Joe Bonamassa | #005 The Kenny Aronoff Sessions

when the arrows start coming my way it's like he's not a real blues guitar player and I never said I was one I said I love yes songs okay okay I learned all I you know I love Selling England by the pound okay I'm a Steve Hackett guy okay [Music] no one is born successful and success doesn't just land in your lap it's kind of like a math equation zero equals zero if you do nothing you get nothing Joe Bonamassa he made his career he didn't do nothing this guy has worked his butt off and is still working his butt off becoming successful is about hard work self-discipline and perseverance and staying successful is a continuation of that hard work self-discipline and perseverance you can't set it and forget it now Joe started his career at age 12 when he opened for BB King and he had his own band called smoking Joe Bonamassa which he gives you on Western New York and Pennsylvania that sounds like a boxer smoking Joe Bonamassa but only on weekends since he had school on weekdays he was a kid you know since 2000 Joe has released 15 solo albums through his Independent Record label jnr Adventures of which 11 reached number one on the billboard Blues chart and Joe has earned three Grammy Award nominations and owns one of the most extensive guitar collections in the world I love this guy he always brings his a game always crushing it at 150 percent thanks for having me did I say anything wrong I got all the stats right right you got all the stats right you know um if you if you look up because we've put out almost 45 albums between the live DVDs and everything and one of the weirdest stats and it's nothing I I think it's just by sheer attrition one of the weirdest stats that people never realize is that in the history of the billboard Blues chart I hold the all-time record for most number ones at 25 and that's between the studio albums and the live record it's it's when they told me that they actually called us one day and said you know you just broke the all-time record I'm like what are you talking about you know like we just put the records out we don't care you know and and especially now you know I mean like record the recording side of the business is you know it's we're in the free sample business we're giving away you know cheese whiz and Triscuits at the end of the aisle at Vons you know what I mean it's like hoping somebody will buy something else you know it's kind of almost like the horse and buggy business and the car showed up the horse yeah it's like it's gone it's like it's like records I mean people like come to me at shows and they'll hand me like the CD and I've always been fastidious about like you know if somebody goes up to somebody who's been successful in the music business like hey man I really believe in this CD check it out I'm really proud of it you know I'll always listen to those um the one the ones that I sometimes don't listen to is when they'll come up to you and they'll give you the CD and they'll say um I like song two don't listen to song five well then why did you put it on there you know just make an EP you know I'll kill her no killer you know that's you know oh my God that's funny I've never heard never heard that one that's great so um what was your wow moment that ignited you know like the passion in your heart and soul to be a musician and play guitar I mean why guitar I mean you know all of that what was that moment my dad played I'm the I'm the fourth generation of bonamassas to make a living in the music business um my great-grandfather played trumpet um and he was in you know touring orchestras in the 20s I actually have his trumpet and a picture of him in 1920 playing with the Mickey Kaleo Orchestra my grandfather was in the military and worked for the post office but he also played trumpet in like working working bands back in the 50s and 60s and my dad being a product of the you know the the born in the mid 50s he became coming to age in 1967 1968 one play guitar like Leslie West and next thing you know he plays he starts playing guitar and he wanted to be like the Beatles and and uh and then I followed in My Father's Footsteps because there was always music around and he was my parents have always been very supportive of anything that our you know both my sister and I have ever wanted to do and I just when I was four years old I just couldn't put the guitar down it was something inspiring about it I I love the way it looked you know I loved looking at the albums and the pictures and people rocking out and old fenders and Gibsons and you know Eric Clapton records and Stevie Ray Vaughan records and that's basically that was the seed that started this entire journey and you know my dad would bring me to like Italian restaurants in Upstate New York where he had gigs and I would sit in for the first set you know on a Sunday afternoon and once I did that and I actually got Applause I was hooked you know that was around age eight I started this city with my dad's man and by the time I was 11 um I turned Pro and now I'm staring down the barrel of 35 years in this beautiful effing business that we know is so damn easy for everyone you know the big thing is I had that support from my mom and dad that's huge that is huge you know it's a it's a big it takes something you don't have to deal with that if you've got somebody like you know I was talking to D Snyder the other day and I mean and you know Twisted Sister he was wearing makeup and the lipstick and his dad was a State Trooper right uh he didn't he didn't get that support that's a hard sell it's a hard time yeah yeah I know I know um that's really cool I mean you could have easily gone in the trumpet but of course rock and roll electric instruments was in our in our time you know yeah and and you know I mean you cannot discount I mean like I'll be 46 this year and a lot of people my peers are the same age we all who all started early on guitar for you know whether we knew each other or not we're all floored when Stevie Ray Vaughan came out there was something about when Stevie hit the scene everybody it gave a B12 shot to the genre and you're going hey wait a minute this is you could have a beat up old guitar and it's still cool and you know because it it it was in the time in the 80s where things were transitioning from kind of 70s rock and roll to to more of a you know it more image based music and and he just comes out and he's true to himself and and you know same thing with Mellencamp if you came out he was true to himself and it it it it it cuts right through and that and you know and so we all started because of him and then you go down to do the Deep dive with uh you know you know Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck the late great Jeff Beck you know Zeppelin and all that next thing you know you know you're you're jamming along for hours on a Saturday to uh you know Robin Trower record trying to figure out how he got that whirly sound on his guitar you know it's like it was just it was we had nothing to do we it snowed a lot there was no social media okay all we had was cassettes records and a dream and and there's a lot of me that longs for those days because it was simpler it was more pure and not everything ended up online you know you could make mistakes at gigs you could f up and and not and not have you know a pylon occur on YouTube you know and yeah that's for sure A friend of mine he played a couple years ago or maybe a year ago a young kid from from New York um and he he uh got booked to play the the national anthem on guitar uh for the uh NFC or AFC Championship Game let not this year but the year before so I was interviewing him on my podcast and I and and I and I asked him I said like dude like what was your biggest concern because I've done a couple of national anthem gigs and I just I'm out I don't want to do it it's just too much pressure because you know and he goes my biggest fear and now he's 20 years old maybe 21. his biggest fear was becoming a meme and I said that is so messed up that that that that if you make a mistake like we've all made mistakes musically in life that you will forever be tarnished with this this this mean thing that goes around and goes viral and everybody sees it and you you think your life's ruined like in the 80s we didn't have that nobody nobody cared you know it's like you play great maybe there was a guy with a video if he had money in like a VHS recorder you know but it wasn't it wasn't going online there wasn't a while there's a whole different world we live in now event we don't even know half of it if it's happening as we're talking about it but that's that's very true I mean did you now like where I grew up we had a barn on our property so that was the band house so like I was like it was me I was like uh School sports I was always into sports homework and then it was band practice seven day nights a week we were to hang my pants were like open anybody can come over and we just it was it was a hang but it was rock and roll band practice at my house and uh did you when you grew up did you have a garage or something where were people practicing at your house so a lot of people like when you tell them you you really kind of date yourself and and and you you you give away your uh uh location uh data uh when you say we used to rehearse in the unfinished basement in Upstate New York concrete you know and and and pro tip if you're gonna rehearse in a basement okay and you have multiple Fender amps running at the same time ungrounded okay old ones okay you need to wear rubber shoes before you go to the mic and try to sing because what happens is you become the Earth you become you become the third prong on the on the plug I learned that a couple of times but it was great because I mean like I mean the level that in which I used to play even when like on the weekends my parents and my sister were so tolerant of it because I would just go down there and blast for hours and they didn't care they didn't care they just they just saw something that I was really passionate about and you know we would rehearse for our shows there and and it was just one of those things where you know you you you it is what it is you go what you got and you know load up the car and drive to Buffalo you know and that was it I had the same thing I was lucky man I didn't realize how lucky I was until I heard other people's stories you know I'd be practicing all all over the house everywhere you know in the winter we didn't couldn't use the barn so it was the living room but you know they just dealt with it so so how did you I mean you kind of already discussed it but how did you make it happen I mean how did you become Joe Bonamassa because uh I know you partnered up with uh your manager Roy Weissman who and you guys are Partners which I think is an incredible story how you guys are the ultimate team and I think you know if you think about teams win Super Bowls you can't do everything yourself and it sounds like you you got a great partner and he does what he does great you do what you do great and together you create like you co-elevate each other to greatness because you're both doing great stuff and it's an incredible team thank you I've always been blown away by that when I heard that story when that is cool on so many levels so but how did you become Joe Bonamassa in you know in a nutshell there's been three three moments of Truth okay for me in my career maybe four um Roy and I have been together for for for 32 years 1991 okay he was he he was 22 I was 12. and we've been together 32 years which is if you ask around in the business uh how long is your how long has your manager been around it's like oh you know we just hired them last year you know like I mean like marriage okay it's like you know what they don't go past four or five years maybe more you know so we've been together for 30 32 years and you know we we got signed to a development deal that ultimately became a one record uh deal um in 1993 uh with Emi and it was with a band I was in called bloodline and it was a blues rock band back when blues rock bands were kind of cool like you had brother Kane which is still out there oh yeah Johnson's just put that back together um and we would run into a band called from the Carolines called A Cry of love and uh oddly freed who wonderful guitar player musician he was in that band Lewis off the stage multiple times um uh you know there was just a a bunch the screaming cheetah Willies and then you know the archangels and every major record company had a blues rock aor based band we were emis it lasted about you know three four years and it imploded like most bands and I found myself adrift in Utica New York as a teenager um uh without a record deal I didn't sing and I said to myself I said self you probably want to learn how to sing so you can at least control enough of your your life or you're not reliant on a singer if you can do it yourself it's the only person that can fail you is you and so my manager and I got together and we talked about it and I started making some squeaky demos and took some vocal lessons and kind of went out there and in search of a record deal in which everybody passed every single one except for one guy a guy named Michael Kaplan at Sony music in in the throes of desperation my manager asked Michael because he knew him from the early days um if if he knew any bands that were signed to Sony that needed a guitar player because Joe needed a gig and we sent him some demos and he calls and calls Roy Vegas I like it um uh Roy goes great you have a you have a you have an act that he can go play with he goes no I want to sign him and I was like okay wow and me I come down to New York City which is it's it's insane that I'm here now because I used to walk past this building when I lived here the first time going that's where the big shot yeah anyway yeah right I used a big shot yeah and I have a sign you know anyway anyway so that was a that was a big moment in my solo career so we did one album with Sony Tom Dowd produced it wow wow which was insane um that was one of the greatest ever one of the greatest ever and one of the greatest experience and one of the nicest people I've ever met in my entire life and loved the man and uh and we got dropped about six weeks after the record came out in typical fashion and we then we then decided okay enough is enough this this terrestrial music isn't is it is it for us and there was times when we both just said maybe we should just maybe this we're doomed okay and we did we pulled all our money together and we made this record called Blues Deluxe at Bobby Nason studio in New York and we started selling them out of the trunk of our cars and once we figured that out um that you can make more selling 30 000 copies out of the trunk of your car that you would have if you sold 1.5 million on a major label the light goes on explain to everybody I mean you know P well I'll just say a lot of record deals a standard would be 85 for the uh the for the label 15 for the artist or 80 to 18 and you pay your producer three points right and that before you get done paying them back well yeah you're paying them back at your points and it's criminal you're not going hey we you know we need a hundred thousand to recoup the record so the first hundred thousand goes to the red company it doesn't work like that the first the first hundred thousand goes to the record company and then they accredit you 15 000 against the hundred that yeah you know I mean never never go out to dinner with your record company and thank them for dinner yeah because you paid for it because you you paid for it you paid 15 cents on the dollar for that yeah exactly I learned that when I was a kid we had that moment and we started touring and then we met our partner Ed venzil um who runs mascot and he wanted to license some of the records and we go over to Europe yeah it's like around 2003 2004. yeah and there was something about my music over there that had traveled and we were having a hard time drawing 100 people in the states getting across the country on our own power thank God for people like George Thorogood thank God for people like Paul Rogers and Bad Company BB King Buddy Guy Jeff rhotol that that would were nice enough to let me open shows because there's no way we could have made it across the country multiple times yeah and um and then uh we started to get some Traction in Europe drawn to 300 people and would come back we'd just work we were doing 175 gigs 180 gigs a year which kept working kept plugging a little bit of growth a little bit every time and then we hit the UK and when we hit the UK something went from three to five hundred immediately we started selling out in advance bigger places thousand next thing you know by 2006 we're we're we sold out Shepherd's Bush Empire which to me you could have said Wembley Stadium and it would have been the same you know it's the same equivalence yeah yeah so and it was like oh my God we actually sold 2 000 hard tickets look at me right yeah so the following couple of Tours it starts to scale and then we get an opportunity to do the Royal Albert Hall oh man and we we probably we didn't think we're gonna sell it out so we we said well the Intel the entire UK tour is it is it one night at the Albert Hall Monday May 4th 2009. and I wrote Mr Clapton a letter I met him at an event a year before and I wrote Mr Clapton a letter stating how much the venue meant to me because of the history in which he um created in it and I saw that he was playing there the following week he was doing his 10 Show run or whatever so ladies around and he wrote me back and said yeah I'll come play a song too I'm like Jesus unbelievable so what do you do when you have Eric Clapton coming your your you you go to the room at Royal Albert Hall and it's 2009. this would be the middle of the financial meltdown oh that's right not to be a soothsayer anyway it doesn't matter you're filming and four years before that I met Kevin Shirley who started producing my records and once he started producing my records we started going up like we started going up by the way when you say going up is this live and selling records you're just live correct he he showed me how to make a real record and he's like these are the players who need and he kept going song song he still said song I mean like he just he's a real producer and and so I'm trying to get a little out of order but Kevin Shirley is one of the the key pivot Points in my career in 2005 and we'll be together almost 20 years this year pni so you can see these and so Kevin bids it out he's producing the DVD and the bill comes in conservatively at 250 000 we don't have 250 000 so we go to Citibank right to ask them for a loan and of course they come back and say well we'll loan you some money but you know that's you know the banking crisis and stuff like that and and you know a few years before you could go in with six grand and pull out three million dollars okay you know because they anyway they come back and we will loan you twenty five thousand dollars we're like don't waste my time so we decided to then kind of just tuck our pants into our socks save every dollar we had and go all in on the Royal Albert Hall May 4th 2009 Kevin's producing it Eric Clapton's coming double band we had Anton fig and bogey bowls and horns and this huge thing which we're way over shooting our did you actually get 250 000 saved up we ended up paying for it all because because we did we didn't realize we didn't have to pay it all at once oh there you go because I'm gonna say how did you get 250 000 that quick we we took some ious Kevin got paid down the line he he understood so we we were able to cover just the cost right and we did a pretty extensive tour going into the into the right into the thing you know as a rehearsal and just to kind of generate some money so out of that 250 000 that you needed what did you what was this the small amount that you had to come up with to get this job done oh we needed 100 at least to get started but yeah okay there you go and but you know that was the equivalent of being at the the roulette table and going all in on 35 black okay you're going that's that's it if this thing fails we're out of business and yeah maybe I would still have a career but we would have been out of business and and you have to look at it from those that perspective but it's it's interesting because let's say you the the label gave you a bunch of money and you're only making 15 cents on the dollar if that failed you'd still be out of business you know you could or you'd owe them forever you'd never you'd be you'd be working for them like slaves so in a way and and God forbid you sign one of those deals that encapsulate you on a brand level like uh like like merchandising and what they what they're referred to as the 360 deal yeah they really own you like you lose your name okay if you if you sign a deal like that with like like is Joe Bonamassa they own that the first thing they do is go to the trademark office and trademark your name so you can't even tour under your name yeah Prince this was the whole Prince thing when he turned his name into a symbol this is this is the concept of Warner Brothers yeah so anyway long story short we do the gig it's triumphant we put the DVD out and it sells okay and we but we're able to keep the company going what's okay it's for a DVD I mean we're selling 25 000 copies you know in the states um it's Platinum it's Platinum uh it's a platinum DVD now yeah and the all of this work all of these experiences all of these shows and and and and fiscal decisions and business all comes to an Apex curve as soon as the Albany affiliate for Public Broadcasting PBS um come calls our office randomly going hey we know Joe's from these parts do you think he would be interested in in allowing us to use an hour edit of his DVD with uh at Royal Albert Hall for our pledge drive I'm like yeah I I'll be The Annoying concert on PBS that that they break into every five minutes to ask for money I was like great you know we've been hoping PBS would have approaches and um so we come out in 2009 um fall late summer 2009 and this thing explodes when I tell you it explodes because it's TV and did you know in La Channel 8 is PBS channel 7 ABC is no differentiation anymore because if the the big cable companies for 500 channels and people would flip through and just see if and people like concerts yeah next thing you know I'm on there you know I'm the edgiest thing on PBS for years you know it's like Lawrence Welk and you know Reading Rainbow and and the Celtic Women and me you know and these things start scoring high numbers as far as the pledge drives and the tickets just go crazy and that was the big moment in which put me on the map in in a sense where I was like I went from a thousand seats to 3 500 seats and I was like I don't know what it was a roller coaster ride and it was like being shot out of a cannon um and but with that I will say this everything that I worked for was coming to fruition everything that Roy and I and Kevin and the entire team worked for had come to fruition right in front of our eyes really damn quick there was no Crossfade it was like brick wall what I will say to anyone in the business or anybody who who has a business that's about to enter the salad years is is two things one congratulations and two most importantly be prepared to work harder than you ever have in your life to maintain it and that's been the last 16 years for me well the thing that's real clear to me and uh I can totally relate is that all of this hard work which obviously nobody had to tell you to practice and nobody had to tell you to you know you self-motivated yourself but the bottom line is this is all driven by Passion it's not up here man it's coming from here it's like you love what you do and when you love what you do that's how you overcome the setbacks and the obstacles because you could what was fueling you that something was fueling you to keep going and it was because you'd love to play guitar you love music right it was this blind belief in myself and Roy and I have the same thing we were like Marines okay it's it's a that's a false equivalency but but we have the mentality it was like you're going to get knocked down it's going to be it's going to be a struggle it's going to be you know life is a struggle and and you're not of we're not a victim anything other than what we choose to sabotage ourselves so if we don't want to sabotage ourselves then then you're going to be completely you know in the driver's seat when your opportunity comes you know because when your opportunity comes that's when you hit the gas but if you're not in the driver's seat and the engine's not working yeah that latency could could push you back you know I mean I will I will say this that that I've had a lot of people help me over the years and and it takes a village I mean I'm I'm the face in the brand of it but but without Roy without Kevin Went Out any of these people that that everyone from from from uh Rachel Iverson who runs our office and Sal dimartino and Bobby achesian and Tamara you know I mean people go like oh you have you have you have a good credit score I go camera okay she's the one who pays it on time you know like because I'm I'm on the road you know and so at the end of the day you know I'm extraordinarily lucky um and fortunate to to be in this position in life at 45 years old after doing this for 34 years but at the end of the day I also feel that that if I didn't push myself and continue to push myself that I'd be I I'd just be and also ran and maybe it never was and and you know that's I couldn't I just couldn't do it the the fire burned too passionately for me to sit there and go wow you know I'll get around to it or I don't really care no you gotta care and you gotta care want it more than the next guy that's the simple simple fact well you you you picked what you care most about I mean that's in its music and I have a feeling you would be great at anything that you love doing I mean do you have like other if it's not music is there any other one other thing you like doing or what if you what if suddenly you you know people always ask what do you do if you didn't play drums you were in the music I said I'd figure it out yeah because I you I'd figure it out I mean I'm gonna eventually be drawn to something maybe it's mud wrestling I don't know but yeah exactly and it's like you know if I wanted to sell you know if I wanted to start a nursery on Ventura Boulevard I'd have the best damn cactuses in L.A County it's like I I I want to win and it's selfishly it you know I want to win I don't want to place her show and and and that's the Italian of me talking and that's the New Yorker me talking yeah and and it's just the way I'm wired you know that's great and it's it's not that I want to see other people lose yeah you know not I don't want to win it others expense right plow a lane of my own in which I can then turn and look back and help people use the lane to to get where they want to be and we've done that for the last decade we've been helped you know we started a 501c3 called keeping the Blues Alive now it's a label um you know we've done records for everyone from Jimmy Hall to to Larry McRae Joanne Shaw Taylor uh produced records for Eric Gales and it's like you know it it it's it's like listen there's delaying we're just the snow plow you know we've kind of forged delaying for ourselves and and not at anybody's expense there's plenty of room in any genre of music for for good old-fashioned friendly competition that I think makes you know um Everybody better if Gary Clark Jr comes out and makes a hell of a record I I want to be like okay let's let's get to work don't get complaints you know respond to it in a friendly non-competitive way be like man we gotta up our game he's killing it you know yeah exactly Kenny Wayne Shepherd me it's like they're killing it we we can't sit here and just do the same whole thing you know so it's it's it's the way I'm wired that's great well no that's shoes I I totally can relate to that and you know you uh like I said you don't want to set it and forget it that's that you you're dead as soon as you set it forget it you're done and you you're getting the most value out of life you just gets a short life so why not get the most value out of this short life you know we have and and you it's good to be self-aware that you are wired that way so you can take advantage of like this is what I am this is what I do it doesn't matter if I'm grown plants or playing the blues you own it you have to own it you it's your responsibility it's it's it's yes doesn't matter how big an artist you get how many private jets you Charter okay you're responsible for a lot of people's livelihoods I look around and I we have four buses three trucks okay and and a lot of people pushing stuff setting stuff up making sure that this idiot looks okay at eight o'clock I wake up every day going I'm responsible for tenured people that have children in college yeah they're livelihoods you know I mean like that's you have to look at it from that point of view that's great hey did you ever I mean it was always the blues or did you ever want to be Eddie Van Halen you know or you know something that was like Prague Rock because didn't you do something wasn't there something I read about UFO I auditioned for UFO yeah yeah so that I did Pete Way's last record he did he was such a nice guy I didn't get to meet him he didn't meet him oh no I was doing it here he was not healthy to travel so I but I felt oh man I loved I mean his the feel and The Melodies and the hook lines and yeah so so you could have been sooner so what I'm saying is like yeah you made it as a blues guitarist but if you join UFA UFO you would have been a rock yeah and you know I always say when when you know when the when the when the arrows start coming my way it's like he's not a real blues guitar person I never said I was one I said I love yes songs okay okay I learned all I I you know I I love Selling England by the pound okay I'm a Steve Hackett guy okay I'm a Michael sneaker guy you know and a Richie Blackmore guy you know I mean it it's like and and you know there's to me there's I think life would be boring if I only played one style of music all the time that's not the slight anybody who does it that way because everybody has their process but I'm so I'm I'm ADHD in life and I'm ADHD in music it's like it's like oh I want to try that I want to try to get that sound you know I mean when Hot for Teacher came out you're like holy oh my God no the Swagger and you know and and you're just going it didn't sound real you know what I mean it's like eruption it sounded sped up but you realize and then you go you go to tune one of these things and you realize that it's like oh no he's he's playing in regular tuning so there's no trick there you know and so he you know he was a game changer and same thing with Hendricks and you know um I you know Mick Ralphs you know this is Paul kossoff I mean those kind of guys those were those were my guys because they were Rock but they had a blues Edge to him and they had great songs in this big Les Paul tone that I always wanted to get and so I've I've my career is we've done all kinds of Records not just Blues we've done Trad Blues but I've also done records with Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham Derek sermini we're about to do our fifth one that's straight up 70s you know heavy Rock British Rock it's it you know I like to know that that I can speak all the languages you know and and you have to exercise that the if you know if you speak French but you don't speak French for 20 years you get you're Rusty so I'd like to try to keep my thing fresh all that stuff though influences what you do in your own music that's the beauty of it all that stuff you just you just you're a guy who wants to keep learning and why not learn from the best I mean Richie Blackmore is the best at being Richie Blackmore Hendrix is the best how are you kidding me that's incredible you're inspired by that you're never gonna sound like those guys but you can grab something and then you bring it into your style of music and so it makes you you create your own thing from all of that you know everybody is is an amalgamation of their influences there's very very few people that are Immaculate Conception guitar players and maybe you know like Warren Hayden says it best about Albert King you know he's like he's the only person I can think of that was an Immaculate Conception guitar player where nobody played like him before and then everybody was like oh wow this is devastating but then you figure out well Albert King his born name is Albert Nelson Jimmy vavino told me that Albert Nelson played drums with Jimmy Reed he was a drummer what yeah I didn't know that King was a drummer his his born name is Albert Nelson and you'll win by the way you'll win rock and roll Jeopardy okay with this fact look it up it's it's on Wikipedia he played drums with Jimmy Reed jeez so he was coming from a totally different point of view you know I mean so when he picked up the guitar upside down he invented this thing that created riffs and tunings that that he he invent he took the guitar that was a fixed instrument and went nah I'm not buying this I'm going to do it upside down I'm going to tune it to was an open F or what you know it's through the Albert King tune open G minor and coming up with all these different positions and nobody sounded like him wow that's amazing well I think that um you know Finding solutions to problems or finding solutions to things in general uh requires creativity you know what I mean so this guy created his thing by you he obviously did the guitar upside down he was trying to figure out how to do something and he with with this creative mind and his open mind he created his thing so which leads me to like so you know you said you did all these records including the live ones so when you what is your approach do you have a method to let's say you're going to start a record next month how does that process start do you watch cartoons do you watch movies you know I mean what is your method I you know what I start doing is is I I just kind of sometimes I stop myself if if I'm talking to someone and I hear somebody say something clever you know and I one of our one of our songs that we play almost every night is is a is is a is a is a song called just cause you can don't mean you should and I and I and I wrote it with a my friend Tom hamrich and and uh I just remember watching some one of those crazy shows on TV like you know like it's almost like what was it jackass or it was like where people just do dumb stuff that could get them killed like with golf carts like let's jump golf carts and then they fall off and they're hauled off in an ambulance and I just remember like I was riffing about that with Tom and I said man just you know sometimes just because you can don't mean you shouldn't because there's the song let's write it and we just did and and and and and so you when you're in the writing process you you have to be kind of conscious of of these little nuggets that sometimes because we're about we're all characters you know and and if you could say it um in a way that's your own like Eric Gales is a master at that when we worked on his record he didn't have any songs and his whole record came out of a single conversation that he and uh our co-producer Josh Smith had at Josh's studio in uh in Tarzana um and and he was just going off and I'm just listening and Josh is talking and I'm not saying much because I'm on my phone like God that's great way to say that so we wrote all these songs based on what he was saying and tried to write in his own voice you know and when we would approach him with lyrics it would be like Eric he's like man I'm not feeling I'm like okay great how do you feel like what would you do like the same sentiment now tell me how you would say that yourself you know because then then it becomes his own and so that's what I try to do is is I try to just collect little nuggets because starting with lyrics is so much easier if you have a good seven oh really then because if you're just jamming you're like okay what do you want to say well I woke up this morning oh God not again please yeah not again but what about you I woke up this morning no do you ever like do you ever like write a song from like like a hook line you know like a melody or if you're working on because you know you probably always working on tones and this and that or tunings and stuff does that ever like send you into an inspiration you know it's funny I was I was in The Abbey Road Studios and I was co-writing with Bernie Mars from Whitesnake and this was for our album royalty um that we did in January of 2020 in London unbeknownst to us something was about to happen in the next couple yeah seemed pretty normal to me yeah and um and we were about to wrap up for the day we'd already wrote one really good song that made the record and we're in this little room upstairs at Abbey Road he dragged some gear up and you know and if you're playing loud and the old lady next door would be like are you done yet you know like like this is a studio talk to them which studio was excited recording it's Atlantic studios off property that around the corner it's like it's a studio we're supposed to play anyway we ended up writing a song on the spot because I was he was curious that how my Marshall Blues breaker sounded with his 59 last Paul and I said well let's plug it in before we go and I come up and I'm just showing them you know Diamond everything and I started playing this riff and he goes there's a song let's let's we wrote in a half hour wow you know and that's right you never know when it's gonna happen but you have to kind of be in a position when you start writing sometimes you have to write a couple of Duds just to get the wheels yeah because I don't write every day you know yeah I'm not one of those guys but you know like Dylan was constantly with a patent writings right right what about like do you ever think about oh my God uh I gotta stay relevant I mean you know we're getting stuck in this place I mean and things things start changing around you know in the world not just in music obviously well how does that how do you relate to trying to stay relevant because creative ideas do help you become or stay relevant you know and uh but when I was with Mellencamp I mean that was the it was always like oh my God I'm gonna lose my record dude I'm gonna lose my record deal we got to come up he was demanding us he'd say look you guys I need ideas I need ideas to get these songs on the radio and I know he was trying to stay relevant now we've done that before we got to do that but he was trying to be you know in the top 10 on the Billboard top 100 uh you know singles that's a whole different competition right there but yeah I would say it's about relevancy in terms of my career never been never will be okay I do a very specific thing I know exactly what the fans want to hear and sometimes with with so would you rather so the question is would you rather please the critics at Rolling Stone or please the fans that put you there my answer unequivocally is please the fans that put you there so if that means once a record there's gotta there's a big sludgy blues rock song with an overblown solo at the end I'm doing it because that's what people seem to enjoy yeah and you know um I'm not you know I'm not the one that's going to come out drastically change the show I'm like you know I I'm not feeling playing guitar and I'm just gonna stand up here and sing for you are you crazy these people this is what they paid for they were you know it's this is the experience that you're selling and I find now that looking at the Guitar World in general in 2023 I find it in a very very uh I find it in a state of Crossroads because people have learned how to make real money um by sitting in front of a camera and putting it on Instagram or YouTube and and becoming an influencer which is great I I encourage anybody with a with a a business model um to do it like that how long you can stay inspired doing one minute videos is up to the individual and I find that that that if I feel the need to stay relevant because I haven't posted something in a minute and I just go well here let me I haven't played guitar today but let me let me tune this Les Paul up and and do a one minute video I've been guilty of this in the past where that one minute that it took me to film something one take and just throw it on Instagram was the only minute of music I had made that entire day and I was like that's not that's not for me it's that that's crossing a line where your your inspiration is the dopamine that you're going to get from the from the comment section of your social media and so you know what I mean that that seems a little for me personally that that's not the kind of Lifestyle I want to live if I if I don't feel like playing guitar tonight like I haven't played guitar for in a week we got off tour last week I haven't picked one up and I live in a house of guitars there's tons of them okay right you have you have a ridiculous collection collection yeah and it's like your house is your Museum right and that's where all the guitars are well most of the guitars yeah most guitars are at my house in Los Angeles um and you know I mean the collection the collecting part of it that's a different that's a different career you know it's a type of thing and you know it people are curious about about you know in in about it and I just said well my dad was a Guitar Dealer in a different life and and I grew up in a music store and I always loved old guitars and when I could start affording them I started just buying vintage guitars and luckily I started buying vintage guitars when they weren't as expensive as they are now and I could get better deals you know um but the thing about collecting is I look like people are going oh my God I come to my house and they're overwhelmed and it's overwhelming if I went into it blind not knowing what to expect or just seeing a few pictures on Instagram you're going the sheer magnitude of it all would overwhelm even the most jaded collector but the difference is I live there so I wake up I get my coffee there's hundreds of guitar amps right it doesn't matter you know it's organized hoarding it's it's the core memorabilia signs blinking but when they get down to asking the critical questions it's it it's why I don't well I have an addictive personality um my answer is always if you have to ask that question why then you don't get what it's like being a collector because there's a certain thing about collecting your that you are you're doing something temporarily that will eventually be broken up into bits like I know 500 guitars 500 amps thousand twelve hundred pieces in the collection eventually I'm not going to be around and this whole thing yeah this nerdville gotham sign May either be thrown away in the dump or some some kid will have it in his basement going I got bonamassa's old son you know but while they're under my custodianship my job is to preserve them and and love them and and promote them you know what I mean meaning that like you know you know it's like here's a 54 Les Paul and pretty darn good condition you know and so I got it in this condition and my job is to play it love it use it live but don't beat the hell out of it so you you don't recognize it you know my ego is not that big uh to go well I'm just going to destroy this guitar because in in service of my music it's like you could do that with a new guitar you don't need to do it with this one all sounds the same do you do you sell do you keep everything you buy or you sell and buy other things is there that kind of thing I remember I was in the studio and John Shanks bought a it was in Henson and he says oh my God look at this it was a Les Paul he bought might have been 285 000 or something but he said I had to sell three others to get this once you start getting started would you start collecting Sunburst Les Paul's and flying these and all that high-end stuff it's expensive game and but you know what I do is you could tell you know like I I I'm more businessman than I am a musician in a lot a lot of ways the way my head my head is wired is I always remember the the CEO of General Electric and my manager and I always talk about this he his whole thing was you have to clear out the bottom 10 um every year to and in his case it was kind of cold and heartless he was talking about employees he would take the the bottom 10 performing ten percent of is his employees and and and and lay them off and bring in new people hopefully to raise the Baseline and not not the Baseline the Baseline um so I'm not as maybe the guitarists think I'm cold and heartless but what I do is every year I take I take stock of what we have and I may sell five percent just to just to go you know I'm never going to get to this I'm never gonna play it it's just it was something the addiction was roaring I was in Des Moines Iowa you know and so you know I'll I'll quietly take down five maybe six percent or if you know if somebody like really wants something it's like Mike here's my dream guitar I've been looking for my whole life here is a is a 54 Les Paul I'll be like you can have it not for free but you can have it you know what I mean I got six or seven of these you know and it's so the sentimentality factor comes into that you know if you're not sentimental about stuff and then there's certain things they're going to bury me with okay and it's just non-negotiable do you have a favorite guitar I mean that out of that collection or a favorite five or is there a certain it depends you know it they're all tools you know and there's not one size fits all I'm not like you know like you know I'm not like a Rory Gallagher type where where neither musically or you know yeah you know on stage like Rory played that Strat a lot but he had a big guitar collection um but he he played that Strat and he could basically do his whole show on that wow wow I I I I need the Les Paul for this song I need to tell you for this song so I mean there's my there's ones you just go these this is a great instrument you know but it's the same thing of like wooden snare brass snare yeah yeah you you can't just go well this is what I always use you got to service the music you know I used to back in the day when you know I had drums in New York Nashville L.A Indiana Japan Germany you know when we were selling records they'd fly me everywhere and when that changed that's why I moved to New York moved to LA and I got my own Studio on common Studios but I remember when I'd have the Cartage guys just bring these 100 snare drums a hundred yeah but the thing is it would always end up being the these three unless there was a you know the other thing is back in the day when the budgets are big you know you could spend weeks making a record and then everybody was ex oh what's there you can use on this song now I mean I just come in and I and it's it's my hands that make the changes I mean Wood versus wood versus Metal uh shallow versus deep of course but this is really one snare drum one or two to my own model that covers everything now where it you know just us it seems to work sonically yeah you know there used to be you know I I used to hear about these these um stories of like you know um you know it took six weeks to find a comfortable chair you know at 2500 a day you know okay so it took us a week to get drum sounds a week yeah you know and you know again it's like in the business now it's like whatever digit was in that first number okay whether you spend 300 000 on a record or three million okay no matter what strap now you drop a zero on the right side and that's pretty much what your budget is now it's thirty thousand three hundred thousand if you sell three million now you may sell three hundred thousand if you sold three hundred thousand you'd be lucky to sell thirty thousand and that's pretty much the business because I'm talking to you on a laptop that doesn't even have a CD player I don't have a CD player in this apartment I don't get who's buying I haven't seen a record store in a wild like for a while I mean there's they sell vintage vinyl and a few CDs but it never it used to be like the Virgin mega store and all this stuff long gone well you know I remember when it went from LP successful and okay you can put the cassette in the car but then when it went to CDs I'm like okay okay this is it right this is it no no it went to the iPod to streaming to downloading to YouTube which is if YouTube is the biggest platform for listening to music which is free free it's like I wish uh airplane tickets were free and I wish groceries were free and I wish gas was free but in our business all of a sudden our main product is free unbelievable and you know it was funny you know like you know because I have we have friends in the movie business and stuff like that and they always use the glows like oh well we still we're still killing it at the box office I said it's gonna happen to you eventually of course then pick around stick around stick around long enough are you gonna you're gonna and look at it now it's it's ten dollars a month for your streaming service and you can watch anything anytime you want however you want and and you know the the the the box office is down but that's how they used to pay for the movies you know so you can't spend 300 million dollars on a blockbuster unless there's gonna be people paying 20 a ticket to go see it you know and that's that's a big deal it's a real big deal and and you know so that kid from Napster ruined it all we'll make the labels didn't embrace it at first but they sure scored in the end and they were arrogant about it they tried to just snuff them out yeah they drew had to Snuff them out but they they won because they owned the Masters we like for people who don't understand this it's like when you get a record deal oh here's money to make the record but in that contract in most cases the record label owns those Master recordings and they eventually sold those Master recordings to iTunes and Spotify at humongous dollars because they own those final recordings you know I I read I redid My Sharona nope for note so I can write every note out because the band the two remaining guys in the band the singer and the drummer were dead feiger and Bruce Gary is the drummer and the band so who whoever on the master could say for let's say a movie was being made they wanted to use my surrounder and the people on the master said wow that's going to cost you a half a million dollars well the band might have sold it for a hundred thousand to release it for a hundred thousand so I redoed every single note I got the I asked for every mic position and they red I wrote everything out and it was like way more complicated than I realized the point is I duplicated what the drummer done then they took the second best vocal apparently they could do that and they replaced the bass in the guitars and also they now had a version of my son that sounded like the original so they can control but that's rare they can license it themselves and and we've been doing this our whole careers you know we own every piece of catalog oh man and and the reality is is there is money to be made when streaming if you are the if you're the holder of the master recordings yeah so you go down the street I live close to Columbus Circle here um in New York you can walk just down the street from my apartment building and you can see Universal Music they're still operating and what they are now is their catalog management and basically their entire catalog hundreds and hundreds of thousands of of recordings and are now available for streaming and they're they're just sitting there making fractional pennies every time somebody clicks on a universal own and they get a big check either at the end of the year or quarterly however they whatever they work their deals out and and it's way more profitable doing it that way than it is to pay songwriters oh my God God forbid um and packaging CDs shipping CDs having return reserves having the hairy Fox you know the old Harry Fox situation where the songwriters Collective and cotton checks have you know and you know and and the producers get screwed the songwriters get screwed and the artist gets nothing nothing you know but unless they own their Master recordings and now you're starting to see you know hedge fund Banks buying Master recordings from artists directly and they're paying 25 times on the hot one 25 times uh epider or whatever they want to call it or multiples on on your growth yeah and um so you know and artists that are in their late 60s or 70s going you're just getting you're giving me a check for the rest of my life I'm done I don't have to collect anything anymore you know and there's a law that at a certain point I don't know if it's 25 years or 35 years those Masters that you recorded and that the label owns they come back to the to the artist or the songwriters and that's where you're seeing them going like you know what I mean Springsteen sold his Masters for I think 500 million dollars why wouldn't he and then you can also put it in you know an uh you know annuities there's different ways you can construct it with convenient and you know be passed on to your kids and whatever but but it's uh it's it's interesting interesting time so okay I got to ask you about the glasses thing because I'm a glass guy I started what I I put glasses it was an accident my kid put him on me as I was walking on stage for the very first uh Smashing Pumpkins concert I ever did when I did the adore tour in 1998 and I went it they matched it was like yellow goggles they matched my shirt I had a yellow stripe down a black shirt I said hey that sure if my kid wants me to wear them I'm wearing them and the next day in the paper all they talk they didn't even talk about my drumming they talked about my glasses so I went all right I guess that's what I do now and I didn't know any nobody talked about branding back then I remember finally went this is stupid I took them off and I got more crap for not wearing them so I put them back on so it became my thing you know look at me I got a brand so but and you look great with glasses is it the same thing well you know sometimes necessity is the mother of invention so I have this thing when I used to play clubs like real we were playing pretty modest places if you were lucky if you were playing like the Mason jar and outside of Phoenix they have lights in coffee cans and they turn them on yeah as my as my Fortune started to grow a little bit and we started graduating to small theaters we actually had it was people that would operate spotlights and I'm very light sensitive so if there's like a real bright light I squint a lot and I sometimes gear up and it's very distracted so when I'm on stage now there's two forty thousand watt spotlights Center Stage coming in hot so I use the glasses it just takes the it takes the 2K off so I can I can concentrate and it just it does that when I get off stage I don't wear the glasses um and and like I'll walk around any I could walk around anywhere anytime and and and for the baseball hat on no glasses and nobody will even give me a second look even outside of my own concerts I can just go right to the bus nobody looks like a roadie you know and um the minute I put these on yeah something happens and like are you Joe and I'm like you should just ask the glasses I know it's true though yeah and and it you know I mean it just it just and it just became a thing you know and I it just became a thing and I become the you know in 2006 my producer Kevin said Hey listen you need to start dressing up better than than your audience you look like a slob up there sometimes and I was like oh don't worry about the jeans in the shirt and he goes That's not star time and he goes you're he goes ask you know he goes ask your friend BB King he dresses up it's star time I'm gonna go say no more so then I start wearing these stupid suits and then I found a couple of brands that fit me well and it then next thing you know I became the guy in the glasses and and it was just kind of at that point searching for something that an image to put to this sound and and that was it you know it was just the it was a perfect storm of things happening all at the same time it was the the record The Ballad of John Henry did so great that it was you know the follow-ups and and the PBS stuff and and and you know and then becoming the guy in the suit next thing you know here we go the key thing is and it works real well for you it looks real it looks authentic it's not like you just put something on like it doesn't it looks like that's what you should be wearing and it goes with your music and so it's it's it's a complete package you know I credit the influence of two two two sources one I I was flipping through a book about the blues and I come upon a picture of and it's pretty famous photo Muddy Waters in a backstage area in um in the UK and he's got this great custom suit on there's a bottle of Johnny Walker black on the table it's just you just go these guys were the coolest right you're just like this is just the [ __ ] and I'm a big biggest clapping fan in the world I remember seeing Eric Clapton on the journeyman tour when he when when they branded him the Armani Blues Man when he was dressing up in the suits I'm like that was the coolest thing I've ever seen I said let me just try that you know and um and it worked you know it just worked is there anything at this point uh that you I mean this is kind of a crazy question but is there anything that you haven't done that you want to do do you think like that or do you have a Five-Year Plan somebody wants to ask me that and it's just like I went what I just dig what I'm doing I'm just doing what I'm doing I still like to play drunk but some people have that kind of you know Five-Year Plan and this is what I'm gonna do at some point do you have that or you just dig what you're doing and just just take it one day at a time you know I'm I'm not I'm not a lifer I mean they'll be they'll be a second act at some point um I I make this deal with myself um as long as I can keep up sing and play in what I think is the the best or or at a higher level um the minute those skills start to erode and it just becomes like a a slow descent back down the mountain then it's time for me to hang it up um and you know you want to go out on top you want to go out making your best music of your life you know you you know we've all we've all known and seen artists that that spend a little bit too much time either on the road or doing their thing and it becomes it it's not a the word is not a legacy act it becomes like you're just going to see them to pay tribute to the what it was yeah yeah yeah what it was you gotta know you gotta know when to shut it down you know there's a lot of people that don't don't want to even acknowledge that they think they're going to be 25 forever that's that's that's not true that's not me um I mean we're playing the Hollywood Bowl we're headlining the Hollywood Bowl this year that's a big deal I mean how many times have we been stuck on Highland going up to 101 I mean cursing I want to be responsible for that at least one thing in my life well dude that's that's awesome I mean I I get it man that's the coolest feeling when you're there and you realize you know you know what it's like to be outside and wondering who's playing tonight oh man look at all this traffic and now you're that person it's the greatest you know it you know it's a few places with venues like that you play you've played Red Rocks you did a live record there Madison Square Garden maybe the form Royal Albert Hall I mean you hit those are the big ones Madison Square Garden Royal oven all maybe Red Rocks the Hollywood Bowl Forum I mean and that's that's it it's not lost on me like you know I I go get my Diet Cokes in water and I have to walk past Carnegie Hall and I've done two nights there I've you know and I'm three blocks away from Radio City I mean I've hit it all you know what I mean yeah that's great that's good Carnegie Hall though is is one of those venues where we were warned going in about sonically it's not designed for electric music so we did an acoustic show yeah oh you did yeah because the the I don't know what they call them the the sticks the the half uh they're like a bunch of um skewers uh together and it's it's like it's like so you don't you're not using a full stick on a snare it's like you've seen oh yeah they're called like uh yeah the route Vic Firth makes it the root deserve uh Plastics or yeah it's a take it down a peg or you it's a less intense and I remember being at Carnegie Hall and Anton fig um he's just he just sits down at the drum kit I know I I just I just sit down in the center for the first time in a while okay this is like let me pull this off and all he did was take one of those little half stick things and he hit the snare once and it was like somebody shot off a gun whoa yeah it was it was intense I can't imagine even attempting an electric show in there it would just be it would just be because it's in their defense it was designed for vitals opera singers violins piano players you know going back to the late 1800s there was no amplification there was no PA they so it it was designed to be a live room that you could just sing in and 2600 people can see you you know and hear it and but you know here we are this rock and rollers coming in thinking we know it all and then start banging on stuff and it's like well I bet you there was a time that the people who booked that place said we're not letting the rock and roll people in here but the almighty dollar it was like Hey if we can book more shows bring them in yeah I mean there's those great videos okay of Albert Collins Roy Buchanan and Lonnie Mack live at Carnegie Hall couldn't imagine what it sounded like on the night it it had to be definite because all those guys at that point in time in their career were like I don't care where we are damp goes to here this is it no exceptions you know everybody was just dying while will Joe Joe um awesome awesome hanging with you you know usually when I see you it's like I'm on stage you come up blow everybody away and then you take off and we had dinner uh you know a couple weeks ago which was awesome but uh I feel like I got to know you even more this you know even though we've known each other forever we've known each other forever and and uh our musical inventions are always great because it it always involves a very very eclectic group of music that you guys have to learn and I'm brought in as the blues guy and I always I would tell you and Carmine Carmine Rojas to like baseball um it's like listen don't worry about me okay we're gonna play the blues okay we don't have to rehearse this you know yeah but I like to do it right and your songs are badass you got an edge you got that New York Italian Edge and my mom grew up in the Bronx my dad in Paterson so I can relate to that so I'm just like whoa you you're mad but when you get on the guitar and you start singing there's some attitude and I love it I completely it Sparks me I'm a nice guy but I play with bad intentions Joe man thank you for coming on the podcast man I cannot wait to see you again and I'm gonna call you the Unstoppable Joe Bonamassa now that's your name very much all right man [Music]

Channel: Kenny Aronoff

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Id: ZznmV03xetM

Length: 72min 44sec (4364 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023