MUSIC
sible for the tone you went for on guitar? You seemed aligned with clean, jazzy playing more than the scuzzier British blues.
A: Yeah, he really was quite good. And I always enjoy listening to the pure tonal instruments, like piano and saxophone. And I also like the clean guitar tone. What Hendrix got with his rhythm sound. Wes Montgomery, that kind of sound. And I like hearing how you get distortion with that cleaner, purer tone. It’s just a preference thing. I think a lot of scuzzy, trashy guitar sounds are useful in a certain kind of music. It’s just finding what works for what you’re trying to do. I didn’t want to go that way. I wanted it to sound as if it was a clean tone but wasn’t. It’s almost like asking for something that doesn’t exist. (Laughs.)
Q: Do you remember what tipped the boat into the water with you as far as playing guitar? Was there one guy whose playing caught your ear?
A: Probably the very, very first would be Nokie Edwards of the Ventures. He’s a great player. And I love the way he plays; he has such a nice sound. And it seems to me a lot of what they were going for with that sound in the ’60s still seems more appealing to me. I think it’s pretty cool that we’re going into 2016 and people are still making futuristic music with that sound. It’s hard to imagine anything surpassing that, and it was so simple. All tubes and simplicity. Now there are more bells and whistles, and that pure tonality gets muddled a little bit.
Q: It’s like the Santo & Johnny thing with “Sleepwalk.” It still sounds ageless.
A: Right. How do you improve on that? I don’t see how the guitar can sound better than the natural inherent pure tonality of that sound. That draws me in more than hearing a guitar through 45 effects boxes. It’s atmospheric as can be.
Q: Are there instrumentalists you are particularly drawn to who aren’t guitarists? Maybe this is a longshot, but I felt like you were a guy who dug Bill Evans.
A: He’s an awesome piano player who got beautiful voicings (from his instrument). I like piano music, period. But he’s great. And I just heard this recording by Erroll Garner that they found and released. He’s great. Doesn’t even need bass and drums, he’s like a one-man orchestra. That’s the sort of thing I’m trying to figure out with the guitar. I have a solo acoustic record coming out in October: piano, acoustic guitar, bass, cello, violin. It’s different than anything else I’ve done.
Q: Are these new compositions?
A: Some are original. I redid a few Simon & Garfunkel tunes, but way different. And one Jimi Hendrix piece on the piano. It’s a side of me that has always been there, but I haven’t put out anything like it. You get known for a certain thing and you just go with it. For me, this has always been at home in the practice room. So I decided to make a more personal record of stuff I like to do. We’ll see what happens. Maybe people will be like, “What the heck? No solo? Get me my money back.” But people might also relate to it.
Q: The guitar-centric thing in rock had a really long run, more than half a century. Does it feel like an endangered species thing to you?
A: I think it’s kind of passé now. Maybe it’s not over, exactly, but it has gone on to a different function, and understandably so. Like we’ve squeezed every ounce of juice out of the rock guitar as we know it. We can’t expect people to still be freaking out like, “Listen! He’s playing a blues guitar scale.” This thing we’ve heard a billion times over 50 years. That doesn’t mean there can’t be something reinvented.
I’ve been thinking about it recently. What can you do? It would take something exhilarating, and it would be exciting to be part of trying to push that envelope. But the whole function of it has changed. People are burned out on hearing the same thing. Now it’s OK to just play a cool rhythm with cool effects boxes, which makes sense. But sometimes going back to the source can show you a different road to take.
Q: When you’re asleep at night do you find you dream about guitar stuff ?
A: (Laughs.) No, not really. Well, I guess every once in a while. I have this recurring dream where I’m playing electric guitar on stage, and I look back and I don’t know any of the guys in the band. Like, “Who are these guys?” And the drummer counts off, “1, 2, 3 ... ” and I have no idea what we’re playing or what key. It’s a stress thing, I guess. I guess I don’t sound like a very secure person, do I?