got it coming up in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And so I enjoyed that. But see, I built I
Speaker 2: built Nashville in the same way as I built everywhere else,
Speaker 2: I came to town. I I I played in small places
Speaker 2: and then I played in a small theater three hundred
Speaker 2: seedter and it went well. So I booked myself back
Speaker 2: there and I filled it and then I did two nights.
Speaker 2: Then I moved to the tea Pack. Then I moved
Speaker 2: to the War Memorial Hall. Then I moved to blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, and then I got to the rhyme and
Speaker 2: eventually and that was fifteen years of my life.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're obviously very business savby. Do you make all
Speaker 1: these decisions? You know? Do you have a manager?
Speaker 2: Oh? I have a wonderful manager. Yeah. Absolutely. In the
Speaker 2: old days, a lady named Gina Mendelo is a friend
Speaker 2: of mine from a long way. She was working at
Speaker 2: Sony in Sydney when her and I became friends, and
Speaker 2: she marketed the album I did with Chep and so
Speaker 2: her and I kind of ran the ship together for
Speaker 2: a long time. And then in twenty thirteen I started
Speaker 2: talking with Brian Pennix from Vector, but he was actually
Speaker 2: a promoter in those days, and Brian Brian became my
Speaker 2: manager and we've been working together ever since, and he
Speaker 2: done an amazing job. I mean, he's got quite a
Speaker 2: roster of artists, you know, Jerry Douglas and Little Feet
Speaker 2: and Nitty Gritty and all those people. He manages a
Speaker 2: lot of different artists. But he does amazing work for me,
Speaker 2: he really does. And he's been one of the best
Speaker 2: friends I've ever had.
Speaker 1: So how does being an itinerant musician affected your relationships,
Speaker 1: your love relationships and family.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been. It's been incredibly hard on everyone. And
Speaker 2: you know, this is this is what I warn young people.
Speaker 2: I see, if you want to do what I'm doing,
Speaker 2: then you better you better remember that if you want
Speaker 2: to have a home and a family, you're going to
Speaker 2: have to work around that. But yeah, I've been married
Speaker 2: three times and I have I have two daughters and
Speaker 2: two granddaughters by one marriage. And I have another daughter
Speaker 2: by my previous marriage, and she's going to school in
Speaker 2: Sydney and they moved from California. She was born here
Speaker 2: in Nashville and she's ten years old. And so but
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm on my own right now, although I
Speaker 2: don't feel like I'm on my own. I feel like
Speaker 2: I have friends everywhere and family everywhere, and I basically
Speaker 2: try to fit in as many visits with my family
Speaker 2: as I can. There came a point back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and two or two thousand and three, around that time,
Speaker 2: when my wife, who I'd been married to for fifteen years,
Speaker 2: you know, took off with someone else and decided that
Speaker 2: she didn't want the lifestyle of me coming and going
Speaker 2: all the time anymore. And I totally get that. So
Speaker 2: but I then made the decision that I've really got
Speaker 2: to get to work. I've got to get going, And
Speaker 2: so I called a family meeting and I said to
Speaker 2: the girls, Look, this is what I do. This is
Speaker 2: who I am. I'm a road person. I play concerts,
Speaker 2: and this is how you can live in that nice
Speaker 2: house and your mom can drive that lovely car, and
Speaker 2: you can go to that good school because dad goes
Speaker 2: and gets to work. And that's how it's going to
Speaker 2: be for a while, and you're going to have to
Speaker 2: be all right about it. And they were okay about it.
Speaker 2: We still wish we could see each other a lot more,
Speaker 2: but you know, it just doesn't work for me to
Speaker 2: be off the road for too long. You know, how
Speaker 2: many dates a year are you doing? Right now? We're
Speaker 2: kind of cut back to about two hundred, so I
Speaker 2: was doing well. Some years I did three hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty shows, you know. And yeah, my biggest problem, Bob,
Speaker 2: is that things just keep getting better. That's my biggest problem.
Speaker 2: If only it all turned to crap, and then I
Speaker 2: could say, well, it's been wonderful, see you later. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to go be granddad now, you know. But
Speaker 2: I love playing for people so much, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's what I do. I play and people get happy,
Speaker 2: and I just can't imagine doing anything else.
Speaker 1: Let's just go back to the new album a little bit.
Speaker 1: What is so special about the gentleman you worked with?
Speaker 2: You mean Vance Powell.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's an engineer. He's technically on an incredible level
Speaker 2: about getting sounds, being creative and doing it now and
Speaker 2: doing a quick you know. He's the type of guy.
Speaker 2: We're going to start at ten and we finished at six.
Speaker 2: That's it. I don't work at night, and I totally
Speaker 2: get that, so we don't waste time in here. We
Speaker 2: get to work and then you have a listen to
Speaker 2: what you've just recorded, you played in the car or something,
Speaker 2: and it's like, holy hell, this sounds good, you know,
Speaker 2: this sound real, and I just loved working with him,
Speaker 2: and he was he was really helping me do what
Speaker 2: the way, do it the way I wanted to. And
Speaker 2: he also gave me some advice. I was struggling with
Speaker 2: playing and singing with headphones on and all that playing
Speaker 2: and singing this song and I just couldn't hear the
Speaker 2: pitch properly. You know. I was really struggling with it
Speaker 2: because I wear hearing aids. I was born with yellow fever,
Speaker 2: so my hearing is burnt out before I came into
Speaker 2: the world. And anyway, he said, look, take your headphones
Speaker 2: off and just sing as if I'm sitting right here
Speaker 2: beside you. Sing the song to me and we'll just
Speaker 2: let the mics do their do their thing. So I did,
Speaker 2: and I got it first take, and the vocal was fine,
Speaker 2: you know, and needed a few little pitch things here
Speaker 2: and there, but basically it was a good take and
Speaker 2: the guitar sounded beautiful. And he really showed me that
Speaker 2: anything is possible and if I'm struggling with something, to
Speaker 2: let him know and he can come up with a solution,
Speaker 2: you know. And I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 1: It was good, Okay, So you make a record, how
Speaker 1: much overdubbing fixing is done?
Speaker 2: On this album, the overdubbing was on the tracks where
Speaker 2: I had I put some drums on like a heat
Speaker 2: programmed a drum part, and then I overdubbed some stuff
Speaker 2: on it, and then I put bass on it, and
Speaker 2: then I put other rhythm part. Then I put an
Speaker 2: electric guitar on, and then I got a girl to
Speaker 2: come in and we constructed the backing vocals as a
Speaker 2: unit and put that together. And you know, that all
Speaker 2: happened pretty quickly. But as far as fix ups and
Speaker 2: overdubs and stuff, most of the solo songs that I played,
Speaker 2: Scarlet's World, A Drowning Heart, black and white to color
Speaker 2: all that, most of those were one take. You know,
Speaker 2: I can do it live, I have to do it
Speaker 2: in the studio.
Speaker 1: So the album's finished, the album's coming out. What do
Speaker 1: you have planned? What's setting Stone going forward?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I've got a bunch of TV and
Speaker 2: radio things to do, and then I've got this tour
Speaker 2: starting after the Rhyming show in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 2: and then I've got a long tour which finishes at
Speaker 2: Carnegie Hall on the thirtieth of this month. So that's
Speaker 2: the first leg of the tour with the new album,
Speaker 2: and then the second one is in December, and the
Speaker 2: videos will drop every like every two weeks. There'll be
Speaker 2: a new video, a new video of all the songs.
Speaker 2: And so we've already we've already got two out there
Speaker 2: now and third one's coming soon. But they're all done.
Speaker 1: Okay. You talk about the breakthrough of the tour with
Speaker 1: John Denver. Is it purely been hard work or have
Speaker 1: there been a series of lucky breaks?
Speaker 2: Well, you could call it a lucky break being offered
Speaker 2: the John Denver tour, but I think I was the
Speaker 2: right person. And you know, they didn't have to lug
Speaker 2: ten people around and fly them and accommodate them. It
Speaker 2: was just me, you know. So there's elements of luck
Speaker 2: out there, and there's also elements of you know, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty easy going. I'm very self contained. All I need
Speaker 2: is to just get a good sound and let me go,
Speaker 2: you know. So you know, I'm a I'm not a
Speaker 2: demanding person. I'm very demand of myself, but I'm not
Speaker 2: a demanding person with other people. I want people to
Speaker 2: treat me like I treat them. So you know, I
Speaker 2: got no time for complainers. I hate people who are
Speaker 2: in the music business. They're making a living playing music,
Speaker 2: and all they do is complain about it. Well, get
Speaker 2: the hell out of it. You know, you don't know
Speaker 2: how lucky you are. You're making living and you're making music.
Speaker 2: Holy smoke. Doesn't get better than that.
Speaker 1: And when you view your work today, do you view
Speaker 1: it as a long continuum or do you feel you're
Speaker 1: better than before? Or do you look back at the past?
Speaker 1: A I wish I knew then what I know now?
Speaker 1: What's your tike? Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I wish I knew then. What I know now
Speaker 2: is exactly what it's like being my age and knowing
Speaker 2: what I know now. But you know, that's that's life,
Speaker 2: isn't it. Life is our teacher. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think I don't think people realize how much work it
Speaker 2: takes to get anywhere in the business. And you know,
Speaker 2: like I've heard this said two people. You know, be
Speaker 2: careful what you wish for. You might just get it
Speaker 2: and it might destroy you. I've seen people be destroyed
Speaker 2: by fame and fortune, you know, so don't don't look
Speaker 2: for that. Money comes and goes, money flows in and
Speaker 2: out of your life, and and and fame is a
Speaker 2: momentary curse. So you know, you've got to get yourself
Speaker 2: out there. But at the same time, you you've got
Speaker 2: to find a balance. You know. I can't do a
Speaker 2: good job if I'm frazzled and stressed and worried about
Speaker 2: this and blah blah blah. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: like that, you know. So I don't try to take
Speaker 2: on too much as in other things. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: not a guy who says, oh, I've got to go
Speaker 2: fly fishing. Oh I've got to go car racing. I
Speaker 2: want to play football, I want to blow hit the
Speaker 2: golf ball. I want to do this, and have you
Speaker 2: seen this? We've got to go to the movies. I
Speaker 2: don't I know how to be still. I know how
Speaker 2: to be quiet, and I know how to just relax,
Speaker 2: you know. And so you know, what matters to me
Speaker 2: is that I do a good job when I play.
Speaker 2: And if I struggle with anything, then I'll just work
Speaker 2: on it, you know. And it's it's not rocket science.
Speaker 2: It's you know, find where your strengths are, find what
Speaker 2: you're good at and what really works, and go for it,
Speaker 2: and go for it with all your heart and all
Speaker 2: your energy. Don't half ass anything. It's all or nothing.
Speaker 2: That's how it is for me. You know. My attitude
Speaker 2: to people is if I see you on stage only,
Speaker 2: you know, not really trying or giving, not giving all
Speaker 2: of yourself. If I see that, then get the hell
Speaker 2: off that stage because I'm coming on. You know. That's
Speaker 2: my attitude to people who who half assed things. You know,
Speaker 2: so it's definitely all or nothing for me every time.
Speaker 1: Well, Tommy, I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time, being honest, giving your philosophy. At the end,
Speaker 1: people have no idea how hard it is to make it,
Speaker 1: no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just yeah and they and they want it now,
Speaker 2: and it's not. Life doesn't work like that, you know,
Speaker 2: where it's ever evolving. And you know, when I think
Speaker 2: of the stuff that I did, I'm so glad I
Speaker 2: did it. I'm glad I did cruises where I was
Speaker 2: expected to play in a ballroom dancing band, and then
Speaker 2: I had to play be the lead guitar player and
Speaker 2: the lead singer and sing the whole Hot August Night
Speaker 2: album start to finish in one set for two hours.
Speaker 2: And then I had to play you know, bosting over
Speaker 2: music down by the pool in the afternoon, and that's
Speaker 2: how I gained experience and knowledge by taking on a job.
Speaker 2: And then I got a job in a band playing bass,
Speaker 2: and then I got a job playing drums, and I
Speaker 2: did all that, and I kept working on it, and
Speaker 2: I kept saying, yes, I can do that, and then
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that I could, you know, because I needed
Speaker 2: the experience and and all that stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: it really pays off. What I do know is that
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't matter how many views you have
Speaker 2: on YouTube, it doesn't matter how many millions of likes
Speaker 2: you have. They do not equal concert tickets sold. So
Speaker 2: you've you've got to build your audience by hand, brick
Speaker 2: by brick. That's how you do it.
Speaker 1: On that note, I think we're going to close. There
Speaker 1: are two kinds of people. People who are Tommy Emmanuel
Speaker 1: fans and people who just haven't heard him yet. If
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with his music, pull it up and listen. Tommy.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for taking all this time
Speaker 1: to speak with my audio.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it and less of love to you brother.
Speaker 1: Okay, till next time. This is Bob left sets,