A Conversation with Jack Bruce – HuffPost 3.26.14

Mike Ragogna: Jack, you have a new album, Silver Rails with many special guests.

Jack Bruce: Especially guitar players! I must be a glutton for punishment. [laughs] No, I love the guitars, that’s what rock music’s all about, really, to me. You’ve got to have great guitars.

MR: You recorded Silver Rails at Abbey Road.

JB: I did, yeah.

MR: What was the experience like at Abbey Road this time out?

JB: Oh it was great to be back there. I haven’t recorded an album there for some time. Abbey Road, what can you say about it? The music’s just sort of dripping off the walls. You just kind of start to soak it up. It takes everybody’s playing up just a little bit more. You always tend to try a little harder at Abbey Road. It’s a great place, it’s like working in a museum, but it’s got all of the equipment to the highest standard, it’s all maintained fantastically, you might be singing into a microphone that John Lennon used or something, it’s just phenomenal.

MR: Speaking of soaking up the vibe, did recording at Abbey Road affect the twists and turns that the album creatively took?

JB: Oh, I’m quite sure it did. Obviously I’d written the songs before I went in there, and originally I didn’t plan to record at Abbey Road, but one of my daughters is a film maker and she had a premiere of her first film and she had done some work for Rob Cass who’s the house producer at Abbey Road. He was at the premiere and he said, “Hey, why don’t you come and do it at my place, Abbey Road?” Wow, I thought, “That’s a fantastic idea!” No doubt that it did influence the music in a good way. No doubt about that. It’s a lovely place to work. All the people who work there are all great. It’s like stepping back in time as well.

MR: Okay, and the then sonically, how did it come off versus other places that you’ve worked?

JB: Well just as an example I’m playing a lot of pianos on this album because they’ve got a bunch of pianos in those rooms to die for. They’ve got Bosendorfers, they’ve got Steinways, they’ve got Yamahas, you name it, they’ve got it. I’m playing a different piano on each of the tracks. If you go to a little studio that’s got one piano, it might be great, but you’ve got that one piano. If you’ve got more pianos can choose the sound that you want on that track. It makes a fantastic difference. Plus you’ve got the engineers there, Paul Pritchard, he’s a really, really top-notch engineer. The whole album seems to be kind of organic, it wasn’t a struggle to make it, it just sort of happened.

MR: So you and Rob ended up being a good partnership?

JB: Oh yeah. I’ve already written a couple of tracks and when he came back in there to do the next one. He had to drag me out kicking and screaming. “I don’t want to go! I’ll move in! I’ll live there! I’ll sleep on the floor!”

MR: You like the recording process, don’t you.

JB: Well to be honest I think I’ve fallen out of love with it a little bit. I’m more concentrating on live work. A couple years ago I toured all over the world from South America to Japan and all points in between, we did Bonnaroo and all sorts of different things and it was fantastic. But just going in to do this album has made me fall in love with the recording process again. I’ve come to terms with the technology now. I’ve got my own little home studio which is remarkable. You can actually get your own studio. So yeah, I’m way back in love with recording. It’s different, working with Rob. It’s just a different thing. We’re a great team.

MR: Yeah. And speaking of teams, you worked with some lyricists on this one, Pete Brown, Kip Hanrahan and Margrit Seyffer.

JB: Yeah, well it’s great to still be working with Pete, I think he really came up with the goods on this album. It’s all very biographical and though it’s a bit dark I think it kind of captured a lot of great things. I’m very pleased with what he’s done. Kip’s from the Bronx, he’s an old friend of mine, Kip Hanrahan and it’s a different process, working with him. You really have to hang out with Kip. Every word it’s always, “Why do we want this word?” It’s very philosophical. And then Margaret, I was so amazed, she came up with the most beautiful words for “Candlelight.” She just blew me away with those words. It was so musical, so good.

MR: And let’s go back to some of the instrumentalists who joined you, like Phil Manzanera, Robin Trower, Bernie Marsden, and John Medeski. What were some of the adventures with them like?

JB: A lot of the songs I had those people in mind as I was writing, I would say, “Hmm, it would be great to have Phil Manzanera on that track.” I worked with him a couple of years ago, we got to know each other really well, we went to Cuba and worked with some Cuban musicians. That was great fun. We’ve kept our friendship going and he did a great job on that track. And with Robin Trower, as soon as I wrote the bass for “Rusty Lady” I thought, “That is Robin.” It’s such a dirty kind of riff, “we’ve got to get Robin in there.”

MR: Were there any surprises when they played on your songs? Did you hear the song differently than before?

JB: Phil did kick it up another level as soon as he staretd playing guitar on that track. He just took it to another place, which is what I think a great musician should do. Not just playing, but also making it their own. He did a great job on that.

MR: Now John Medeski came in, was there a certain degree of improv on that?

JB: Well it’s all written, but there was a certain amount of improv, certainly on “Reach For The Night,” he’s got a solo on there and that’s an amazing solo.

MR: And you also have the very celebrated Cindy Blackman-Santana.

JB: Yeah, absolutely! We have this band called Spectrum Road which is a kind of improvisation band, metal, jazz, punk, I don’t know what you want to call it, but it’s kind of inspired by the music of Tony Williams of Lifetime, who I worked with years ago. Vernon Reid is also in the band, and we’re all very influenced by Tony, we love his music and we wanted some way to keep the spirit of his music alive. So about five years ago we put this band together. If we’re lucky we might play once a year, we might play in Japan or somewhere, we did a European tour a couple of years ago doing the jazz festivals, but we do get together every now and then. I’m very familiar with the playing of Cindy, she’s fantastic, you know? She really knows how to play.

MR: Nice. And speaking of people who know how to play, you’ve teamed up with all sorts of amazing folks like John Mayall, Eric Clapton… Obviously, I have to ask you a couple of Cream questions, but before I get to that, I want to ask how has the evolution of Jack Bruce been affected by other great players in your life?

JB: I think when I was starting out I was very lucky, kind of blessed, really, to play with those great people. Just take Eric as an example. Eric Clapton is not just a great guitar player, he’s also got a tremendous knowledge of the blues, he’s a musicologist in that sense, whereas I’m not, I don’t know very much about blues music as such. I know about the feeling, but maybe not so much else. I guess I was able to absorb so much from all those great people that I played with I think what’s happened is I’m now inspired by myself. I know it sounds weird, but I’m kind of taking my inspiration from me because I’ve been around for so long. You know what I’m saying. If you’re writing a novel or something like that you might start off emulating some great writer, but then after a while you’re kind of going back and ripping yourself off.

MR: When artists surround themselves with great players, I guess they can’t help but grow, huh?

JB: Exactly. I think of recording something such as this album as a team effort although it’s definitely my project. You’ve got to have one guy who’s the boss, I think. You’ve got to have one. If you’re making a movie, you can’t really have anarchy, you know? I’m the boss, but it’s a team and everybody brings what they’ve got to the table. It’s like casting a movie, you get the right guys, you don’t even really have to tell them what to play, but they do great. They might come up with a couple of ideas, but they’re going to know what to do because of who they are.

MR: You were talking about making the next project already, are you just constantly inspired, the kind of person who always has to write or play?

JB: Well yeah, I’m always writing, I’ve always got this kind of soundtrack of gibberish in my head because I can go from some ridiculously old tune to some bit of a symphony I might have heard or something that goes round and round and drives me nuts. So I always say, “I might as well write something of my own instead of just putting up with this.”

MR: [laughs] You know the place that Cream has in music culture. I’m sure you don’t dwell on it, but what are your thoughts on Cream?

JB: Well I think out of the three guys I’m probably the one who looks back with the most affection at that band. It was great for me because it was a vehicle for my writing because of “Sunshine” and the other songs, I was very lucky to have these amazing players interpret those songs. Who knows what would have happened if that band hadn’t happened? Apart from that I think it was just a really great band in its own way. I think Frank Zappa described it as a nifty little trio, and I think that kind of sums it up, too. I like to look back and remember the good times with that band, when we started out and we first started having our success and things like that, before evil started creeping in and management and whatever got in the way of the music we had some great times, I’m telling you, we really had some fun times traveling around and playing and feeling that we were making a difference to the musical scene.

MR: Ah, so you do acknowledge that Cream really was amazing.

JB: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think we’re all aware of that in different ways. I think we were kind of unsure of ourselves when we first went to the states because there was us, three Brits taking this really American-type music — I know I felt quite insecure about it, but as soon as we got the reactions from the audiences and from other musicians it was really encouraging. It was a life-changing experience. I don’t look back in anger at that band. Things happen, but I’m very fond of it and I’m certainly not ashamed of the songs that came from that band.

MR: Yeah. A lot of important recording artists have said that you influenced them, such as Paul McCartney, Jaco Pastorius, Sting and Flea. When you hear that kind of compliment, what is your reaction? And are there any artists who you can hear yourself in their playing?

JB: There’s things that I hear people playing where I know that they got that idea from me but music is like that, you share ideas, really and there’s nothing completely original. Nobody’s coming up with something that’s never happened before, not even somebody like Jimi Hendrix. It’s all music, it’s all influenced by whatever is around you at the time, there’s a feeling in the air, these kind of things happen by osmosis, it’s a generational thing; that’s also very important. We were the first ones to actually have kids. The original rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis and all those amazing things that happened when I was nine years old or whatever, it’s going to affect you. All the other guys, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, we were all of a similar age and we all heard the hits and thought, “God, I want to do something like that.”

MR: Who were your favorite early influences and do you feel like you’re still influenced by them in some way?

JB: Oh yeah. I think probably I was more drawn to the black music. I wasn’t even conscious of what people were black or white, coming from Glasgow, but there was a certain feeling in Fats Domino, Ray Charles, those people that I heard, there really was something about that music, I didn’t know what it was, but something that I liked a lot. I still listen to a lot of that stuff now. If I’m in the mood for it, it goes on all night and it doesn’t stop.

MR: How do you feel about blues these days?

JB: Blues itself, it’s difficult for me to say. At least it’s still around, but I wouldn’t say it’s in a tremendously healthy state. But it’s always up and down, the real blues, isn’t it? I think at least it’s still around, because if it hadn’t been for people like the Stones and people like that the blues could easily have disappeared in the states, because nobody was really into it, espeically the young black kids. To them it was not considered hip to listen to Robert Johnson or Skip James. In a funny way we kind of brought attention to those guys, like Muddy Waters and so on.

MR: I had to get some of your history in here, but to back to Silver Rails, it’s a very personal album. What motivated you to make a more personal album?

JB: I think all of my albums are pretty personal. I think this one, because of the age I am and the experiences I’ve had it feels quite reflective. I wouldn’t quite say it’s looking back, but it’s sort of looking sideways. Obviously, you get to seventy and you think, “What’s next?” We’re all affected like that. It’s a personal album but I think a lot of the things that are in there apply to a lot of people of all ages. I’d like to think so anyway. I think there’s little things in there that people can understand. I think it’s more accessible than a lot of my previous things.

MR: There’s a deluxe edition of this release, did your daughter direct the documentary portion?

JB: She did. She deigned to take some time off her own work. I begged her and she agreed to do it cheap. She’s very talented. Her film is in a competition soon as one of the three first movies. It’s looking good for her, it’s very competetive, very difficult, but she’s very talented and very dedicated. I think when you see the making of DVD, she’s done a great job.

MR: So you’re a very proud papa?

JB: Oh yeah, all of my kids, I’m very proud of all of them. They’re all very talented and very great people. I learn stuff from them all the time. In fact the whole beginning of this album came from one of my kids, who played me a couple of tracks about a year ago when I first started to write songs, he played me this track by a band called Om, which was his favorite band at the time. I really enjoyed it. It was very interesting for me to hear what the kids were doing. I took a little inspiration from that, I said, “Why not have it going that way instead of this way?”

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

JB: Well the first thing I would say is never give up, because it’s not going to be easy. Just don’t give up. The second thing I would say, which is a pretty standard answer, is get a good lawyer… Although I’ve never managed to get one. [laughs] I’m still looking. Do you know anybody?

MR: [laughs] What does the future look like for Jack Bruce? Is there anything you haven’t gotten to that you’d really like to?

JB: Well I might play a few gigs, some nice summer festivals, they’re always fun to do, nice and laid back, not trudging around in the snow. I like it nice and easy nowadays. But yeah, apart from that my huge ambition is to get back in Abbey Road next winter. I’ll spend some time in my garden as well, that would be nice.

MR: Well all the best for that.

JB: Thank you very much, Mike, I appreciate your call.

MR: Thank you!

Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne