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