A Healthy Discomfort: Kevin Shirley Talks Joe Bonamassa And 'Blues of Desperation'
Wednesday, 06 April 2016
Written by Simon Ramsay
Photo: Joe Bonamassa by Rick Gould
He may be the king of 21st century blues-rock, but Joe Bonamassa is the first to admit he owes a huge debt to producer Kevin Shirley. Having helped to guide the guitarist’s steady ascent for the last decade, the South African guru – whose CV also includes Iron Maiden and Aerosmith – is perfectly placed to take us behind the scenes of a Bonamassa record, namely his new collection, ‘Blues Of Desperation’, and detail what the future might hold for the six string star.
What was your vision for ‘Blues Of Desperation’?
I went in there wanting it to be more vital and challenging. I wanted to have two drummers in the session, a bass guitar with distortion all over it and Joe's guitar. Just get this kind of dynamic powerful thing going and really give him, not so much a cushion to play into, but rather a pretty hard springboard to keep bouncing off, so it would keep him on his toes and get him playing really hard.
The two drummers create a colossal sound. How did they play together without getting in each others’ way?
You have to think about it pretty carefully, devise ways of them doing stuff and give them areas where they're stronger. Sometimes it's very specific direction about one being pretty straight and the other having different kinds of syncopations. The bass had to find its place in and out of these duelling percussionists and then Joe had to find his place on top of that. The two drummers added a real edge and I didn't cut any of these tracks for the new album with keyboards, so there was no comfort zone there for Joe. You have to play on the whole thing, and there's edge in that.
You always throw him these curve balls, why is that?
Joe's the kind of guy who, if he was given the opportunity of just playing a long guitar solo for two hours, he'd probably do that. He loves the experimental rock-jazz fusion of the early ‘70s - Jeff Beck’s 'Wired' and 'Truth' - and would love to just play that stuff. It's not lazy, it's an easy compass zone he plays off. Some of these blues gigs with all these backing vocals and horns, they make a really cool sound and make it very comfortable for him, much like a lot of the other blues guys before him. BB King and Buddy Guy, they have these bands and can just stop playing and singing and the music continues. I just wanted to shake that up a little bit so he really had to play. He gets comfortable and I wanted to stick a thorn in his ass.
Joe worked with outside writers again on ‘Blues of Desperation’, but in the past he's written some great songs by himself, particularly Happier Times. Why does he need other songwriters to contribute?
He doesn't. He needs other songwriters to help him believe he's finished. That's the biggest thing. He has a lack of confidence in finishing songs, so when he goes to another songwriter he says 'I have this idea' and they'll say 'Yeah, I think you've got it' or he might say 'I can't finish this lyric, but I have the song' and they'll help him and vice versa. It's been a growth for him, though, having someone to bounce things off and a brother in arms in the secret society of songwriters.
How do you push Joe’s boundaries while keeping the whole concept cohesive?
You get a song like Livin' Easy and look at what you've got in the can so far, see where you can take this, make it sound relevant and fit into the rest of everything else without anything becoming samey or cliched. Which is why we end up with the drunk sax solo and the honky tonk piano and all that stuff. You need to have a big overview and that changes all the time, especially when you're cutting it with a limited time. Five days is not a long time to cut an album.
You Left Me Nothin’ But The Bills And The Blues is superb old school blues isn’t it?
They played that song blistering live. Joe thinks we could have cut it a little slower but I thought it was great. I had quite an intricate arrangement of horns on that song and then when I got to the mix stage I just didn't dig 'em. I was like: 'These are just taking away the edge of the track'. I thought about using them in some places and then just pulled them out. It gets more of a Stevie Ray, Double Trouble feel like that.
Does Joe work on his guitar solos beforehand, or just go in there and play?
He just goes in and plays. That's so funny you mentioned Happier Times because Joe does not remember that song at all. He was in the deepest, darkest depression when we did that song. He was crying in the studio and I said: 'We're going to cut the solo and I'm going to keep it rolling round and round. Just cry into the guitar, put what you're feeling into that guitar.' So he just played and played and doesn't remember a note of it. It's not in his memory banks at all, like being in a car wreck and having to go back and review the footage. And that's real blues, there is sadness in that.
The epic closing solo on No Good Place For The Lonely feels very spontaneous.
That was one take and absolutely unedited as it was played on the floor one time round. There are no fixes. I put the organ afterwards and did a tiny little string section thing on there, and then I sent the mix to Joe. He hadn't heard the orchestra and called me after he heard the mix for the first time and said: 'Kevin, one thing you and I know how to do very well is to fuck up the blues.' And I wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not, but I think it was.
Does he sometimes hear what you've done and say 'No, I don't want that', or does he trust your judgement?
I think he has total trust in my judgement, but I'm very clear that if he doesn't like something then has to speak up, because this record's going to live in his catalogue for the rest of his life. Very, very occasionally he'll ask for something. I just did a mix for him of an acoustic track and got the message back from him saying: 'What the fuck? Did I play so badly that you can't turn me up?' And I was like: 'Woah, hang on there little Joe. If you want me to do a remix that's fine, but don't go all Glenn Hughes on me.’ [Bonamassa] 'Oh, I'm sorry. OK, that's cool.' And I remixed the track and he was happy.
When you first saw Joe you knew he had to break out of his blues-rock box. How hard was that?
The challenge has been to try and open up blues to a much bigger audience. I remember talking to people about Joe 10 years ago and they'd say 'What kind of music?' and you'd say 'It's the blues' and they'd say 'Oh, I don't listen to the blues'. And there's this bunch of people that want this 12 bar heritage blues of 'Woke up this morning...da diddle de da...' to be the only kind there is. But you listen to Robert Johnson and what he's doing with his acoustic guitar. He’s not constrained by that kind of thinking and he's the guy that wrote 33 iconic blues songs. So that's been our approach going forward. Have a deep foundation in the blues, but try to take it somewhere else and express more emotion than just suicidal tendencies.
And he’s done that with a variety of different projects. Talking of which, is true you’ll be re-teaming with Beth Hart for another album soon?
Yeah, we're in the studio on August 18. It's probably going to come out next year. We have songs already. Beth, Joe and I all put songs into a hat and shake it up, and some Beth feels more comfortable singing than others, some of her suggestions might be a little mainstream and I can't get my head around them. But we just try to find this place where it's eclectic, but kind of old soul stuff.
Will they write some original material together in the future?
I hope not. They both have solo careers, that's what they write for. They have such a cool representation of songs that people have never heard before and, in some instances, reintroduced people to some of the classics like Etta James, Aretha or even into Melody Gardot. And they just do a different kind of presentation and it's really fun. Never fear, there'll be a dozen trolls on the internet that find that objectionable for one reason or another.
Speaking of internet trolls, as a producer some love your ability to capture that classic ‘70s rock sound, but others feel it’s too bottom heavy. How do you respond to that?
Well, I can't respond to that. It's odd when you consider I sit and listen to a song maybe a couple of hundred times before I finish with it, and think about a lot of things. I think about things I like, things that are relevant. For instance, say I leave in the guitar buzz before a guitar solo starts. Someone will say: 'I wonder why he didn't cut the buzz off? It wouldn't have been that hard.' It's like: 'Well, does anybody think that maybe I actually heard that, in all my multiple listening sessions in a studio environment without outside noises?' Maybe you don't like it and that's fine. Honestly, that's fine. But all these things are considered. It's not like it's a wrong chord that I've left in on purpose.
Why do you go for that kind of sound?
These are approaches to songs where you try to elicit some kind of emotion, whether it's energy, raw, passion, despondency, sadness or excitement. People have the audacity to come on to my Facebook page and then give me things like: ‘Why don't you turn the compressor off'?' Well, it just so happens that I really love the sound of a compressor smashed. I love Led Zeppelin's drum sound when they did that. I love what Dave Cobb does with the Rival Sons, how those drums are smashed. I love when vocals are smashed. If people are listening to my records and they're not liking that then they won't ask me to mix and produce their records. It's pretty straightforward, you know.
Do you think a time will come when you throw Joe the ultimate curve ball and tell him to go and work with another producer?
I've been very clear with him, on many occasions: 'If you ever feel like this is stagnant and you need to get out of it then you have my blessing. Off you go.’ But I don't think so.
But if he has his comfort zone, isn’t it more likely you'll recognise that stagnation and have to tell him it's become too comfortable?
I don't think I ever make it comfortable for him. I'm busy talking to him about our next session and I've already got him uncomfortable. He starts ignoring my texts and not listening to me. So I think there's a healthy discomfort between us.
What is the next session?
We're looking forward to the next record, it'll be in the next couple of years. We look ahead quite a long way because he's on the road a lot.
Can you reveal any details about that album?
Well, if I get my way, which I've been known to, I really want to push him. I want to get to a place where we're actually making history, as opposed to just doing songs. I want him to feel like he can be a Cream of the 21st century, where he can play songs and they can go outside and challenge all sorts of things. We need to take this music and his immense talent and try and create something. I don't know what it is, I don't know exactly what it's going to be. That's what I want to find. I'm trying to see if I can lock him away for a month instead of a short amount of time. But he's reluctant to give me a month.
You've said Joe is the best blues guitarist of his generation. What makes him top?
Well, he's a very intelligent man, for starters. And part of his intellect has been to garner a multitude of styles. He can play rock, mixolydian scales, jazz, country, bluegrass, so many different things. He sits down with a guitar and he's noodling, some of that stuff is just mind blowing. He's not held back by pentatonics or sixteenth timings or anything like that. Some of the timings he does are just crazy. He's obviously got some Eric Johnson influences in his playing, some Eric Clapton influences, and they've all kind of worked their way out so it's become a Bonamassa style.
Joe Bonamassa Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed June 29 2016 - DUBLIN Vicar Street
Thu June 30 2016 - DUBLIN Vicar Street
Sat July 02 2016 - PRESTON Hoghton Tower
Sun July 03 2016 - GLASGOW Clyde Auditorium
Tue July 05 2016 - BRISTOL Colston Hall
Thu July 07 2016 - LONDON Old Royal Naval College
Fri July 08 2016 - NEWARK Newark Castle
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