|
By Jeb Wright
Robin Trower is a living legend
among guitar enthusiasts. His style is one that is fluid,
exciting, mind-expanding and most of all genuine.
Trower is a modest man of few
words yet he is able to convey his love of music and his passion
for the guitar in almost every sentence he utters. For Trower
it is about creating music and sharing that creation with
mankind.
Read on and discover more about
the man behind the Fender, Robin Trower.
Jeb: I was at the Ameristar
Casino in Kansas City the other night and you put on an amazing
show. The United States seems to be interested in Robin Trower.
Robin: I think these things go
in cycles. People are keen on you and then they get fed up with
you and a few years later they realize that they really like you
again.
Jeb: Davey Pattison does a
great job. How did you talk him into doing a whole tour?
Robin: We have been working
together since the ‘80's. I didn’t have to talk him into it; I
just had to ask him. Davey comes from a very similar background
as Jimmy Dewar. They were into the same music growing up.
Davey is a little more of an aggressive singer than Jimmy was
but he does sing the old songs very well.
Jeb: You have dropped your
guitar tuning down from E tuning to D.
Robin: I have done that for
about the last fifteen years before that I was just dropping
down a half step. I wanted to try heavier strings on the top
two strings to get more tone. I went up a gauge on all the. It
is very hard on a Strat to bend the top string up without it
fretting out. You have to have a pretty heavy string and you
have to have a high action. The top two strings, to get it to
ring clear, have to have the strings heavy.
Jeb: You also have a new CD out
with Jack Bruce. The last interview we did you said you didn’t
think you would ever work with him again.
Robin: It didn’t seem like we
were ever going to be able to get back together. Every time we
talked about it something else came up. About five or six years
ago, we talked about repackaging some of the best stuff we did
in the eighties. Jack came up with the idea to write a couple
of new songs. Jack and I are thrilled with it; we don’t think
it could have come out any better.
Jeb: Before you were a famous
musician you were a fan of Cream.
Robin: I was a big Cream fan.
I was in Procal Harum when Cream came out. It started with Jack
because I wanted to take a change from Jimmy. I wanted to sort
of go off in a different direction. I looked around and I
thought, “Who is good at bass and vocals” and the answer was
Jack.
Jeb: You did okay with BLT
and Truce. They were both successful albums.
Robin: They were considering
that we never played live. We didn’t support them at all. I
was sick of being on the road at that point, to be honest.
Playing in hockey arenas was no good. It became like a job of
work and I didn’t want to do it. I got into music because it
was fun. You can’t get a decent guitar tone in a hockey arena
because they were not made for making music; they were made for
playing hockey.
Jeb: I have a good friend named
Van McLain who plays with a band called Shooting Star. During
your Victims of the Fury album they opened for you.
Robin: I thought I remembered
that name.
Jeb: He told me that one time
you were messing around with your rig and you asked him if he
wanted to play through it. He said he could not control the
guitar at all and that he just got tremendous feedback. He
actually said he could not tame the beast. How do you control
the sound?
Robin: When you are playing in
a three-piece then you have to fill up a lot of space. You have
to fill up the room with a lot of guitar sound. You have to
fill all the space on the stage. I don’t really think about how
I do it, to be honest. I just have learned it over the years.
I use the volume control on the guitar a lot.
Jeb: At what point did you
really discover you were coming up with something unique?
Robin: I was thinking about
this the other day. What you call a unique sound or my sound is
really achieved through my composition, which drives the whole
thing. In other words, the guitar sound that I use on each
track is used to enhance the composition. For instance, “Bridge
of Sighs,” the riff, was written on an acoustic guitar. When I
took it up to the electric guitar and got into the power and the
sustain it was to enhance the piece of music. It is not like I
have a guitar sound and I use the same sound on every track.
You hear in your head what it could sound like. You work at it
and you try different things until it sounds right to you. I
don’t having any problem bringing stuff through to recording
level. The thing is that you have got to be adaptable to what
is possible. You hear something in your head – usually it is
the power of the guitar that you hear. When you are in the
studio trying to record it you try to find it.
Jeb: Do you feel “Bridge of
Sighs” is the best song you have written?
Robin: I think it is the best
song in the catalog. It is a monster. Some things are so
potent that they play you, you don’t play them.
Jeb: You are in the States
through March. What is next?
Robin: We are going to play
here and then take a little break and go to Europe. I had not
toured for eighteen months before starting this tour. I wanted
to start the ball rolling so Jack and I could start playing
live.
Jeb: You are saying Jack and
you are going to tour?
Robin: We are going to play
some dates. Jack and I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago and
we are talking about September at the moment. We have to see
what people will offer us and what sort of places we can play
because it has to be right. Jack doesn’t do a lot of live
work.
Jeb: Would you stick to the
Trower/Bruce compositions or would you play some Cream and
Trower songs?
Robin: I would think we would
have to have a go at a couple of things – sort of the hits as it
were. It is too early right now. We have to come to terms with
where and when we can play. We are already talking about
another album too.
Jeb: Would you throw all your
creativity into Jack or would you put another Robin Trower out
as well?
Robin: At the moment I am
putting together enough material to do an instrumental album I
have been thinking about for a couple of years. I am not going
to go off into any other areas with the instrumental album but I
hope to achieve a blues feeling with it. I really am looking
forward to doing it. I have the material ready and now it is
just a matter of timing.
Jeb: Your solos are very
melodic. It is almost like they are lyrical passages.
Robin: That is part of the
compositional side of what I do. Some songs you come up with
are you just trying to come up with a melody instead of what I
call a blow in solo. The best guitar player I ever saw live was
Albert King. Everything he played was a beautiful melody. I
know it was only in the blues scale but compositionally it was
perfect. I saw him about twelve years ago. It was a huge
thrill for me and it blew me away. I wanted to give up playing
guitar for about a year after that. I also got the same feeling
when I saw Jimi Hendrix play.
Jeb: A lot of people talk to
you about your guitar playing but I like your lyrics. Where do
you draw inspiration for the lyrical content of your songs?
Robin: I don’t really think
about it too much. I am influenced by what is going on in the
world. A few lyrics lately are about what we are doing to the
planet. I like to get a combination between the spiritual and
the earthly.
Jeb: “Day of the Eagle” would
be an example of that.
Robin: That was an anti-war
song. Quite often the lyrics are just feelings and I can’t
always tell you what some of them really mean; they are just
feelings. They mean something below the surface to me. You try
to enhance the music with the lyrics. You want the lyrics to
fit with the music. It all has to feel like one thing and I
think that is why people don’t really think about the lyrics.
They are not specific enough for people to say, “Oh that could
be me” because I am not writing about things like that.
Jeb: A cool example might be
“Somebody’s Calling.”
Robin: That is a James Dewar
lyric. It is a very, very good lyric. Jimmy wrote some great
lyrics. He wrote “Daydream.” There is no resolution to
“Somebody’s Calling.” He had a real empathy to the music.
Jeb: I wish you would put
“Somebody’s Calling” in your live set. Do you like that song?
Robin: I love that song. There
is a lot of stuff on that album that I really love.
Jeb: Your music speaks to me
whether it is the classics like “Bridge of Sighs” or the new
songs like “Go My Way” or the album from the 80's called
Passion. No matter what sounds you use you have a unique
way of conveying your message and music to the listener.
Robin: When I started off all I
said to myself was that I wanted to make some soulful music. If
it is soulful then there will be other people who will hear it
and feel it as well. I didn’t want to play music that was just
on the surface. If I have achieved that in some way then I am a
happy person.
Jeb: You were very influenced
by the black blues coming out of America back in the 1950's.
What was it about the blues?
Robin: Up until that time you
just had popular music and there was some beautiful music made
from the 1930's right up until the 1950's. This music you are
talking about, rhythm and blues and blues from the ‘50's, was so
earthy, primal and deep that it was mysterious. If you heard a
Robert Johnson track in 1960 it was like hearing something from
another planet.
Jeb: How hard was it for you to
be exposed to the blues?
Robin: It was very hard
indeed. I was lucky because I had a friend who used to write to
a record store in Memphis. He would send them fifty dollars and
they would send him some singles. The first time I heard “Three
O’clock Blues” by BB King was through him. I first heard James
Brown through him. These are the people who set me on the path
to where I am now.
Jeb: Blues artists did better
touring in England then they did in the USA. Blues was very
compartmentalized here.
Robin: Blues music is almost
folk music; just listen to Robert Johnson or Son House. I think
the music stayed amongst the black Americans and didn’t really
branch out until it became popular in Europe. The generation
before me, the sixties musicians, had also picked up on earlier
stuff as well. Lonnie Donegan was doing Big Bill Broonzy
songs. We were not the first ones to pick up on it as another
generation before us discovered them.
Jeb: Even Led Zeppelin owes
their first album to the blues.
Robin: They, shall we say,
borrowed bits and pieces.
Jeb: You have done one album
that was close to traditional blues but it was still not totally
traditional. Do you ever think about making a true traditional
blues album?
Robin: I think about it and
then I hear something by Son House and I say, “Forget it.
You’re never going to get near that stuff.” I did an album
called 20th Century Blues but I think that was
blues influenced, as is all my music. I don’t think of it as
being the real deal because I don’t think white guys can get
near it, I really don’t. I have never heard a white guy get to
the soulfulness that black artist achieved.
Jeb: Not even Stevie Ray
Vaughan?
Robin: He is a wonderful guitar
player but no. It is not that thing. It is good. White guys
tend to do blues influenced music but it is not the real deal.
Howin’ Wolf is the real deal. That is a world apart. Howlin’
Wolf and Hubert Sumlin is a world apart from Stevie Ray. That
is music by black people for black people. It goes all the way
back to Africa.
Jeb: Not even Johnny Winter?
Robin: I can only tell you that
I have not heard any white guy get close. You know what I am
talking about with Robert Johnson or Howlin’ Wolf. Forget about
it, we don’t come close. I am not saying we don’t make good
music because we do but it ain’t blues.
Jeb: Tell me about re-recording
“Go My Way.”
Robin: There are two versions
of it. There is a version on the album called Go My Way
that I sing on. I really love that album as there is a lot of
great stuff on it. There is another version of the song on
Another Days Blues. We do that version live with Davey on
vocals. On Another Days Blues I took some of the stuff
from Someday’s Blues and I had Davey re-record the
vocals. I added some new songs to the album and put it out as
Another Days Blues. When I listened to Someday’s
Blues after hearing Davey on Living Out of Time I
realized it would have been a much better album. I said that to
my manager and he said, “Well then why don’t you do it?” So I
put it out as a different album. It is great when you own your
own tapes then you just do what you would like. We have not
been able to get the tapes for remixing the music that Jack and
I did. The red tape is very, very thick. We have complete
control of the music with the newer songs.
Jeb: Tell me about your
Fender.
Robin: I have a signature
model. There is a Robin Trower Stratocaster now. The signature
model is team built from the factory to my specifications. My
Strat is different than any other Strat you can buy.
Jeb: Some artists have
signature models that are not the same as what they play on
stage.
Robin: The thing is that I had
them put together a guitar that was exactly right for me. I
love it. I have not stopped using them. I have four of them.
I like the idea that someone can go buy the same guitar that I
play on stage. Many guys come up to me after the show and say
that they have my signature series and that they love it. There
can’t be a greater honor than to have your own Strat.
Jeb: You are still playing
through Marshall amps on stage.
Robin: They are old Marshalls.
On the album with Jack Bruce I used little amps called Cornel
Plexes. They are little twenty-watt amps and I used two of them
together.
Jeb: You can get your sound
through something with low of a wattage?
Robin: I can get that sound,
put it like that.
Jeb: Coming out of Procal Harum
you had Jude. You went from having a band name to being called
Robin Trower.
Robin: I was wise enough to
realize that so many bands who had a band name, when they split
up, their career was over. It was very simple to me. I wanted
to have a career so the band had to be called my name that way I
could go on and on and on. Otherwise the public do not know who
you are. If I had come out of Procal Harum and not had a hit
record then no one would have known anything about me. It
enabled me to have a career regardless of who was in the band.
Jeb: Why didn’t Jude make it?
Robin: It didn’t work
musically. Frankie Miller and I started off with some songs but
it just didn’t translate to a band thing. I did find James
Dewar through Frankie Miller so that was a great stepping-stone
for me.
Jeb: Do you remember the first
time you heard Jimmy sing live?
Robin: Apart from backing
vocals in Jude I didn’t hear him sing live. I heard him on a
demo of a song he played for me and I just thought he had a
beautiful voice immediately. When it came to splitting Jude up
and doing what I wanted to do, Jimmy was right in front of my
face. It was meant to be. The best thing that ever happened to
me, other than meeting my wife, was meeting Jimmy Dewar. I
don’t think my music would have crossed over into being a
popular thing if it hadn’t been for his vocals.
Jeb: He brought something to
the table that no one had.
Robin: He was very soulful. He
made our music commercial.
Jeb: You got to experience the
change from the ‘60's to the ‘70's in the music business. You
went from playing in a club to playing in front of an entire
city in a football arena. Was that a hard transition?
Robin: It was quite hard to
deal with. I think we might have shot to the top too quickly
for our own good. You need to develop into shows that size.
One year we were supporting Jethro Tull and the next year we
were out there on the top of the bill. I think you need to
develop slowly to get to those places. You need to really need
to know what you are about.
Jeb: Did that lead up to where
you didn’t want to play live anymore?
Robin: That is right. I found
myself in a place where if I had a choice then I wouldn’t have
chosen that place. When you find yourself in that spot then you
need to stop and take stock.
Jeb: How sad. It must have
been miserable not to play live for you.
Robin: Life isn’t always going
to be exactly what you want. You hit brick walls and you have
to look around and come at it a different way so you can get
around it.
Jeb: What brought you back to
the stage?
Robin: Somebody called me and
asked me if I would like to come out and play some smaller
places and I thought that might be fun. I didn’t stop making
albums. I made the two albums with Jack Bruce and I made
another one with Jimmy.
Jeb: I have heard that the
one-on-one relationship of a smaller venue is much more
gratifying that playing in the huge stadiums.
Robin: It is. You can see the
look on their faces and you can feel the warmth that they are
giving you in response to your music. You can also get a
halfway decent guitar sound in most smaller places provided the
acoustics are not too atrocious. It makes it possible to create
the music and make it sound the way you want it too.
Jeb: Last one: there is a
legend that says Robin Trower recorded some unreleased songs
with Syd Barrett.
Robin: I don’t even know who
that is. I have heard the name. I know he was in Pink Floyd
but I don’t know anything about him beyond that.
Jeb: So we can say that one is
false.
Robin: False!
Visit Robin online @ TrowerPower.com
Send your feedback here
|
.gif)
.gif)
