Eric Johnson

Guitarist extraordinaire.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
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.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
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,

(00:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Okay, So when you make a lesson, what goes through
your mind? What do you want to teach?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
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,

(01:36):
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.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, well, for those who haven't seen them, give us
an example.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
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

(02:27):
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,

(02:48):
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

(03:08):
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.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, guitar playing, is it nature or nurture?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
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.

(03:50):
But I think it's mostly purported by your interest in
your just dedication because you love doing it, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
So how did you pick up the guitar?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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

(04:23):
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

(04:45):
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

(05:06):
I just was really enamored with it.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay, piano, to what degree do your skills remain and
to what degree can you still read music? Well?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
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

(05:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
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?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
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

(06:29):
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.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
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?

Speaker 2 (06:58):
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.

(07:20):
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

(07:41):
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,

(08:03):
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

(08:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
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?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
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

(09:12):
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

(09:35):
stuff down and just you know, completely dissect something on
a sonic level. It is really it's a faster learning process.
I think.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
And did you ever take lessons?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
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

(10:10):
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,

(10:31):
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.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
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.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
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

(11:10):
just keep going forward.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
And at this late date, if I play you a record,
how long will it take you to learn that record?

Speaker 2 (11:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, so you're playing guitar. What guitar are you using?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
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

(11:53):
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

(12:14):
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

(12:35):
guess we had to buy it. But that's how I
got the guitar.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
And what do you do for the amplifier?

Speaker 2 (12:40):
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

(13:03):
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

(13:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
And do you still have that guitar in that amp?

Speaker 2 (13:42):
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.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
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.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
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

(14:35):
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

(14:56):
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

(15:18):
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.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah. So what did your parents do for a living?

Speaker 2 (15:42):
My dad was a MD. He was an antesthesiologist, and
my mom was a housewife.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
And how many kids in the family.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
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?

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Usually the youngest. They're very leaning with the young Yah.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
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

(16:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
And so you get really into music. You go to
public school or private school.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
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

(17:10):
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.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Meanwhile, you're doing that. What are your four older siblings doing.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
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

(17:51):
moved to Alaska, and the other two went to college.
One became a CPA and one became a nurse.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Okay, so you were in school. Are you known as
the guy who plays the guitar?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
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

(18:26):
talent shows and but yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
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?

Speaker 2 (18:42):
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

(19:05):
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

(19:26):
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

(19:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
You know. Okay, so what point did you start playing
in bands and what did that look like? Well?

Speaker 2 (20:13):
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

(20:34):
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

(20:56):
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

(21:17):
entered a group that he led. When I was about
late fourteen or fifteen years old, and we started working together.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Okay, so take me up to graduating from high school. Well, I.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
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

(21:53):
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

(22:16):
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

(22:36):
right after I graduated from high school.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
So you graduate from high school, what's the dream at
that point and what about college.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
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

(23:07):
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,

(23:29):
life experiences. And we just started going on the road
and playing anywhere we could get a gig.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
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.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
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

(24:08):
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

(24:28):
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.

(24:49):
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

(25:09):
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

(25:32):
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

(25:52):
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

(26:14):
game for years until I tried to get out of
the deal.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
How'd you finally get out of the deal.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
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

(26:41):
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

(27:02):
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,

(27:25):
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

(27:46):
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

(28:08):
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,

(28:31):
we got to take a look at this person, because
they've got something going on.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
You know, let's go back. How did that waste find you?

Speaker 2 (28:39):
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,

(29:01):
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.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
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?

Speaker 2 (29:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
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,

(30:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Okay, so you're living in Austin, you're making any money,
you're living at home, you screeping buy what's going on?

Speaker 2 (30:45):
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

(31:07):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Okay, And do you ever think of giving up?

Speaker 2 (31:23):
I never thought about giving up playing.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Now.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
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?

Speaker 2 (32:07):
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.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
So seventies, you're with the band, you don't get a
record deal until deep into the eighties. What's going on there?

Speaker 2 (32:37):
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

(33:01):
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

(33:22):
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

(33:45):
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

(34:08):
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

(34:32):
demos and sending them in and and trying to find
a producer to do my first record with Warners.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
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?

Speaker 2 (34:54):
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

(35:15):
just kept kind of growing slowly.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
So you had an agent who was booking these.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
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.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Okay, you're cutting demos looking for a producer. How do
you end up making that record?

Speaker 2 (35:47):
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.

(36:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
And were you happy with the final record?

Speaker 2 (36:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
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

(37:05):
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

(37:26):
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.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
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

(38:08):
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,

(38:32):
and they said, oh, we'd love to do a record
with you. And so I signed a deal with Cinema Records.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
And how did you meet those two big radio guys, Lee, Yeah,
let you I don't know.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
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

(39:08):
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.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Okay, So did they sign you to Capital first or
did you make the record and then Capitol decided to
distribute it.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
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

(39:54):
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

(40:14):
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.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
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.

(41:08):
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,

(41:30):
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

(41:52):
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

(42:13):
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

(42:35):
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

(42:57):
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.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
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?

Speaker 2 (43:31):
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,

(43:54):
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.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
When it becomes a hit, you know what goes through
your mind.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
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

(44:27):
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.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
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?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
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?

(45:22):
You know, it was kind of funny, you know, that
way it can change. But uh yeah, it was great.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
So and so why did it take so long for
the follow up?

Speaker 2 (45:34):
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

(45:56):
very much.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I listened to.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
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

(46:17):
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

(46:39):
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

(47:00):
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,

(47:21):
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.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
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?

Speaker 2 (47:58):
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

(48:20):
handling this stuff?

Speaker 1 (48:21):
How? You know?

Speaker 2 (48:22):
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

(48:42):
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

(49:04):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
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.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
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

(49:55):
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

(50:17):
just rely on your laurels.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Okay, many people have that peak, pass it and go straight,
they get a street job. Did you just pick up
like nothing happened.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
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

(50:55):
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

(51:16):
through the evolution. So I think, you know, and that's
that was one of the lessons I had to learn.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
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?

Speaker 2 (51:41):
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

(52:04):
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

(52:26):
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

(52:47):
at it in that picture of what they did with
what they had to work with. So I would say them.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
So talking about Beck who ultimately played without a pick,
What was your take on that as a guitarist.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
How about yourself, when do you use a pick and
when not?

Speaker 2 (53:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
And what about Eddie Van Hill and the leader guitarist
with tapping, etc.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
So how do you write a song?

Speaker 2 (53:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Okay, you know, do you just leave the tape recorder
on every time you pick up the guitar.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
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

(54:37):
picture just kind of happens.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
And do you pick up the guitar and knowing you
want to make an album, or you playing every day?

Speaker 2 (54:46):
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.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
And it never feels like work to you.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
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.

(55:22):
That sometimes I don't feel like doing that, but I
have to.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
And for those who are unfamiliar with your music, how
would you describe it?

Speaker 2 (55:31):
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

(55:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
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.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
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

(56:43):
that into one recipe and that's how I kind of
came up with my style.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
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.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
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,

(57:31):
the harmony and the rhythm, just working on all the aspects.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
In your personal life. Are you married not now? I'm not.
Now do you have children?

Speaker 2 (57:48):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
To what degree do you believe your dedication to the
guitar and the career sort of shut those avenues.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
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.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
And to what degree are you a gearhead?

Speaker 2 (58:21):
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.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
So how many guitars do you own?

Speaker 2 (58:42):
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.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
And what did you how'd you decide to sell and
how'd you decide what to keep?

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Really just stuff that feels magical, that makes me want
to play, that's sounds good, and pieces that are sentimental.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
And so what are your favorites.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
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

(59:34):
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.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
So to what degree did you customize it make it
different from usual Fender fare?

Speaker 2 (59:49):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
And what about effects, I use a.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Lot of old funky effects because the analog w sound
better to me. Oh, the old funky ones.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
But how many amste own? And what are you into? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
What makes it special.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
And you're on the road now because you want to be,
or because you have to be.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
And when acoustic and win with a band?

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And when do you decide to make a record.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
And I see you in a studio now. People can't
see we're audio only. Is that your studio?

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
It is? It is? Yeah, it's a place I started
building many years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Yeah, well even you know, I'm only looking at the monitors.
But that's pretty extensive for a whole studio. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Yeah, I don't know if you can see it, but
it's got a console back here. There's a console back there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Yeah, what kind of console is that?

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
It's called tone looks and I have a Neve and
API stuff in there too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
And what kind of speakers are you using.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
For modern They're ATC's, yeah, which are really nice speakers.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
You do a lot of covers. How do you decide
what songs to cover?

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
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

(01:03:49):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
I just do what I do. But yeah, it's it.
I'm no great singer really.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
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

(01:05:08):
out pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
And what other gear do you make other than guitars?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
And what's special about your picks?

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
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

(01:06:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
To be that way.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
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

(01:07:03):
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

(01:07:28):
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

(01:07:49):
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

(01:08:10):
important currency right now as much.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
And are you just doing your own thing or do
you know other guitarists, other musicians, and hang and play
with them.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
And any other guitarists out there that people should be
paying attention.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
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

(01:08:57):
a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Okay, who's coming to your shows at this point?

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
About Thank you, Bob, thanks for doing this.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
You bet. Until next time, it is Bob left stets