A Conversation with Joe Bonamassa – HuffPost 9.22.14
Mike Ragogna: Joe, what’s the Different Shades Of Blue story?
Joe Bonamassa: I wrote it in Nashville and we recorded in Vegas. I took the year off from recording last year because I wanted to write a whole record. That was really important. It’s been a while since I did that kind of thing, so I had a good fundraiser in Nashville. Out here in LA, sometimes it’s like everybody’s looking to make beats. I don’t “make beats,” I play blues. A beat goes along with the blues, but I don’t know how to make a beat. Why would you make a beat and not a song?
MR: What do you think of the results?
JB: Well, it’s always a luxury to have too many songs. At the end of the day, I wanted to have stuff that was deeper, really concentrating more on melodies. A lot of times with this kind of music, it’s like, “When’s the solo?” Everything’s two verses and a solo. It’s important to concentrate on the tunes. That really helps widen the audience. I’ve seen that happen a million times.
MR: Was there anything you took away from your co-writing experience? Maybe new methods of approaching the creation of a song?
JB: Yeah, they’re lyric-writing dudes in the way they put words together and their song structure. There’s really an artistry and a craft to it. I knew that, I’m just not Dylan. I just don’t have a lot of songs in me.
MR: Did it stir up anything in terms of how to approach music from a deeper level with Joe Bonomassa?
JB: Yeah, next time I go to write songs I think it’s going to be a lot deeper for me. I learned a lot about songwriting just by hanging around those cats.
MR: Are co-writes going to become a more frequent approach in the future?
JB: Not really. All of my stuff is made to-order. If I’m going to make a record, then I’m going to write it. I don’t write at home. I love to tour.
MR: What about working with other artists?
JB: I’ve been asked by several artists to produce them and I think, “I don’t want that responsibility.” What are you, crazy? I could ruin the guy’s life! No way. No way.
MR: Did you approach recording any differently this time around?
JB: No. We used a horn band, but we only recorded four-piece.
MR: You’re pretty comfortable with that set up.
JB: Yeah, we’ve always been comfortable with a three or four piece. But we just got done playing a big gig at Red Rocks with a nine-piece band that was killing.
MR: I think you’d be pleasantly surprised to hear how often your name comes up when I ask artists which contemporaries they love. In fact, I might as well ask everyone, “What do you think about Joe Bonamassa?”
JB: [laughs] I’m a weird cat in that regard. There’s no middle ground with me. People either love it or they can’t stand the sight of me, which is great. At least I’m not vanilla.
MR: I haven’t personally heard that perspective from anyone yet.
JB: You can go on any internet forum and there’s plenty of un-love for Joe B, I’ll tell you that.
MR: Joe, did you use any new technology or approaches on this album?
JB: I think as a singer, every time I record an album, I get a little more confident. Obviously I’m a guitar player who sings, not a singer who plays, that’s a big distinction, but every time we do one of these records I become more confident as a singer. Singing is something I’ve worked really hard on.
MR: And your environment is very supportive.
JB: I always have Kevin Shirley, Anton Fig plays drums on the record, Carmine Rojas plays the bass, this time Reese Wynans plays keyboards, those kind of guys are a really great support cast.
MR: I think you’re still a rising star at this point. Do you feel that’s what’s going on at all?
JB: The wacky thing about it, we saw this at Red Rocks–ninety-seven hundred people paid to see the blues. We basically did a tribute to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. I could’ve said, “What a great night this was for me,” but when I walked off stage, I said, “What a great night for the blues,” because here’s a proof of concept. Ninety-seven hundred people paid to hear blues music again. If there’s a kid in the audience who wants a career, I always say, “If this bozo could pull if off, anybody can!” It really comes down to that point where you just go, “There is an audience.” Any time they try to write off the blues, it finds its way back into people’s hearts, which is great. I was really excited because the audience didn’t know what they were coming to hear, they only knew it was a show about Muddy Waters. There’s a lot of exciting young guitar players who are now twenty years old who get in the van and go out and work hard and build their audience and brick by brick, there’s going to be a big scene again. I like that.
MR: Nice. What do you think of the state of blues these days?
JB: I think it’s really what the artists make it at this point. There’s some exciting stuff that comes out. I very much like what Derek and Susan are doing. I very much like what Gary Clark Jr.’s doing. There’s a scene again! Not that those shows will ever book me, but I saw Gary on The Tonight Show. I’m like, “Wow, that’s awesome.” Blues on The Tonight Show. Or Letterman! To me, that’s encouraging. Every ten years, blues gets a kick in the ass. Just when they’re about to write us off and put us at the Kennedy center honors, honoring the great works of John Philip Sousa and the entire genre that is the blues for a half hour, these cats like Gary and Derek and Susan and a few others figure out a way to make it relevant again. I think it’s actually in a really healthy state at the moment.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
JB: You have to be yourself, and you have to find your own path through it all. I can sit here with an artist and explain every day that I’ve had for the last fifteen years, but that’s not necessarily going to work out for them, if they just copy every day that I had. You have to blaze your own path. You have to know your strengths and most importantly you have to know your weaknesses. You play to your strengths and you try to create diversionary tactics and smokescreens to at least divert from your weaknesses until you can address stuff to the point where they become strengths. And you’ve got to have this blind belief in yourself, that you will be successful, there’s no Plan B. You’re not going to stop going out there and doing it until you reach at least where you’re stable enough to make a decent living at it. That’s pretty much my advice. You have to be really strong-willed and not fear failure. You will fail, but you’ve got to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and go for it again.
MR: Is this the advice you’d have given yourself?
JB: Yeah! I failed at a bunch of stuff we’ve tried, but you pick yourself up and you go, “Okay, whatever, let’s be smart about it and carry on.”
MR: What are you up to other than the new album?
JB: I’m going to New Zealand on Tuesday. We’re touring New Zealand, Australia and Europe. I come back, got another twenty days off at Casa ‘Mossa and then I head out for five weeks on the US tour and then we end up somewhere in Florida I think in the middle of December.
MR: And of course, you have lots of signature guitars by this point.
JB: Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of signature stuff from Gibson. They did a 335 and six or seven variations of Les Pauls.
MR: Are you designing a new one in the near future?
JB: Well, we just did that Skinnerburst replica. It’s a replica of one of my original ’59 Les Pauls. Those sold out really quick, that was good. I think they want to do these BonaBird things–not to get overly geeky–maybe sometime next year. It’s kind of a hybrid Les Paul/Firebird thing that I came up with on a whim because I’m kooky like that.
MR: You said you took a year off last year, but with all the releases that came out, you wouldn’t know it.
JB: We made a bunch of DVDs last year, something like twelve DVDs.
MR: I did honestly seem like once a month, a new project was released!
JB: We did the whole Tour De Force thing with four shows in London and then we did the Beth Hart DVD, the Rock Candy Funk Party DVD… It was the year of the DVD.
MR: How did you come out of the Beth Hart experience? You gave her a lot of support.
JB: Oh, it was great, we had a great tour, she’s wonderful, I love her husband Scott, too. They’re such a great group to work with and we put together a world-class group for her. It’s always been my dream to put a world-class band around her and basically start at eight, have her walk out on stage and just do her thing with an incredibly great support cast. It was really a wonderful experience and I hope we get to do it again eventually.
MR: Her latest release was pretty strong.
JB: Yeah, her solo career has really taken off due to the strength of the records that we made together. She’s starting to get some more notoriety on her own, I think she’s made two solo albums in the interim and I think right now she’s concentrating on solidifying her stake in her solo career, which is obviously what you want to do. The whole thing with the Beth Hart situation–unlike the Black Country Communion situation–is that we do it when it feels right and when it makes sense for everybody, so nobody’s chomping at the bit to do anything. If we reconvene next year or the year after, eh, great. We’re still young and we’re not going anywhere.
MR: What else? There has to be something more!
JB: Just to remind people that the album’s coming out on the twenty-third. I’ll be in Australia, so I’ll be clicking iTunes one after another trying to get the tally up there. I think if we go number one on the blues charts–king of the anthill–I think just by de facto that I release something every other weekend, I think I’ll set the all time number one record. I think I’m tied with B. B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughn right now. I think this will set the record. Not to say that we’re going to go number one, there’s no guarantee of that. But I’ll be somewhere in Australia buying iTunes copies by the dozen. I missed a number one record in the UK last time by eighty copies. Number one on the pop charts. I’m like, “Man, if I knew that I would’ve bought 80 copies!” I’d buy 81!
MR: Would you be surprised if you hit Top Ten in the US?
JB: Who knows? Golly. My records used to go tin or copper on a good day, so I have no idea.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne