Eric Johnson Band Interview

hi I'm rich Gallagher welcome to the Sweetwater minute I'm joined by some very special guests today we have Eric Johnson here we have Kyle Brock and we have Tommy Taylor thanks for coming in guys appreciate your being here all right thank you're gonna get tired of seeing me man this is like our third interview oh it's great you're happy to be back it's always nice to come here yeah well we're we're thrilled to have you here and I was thinking today it might be kind of fun to take a trip back through time and talk about Avi amuse accom because you guys were out touring the album you're playing it in its entirety and it'd be a I can't remember my breakfast yesterday but I'm hoping you guys can jump back thirty years or so it and fill us in on what was happening when the album was being made so tell us about first of all tell us about the tour and how you decided to go out and play the the album as a whole well it was a nice excuse for calling Tommy I to play egg together as a band it was just like we were just talking one day and thought well how how would be a cool way to do a tour and it was mention to me that a lot of people are do we you know a lot of people are doing like they'll take one of their records and they'll play the whole record live and I thought yeah it's go like this novel idea that a lot of people have been doing I guess Pink Floyd does it and you know different people bit up and so but just put it on the website just said hey would see if the fans wanted to see that and it was overwhelming that that's that was particularly what they'd like to see and then they explicitly we had some people interested in another record called being a Sal but most unanimously everybody said well I'd be great if you come out play I'll be music on from start to finish so I thought well okay and uh you know Tommy and Kyle were up for it and available so it's a wonderful opportunity to do it all right all right absolutely how long is the to our lasting how long are you out for nine weeks nine weeks dholtze all right all right that's that's a long time to be out he'd land pretty much every night errs at the yeah well space yeah seven nights off out of nine weeks maybe like that yeah six days on went off pretty much it's been pretty much non-stop right and they actually wanted it there was offers to extend the tour of it I thought maybe not right now go home and Brooke or or something right right I saw you do the the show at the NAMM show back in January did a fender event there seems like a lifetime of it yeah a couple of months but it really was really was awesome to see all the songs come together so my first question is what did you have to do to bring those songs back did you all have to go back and relearn them or they're still fresh in your minds as far as putting together this tour we played them so often back in the old days that they were kind of in our DNA I did have to go back and do a little touch-up what I do here what I'd be there right and get my gear together to make the sounds sound like it did back then right but not a whole lot of preparation where we played them for six straight years yeah well we did we definitely do some rehearsing before you know just to kind of make sure we could go through I mean you know some of the songs were you know easier to remember than others I mean there's a lot of those parts are kind of they're cemented there's like I said we played them so many times it's just you know it's kind of like muscle memory you're just kind of you know what's coming right so but you know we rehearse for you know for a few weeks and it started coming together pretty quickly really I mean the first couple rehearsals were like whoa maybe they're listening their record to borrow back you know but interesting not that first rehearsal is like a lot of it was like Houston and our DNA and it's almost like we could have gone and played that good I mean it would have been hilarious and funky but but that's what the we were rehearsed through it the first time it hadn't played that stuff and no 20 years yeah probably yeah and and it was like if we had to we could go to tonight you know because it was kind of like in our DNA you know but but we had to like fill in the blanks and say yeah we had a lot of even before that we record the record we had a lot of pre-roll with that material so we probably were playing the majority that material for two or three years before we recorded so I mean that on top of how long we toured it afterwards I mean this is definitely play those play those always a few times some of them more than others because we've revisited some of that material you know a different but all of it I mean I'm just trying to think you know some of this we haven't played I haven't played east/west and no ya had to go back and learn it I guess my next question is had you played everything from the album or with their songs that were not ever performed live no we played it everything I think we played everything live but some junk some more than others maybe yes yeah yeah certain was kind of stayed in the repertoire after the you know we'd done other records and done other other you know other tours right right right so stepping back to 1988 when you were beginning to work on the record you had changed record labels and you mentioned you been playing some of the songs for two or three years was everything written before you went into the studio to record the album maybe not a song for George the acoustic piece I think was written during the time yeah okay but the maybe you know east-west actually maybe was written right before yeah that was kind of a jam thing that we did and your turn to do a song but everything else everything else we didn't play for a while in fact the closer Dover was around before tones yeah I mean your trademark was older - yeah yeah right right so when you when you write a song like that and you're arranging it how complete is it when you bring it to the band do you have the whole thing mapped out or is it started as an idea and your work on it together or how do you approach that I think with this this on this group it might be in intentions of being mapped out but the interesting thing is it's more for just to to capture the vibe and then it changes you know Raul and Tommy do their own thing you know and add to it I think once you get the spirit of something then you then you you open up the possible avenues of interpretation because they all interpret the spirit of it or whatever right but you know a lot of this music was kind of jammy stuff we had done yeah I think in this stuff is stuff y'all had kind of already constructed a lot of your parts anyhow because we've been playing it on the road and jamming to it and stuff so they'd already kind of figure out yeah you some of that materialists had been arrested before I had played with Eric and I was you know I'd learned it off of what the previous drummers had done it kind of done my own interpretation of how they had approached it you know so right it just kind of evolved over time you pretty quickly know if it's not a part it's gonna work reveal themselves pretty well you know right so when you say you've been playing if that long where you're playing it on stage or where you're playing it in rehearsals in sound checks or was it on stage once they through planes on wiring yeah so he pretty much went in then with the songs kind of ready to record yeah right but it was a if I understand correctly what a process getting the album completed working through getting the sounds that you wanted and the performances yeah I mean these guys cut this stuff relatively really very fast and then we I did keep a lot of the live we cut the record live and then I'd go back oh this part right here save that that's what's really smoking you know the drums and bass were fine you know whatever would then I'd go back and I'd I had to like I had to I just spent a long time going back and trying to get the sound just right in the plane just right now to intersperse the studio fix it stuff over what I kept it was live and then I wanted to figure out ways to orchestrate and overdub and so I had to sit in the studio and come up with ideas of what would I want the orchestration to do and stuff like that you know right right this was on analog tape yeah yeah correct so you're all working no there wasn't Pro Tools there wasn't cut and paste there wasn't move things around so were you going more for when you say you were taking parts we were looking at larger sections or were you actually getting more microscopic and what depends like on Desert Rose it was big sections Highland roads big sections cliffs of Dover ironically enough it was I I really took piece by piece of that I wanted to get a certain it's almost like I was having to read I had to learn a certain style to play that song it actually was like grabbing a on a ladder to go somewhere else because I couldn't I kept hearing the play bag go on no they said we actually finished the tune and it was like okay it was all done and I'd scrap the whole thing because it was like it wasn't I had to like learn a certain way of playing the song to kind of make that speak like it did you know it's kind of a subtle thing that who knows maybe people resonated to that although you would say no they doesn't matter but maybe you know subliminally it does you know those little finer points where you're going for a certain you know what I mean but I mean you came in and overdub the bass right right but you just nailed it like first of intake I think you just played it all the way through but I'm watching him do that in five minutes and then I go you know it's for the next three months but I mean a lot of these a lot of the parts work you know just cut live with bass and drums I think you know we did do some edits of you know the half of one take on as far as the big thing yeah not not too many on that record that I recall but some oh you know some we certainly did you know like two to basics and really maybe the first half was better than the second half and the second half of another one was better so we just splash them together but you know you know they weren't most of that stuff wasn't cut to a grid or anything so it's just kind of relative you know but were you cutting to a click to metronome not much some more I don't think I'm just trying to think what we did cut I know we cut does it rose to a clip because I remember specifically doing and being amazed that we could play that to a click because it's just not that kind of a song it's like wow this is so easy to play to a click and sometimes things aren't there but I can't when you say that you you scrap songs and went back and start over again did that include the drums on the bass or where you're just taking your parts off another no no like on well the one that I think of in particularly was cliffs no it was the same drum track but I did all the guitar parts in the tone was just not right it didn't it didn't speak it was like and and so I just redid the I just I actually had to go to another studio because the see I was working at the console you know had the great sound for like clean rhythm stuff but when I was running distortion through it was just kind of trashy sound or no so I finished the holes out and by the way that you know Richard Mellon was the engineer on on the record who was priceless and in doing that record he was there almost all the time doing an excellent job of being on the record but he worked with Stevie Ray on his first couple of records and then we worked together for many years and just a real genius musician and a helpful you know co-producer and stuff but I remember we finished the whole cluster to over and we were listening to playback you know that's just no idea we're gonna start over and he just looked at me like Yuri just finish the song man but you know just wondering I just wanted it to have this thing you know and and I knew I heard it in my head but I would just couldn't get it and I kept having to try and try to get it which is kind of the premise for a lot of guitar work on Augie means come I mean you you could probably find guys on YouTube that get played as good if not better than me you know and they're probably only eight years old but at the time it was like it was it was daunting for me to try to play at that level and and I think when you get out of the way of yourself it can happen but you know left your own devices sometimes you're struggling unless you're you know just a you know genius musician that's always on which I'm not really at all but so there would be moments like when Desert Rose alai that's live lead and we kept it yeah and a lot of its kind of funky and ratty but it's real Hendrix you know any time and I think whenever we listen back to play back whenever we heard stuff is like oh that's sections magic well I would I wouldn't touch that I just punch you now I like you know I'm leaving that that was magic right but then there'd be places where I'd get off time or Tony you know no but and I mean when we cut cliffs live it just interestingly nothing I never knew cliffs would be a hit song and I don't I don't think that III think that that having it you know working at trying to get to that place where it had a certain speaking personality to the guitar which I had to work at to get I think you may be in a way it played into it being more sonically pleasing to people you know because otherwise it would have maybe just been a you know just a guitar instrumental thing where you know what I mean like it would I wanted the guitar to speak like a voice where it was real know you know and I wasn't getting there that so I had to do it on over but when we cut that live you know we we got the drum track and then Kali to come back and play to the guitar I put on there because I had changed the song mm-hmm you know that because that song was around I mean that it was supposed to go on the first record and serendipitously it didn't go on the first record because that record didn't get very much you know very much visibility it was supposed to be on tones and the producer didn't really care for the tune that meit's all right well we're we're rehearsing it at si our and and in LA for to rehearse tones and our producer David tickle Eric was like going okay you know we've run out of his ears well what about Calista Dover because I don't think we'll put that on the record why Eric I think it sounds like a game show thing lucky for us well yeah right I mean I'm good but I mean you know it's just funny but it's something you know sometimes those things happen there they're like you don't really understand why things are being orchestrated in the creation the way they are risks like that record if that song had been cut for tones then it might not remember it might we what might not have had the success that we had because it was held and it ended up being obvious calm and like you're saying you're it's like I know this isn't right I know this isn't right it's like well but the reason it's not rise because it's not the way it's supposed to be to make for the whole success thing you know it's like you knew there was something it subliminally that needed to be more than it was you know even though we didn't expect me oh yeah instrumental single would would even come out much less bright you know it you know right you had three singles from that three instrumental channels right just and trademark that also got a I don't think any other artist has ever ever done that so that's a cliche over is the first top ten instrumental since Frankenstein yeah incredible and then the second was to instrumentals in Billboard charts from a band and then three right so it was like record after record yeah Wow okay there's a moment in time where everybody went surf I guess that kind of right right so you mentioned Kyle that you had to come back in and rerecord the parts because things had changed with the guitar parts how challenging was that having played the songs for two or three years to then come in and have to modify your approach to it actually I came in and did my approach to it that I'd been doing on stage okay tried with a different bass player and you know maybe our part didn't work when we were in the studio so I got another shot to try to do it and it worked yeah and I've I can play with a band in the studio and it's pretty good but if I can go back in the studio and then play to the band coming out of this monitors I can get a lot more precise nice and clean you know tend to overplay when the whole thing is going on at one time you know you're trying to get the vibe you know you're not trying to get the exact tone right were you recording those bass PartsDirect or were you making up an amplifier both both both yes okay and what about the drums primarily room mics overheads we're using water directly that's mostly close mics that studio we cut most of all the basics on that workers is arlen studios in austin and it's really i was talking to somebody yesterday you know it was a it was kind of a reformatted kitchen from an old hotel i mean and so it's got this square Brown hotel kitchen tiles on the floor and you know one wall is kind of brick and it's not really I mean it's not a it wasn't a super glamorous it's it's a great studio I love working in Arlen and but it you know wasn't nearly as sheshe modern fixed up full-blown me it was a good quality studio and and had good gear and and and but the cutting room was left kind of natural because it worked and but we were all I mean I was playing all our exams were on ten on the wall right beside me you know I mean I'm in there and then and the bass I think we had in the in the room in the little room in the in the ISO room so it's full-on I was pretty standard set up we weren't too extravagant with having a lot of extra open miking and stuff in those days it's really pretty much closed miked and you know a couple overheads and that's it you know kind of a standard set up just you know snare kick toms and two overheads and we're done you know right yeah right was that a 16th track or 24 tracks to do that you were working on in those days was 16 we did two sits actually we used to 16 tracks synched eventually you know use the first and then ran it over to the slave master but that was we we started out actually because our friend Steve Hennig that Steve's boogie was you know we've taken from he had that those 3m machines like we used on the Christopher Cross and he brought that down and there's an API console in there there was a really great sounding board but those two together it wasn't a good mix is really soggy and really slow and so I guess we ended up using the JIT we got a Jace when I found to use MCI MCI 24 track machine at the time which are so pricey you know now you could get them for free but but but yeah but it had but we have both head stacks and we used the 16 track because you got you know you got more tape space per track this so there was a second 16 track on I didn't know well yeah it's a slave slave master and we mix the final it's to 16 yeah right now that makes more challenging where you trying to lock two bags together yeah we if we try to do it all on 16 it's all done where you're having a punch by anything like that right yeah and that's a that can be exciting when you're doing that on an analog master because every punch in the wrong spot you're done you don't want you there's no going back it's erased right it's not like today where you oh well let's just go back to drag it back from the last pass it's not there anymore right right did you have problems with given the fact that you went back and rework some of the things and did a lot of overdubs with the tape actually shedding and losing the well that's why we had the slight you know that you cut the basics with the doramas probably I guess we should probably use a time thinking eight that's the number that comes to mind eight tracks for drums and then you know we as memory serves that you know they'd work on that and that would be basically the basic tracks it wouldn't be like you know stuff that you were gonna you know try and capture over and over again and then he'd he'd molt that down to like a to mix and and send it over to a slave master so we're right we're not really spinning the basic track all the time you got the basic track mix two two and then you're spinning you know this is the tape that's getting all the passes on it so right right so you're preserving those original tape yeah yeah and then bringing them back round yeah right all right and what was the approach to making the guitar oh man you know and that was nothing to a while on that record was trying to figure out a system to mic my guitars and how to get how to get my stuff to sound good on tape you know and I learned a lot on that record I ended up just using an old script logo 57 foreclose and sometimes and to condenser mic for room okay but there was a certain deflection angle it be like it a little bit of an angle and I'd get like a little bit off the cone and I'd move it a dust cover rather I'd move it close to the dust cover of one or more treble and that kind of thing and we I got the perfect place owner that when we were recording the record Richard told me this story it was hilarious but we were at Riverside don't overdose and I was right in the middle of working on one of the tunes with the lead and I I mean I had spent like a day getting the mic in the perfect place where you just you get this kind of alchemical sweet spot where it's like oh that sounds great you know and he brought some friends the studio on my one day off that that week and they had a four year old son and he said when they came in the studio that the this the first thing the son did was he ran right over to the microwave in front of the cabinet and moved it and and Richard just was like of all the things he did the first thing he said just ran in there took the mic in moods and anyway Richard was just like why one other day then to place it backward yeah Richard I think he kind of remembered where it went with that that was where it was like meant to be it's like that it wasn't it that that kid was gonna go in a wreck yeah and primarily fender and Marshall amps yeah humble and humble as well or wonderful amps you know right right so let's talk a little bit about some of the individual songs that are on the on the record your memories of doing those you open up with a via musicom was that originally part of your vision for the record to have that kind of opening airy lead-in to the rest of the the rest of the record or when did that come into the process I don't know I think the system yeah we were just jamming in the studio and we had all this crazy stuff going on just like playing and then we I thought it'd be neat to have an overture and literally just cut pieces of tape together Richard now we're gonna see I said oh dis an ice jam okay when you put this piece of tape in flip it around the other way right so they literally would that that if you listen the basically tracks album you'd be like forward take backward backwards forwards kinda like you know the Beatles did that years before just kind of mix smash stuff and get this that created the bed and then C bar became in keep with great keyboard player and he did this real kind of thing you know right sound and then I took a shortwave radio and and then we had a percussionist from the unity command and just kind of wacky you know we just we were having fun sure and then it just kind of serendipitously worked out well you know that feedback note right there let's just cut the tape right there and and so we cut the tape - silent tape and mixed it and then when we went to burning grubman's mastering he put it together with the first note of clustered over okay alright yeah it sounds like a fair light or a d50 or something doing those area board that's pretty good yeah yeah yeah so that leads into cliffs of Dover and you mentioned that you actually connected those at the mastering stage later but talk a little bit about the process of recording that you mentioned you know going after different tones and things but what do you guys recall about the actual recording of that song well we got did we do we did like two different sessions of the record I guess yeah we were we just recorded it and then I took the tapes off and you know worked on the guitars and stuff I don't really remember I mean it's it's like that song became so significant at the time was just another song I don't even remember anything about realizes you know we were cutting high land in Steve's but yeah trademark I can remember cut that that Desert Rose I remember all those but I remember being there I would assume you didn't record the songs in the order that they ended up on the album down however what would lead you to choose to record a particular song at a particular time to say that okay now we're gonna do Desert Rose now we're going to have no idea you know I guess maybe those were just the songs were playing at the time they were left over from the tones thing yeah yeah I mean I don't think I don't know why we would you know look up today we're gonna do cliffs it over I mean the first song we started out with was was righteous cuz seemingly we thought it would be an easy song to get it wasn't very easy to get actually I took a long time to try and get that song you know so right right so next up on the album would be Desert Rose yeah and tell us a little of that well if that's that was a session where we're it was Roscoe Beck and and myself and Eric playing and yeah I don't know what we've been doing the day before I just remember we can't you know the the schedule kind of started getting later and later is that we're not really daytime people in those days and so you know we were this type of okay so you know we might show up and he'd come in here a little earlier get his sounds cuz you know he'd get the amps warmed up and getting get you know real free to play and everything and then I don't know it seems like you were not there I have a visitor because I just remember is this like I could always was amazed that we we summers you we put a click track up and I was just playing the part to the click track and Roscoe came in was playing bass and it's like you know like you know kind of commensurate with anything it sounds it sounds pretty good with maybe out of trying cogs to clicks or something so I'm not having any problem doing this and so maybe we should so I remember that much of it and then I all I remember is that when we cut it we I don't think this is even very many takes of that I think that one went pretty fast surprisingly and I just remember that one that all that lead stuff and that that is just it was just like very off-the-cuff and just like out of this world he was over there getting feedback and it was live and it's like a like a regular show and it's like we listened back from like wow except for that little blip at the end you know it's like that's amazing that was that's what we would try to capture on tape for years that we've never been able to get that kind of effect it was that live just killer a spontaneous energy and so you know we kept it you know nice nice next up would be Highland runes and tell us about that I'm you know lighter cut that at sunup you were saying yeah I remember being I remember looking because this is a part of Arlen where there's a vocal booth and there's a window and it's to my left and I could see I was like the sun's coming up it wasn't even like 7:00 in the morning we were finally again we've been probably been playing it all night long trying to get you know that that take you know and I mean that's the one we kept I'm sure you know we finally said oh yeah that's it cool but if I took that long for us to get the enough because there's a kind of a slunk eNOS to that track that you kind of you can't be edgy it's got to have an edge but you've got to kind of have that kind of really loose kind of feel it probably took us you know six hours of playing it to get to where retired enough to make that happen okay kept some of the live guitar on that but I remember I want her to outdo that live guitar with the rest of it being like super house burning down by Hendrix you know electrically landed and that was a dad just almost drove me over the edge trying to get that sound like setting up the flat I ended up having to use to Flanders and an echo to get it set just right where they'd cross the calming would cross it was it was crazy actually yeah I remember breaking for dinner and you'd come back and it was just completely opposite change you had to redial it like you couldn't stop would never stay the same right because those clocks were travelling it yeah every time they get out of sync there's almost L&L flanger at all it was there was a lot of challenging times make trying to for me to try to reach sonically and technically up to what I was trying to do on that record yeah yeah yeah fun stuff though yeah you know it's it's it's good and learned a lot from it sure sure so we would have Steve's boogie would be the next song Wow and I mean we're doing we would cut that in the big room why did we do that we bored but we took a 200-foot snake and didn't cut like civil right okay a cafeteria thought the tables the old the Arlen recordings to his Studios is built in a like I said in the old kitchen area of the terrace summer house Hotel which is where the Austin Opera House was they took in the the terrace summer house ballroom and turned that into a into it and to a venue and then there was these these big like conference rooms in between there and the ballroom and so we said oh I don't know why we did that we all decide we were taking out of the studio go set up a table I mean not in the ballroom but in the conference room with this snake but that's to see that's the same that's where Stevie and and Chris and Tommy and and Reese cut live alive they played on the Opera House stage and they had the snake and into the Arlington recording control room so we this this setup was already there so we just kind of dropped the snake through the ceiling and we're in their plants teas but just so hard to get the click Rex doesn't work cut into a clicker because they were really need you today I lift him up in this guy the click track putting on the headphones and it was so incredible out of it then once the drum started it was like I couldn't tell the click track from the snare just I think of twos like you know we were it was it's not very extravagant you know of a situation there the studio was relatively new and the board had kind of just been put in there a few months or so and and and it doesn't have a really fancy monitoring you know section so I mean there probably was only maybe two headphone mixes of that and he was stuck with mine and I've got to hear the click track so louder like you know breaking out but I remember like we'd you know the Stewart's all event he owns wire recording in Austin he was the the the assistant engineer there he finally got me a set of headphones that I could throw that had that came unplugged so it stop ripping the wire out of the headphones because I mean we'd start because they wouldn't turn the click off because they're not hearing it they're not listen I'm going I'm going that's a good throw that buzzing the corded rip out yes are we going listening to playback and it wouldn't be any toffee and donut because we had so much cable guys like we're running three feet of this stuff I mean even even low impedance if you run crazy and it's like it didn't sound quite things like what is that cuz y'all are run into I don't know I don't have no my and do I don't think we got anything else in there remember what I care about how we good I ended up and then I over dubbed the guitar I borrowed my friend Park Street at a 50 to telly and I didn't own a Telecaster and I was figured I wanted him more of a telly sound on it so I borrowed his guitar and right which was a great guitar I'm not any was selling and I'm not sure why you know you think back about those things like yeah oh here I'm gonna sell that 52 telly only 800 bucks or like I'm not really a telly players like well you played on the record it was a great guitar and it's not a lot you know I said it got you know yeah everybody's got the those are the one that got away right I had a chance to buy The Maltese Falcon for a dollar and I turn to do whatever but yeah you said I remember right but when I use that track yeah we recorded I mean you yeah and just we're an weirdoes and so did Steve come down to your yeah I'm Steve Henning played has this amazing pedal guitar it's like a regular guitar that has has pull pull wires and in like a pedal steel right so that when you hear that solo in the middle that's Steve Henning playing a pedal guitar it sounds like a steel guitar minutes thank you sir right right awesome so next would be trade mark yeah yeah what do you remember recall about that does on a plea would cut it at Arlen yeah we kind of kept a good deal of that live guitar yeah III don't remember I mean I don't think it was it wasn't I don't recall that one being terribly difficult to get to play and it for some reason it just always falls together really well even today live it's just it's great I just remember when I heard it back because you know it's strange because you we work in a trio format and I mean even though it airs got a plethora of sounds out there that he manages to somehow dovetail and make all happen at once in a live show a you know I and you know I don't think conceptually I really ever fully dropped what he was going for which until I heard the playback of the finished mix I was just like I get it Wow I'm gonna so blown away by the whole sonic spectrum of what he had orchestrated on that particular song it was just amazing it's like now I see why you wanted this to go here and that's to go here that cuz you heard it all this way and now we're hearing back okay right no great all right then three-piece live it's like you kind of go like well I don't know exactly why that needs to be like that but you know it makes sense when you hear it finally you know yeah yeah I do remember going in and touching up a couple of parts but I think the song as a whole was just straight through yeah there weren't any cutting of tapes no I know how to get pretty good pretty no no I think it's pretty safe that was a pretty safe try it was great I mean easy to cut yeah right right I think can keep me from you would be the next one and you've talked about your guitar recording but you don't talk a lot about your vocal recording yeah well the nothing keep me from you interestingly enough we we had an eight-track tascam person that from the practice house there wasn't really that was the demos actually part of the demo sting they didn't get the second deal and so we cut the song it's like yeah this is cool but for some reason the end that there's a section at the end like a rip Reese where it just kind of goes off and goes just into this crazy Jam and the one from the studio never had the same she is trying to beat the demo it's born to run syndrome yeah so we we actually edited the ending chant rave up section of the of the demo on to the original of to the studio recording so what you hear on the record once it ends the song body and starts that long Jam the arch jam at the end that's all an edited tascam demo from yeah actually that's that's Reggie witty is plan on it on their fries section because he had done the demo with this back whenever God we did that a million years ago that record situation was really sketchy we were in a little rehearsal studio in the same building where Arlen was in this tiny room that we shared with van Wilkes another great guitar player from Austin like seven foot ceiling carpet on the walls it's like this thing where it's got all its gear the floor marshals and the Dumble everything I did you know it was in the window unit yeah we're sick yeah we're sick we can't run the winter unit while recording and it's like a million degrees in there and I've got this drum set set up with my back to this this I guess there's a good there's there was a glass one or where somebody had thought about making control room in our live sound engineer Dave Parkes he's in there with the tascam 8-track recording this and the only thing separating him from us is a sheet you know on a door you know and you know and Reggie set up there and we're just I mean it's just it's as loud as our live show in there except the room is it's not as big as what we're sitting in right now process yeah so two more I have to ask you about one is a song for George and the other is east-west and the reason that I really want to ask you about those is this album has a diversity of styles that few players and few bands really approach maybe Steve Morris would do those kind of you know where you have a country song and a jazz I know so tell me about shifting your mindset to do song for George and east/west versus something like Cliff's it over they wouldn't happen on the same day okay no they everything would be said Eric would get his tone for a certain song and we may work all day all night the next day or right that's dial yeah on that on that one song and then reset up those tones for like east/west and we'd do that and that was actually done in several different studios I did my bass part or at least touch up bass parts at Riverside sound yeah I did I did the basic for the drums on east-west was done in Arlen same same same timeframe as the rest of them I'm not as much changing gears it's just changing days changing yeah right or weeks Yeah right how long a period did you record the album over it's about a year what the basics I think really there are the basic tracks or the main strengthen there's a couple couple of two-week sessions for that anything that's been working up to that just yes anyway that and software works no but we did do if you did a little bit we'd go out and play some too oh yeah well we're having to support ourselves at the same time and we couldn't just record all the we have the budget that records started out on an independent label it wasn't on capital it was on cinema records and that's you know there ended up being the kind of the executive production company we didn't have any money nothing compared to what we had on to start with tones we were just lucky even be in the studio in fact we went in the studio in spec just start with we didn't have a record contract we just went in there Brooke is Freddie Fletcher was kind enough to let us go record you know it does like yeah baby sometimes alright there had to be some pressure going into those sessions because you had come off of I remember the the cover of guitar player who is Eric Johnson and why is he on our cover and the sound page that was in there and obviously there was a lot of tones came out or there's a lot of critical acclaim and players were really jumping on to what you guys were doing did you feel a lot of pressure going into a via musicom you know I I think yeah I did I think you always feel that a little bit you know all the time what I did feel was that I was kind of very in a very somewhat kind way kind of dropped from Warner Brothers a peculiar basically they didn't they didn't they said you know we'd rather you go somewhere else because we don't know what to do with you and we just don't know how to continue here so if you don't mind could you go find another record deal you know I guess a I guess I was dropped maybe whether it was Nathan cotton but they were kind of by the way they said well I think they had an option and they let it lapse and that but you know at the at the at the midnight hour they were still kind of negotiating back and forth with jota trying and and and and keep they weren't really a bitter heart wouldn't in it they're kind of I think you know I think Michaels was but he I don't think he really I think you're right I think they were going like what we don't really know what to do with this but we we know Eric's wonderful and we you know but we want it but we don't know what to do with this so we don't want it and maybe some of it was my own doing because I remember the process with Warner Brothers there was always a a push to try to how can we turn this into a pop thing you know check out this check out this pop record check out how can we you know and I think it you know nothing wrong with with not wanting to do that which I didn't want to do but I think my response was not as tactful as it could have been you know I was 34 years old and I was more like I got it mom you just got it you know what I mean and so I I kind of it kind of got to the point after two years of that where I think maybe maybe I I had a little bit of an attitude about the fact that they consistently they really didn't really understand they didn't really want to embrace the idea of well let's try okay let's make it's trying to make it successful let's try to do something different or whatever it was more like how can we get this into this mainstream thing which you know is almost like how how can you turn an apple into something else or something oh so I think maybe some of their some of their you know ambivalence came from me just getting frustrated with him you know I maybe I fed back frustration to them at the same time they were feeding frustration so maybe some of us my own part but whatever it was that it was it got to the point where there was like whatever so you talk and you're saying about have enough the pressure you know it's like and I knew then I thought well ok here it is no record deal in here Dee trying to you know it's like I got to do something that's really I got to figure out what it is Amaya that I think would be something really solid and and I building that vision and just going for it so yeah there was that pressure and trying to pull up to another rung in a way you know I think I think to the you know the the the tones record has a real unique style and a real unique approach it worked with the material that we're doing and but I think that you know mridu bit from the way we were presenting those Tunes live and a lot of the fans were like well that doesn't sound like what you sound like and it was kind of like well yeah but it's great don't you dig it and they were yeah we do yeah but where's the blow-up you know I mean we had zap and Eric really you know we we basically kind of tore everything down and went out and all got in the same room together and just blew and tried to make that just as big as good but so the key for me was okay I've got a we've got these songs and we're kind of we're kind of solid on that on the on them on the more amped up to instance like we've got through everything to the win and try to get some tracks that are gonna make him play over the top blow up guitar because that's what the audience is used to hearing and that's what is we have a great fan base but that's what's going to convince the other people that don't know who we are that this is what they want to be listening to and so I mean that was the attitude I went it was like man we just got we got a kook on this record the toes was maybe too subtle in a way I love the record but I mean at first glance people like going yeah I'm not it's not it's not tickling my ear it means it's something you know where you gonna be hit over the head with it like wow I can't not listen to this right right you know alright guys thanks so much for taking time today to sit down and revisit it's an incredible album certainly one of my favorites and I know for a lot of other people as well and the success of it obviously speaks for itself so so congratulations on the tour it's great to have you back here Sweetwater Thank You Tommy Kyle and Eric we appreciate you thank thank you and thank you for joining me for the Sweetwater minute I'm Mitch Gallagher

Channel: Sweetwater

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Rating: 4.9661016 out of 5

Keywords: Sweetwater, eric johnson band, eric johnson, eric johnson interview, eric johnson 2018, eric johnson live 2018, band interview, eric johnson live, eric johnson sweetwater, eric johnson band interview, eric johnson stratagem, eric johnson interview 2018, eric johnson 2019, eric johnson ah via musicom, eric johnson album, eric johnson guitar, eric jonhson, eric jhonson, eric johnson reaction, eric johnson rig rundown

Id: -mrSKJ9jq1c

Length: 43min 29sec (2609 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 06 2018