The Steve Lukather Interview
The Steve Lukather Interview
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Date: July 1, 2004 Location: Podium Hardenberg City: Hardenberg, Holland Interview by: Clemens Steenweg "The Days Of The Hair!!" Steve Lukather looks at the logo of the Classic Rock Start Page and tries to recognize the individual artists. "Who's the guy with the hair? Is that Nugent?" CS: "No, he's a keyboardplayer." Steve: "Wow, who is it?" CS: "Ken Hensley." Steve: "Oh, Ken Hensley, I love Ken Hensley!" CS: "Do you recognize the other ones?" Steve: "Angus, Planty, Eric, ......who's that, Keith Emerson?" CS: "Yes." Steve: "He's great, he's a friend, actually I know most of those people..........." Yeah, Steve, but that's an understatement, isn't it? |
| CS: TOTO has played in its career a lot of times in Holland, the 25th anniversary Live-album was recorded in Amsterdam. Is there a special relationship with The Dutch? SL: Always has been! Holland was the first country to have "Hold The Line" on #1. You guys broke us, in Europe. The support from all the fans, Alfred Lagarde, God bless his soul. Just the love, you guys, the Dutch people last night I don't have to sing and stand up there, and they do it all for me. Last night show was brilliant, I mean we don't play clubs very often you know, so our relationship: we love to come here, I think you guys are one of the most civilized nations on the planet. I'm serious! Really! Listen, I didn't vote for Bush, don't blame me, I want him gone as much as anybody, but I won't getting too political 'cause that's never what we've been all about, but I just want peace in the world, you know. But you guys have been great, I mean the Dutch people I have very strong love and respect for! |
| CS: So that was the main reason to play 3 gigs here in Hardenberg? SL: Well, here's the deal: we're doing the festivals primarily! Festivals are always weekend-gigs, that's when people go to a festival, so there's nothing going on during the week a lot of time. It's hard to find new gigs and we've toured extensively in Europe, we've done like 4 legs a year since we've started our 25th anniversary, which is now the 27th anniversary and soon will be the 28th! We want to play, when you're not working we have to pay our guys anyway and I wanna play, you know, that's what I love to do, that's the purpose of it. So we sit and ask ourselves: can we go to Holland? Let's go to Holland. Can we find some place in Holland? We go! |
| CS: So when you're in Holland, in fact it doesn't matter where you play? SL: No, I mean, we always play the Ahoy or Heineken or something like that, these are big shows. This kinda shows, you're right there, you know! You can see the people in the back! The others are big stages, you see the people but after a certain line..., this is great for us, believe me! But we're having some fun! They've treated us incredibly well here, they can bat over backwards to show us a good time: five-star-meal, five-star-wine, what can we get for you, you know, just been treated brilliantly! And the shows were fantastic. The first night we didn't have a soundcheck, 'cause we were a little late, so the first half of the show trying to get that shit together, but last night was fucking brilliant!! I mean, one of the best audiences I've ever played for, ever! CS: You mean that? SL: Yeah! They were fantastic!! CS: In your whole career? SL: Well, I mean, it's up there with some of the most memorable ones! It's the vibe, more then the amount of people, us and the audience like we were breathing together. It was... like having great sex or something...... You know, everybody was partying together, we were all like: Yeah man!! We were all one! Let's say anything about our band, we're not a bunch of rockstars playing some people, we're just the people's band! And what's really killing me is all these 17 year old girls behind, they know all the lyrics to every fucking song?? Now, I don't know where they come from, or how do they find us, I have no idea! But I'm happy, and honoured! Maybe their mom and dad, maybe their older brother, their uncle or somebody said: Check this out! We're like the alternative- alternative music. We were never a band that was deeply in style, as far as like MTV, media, mainstream-rock-rest. They almost killed us, but if they had any power we wouldn't be here! |
| CS: Could you say it's average? I mean, then how would you describe the music of TOTO? SL: Well, to be honest with you, that's the problem, and that's why we confuse a lot of people. When we go out there we can play your classic AOR-rock, or whatever you wanna call that. We can also play bebop, funk, heavier shit, blues, classical, and put me on progrock-stuff, and we all do solospots, you know, we're like pretty good musicians so we got a lot of that crowd too. The signatures song is the signatures songs! We brought out a brand new show this time, it's not the same show. We obviously had the obligatory Africa, Rosanna, Hold the Line's you have to do, but other then that, we've changed the whole show. So you wanna be fresh, show back and some people wanna come back and see you again, and say: Ah man, last show was great! They keep changing it, it's great! |
| CS: In that case, how did you find it to let the fans vote for your provisional set-list? SL: Website! We said: you know what, we've got to change the show man, we can't just keep playing the same songs. We toured the 25th anniversary, DVD and all that stuff, and not all the countries that haven't seen us. Whenever you go back you can't bring back the same show, people don't wanna see that, so we said why don't we ask the fans: what do you wanna hear that we haven't played in a long time? And we're doing like 10 out of the Top-20, that was requested. Put together some other versions of things, a medley of a lot of different things, can real surprise, so for some people hear: Oh fuck, wow, what's that? That makes it more fun for us, so we wanna give our fans. Without them, I mean, what the hell are we? Nothing! After 27 years, man, they still keep coming back! Man, we've got to make sure these people are happy! 'Cause they gave me a great life!!
CS: After all those years of touring, what do you prefer? The stadium and big-hall-gigs or the gigs in small venues like tonight? |
| CS: Did your equipment changed over the years, I mean like amps, effects? SL: Oh hell yeah. I've pretty much are the same thing going for the last four, five years. Here's my MusicMan guitars, I design them, I love them, I have all my old Les Pauls and all of that stuff too. But you don't wanna bring a half a million dollar-instrument on the road, it's no point, it's an antique! You're not going to carry around your priceless antiques on the road. A guitar is a guitar, but I love my Music Man-guitars and that's what I play, I mean on the records and everything, and I have a vasted interest in that as well. And that's always evolving, trying to make that better, and I want quality, my best friend owns the company so there's no problem there, you know. My amps and stuff, yeah, that has changed: I went through some different stuff, but I'm back to using Bradshaw preamp and VHT power amps and six speakers-set up, 3 two/twelf cabs, dry in the middle and effects left and right. I don't use as much shit as I used to use. There was a time when I was a little over the top. All what should came out I had to have all of it, and I used all of it. And I have a pedal-board on the ground. Once I got buzz, and a "crack" said to me: "you have a pedalboard, huhuh?" The motherfucker's got a hundred stopboxes on stage! You bitch about my pedalboard? All mine is as quiet and it works every night, cables will get fucked up! You take it out, you put it on the ground, you plug in two cables and it's done! Now, if I'm an asshole for doing it like that, you must be fucking joking!! |
| CS: In 1995 you played in Ahoy, Rotterdam, during the Tambu World Tour. I can remember Simon Phillips was ill, and you had another drummer behind the drumkit. SL: Bisonette! Greg Bisonette! CS: How did you came up so fast with that man? SL: Well, I know him for 25 years, and we needed somebody out really quick, you know. Greg is one of the best drummers in the world and he's right in the Top 10, as far as I'm concerned. I worked with him, he's worked on a lot of my solo-records, we've done a lot of projects together, he could side-read music like nobody had ever seen before, and still play with soul! He loved Jeff (Porcaro) and he could stay true to that vibe, he loves Simon and he could stay true to that vibe, he's a name-drummer other drummers would know who he was, O.K. they'd say: I'm sorry 'bout "Si", 'cause Si had like colitis, he was all messed up. He was in the hospital man, that was scare! Don't tell me we're losing our drummer, don't do this to me, God please, don't forsake me! By the grace of God Si got well, and Greg just came out and one or two rehearsals, we had all the music written out, he played the first show flawlessly, we were just looking to eachother: I can do that, I'm in the fucking band! CS: It was just unbelievable, as if Jeff or Simon were there! SL: Well, you know, he's one of the great musicians that I've ever run into and one of the sweetest cats, he was friends with Jeff and Si, I mean, obviously I had Simon's input as well, 'cause we had this tour booked, we couldn't not do it. He got sick right last minute, and 50 people were depending on this, their families eating, because we were be on the road for seven, eight months. Fortunately he was able to finish the tour, but Greg was fantastic, it was really neat, it was really good fun! He worked on my Christmas-record that I did last year, good vibes, we've been friends forever! CS: And he was free at the time? SL: He made himself free! And he felt he got his dream come true when he got to play double drums with Ringo (Star)! I've got a picture of him, and he looks like: "That's it! God if you take me now, it's cool!" 'Cause he's the most all-true Beatles-fan that there is! And as I am too, that's why I started to play music! I got to play with Paul (McCartney) and George (Harrison), separately, and he got to play with them too, so he said: "I played with them too, you know, it's fucking unbelievable, I can't believe it!" |
| CS: Although Steve Porcaro isn’t a member of TOTO anymore, in what way he’s still involved? SL: Steve's a soulbrother, man! He's a film- and tv-composer now, the ratrace to the road wasn't for him, he didn't feel like he was contributing enough, or that we weren't letting him contribute enough as far as his songwriting and his aspect of things. At that time there were some other issues as well, but he's why I'm in this band, I met the Porcaro-family through Steve, as we were in the same grade in highschool, at the same highschool. He's very happy and very successfull, he's got a couple of new babykids, different marriage, he's like James Newton Howard's protégé, you know. When we do a record, Steve's on! We say: do your thing, come and help us. When we were rehearsing on this tour we said like: "Man, Steve, some of the synth-sounds the last couple of years have just started to gone away from the love they used to give. Would you come down here and tweak the shit. And he came down a couple of days, he fuckingrtrfrlikefrttfrt and there it is!! So that's how he's involved in the band, he's just not a touring guy. When we play L.A., he comes up and we play! CS: You play together? SL: Oh yeah! I work for him on his projects, on his T.V.-stuff. He was wanting me to do something when I get home. And I love him dearly and respect him, and ever since Jeff's death he's grown as a musician, 10.000 Volt! He's focussed, commited, he's sober now, he doesn't get high, he had a tough time with that, so it's all good news for Steve! |
| CS: The death of Jeff Porcaro was a tragic moment in your life...... SL: One of the most tragic moments was of my father and I lost a couple of other friends along the way, but Jeff was such an important human to me! I don't really have any frase or sentence that could really solve how I'm feeling, I miss him every day! I got one of his cartoons tattood on my arm right now (shows it, CS)! Not a day goes by I'll think about him, I send my love through prayers, I feel he's watching. CS: ...... do you feel that you came stronger out of that period? SL: I grew up a lot! There was a big wake up-call! Jeff is the last guy I thought would go too, 'cause he was the least crazy of all of us motherfuckers! He had a pre-existing genetic problem that he was unaware. His arms hurt because the muscles in the fact that he had hardening of the arteries at 38 years old, when most people get that when they're 90! Two of us uncles died when they were 40 of heart-attacks, who's to smoke when he's playing the drums, it's like a runner running behind a car, and he ate bad food and we were all partying, but he was the least abusive cat of anybody! One day, he went out on the backyard and got this poison on, went on, took a hot shower and he had a scissure of the reaction of that, what that do was take a pre-existing condition, walked out, passed out and died in front of his whole family. Can you imagine a more horrible thing? I mean, his sons have to live with that memory, you know...... Go ahead, I'll finish the questions: I love Jeff Porcaro, he will always live in my heart, and he's the reason why I am, who I am and made me a better musician, made me a better person knowing him. He was a giant human being, seriously! He walked in the room, he had letup, he had that charisma, he had that special something you just can even put a word to. This guy is a star, the shit, he's the real deal! You wanna be around him 'cause greatness is coming from him! Everyone loved Jeff, which is the greatest legacy he leaves behind! What a great cat! He helped so many people's careers! The world lost a giant, that's all I can say!! |
| CS: The album “Through The Looking Glass” consists cover songs of your favourite artists. Why is there no Jimi Hendrix-song on the album? SL: I thought it was too obvious. I have already done a number on my solo-records, and didn't really find one that I thought TOTO would do, you know what I mean? We wanted to TOTO-ise the songs that we did. You know, it's really funny about that record: mixed reactions, some people hate it and don't understand, why would you do that? Others will get it! It's just a fun record for us, everybody's done a cover-record! We wanted to do a record quick, and go on the run and have some laughs. Next album will be all original material, I promise!! CS: But what's the problem? You play what you love! SL: It isn't that the artists that inspired us and we grew up listening to in 90% of the cases were friends and people we worked with. We want to kept it all 70's-stuff, 'cause that was our "coming of age"-period. So we did a record like within a month, usually TOTO-records, the way we're doing for real, 6 months or more. You know, I'm getting to the point now in my life I think touring is where we make all of our money. And to be quite honest with you, it's what I love more than anything in the world! Recording is cool, I mean, I like recording, I've done a million of records, obviously, but for us there's no hell of a chance to have a hitsingle again. They play all of our old shit, they won't play anything new, and a lot of people from my era suffer from the same problem. Look at Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Steely Dan, they can't get a hitsingle on! It's a great record but it's the demographics, the kids wanna hear the hip-hop, popidol-bullshit or the new trendy rockbands whatever they may be, and they go for that 12-25 demographic. And we sell more concerttickets then most of those people do, but we have a loyal following that's one thing about Europe and Asia, they always were first: the fans stuck with us through hitsingles, no hitsingles or whatever. Canada: when they came to see a show they know there's gonna be a good show. Some people it's nostalgics, some people it's musicianship, some people it's like "I just found out of this band, I didn't realise that they have 17 albums out!", and our backcatalog sells and we get a cheque! So making an album right now, we wanna try and make a great record! A really definitive great classic TOTO-record, put out all the stops! Maybe we're even going a little bit more progressive, a little bit more amuso, let's still retaining the worldmusic-percussion, the big vocals and harmonies and stuff that everybody dug about the band, you know what I mean, initially. Put just a little more modern, like we don't have to worry about a 3 minute-hitsingle, we can write a 10 minute-piece that has like whole lots of different sections. Maybe even put a piece together like the second side of Abbey Road-type where everybody has a little bit, you know: Bobby's a singer like a 2 minute-piece, that goes into another thing that's rocking and has the big harmonies, and then it goes into an acoustic bit, maybe we're going into odd-time progrock-shit. Because the people that would really like our music and want new music, are much more open to hear that kind of stuff. If we wrote first Africa, they fucking wouldn't play it! So for us we know we need new music, we know we need a new record. We maybe take a year and a half to do it, while we're now messing about touring all over the world, but we get a little bit more serious about it in the Fall. Everybody is writing and has bits and pieces, but we have to sit down and say: what have you got, what have you got? Let's write some together, you know how the process is! 'Cause I want to be fucking awesome! Why put together a mediocre record to see and keep doing? Then people thinking you've lost your edge and that's why people say about "Through The Looking Glass": "You guys can't write songs, uhuh!" We heard all the rumblings, you got websites now, you can see what people are saying. You take away the greatest songs, you worry about pleasing everybody, but you can't do that, impossible! But we're gonna give it a go, I can promise you that! |
| CS: In what way Jimi Hendrix influenced your way of playing guitar? SL: Oh my God, I was 10 years old when Jimi's records came out. The Beatles, Stones, English music, I listened to it, it was music coming from London. I was always on popradio, Motown-stuff and all that groups. It was a beautiful era for music, man! I'm lucky I grew up in that era. Some guy just showed me, helped me how to play guitar, I was 9 years old. In '67, Jimi's Purple Haze, he showed me the album cover, check this out! I just was like jowl-drop, like this is inhuman music, this is alien, but it touched something very deep inside of me! Just very much the same moment I heard the sound of the guitar on "I Saw Her Standing There" by The Beatles on the "Meet The Beatles"-record! My dad gave me a guitar and "Meet The Beatles" on my 7th birthday and changed my life forever! But this was like another version! It's like: what the fuck, how the what? It's a guitar? Those notes, I never heard anything like it, and the way he looked! Who the fuck is this cat!! CS: A left-hander! SL: Yeah, a left-hander, eyeballs, the hair! Purple Haze, man! From another world these guitarsound were coming! A little kid in the sixties, you know! I was not alone in this by the way, this happened to many of us when Jimi came in! I was hanging with Lemmi (Kilmister (Motörhead), CS) the other night, man, in London. He used to be Jimi's tech, one of the techs on the tour. What a beautiful cat, I just loved him, this gentleman, a legend! So many cool people saw us in London: Brian May was there, Jack Bruce was there, I was like so humble to be at the Albert Hall, this is where these guys usually play! I've got all their bootlegs, and here I am, they're coming to see me?? It was a trip! But Jimi, man, I never got to see him live, my parents wouldn't let me go to The Hollywood Bowl, they said I was too young! They saw all the hippie-shit! I thought: I don't think so, dude! But I was 10 years old: all those freaks down there at the Hollywood Bowl! CS: I had the same expirience: I wanted to go to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, in 1974, Ahoy Rotterdam. And they had just done the Brain, Salad, Surgery-album..... SL: I love that record! CS: ...... and they had a show with the Tarkus and the Manticores and all that stuff. I was 12 years old, and my folks wouldn't let me go!! I was very disappointed! SL: I was a little upset myself! Ahh, we have that miserable thing in common!! I got to see ELP, they were great, I got to work with Greg Lake. I've actually worked with all of them individually, but never as Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Lovely, lovely cats! Giants! Prog-rock is Yes, Genesis, Selling England By The Pound is my alltime favourite record! What d'ya say about Close To The Edge, what d'ya say about ELP's records! CS: Trilogy! SL: Genius! Great era! We like the same music, I guess! But there's only one Jimi, there'll never be anyone close! I give my brother Eddie Van Halen props for being the next guy to chance the vocabulary! But where's the new Eddie Van Halen? Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, CS), he brought some new shit. I give Tom big props, I like him, he's a neighbour of mine, I love his style, but where's the new young cat? My son's making a record, his guitarplay is really good, in a Satriani/Steve Stevens sort of thing, which is fresh for a young band to have a lead guitar. My son writes songs and he sings, he's got great riffs, he's really got a nice style, actually a style, doesn't sound like anybody else, but simple: where's the next guy, just like when Jimi hit or Eddie hit? When we said: What the fuck is that?! Somebody that'll bring some new vocabulary to the instrument? It's been stagnant! You know, 2000 have not been known for guitarpearls: Great songs, great productions, but where's the guitarplayer? Where's the next kid-wonder-motherfucker, that's what I want! I welcome it, please, come on, I have my time then. I know he's out there somewhere, just hasn't been discovered yet! |
| CS: Are there more musicians who influenced you, or did you had an idol when you began playing guitar? SL: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, The Stones, I love Keith and Brian, Jeff Beck who's a dear friend, and in my opinion he re-invented the instrument as well. Actually you hear his growth every record and if you don't like the material per se, whatever, just Jeff is a musician. I've had a chance to work with him, he's a genius man, but he isn't schooled, he doesn't know what he's doing that works to his advance 'cause he doesn't want to play normal like everybody else. Jeff is still to me probably the greatest living guitarplayer we've got! CS: And Jimmy Page? SL: Page is great, man! Zeppelin! He payed me the greatest compliment! We were in a guitarcenter, many years ago, everybody was there: Eddie Van Halen, Peter Frampton, Neil Schon (anybody who was anybody was there!), and Jimmy Page was there!! And he walked up to me! He said: "Come here, I want to talk to you for a second." Jimmy Page is speaking to me? He wants to talk to me privately? He took me aside, he was very sober and he said (I'm not quoting him!): "Don't take any shit for being a sessionmusician, 'cause I was a sessionmusician, we were all sessionmusicians in Zeppelin! You can be very proud of what you've done, and I think you're really good!" And I was like: Ahh! Ohh! Like I was humble, I didn't know what to say! I hugged him and said: "You have no idea how much your music has meant to me, and your playing and your production, how much I've learned." I had almost had a little tear in my eye! I was like: Wow! I met Robert Plant somewhere on the road, we sat down, had a couple of drinks then! Beautiful cats, man! I mean the fact that I get to now know these people just cracks me up! I never thought I would know any of these people! You know, I'm still star-strucked by this as much as anybody would be! Like: Brian May came to see me?? You know what I mean? Eddie's here? Jeff's here? Eric wants me to play on his record: do you want to help me? Miles Davis called me to join his band, Aretha Franklin loves my music. Oh, fuck man!! I'm the luckiest fool on the planet!! Very humble about it, man!! |
| CS: Now there you've got something, because on your website’s biography the headline is: “I think I would have been more respected as a guitarist if I had just done TOTO...”. SL: It's a really stupid perception. It's seen like the chef at McDonalds, just makes the same hamburger every day, you know what I mean? That it's: anybody can do that, when in fact it's quite the opposite: to be able to go in and trigger somebody else's music in 2 seconds and rewrite it on the spot and play it perfectly in 1 or 2 takes, is not something anybody can do. But the press gets a hold out and they view a sessionmusician as a soulless cold robot, that reads little notes all day long! They haven't got a fucking clue with that what it takes! I defy any of these motherfuckers to follow a sessionplayer around for a year. Actually they can't do that anymore 'cause there is no sessionscene anymore. People make records at home with computers, you don't have to play anymore. You don't have to play good, you don't have to play at all! It's almost uncool to play too good, which is why we still race through the calls! People think that our music is slick and polished, we fucking actually played it! And everybody knows that it's all trickery, and nobody cares! Nobody cares when they go to a show and see somebody lipsinging! Nobody cares, they know it, they go to the show!! This shouldn't be a concert, this should be like theater! You're coming to see a show, you're not coming to hear music, 'cause the music is all prerecorded, or primarily prerecorded. Hey, we use loops, we use samples sometimes, sure, everybody does! You name a band, I'll tell you exactly what the story is! And everybody's kinda cool as long as they realise we're really playing and singing leads! Everybody knows this, come on! The fucking Eagles does it, Van Halen does it, everybody does it! Nobody talks about it, because there's nothing to talk about! We improvise, when people come to see the show, we play the same song but we don't play it the same way! I wanted to be a musician, not a rockstar! Sure, I wanted to be like The Beatles, you know, John, Paul or George, but at first I wanted to be a musician! Anybody can be a rockstar but it takes fucking decades to be a musician! |
| CS: When you play a guitarsolo (live or in studio), is it improvisation or do you transcribe it?? SL: It's 99% improvisation. The obvious ones are the obvious ones! The melodic ones, to have a point, are part of the composition. But not: it's rehearse! No matter of fact sometimes, when I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, that's when I play my best shit, because I'm not thinking then. My best shit is the first 3 takes, if not the first! Often I played 2-take-solo's before recording, occasionally that was really great and I fucked up when I punched in! But I don't like doing hundreds of solo's, I'm too old and lazy. I was a sessionmusician, I was known for being able for hit-shit, you know first on, first two seconds on! I've taken that with me to this day. It's more real that way, but I have crafted and written solo's before, but 99% is all just on the fly. Occasionally people wanna hear that Rosanna-solo, they wanna hear the certain exact part, so I give them what they want. But most of the time I just kinda go for it! |
| CS: Can one say that of all TOTO-albums “Kingdom Of Desire” comes most close to your personal taste of playing guitar? SL: Probably. It was the first time I fronted the band and Jeff and I talked extensively about toughen the act up a little bit. After the Byron-fiasco it got a little soft for me and it was not the original intention of the band, and we didn't want to go through leadsinger # 54, so Jeff said: why don't you sing and we'll make a "rock"-record? Go back and do what we do and play like we were in highschool again. I'm very pleased with that record, it's one of my favourite TOTO-albums, I mean they all have a special place in my heart. Some of the things sound OK, still, and some sound like: Jesus, that was young and that was cheesy, that lyric is awful, you know...... CS: But that one stands, I think! SL: It's a strong record, you know. It did pretty well, man, it sold a million copies. Like I said that was in the era of 1990-1991, we never got to tour with that record, we played some stuff on the summer tour of '91. But it stands, it's one of my most favourites! |
| CS: If you had a free hand in chosing your own superband, apart from TOTO, then who are the members? SL: Oh God, man, I don't think I can answer that question! I've got a chance to work with so many great players in so many different scenarios that I've basically done that already, I've been in a lot of superbands! I can't honestly tell you who'd that be! I'm pretty happy with the band I got right now, and these guys have been my friends for 30 years for the most part. I played with just about everybody I ever wanted to play with! Hard question to answer, sorry! CS: What are your future plans concerning TOTO and solo? SL: Well, like I said we're writing songs, we're gonna get real serious about the record in the Fall, we're on the road pretty much. I will be on the road, I'm gonna do a tour in Japan with Nuno Bettencourt, just to do a thing, just for fun. I might go out and play with Joe Cocker in November, I worked on his new record (Heart & Soul, CS), it's great, they formed a superband together for that to do a DVD and do a bunch of gigs in Europe. I love Joe, I worked with him a lot on his records, and C.J. Vanston is the producer and musical director. It's fun, I just love to go out just be the guitarplayer, no pressure, you know! Really great versions of old classic tunes, you know what I mean, not a coverrecord in the true sense of the word, but Joe's never really wrote songs anyway, so it doesn't matter. Great record!! Just love to do that for 2 weeks! And I might do another record with Larry Carlton since we had a great success: we won a Grammy for best instrumental album in 2002 (No Substitutions, CS)! So hey man, still a lot to do!! |