A 60's blues guitarist who played with John Mayall and Shaky Vic by the name of Laurence Staig, recently contacted me about his encounter with this web site. Since he is good friends with Max, he suggested a phone chat. Max agreed and recently one Saturday afternoon (evening their time...hope it didn't spoil you appetite guys! Hah!), I wound up on the tele with them. We went more or less chronologically from 1970 and spent about an hour with Max recalling his 70's days with Jeff. There were several things we didn't have time to delve into like the '75 Midnight Special with Billy Preston show, Max's involvement with BBA 2 at CBS in London or much about Hummingbird but hopefully we will have a chance to talk to him again one day. Meanwhile, what follows is a narrative of the conversation I had with Max on Saturday, February 5th, 2000. Max's words are in italics.
I had been told that Max loves talking about food so I desperately searched for an ice breaker and recalled the old Noel Redding (Hendrix's bassist) story about Jeff jamming at Noel's house back in 1970 and sneaking off to the kitchen to gobble down bacon sandwiches and hiding that detail from his then girlfriend Celia who had turned Jeff onto his eversince passion for vegetarianism. Max didn't remember the bacon sandwiches but did remember going over to Noel's with Jeff. "I thought well he (Noel) is going to be fantastic having played with Hendrix. I was expecting someone of Jeff's caliber but all I remember is how terrible Noel was!"
When asked about how Max first came to meet Jeff, Max explained, "I used to work on the docks in London. I had been playing professionally for only about six months. I knew Clive Chaman and I lived up the road from where they were rehearsing. Clive introduced me to Jeff. I'd never heard of Jeff before that." I hope Alex Ligertwood reads this next part and takes a different perspective of his departure from the second Jeff Beck Group just after the original 'Rough And Ready' tapes had been absconded away by Mickey Most and Peter Grant. Max recalls, "I remember Alex sang. The record company heard the band and said that they didn't like Alex. We all thought he was fantastic. It made Jeff uneasy and Clive knew Bob Tench from the band Gonzalez down at the Speakeasy. Bobby recut all the vocals." So it wasn't really Ernest Chapman who wanted Alex canned. He just got the unpleasant assignment of doing it. Also interesting is the fact that since Bob Tench recut all the vocals, there must also be an unreleased version of 'Ice Cream Cakes' with him on vocals because that was to have been the original Ligertwood era Lp although in a slightly different form as Ben E. King had written it and given it to Alex! Max further clarified the stolen tapes incident. "All of Jeff's royalties went straight to Mickie Most. When Ernest found that out he went to CBS and had all of the royalties sent straight to Jeff." Most of course then retaliated by swiping Jeff's future source of income (the Lp) in a last feeble attempt to control Jeff. WE all know what happened next. Ernest landed Jeff the most one sided contract in rock history in terms of time artist fulfillment around the same night Jeff was sloshed and coerced into the 'Music From Free Creek' (Jeff calls it 'Music From Ripoffsville') project. Max Middleton had explained in Steve Rosen's 'Beck Book' (out of print in Japan and injuncted from ever being published in the U.S.) that everyone in the band were talked into giving all the song writing credits to Jeff because they all had publishing contracts with different companies but it wasn't clear why they all agreed to it. Max clarified this by saying, "When we all first met we all had seperate publishing contracts except for Jeff. Rather than have five different publishing credits, Ernest said that we would get a better deal financially if everything went under one name. Looking back though I don't know if that was the case." Fans have long been guessing the exact number of Lp's that Jeff owes Sony. Even before the last Lp there was some confusion on the part of Jeff's management when it was informed to me that it possibly might be the tenth of a twelve record deall Max readily offered to clear up the confusion by saying that Jeff originally signed a ten record deal. He explains, "The intent was to crank out like two Lp's a year for five years until 1975. The BBA deal was a seperate two record deal with only one Lp having been released." So here it is for the record. Let's for simplicity's sake combine the BBA contract with the other one. That makes a twelve record deal with the following count;
The Jeff Beck Group MkII's second Lp had a much more pointed focus. I asked Max whether that had anything to do with the fact that they by this time had been practicing together for a longer period of time. "No, I don't think so." Max said. "It was more of a case of Steve Cropper (the producer) had his own way of doing things. He made us do tunes over and over again."
Max was eager to talk about Stevie Wonder and 'Superstition'. Although nothing drastically new was garnered from his account, he did lend some excellent flavor as to his punctual and factual recollection. "I'll tell you exactly what happened" he said. "We played at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Stevie was the support act for us. The record company told Stevie how much Jeff admired him. We had played the heck out of his Lp 'Music Of My Mind' and a deal was struck for Jeff to play on a couple of tracks of Stevie's Lp in exchange for some material for us to record in New York. When we got to the studio, Stevie was already there with Malcolm Cecil. They literally had over 250 of Stevie's compositions on tape and started playing them for us. Jeff just said to Stevie, "Play me something funky." Steve said, "Go out and have a cup of tea and I'll see what I can do." We came back a couple of hours later and 'Superstitious' as it was released later by Stevie was basically done. We went back to the studio the next day and recorded a version of it with Stevie on Clavinet that has never seen the light of day. Some of the chords I wrote Stevie took and used later for brass parts he added later to his own version." It of course was the second version that got chopped up the next few days with erasures and overdubs by Kim Milford and Carmine Appice.
Max hung on of course to do the first tour with Jeff, Carmine, Tim Bogert and Kim Milford (replaced on the second half of the tour by Bob Tench) but even he was fired at first. "We were all given notice. It was either Ernest of Jeff who then asked me to go back out on tour."
'Blow By Blow' was originally a side project it turns out. According to Max, "Jeff decided to do a solo record primarily for his own amusement! He booked the studio and producer (George Martin). We recorded Monday and Tuesday, on Wednesday Carmine approached Jeff and said that the band was going to be called the 'Jeff Beck And Carmine Appice Band'. Jeff just turned around and said, "You're crazy!" Carmine then just slipped out and was gone the next day." It was Max who got Richard Bailey to sign up on drums although he was no stranger to bassist Phil Chenn who played with Richard frequently in the ever changing lineups of 'Gonzalez'. "I played with Richard on a session for Linda Lewis," Max offered. It should be noted for the record here that 'Gonzalez' did date back to 1970. Max said, "'Gonzalez' was started in 1970 by Bobby Tench, a bass player and a drummer from Guyanna. They played Santana style funk. Any musician could go in and jam." I asked Max what parts of 'Blow By Blow' were done live. "A lot of it was recorded without Jeff by the three of us. Jeff would then come in and do the overdubs at night. 'Freeway Jam', 'Scatterbrain' and parts of 'Diamond Dust' though were done live and strings were added by George Martin later on."
Max's keyboards were also in demand for Jeff's next huge success, 'Wired'. "That Lp was recorded basically in one studio. It was mostly Michael Walden's stuff. There wasn't enough material for the Lp and Jan Hammer was brought in to finish it up." I discussed an outtake of 'Sophie' from the 'Wired' where Max has a lovely intro not on the Lp version. "Yeah, there was an extended introduction I played on but it was thought to be too long so they cut it out." Max explained.
George Martin, having been familiar to Max from both 'Blow By Blow' and 'Wired', hired the remnants of Jeff's 'Blow By Blow' tour band (Max, Bernard Purdie and Wilbur Bascomb) to do the lion's share of the 'Sgt. Pepper's' movie soundtrack. I asked if Jeff's small contribution (eight bars at the intro of 'You Only Give Me Your Money') was done live with the band. "No," Max answered, "Jeff did it as an overdub."
Meanwhile, having waited for Jeff to do another Lp or tour, Max formed 'Hummingbird' with Bob Tench, Clive Chaman and a succession of guitarists and drummers ending up with Robert Awhai on guitar and Bernard Purdie on drums. The second lineup was on Hummingbird's second Lp and featured Max's composition 'Led Boots' complete with vocals which Jeff didn't use on his 'Wired' version. Did Jeff ever play gigs or record with Hummingbird? The definative answer comes from two sources. First, from web site comrade Jeff Little who talked to Bernard Purdie before Christmas, Bernard verified that Jeff did jam at several of Hummingbird's live club gigs. Secondly, Max said that Jeff "played on one or two recordings but nothing came of it." Hmmm, more unreleased Jeff Beck stuff!
Jeff Beck of course went on tour with Jan Hammer, then Stanley Clarke before settling down to record 'There And Back' with Tony Hymas. Max Middleton has remained very busy over the years most recently having worked with Chris Rae and has off and on done things with former John Mayall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor. Max doew still see Jeff "a couple of times a year." They of course did team up with former Yardbird members Chris Dreja, Paul Samwell-Smith and Jim McCarty for the first Box Of Frogs project in Christmas time of 1983. I asked Max if he had seen Jeff recently. He replied, "We had a play before his last Lp ('Who Else?') but not recorded. Jeff does always need writers since he doesn't write material."
When asked about what he likes most about Jeff's guitar playing, Max was quick to offer, "There are a lot of rockers out there that can rock but not like Jeff. He's unique. One minute he can be playing something really beautiful and the next minute he'll be playing something totally schizophrenic." I turned the tables on Max and asked him what he thinks Jeff liked about Max's playing that drew Jeff to him through the years. A very modest and witty Max replied, "I think it was a case of Jeff not knowing too many other musicians." Hah! Of course in reference to Jeff's penchant for privacy.
To Laurence and Max a heartfelt thanks for all of us. Readers can gain more historical knowledge of the 70's era with Max by having a look at back issues of The Bulletin and The Fanzine and by reading Annette Carson's unauthorized biography of Jeff, "Crazy Fingers" published in South Africa with further info found elsewhere on this web site. Bon apetit Max! Be seeing you, Dick Wyzanski
Clive Chaman represented state of the art bass guitar musicianship in the early seventies. His ability to write, play and bring musicians together caught the eyes and ears of many of England's top musical acts at the time including Jeff Beck. What came of their relationship was at times brilliant but unfortunately towards the end at odds with the musical direction of the band.
I got ahold of Clive's number through a friend and small world as it is found out that he now lives in semi-retirement (he goes to school) about two blocks from my in-law's house in Miami, Florida. I got ahold of him one afternoon and he made it clear that he didn't want to be part of any other article (I had originally intended to combine his and Max's story into one) and would limit his conversation primarily towards the music because as he put it, "Jeff Beck already has all the rock fame and fortune."
We will endeavor in later articles to focus on the music he made with Jeff as well as 'Hummingbird'. A face to face interview has been agreed upon at a later date. We will respect his wish not to be quoted in a story about Jeff. However, in narrative form I will recall what he did say regarding those years as he did speak freely about certain things.
Clive Chaman came over to England in the late sixties from the West Indies. Starting off as a guitar player he switched over to bass to explore new possibilites with the instrument as well as arranging and writing music. The BBC soon capitalized on this talent and would frequently call upon him to touch up and finish things for various acts. Musicians and singers like Linda Lewis and Cat Stevens found him invaluable. At the same time he was seminal in the brew of funk, fusion and jazz ideas that were spawning nightly in his small club venues with 'Gonzalez'. About ready to embark on a major Cat Stevens tour, Clive had been introduced to Jeff through Bob Marley's guitar player who knew Jeff was looking not only for a bass player but someone who could write material. Clive had a listen to Jeff who he had never heard before and admitted that Jeff could play the hell out of the guitar. Armed with an impending record deal, tours of America and promises of big money from the publishing end of things, Clive dropped Cat and signed on with Jeff.
Clive brought Max into the band as well as Bob Tench when Clive Davis, then mogul at CBS, decided he hated Alex Ligertwood. Clive agrees with Max that Alex Ligertwood (not to take anything away from Bobby) was a great vocalist. The majority of 'Rough And Ready' was written by Clive with help from Max and even rearranged Alex's 'Situation' and Ben E. King's 'Ain't As Sweet As You' (later to become 'Ice Cream Cakes') enough to warrant them being classified as new compositions.
After talking with Clive I think that of all the band members, he feels the most left out when it came to all the rewards including money, recognition etc. but he also must realize that at that juncture he may have never had the chance to be on two hit Lp's if it weren't for Jeff and the tours that went with it for American exposure. Bass players, no matter how good they were then and how much material they wrote, were basically thought of as sidemen. Look how much John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin influenced the entire UK pop recording industry in the sixties! Not to be redundant, but again refer to Cozy Powell's famous remark about how you could have anyone onstage and it wouldn't matter, it was Jeff that they came to see.
We did talk at some length about the end of the band and it was here that Clive gave his most startling revelation that had been kept secret for twenty-eight years between those involved. That was about what caused the last rift between Jeff and Clive in the studio the day before they all got fired and Jeff hooked up with Timmy and Carmine. All that was ever been written about it at the time was that the bass player had a row with Jeff in the studio in front of the Motown people and that was it.
As Clive told it, things started to become unglued when Stevie Wonder was signed to be a support act for Jeff at Cobo Hall in Detroit. While true Jeff and Stevie did admire each other, there was a whole big backroom massive game plan by Motown and CBS to nurse that relationship as Clive put it, like two giant pandas mating. A deal was worked out that Jeff would record two tracks on Stevie's record, as Stevie was desperately trying to get into mainstream white America's pocketbooks, and in turn Stevie would give Jeff the hit song he wanted to be able to take the success of the 'Orange' Lp and cross over to the black audiences and make enough huge money to be able to make that band a household name which his contemporaries Eric and Jimmy had already done. Stevie's set at Cobo was so outrageous that according to Clive, Jeff was sweating bullets. Clive's viewpoint at the time was to try to further their own show and not worry about Stevie's. As Clive put it, there was a roadie that shall we say turned out the proverbial lights in the hall for an hour to get the crowd focused on something else rather than what they had just seen. It obviously worked as Jeff and his band finally came on and got a hugely warm reception from the crowd.
When they got to New York to record, as you will recall from Max's article, Malcolm Cecil, the synth programming genius was there with them. Clive told us that Bob Margueloff was also there. Those two, as Clive tells it, started to butter up to Jeff with ideas to exclusion of Clive and Bobby Tench. When 'Superstition' was finally recorded with Stevie on clavinet, Clive told us that Jeff was worried about it not sounding like Stevie would do it. Clive's viewpoint was that it was all right that way and that it shouldn't sound like a Stevie song. No one knows what would have happened if Jeff had been more sure in saying that was it, put it in the can, and release it. However, everyone is sure what happened next. According to Clive, Stevie played that version over the phone to Motown and they told Stevie that it was going to be 'his' first and of course he did release the version, as Max told us, that was basically the same take as the demo done the day before with the band.
The next day they were scheduled to do more recording. Clive picked up Bobby and went down to the studio only to find the doors locked. After a few 'What the hell is going on here'(s), they finally were let in and immediately witnessed Jeff SINGING on another Wonder written tune. Malcolm Cecil and Bob Margueloff were trying to produce a Jeff Beck hit record.....without the rest of the band. Clive said he told Jeff that if he wanted to sing he should tell the band but at the same time that he (Clive) would not be happy if that was the direction of the band. A heated argument ensued. NO ONE THREW ANY PUNCHES. (That would be done by a later bass player!) Hah! It was more or less civilized but knowing both participants probably very sarcastic. Feeling like Judas, as Clive put it, Bob Margueloff tried then to butter up to him but Clive would have none of it. According to Clive, the next day he sat down with Ernest Chapman and helped write up the separation papers that each band member got as it was clear at this point Jeff did not want the band to continue and indeed had already phoned up Timmy and Carmine.
About the report, confirmed by Max Middleton and Bernard Purdie, that Jeff did play live with Hummingbird and record an unreleased track or two......Clive tells us that Bobby Tench remained a drinking buddy of Jeff's at the pubs in England. When Hummingbird was recording one of their Lp's, Bobby invited Jeff down to the studio to jam. Clive said he had no problem with that but when it was found out that Bobby wanted those tracks to be on the Lp, Clive put a stop to it reflecting on what they all had experienced at the breakup of Jeff's band with them. Jeff also did, as Max told us, play live with Hummingbird one time........that being at the most revered of club at the beginning of Hummingbird's European tour......The Marquee Club in London.
On Thursday, April 20, 2000, I met with Clive Chaman at his home in North Miami, Florida. I arrived at the predesignated time, 8:00 PM, and was greeted by his girlfriend Hillary and baby son Aaron. Clive showed around 8:30. After a few introductory pleasantries I remarked to Clive that he only made me wait a short time where waiting to see Jeff was usually an hour. Clive said, "Only an hour? You're lucky!" Hah!
The following is Part I of a 4 part interview, totally unrehearsed and unedited.
Dick Wyzanski: Clive, how did your memorable bass lines and riffs come about in both the Jeff Beck Group and Hummingbird? Clive Chaman: It was easy enough to come up with a bass line. A lot of times I didn't even have to come up with a line. There were guys there like Bob Tench who could literally say to me...because I knew Bob for so long...we both came from the same place, Trinidad, so I knew him from quite young...and he would say to me, "Clive, just mouth something off or hum something and I'll take it from there." So a lot of times it was easy enough to envisage somebody elses ideas. DW: So you and Bobby would bounce things off each other then lay it down on a track so to speak? CC: Not in a deliberate sense. I mean that was a necesary part of any arrangement. But what I mean is that it was easy enough. Anyone can come up with lines if you are a competent musician but it's not all times that things work. Sometimes something might work but it doesn't mean that you like it at the time or it doesn't feel appropriate. Or someone else might sing something else. Bobby would just sing something off the top of his head what he thought was a line and then he would leave it for me to interpret in my own way and make it fit. Sometimes that's much better than your trying to come up with your own idea all the time. A lot of times that helped because once we had a working platform in terms of bass and keyboards in particular....because in those days if you can remember RIFFS were everything, you built your songs on riffs so the bassman was THE person at the time whether it was...da da, da da, da da da (sings the bass line to 'Sunshine Of Your Love'), that was a melody! DW: Jack Bruce!, Jack Bruce! CC: Yes! or, (sings bassline to 'Them Changes'), that's what was happening then so you had to have bass players that thought in a very melodic way. Fortunately for me that came easy because I was primarily a guitarist so it made switching to the bass easy. When I got to England I was quite young. Because everyone else was playing guitar I didn't feel like competing. That's how I started to play the bass. I had a melodic sense anyway and what encouraged me to play the bass was a gentleman by the name of James Jamerson. He was just about everything as far as I was concerned, that a bass player or a young bass player should have listened to. He was the catalyst that made the bass guitar what it eventually became. If you can remember prior to that it came in as a substitute of the upright bass because that had got so obsolete. Where would you have gone and played upright at what rock concert? As time and technology evolved that was the first thing to go. Everyone replaced it with a bass guitar. In the first instance it used to be played with a thumb position until it became the two finger position so it had it's own evolution but it was only a replacement for the upright. DW: And then you had some guys that switched from guitar to bass like Ron Wood. CC: That helped! DW: And some others that didn't have the technique to play with two fingers so they played with picks which at the time with loud rock....it would have fit in. CC:Well, that was one of the helps or assistances to me in that sense. Then I started listening to James Jamerson. What happened was that all this Motown music started to flood the world and for the first time it was happening on bass and drums. This was something new! This was some- thing revolutionary so to speak and I was hearing bass lines. I was just really freaking out after this guy! I was picking up line after line and realized this guy was everything. He didn't have in the end a bass lick that I didn't know. That's how much I was influenced by him. He was so melodic. The thing is you can go and jam with just a bass, a guitarist and a drum and have the whole place on fire....because everyone would be dancing at the end of the day to the bass and the drum and it's all because of this guy. He had taken the instrument from where it was previously, a surrogate for and upright, and brought it right to the forefront. It influenced a lot of rock players eventually because this thing became such an out front image in the end you could end up playing and singing like Jack Bruce. He did a hell of a job singing and playing bass! I don't think Sting has come anywhere near him in terms of that ability. I mean Jack was primarily a bass player but when he sang and played he did a lot more than Sting. Sting literally followed the chord structure of the song that he would write. DW: Jack would take chances and bend notes. CC: Well, he would play riffs! And sing! And that's not easy. I still can't do that....not that I want to! (Chuckles) DW: Clive, from your previous conversation you told us about getting involved with Jeff Beck through Bob Marley's guitar player. You of course had a lot of gigs and sessions at the time. Eventually came the first rehearsal. We're really interested in what types of things you guys first jammed on. CC:Let me see if I can give a small historic event without being too long....I was really doing quite a lot of sessions. I never wanted to read but I was doing a lot of bass sessions. I was always called by what we called in England THE FIXERS. They were guys who would call you in to do the bass, rhythm and string sections. DW: The BBC right? CC: Yes...The string guys were always together. The men and women always had their own little scene. The rhythm section were always guys in jeans and sneakers...totally different from the string guys. But I was being called for a lot of sessions is '68, '69 because new blood was needed to be injected I suppose. THE FIXERS would call everybody in their books for sessions say for a big recording duo. They would call whatever guys that needed to be called to do the session.Mr. Clive Chaman DW: I believe prior to that John Paul Jones had something to do that realm. He seemed to show up on a lot of BBC and session stuff. CC: Yes, yes....Well, I was basically a session man and I was doing quite well. One day I got home after a session and I saw my wife, who was pregnant with my first child, sitting on the carpet. Cat Stevens was in the room There was another young guy and my brother sitting there waiting on me to come home. Max Middleton was there as well because my brother, myself and Max had a little group called 'Flare' which we had started a few years back. We were still going on at the time as a matter of fact. Cat Stevens said he had just written this song called "Oh Baby It's A Wild World". He had just come out of the hospital and he needed to get back on the scene againg and he was looking for a rhythm section. Cat was not going to sing that song, he was going to get Jimmy Cliff to sing it and he needed a proper rhythm section. That's what happened. He came up with this song and we just sat there in my brother's apartment and we messed around with it. Cat Stevens liked it very much and he said the next day, "Guys, I have just about enough money to do this thing so let's go down and put it on a backing track." So he literally used the group Flare which was us plus a drummer by the name of Ed Spevock who played with a group called 'Jody's Grind'. Well, we went in, did the session, and at the end of the recording we were messing around because we going to fade out so I left a bass figure, a funkish kind of bass figure and it wound up on the record. The song went to number 1 in England with Jimmy Cliff singing it. Right there Cat Stevens said, "I want you to be the bass player in my group." After about three weeks of rehearsing constantly we had worked out what percentages we would all get and things like that. Then one day I got a phone call from Cozy, Cozy Powell. He said, "Clive, you don't know me but I heard about you through Julian Marvin (Bob Marley's guitarist) and he told me about you." You see I played in a group with Julian as well called "Salt And Pepper" with the same drummer Ed Spevock. Anyway, Cozy told me, "Just come down and jam." because I told him I couldn't join another band right away because I was already with Cat Stevens and doing my sessions. We turned up at a salon, a little hair-doing salon! I don't know where Jeff found this place (laughs) with no equipment. The worst of equipment. Jeff just about had a guitar. It was glued together in about three pieces. (More laughter) He wasn't long out of the hospital from his head injury. Anyways, he started to play. There was no set material to play. We were just jamming, to be quite honest theoretically I was more advanced then than them. (Jeff and Cozy.) Jeff was never a theoretical player, Jeff is a natural player. Don't ask Jeff about chords or anything like that. He is just a natural player. It's very instinctual all the time. When we started to play, Jeff said to me, "Christ, you play like James Jamerson." I said, "Yes, because that's the person I literally cloned myself on." Then Jeff said, "Well, I've literally just come back from Motown not too long ago and you sound just like him." Right there he told me, "Look, play with me." What really blew my mind was that I really didn't know Jeff that well but I had to back and tell my brother, "I just played with a guy (Jeff) that is one of the funkiest guitar players I've ever heard! And he wants me to to into the studio soon!" My brother said, "What are you going to do? You already told Cat Stevens what's happening. Your first gig is going to start in about two or three weeks." But with Steve, Cat Stevens, it was a very folky situation. He wrote these folky songs....very nice....and we sat in a folky manner. The only thing we didn't do was sit crosslegged on the cushions! (Laughs) DW:If I'm not mistaken, for a while he was produced by Paul Samwell Smith the former bassist for the Yardbirds, so there's a connection right there! CC: Right, right (laughter). Anyway, we were doing songs like "I'm Being Followed By A Moon Shadow" and "Tea For The Tillerman" and that stuff. But as much as I would stuck with because he was very good to me....I just couldn't, what was happening was I heard Jeff. This was me because now I could open up. I can play like me! So I had to take a chance and tell Steve that I was going to leave. He was very upset. I had to tell him it was a genuine thought of mine. I wouldn't go with anyone else to make anymore money or any sort of thing like that. I was genuinely leaving because this guy Jeff Beck was up my street! Jeff was up my street from my perspective as a bass player. DW: So when you heard him he was funky and you, him and Cozy seemed to click. What were you guys playing? Ninth chords? Sly And The Family Stone stuff? CC: That's exactly it! That's absolutely it! There were no songs as such...a couple of Motown things Jeff remembered...a couple of Stevie Wonder things...or just like you said Sly And The Family Stone. Those were the days of riffs. Riffs were everything. You got off on it and you blew it out as far, as long as possible. Everybody just taking as many solos and hits and that is what we did. It clicked. There is no two ways about it. It clicked!
DW: The last time we talked to you Carmine, you were on the road with Edgar Winter.
Between that time and the CBA project what have you been up to as far as on the
road gigs?
CA: First did you know BBA I just went gold!!!! Well I have been recording and promoting
my Guitar Zeus projects.(see guitarzeus.net).....Which I hope to get Jeff on one day...
This is like my solo band project...it has Tony Franklin on bass, Kelly Keeling, vocals,
rhythm guitar,keys...and then got some of my guitarist friends..to put solos on the
songs..people like Brian May, Slash, Yngwie, Steve Morse,Neil Schon, Jennifer Batten
and more...I went on promotion tours in Japan...Europe...I did two international albums
featuring all well known guitarists from Europe ,America etc. Then I did a Guitar Zeus
Japan...which had very big name guitarist from Japan...that's when me and Char really
started planning the CBA thing....I also had a band with Tony Franklin...called Pearl
...me,Tony and a Japanese singer...and guitarist...Japanese manager etc.. Our first CD
in 1997 broke into the charts at #7 in Japan...we received a gold album for it and sold
out tours etc. I done two CDs and two tours in Japan...sold out as well....I also did
some MOVIE sountrack stuff.. A movie called DISH DOGS on Romance Classics Channel
June 26 11pm Eastern...and June 27 1:15 Eastern time...Also another movie which I appeared
in ...we wrote 6 songs and played in the movie with Roger Daltry, Denny Laine...then CBA
....ee did some Vanilla Fudge gigs in Japan and US in 1999.....
DW: You recorded Guitar Zeus and Jennifer Batten appeared on it, who of course is now working
with Jeff. How did you get her on it and comment on her contribution if you could.
CA: I forgot who turned me on to Jennifer...but she played on Guitar Zeus and on a video with
me and my brother Vinny called...DRUM WARS....Her playing on Guitar Zeus was GREAT!!! she
has a great sound and touch....I love her playing....on the video we had me and Vinny,
Jenny and Alphonso Johnsonit was great!!!! She played fantastic....
DW: I guess Jeff didn't go for your remixed version of the Last BBA show 'Livin Alone'
to be on the Zeus LP as you had hoped. What happened there?
CA: I never pursued it ...I wanted him on a new track....but timing was wrong...he didn't
do it....
DW: As far as you and Timmy, who approached who as far as getting back together and how did
Char get involved? How did you decide which old BBA tunes to incorporate in the set?
CA: Well as I said ...I have been goin to Japan alot to record and tour...When I was there
in 1998 PEARL did a TV show with CHAR...I had heard CHAR was great.....We played
Superstion BBA stlye PEARL and CHAR together on TV in front of millions of people......
BBA is HUGE IN Japan....if we ever went there BBA would play TOKYO DOME 50,000 people.....
So at the TV show I mentioned to him about my guitar Zeus CDs and I would love him to
play on one.....Also when we rehearsed for the TV show with Char. He knew all the
songs from my past not just BBA but he knew Cactus,Fudge etc...Then in Feb '99 the
Vanilla Fudge played in Tokyo ...Char came down and we jammed Superstition with Char
and the Fudge...it was great!!! So we started kidding backstage and saying we could
call the band CBA or ABC...if we ever played as a trio. Then rummors started all over
the Japanese music scene about ABC or CBA...and when I recorded Char on my Guitar Zeus
CD in March-April 1999 we confirmed the idea to do a winter tour....We picked the songs
we thought would sound good and we also went by song popularity in Japan...We did
'Satified' because me and Tim liked that song and it was sort of a hit off all the
BBA bootleg CDs in Japan...we also did 'Laugh Along'..or..'Laughing Lady'...as it
was titled on the bootleg...we have that in the can for future....
DW: Too much cannot be written about the times you and Jeff drove around England listening
to fusion and opening up Jeff's mind to the possibilities of an instrumental career.
Can you detail as much as you can remember besides Spectrum the lps and artists you
guys listened to and what things Jeff would comment on them and what things he liked
or didn't care for as much?
CA: Well it was fun in those days...I brought out on the road the stuff I was into at the
time...Cobham Spectrum, Mahavisna orchestra, those were the two mostly played by me
and Jeff..we just talked about doing something cool like that on BBA II so out of all
that JIZZ WIZZ was born..I think this crossed the Bridge from BBA to BLOW BY BLOW...
which I was on also...we also had Solid Lifter another fusionish instrumental....The
intro to ALL IN YOUR MIND on BBA II was in 9/8 timing...same drum riff as Scatterbrain,
which was born from a drum riff I had and a scale that Jeff had...He liked Specrum better
I think than Mahavisna...it was more practical...Mahavishnu was very complicated etc...
He really like the track on Spectrum with Tommy Bolin on it....
DW: Little has also been written about your guys attempt to bring in Sly Stone to get the
2nd lp going again. Can you describe in as much detail as you remember about when in the
scheme of things this was and what things were jammed on and anything else you remember
about that week.
CA: That whole deal was not too clear...we went all the way to Sausalito to at the Record Plant
...we brought our total equipment set up, road crew and the band ...set up shop at a hotel
...stayed there for a week and we barely saw Sly...he was so out of it on drugs. I don't
think he knew we were even there...apart for some quick jam he put on tape and asked Jeff
to play along....I am not sure if Jeff played or not...but we had a great time with
all the groupies etc...But we were very pissed off that we went all that way and all the
expense to get there ...and Sly acted as if we weren't there at all....so we left and went
home....
DW: Have you seen or spoken to Jeff lately ? If so anything musically related?
CA: I talked to him maybe a month or so ago .I asked him if he knew that BBA went gold in
America...he said no he didn't ...so, we talked about where's the gold record??? from
the label..kidding around...just small talk...
DW: Your previous manager the late Phil Basile, we believe to have had an acetate of the four
Blow BY Blow original tracks that you were on. Phil Chenn's mother supposedly has them
in her attic in London but Phil thinks it's a waste to go get them because he thinks
(mistakenly) that they have already been bootlegged (guitarist Pete Carr tracks from his
solo lp) Do you think they will ever surface?
CA: I don't know /// I can't find my version either....
DW: If you could get together with Jeff right now and make new music together what do you
think it would sound like?
CA: Cool R&B kind of fusion rock ...with heavy cool groves with time signatures and sound
and drumloops...maybe even some rap verses!!!
DW: Anything else you want to talk about or say to the fans?
CA: Check out my GUITAR ZEUS CDS they are cool....Thanks for your support over the
years....XOXO
DW: Carmine, as always thanks. Check out Carmine's website at his link on our page!
This was my first face to face meeting with Clive but I knew from talking to him on the phone he was a very pleasant and amiable chap. When we first sat down at our front row table, I was scanning the stage and became worried that Robert might not be there this night. From left to right there was keyboard setup, Mick's guitars, drums and the a bass setup. I didn't see any second guitar rig. I told Clive of my concern's and he said, 'Hey, it don't matter, it's nice to get out and see a show.'
Clive and I talked for about fifteen minutes. We did discuss some Jeff Beck stuff but not too much, mainly about the last days of the group and his recent settlement with Equator Ltd. over past royalties, but we spent most of the time talking about his old session days and his other groups ie; Hummingbird, Cozy Powell's Hammer and Brian Auger's Oblivion Express. We also talked about the steel drum which is an instrument he has been taking up lately, I said, 'Hey you have to show me how to play that thing, I have one of them in my closet and old Jamaican friend gave to me years ago!' About this time I saw the sound guy at the mixing board and I left Clive to ask him if Robert Ahwai was indeed playing tonight. He said, 'Yes, but he's playing bass...the regular bass player (Michael Bailey) couldn't make it.' I went back to Clive and told him this and he grinned.
Soon after, the stage lights came up and the band walked on stage. The first person to walk on was the keyboard player....Clive's face instantly lit up and he said, 'There's Max!' Sure enough that was Max Middleton making his way to the left hand side of the stage towards his keyboards. Clive got up and walked over to the edge of stage while Max was sitting down. Max looked over and his jaw dropped then a broad smile came over his face and he shook Clive's hand. As Clive made his way back to our table Robert Ahwai came to the front of the stage and grabbed Clive's hand and said, 'Oh my God, I'm just filling in on bass tonight.'
The first set started and Clive mentioned to me that he used to like playing clubs like this with Brian Auger's Oblivion Express. "You get a chance to 'spread out', it's not as scripted as playing a concert." Mick played a solid set, about 60% of time on slide guitar. His style has changed a little since I saw him last, when he plays slide he will add in fingered notes as well into the riff. He also plays almost exclusively with his fingers, no pick...hmmm, that sounds like someone we know.
Almost immediately after the first set was over as I was looking in another direction, I heard a little commotion behind me. Max and Robert had come out to see Clive and as I turned around Max and Clive were in a bear hug that lasted 15 or 20 seconds. Max and Robert asked Clive what he was doing there and he said, "Oh Bill dragged me out." The three old friends talked for about 10 minutes about everything from the tour and how long they would be out to how all their kids, wives, ex-wives, brothers, etc. were. They had some catching up to do. As for the Mick Taylor tour, Max and Robert told me they were going to be out 5 weeks and that Robert would be on bass for the first 10 gigs and then the regular bassist, Michael Bailey would join up with them. Also they had a new drummer Martin Ditcham who had never played with the band before and this was the first gig of the tour. Mick was a little annoyed at times during the first set like when he missed the cuts on 'Tore Down' and played through them but over all he did a great job considering. It should also be pointed out that all of these guys were totally jet-lagged out. They had only come in to Miami in the wee hours the night before and they had to fly in from London via Chicago!
The second set started and three or four songs in the band played a tune called 'Goin' South'. This was by far the 'jazziest' piece of the night and where Max played his longest solo. During it I looked over to Clive who was looking at Max and smiling and said, "That sounds like the old stuff doesn't it?" During the set, Mick started to mention his jet-lag and although it seemed if he was dragging a bit he pushed on. The second set ended and everyone gave a standing ovation for the band to return. After a few minutes they did and played a great version of Dylan's 'Blind Willie McTell'. At the end of the show though, Mick showed his frustration and exhaustion by tossing what looked like to be a brand new Les Paul Classic (with nice tiger stripes) about 10 feet into corner of the stage behind Max. I just turned to Clive and said, "Whoa!"
About 15 minutes after the show Max came out again to see Clive followed soon after by Robert. Again the three of them talked for about a half hour catching up and giving each other new addresses and phone numbers. I did mention the little Les Paul throwing incident to Max he just shrugged and said, "Oh, you know, guitar players." Then Clive asked me if I wanted to get going but I asked Max if there was a chance he could just get me back into the band's dressing room to meet Mick. At the time there was a line outside of people to meet Mick and have him sign autographs. So he said, "Sure" and Clive and I followed him around a back way into the dressing room. Max got us by the lines and security and I shook Mick's hand, told him how much I enjoyed the show and asked him how long he'd been playing without a pick. "Oh, about 7 years" he said. Then Clive shook Mick's hand and as he did he turned to Max who said "This is Clive Chaman". Mick said, "I know you! You're the guy with the happy face." I have no idea what Mick meant by that except that Clive did look happy that night to see his old friends. We then met the drummer, Martin who knew Clive instantly, "Yeah I used to go into your record shop in Soho!" We all stayed and chatted for maybe for another ten minutes and as we were ready to leave the capper to night occured. All the while we were talking in the rear of the dressing room, security was shuffling people in and out to meet Mick and have him sign things, the usual old Stones things or his solo albums. As we were leaving a guy came into the dressing room and said, "I want to see the keyboard player" and passed Mick by and came to the part of the room where I, Clive, Max, Robert and Martin were standing. In his hand was a Jeff Beck 'Orange' CD which he wanted Max to sign. After he signed it I said, "You ought to get Clive to sign it too." "Yes, he's on that too." chimed in Robert. Max handed the CD over to Clive who autographed it and I looked over to this guy with a slightly puzzled look on his face. I said, "That's Clive Chaman." The guy was taken aback and just said, "Wow." Bill Armstrong
What follows are the only English translations available of these interviews, the first is Chris' 1999 'Who Else?' interview, the second 'You Had It Coming' interview will be posted on the page in late November out of deference to 'Player' who has a lot of Japanese readers who can speak and read English. And now without further ado, let's turn things over to Chris Gill.
Jeff Beck
Who Else!
By Chris Gill
It has been 10 years since Jeff Beck released his last collection of original music, Guitar Shop. While he has kept busy recording a soundtrack (Frankie's House), a tribute to Gene Vincent's Blue Caps (Crazy Legs) and covers for a variety of tribute albums (Muddy Water Blues with Paul Rodgers, "Manic Depression" on Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix and "A Day in the Life" for George Martin's In My Life album) as well as guesting on albums by John McLaughlin, Kate Bush, Roger Waters and Brian May, Beck has kept his fans waiting much too long for new material. While his tour with Carlos Santana in 1995 was a welcome appearance, the lack of new material (he performed only one new song on some occasions) was frustrating for fans who were eager to see him move ahead.
But with the release of Who Else!, the wait is finally over, and, best of all, the wait was worth it. This collection of 11 new instrumental tunes is one of the most potent and vital efforts that Beck has ever released. Many of the songs are supercharged with rhythms inspired by the electronic dance music of the Prodigy and Roni Size's Reprazent, but, as Beck's fiery, aggressive playing shows, this album is no half-hearted effort to cash in on current musical trends. The inspiration rings true from the very first notes of "What Mama Said" through the trance-like "Psycho Sam," the space-age funk of "THX138" and the club worthy "Hip-Notica."
Who Else! is more than Beck's tip of the hat to modern dance music, however. "Declan" is a moving Celtic ballad, and "Another Place" is an inspiring solo performance that shows that Beck can still come up with impressive and innovative new sounds. The one-chord jam "Space for the Papa" shows that Beck can work wonders even without the support of a melodic chord progression, and "Blast From the East" shows Beck taking the inspiration of the Bulgarian Women's Choir, which he first explored on "Where Were You" and "Two Rivers" on Guitar Shop, to new avenues.
Beck started work on this album as far back as late 1996 with Steve Lukather as producer, but most of that material was scrapped when Beck felt dissatisfied with the results. When keyboardist and long-time collaborator Tony Hymas showed up with a few new compositions, Beck decided to form a band with former Michael Jackson guitarist Jennifer Batten (who played keyboard parts on MIDI guitar), bassist Randy Hope-Taylor (who formerly worked with Basia and R. Kelly) and drummer Steve Alexander (from Duran Duran). The four-piece band went on tour in Italy and Germany in the summer of 1998, trying out the new material on unsuspecting audiences. Several of the performances were recorded, and some of that material ended up on the finished album.
After the tour, Beck and his band went directly into the studio and recorded for three months from September to December, 1998. Whereas Beck had some hand in writing most of the material on his former albums, this time most of the material came from other writers. Tony Hymas penned six of the songs appearing on the final album, and Beck recorded songs by Donal Lunny ("Declan") and Jan Hammer, who performed on keyboards and drums with Jeff on his song "Even Odds." But although Beck's name appears on only three songs, his unique tone and touch is evident throughout the album. Like Miles Davis or Charles Mingus, Beck's playing is unmistakably infused with his personality, and his character is condensed in every single note he plays. The album's title is apt, as from the first note it is evident that this is a Jeff Beck album to the core.
With a world tour underway (Beck, Batten, Alexander and Hope-Taylor are coming to Japan in late May), Beck is back where he belongs--in the spotlight with the backing of an incredibly talented band. Prior to going out on tour, he spared a few moments to share details about the troubles and triumphs, and the inspirations and investigations that affected him while he struggled to complete Who Else!
Player: I'd like to start with the question everyone has probably been asking you . . .
Jeff Beck: Which is why has it taken me 10 years to come out with a new album? I had a few diversions, subversions, all kinds of things. The last nine years were rough for music. It has been jumping around all over the place like a fox. I could never tell where anything was going to go. I was also really depressed about not being able to keep the original three-piece band together--me, Tony Hymas and Terry Bozzio. That was such a cooking band. And the idea was great--for Tony to go bananas on the keyboards and cover bass, rhythm and everything else. Unfortunately, we didn't get the dimension that we wanted. I felt that after the initial tour, the failure of the album to do anything more than a little blip was very depressing. We put a lot of work into it. Bear in mind that Guitar Shop was a startup album as well after another long period.
I was doing a lot for other people, and I thought, "Well, I can make a living doing this." So I went into this rather uncomfortable but laid-back mode. Unfortunately, the closer you are friends with who you're working with, the less you're paid. I often did things for nothing because they were my friends. I got really disillusioned with my playing as well. I knew that there were these guys coming up around the block, and they could really play.
Player: Did you feel like they were a threat?
Beck: Not a threat. It was just telling me that it was time to move on. I wasn't going to let that happen, but they did shove me aside for a while. I just thought that I should be an observer rather than a participant.
Right in the depths of my depression, I put some money into building a home studio. When all else was lost, I did the one thing I never thought I'd do, and I built my own studio. That gradually started the healing process--not that there was anything broken but me. Everyone goes through drug rehab and all that. I never had that problem. But I have other problems, like having difficulty holding relationships together. It's really confounding to be blasted in the newspapers by a status-climbing girlfriend. It's a bit rough. It was a compound series of events that I could have done without. The capper of it all was when the newspapers were coming around and banging on my door. I had to wait for all of that stuff to blow over before I felt I could start to pull myself together. I want to talk about my ordeal one day. It's sufficiently charged with interest, either in novel form or as a biographical movie. There's a hell of a movie in there. I could sell the rights to Aaron Spelling. You could call it "East Sussex, TN 566" or "Sex in East Sussex." [Laughs]
I also distracted myself by restoring my house, which was a great thing to do. It gave my a complete other interest besides my guitar, cars and getting into trouble. Having made a series of lame excuses, here we are in 1999.
Player: Did the problems you were having with your relationships influence your music at all?
Beck: I've got some pretty deep blues on tapes lying about. I went into this mode where I wanted everything I've done that was lying fallow destroyed. All the stuff that was boiling around eventually made it. I got so messed up with loads and loads of tapes that I had no idea what I had done or where it was. There were no labels on the DATs or cassettes. I would just shove something in the deck, and if it didn't make me smile I'd take it right out. Usually it just made me real depressed. On seldom occasions it might have a nice, pristine start to something really good. I didn't have anybody around to say, "Wow! That was really good. Stay with it. The hook is great." I preferred to wait to get Tony Hymas involved so I could pick his writing to pieces instead of criticizing my own work.
Player: Tony has often been one of your most helpful critics.
Beck: It's torture for him listening to me trying to interpret his songs. And it's torture for me to try to interpret his songs, to try to supplant some kind of notion of what I want to do without sounding like some goof who can't remember what I want. I got pretty graphic with some of the stuff that you hear on the record.
Player: Is that why things didn't work out with Steve Lukather? Was he too much of a fan to tell you when he didn't think things were as good as they could be?
Beck: He came around at a bad time. The idea was to get Steve involved with his wacky humor, but at that time I was about as low as I could get. He did lift me a bit, but it was a temporary thing. It probably would have been better to just let me wallow in my misery for a while. I ended up getting this false sense of elation during the writing period. You'd probably like some of the material. I'm sure there are people who would freak out over it.
Player: Steve was definitely raving about it.
Beck: There was some good stuff. Don't get me wrong. I just wasn't hearing that little birdie whispering in my ear going, "This is the stuff." If that doesn't happen, I'm done. I need to go out somewhere else. I need to move along.
Player: But you put a good amount of time into it. You recorded over at his studio in Los Angeles for a few months and then about a year later the two of you were working at David Gilmour's studio in London.
Beck: The first initial try out took place at Steve's studio in Los Angeles. Everything was great. Then I came back to L.A. again to start recording, and I was in middle of these problems. And I got very ill. It was very serious. I don't think I felt right for four months. I slowly made a gradual recovery. After three months, I went out and tried to wash my car and fainted. I just brushed the sponge over the roof and I collapsed. I really thought I was finished. It was some bizarre strain of Legionnaire's disease, not the strain that kills you, but something related to it. It was horrible. I went to the doctor and he said, "I don't want to shock you, but I've looked at other patients who have the same thing as you and it may take months before you recover." I didn't need to hear that.
Eventually I got better and we started up again at David Gilmour's studio. Everything was perfect. The weather was wonderful. But we were still stuck in a rut with the material. Along comes Tony with three great tracks that blew everything else I'd written into the weeds. I suddenly sensed that there was a disagreeable situation with trying to juxtapose his material on top of what we already had. It sounded like another album. We couldn't make it flow. So I thought that I'd better be faithful to Tony because he's always written from the heart. What I'd written was promising, but it needed development. Steve is such a good soul that even when I played badly he'd say, "Man, it's boiling hot in here!" But I needed somebody to push me.
Player: You share the same affliction that has bothered guitarists like Eric Johnson and Danny Gatton. It seems like what you hear in your head is beyond what your fingers can do.
Beck: Exactly. The fingers are not saying what the head is saying, or the heart. I was just so frustrated because all I needed was a silly-ass melody to get people going. That's what I do. There are many guitarists who can play like a typewriter. Technically they're great, but that's not my style. There's no Stevie Wonder writing for me any more. He would write beautiful ballads, and I would just interpret them the way I heard them.
Player: There was talk of you collaborating with Eric Johnson and you worked with John McLaughlin. And you've been working with Jennifer Batten in your band. Did you start working with other guitarists to push yourself?
Beck: It was more because I wanted to work. But it was a bit of a blow, only having the odd chance to play with people every few months. I found myself getting into the mode where I was thinking, "The phone will ring today. Something will happen." I have to tell you that's not likely to happen in my neck of the woods. I don't have too many musician friends living in my area.
In fact, I had very little enthusiasm for any friendship at all the last few years. I have a couple of good friends who aren't musicians. One is a film director and the other is a mechanic. I do get tremendous confidence boosts from them, but not enough musical input. But having said that, the film director friend was a great support when I suggested doing something that was a cross between Prodigy and myself. He said, "That's the stuff. I could hear that working well." So I developed tiny little snippets of this stuff and sizable chunks of other stuff.
Player: What you're doing now seems like a natural progression of what you started a long time ago. Even the song "Star Cycle" from There and Back sounded like a techno song, and you recorded that in 1980.
Beck: Yeah. It still sounds modern now. Unfortunately, people have lost the art of recording real drums. That seems to be the main fault with what I want to do. I want fantastic drum sounds, and I don't mean outboard compression, distorted, fake-sounding drums. I want real drums, like the old Chess studio sound or big band stuff. Even Frank Sinatra had great drum sounds. It was as big as fuck. We should track down the drummer who did those records. That's my problem. Not being able to do that, the obvious choice was to go with somebody who knows how to operate drum machines and samplers. There is a special art to that.
Player: What happened with Terry Bozzio? You managed to get him back for your 1995 tour with Santana.
Beck: That was another weird thing. Playing 46 gigs together should have resulted in us coming closer together. Unfortunately, we shouldn't have done a big, over-the-top tour without any new product. That was bad planning. Doing the gigs was the positive side of the experience. Once again, being disparate characters we pushed each other away. Tony was obviously champing at the bit to do his own projects, and Terry was starting to make inroads to superstardom as a drummer in his own right. I'm not going to say, "Hey! Come back here," and take a piece of rope and drag him back when I didn't have any new material. It was all down to the big "m." "Where is the bloody material?" I'm very sad that it didn't work, especially since we had Pino Palladino on bass. I felt sure that we'd get something going. Even thought Tony, Pino and I live in the same country, we might as well live 15,000 miles apart. We live our own lives. People say it only take two steps to get from one coast to another in England, but it doesn't matter when you're living very separate lives. And Terry was living in Austin, Texas, with his wife and baby. It didn't seem likely, unless we had some really masterful plan, that we could work things out.
Then we came up with another plan, which was to work with Terry and Tony Levin. It would have been very interesting to have Tony playing Stick. Then Jennifer came along and I thought, "Right on! Let's do a four-piece band." I think that would have been incredible. But it seemed that Terry and Tony were just on loan. There wasn't any camaraderie. There was less than there was with the original band.
Player: You did one new song on the 1995 tour, however. Didn't you have any other material to work with?
Beck: That song was called "Hurricane." I wrote that. I thought it was more moody. It bordered on late-Seventies pomp rock. What I originally envisioned was a troupe of 50 drummers playing this hypnotic groove, and then I'd play the melody over the top. Then I realized how stupid that was. I'd never be able to get 50 drummers out on the road with me. I'd have to pick up 50 drummers in every town. All I'd be able to pay them is sandwiches and beer.
I gave birth to that song in my studio. That's one of the first things I put on tape there. A great percussionist named Martin Ditcham and my old drummer from Blow By Blow, Richard Bailey, did a killer groove. I've still got it. One day I'm going to put that back together.
Player: It sounds like you have quite a backlog of unreleased material now.
Beck: What stopped me from releasing that was I was beginning to hear music like that everywhere I listened. There was a lot of African-style world music going around. I'm not jumping on that bandwagon. To me, it sounded like Hendrix meets the tribe. Then it turned into this overproduced movie soundtrack thing. It was getting too sugary. Then I thought of "Stomp" and I wanted to get some of those guys to do it, have a dozen guys banging on garbage cans to that rhythm. But I bit off more than I could chew with that. I think if I did a whole album of hypnotic African rhythms it would have been difficult to get that show out on the road. I didn't care about doing that sort of thing for a soundtrack, because then it would only be associated with a film. But I wanted to pull the reins back a bit and make sure we were still talking rock and roll, beer, blood and guts. We've got a bit of that on this record.
Player: You toured last summer, playing unusual places like Italy, Greece and South America. What made you decide to do that before you recorded this album?
Beck: We did that to work out the bugs. It was like we were playing some secret shows. It was quite modest and low-key. We played at gardens and private houses. They warned me before I did it. They said playing in Italy is not the same as doing a flash U.S. tour where everything is fantastically easy. It was a bit more quirky than I would have liked, although Rome was great. We played on the steps of a bank. The stage was set up facing the road. There was a bus station across the way. I thought, "This is the stuff. It's funky, and we're playing in Rome." There were people drifting around eating ice cream and pizza. Then it went downhill from there. A few shows were good, such as the one we did with Buddy Guy. We needed more of those. But the next day we were playing amongst sweet peas in a field. Every time I think about that show I feel like punching someone out.
Then we went to Germany and we tried to do something a bit more ambitious, which was to record the shows in their entirety, including all the new material. We would then take home a 48-track digital tape of that. We ditched all the older material and just worked on the new stuff, which was eight new tunes, like "Space for the Papa."
Player: Do you think it was a good move to work out the material live before you committed it to tape?
Beck: Oh yeah. It was well worth doing. We wound up having to overdub in an ordinary, studio-perfect environment. It was worth all the heartache of going on the road. We got "Brush with the Blues" out of it, which didn't need any overdubs. What you hear is what we recorded that night. I forgot that we were being recorded, which is why it came out good, unlike "Space for the Papa," which was recorded at a soundcheck and I knew we were recording. Somehow I overcame the fact that the red light was on when we did that song. It was one of those times in the day where everything sounded nice. The drums were grooving and everything was spot on. I saw Tony rocking back and forth on the drum riser--not playing, he wasn't playing on the tour at all. He just came along to see how his songs were being butchered. [Laughs]
Player: I know that you've been friends with Jennifer Batten for a while. What led to her involvement in your band? You've haven't played with another guitar player in your band since the Yardbirds.
Beck: She's a genuine soul. Her devotion to music is something that you don't see every day. To have somebody that committed knocking on my door was a gift. She was really committed to really go for it. I can't even begin to tell you what she's done. She sorted out replacing the keyboards on the tour. And she kicks serious ass. We really ripped things up in Rio and Sao Paolo, Brazil. I was blown away by the response. It was a total joy. It was the first time I'd played down there. And we had nine new tunes in the set to experiment with, but at the same time we could give them the old stuff. It was an eye-opener. It was a bit like playing in America in the early days.
It wasn't this big, clever plan to work with Jennifer. I wasn't trying to be trendy and have a girl in my band. It just was the right thing at the right time. And what we're doing is so different than anything I'd ever imagine doing with another guitarist. Her dedication to MIDI guitar is amazing. We've got the makings of something pretty nice.
Player: Over the years you've developed quite a collaborative relationship with keyboardists, such as Tony Hymas, Jan Hammer, Jed Leiber and Max Middleton. What drives you towards working with keyboardists?
Beck: The fact that they know chords. [Laughs] The first keyboardist I worked with was Nicky Hopkins, on Beck-ola. He added something, but he also took away something. It was a fair trade at the time. I lost the raucousness. As soon as you hear the piano, it makes things sound civilized. It makes it sound safe and familiar. Before that, I could leave holes--dangerous, great chasms where nothing was going on. I had freedom to pop in and out where I wanted with Rod. It was a tennis match--voice against guitar. I could change riffs to catch Rod's attention. With Ronnie, I could play different riffs and he'd follow me. He'd just look at my fingers. But when you've got a keyboard player looking the other way he gets lost really quickly.
Player: The chemistry between you and Tony has been remarkable. When you first toured to support Guitar Shop, it was amazing how well the guitar, keyboards and drums trio worked in an arena setting. It was raw and huge.
Beck: When you get Terry Bozzio behind you, you don't need much else. Nothing can equal what he does. He can put on a show and play in the most over-the-top way. This project here has nothing to do with that. I'm not trying to find another Terry. Steve Alexander is as nasty as Terry in his own way. He's a snappy, funky drummer who's so spot on. He almost moves without effort, whereas Terry is more animated. This is more of a techno band, if you can still say techno now and get away with it.
Player: Electronic music always seems to benefit from an addition of the human element when it is done right.
Beck: I kept all of the great stuff from what we played live. "What Mama Said" is a good riff. It is clearly just a trio raving away with a drummer, but on the solo section I wanted precision, kicking drums with a black, funky feel.
Player: You're playing a lot more slide on this album.
Beck: I'm even playing right-handed slide. The high melodies are played by pressing gently on the top strings with a slide. It's very difficult. I've had some faces pulled on me in the studio, but it was Tony's enthusiasm that kept me going. I had nearly lost it, because every movement is so infinitesimal. When you're playing only an inch from the bridge the notes are very close together, and I usually work within semitones. I had to go through that quite a few times before I finally got it right. By the time I was finished, I felt like I had been run over by a steamroller.
Player: There is also a lot more ethnic exploration going on on this album.
Beck: It's a natty sort of combination. The Bulgarian one, "Blast from the East," flows pretty well. Everything else on the record was chopped up and edited.
Player: "Psycho Sam" has an Arabian flavor and "Declan" has a Celtic feel, which are new directions for you.
Beck: We were going to call "Psycho Sam" "Arab" but the record label wouldn't let us call it that. I love "Declan." It's a real tear-jerker. If they clap for that song when I play in Ireland, I shall be very happy. I'm worried to see how they respond to this British guitarist playing their hallowed music. I hope don't get hit over the head with a bottle of Guinness.
I've never played in Ireland either, except recently when I did a crazy weekend with Ronnie Wood and Scotty Moore with DJ Fontana on drums. That was amazing fun. I did the All the King's Men record with them, which was also great. We recorded so much more material that never made it on the record. But it was so difficult to write stuff for Scotty to play. It was a total East/West vibe. There was no excuse for us to play together other than the fact that we respect each other and we wanted people to know that we care for these musicians who are still alive and kicking. Moore and Fontana's playing was so eclipsed by what happened with Elvis after the Louisiana Hayride.
I didn't know that DJ Fontana was once a member of Gene Vincent's Blue Caps. He replaced Dickie "Bebop" Harrell. What a band that must have been! I have a picture and some lost session tapes of a Dallas show with the Blue Caps Mark II, with DJ Fontana on drums and Johnnie Meeks on guitar. I have some very rare footage that I got from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They showed it at an induction ceremony, and I said, "You've got to send me this. I'm not going to go on stage unless you promise to send it to me." I've got some tapes from Australian television--Johnnie Meeks, with blond hair! And they've got no caps on. There he is, chewing gum, singing. He is so sharp looking. The world must have been at their feet back then.
Player: You went through a number of false starts on this album. When did you finally get on the path that led to the finished effort?
Beck: Having gone through all sorts of negative emotions and disasters as well as a colossal loss of money, I suddenly came out of this cloud and went, "I've got to do something. This is serious." I went down and visited Tony and said, "Look. Never mind the fancy Lukather session. We need to listen to what I've got to say." I took a bunch of very interesting techno music to him and he stared at the ground blankly. He didn't seem to be into it. Then the next thing you know "Psycho Sam" came out of him. I said, "That's what I'm talking about!" I went down to the studio again and threw some more ideas down on tape. Gradually we pieced it together. It was a slow, agonizing process, but when we started hearing how the band was sounding with the new material when we played live it was very promising.
Player: Did you put the band together to force yourself to get onto the right path?
Beck: That's right. It was great having someone like Steve Alexander walk in the door straight away. I never heard anybody else and I didn't bother to listen to anybody else. Then Randy Hope-Taylor came along, and that was that. Because of their enthusiasm, I couldn't fail them. Now it's become a nice band.
Player: How long did it take you to get the finished tracks down?
Beck: I sliced and diced things. I'm afraid that the live stuff wasn't really up to scratch. I'd had it and was quite upset with the results. Then the record label contacted me because they wanted to hear where their money was going. I had busted into their budget. We put together "What Mama Said" using Pro Tools. We bounced from multi-track into Pro Tools and we trimmed it and reshaped it. We actually got rid of Tony's main theme, which is another piece of music altogether. There was one part that suddenly started to make sense as an opener rather than going through this long-winded melody that we originally had. Now it has a lot more tension. It goes from this beginning to this part where there are 12 guitars sliding up and overlapping. I preferred that version. There was a lot of great stuff lurking around in the underworld of what we recorded live, but we had to look for it.
Player: What inspired you the most when you were making this record?
Beck: I'm a great fan of the Prodigy. They kick butt and they make that great, wallowing-in-the-mud sort of festival music. I love it. It's like the Who and the Yardbirds. I love their drum sounds. They're punky, but they're articulated and beautiful. It's not trashy. I wanted to capture that power with my guitar on top of it. I wanted to marry that notion of techno with a real drummer. I ended up using drum machines some of the time, though. I'm not a purist. I'll go wherever I need to go to get the result.
Player: But in some ways this album is a continuation of what you started with Guitar Shop.
Beck: That album is in the misty past to me now. I think a lot of people's heads were battered when we played that stuff on tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan. What Stevie was doing was very comfortable and familiar, and people probably thought it was going to be more of the same when I came out. All of a sudden there was this music that had nothing to do with tradition.
Player: I was amazed at how many risks you took on stage all the different times I saw you on tour in 1995. You rarely played the same thing, and you improvised a lot. And then you had the challenge of playing "Where Were You" every night.
Beck: The elation of coming off of a good show was amazing, but I'd immediately be brought by back to earth when I realized that I had to go back and play that song again the next night. It was very seat-of-the-pants dangerous. There was this one harmonic where I'd always be going "Please, sing for me." I had to hit the string in exactly the right place. I dug a big hole in the ground for myself with that one. We still have that song in the set, and now I've got "Declan" to play, too.
Player: But it must be a great relief for you to have all this new material to play live.
Beck: Good, bad or indifferent, to me the album is simply done. After Christmas Eve, I sat back and slept for about three days. I had just sent the last mix over to the U.S. I was tempted to follow the plane over and fix a few songs, but I had to let it go.
Player: This album has a lot more guitar orchestration than we normally hear on your albums.
Beck: There is a lot of that, but it still has that spark and feel. I didn't add too many fancy embellishments. "Space for the Papa" is very sparse. We grooved on one chord all the way through. It's all down to what I do over the top of it.
Player: Did you add any new equipment to your rig or are you still using the basic Strat and Marshall setup?
Beck: I don't have any equipment. [Laughs] It's still the same old, same old. To me it's like using a Fifties toaster. You just plug it in and switch it on. If I don't hear me in there, I don't like what I'm plugged into. There are millions of fantastic guitar sounds, but they always sound exactly the same no matter who is playing. They're not transparent enough to reveal the character. I could use maybe one flurry of notes with that kind of sound, but I prefer the sound of a really loud amp blasting away. I like for there to be some size. I like to hear the room. I don't like to stuff the mike right up against the cone.
Player: Your single notes have a horn-like quality, like a saxophone.
Beck: I try to avoid shattering the ear drum. A Stratocaster can be too bright. I kill off all of the top end on the guitar by turning the tone control all the way down, and I set the controls on the amp where the throat is still there. Then I overload it to get this honking, choked-up sound.
Player: Are we going to have to wait another 10 years for your next album, or have you gotten over that hurdle?
Beck: I don't have 10 years left. If for no other reason, I only have a limited amount of birthdays left. It's about time that I did something. I'm committed in a big way to doing a lot more. The fact that Jennifer is so loyal, I've got an English drummer and bass player and there has been a massive effort by everyone involved, including my record label, is encouraging. The green light is on everywhere I look. We're going to give it our best shot. I have a lot of stuff left over, so if I see some good results from this I won't be touching the ground again for quite a while.
Now that I'm in the latter part of my life, it's best to enjoy it and appreciate it. I don't want to fizzle out and become some retro act. I'm really concerned about what is going on out there. Television has sunken to unbelievable depths. I can't believe that we're entertained by Jerry Springer and watching people kick the shit out of each other. They emulate that here in England, and it is so cheesy. It makes me want to throw my TV out the window. That invention is probably the greatest communicator of the 20th Century, but how come for 24 hours a day we get filth like Jerry Springer and all of these rubbishy soaps? There is so much knowledge that is stuffed away that should be on television. If I ever made a million quid I'd start my own TV channel. Why do we need 50 channels of sports or to be able to tune in the Italian weather forecast? I don't get it.
The Internet is much better. You can search out the information that you want. I'm very relieved that I was born when I was born, and not in the Seventies. I'm not envious of that generation. And then there is the whole "Girl Power" thing. I think women are entitled to kick men's asses, but at the same time they are mocking us. It's so easy for them to turn a simple peck on the cheek relationship into "I'll have your Cadillac, your Porsche and everything else you have." It's best to have nothing and marry a rich wife.
Player: You're much more aware of what is going on around you musically than other 54-year-old rock musicians. Most musicians your age are clinging desperately to the past and trying to revive their past glories. What keeps you looking ahead?
Beck: I never at any phase in my career felt that that was my time, but now I do. Perhaps it is my turn now.
(End)
Jeff Beck
You Had It Coming
By Chris Gill
Last time Player spoke with Jeff Beck, he promised that he wasn't going to make his fans wait another 10 years for an album the way he did before he released Who Else!. "I'm committed in a big way to doing a lot more," Beck said. "It's about time that I did something. I have a lot of stuff left over, so if I see some good results I won't be touching the ground again for quite a while."
Apparently Jeff saw some extremely encouraging results, as it has been only one-and-a-half years between the release of that album and his latest effort, You Had It Coming. Beck's new album picks up where Who Else! left off, and in typical Jeff Beck fashion takes off into another galaxy altogether. The production is even more hi-tech and electronic, but at the same time it is much more stripped down, aggressive, and tough, with Beck's guitar dominating the songs like a pit bull protecting its territory. Beck goes for the throat on songs like "Earthquake,"—a heavy metal-flavored tune that makes Korn and Limp Bizkit look downright wimpy and weak—"Roy's Toy," —Jeff's tribute to San Francisco-based hot rod designer Roy Brizio, who has built cars for Beck, Eric Clapton, and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons—and a massive-sounding cover of Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'," the album's only vocal track, which is sung by British singer/songwriter Imogen Heap. As always, there are also several moments of amazingly buoyant beauty, such as "Blackbird"/"Suspension" and Beck's cover of Nitin Sawhney's "Nadia," which Beck discovered on the Britain-based artist's Indian/drum 'n' bass/world beat-influenced album Beyond Skin.
While Beck has been putting out albums under his own name for more than 30 years, You Had It Coming can be called his first true solo album. He worked on the album at London's Metropolis Recording Studios, assisted only by producer Andy Wright (Simply Red, Massive Attack) and programmer Aiden Love. Although Jeff's live band—guitarist Jennifer Batten, bassist Randy Hope-Taylor, and drummer Steve Alexander—were brought in to embellish the tracks, their performances were eventually discarded as Jeff felt that they didn't quite fit in with the album's hi-tech sheen. The creation process was quite unusual: Beck would play his Strat through a Marshall JCM 2000, then Wright would cut out the best parts of Jeff's performance and create an arrangement. After that, Love created the backing drum grooves and instrumental accompaniment. Never before has Beck's guitar playing and songwriting been so much at the center of his efforts.
Beck is obviously proud of his latest accomplishment. For someone who has done his fair share of interviews and photo shoots in his career, he shows none of the impatience usually encountered from most seasoned artists, who view these activities as necessary evils. In fact, he seems genuinely enthused to talk about the new album even though he's probably done close to a dozen interviews on the subject previously during the day of our interview. Even the staff at Epic's London office seem worn out by Jeff' s exuberance as he jumps from a photo shoot to a lengthy interview and back into another photo shoot without taking even a five-minute break. Beck may be 56 years old, but you couldn't tell by looking at him or observing the way he conducts himself.
Casually dressed in jeans with a torn back pocket and a wrinkled T-shirt, Beck certainly isn't the typical fashion-conscious rock star. In fact, the only features of his appearance that give away his rock star credentials are his jet-black dyed hair and classic shag cut, which seemingly hasn't changed since the late Sixties. While the most cynical critics may claim that Beck is trying to gain credibility with hip young audiences who are more into electronic dance music than blazing guitar work, it's quite obvious that Jeff's motives are far from that. Instead, he's defiantly breaking the chains that so many of his critics and even his fans try to restrain him with. The fact of the matter is You Had It Coming sounds unlike anything else that's ever come before—an incredibly refreshing breath of fresh air in an environment crowded with stale, overused clichés and redundant formulas.
But then again, what else would anyone expect from an artist who has the courage to blend drum 'n' bass rhythms, Indian-influenced melodies, and a Muddy Waters cover within the course of 30 minutes? Even Beck himself admits that he never knows what to expect when he enters the studio to make an album. Perhaps this is the true secret to always staying young.
Player: You put out You Had It Coming in an incredibly short period of time. How did you accomplish that, especially considering the marathon period it took to finish Who Else!?
Jeff Beck: I didn't want to take 10 years to complete Who Else!, but shit happens. My relationship with my girlfriend at the time had me down, but I came out of it okay. I also found it strange to be favored by audiences in Japan and America when I lived in England. I felt like a polar Eskimo. English music tastes can be very trendy. I ignored most music that was coming out in the Eighties. That's how I came up with what I did on Guitar Shop. Of course, that was a depressingly short-lived project. We needed a real producer—there were too many volatile personalities in one room. We still enjoyed the "reunion" tour we did in 1995 with Santana. It was really lifting to get out there with Santana, who has been an amazing source of energy. Eric Clapton is that way, too. They've never stopped working.
Player: Speaking of Clapton and Santana, they've both experienced huge success in the pop music arena with Unplugged and Supernatural, respectively. Do you ever hope to have a similar type of breakthrough?
Beck: That's a very pointed question. I've been talking with my managers about how to raise my profile, but if I took the approach that Eric or Carlos did I wouldn't be me anymore. I remember running into some girl on the street who told me, "Don't lose what you've got." It was just a fleeting moment, passing someone on the street. That stayed with me. It was like a spiritual message. How can you be cool and famous at the same time? You can't! [Laughs] I wouldn't want to do an album like Supernatural. I'd rather go back to painting cars. I'm not saying that it wasn't the greatest thing for Santana, but it wouldn't work for me.
Player: Why wouldn't it work?
Beck: There are many reasons for that. It would be the end of the road for me, because having achieved that massive state of popularity you then have to maintain it or watch yourself go downhill. If anything you do after that doesn't sell as well, it's considered a failure. It's like the Michael Jackson syndrome: if he puts out an album and it sells five million copies instead of 15 million, it's considered a bomb, even though very few artists can sell that many records. I'm quite happy being miserable, I suppose. I've always been at semi-pro status, and I've never really made it.
Player: Your lack of massive commercial success has kept you hungry and aggressive, though. It has almost forced you to keep exploring new avenues, instead of always retreading the same ground.
Beck: That constant state of being is fine with me, provided that I do make a little bit of money. I would never dance to someone else's tune. By now I'm so set in my own ways that I don't care whether I put out any hits or not. Unfortunately, when one does have a massive hit, the temptation is there to capitalize on it. It would be stupid not to, in a way. But after that I'd be on that downward slide, wondering what to do next.
Player: Having a big hit is similar to being a television actor who is known only for playing a particular role on a show. Leonard Nimoy will always be Spock no matter what else he does, for instance. You've had a taste of that here in the UK with "Hi Ho Silver Lining."
Beck: Kindly rinse your mouth! [Laughs] I'm happy as long as I get a reasonable turnout at my shows and reasonable sales for my records. Of course, sometimes it's good to have some success as it really helps out the band. The greatest thing about the success of Supernatural is that Santana's band can now enjoy the party time. They're the unsung heroes, and it's good for them to share some of the rewards for their hard work all these years. It was great for me to see how happy they were at the Grammy awards. They were buzzing. I wasn't. The bastards. [Laughs] I was there like Jack the Lad, nominated for two Grammys, but I came home with none. But Carlos won both of them, so that was cool.
Player: You mentioned that Prodigy influenced a few songs on your last album.
Beck: A couple of their records send shivers up my spine. They have such a "fuck off" attitude, which I love. It's the same thing I used to expect from the Who. That energy is what I look for. There's not enough of that weirdness about. Everything is so cut and dry.
Player: This album seems to pick up on that sort of aggression.
Beck: I was throwing things at Andy Wright, and he was throwing them back at me. That's the way it worked. I'd play and play and play, then go out and have a beer. Then I'd come back after an hour at the pub and listen to what Andy had done. He'd go, "I pulled this section out of your solo. What do you think?" Then I'd start composing. I was composing and soloing simultaneously. Choruses would appear out of nowhere. It was super hi-tech but old school at the same time. It came together very quickly, but I wanted that. I wanted to capture the initial impression.
Player: I gather that you used Pro Tools quite a bit to accomplish that.
Beck: That's because it's so convenient to edit things with it. You can move things around, change a note, or double the length of a verse instantly. With tape you wouldn't bother trying to do that kind of thing. It's too laborious to do that when you have to snip things with a razor blade.
Player: Did you use Pro Tools mainly as a songwriting tool?
Beck: Yeah. We were quick to put all of what we called the "keeper" stuff into memory. Andy is amazing. He was always looking beyond what I was recording and he could remember what phrase would work best with another one I had already done. Sometimes I'd disagree with him, and he was always able to come up with something else that fit.
Player: So this album was primarily a collaboration between you two?
Beck: I think Andy knew who I was, but I don't think that he had ever heard me play before. That was cool, because he didn't have any kind of pre-conceived ideas about how I should sound. I'd just play guitar, blazing away on top of riffs, and the energy was just like when I play live. It's very difficult to achieve that in the studio when you're trying to create a finite piece of music and it's all formulated. Instead I had this wide open field of grooves in front of me to play to, and when I hit something really worthwhile I'd stop and go have a drink. Then I'd come back and we'd plan how we'd go from there.
Player: How did you end up working with Andy?
Beck: We had a short list of three or four producers. The others were fine, but one wasn't available and the other did straight-up pop—that would have been okay if I wanted to make a pop record, but that wasn't what I wanted. Andy was my last choice, and he was so positive. He said, "We're going to make a really good record." I said, "That suits me. I'll pay the check. Let's get out of here." It's very inviting to go back with him in the studio again, because it was too easy. I don't know if I should have things that easy. We'll see how this record goes.
Player: What was Aiden Love's role?
Beck: Aiden laid down the bare bones—the grooves. He focused on the Prodigy kind of vibe without copying that but building his own sound out of nothing. He had all sorts of gizmos in his studio, like an old Morley pedal, tape echos, and all this crazy stuff. It was like Les Paul's supersonic workshop—very crude. It was my kind of stuff.
Player: What was his biggest contribution to the album?
Beck: We would tell him exactly what we were looking for, and we'd play him a tape of a demo. About ten minutes later he'd come back with something and ask if it was what we had in mind. His studio is smack next door to Andy's studio, so we'd be going backwards and forwards. He'd be checking out progress on our side, and we'd go back in and try a bit more out.
Player: Did you use your band at all on the record?
Beck: We got them in the studio for two weeks to play over the programs, so we had the band sound, but we ended up not using it. We wanted to record the drums on 24-track tape, which would give us the benefit of the sound on tape. It all sounded very nice, but I'd be changing my mind 50 times a week, so I had to call Steve [Alexander] back about 10 times after he'd gone to change a verse or a fill. So we wound up having to use Aiden, which was regrettable only for the sake of not having the band on the record. But I think that Steve understood. At the end of the day the record was made within the budget. But I think that the music will kick ass on stage, and I can't wait to hear it. It's almost like a having blank sheet of paper in front of me. When we go on stage we'll really be able to embellish it. The record is very simple. There aren't too many muso fills or chords. It's stripped to the max without actually being too minimalist. On stage it's going to be a whole different thing.
Player: For this tour you'll have quite a bit of new material to experiment with.
Beck: I've been short on great new material that wasn't just supercharged old material. I've been waiting for that magic package in the post, the jiffy bag that never came. I didn't want to wait any longer, which is part of the reason why I did this album so quickly.
Player: You manage to reinvent yourself with every record you put out. You're still Jeff Beck, but you are still progressing and taking bold steps forward.
Beck: That was my job in the Yardbirds, and even before then, although there really isn't any recorded evidence of that. I was messing around with moveable heads on Echoplexes and stuff like that, and I used to keep people entertained with it. Then Uncle Jim [Marshall] came along.
Player: "Earthquake," which starts off the album, is very aggressive, almost like something by Korn. Is that something that Jennifer Batten wrote especially for you?
Beck: I've pretty much been linked with heavy metal music, although most of the albums I've done haven't been so forthcoming with it. I've always tried to get away from the heavy metal thing, although I had a bit to do with the beginning of it. I thought it wasn't a good place to go at all. But now that that's over, I thought it was okay to do something like that. It's not retro, and it doesn't really have anything to do with heavy metal because the time signature takes it away from normality. But I just couldn't resist it. You go nuts, but you can't go completely nuts because of the time change. You're going to fall off the horse quickly if you try to head bang to it.
Player: "Roy's Toy" is your long overdue tribute to hot rod designer Roy Brizio.
Beck: Yeah. He's one of the nicest guys in the world. If he was a musician, he'd be the best in the world. He's so perfect. His taste is immaculate. He's my automotive connection. We've been friends for about 25 years. I was dealing with his dad, Andy, before. He was the "Rodfather."
Player: Is that a '32 Ford making the engine revving sounds?
Beck: Yeah. It's Roy's toy—a roadster that he built. He builds one every year for Oakland. I think they sponsor him or he's linked with Dupont or Ford or something like that. He gets to build these fantastic cars. It sounded really wicked. When he started it up, I was going "Get that mike!" It was in a little alcove in the Sunset Marquis hotel car park. The sound was so cool—you can really tell that it's deafening and ripping. You crank that through a quad system flat out and it will tear off your ears. The engine rev is so distorted that it becomes like a bass guitar.
Player: You did a Muddy Waters cover too.
Beck: I've always loved "Rollin' and Tumblin'." I first heard Baby Face Leroy's version on the Chess Blues Master Series compilation. I remember this really happy sounding vocal with drunken slurs and some guy playing bass drum. That's all it was—guitar, bass drum, and vocals. It was fantastic, so crude, energetic, and wonderful. I always meant to do that song, and I tried it several times. This time we got the sound I wanted, and we put a military snare on it to make it slightly more hip and funky. We had Imogen Heap do the vocals, and she was brilliant. She sings it in an attractive, different way. It wasn't some guy singing, and she had this New Orleans quality in her voice, which I never expected I'd get from her. I didn't know what to expect, because all I had heard her do was her folky type of music. When we were cutting it we knew it needed vocals, and I wasn't going to sing it. I didn't want to sing through a vocoder, either. We decided to give Imogen a shot, and she came up and blew us all away in one take. All her little add-ons and breathing on "Dirty Mind" were done in one take, too.
Player: Whose idea was it to have her sing?
Beck: I had told Andy that I met her in France about two weeks earlier. We were in this French castle at a songwriting festival. She really stood out to me. She's six-foot-six—quite a piece of work. I asked her if it would be any problem and she said, "No, not at all." She probably thought I was a bit nuts asking her to sing this blues song, but that's what I like. I like to take people away from what they normally do to see if there is any accessibility or something they may discover about themselves.
Player: You've constantly done that to yourself.
Beck: It's awfully boring to be welded to the same chains. You can lay out all sorts of interesting things for yourself. It's better to keep going up than to stay on the same level all the time.
Player: Most people in their fifties aren't exactly listening to Prodigy, let alone aware of who Prodigy are.
Beck: No. I was thinking about that the other night. In fact, I was listening to electronic music back when I was 16 and being frightened by it. Somebody had given me an EP by two Dutch guys, but I can't remember what it was. There were four tracks on each side and they were devastating. The musicality was amazing—it was like the precursor to the Moog synthesizer. I took it over to Jimmy Page, who had never heard anything like it. These were actual compositions—recognizable tunes. He dragged out some albums with some very abstract Sixties-style artwork on the front and put it on. It was this rumbling, swirling white noise—just wonderful. That never went away. I suppose I was thinking about what was going on now back then. I realized what was possible, but I never had the facility that I have now. I can dream up my favorite sound and come up with it.
But I don't really see the end of real music. I think it's fine if you can blend the two. I mean, maybe ten years from now we'll be laughing at what's coming out now. We'll be going, "Can you believe that we used to use Pro Tools? We use real drums now!"
Player: "Nadia" is another cover song that you recorded. How did you find that song?
Beck: I think Miles Copeland and Sting turned me on to that. We were on tour with Sting, and they mentioned that Nitin Sawhney was a possible support act and how great he was. So I got the CD and played it. I must admit that I was going at the fast forward button after a couple of tracks just to see what the rest of it was like. Then "Nadia" came on and I nearly froze. It was an Indian melody over major 7th chords. I played it over and over and over again and fell in love with it. I took it home and learned how to play the melody. It's one of my favorite pieces.
Player: You've had some rather unusual ethnic influences—the Bulgarian women's choir, Indian music . . .
Beck: "Nadia" is a lot easier to play than the Bulgarian thing. There's just one woman singing [Swati Natekar] instead of fifty voices. I'd still like to do that, but nobody's brave enough to do the notation. I'd like to record all those parts on one track played with multi-tracked guitars.
Player: For a long time you've had a keyboard player as a collaborative partner or creative foil, such as Tony Hymas, Jed Lieber, and Jan Hammer. This time you've broken away from that.
Beck: I think that Tony wanted more control over the way that his songs are recorded. Any musician of his standards is bound to have a strong opinion in the studio, and if it conflicts with mine, it's over. I'm prepared to listen to others' ideas, but most of the time I think that whatever I think is right is right. Tony is also a little detached from what is going on in pop and rock music. I also thought that one day he'd eventually tell me to go get stuffed. [laughs] This is pretty much my first album, really. It is the first album where I've had total control, not so much in the production but in terms of the material.
Player: I imagine you're still playing your Strats and Marshalls?
Beck: Yeah. It's embarrassing, isn't it?
Player: It actually isn't. I think that too many people overlook the fact that the person playing the guitar is more important than the actual guitar or other equipment he or she plays.
Beck: I think that's because so many great guitar players want to be traveling salesmen for some gadget. That's all right, but the emotions start to disappear when you use too many gadgets. The less equipment you use, the more you can hear what the guitar itself is actually capable of doing. Loads of compression, echoes, flangers, and all the other gizmos don't let you hear what the strings are doing. I don't want to hear everybody sounding like that. In fact the one person who I think has that down is Jennifer Batten. I can listen to her playing that all day. But for rock and roll I don't want to hear overprocessed guitar. I just want to hear the pickup and the amp. Obviously there's some trickery going on on the album in the moderation . . .
Player: Like the filter sweep at the beginning of "Earthquake"?
Beck: Yeah, but then the song kicks in for real.
Player: From what I can tell, Andy captured your raw playing and then added a few touches here and there with Pro Tools plug-in effects.
Beck: Well, we couldn't have captured that sound live. If it we did it that way it would have sounded more like something from 10 or 20 years ago. But a lot of stuff that sounds like effects aren't actually effects at all. For example, that motif in "Rollin' and Tumblin'" sounds like echo, but there's no echo on the song at all. There might be a small touch of reverb, but you can't really hear it with everything else in the mix. But for the most part the album was recorded dry—it's just honest guitar. I thought that was the best way to go. I let all the other stuff be what it was. We placed one Shure SM-57 in front of the cabinet, and I used one Marshall head that I hardly ever touched. We didn't even reposition the mike.
Player: On "Blackbird" you use a rather long, decaying reverb.
Beck: That song was born from that sound. I was playing solo with the TC Megaverb plug-in on a canyon setting. It's a beautiful sound. Andy really liked it. I just wanted to go back to work, and Andy said I should do something with that sound. So we brought these chords together, and that was our quickie. We got that done in 15 minutes. We had an argument about it. I wanted the string section to build, but he said no, and he wanted to keep it at a subliminal level.
Player: I hear that you're going to make several of your songs available to remixers.
Beck: I'd love to hear what some of the top guys could do with my music. But I've already done half the job for them. I you crank it, my guitar sounds pretty full. You need to strip a little bit our here and there or else it will get cluttered. There are some wicked dudes out there. But I've never heard any remixes with screaming guitars.
Player: How long did it take to put the entire album together?
Beck: About six weeks. Then there was some arguing about the mixes of "Nadia." There was no proper drum kit groove like there was on the original version, and I really missed it. What we had was a flurry of bongo sounds. Over here there are a pair of comedians called Bob and Vic who tell these terrible jokes to the accompaniment of badly played flurries of bongo noises. I said, "We've got Bob and Vic on that song. It really needs a drum kit." Andy disagreed, but I finally won in the end and convinced him to put the kit back on there. The song takes off when the drums come in. It needs to take off. I'm not sure whether that's the right drum program for that song or not. I need to work that out on stage. I'm definitely sure we're going to play that one. Steve will have a great time with that. The song could have gone in a completely different direction. We could have turned it into a slushy ballad, but it's not. It has the chords for that, but the rhythm gives it juxtaposition.
Player: Last year you said that you plan on putting out as many new albums as possible over the next ten years. Is that still your plan?
Beck: I've got to think ahead now. If this album does pretty well, or even if it doesn't, I've got loads of ideas. Now that I know what can be done swiftly, I'm ready to kick ass. It built my confidence to have Andy throw this wonderful stuff back at me with so little effort. It's a tough sounding record. I can hear things that I want to change now, but I can't stop the van while it's on the way to delivering the album to the label.
Player: That was your big problem with the last album. You'd be well on your way to finishing it, and then you would stop and start all over again.
Beck: Now I can focus more clearly. I got this album done pretty quickly without it getting on my nerves. If it takes too long to make an album, the songs start to rot away in your head. The impetus, the freshness, is gone. If the album doesn't live up to your expectations on Monday morning, then it's not much likely to get better. The best thing about this album is that it's stripped bare. When I'll play it live, people will be going, "Hey, that's not on the record!" and I'll go, "Neither is this, sweetie." [Laughs]
Player: You never fail to pull a few surprises out of the bag whenever you play live.
Beck: That's what my job is, I suppose. I've got some new ideas about presentation that need to be looked at. A lot of bands aren't very entertaining. They may sound great, but they're tied down to their equipment. Jennifer's amazing display of equipment is like that. She can't dance around for fear of treading on the wrong thing. But on our next tour we're going to be able to step out a bit. I don't have any problem at all. I've got just a junction box with a switch on it that selects the A or B channels on the amp. I want to make the show as entertaining visually as it is musically. That's what people talk about after the show. A lot of people don't know what I'm doing unless they're a guitar player. Even I can't tell what's going on when I watch a guitar player and there's bad sound and it's not completely evident that it's that guy who's making that sound. I want the lighting to make more dramatic statements to let people know who's playing what. We're going to have our own complete look and add some style, but not in an embarrassing way. It might be, but it will be an endearing embarrassing.
Player: What new paths would you like to explore?
Beck: Loads. But right now I'm just concentrating on the tour. I just want to rehearse and get back the form that the band had at the end of the tour. We were pretty much on top of it. I still have to decide what I'm going to play—what new material to choose and what compilation of my old stuff I'm going to do. Then I need to slide some wickedness and groove in there.
Player: Is there anything you want to explore musically?
Beck: Yeah. First, I want to get a studio where I can get a great drum sound. I wish that I could figure out a way to do that with my home studio. Right now it has this horrible, boxy attic sound. No matter what kind of drums you bring in there, they all sound the same. It has the curse of bad acoustics. I'd prefer to have a nice big open room with a pine parquet floor like they have at Angel Recorders. I'd really like to do experimentation with live drumming. That's it really. I don't want to give too many things away, so I can keep them as a surprise.
Player: Did you use your home studio at all while working on this album?
Beck: No, partly because Andy had rented this room at great expense. It made no sense whatsoever to work at my home. Andy had all of his stuff set up in his studio. But my studio is a very useful workshop. If I get an idea in the middle of the night I can record it. I can make professional-quality recordings there, but unfortunately I've got a leak in there. I have the mixing console located right under this leaky window, which is a stupid place to have it. It just started crackling and everything went up the spout. So we just went straight to Andy's. That's the place, really.
Player: You must have amassed a lot of unreleased material over the years, especially considering all the songs you wrote between Guitar Shop and Who Else!.
Beck: I have packets of stuff. There is some great stuff I did with Mick Jagger. The groove is slamming. I did some recordings at Motown a long time ago with players like James Jamerson and the Motown horn section. There are about nine tracks of that. I just hope that the tapes of that haven't decayed.
Player: Is there anything new that you've heard recently that you really enjoy?
Beck: I like the music by Nitin Sawhney, the guy who wrote "Nadia." I went to see him play, and he reinstated my faith in people because the audience loved it. He had incredible tabla players and this guy who made drum loop sounds with his mouth, which was incredible. He was a show all by himself.
I check the radio faithfully every day to find out what's going on, but I don't hear a lot of shit happening. It's really come to a point where I don't understand it anymore. All I hear is some cheesy pre-programmed Roland synth with somebody rapping badly over it. When I change the channel I hear the same bloody song by someone else. Black music today has a lot to answer for. It used to be the leading force in all fields, whether it was Stax, Chess, or Motown, that drove all the white guys. Now we look around and all we see are a bunch of fake criminals with loads of gold hanging off of them.
Player: You can still find great black music, but you really have to dig to find it. But you definitely won't find it in the pop charts.
Beck: And that's a shame. We've had young kids who have come to see us, probably under duress [Laughs], and they'll go, "Jesus! Mom and dad, you never told me about this!" That's what I want to hear. I want to make music for all ages. Music shouldn't be limited or restricted, especially by age. Nobody ever complained about how old Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf was. People loved Sinatra. He could have been singing "My Way" as they lowered him in the grave and they still would have loved him.
America is big enough to support all forms of music. There are enough pockets of varying taste. Fats Domino came from New Orleans. Buddy Holly came from Texas. Gene Vincent came form Virginia. Elvis came from Tennessee. All of these great rock stars came from all these different places during the Fifties. I wish that was still going on. Bands in America may come from different places now, but they all sound the same. But if you're a pop star there are all these rules and regulations that can't be broken. Britney Spears and the Spice Girls are just Barbie dolls. I don't understand that—actually I do, because it's all part of the big machine. They keep the schoolgirls going. But why sacrifice everything for that? Music is like food. Why just have white bread when you can have the whole bloody meal?
(END)
Rock 'n' Roll in it's most primal form has historically had two themes intertwined in it's ever expanding framework - Cars and Sex. Jeff Beck has taken both a step further on his dual purpose Stratocaster on the new Jeff Beck Lp entitled "You Had It Coming" on Epic Records slated for an imminent release in Japan and U.S. release hopefully shortly afterwards.
'Roy's Toy', a sendoff to hot rod maker Roy Brizio, features Jeff on some nasty sounds fed through a wah-wah pedal set at just the right level to induce a great thick tonality without resorting to the Hendrix-Claptonesque full-spectrum wah-wah sound of the late sixties. Indeed, Jeff has brought back the wah-wah as a legitimate guitar tool as he illustrates several other times on this Lp as well as having slipped it into two other sessions in recent past; the cat house scene in "Frankie's House" and the namesake tribute penned by Brian May, "The Guv'nor". Interesting too is the reemergence of recorded sounds outside the studio for imaging effect made popular by the Beatles and others. Here it is authentic hot rod sounds that set the tone for Jeff's drone imaging which give way to a screeching slide sequence in the middle that resembles the revving of an accelerator pedal.
Not content with just hot rod sounds, Jeff masterminded what must have been a National Geographic coup-de-tat in recording chirping Blackbirds in their natural tree setting. Teasing us as usual with track length (a couple of blinks and the track is over) Jeff Beck compliments and imitates the birds with the most awesome slide and whistle sequence imaginable! Hopefully this track entitled "Blackbirds" will see an expansion on the forthcoming live tours.
Doing a cover of a track is recent history always invites risky comparison but as we all know risk is the cutting edge which is right up Jeff's alley. The imported music video shows, Dhanak TV and Rashni, have brought the hip pop subculture of India to the forefront. "Nadia", straight from that genre, is a melodic enchantment that grabbed Jeff's ear enough so he couldn't resist. People think of Sting in terms of having brought other cultural influences to rock. Now hopefully Jeff will be thought of in those same terms after "Frankie's House", "Who Else?" with both Irish and East European influences, (not to mention Arabic before that '98 live number "Arab Hoot" got techno revamped into "Psycho Sam") and now "Nadia" with it's alternating major/minor melodic string/whammy bar bending images.
"Suspension" compliments "Nadia" in that again there is no set stagnant melody but rather gentle slow cascades of the hint of melody that really works. It is also the one track on the Lp that is done in pure quiet tones. Finally, as the last track on the Lp, it sends a reflective vibe as was the case with moving dedication to the late Cozy Powell "Another Place" on "Who Else?".
There are several tracks on "You Had It Coming" that let the listener know that Jeff Beck is not going to go out to pasture anytime soon. Specifically we are talking about "Earthquake" (the logical crossover rap-hip station airplay track), "Loose Cannon" and "Left Hook", two of which were written by Jeff's band mate, midi programmer and complimentary second guitarist, the grand Miss Jennifer Batten. Producer Andy Wright takes these tracks and seperates every guitar sound and program to then digitize and compress them into monster sounds. One can understand where one of the earlier working titles of the Lp, 'Red Room', came from. The VU meters as Jeff indicated in the Guitar Player interview, were constantly in the red zone! The drum sampling on these tracks is bone jarring and the thick nasty guitar imagery is some of the rudest sounds Jeff has laid down including his work on the track "Legalize Me" from Chrissie Hynde's Lp "Viva El Amor". When you have these tracks blasting you are not 'Surfing With The Alien' Joe Satriani, indeed you are surfing with the 'High Commander' Jeff Beck!
Well, enough foreplay. "Dirty Minds" and the remake of the blues classic "Rollin' And Tumblin'" are to this reviewer the "climax" of this whole recorded effort. Jeff has broken the millenium rock sexual overtone barrier just as Jagger and the Stones, Bowie and a host of others did from the sixties to the nineties. Using a sampled female orgasmic groan as syncopated percussion to Stratocaster wah-wah bliss is the genius of "Dirty Minds". Imogene Heap maybe an unknown in the U.S. but her raspy, gutteral, earthy translation of "Rollin' And Tumblin'" should change that real quick. For old Beck fans that still yearn for the days of voice-guitar tradeoff and interplay that marked the Beck-Stewart and Page-Plant era, this track is just the ticket. Jeff answers Imogene's callings in the track's brief solo section with frenzied passion yet does so without resorting to a mile a minute riff like so many of Jeff's contemporaries would have done.
You don't have to turn up the volume knob for this one folks to get the message, but if you do, strap yourself in and hang on for the ride of your life! By the way Jeff, nice Lp cover photo but how was it done? When I'm finished mine are usually white! Oh I get it. It 'came' from greasing engines! Be seeing you......DW
From....
From the Atlanta Journal....2-8-01
Stewart stumbles, Beck rages on latest
Thursday, February 8, 2001
MUSIC
"'Human': Rod Stewart. Atlantic. 11 tracks.Grade: D
'You Had It Coming': Jeff Beck. Epic. 10 tracks.Grade: B"
"Back in the late 1960s, Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck made two seminal hard-rock albums together in the Jeff Beck Group ("Truth" and "Beckola"). They've come a long way since then, but have arrived at very different destinations. Both make obvious attempts at updating their sound; it's what they've been listening to that makes the difference."
"Stewart seems to have boy-band pseudo-R&B stuck in his CD player."
"Beck fares much better with "You Had It Coming," partly because he hasn't abandoned what he's always done best. He is one of the best and most innovative guitarists of the past 40 years, and it's still a treat to hear him rage."
"When it isn't taking a '90s funk tack or updating the blues, "You Had It Coming" injects contemporary dance genres into the mix."
--- Shane Harrison
From Yahoo.com, Rolling Stone....
"So now that old masters like Clapton and Santana are enjoying pop-propelled career rebirths, it's fair to ask, what about Jeff Beck? You Had It Coming, Beck's second solo album in two years, makes this the busiest stretch for the one-time Yardbird since his memorable mid-1970s run of Blow by Blow and Wired." "Working in the comfortable techno-funk rock vein he's been tinkering with for the last few years, Beck is as agile and muscular a craftsman as he's ever been -- firing off ragged buckshot-blast chords on the rotgut-blues classic "Rollin' and Tumblin'" "Beck remains enthralled, in a slightly anachronistic sort of way, by the multiple voices he can squeeze from the throat of his Stratocaster, delivering screams, wails and growls as he traverses this record." (RS 862) DAVID THIGPEN
From the Washington Post.....2-7-01
Jazz-Rock Veteran Jeff Beck Pumps Up the Noise
By Dave McKenna
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, February 7, 2001; Page C05
"For Jeff Beck, now 56, the jazzier instincts have the upper hand. His new CD, the mostly instrumental, mostly mighty "You Had It Coming," is his most cacophonous release yet."
""You Had It Coming" won't propel any singles up the pop charts, either. It does, however, reveal the same fascination with electronica and industrial music that pervaded his last studio collection, 1999's "Who Else!" Also like the previous release, the new CD is kicked off by a Led-heavy composition by Jennifer Batten"
"On Batten's latest contribution, the rumbling "Earthquake," Beck rolls over an almost death-metal power-chord progression with a feedback-friendly whammy-bar workout."
"But "You Had It Coming" is much more a solo effort than its predecessor. Other than occasional vocal fragments and songwriting help, Beck gets little human backing. Instead, he plays over digital tracks provided by producer Andy Wright (best known for his work with Natalie Imbruglia and Eurythmics) and programmer Aiden Love."
"The Herbie Hancock-like "Roy's Toy" isn't another Beck tribute to Washington's own Roy Buchanan, as was "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" on "Blow by Blow"; instead, it's a homage to Roy Brizio, a San Francisco hot-rod designer who builds cars for Beck. Snippets of the engine of Brizio's 1932 Ford Roadster revving are thrown in alongside Beck's wah-wah-inflected licks.
Beck ai