Sly & The Family Stone - Larry Graham Interview

hello hello is this Larry Graham yes it is hi Larry this is Dustin wilmus from kmsu Radio hey how you doing I'm excellent how are you doing doing good doing good do you have a few minutes uh we can ask you some questions sure do excellent first of all I'm here with my co-host ton hey there how you doing I'm doing fine how about yourself I'm great I'm glad we got you on the line here oh good good good well we will start off and ask you I guess the basic question question what made you decide to start playing the bass what made you start that um actually um I played guitar before bass um I should back up a little even more uh I played U other instruments I started out on piano and then I went from piano I played uh uh drums in school I played um clarinet and saxophone um so those instruments were actually first and then when I was 11 my father gave me his guitar because he wasn't going to play anymore and I taught myself uh guitar and then my mother and I started working together my mother is uh she was a Pianist and um we started working together when I was 15 with me on the guitar we started working together my mother on piano with me on guitar and uh we had a drummer and um then this one club we worked in had a organ that had the base pedals that go halfway across you senos right and so I taught myself to play the bass pedals at the same time playing the guitar and so we had bottom and we got used to that and uh the organ broke down so now we founded empty about having that bottom and so I thought well I'll just rent a base to down the bottom until the organ could be repaired then I'll go back to guitar and uh but as it turned out the organ couldn't be repaired so I got stuck on the vase so it's kind of like by accident I got got on a base and um then after a while my mother decided that we weren't going to have drums it was just going to be bass and uh and piano with no drummers so that's when I started thumping the strings uh to make up for not having that you know that bass drum and plucking the TR to make for not having that BackBeat and so it's kind of like um kind of playing drums on bass for not having that drummer and that's how that started so you're you're universally credited with coming up with that technique but um maybe your mom was respons she was more responsible awesome I think she's more responsible yeah that's awesome and and actually um before I rent at that base um when my mom would take solos on the piano I would play the bass lines on my guitar and when I was solo she would play the Bas lines on the piano so really a lot of my Basel lines was really U coming from her left hand the Bassel lines that she would play on the piano and so when I switched over to base it was really some of those same baselines and I was listening more to that than bass players cuz I didn't think I was going to be you know stuck on the base so I didn't really listen yeah to Bas players I love how it's uh still all these years later you you still refer to it as getting stuck on the page yeah yeah cuz that was not my choice at all that's awesome when I played guitar in my band um I had a bass you know a bass player and I just was never going to be that guy you know the the base guy I want to be the outfront league guitar player you know wow so then uh tell us kind of about I mean how did he get from uh hanging out jamming with your mom and you know creating all these things uh into slly in the Family Stone how how did that happen well what happened you you know when you play clubs uh sometimes you get like um regulars people that come in like all the time and uh so there was this one lady she was a regular at this club uh relax with Ivon it was right almost on the corner of haon ashberry and uh she would come in all the time and she really loved what me and my mom did and but she was also a fan of Sly Stones he was on U kso radio in San Francisco and uh she found out that he was going to be starting a band and on her own we didn't find this out till later but she started calling the radio station and telling him you got to hear this bass player you got to hear this bass player uh culy played bass himself and he might have been the bass player of the band um uh hadn't hear me but he came down and and heard me doing this weird way of playing the Bas and I asked him to join his band and that's that's how that that happened can you tell us a little bit about um you know like a typical studio session for you guys how did you come up with the song and I me what was it what was the vibe like in the studio um well the vibe was really interesting it was always positive and up um we were a lot like a family um Freddy and Sly were actually Brothers and Rose is their uh fleshly sister and later that did some things uh with us too and Sly was the song writer but a part of his uh genius in addition to the great songs that that he uh created is he allowed each player uh especially the Rhythm Section uh he allowed us to contribute what we do he didn't try to make me play the way he might play a baseline or try to make Freddy play the guitar the way he would play a guitar line cuz he played guitar as well SL I did uh but he let us contribute what we would do same thing with Greg Rico with some of those great beats like danc and the music and uh things like that um he would write the songs but he would let us contribute our style of of playing whatever bass line the drum line or uh guitar line we'd come up with and stuff so we we we kind of we were never credited as writers but we did get a chance to contribute and around that time um you guys had an integrated band you know you had black members and white members and really that was unheard of at that time what are your thoughts on that and did that ever cause you guys any trouble I mean as far as playing out and those sorts of things well we also had uh M and female too which was a little different we had two girls in the group Cynthia and Rose uh uh in the beginning and uh so yeah we we were mixed uh all the way around um but it was um really no trouble I think more of a contributing factor in that I think uh we probably maybe broaden our audience you know um I think because of having male and female and black and white and U and then I music was also a combination a combination of different genres so I I think all of that helped contribute to the music you asked me earlier too about um about recording and I didn't get a chance to add this one part but uh another thing that really uh I think helped our music a lot is we did a lot of stuff live it wasn't in the beginning especially it wasn't a super uh amount of overdubbing you know we did a lot of live stuff so a lot of times we would capture in the studio um what we would capture on stage live you know so I think that added to the feel especially on you know some of the high energy songs for sure now the Family Stone I mean that's really for many other bands since then have been listed as you know the major influence for them and and the direction they've gone did you guys ever I guess imagine that you were kind of Paving some trail for other musicians or what are your thoughts on that uh no not not really um you know you always hope for the best but I I don't think um we expect it as especially as big of a boost in our career as we got after we played Woodstock because no one actually knew that Woodstock was going to be so huge you know uh and internationally huge um so no no one expected that and and that night we didn't really realize what was happening ourselves but after the success of Woodstock then our careers just just took off and then for me personally I never felt like I was coming up with um a new way of playing the bass or I never really thought about it but then other bands like especially cover bands uh if they were going to cover our Tunes like thank you for letting me me myself or dance in the music they pretty much had to play the bass uh like me for it to sound like that and at first a lot of musicians didn't know what I was doing um by just hearing the records but then when they saw us on more and more TV shows like at ciban and stuff and and and saw more videos than they saw how I was playing with my thumbs and fingers so um I didn't know that style was going to be become the way to play the Bas uh and I didn't know the band was going to have such a big influence as a b as as we did but yeah it all turned out great yeah for sure now you also mentioned Woodstock there do you have any like outstanding kind of memories of that or can you talk us about that at all well the the most outstanding thing is um when we would play um our songs we would segue from one song right into the next song and we may go several songs or more before we would stop and you would actually get a chance to hear like the audience responds so when we flew in it's it's dark you really can't tell how many people are actually there at which stock there's no way you have a feel for that I mean before we were playing much much smaller venues and so we're playing and we're playing we're playing when we finally did stop to hear the Roar of uh half a million people it was like wow you know we had never heard anything like that or felt that kind of energy uh and that really sent us up another level you know that helped us actually to tap into a Zone musically that we hadn't been before I think we played the best that night ever you know I kind of I kind of liken it sometimes to maybe the first time Michael Jordan took off from the free throw line and wow I can do that it kind of took us to a whole another zone so now every concert after that you know it had to measure up to to Woodstock and you played with the family stor for quite a while but eventually you left the group can you tell us a bit about that and how you went on to form Graham Central Station yeah um actually when um I left find the Family Stone um I was really just going to um produce uh another band and write for them because I was a songwriter uh uh as well uh but I had no intentions of starting my own band that was the furthest thing from my mind so I put together this band and I built it around um hot uh chocolate her name is Patrice Banks and uh uh her nickname is chocolate so um I named the band hot chocolate and built it around her and some of the songs that I had written and recorded um I was just going to feature her and I would be the producer songwriter and uh but one night they were playing uh this gig at a club called bimbos in San fr Isco and uh the audience they they knew I was there obviously and they they knew the connection between the band and me and SL the Family Stone and so forth so the place was packed out and it's getting down to the end of the show and all of a sudden the audience started urging me to go up and play with them to to sit in at the end of the show and I did and uh when I did uh it just shifted into a whole another gear and the band knew something special that just happened I knew it the audience knew it and obviously I should be in that band not just the producer and songwriter so it was at the audience urging that that happened and so I just changed the name from hot chocolate to Graham Central Station and uh rearrange some of the parts uh on on the songs so that it featured you know more me and uh not not just not just chocolate yeah so that's how that happened too that was another thing I didn't I didn't plan it but not that way well you released a lot of albums with them and also a lot of solo albums is there one that you prefer over the other do you do you like just being Larry Graham or are you into the it was it was different with the with the music kind of um my first solo record um one in a million you actually because it was such a departure from uh the Graham Central Station sound that the record company really didn't like it and uh they did not want to release it but I had um a clause in my contract that allowed me to pick the single from uh from my albums and they didn't believe in it but I did and I went with one in the million you and it turned out to be the you know one of my biggest records bigger than any of my gram Central Station records actually yeah and so it it was kind of more a difference in in in the sound for you know between Graham Central Station and my solo stuff well we are um huge Prince fans here you obviously played with him for quite a while can you kind of tell us how you guys met up and what it was like playing with Prince um yeah we met um I just finished um I don't know if you got a chance to see it but Sinbad did this big HBO special uh in Aruba and he had all these different bands and and things um and then from that whole lineup of bands at the HBO special he put together a little tour of the US of earthwind and fire gr Central Station and Tina Marie and then himself so we were touring and this one particular night we were in Nashville Tennessee uh we were playing the amphitheater and Prince was playing the the big arena there in town and he heard I was in town and what I didn't know at the time is that he was basically raised up on my music uh and SL of Family Stone more so Graham Central Station cuz by the time we came along he was older and more into writing and producing his music so he was heavily influenced by Graham Central Station so when he heard I was in town he invited me to come over uh for one of his uh After parties which I know you heard of his famous After parties after shows and so I went over to to jam with him for the first time and when I got up on the stage uh to my surprise like everywhere I went musically he was like right there like he been playing with me for years and it was it was it caught me off guard CU I didn't know he knew anything about my music but as it turn out he did and and we hit it off musically like you know like crazy and then he asked me you know when you finish with the sbad tour would you come and join my tour and open up for my my show and that's how it started and then we ended up moving to um uh Minnesota and I continued to work with him we did the GCS 2000 CD and I did some work on some of his CDs as well um and then Shaka Khan was recording with us at the same time uh so we had all of the studios in Paisley Park and swing and um that's really how we hooked up and since then we just became like you know best of friends more like more like brothers so then is it safe to say that you'll be playing with him for quite a while into the future then well yeah we're always doing stuff together I mean I'm I I live not far away from Paisley Park so you know we're always you know recording something or jamming together or you know just having just having fun but you know I I live in Minnesota now so I think it's safe to say that we will be doing other things in the future awesome look forward to it yeah well is there any other projects you have that you're working on right now or anything else you want to mention my latest is my my my new album raise up and uh that that has three songs on on there features uh Prince and uh one of the songs also feature Raphael sadik and uh then I also did a remake of uh Stevie W's Higher Ground and so that's my latest U project that came out not long ago raised up so uh yeah I want everybody to know about that you know and so we're touring now and supporting that that new that new album yeah awesome we'll definitely have to check it out yeah and they can check out my website Larry gram.com um saw one where Larry gram.com and you can find out more about uh getting some autograph CDs as well as uh we're also offering vinyl and the vinyl uh albums um actually come with a CD as well so you get the the vinyl and the CD all in one package you can get that through the website that's that's what I'll be getting yeah well Larry it's been an honor to have you on with us today do you have any final thoughts you want to leave us with well you know other than the fact that uh you know check out the new the new album and you know when when we uh come to town uh cuz we we're currently touring the US uh as well as Europe um you know please come and see us and come and have some fun you know with the Graham Central Station we're going to try to help raise you up too awesome excellent well thanks a lot for coming on the show it's uh it's been a pleasure oh my pleasure all right thanks so much bye bye bye

Channel: thefivecount

Views: 69,751

Keywords: Interview, five count, kmsu, larry graham, graham central station, prince, new power generation, Prince (musician), paisley park, chaka kahn, sly stone, funk, bass player, Bass, r&b, the revolution, rock and roll hall of fame, woodstock

Id: 2D6GlPtaV_0

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2013