Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa has a reputation for being prolific and touring regularly almost to the point of exhaustion. So, his latest album titled Different Shades of Blue offers all original material borne from a rare break in releasing studio material virtually annually and will no doubt crop up in the set list of his upcoming Australasian tour. That tour offers a treat for fans with the performance split into an acoustic and electric set complemented by different band members to accompany Joe’s ambitious venture.
Guitar heads can expect highlights of An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House then followed up by what Joe himself cheekily describes as “an hour and a half of blues, rock fury and if the kids are not happy with that, I can’t do anything else, I’ve done my best.” So, in that light hearted sense of fun but with some serious, award winning guitar playing to be expected, Australian Guitar (Paul Southwell) gladly took the opportunity to catch up with the witty and talented man on a recent pre-tour studio jaunt to our wide brown land.
On the new album, Different Shades of Blue, varied instrumentation continues. Aside from the usual Gibson Les Paul power, you’ve got more noticeable Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster sounds happening.
For some reason I fell in love again with the Stratocaster [Strat]. I’ve always collected mint examples but they sometimes are a bit sterile and there’s a reason why they are mint and not played. I bought a ’56 blond Strat from Carters Vintage guitars in Nashville whilst two rich guys were arguing over it and it was like breaking up a relationship that was imploding. I always wanted a blond Strat and for the better part of a decade, I have not really played a Fender guitar. So I rediscovered the Strat and the blond neck Strat. There is a difference between a blond neck and a rosewood neck. The latter is more closely associated with that Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan sound which is almost too prevalent because of so many imitators doing that same act. But the fifties Strat harkens back to that Buddy Guy style with a sharp tone and reckless abandon that you would get from those early blues electric players. I’ve always been a Telecaster [Tele] and Les Paul guy. So, guitar wise, it is pretty much one of those three in any denomination. It is either a Sunburst Les Paul or a Gold Top Les Paul, a P-90 or PAF Gold Top and maybe an ES-335. The Strat would either be a blond necked Strat or a sunburst hard-tail and for Teles, I just usually grab the blackguard. The amplifiers were really critical. I have three high powered Tweed [Fender] Twins from ’58 and ’59. You just plug them up and it goes to a very traditional place. It makes you want to play a bit harder or dig in more. The combination of those factors really helped the guitar sounds and changed the way I play.
For your amplification set up, is most of the distortion coming through the amplifiers or are you using pedals in there as well?
I start with the amplifier distortion first but there are so many options with a Tube Screamer. I like a [Dunlop signature] Cry Baby wah pedal, an Ibanez Tube Screamer, an MXR [Micro] flanger, a [Hughes & Kettner] Rotosphere fake Leslie and a Fulltone [Supa-Trem] tremolo. You can go into any guitar shop to find those things. Generally, I start with overdrive and if I am using a high powered Twin, it is very loud but for extra gain and midrange, I’ll set a Tube Screamer conservatively. That is what you want for a little bit of feedback or for if you’re playing poorly and need some extra help. Between that and my staple of the Silver Jubilee Marshall amplifier, you get the nice high and low bits out of the Marshall with articulated midrange from the Dumble sound and that is essentially my live rig. In the studio, it depends on the song.
You use a wah pedal a fair bit. Is that more of a sonic filter or just for expression?
Dunlop has been nice enough to manufacture a Joe Bonamassa [JB] wah wah pedal. I have always been a fan of the vintage ’67 to ’69 halo inductor ones as they’re microphonic and are like an old XK-12 Jaguar car which is a fantastic car that leaks, breaks down and can be inconsistent. Dunlop took the original Cry Baby and bullet proofed it so it still splutters and howls at high volume but when you stomp on it, you know that is not going to kill your entire rig in the process. It has been a great relationship between me and Dunlop over the years. We’ve done three pedals; we’ve done a JB FET driver pedal, a JB Fuzzface and a JB Cry Baby wah wah.
How would you say your signature Les Pauls vary from a ’59 Gibson Les Paul?
Well, there are six or seven variations. We started with a Gold Top in 2008 and sold through the limited edition line of 300 originals so then they started making sunburst versions, a couple of blue ones and non aged ones, all predicated on the Gold Top. Then they did the Les Paul Studio which was a Gibson USA and ended up selling 2500 copies followed by a Les Paul Standard USA of which we sold another 2000 copies. So they did an Epiphone in ‘gold’ of which we sold over 4000 versions and now we just sold 1500 Pelham blue ones. Next, they came out with a replica Artist model called the “Skinnerburst” JB, which is a scratch for scratch replica of my 1959 Les Paul guitar. I have the first two prototypes and that is what I’ll be using when I come to Australia. The only difference between the Gibson prototypes and the originals is that the tops on the new ones are better. The “Skinnerburst” has a nice top but it is not a huge top. They came out well and sound good so I’m proud of them. Gibson has even done 500 JB ES-335s.
You don’t do it for the money with Gibson. You do it for the honour of having your name on a Gibson product and I’m happy with that.
Are you bringing down a Gibson flying V or Gibson Explorer?
I only have one flying V and I haven’t played that guitar in three or four years. I kind of got out of the pointy guitars fad as I’m a Les Paul, 335, Strat and Tele collector. My one V is an ’82 re-issue and is one of the first re-issues. I beat that guitar down for about six years and got the photo of it at the Albert Hall but I haven’t played it for a long time. It just doesn’t fit into my set anymore so it is somewhere in storage at the moment.
What about the Tele semi acoustic? Is that coming out of retirement at all?
Ah, not really as those are guitars that I played in a past life for different material. Live, I play mostly Gibsons now, a Stratocaster and I also play a Musicman guitar.
Did the influence of Danny Gatton as a guitar teacher get you into Teles initially?
Oh yeah, he taught me how to play when I was a kid and gave me lessons. He had this beautiful ’53 Tele. I ended up finding one that looked like it several years ago. The Tele is such a different configuration and it really makes you play. To be creative as a player, there are not a lot of options where you can go with it unless you can get it going.
You’ve played shows with different bands from Foreigner to ZZ Top but I recall reading you once supported bluesman Chris Whitley. How did he impact on you?
I had not heard his music until I did the show with him in Indianapolis in front of eighty people. We had a pretty good power trio at the time and I thought we were pretty good but then he came out with a Resonator guitar and piece of wood with a kick drum sample that he would just hit with his foot and beat it down mercilessly for seventy five minutes.
Chris was plugged in with a pickup on his guitar but I’ve never heard that much music come out of one person. It was just between the vocals and the kind of playing that he did. It was like an orchestra but it was very complex and original sounding.
When you witness someone like that, does it make you change your own approach?
I steal from everybody. If I see something that I like, I’m stealing it, I have no qualms about it at all. I’m a huge Billy Gibbons [ZZ Top – guitar] fan. I’ve been listening to him since day one and my father was a huge fan. It was ZZ Top and the British guys like Paul Kossoff [Free], Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, so I steal from everybody, I’m shameless.
When you were playing with Black Country Communion [BCC] did the legacy of the other members legendarily notable band associations influence your own solo material song arranging or instrumentation?
What I was thinking about when I was playing with that band was, ‘why am I the youngest and the most mature person in this f**king room?’ I couldn’t get my head around that. It was like being with f**king three kids. I love Derek [Sherinian – keyboards] who plays in my live band now but it was like dealing with kids.
But they do understand the power of the sonic spectrum given the great material.
I think they fall backwards into it as they’re so naturally talented as musicians that I don’t think that there is neither rhyme nor reason. Jason [Bonham – drums] just does what he does because that is in his DNA and he is a study of his father [the late John Bonham – drums, Led Zeppelin]. Glenn [Hughes – bass, ex Deep Purple] has never had a singing lesson in his life, he just opens his mouth and can sing higher than Ann Wilson [vocals – Heart]. His bass playing is incredible and he has a wonderful, natural sense of melody but he is also very much in the Andy Fraser [bass – Free] school of bass playing. It was Derek’s and my job to stay out of the way or assert when we had to add something. If everybody went out there blazing, it would sound like dropping a beehive in an echo chamber.
Traveling with acoustics, is there any string loosening between plane flights?
We don’t travel with guitars on planes anymore; it is all just done via air freight. They are in these big vaults, strapped in for the ride but I bring nothing on these kinds of missions that are vintage or rare because something can happen at an airport like a forklift going through it. The only time I’ll bring vintage stuff on the road is when I travel in Europe where I know that it is just one shot there and back. By the way, the Gibson acoustics now such as the J-45, the Hummingbirds, the J-200, the Advanced Jumbos play far better than the vintage ones. I wouldn’t buy a vintage J-200 because they sound horrible to me. The new ones sound fantastic and I think that Gibson has made great strides in their acoustic division. Some of those guitars that they trot out on the historic division are some of the best that they have ever done since day one.
Do you think that your next record might be an all acoustic outing?
All of the songs that are acoustic are versions of songs that were originally electric. I’m not interested in doing an all acoustic record as that’s not who I am. We did the Vienna thing as a response to people asking us to do an acoustic album. But to be in the studio to bash out the acoustic just isn’t appealing to me however I do not rule anything out.
Technique wise, how long did it take you to get your finger picking down for parts like the introduction to “Woke Up Dreaming”?
I’ve played that song for maybe twelve years so it is second nature to me. I do have to warm up now, at 37 years old. I actually physically have to play the guitar for five or ten minutes before a gig. I can’t just walk up there with hat in hand and assume it’s going to be there. But that is just part of lapping the Sun 37 times instead of 30 times.
You’ve regularly thrown the odd Whitesnake and Led Zeppelin riff into the live set.
I love all kinds of music be it metal, hard rock, blues, country or Americana. Part of my job is to amalgamate different styles into a show. When you go to a blues show you don’t expect to hear “Still of the Night” referenced but my audience seems to like the same music that I do. I don’t know anybody that just listens to one kind of music. You don’t go to my show to hear traditional blues or you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
For the production side of things, is Kevin Shirley strict with you about solos?
No. I probably give him two to three solos recorded live for the take and he will compile them together or just leave them. He may steal a phrase from one and chop it into the next. I have great trust in Kevin that the solos from the studio are the best they can be.
For the live set, your drummer is very loud, do you have to turn up to compensate?
I have Tal [Bergman – drums] coming through a fold back wedge that is behind me. I also have the keyboards augmented in a wedge behind me. I have guitars in the side fills and in front of me. If you walk on our deck, it is loud and that is after the amplifiers. The band is loud to begin with and then we turn it up even louder. That is the beautiful thing about monitors but I like it big, clean and punchy as that high volume with that head room makes you play better.
In doing that, does it help your confidence in doing a live recording knowing it will sound that good?
There is no substitution for sound pressure hitting a microphone and especially in regard for an old school sound. A lot of these cats today use in-ear monitors and they turn the guitar amps down to room level so that in their ears, it sounds like a stadium but in reality it sounds very small. The reason that we love Jeff Beck’s guitar sound on Truth is because the amplifier is turned all the way up. The reason that we love The Song Remains the Same is because Jimmy Page has four amplifier stacks and that resistance plus the clean headroom when you roll the guitar down. The guitar cranks up and the amps bloom and then when you crank it, it gets gnarly and distorted but it is also moving air and there is not substitution for moving air. When you get the live recording back, the problem is the big PA and the room is sometimes not captured. So, you have to have a fair amount of sound pressure when you hit the deck if you’re going for that old school thing. If you’re going for modern vibe then tune the guitar down to where the bass would normally be, turn the gain up to where it sounds like a vacuum cleaner and have a party but that is all for the kids.
True. On the latest album, what would you say is the one song that typifies where your sound and style is at these days?
I don’t know, I think it is so diverse. However, I like the song “Oh Beautiful”. I’ve been trying to write an acapella song for a while so I was happy that I was able to pull that one off.