How do you develop new material, and how do you work it into your set?
To this day, if I have an idea or a group of ideas, I always go down to a local club. I’ve never found another way to do it.
But I don’t want to go on a Saturday, because Saturday audiences laugh at everything. I want to go on a Tuesday night when there’s 30 or 40 people in there. Because they’ll be honest with you. If you throw something out and nobody laughs, it’s like, “Did I not explain that right, or did I not?” And they’re like, “No, it’s just not funny.”
That’s part of what makes stand-up such a fascinating thing to me: I’ve been doing it 40 years, and I still can’t tell you what people are going to laugh at, and what they’re not going to laugh at. Sometimes I go in with a thought or a premise and I think, “Oh, this is hilarious!” And you throw it out there, and… nothing. Crickets.
And sometimes I think, “Well, this [joke] is kind of stupid.” And you throw it out there and people are beating the tables and laughing. And you’re like, really? But that’s what makes it so fun. It’s kind of like being with a woman that you can’t quite figure out: That’s what keeps her interesting. And stand-up is kind of the same way.
Do you find that if something works somewhere that it’ll pretty much work everywhere?
Well, I think sometimes audiences’ experiences are different. I remember real early on, I was at the Punchline in Atlanta, and I was watching a comic from New York. They were doing all this material about the subway, and it just wasn’t working very well. And they came offstage and they said, “Oh, these people in Atlanta are stupid!” And I said, “Well, they’re really not. We don’t have subways, so they don’t know what you’re talking about. No more than I could go up to New York City and talk about bass fishing or bow hunting.” We don’t have that shared experience.
When I’m thinking about things to talk about on stage, in the back of my mind, I always have that [memory].
I got bitten by a copperhead about six months ago. And my thought was, “I’ve got to get a bit out of this.” A, to pay for the antivenom, but B, because it is an unusual thing; you need to talk about it. I think a lot of people have the thoughts that stand-up comedians have, but they don’t do anything with them. They have the thought, and then they go on with the rest of their day. Whereas comics grab it and go, “Yeah, why do we do that?” Or, “Has anybody else thought this was weird?”
To me, one of the favorite responses is for somebody to come back after the show and say, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve done that,” or “I’ve said that,” or “I’ve thought that.” You made them laugh at themselves, kind of.
That’s the great thing about art and entertainment, when you can make something that connects and resonates with people.
Yeah, I 100% agree. I don’t know how the people on the outside view comedians, but I think some people probably think, “Oh, they’re just a bunch of silly idiots.” Well, comedians are kind of fascinated because by nature, they’re curious people. Most of them are really well-read, and they deep-dive on things. At the end of the day, you’re studying people. I think no matter which side of the political spectrum you’re on, we probably agree on 85% of the things: what we want out of life, what we worry about, whatever. And we hit a point where all we do is argue about the 15% that we’re different on instead of celebrating the 85% that we have in common.
I think we may be headed out of it now, but we’ve been in a period where people have to be right. And if they have to be right, that means you have to be wrong. And nobody wants to have that conversation, so both sides end up defensive. And the truth of the matter is, we’re all wrong about something, and we’re all wrong about a lot of somethings. Because nobody has life figured out.
We kind of lost that ability to laugh at ourselves. But if we would all land there, I think we’d eliminate a lot of this yelling at each other. And at the end of the day, we don’t have to agree on everything. And you don’t have to decapitate somebody if they don’t agree with you.
If you hadn’t entered that competition at the Punchline back in ‘84, what do you think you’d be doing today?
Wow. Nobody’s ever asked me that.
I don’t know. I think if I had stayed in the corporate world, I would have been miserable. And I’ve thought about that. Would I have quit that and gone and done something creative? I think I probably would have; I love to draw and paint. That’s something people don’t know about me.
And then I thought, “Well, maybe I would have ended up in advertising or something,” because that’s where you get to be creative and be funny. I think I could have done that. But I might have ended up taking care of somebody else’s farm, and been totally happy doing that.
Had you remained with IBM, you’d be long since retired. Do you foresee yourself retiring from the stage at any point?
I guess at some point you have to. Even when I was starting out, I would sometimes watch old comedians and think, “Oh, I remember when they used to be funny.” I would always tell my wife, “Tell me when I’m not funny anymore; I don’t want to embarrass myself like that.”
And she would always say, “Well, if you’ll just listen, you’ll know.” So now I listen because I don’t want to stay too long at the dance.
But it’s like the other night when we were sold out. You get to the end and everybody stands, and you’re like, “Well, I guess I got a few more shows in me, right?” I still enjoy it when those lights go down and they shine that flashlight on the floor. I’m over the airline travel and I’m over the hotel rooms, but when I’m out there, it’s just fun. These people paid money to hear what I have to say, and that’s quite humbling.
Somebody asked me not long ago, “What do you think when you’re about to walk out onstage?” And I said, “I’m about to go talk to my friends.” Which is probably kind of a weird thought, but that’s what I think.
Jeff Foxworthy will appear at the Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, NV on June 14.
Peter Frampton Shines On
by Bill Kopp
Peter Frampton was catapulted to fame when his blockbuster 1976 double album Frampton Comes Alive rocketed to the top of the charts. That album set in motion the live album trend; in the wake of Frampton’s success, nearly every major ‘70s rock and pop act released a live record.
But Frampton was no overnight success. As a teenager, he fronted the Herd, gaining popularity in his native England. And later with Humble Pie, he made some of the best hard-rocking music of the early ‘70s. Along with a long list of credits as guitarist on other people’s records (Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Harry Nilsson and many others), his solo albums showcased Frampton’s skills on guitar, vocals and songwriting.
Though his commercial peak of the ‘70s couldn’t sustain forever, Peter Frampton has continued to make and release well-regarded albums. His most recent is an instrumental set credited to the Peter Frampton Band, 2021’s Frampton Forgets the Words. And while he’s faced a serious setback in developing a debilitating disease that threatens his livelihood, Frampton remains hard at work, gearing up for a concert tour. That tour will take him to 18 cities in six weeks, including an April 11 date in Reno. On the eve of that tour, Frampton spoke to Rock On’s Bill Kopp, discussing his music, career and what the future might hold.
Frampton Forgets the Words captures the spirit of the artists to whom you’re paying tribute, but without copying their style. The version of George Harrison’s “Isn’t it a Pity” is my favorite track on the album, but a couple of the selections surprised me. Can you tell me about Michel Colombier’s “Dreamland”?
That’s my favorite. Years ago, I saw the documentary on Jaco Pastorius. And I had no idea of what happened to him; I just thought of him as the bass player’s bass player. So it drove me into a Jaco thesis. I got every album, every track, every video, you name it. I went down a Jaco rabbit hole, and I came across the track “Dreamland.” That was co-written by Colombier, and it was actually on his [self-titled 1979] album. I didn’t know anything about it, just that it was the track that I would play every morning. I didn’t think anything more about it.
And then one day, I called up Rob Arthur, my band leader, keyboard player and dear friend for many years. And I said, “Let’s meet at the studio. When can you make it this week?” “Tomorrow? Right.” So we went in, and I said, “I want to learn how to play ‘Dreamland,’ just for kicks. But we’ll record the two of us playing anyway.” So we played it, and we were all smiles. It was just the most fantastic track to play, and we enjoyed it so much. But I had no idea if I would ever use it.
And then after making All Blues (2019), we decided to do an instrumental covers record. And I said, “’Dreamland’! Let’s get it out and put the band on it.” What a tremendous melody! I’m a melody guy; I love great melodies. And that is probably one of the finest.
Speaking of melody, another track on that album that surprised me was your reading of “Reckoner,” the Radiohead track from In Rainbows. What struck me about that is how you highlighted the melody from that song. It was in there in the original, but somehow de-emphasized. You brought it out in a way that the original doesn’t, and that was an inspired way to approach it. Was that something that you were consciously aiming for?
On each track, I wanted to play [guitar] with the vocal texture. On [the cover of Roxy Music’s] “Avalon,” I think I came the closest.
Your guitar does sound like Brian Ferry singing.
That was my m.o.; I wanted to translate it into guitar, bearing in mind the soul and the talent and the performance of the original so that I did it justice, rather than making a muzak version. Because it could have easily turned into that.
When one looks at your career as a whole, one of the things that emerges is an artist who, unlike many of your peers, seems more than comfortable working as part of a unit – even as a sideman – as opposed to someone who always wants the spotlight.
Yeah. I mean, I’m kind of like Jimmy Page has always been. We think of him with The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, but he was a really top session guy in London.
He played on sessions for Herman’s Hermits, Donovan, Françoise Hardy, on and on…
Yeah, he played on so much stuff. I didn’t quite do as much as him, but I’ve always enjoyed doing sessions for other people because everybody works differently. Every artist has different material, and I enjoy bringing my creativity as a guitarist. I’m a guitar player first and foremost. Even if I’ve got a cold, I can still do a good solo. I’ve never minded being the hired gun or the lead guitarist who wasn’t the singer. I did a little bit of singing in Humble Pie with Steve [Marriott], but the main thing for me in Humble Pie was that it enabled me to find myself as a stylist guitar player.
For a while, your medical diagnosis made it look like your touring days were over. Happily, you’re proving that wrong. Is there anything that you’re able to do to slow or mitigate the progression of the IBM [inclusion body myositis]?
At the moment, no. There’s a new drug trial coming up that I hope to be part of. But as of the moment, we have no magic bullet, as it were. So that’s why my fund, the Peter Frampton Fund at Johns Hopkins is so important to me. And so many people donate for the cause. You wouldn’t believe how many people donate, and what they send. Some people send $10, and some people send thousands. It’s really, truly amazing to me.
2026 will mark the 50th anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive. Are you thinking that far ahead in terms of what you might do for that?
No. I’m an of-the-moment person. My managers will think about that for me! If I get the induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which I’m hoping happens, it’ll be a wonderful next couple of years for me with that. And for the 50th anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive, we’re going to have a big party. I don’t know what we’re going to do; that’s all I’ve been told: We’re going to have a big party. But you never know. We’ll work out something.
I hope I’ll be able to do some playing then. But I don’t know, because as I keep saying to everybody that’s asking me, including managers and agents, “I don’t know whether you can book that next tour, because I have a progressive disease and it affects my hands.”
I’ve got to have the wherewithal to be able to play, and I’m adapting, but I am losing strength in my hands. But between the audience and the adrenaline and my love of playing music, especially guitar, somehow I pull it off every night.
The Marshall Tucker Band: Together Forever
by Bill Kopp
by Bill Kopp
by Bill Kopp
Combining rock, country and even a bit of jazz, the Marshall Tucker Band earned major success in the 1970s. The group from Spartanburg, South Carolina would score six Gold albums, with two going Platinum. In addition to hit albums, the band landed many of its songs on the pop, country and rock singles charts. “Can’t You See,” “Fire on the Mountain” and “Heard it in a Love Song” are among the best-loved songs in the Marshall Tucker Band catalog.
While the band’s lineup has changed many times since its founding in 1972, today lead singer and founding member Doug Gray leads a lineup that has been together for many years. The band is currently on tour with fellow ‘70s rock veterans Jefferson Starship. On the eve of that tour, Gray spoke with Rock On about the band’s earliest, pre-fame days back in South Carolina, and explains why the Marshall Tucker Band has endured well into the 21st century.
Your history in music predates the Marshall Tucker Band. Tell me about the music scene in the mid ‘60s in Spartanburg.
It was bigger than most people can imagine. There were bands playing at every bar. You could walk into one and see one of your friends playing in that particular band, and you’d see another friend or two playing in another band. It didn’t matter where you were; these were all places where people would get together.
And we had a lot of things going on because people were realizing that music would draw people in; that was the key right there. Everybody understood that it wasn’t just the food – and beer, of course – that was bringing people in. It was music.
Even back then, you and (guitarist/songwriter) Toy Caldwell were in bands together. What was that like?
I think I was in the 7th grade when we were the Guildsmen, and that was with a couple of guys who are doctors now. Hell, they’re probably retired from being doctors by now. I’m not going to retire. What would I do then? I’d have to become a doctor, I guess! Then we were the New Generation. Then we did the Toy Factory, on and off.
by Bill Kopp
by Bill Kopp
How did that group get its start?
We played together for two or three years, ‘65 to ‘67. That band was named after Toy. Then after we got back from Vietnam in ‘69, Toy worked with his dad, who was a master plumber. I went to work for a finance company that turned into a bank. But we knew that we wanted to do [music] again. One day, Toy said, “I got us a gig at the VFW.” I said, “Toy, you’ve only got three songs that we’ve even thought about playing!” He said, “Yeah, but we can get a steak for free, and probably drink a few.” Now, Toy didn’t even drink; he was just trying to pull me in.
So I said, “Well, we’ll go up there. What’s it going to hurt?” Toy said, “The problem is, we’ve got to play three sets.” “So what are we going to do, Toy?” He said that the best thing we could do was do it, and just learn from it.
So what sort of songs did you play?
I think we played “Misty” fifty different ways! We’d get them dancing slow. And then we’d play it really fast; I’d add some lyrics to it, and it kind of grew. Those people would dance. They weren’t embarrassed to dance.
Most people don’t have a clue that we were playing [Eddie Floyd’s] “Knock on Wood,” [Question Mark and the Mysterians’] “96 Tears,” and stuff like that. I actually have a recording; we went to Arthur Smith Studio up in Charlotte, North Carolina. The tape has about four songs on it, and it’s been baked [preserved] so we can listen to it. Nobody but me has heard it in the last 25 years, and it’ll probably never see the light of day. But it sounded good.
I’ve read the story of how the Marshall Tucker Band got its name, but I’d rather hear it in your words...
We’d been practicing at a funky little place about a block or two away from a club that we played on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’d rehearse for an hour or two, or until the beer ran out.
The promoter/talent buyer wanted us to open a show. So when he came down, he said, “I’ve got to have some handbills.” Toy and I just did not want to keep calling the band Toy Factory. So we told him to come back in an hour, and we’d have a name for the band.
Well, we found a key in our rehearsal space. And on the key, there was a tag that had the name “Marshall Tucker” on it. He was a piano tuner. Somebody said, “Well, hell, looky here. We’ll just call it ‘Marshall Tucker Band’ for this weekend.” So that’s what we told the promoter. And then we asked him, “Who’s headlining the show?” he told us that it was the Allman Brothers Band! So the timing was right, and our attitude was right.
About three weeks after we opened for the Allman Brothers Band at that club, Phil Walden from Capricorn Records called up and said, “I want y’all to come down here to Macon [Georgia] and play at Grant’s Lounge. I want my whole staff to hear you.”
So we said, “Maybe we’ll just keep the name!”
Were you surprised when your first single, “Can’t You See” hit the charts?
We were surprised. It was a year after the first album had come out. We were down in Myrtle Beach, playing at the convention center. We were staying at the hotel, and just running around on the beach. And we looked up and saw our road manager waving his hands and yelling for everybody to come up to a room. We thought something bad had happened!
He said, “Your record just turned Gold!” So we went and had a beer, and that was it. Without thinking about it, we just knew that the next show had to be the best one we’d ever done. And it was.
How did success affect the band?
It didn’t. It was unspoken, but it was like, “Okay, let’s see how far we can go.” You didn’t know what to expect, because you didn’t have enough time to think about it. We were living a dream.
I remember complaining to a guy in management: “All these damn people backstage here; I can’t even move!” He said, “When there’s nobody back here botherin’ you, you don’t need to be in a band no more!”
Was life on the road in the ‘70s as wild and crazy as legend suggests?
The people who say that they didn’t party, they’re lying. Everybody did. There wasn’t nobody who went over in the corner and said, “Nah, I ain’t going to do that.”
We had this Dodge van. And every time we’d hit the brakes to stop for a red light, all the McDonald’s bags, all of the Jack Daniel’s bottles, and all the empty beer cans would fly to the front of the van. We never threw them out.
Your first album, The Marshall Tucker Band, was released more than 50 years ago. What keeps you going?
I talked to a guy just the other night. He said, “When I was little, my dad used to drive me to school, and I’d sit in the car seat in the back. I had to listen to you guys [on the car stereo] all the time. And you know what? You’re actually better live than you are on records.”
And I said, “Thank you very much.” And since he was hearing us just the other night, that makes me feel even that much better.
After Forty Years and Counting, for Tesla it’s Still ‘Time to Rock!’
Hard-rocking band Tesla came on the scene in the mid ‘80s, with their own brand of blues-based, straight-ahead rock. The Sacramento-based group was successful nearly right out of the gate, and the band’s third album was a runaway success that influenced the direction of popular music. Tesla went inactive for a few years in the late ‘90s, but roared back for the 21st century. Having sold more than 14 million records in the U.S. alone, they’re still going strong today, releasing singles and playing to enthusiastic audiences. With dozens of dates across the country between March and August, the group stays busy. Lead singer Jeff Keith spoke with Rock On’s Bill Kopp about the band’s early successes, the game-changing acoustic album, and Tesla’s deft survival in the ever-changing landscape of popular music.
ROCK ON: 1989’s The Great Radio Controversy went Double Platinum. How did that success change things for Tesla?
Jeff Keith: Well, it’s funny. Because we did the first record, Mechanical Resonance, and then when we had success with that, it was time for a second record. And then sometimes in the music business, they start saying, “Hey, what about the ‘sophomore jinx?” when you’re trying to follow the first record. But you know what we said? “Hey, we’re not in high school anymore. We’re writing songs. We’re not worried about it.” And we just wrote and came up with The Great Radio Controversy, which featured “Love Song,” a Top Ten single. “Signs” went Top Ten too, but that was written by Les Emerson from the Five Man Electrical Band.
In ‘90, Tesla did the acoustic album Five Man Acoustical Jam. Sometimes that record is credited with inspiring the whole MTV Unplugged movement. Do or don’t you claim credit for that?
We were on tour with Mötley Crüe, on their Dr. Feelgood tour. They had two nights off in – what was it? Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, New York City – wherever it was. We had two nights off in a row. So we said, “Hey, instead of sitting in a hotel room for two nights in a row, why don’t we find a club that’ll let us play our songs acoustically?” And somebody says, “We should bring down a 24-track mobile truck with two-inch recording tape, and five cameras.” Because that was back when MTV was playing music videos. So we recorded that and put it on the shelf.
Me and Tommy [Skeoch] and Frank [Hannon] went up to a radio station in Boston, and played some of it on the air. Phones were ringing off the hook, back when phones were on a hook. And we said, “We’ve got a whole night of this!”
So now MTV Unplugged was coming out, and from what I understand, they wanted Tesla to do the first Unplugged show. But we couldn’t, because we already had some commitments on the day they wanted to do it. But we did end up doing it eventually; I think we played with the Black Crowes. A lot of things that Tesla’s done, like the Five Man Acoustical Jam, were just us having fun, and it wasn’t an intention to make an album. So it was sort of an accident that just happened. And it’s the biggest selling record we’ve got to date.
But did we start something? We’re not trying to take that kind of credit. We were just having fun.
Musical styles and fashions change. When grunge became popular, how did that change the band’s fortunes?
Here’s what I say. When grunge came in, their image was “no image,” which is still an image. Wearing jeans and plaid shirts and letting your hair grow long and not dressing up is still an image. It’s like Geddy Lee says: when you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
When grunge came along, the grunge movement kind of immediately said, “You who are dressing up and dolling up, using all the hairspray: You’re out. No matter how good your songs are, you’re out.” But we never worried about how we were looking.
My belief is that Tesla got to stay around because the grunge movement looked at us and thought, “Yeah, you didn’t really play to all that, so we’re going to let you hang.” But what really kept us hanging around was that our fans were with us. And they’re still with us today. That’s what ultimately lets you stick around. No matter what the movement or fad is, when we have a fan base like ours, we’re going to be able to play until the wheels fall off.
What’s your favorite part of being in Tesla?
Being the lyricist and the frontman and the singer, I get to go out there and open up my heart and share. And to have people relate to the lyrics is like, wow. And I enjoy the music; how could you not enjoy what the guys are playing? It’s beautiful music. The greatest thing is playing the songs live. I love making records, but it’s a whole different process than going out to play it live.
When you started back in the ‘80s, did you ever think you’d be doing it this long?
I grew up in a small town of population 900 in northern California, lived in Oklahoma for six years. Graduated high school in ‘76, came back to northern California in the foothills. And then my first concert was Day on the Green at the Oakland Coliseum. That was in ‘78, and I was 19 years old. Van Halen opened the show with “Running With the Devil.” And then it was AC/DC, and we were like, “Who the heck is this?” And then it was Pat Travers, and then Foreigner, and then Aerosmith was headlining. That was my first show ever in my whole life, when I was 19.
When I joined [pre-Tesla band] City Kidd in ‘83, I was 24. By the time we put out our first record I had just turned 28. Most people start out at twelve years old looking at magazines and listening to phonograph records and saying, “I want to grow up and be a rock star.” I never did that. I’ve still got that small town attitude. I’m just a blue collar, hardworking guy. And that’s what Tesla is: a blue collar, hardworking band. We’re very humbled by it. We’re not this big band that sells out football stadiums. We just have our own little following, and we love it.
teslatheband.com
Jefferson Starship’s Embryonic Journey Continues
By Bill Kopp
When one looks beyond the many hits – no less than 18 charting singles – the history of Jefferson Starship is admittedly a complicated one. Rising from the ashes of beloved and influential ‘60s band Jefferson Airplane, the band launched in 1972 has gone through myriad lineup changes, name changes and musical styles. But a mainstay from the group’s earliest days to present day is multi-instrumentalist and singer David Frieberg. Just ahead of a tandem tour with fellow rock-era musical veterans Marshall Tucker Band, Frieberg spoke with Rock On about his life in music, and the enduring appeal of Jefferson Starship.
Your musical foundation is in classical, and then folk. How did that all progress?
I did play violin and viola when I was in high school, and I enjoyed that. Somehow my family would never agree to get me a guitar! I left Cincinnati, which is where I grew up, Christmas Eve of ‘59; my wife at the time and I took a train to San Francisco. We didn’t last very long; I think we met just so we could move to California! And when we split up, I said to myself, “I think I should get a guitar.” So, I bought one.
Until I got to California, I never even considered that it would be possible that I would earn a living playing music. I was being programmed to become a lawyer or something. Oh, boy! That was never going to happen. Even when I was busy doing poorly in college, I spent a lot more time singing in choruses and beer halls than I did studying.
Folk singing was really big back then; everybody listened to the Kingston Trio. But I was interested in Pete Seeger also, because when I was a kid, I loved the Weavers. And so I started playing folk music and getting into a little left-wing politics.
How did you go from that to rock, making six albums with Quicksilver Messenger Service?
I ended up with a job with Southern Pacific Railroad in their freight department, at the main office in San Francisco. But I ended up making more money playing on the weekends at folk clubs. So I just left. I met Paul Kantner; we became buddies, and we tried to do various musical stuff together. But I ended up starting Quicksilver.
Back in ‘67 when all that was really getting going in San Francisco, did you feel part of some bigger movement?
Yes, we're part of the community. We could feel that everybody in that community was really behind us.
Back in ‘67 when all that was really getting going in San Francisco, did you feel part of some bigger movement?
Yes, we're part of the community. We could feel that everybody in that community was really behind us. You felt really good just walking down the street, because you knew everybody. And then the tourists came; they were running Gray Line buses up and down the street.
Yeah: “Oh, look at the hippies!”
Exactly.
How did you end up joining Jefferson Starship in ‘72?
I ended up getting busted for smoking pot, and I was in jail. And then Paul came and visited me and said, “I’ve got together with Marty Balin; we’ve got this band and we’re calling it Jefferson Starship.” And I said, “Wow, that sounds great.” They didn’t keep me in jail that long; I think I sat there 30 days, and they realized I wasn’t going to make bail, so they ROR’d [released on recognizance] me because they didn’t want to feed me!
It seems like at one time or another you have taken on every musical role in Jefferson Starship except drummer…
Thank God they didn’t ask me to do that!
As a classically trained musician, do those different instruments all come naturally to you? And which do you prefer?
When I got into Quicksilver Messenger Service, they didn’t have a bass player, so I started playing bass. I’d never done it before. And I played some keyboards, too. Keyboards, I never took any lessons. There was a piano in the house when I was a kid, and I think I played it more than my brothers and sisters who took piano lessons. I knew how to read music, and I knew where all the notes were, and then I just kept on. It’s a good instrument to write songs on because you have the whole range. In Quicksilver and in Jefferson Starship, I would never play a keyboard solo; just little licks.
There’s the lick in “Miracles” that I played on organ. It turned out to be the little hook at the beginning of the song. Every now and then, something magic happens; that’s how I look at it.
Right now I’m preferring to play the guitar because everything else is pretty much covered. That’s covered, too, really. Singing is why I’m there; that was my first love.
To what degree does the band adhere to the sound and the arrangements of the original recordings?
We try to keep the spirit of the original arrangements there. I mean, it isn’t going to be exactly the same because we have different personalities playing the instruments. We all feel free to do whatever we need to do to have a good time, because that’s basically why we’re all still doing this. I left in ‘84, and didn’t rejoin Jefferson Starship until after the Starship thing happened. I rejoined in 2005. But Chris Smith, though, joined Paul’s Jefferson Starship in 1998. So he’s actually been playing with us for more than 25 years! And I don’t think anybody else has played that long a stretch, uninterrupted.
The group’s sound has changed radically and then changed again and again since the beginning. In concert, you’ve got less than two hours in which to balance the crowd pleasers with the ones that you most enjoy playing. How does the band choose a set list?
It’s always a problem, because there are so many songs. There are certain songs that everybody wants to hear. We’ll play some Airplane stuff, because Jefferson Starship always did play some Airplane stuff. And I was in the Airplane for the very last tour. And we can’t leave out some of the beautiful Marty Balin stuff from the ‘70s.
Luckily, we enjoy playing the ones that most people want to hear. I enjoy playing
all of them, actually. Even the ones from when I wasn’t in the group; I wasn’t in Starship when they dropped the Jefferson. But we do three of those, usually. And I enjoy singing them, so it’s fun.
The most recent Jefferson Starship studio album is Mother of the Sun from 2020. That record got a lot of positive reviews, many noting the album’s sonic connections with the earliest days of the group, and even to the Airplane. It even features a live recording of the band playing a Jefferson Airplane classic, “Embryonic Journey.” Going forward, is there a possibility of new studio recordings?
Our main problem is we don’t all live in the same city. And we’re actually performing so often, it’s hard to figure out time when we can all get together. It was hard, even, for us to get
Mother of the Sun made: “Okay, we’ve got two weeks here. We can actually do this.” A lot of it – overdubs and stuff – we did in our own studios.
But we have some other songs. We’ve been in the studio for two days in the last few years; we still have these songs that we never have find time to finish. So there are other ones in the works. All we have to do is stay alive!
Jefferson Starship has a distinctive San Francisco character. What keeps it going?
I guess it’s a matter of everybody being free to do what they want. When Cathy [Richardson, vocals and guitar] joined the band in 2008, something happened; it was special. And then when Slick Aguilar had really bad medical problems and couldn’t go on the road anymore, Jude [Gold, lead guitar] came in. And all of a sudden we felt this connection that was really happening; everybody could feel it. I know Paul noticed it, too. He really loved the band.
Grace [Slick] and China [Kantner], Paul and Grace’s daughter, really loved the band. And when were at Paul’s funeral, the kids said, “Wouldn’t you like to keep doing this?” And we said, “We would love to!” And Grace, who had the actual license, gave us the license to do it. And she even helped write some of the lyrics for one of the songs, “It’s About Time” on Mother of the Sun.
Here we are in February, and the band has got gigs on its calendar through August. What else is in the future for the band?
Maybe we’ll find some time to get back to those songs that we have started, maybe get them finished. I am 85 years old. You wouldn’t think I would still be doing this, but I have to. Playing with these people is what’s keeping me alive.
There’s a Fire in the House: A Conversation with Steve Vai
By Bill Kopp
Playing melodically and “shredding” are each in their own way highly valued qualities in music, especially in the genre of hard rock. But those two qualities – crafting an accessible, memorable melody and displaying formidable instrumental pyrotechnics – come together only in the rarest cases. Exhibit A for melodic shredding is the music of Steve Vai. A guitar virtuoso, New York-born Vai has applied his prodigious talents as guitarist, composer, arranger, songwriter, instrument designer and band leader. He has released a dozen solo albums starting with his 1984 debut Flex-Able right through his recent work: an archival release and collaboration with old friend Johnny Sambretto, 2023’s Vai/Gash, and an album of great new music, 2022’s Inviolate.
Vai’s career has also included high-profile examples of him lending his skills to some of the biggest names in rock. He’s toured as lead guitarist with Frank Zappa, Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth, Whitesnake and others, and has worked in the studio with everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Mary J. Blige to Alice Cooper to Spinal Tap. Ahead of a concert tour with lifelong friend and fellow shredder Joe Satriani (see interview in our Sep.-Oct. ‘22 issue) he spoke with Rock On’s Bill Kopp about the relationships between emotion and music, between feel and technique.
Your songs have always been about much more than serving as a sonic canvas for a solo; the music explores a wide variety of emotional textures as well. From where do you draw the emotional content that shows up in your music?
I draw my emotional investment in the music similar to the way anybody else would. You have to enter an emotional state of mind in order for it to authentically flow into whatever you’re doing: a melody, an intensity, a groove. The thing that I always focus on is melody.
I love shredding. I love going off into the most obtuse, abstract kind of performance I could muster. And where that comes from is desire: It’s an impulse to create, and everybody has that. It’s finding the fearlessness to do what you want to do, what your impulses are dictating. And the emotional content is always reflected in the depth of the ability of the music’s creator to go into an emotional state of mind.
Those emotions could be positive or negative, right?
Yeah; you can very easily see that in popular music. You know what’s on people’s minds: sex, heartbreak, all these kinds of things. And that’s fine. Many people feel that expressing their pain in their music – their emotional pain, is a cathartic way of dissolving it. But I don’t buy that at all. I think that whatever state of mind you enter into, you create more of. So beware how you feel when you’re writing and performing. You have to make a choice.
Frankly, I don’t have a lot of suffering in my life, so my songs don’t reflect that. They reflect other things. I do have challenges, and there’s an emotional element to those challenges, and that flows into the music. How you feel should flow into what you’re doing, and you are in control. You’re the only one in control of the quality of the emotional investment you want to make in your creations. So that’s your responsibility. You could do whatever you want, but whatever you do, you’re creating more of that for yourself.
So if I go back and play a song that I may have written 40 years ago that has a lot of angst in it, in order for me to perform that song effectively and authentically, I would have to feel angst-ridden. I choose not to do that.
So you just don’t perform those songs?
The melodic qualities – the “heart” of your works, if you will – are perfectly balanced with technical brilliance, the “head” part of the music. Does that balance come naturally?
In the field that I function in, my technical abilities on the guitar are not really extraordinary [ed. note: oh yes they are!]. It’s what I play, it’s how I apply my technique that creates the voice. So I love melody, and I really love phrasing. And the guitar is the best instrument in the world to create phrasing, because the dynamics of it are extraordinary. You can color the sound. You pick it, you bend it, you hit it hard. All these incredible variations: pull-offs, hammers, anything that anybody does, they’re all available. And I like using those things in the melody as opposed to just, “Here’s a melody.”
Let’s take an example: “Call it Sleep” from Flex-Able, because there are a vast amount of dynamics and phrasing in the guitar part. If you listen, there’s so much that I love, using to get the melody to speak a certain way: all the articulations, dynamics. These are all part of the tools that you have to shape a melody to make it more effective.
An effective melody has to speak to somebody similar to the way a human voice speaks. When I speak to you, I use inflections, I use space, I use commas, I use periods and exclamation marks and question marks. These are all tools that we use to get our communication across. So the same thing holds true when you’re writing a melody. If I didn’t use all those things, and I just sat and talked to you like this [speaks in measured monotone] you’d get bored really quick! So I try to apply that to melodies.
Foghat’s latest release, Sonic Mojo debuted at the Number One spot on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. What can you tell me about the making of the record?
Sonic Mojo was a lot of fun to make. We probably had seven or eight songs left over that didn't make it onto the album! But what's really cool about the band that we have now with Scott Holt and Brian Bassett is that they just love playing together, trading back and forth. And Scott joining the band has given us a new lease on being creative and making music. We have an absolute blast. We have our own studio down in Florida, so we can make as much noise as we like.
We just did two release parties, one in New York at the Iridium, and then went out to L.A. and did a record release party at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. And we played eight or nine songs from the new album in front of an audience.
Yeah, usually when you say, “We're going to play the new one,” they say, “We're going to go get a beer,” right?
That's a really cool thing and a great thing about the current band: we're kind of brave like that. In fact, that night, the day before we did the show in New York, I said, “Let's do ‘Louisiana Blues’ as a tribute to Kim.” And everybody said, “Yeah, okay! Great song; love playing that.” And then we added “Hurts Me Too,” which we also hadn't played in a while. It's all about having fun.