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To me, in great music the solos are just part of it, not the main focus. -Jimmy Herring |
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Jimmy Herring by Aaron Williams
Lifeboat strikes me a lot like Jeff Beck's early solo albums, where there's immediacy of playing but also real compositional acumen.
Thank you very much! That's one of the things I was shooting for. When we started playing together – Jeff, Oteil, Kofi and myself – we were fusion heads. We were into anything from Weather Report to the Dixie Dregs – one of my favorite bands – to Mahavishnu Orchestra and the bands that Miles Davis had. And Allan Holdsworth is my all-time fave. He's in a class by himself, and I'm just happy to be in there somewhere [laughs]. He's somebody I have the utmost respect for. Both he and the Dregs, too, battled uphill struggles for years, being told by everybody, "You can't do this." They told the Dregs, "You can't have an instrumental rock band. It just won't work." And Holdsworth was always being told no, too, by record company people and such, but in the '80s Eddie Van Halen discovered Holdsworth and [Eddie] was the biggest guitar player on the planet at the time. He started telling anybody who'd listen, "If you think I'm good then you have to hear Allan Holdsworth. He's doing things that I couldn't even dream of." He got him a record deal, and if Holdsworth had wanted to get rich he could have. He's one of the few true masters that we have. He doesn't think so but the people who listen know. I stayed away from listening to him for years [to avoid being overly influenced by him]. He's one of my favorite musicians, period, and the guitar just happens to be what he plays.
What's always gotten me about Holdsworth is the general musicality that transcends his instrument. I think the first time I ever heard him was the Jean-Luc Ponty album Enigmatic Ocean, which sent me spiraling. It was an awakening that music doesn't need to be a genre card in a record bin.
His cuts on that album are just devastating! That album changed my life, too. And those guys just did it their way and I really respect them for it.
Do you feel your own career has followed a similar path?
No, not necessarily [laughs]. I've been lucky. I come from rock 'n' roll, that's my background. That's where I started and the music that made me want to pick up a guitar isn't the kind of stuff we've been talking about. I didn't hear that until I was older and had been playing, and it changed my direction almost immediately. Actually, the first thing it did was depress me and make me think, "Why am I even bothering to play when people can play like that?" But, I had good family members that encouraged me, and, even though I didn't believe it, they kept at me, telling me I could. Eventually, I started to try and I'm still not at a point where I feel I can play that music, but it gave me the desire to keep going and progress and not just be happy playing one thing.
I don't think you could find two more diverse projects than Lifeboat and what you do in Panic.
Remember back in the '70s – and I don't personally remember this but I was told about it – Bill Graham would put Miles Davis and the Steve Miller Band on the same stage. I miss Bill Graham so bad.
Festivals are the closest we come to this active blurring of styles but even given the opportunity many or even most folks will still fill their dance card with known things of a similar bent. But, when you put divergent artists on the same stage on the same night it actually changes how you hear music. I love that blurring of lines, which I think you've done a number of times, like with Jazz Is Dead, who took songs I thought I knew by the Dead and turned them on their ear.
That was an incredible experience. I got to work with legends, complete icons in my mind - T [Lavitz, keys] was in the Dixie Dregs, Alphonso [Johnson, bass] was in Weather Report and Billy [Cobham, drums] was in Mahavishnu Orchestra. Then, when Billy had left and Rod Morgenstein [Dixie Dregs] came in it was great, too.
I've been very blessed. First, I got to play in this band with Bruce [aka Col. Bruce Hampton] and then I get a call out of left field for the Jazz Is Dead thing. Then, the Allman Brothers thing was a shock, especially with Dickey [Betts] still around and playing so well. There have been things that have come along that I've had to work hard at because I wasn't too familiar with the music, like playing Dead tunes. But, we weren't playing them like the Dead, so I could just play 'em like I do.
Jazz Is Dead was a potent reminder that the Dead's compositions are really flexible.
They are! And I learned even more about that when I got the chance to play with Phil [Lesh]. That's one of the best bands I've ever had the pleasure of playing in. Phil really worked on getting us to play together. His thing was not having solos. He doesn't even like the word 'solo.' I used to call it "the s-word" as a joke. In his mind – and it's the most beautiful philosophy – music is a communal thing. And a 'solo' indicates being single, by yourself, and that's not the way he likes to view it, which is one huge group conversation. Warren [Haynes] and I were both coming from a school where when it was your turn you stepped up to play and that was how it worked. Then, when we started playing with Phil he didn't want any solos, per se.
He wants you to chip away at your individual personalities and give something to the collective.
Exactly! He would put it like we were a school of fish or flock of birds, and sometimes you're the first in the group, up front, and other times you're in the middle, and other times still you're bringing up the rear. He's an incredible individual. I learned a lot from playing with him. We used to call it "P.L.U." – Phil Lesh University.
Moving onto Widespread, there's a perception amongst some Panic fans that you kind of saved that band. Are you at all aware of this notion? There was a feeling amongst a share of the hardcores that George McConnell wasn't working out and the days of their favorite band might be numbered.
I've been approached by people who've said similar things and it's very sweet of them to say that, but it's not true. Widespread could have gotten anybody, man. But, the kind of people they are they didn't go out looking for the bitchinest guitar player. That's not what they do. With them it's people first, and it's a testament to them as people. George was their friend and I'm sure they gave it a try. I think they still love George, and I like him a lot, too. I haven't seen him in a long time but I knew him before he played with Widespread.
To me, you can love someone to death but they may not be compatible with what you do. Chemistry is important. A band is a rare thing nowadays, and a band relies on chemistry. You can put a group of musicians together and play gigs down at the club or anywhere, and you can play someone else's music and just have fun. But Widespread is a band in the truest sense. They're a band in the way Led Zeppelin was a band. I don't compare them to Led Zeppelin musically but in terms of dynamics, compatibility, etc. They have a different way of doing things. Look at what happened when John Bonham died. Sure, they could have gotten anybody – somebody who played just like John Bonham or somebody different but a great drummer. But they knew they couldn't replace Bonzo. And my point is only this: It's a touchy thing to replace an original member of a band.
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