CLAPTON TALKS
Guitar Player - June 2001
Eric Clapton Still
Loves The Blues, But He's Not Chained To Them
By Darrin Fox
Meeting Eric Clapton is like meeting the President
of the United States. Although you may not agree with everything he does,
you'd be hard pressed to find a more powerful and influential figure.
Clapton has always been rock-guitar royalty-from his early days with John
Mayall's Bluesbreakers (where he virtually rewrote blues/rock guitar)
to his latter-day chart successes. • On his new record, Reptile [Warner
Bros.], Clapton revisits a soulful, organic sound that should appease
fans who were disappointed with the relative tameness of his last solo
effort, Pilgrim. Using much of the band he worked with on last year's
B.B. King collaboration, Riding with the King (which includes Nathan East
on bass and Steve Gadd on drums), Clapton turns in a collection of blues
("Got You on My Mind"), soul (Ray Charles' "Come Back Baby"),
pop ("Modern Girl"), and the laid-back samba of the record's
title track.
"When
I was younger, I thought I was always in the wrong place-that
there was something better right around the corner," says Clapton.
"But I'm 56 now, and I'm quite comfortable in my own skin.
I don't want to be somewhere else."
For someone who has had such an enormous impact
on rock guitar, Clapton comes off as a humble man who simply makes music
he enjoys. For his first GP interview since 1985,1 met up with Clapton
in Birmingham, England, before a concert run. Wearing worn-out jeans,
tennis shoes, and a black T-shirt with "supreme" written on
it, the 56-year-old guitarist looked amazingly fit and exuded a youthful
vitality-especially when he talked about blues records that turn him on,
or the new music that's influencing him.
......................
A
lot of your fans will be surprised by the samba feel and jazzy tone of
the album's title track.
Last
year, I had a chance to see Joao Gilber-to perform in Brazil. Someone
told me that was a rare occurrence-he's very eccentric and unreliable,
so you'll be lucky to see him once in your lifetime. So I thought that
was a blessing. He played for a long time-maybe three hours-and he didn't
speak or acknowledge the audience at all. He just sat on a stool with
his lyrics all over the floor and performed so perfectly that it was frightening.
Seeing him had a profound effect on me, so I think "Reptile"
represents where I want to go next.
Playing over a samba groove didn't
feel strange to you?
There's something about flamenco and samba music that has a blues feel
to me. That makes it easy for me to slip into.
What guitar did you cut that track
with?
I used a Gibson L-5.1 just love that tone. The sound and phrasing on "Reptile"
comes a bit from Gilberto and a bit from B.B. King-that woolly tone he'll
occasionally use. I wanted that guitar to personify the album, so I put
it all over the record.
Do you see yourself delving deeper
into other musical styles?
Possibly. I'd like to visit more mellow and subtle musical areas. I'd
really love to do a semi-jazz project. Not really jazz, but maybe standards-like
when we did "Come Rain or Come Shine" on Riding with the King.
There are a lot of standards I'd like to approach with a jazz/blues feel.
Did you expect the tremendous success
o/Rid-ing with the King?
I knew there were a lot of people waiting for B.B. and me to do something
together. But, to be honest, the record did better than I thought it would.
Did the experience of Riding with
the King affect Reptile?
For both albums, the goal was to try to record as live as possible, and
to have a lot of musicians playing very minimally-all performing tiny
parts that weave the music together like a fabric.
Do you get the same charge out
of the blues now as you did when you were 15?
Yes. The blues has a strong home-base feel to me. At the moment, we only
delve into the blues a few times in the live set. We do "Hoochie
Coochie Man," "Five Long Years," and "Have You Ever
Loved a Woman?" When we get to the second tune, I either settle in,
or I don't-it depends where my head is at. Sometimes I just can't find
it. The blues is really difficult because it requires complete commitment.
I really have to focus myself. If I can manage to do that, it's usually
the highlight of the gig.
How do you get in that head space
in the studio?
You have to make the recording process a live experience. It's very rare
that I'll overdub a solo-I find that very difficult. Most of the solos
I record are when I'm playing with die band, and they're usually first
or second takes. "Come Back Baby," for example, was a first
take.
That tune brings out a lot of the
Buddy Guy influence in your playing-the crazy over-bending and wild phrasing.
We covered a lot of different musical areas on Reptile, but when I hit
the blues territory, all of this pent-up emotion came out. The feelings
came rushing through-almost overpowering me. I think that's how that crazier
style manifests itself.
Do you still enjoy touring?
The physical price of touring is very high, but it's worth it when the
band gets onstage and the musical chemistry happens. That's why I do it.
When it's not right on stage, then you're in trouble. You're paying the
price, but not getting anything back.
Do you ever hear a song from your
past-say a Yardbirds or Bluesbreakers tune-and say, "Wow, where did
that come from?"
Of course. I don't hear my old stuff very often though, and I don't go
into my record collection and pull out my old albums. I imagine the John
Mayall stuff would be quite a jump to listen to-because it was so long
ago and I'm convinced that the music is pretty powerful stuff-but I don't
go out of my way to research my past.
How would you describe your evolution
as a player from the Yardbirds to now?
Most of my development has been the realization that I don't need to be
a genius-that I can actually learn songs my own way. For example, I was
sitting around one day, and I figured out an arrangement of "Somewhere
Over the Rainbow." I found the chords I needed to get the tune out,
and I assumed they were correct. Well, in fact, they're not-they're my
chords and it's my version of the song. But I think that's a legitimate
way of learning-self-educated theory.
From Gibson to Fender
(L-R) : Cream-era Clapton, going solo in the early '70s,
and Behing The
Sun-era, circa 1985.
What did it take to get to that
point?
I gained confidence in my own musical intuition. All the time that I knew
I could play blues, I was still very insecure about my standing as a legitimate
musician. I didn't feel I could sit and have a conversation with a jazz
player about music because tiiey were on a higher level than me. Yet I've
found over the last few years that I can approach any kind of music and
bring a unique point of view to it. For example, when I toured with the
Legends Band-which included Joe Sample, Marcus Miller, David Sanborn,
and Steve Gadd-I thought I wasn't worthy to play with them. But even though
I felt I wasn't in their league, when we talked about music I realized,
"Hey, I do know enough to stand alongside these guys and play."
Do you prefer the studio or the
stage?
Ideally, the two should be almost the same thing. What I like to do when
I'm recording is play like I'm onstage. However, we recorded Pilgrim on
Pro Tools, and I found working like that too abstract. It was very difficult
to master, because it was just me and my partner Simon Climie and the
choices were endless. That record took a year and a half to make. You
tend to try to attain perfection, because you feel you can. "River
of Tears," for example, took three weeks to record, because I would
redo the guitar part over and over. You don't lose any of the previous
takes, so why not? That's a legitimate way to record, but, for me, it's
self-defeating.
But Pro Tools does make arranging
songs easier because you can move parts around.
Yeah, but it's almost like having false boobs [laughs]. It's not quite
right, because the part doesn't really belong where it is. Working with
Pro Tools is a cerebral way of making music- it's like trying to put a
square peg in a round hole. Simon is a genius at that stuff. He can construct
a solo from a bunch of different takes, and I'll listen to it and say,
"That's really good." But in my heart, I don't quite believe
it. I admire it, but I don't believe it.
Do you see yourself reverting to
more old-school recording techniques?
I would like to take myself, a rhythm section, and one reel of tape, and
make an entire album in a day. That used to be possible. Cream recorded
Disraeli Gears over a weekend, and I recorded Unplugged in an evening,
so I know it can be done.
Your tones over the past couple
of years have gotten rawer and more immediate.
It may be a reflection of me and my way of looking at life. More economical
and direct.
How do you cast guitars for songs?
I go for what I think is right, but I'm often wrong. In that case, I just
do an about face. A lot of the time the best stuff is accidental. The
guys I work with in the studio know to keep the tape running, because
I play the best stuff when I don't know I'm recording and I'm just noodling.
If I get an idea and say, "Okay, roll tape," I usually don't
get it quite right.
What stage of your career would
you like to revisit?
Without a doubt, I would like to go back to the beginning of the '60s,
before I was a professional. That was a time when I would wander around
London, hang out in pubs and clubs, and study other musicians. Local players
were very influential to me.
When you changed from Gibsons to
Fenders, was your style already changing, or did switching guitars have
an effect on your playing?
I think the guitar dictated the way I played to a certain extent. Because
the Strat has less sustain-it's harder to bend on and harder to hold the
bends and apply vibrato-I play more notes.
Was it a conscious decision to
get away from the Gibson/Marshall combination?
I didn't look at the change as "I'm done with that." It was
more a case of wanting to try something else. The Strat thing came almost
directly from hearing Hoodoo Man Blues by Junior Wells with Buddy Guy.
You could really hear the Strat. It was so immediate. You heard the sound
of the wood. I wanted to pursue that sound.
It's funny, because after I had gone down that road, I wanted to go back
to the thick sound of a Les Paul without changing guitars. That's when
I got the Fender signature model with the midrange-boost function. Now
I have the best of both worlds.
You've said in the past that after
you heard the Band you made the decision to leave the bombast of Cream.
Did hearing them also affect how you wanted to hear the guitar?
Very much so. What I appreciated about the Band was that they were more
concerned with songs and singing. They would have three- and four-part
harmonies, and the guitar was put back into perspective as being accompaniment.
That suited me well, because I had gotten so tired of the virtuosity-or
pseudo-virtuosity-thing of long, boring guitar solos just because they
were expected. The Band brought things back into perspective. The priority
was the song.
At this time, do you consider yourself
a song-writer first and a guitarist second?
Yes, I think I've reached that point. For me, it was a reverse process.
I started out as solely a guitar player, then I learned how to sing, and
then I learned how to write and eventually became a songwriter. Now I
feel like all of those skills are equal.
Do you ever tire of playing older
tunes such as "Badge" or "Sunshine of Your Love"?
Believe it or not, I still find them refreshing. The tiring thing is trying
to bring new songs from Reptile to the stage and introduce them to an
audience. You're towing a big weight, because nobody has heard them and
they're not really interested. But when you go into "Badge,"
everyone knows it.
What do you play on the guitar
at home?
If you hand me a guitar, I'll play the blues. That's the place I automatically
go.
Doyle Bramhall II on Cowriting
"Superman Inside"
"The opportunity to write a song with Eric Clapton came about while
I was working with him on Riding with the King" says Doyle Bramhall
II, who wrote "Marry You" and "I Wanna Be" for the
album. "When we finished the record, Eric asked me to play on Reptile,
and while we were recording he asked me if I had a song. I played him
the idea I had for 'Superman Inside.' He took the song to London to finish
recording it, and he came up with a really great slide part for the chorus.
It was wonderful to be able to go back and forth playing guitar and singing
with Eric!"
Manning God's Gear
Lee Dickson has been Clapton's guitar
tech since 1979.
Here, he details his employer's various gear evolutions. -DF
"Eric recorded Reptile with the same setup he has been using the
past few years-his signature Strats plugged into a copy of a '58 Twin
Fender tweed," explains Dickson. "The stock guitars are outfitted
with Fender Noiseless single-coils and a TBX tone circuit, which provides
21 dB of midrange boost. The only other electric he used was a '55 Gibson
L-5. For acoustics, Eric used a Martin 000-4 ECB prototype for steel-string
parts, and a Herendino nylon-string-which is his favorite guitar at the
moment.
"Eric's amps have been worked on by various people over the years-including
the guys at the Fender Custom Shop. The last incarnation was tweaked by
John Suhr. For speakers, he uses a combination of Mojotones and Eminence-designed
Fender speakers.
"Live, Eric plugs his guitars into a Dunlop CryBaby, a Deme-ter Tremulator,
and an A/B/Y box that allows him to choose the Twin, a Leslie speaker
cab powered by a Marshall JCM 800, or both. I change the strings before
every show with
an Ernie Ball .009-.042 set. His onstage acoustic is a Martin 000-28 strung
with Martin .012-.054s. He runs the Martin's stock piezo pickup into a
direct box. Recently, he has felt the piezo sound is too harsh in the
treble frequencies, so we've been using a combination of the piezo and
an AKG C460 mic.
"I never know what to make of an audience," says Clapton, "because
there's
always a certain level of politeness. They're going to clap anyway, so
you
don't know if they really like something or if they're just being nice."
"Eric has adopted a less-is-more philosophy toward gear over the
last decade or so. When I first started working for him, he was using
Music Man stuff- 130 heads through open-back cabs loaded with JBL K-120s.
After that, there was a short period when he
used Dean Markley amps. He also phased out the Leslie in favor of various
chorus pedals. When he went on the road with Roger Waters for the Pros
and Cons of Hitchhiking tour, he entered a Marshall phase and began using
JCM 800s. Then there was a Soldano period. The only time Eric went crazy
with effects-and it was mostly my doing-was when he had a Brad-shaw rig,
and, later, a Pete Cornish-built rack. It was insane for him to have all
that stuff, because all he used was a Dytron-ics Tri-Stereo chorus.
"There's nothing worse in this job than repetition, so, thankfully,
Eric always has the element of surprise in his playing. He plays differently
every night. Where I really saw Eric's genius was during the From the
Cradle tour. Although I had worked for him a long time by then, I was
blown away by his ability to do an Elmore James tune and sound like Elmore,
and then do a Freddie King number and sound like Freddie. He would morph
into the style of his heroes and na/'/them. It was incredible. To hear
him play like that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up-and I
used to stand there as a fan watching Cream!"
Alan Douglas on Recording Reptile
"With Eric and his band, you have to make sure you're always recording,"
says Alan Douglas, who has engineered all of Clap-ton's records since
From the Cradle. "I'm working with the best musicians on the planet,
so it's a case of recording in the original sense of the word: Archiving
a particular moment in time and making sure it's a faithful-and hopefully
glorious-representation of what was going on. When you have that much
talent in the room, there are a lot of musical subtleties and interactive
nuances, and you have to make sure everything is captured.
"We started the record on a Sony 3348 recorder, and then we went
to the 24-bit 3348 HR. We used Pro Tools, but its main purpose was to
edit arrangements-we didn't use it to comp parts. Pro Tools also makes
overdubbing very fast, because you don't have to wait for the tape to
rewind.
"Almost 99.9 percent of Eric's sound is in his fingers, so I used
the same miking formula I always use for him-three close mics positioned
on one speaker and some room mics. The close mics were an Electro-Voice
RE20, a Beyer M88, and a Shure SM57. The room mics included a Browner
VM1, a Neumann M-50, and various others. There were no EQ adjustments
at the board-I fine-tuned the amp tones with mic placement. By varying
the balance of the three close mics, I could get whatever sound I needed.
For example, if I wanted a brighter sound, I'd bring up the mic pointed
directly at the speaker cone. If I wanted more midrange honk, I'd increase
the level of the mic positioned off-axis to the speaker. And because the
RE20 typically captures more low end, I'd go for that mic if I needed
a warmer tone.
"I recorded the acoustic guitars with an old tube Schoeps microphone
from the '60s. We generally placed the mic at the midpoint of the top
of the neck and soundhole and added some gentle compression.
"What sets Eric apart from most guitarists is natural talent. He
was born to be a great guitarist. The first time I worked with Eric he
was demoing some tunes for a film, and there was no amp at the session.
I was a huge fan of Eric's from his Cream days, and I remember thinking,
'You've got to get an amp-this will never work.' But I plugged him into
a tube preamp, dialed up some reverb and delay, and it sounded exactly
like Eric Clapton."
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