Vernon Reid needs little introduction. Best known as a founding member of Living Colour, he's also one of the most respected players of a generation, having worked with everyone from Mick Jagger to Donald Byrd to Public Enemy, Jack Bruce, and many more. Readying his first solo release in two decades, we were supposed to be talking 'Hoodoo Telemetry', but the discussion got so much deeper; from dissecting the history of recorded music from jazz to hop hop to metal, to blurring the lines into philosophy and art. Touching also on his appearance at Ozzy Osbourne's final stand at Back to the Beginning, we caught up with Vernon Reid. Cult of personality; Eamon O'Neill.
Photo; Justin Borucki.
Hi Vernon, how are you doing today?
I'm good. It's Labour Day here in the States, and it's a beautiful. It's the first day of September, and we have to remind each other that summer is not over. There's something about September that feels like summer is over, and actually, we've got twenty-two days to go.
Before we get the the new album, I wanted to ask about your experience at Back to the Beginning in Birmingham; what did it mean to you to be on that stage that day?
It was very powerful, and what was really great about it was seeing the people who were in, certainly the metal community, but people who were in the hard rock and alternative community, like running into my friend William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains. There were just so many people. I hadn't seen Slash in years, and it was great to see him again, and so many players, I mean, what can you say? You can't overstate Ozzy Osbourne's importance in the genre. I mean he's important as a figure; he shifted rock music around, and so it was a great honour. And Tom Morello as the MD, what a job he had to put that on, and yes, he did well. It was great thing to be a part of.
From where I was in the crowd, it felt like every single person in that building was there to celebrate Ozzy; was it the same feeling backstage?
It felt that way for everyone on the staff to everyone that worked that show; everyone felt the enormity of it and and, of course, nobody knew at the time that this was literally going to be Ozzy's last gig, for real. And to be to hear 'War Pigs', you know, 'War Pigs' is the tune that meant a lot to me, and so to hear the last version of 'War Pigs' in a coliseum and everyone's singing the words, it was an extraordinary thing to experience.
Did you get to speak to Ozzy backstage?
I got to speak to him during the photo shoot after the rehearsal, and I got to speak to him very, very briefly. He was incredibly gracious, beautiful, beautiful.
We're here to talk about 'Hoodoo Telemetry', which is your first solo album in almost two decades.
It's been a while. Yeah, it's because I've been doing a lot of different things musically, and I was also producing. Obviously I've been mainly involved with Living Colour, and I've been involved in playing on other people's records. I had a project with DJ logic, The Yohimbe Brothers, I have this project with Jamal Takuma and Calvin Weston called The Freeform Funky Freaks, and obviously Masque was an outgrowth to the solo thing, so there are different things, but this is the first Vernon Reid record since 'Mistaken Identity' [1996].
Some of the tracks are new and some are reclamations of material from a while ago; were you compiling as you went along, or did you dig back in and start building these tracks from new again?
Well, I'm always doing stuff and always writing on various levels, you know, instrumentals. I also have been working on independent soundtracks for documentaries and things. 'The Haunting' for example, was something I had from around the second album.
Tell me about 'The Haunting'.
The follow up to 'Mistaken Identity' was called 'This Little Room' [2000] and this song didn't even make it onto that, and that record never came out, so I went back and listened to a bunch of these things, and I was like; "man, I still really dig it, and it still feels current", so I decided that was going to be a song that I was going to reclaim with brand new drums and new guitar stuff. I kept the original vocals by my friend Kevin Webb. It's so funny because Prince and Sly [Stone] were two of the influences on that song. I was a big fan of Prince's song 'Pop Life', and the other thing too is that song is about a very real thing. I wanted to talk about what it is to have regrets, or what it is to procrastinate, and that's very much a part of the human condition; that whole idea of something that I left for tomorrow is turned around and giving me drama. And I think, moving, doing cool things, there's always something; "man, I should have called that. I should have did this", and that's what really haunts us. I believe in haunting - not necessarily in a supernatural way - but we're haunted by our traumas. Obviously, yes, we're haunted by the things that have been done to our kin, but we're also haunted by the things that we fail to do, or couldn't get to, so that's what I put out there as a as a vibe.
When I heard that song I thought there was a real Prince feel to it, and the album is a real eclectic mix. I mean, there's jazz, there's metal, there's hip hop, there's soul; you can't really pin it down, can you?
It goes through the things that I love in popular music, certainly. My process for music has always been additive, so for me, music doesn't negate. Like some for some people it's; "I was into that, and then I got into this, and I got out of that"; I was never like that. I got into music out of love, and then I heard these weird, non linear sounds, and hearing Ornette Coleman didn't negate Grover Washington, and hearing Hendrix, George Benson became a part of what I heard, but then Alan Holdsworth did, and John McLaughlin and Jan Akkerman, and of course, Carlos Santana is how it started. And Hank Williams is incredible, right? I mean, anything that touches on the human condition genuinely, no matter if the people are using synthesisers, that works for me, and certainly, I'll tell you, there have been a couple of guideposts.
Yeah, there's no harm in having a variety of sounds.
The Beatles, unlike any other pop group gave artists the permission to change radically. If you hear 'Twist and Shout', that does not give you a clue that 'Helter Skelter' is coming. You have no idea when you hear 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' that 'Revolution 9' is coming up. I can't think of a band that did more radically different things, and they also affected the culture that they were in, and to me it was them, Jimi Hendrix, obviously, and Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan was something original, but the influence of Dylan in the wordplay is there, but it's completely through what Jimi Hendrix was talking about.
So that kind of thinking runs subconsciously though 'Hoodoo Telemetry'?
Those are the things in the background, and then Psychedelic Shack and 'Ball of Confusion', you know, when Norman Whitfield was producing The Temptations, he was responding to the British invasion and psychedelia and all those things that were happening. And then hearing John Coltrane for the first time, from the '60s, and knowing that Coltrane influenced Santana and John McLaughlin, hearing Miles Davis, and Miles Davis being influenced by Sly & The Family Stone, and then everything else that came. And hearing punk, and punk blew all of that in the context. It was all of that, and then also, being in a city where all of these clubs and all these bands were playing, all of that is what made it possible. There's no contradiction in 'Hoodoo Telemetry'. There's a thread that that unites, even though it's all over the place and going into different areas. The industry created genres, and the genres created boundaries. Genres are boundaries, like; "yeah, you can do this, but you can't do that".
I'm good. It's Labour Day here in the States, and it's a beautiful. It's the first day of September, and we have to remind each other that summer is not over. There's something about September that feels like summer is over, and actually, we've got twenty-two days to go.
Before we get the the new album, I wanted to ask about your experience at Back to the Beginning in Birmingham; what did it mean to you to be on that stage that day?
It was very powerful, and what was really great about it was seeing the people who were in, certainly the metal community, but people who were in the hard rock and alternative community, like running into my friend William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains. There were just so many people. I hadn't seen Slash in years, and it was great to see him again, and so many players, I mean, what can you say? You can't overstate Ozzy Osbourne's importance in the genre. I mean he's important as a figure; he shifted rock music around, and so it was a great honour. And Tom Morello as the MD, what a job he had to put that on, and yes, he did well. It was great thing to be a part of.
From where I was in the crowd, it felt like every single person in that building was there to celebrate Ozzy; was it the same feeling backstage?
It felt that way for everyone on the staff to everyone that worked that show; everyone felt the enormity of it and and, of course, nobody knew at the time that this was literally going to be Ozzy's last gig, for real. And to be to hear 'War Pigs', you know, 'War Pigs' is the tune that meant a lot to me, and so to hear the last version of 'War Pigs' in a coliseum and everyone's singing the words, it was an extraordinary thing to experience.
Did you get to speak to Ozzy backstage?
I got to speak to him during the photo shoot after the rehearsal, and I got to speak to him very, very briefly. He was incredibly gracious, beautiful, beautiful.
We're here to talk about 'Hoodoo Telemetry', which is your first solo album in almost two decades.
It's been a while. Yeah, it's because I've been doing a lot of different things musically, and I was also producing. Obviously I've been mainly involved with Living Colour, and I've been involved in playing on other people's records. I had a project with DJ logic, The Yohimbe Brothers, I have this project with Jamal Takuma and Calvin Weston called The Freeform Funky Freaks, and obviously Masque was an outgrowth to the solo thing, so there are different things, but this is the first Vernon Reid record since 'Mistaken Identity' [1996].
Some of the tracks are new and some are reclamations of material from a while ago; were you compiling as you went along, or did you dig back in and start building these tracks from new again?
Well, I'm always doing stuff and always writing on various levels, you know, instrumentals. I also have been working on independent soundtracks for documentaries and things. 'The Haunting' for example, was something I had from around the second album.
Tell me about 'The Haunting'.
The follow up to 'Mistaken Identity' was called 'This Little Room' [2000] and this song didn't even make it onto that, and that record never came out, so I went back and listened to a bunch of these things, and I was like; "man, I still really dig it, and it still feels current", so I decided that was going to be a song that I was going to reclaim with brand new drums and new guitar stuff. I kept the original vocals by my friend Kevin Webb. It's so funny because Prince and Sly [Stone] were two of the influences on that song. I was a big fan of Prince's song 'Pop Life', and the other thing too is that song is about a very real thing. I wanted to talk about what it is to have regrets, or what it is to procrastinate, and that's very much a part of the human condition; that whole idea of something that I left for tomorrow is turned around and giving me drama. And I think, moving, doing cool things, there's always something; "man, I should have called that. I should have did this", and that's what really haunts us. I believe in haunting - not necessarily in a supernatural way - but we're haunted by our traumas. Obviously, yes, we're haunted by the things that have been done to our kin, but we're also haunted by the things that we fail to do, or couldn't get to, so that's what I put out there as a as a vibe.
When I heard that song I thought there was a real Prince feel to it, and the album is a real eclectic mix. I mean, there's jazz, there's metal, there's hip hop, there's soul; you can't really pin it down, can you?
It goes through the things that I love in popular music, certainly. My process for music has always been additive, so for me, music doesn't negate. Like some for some people it's; "I was into that, and then I got into this, and I got out of that"; I was never like that. I got into music out of love, and then I heard these weird, non linear sounds, and hearing Ornette Coleman didn't negate Grover Washington, and hearing Hendrix, George Benson became a part of what I heard, but then Alan Holdsworth did, and John McLaughlin and Jan Akkerman, and of course, Carlos Santana is how it started. And Hank Williams is incredible, right? I mean, anything that touches on the human condition genuinely, no matter if the people are using synthesisers, that works for me, and certainly, I'll tell you, there have been a couple of guideposts.
Yeah, there's no harm in having a variety of sounds.
The Beatles, unlike any other pop group gave artists the permission to change radically. If you hear 'Twist and Shout', that does not give you a clue that 'Helter Skelter' is coming. You have no idea when you hear 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' that 'Revolution 9' is coming up. I can't think of a band that did more radically different things, and they also affected the culture that they were in, and to me it was them, Jimi Hendrix, obviously, and Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan was something original, but the influence of Dylan in the wordplay is there, but it's completely through what Jimi Hendrix was talking about.
So that kind of thinking runs subconsciously though 'Hoodoo Telemetry'?
Those are the things in the background, and then Psychedelic Shack and 'Ball of Confusion', you know, when Norman Whitfield was producing The Temptations, he was responding to the British invasion and psychedelia and all those things that were happening. And then hearing John Coltrane for the first time, from the '60s, and knowing that Coltrane influenced Santana and John McLaughlin, hearing Miles Davis, and Miles Davis being influenced by Sly & The Family Stone, and then everything else that came. And hearing punk, and punk blew all of that in the context. It was all of that, and then also, being in a city where all of these clubs and all these bands were playing, all of that is what made it possible. There's no contradiction in 'Hoodoo Telemetry'. There's a thread that that unites, even though it's all over the place and going into different areas. The industry created genres, and the genres created boundaries. Genres are boundaries, like; "yeah, you can do this, but you can't do that".
Photo; Justin Borucki.
I wanted to talk to you about when you attained that 'guitar hero' status in the early 1990s; what was it like being a cover star on guitar magazines back then?
It's so funny because that was a time that still was very enshrined in that the idea of that, across the board, the guitarist who's fabulously talented, who does the extraordinary thing, tapping on the neck, or they play the solo that has the thing that you can't figure out how the hell did he did it - things like, Allan Holdsworth would pray a phrase and you'd go; "okay, that's the rest of my life trying to figure that one out!" - that's very powerful, and it was very competitive time, and it was very thrilling too, but it's interesting because I admire these musicians so much for their skill, for their creativity, but the main thing is; "what do we all have to say?"
That's a very informed way of looking at it.
In a lot of ways, the emphasis was on the impossible technique, the impossible thing of ;"I'm going to play something that you can't play". That aspect really came into vogue from when Eddie Van Halen came into the scrimmage, and that became a thing, and certainly, I get what that is, and all these different amazing players, the Frank Gambales, where a guy becomes a name, and then you hear the thing, and you go; "oh my God, how I do that thing?", and then you go and you get a tape, and you try to figure out. But it's interesting because it all comes down to what's the context? What are you talking about? Is the song a song, or is the song a means to blow?
It's a fine line, isn't it?
One of the things about Jeff Beck that was fabulous is that Jeff Beck played like a careless god. He's the one guitar player who heard Jan Hammer, the keyboard player who was so innovative in playing and turning the Minimoog into a soloist instrument. Jan Hammer playing in the Mahavishnu Orchestra is truly remarkable because he's doing a thing where he's throwing in these kind of Eastern European influences, but he's figured out how to bend notes in a way that it's very expressive, as expressive as with the pitch wheel. He became a master of the pitch wheel, like a George Duke, in how to make these monophonic, square wave or sine wave things. He made them sound very expressive and it was interesting to hear Jeff Beck pick up on Jan Hammer's phrasing and incorporate that into his playing.
So I admire these artists so much, and there's the crop of people doing impossible things, literally, like; "what the hell are you even!? Wow!" But again, it really all does come back to; "what are we saying, and what's the context?" The thing about Hendrix is that people separate his guitar playing; his guitar playing always appeared in a context of his songs.
And Kurt Cobain, partly there was a lot of anger at the whole grunge thing becoming popular, and the metal people weren't happy, but the thing that's so interesting is he's not a flashy technique guitar player, but his guitar playing is essential to what he does. His guitar playing is essential to those songs, and I've had arguments with people and I say; "man, I think he's a great guitar player", and they go; "yeah, wrote great songs but..." Yeah, but that song writing doesn't happen without his guitar playing. It doesn't happen without that fuzz box.
People can sometimes miss that point about Grunge.
When I hear Soundgarden, my favourite band of that period, you know, we talk about Sabbath. and Sabbath was a huge influence on Soundgarden, and they played in a way that was, Kim Thail and Chris Cornell, the combination, and the way their guitars intertwine was fabulous.
It's so funny because that was a time that still was very enshrined in that the idea of that, across the board, the guitarist who's fabulously talented, who does the extraordinary thing, tapping on the neck, or they play the solo that has the thing that you can't figure out how the hell did he did it - things like, Allan Holdsworth would pray a phrase and you'd go; "okay, that's the rest of my life trying to figure that one out!" - that's very powerful, and it was very competitive time, and it was very thrilling too, but it's interesting because I admire these musicians so much for their skill, for their creativity, but the main thing is; "what do we all have to say?"
That's a very informed way of looking at it.
In a lot of ways, the emphasis was on the impossible technique, the impossible thing of ;"I'm going to play something that you can't play". That aspect really came into vogue from when Eddie Van Halen came into the scrimmage, and that became a thing, and certainly, I get what that is, and all these different amazing players, the Frank Gambales, where a guy becomes a name, and then you hear the thing, and you go; "oh my God, how I do that thing?", and then you go and you get a tape, and you try to figure out. But it's interesting because it all comes down to what's the context? What are you talking about? Is the song a song, or is the song a means to blow?
It's a fine line, isn't it?
One of the things about Jeff Beck that was fabulous is that Jeff Beck played like a careless god. He's the one guitar player who heard Jan Hammer, the keyboard player who was so innovative in playing and turning the Minimoog into a soloist instrument. Jan Hammer playing in the Mahavishnu Orchestra is truly remarkable because he's doing a thing where he's throwing in these kind of Eastern European influences, but he's figured out how to bend notes in a way that it's very expressive, as expressive as with the pitch wheel. He became a master of the pitch wheel, like a George Duke, in how to make these monophonic, square wave or sine wave things. He made them sound very expressive and it was interesting to hear Jeff Beck pick up on Jan Hammer's phrasing and incorporate that into his playing.
So I admire these artists so much, and there's the crop of people doing impossible things, literally, like; "what the hell are you even!? Wow!" But again, it really all does come back to; "what are we saying, and what's the context?" The thing about Hendrix is that people separate his guitar playing; his guitar playing always appeared in a context of his songs.
And Kurt Cobain, partly there was a lot of anger at the whole grunge thing becoming popular, and the metal people weren't happy, but the thing that's so interesting is he's not a flashy technique guitar player, but his guitar playing is essential to what he does. His guitar playing is essential to those songs, and I've had arguments with people and I say; "man, I think he's a great guitar player", and they go; "yeah, wrote great songs but..." Yeah, but that song writing doesn't happen without his guitar playing. It doesn't happen without that fuzz box.
People can sometimes miss that point about Grunge.
When I hear Soundgarden, my favourite band of that period, you know, we talk about Sabbath. and Sabbath was a huge influence on Soundgarden, and they played in a way that was, Kim Thail and Chris Cornell, the combination, and the way their guitars intertwine was fabulous.
Photo; Justin Borucki.
Back to the album and it opens with 'Door of No Return', which features some frenetic playing.
There is a particular thing about that song, and that song is literally about the idea of, there was a what they call the 'door of no return' when slaves were put on ships and never to come home again. There's this door, literally, in Ghana, where, when you went past, you were going on the ship, and you're not coming back. Some of what's going on in there, it's like, I'm really channelling a bit of Pharaoh Saunders and a bit of Sonny Sharrock in how I'm approaching it, and I'm not thinking that, but I could hear that afterwards. There's this one little repeating phrase that I play at the end of the solo, and I said; "man, that's like a Pharaoh Saunders thing!". I didn't know it at the time. I was just playing because I come from a more of an improvising background of like; "what it is in the moment?".
You can hear a lot of improvisation on the album and that adds so much colour, doesn't it?
Absolutely, and this is the thing, some with these tunes I play kind of linear things, like on 'Beautiful Bastard'. I was really happy with the way that solo turned out, because I had a placeholder that I couldn't stand. I didn't like it at all, and then I was just; "that's okay, I'm going to change this". There's a lot of hammer ons and pull offs in time in that solo, and it really worked out in a lyrical way very well, but on other things, like on 'Good Afternoon Everyone' it's a very minimal kind of guitar solo. It's not like I'm going to play a whiz bang.
I was about to ask you about 'Good Afternoon Everyone'.
I really wanted to focus on what that song is saying about homelessness, and how we just casually walk by people. The sound in that song, that was the actual recording of somebody who was basically asking for help. And the thing that was so interesting was that he unfailingly stayed at that same tempo; "good afternoon everyone. Can anyone help me with something to eat today? Good afternoon everyone"; it was like this weird minimalism that he performed. In a way it was a kind of performance, and afterwards, I knew I was going to do something with that; "is there anyone who's not ungrateful for what they have in their life that could help me with something to eat today?", and he kept it in that same cadence, almost, and that's where the knife comes out. That's when he goes, you know,; "you fuckers", like; "you think that I'm so different from you?", or "you're taking all what you have for granted. Can any y'all help me?"
Dou still live in the New York area?
I do, in Shaolin, aka Staten Island. Thank God for the Wu-Tang Clan.
The reason I ask is because of 'Bronx Paradox'; I mean, that's where hip hop started, right?
Yeah, the Bronx is fabulous. In New York City we have five boroughs, and sometimes those boroughs have conflict, and in terms of hip hop, the Bronx is where it started, but of course, it immediately shows up in Brooklyn, and in Queens, before you get to East Coast, West Coast, inside the same city. There's been conflict between Queens and the Bronx, and the thing that's fascinating to me is that the 'Bronx Paradox' refers to a couple of things. There was this whole campaign of painting the Bronx as the worst place, and the most dangerous place in America. They had this movie 'Fort Apache, The Bronx', and they have all these fantastical narratives, but the last great music movement of the 20th century started in the Bronx.
Yeah, that impact can't be understated.
I'm talking about what happened in hip hop, and what happened with turntablism; it's literally a manifestation of Marcel Duchamp, the great artist and theorist; the idea of Dada, and the ready made. The turntable was not meant to be a musical instrument, and when Marcel Duchamp took a urinal and called it 'Fountain', or he took a bicycle seat and handlebars and called it 'Bull'; these are not intended to be. His whole argument was; "it's art. I'm a trained artist, and this is art because I'm saying that it's art", and the turntable was an appliance. The turntable was not meant to be a musical instrument, and lo and behold, turntableism starts right there in the Bronx.
That's quite the parallel!
They weren't thinking about Marcel Duchamp. They don't know who Marcel Duchamp is, but it's pure Dada. It's not trying to be clever, it's actually the proof of concept of what Marcel Duchamp was talking about. So, this whole thing about the Bronx, there's something paradoxical there, and the other thing is that that song was also a tribute to my long time colleague, friend, and partner, DJ Logic. He embodies the Bronx paradox. I've never scripted him. He was discovered by Medeski Martin & Wood, Chris Whitley; all these different artists started using DJ Logic, and I started using DJ Logic because he was the first DJ in a rock band. The band was called Eye & I, and the leaders of the band DK Dyson and Melvin Gibbs were dear friends of mine from Brooklyn, and they found this kid, and he was 17 years old, from the Bronx.
A lot of people didn't really accept turntables, and still don't, as instruments. So that's kind of a Miles Davis-esque song, and paradoxically, one of my favourite things on my record is the trumpet solo by JS Williams on 'Bronx Paradox'. That is worth the price of admission. I mean, it's one of my favourite things on my record. It's the guitar player record, and I'm singing the praises of a trumpet solo; that's the Bronx paradox for you.
I wanted to touch a little bit on when you had your first major success with Living Colour. Obviously, Mick Jagger had a hand in your early success.
Life is weird, and as we live right now, there's a weirdness, there's a strangeness. The universe is, they say, not only stranger than we know, it's stranger than we can know. I was a guy in my parents' house, and I heard 'Sunshine of Your Love', and that riff jumped out of the am radio; how would I know that I'd end up playing with Jack Bruce? That's crazy, but the journey that I've been on includes so many little details. Like, you could focus on meeting Mick Jagger, but the funny thing about that is I could tell you that there were seven other things that happened before I met Mick Jagger that made a huge impact. I played in an R'n'B band with the singer, producer, keyboard player, Kashif. I used to fight with Kashif all the time. I was in his band, and we bumped heads all the time over rock and roll music. He was firmly convinced that rock and roll music was white music, and I didn't buy the premise. I said; "we started this music and also, we're still in it"; I mean the definition, what you call 'rock',
Absolutely!
The Isley Brothers influenced The Beatles. The first thing that the Beatles did when The Beatles played at Shea Stadium was 'Twist and Shout'; a cover of the Isley Brothers. The Isley Brothers had Jimi Hendrix; he was in their band as a guitarist. Their youngest brother took up the mantle, and not only did he manifest that, he manifested that on hit records. That's the other thing too, 'That Lady' was a bossa nova, and they did that as a bossa nova in the '60s, and he dragged them kicking and screaming, and then that was one of their biggest hits of all time.
So anyway, my belief in that, eventually led to me being fired by Kashif, then Melvin Gibbs - who I used to play with him in the neighbourhood - he calls me and he says; "you have to hear this drummer I'm playing with", and the drummer is Ronald Shannon Jackson, and hearing him, his music was entrancing. It was completely avant-garde. I'd never heard anything like it, but there was something compelling in the centre of it. It wasn't just noise, it wasn't just random, there was something about what he was doing, and eventually Ronald Shannon Jackson hired me. Here's someone who played drums with Ornette Coleman. He was someone who was a Buddhist from Fort Worth Texas, who was an ex-junkie, who was a rageaholic. I'll become verklempt if I talk about him too much.
So, Living Colour would not have happened without me being fired from an R'n'B band and playing in the most avant-garde context you can imagine, but the whole time, I never stopped loving Led Zeppelin or rock and roll, so all of that is led to where I am. It's kind of unexplainable, even to myself.
You've worked with Carlos Santana too, haven't you?
It's strange that I've sat in with Carlos Santana, and I wrote an instrumental for Carlos Santana that got nominated for a Grammy. I wrote this song called 'Every Now and Then', and it's crazy. It's like; "what?!" I heard 'Black Magic Woman, 'Gypsy Queen', and that was the thing that said; "the guitar is a voice".
Before I let you go, I have to ask; do you still own the guitar from the 'Type' video?
The guitar from the 'Type' video, I do not. Interestingly enough, the 'Cult' guitar, before Trump tears down the African American History Museum, I'm going to try to get my guitar back. Some things went to charity, some of my ESPs went to charity, some of them went to the Hard Rock Café when they were starting out. I did manage to get an Aria Pro II recently on reverb, and I found a Univiox copy of a Mosrite. I found that guitar, and I got that, so I at least have a model of my guitar.
Vernon Reid's 'Hoodoo Telemetry' is out now.
There is a particular thing about that song, and that song is literally about the idea of, there was a what they call the 'door of no return' when slaves were put on ships and never to come home again. There's this door, literally, in Ghana, where, when you went past, you were going on the ship, and you're not coming back. Some of what's going on in there, it's like, I'm really channelling a bit of Pharaoh Saunders and a bit of Sonny Sharrock in how I'm approaching it, and I'm not thinking that, but I could hear that afterwards. There's this one little repeating phrase that I play at the end of the solo, and I said; "man, that's like a Pharaoh Saunders thing!". I didn't know it at the time. I was just playing because I come from a more of an improvising background of like; "what it is in the moment?".
You can hear a lot of improvisation on the album and that adds so much colour, doesn't it?
Absolutely, and this is the thing, some with these tunes I play kind of linear things, like on 'Beautiful Bastard'. I was really happy with the way that solo turned out, because I had a placeholder that I couldn't stand. I didn't like it at all, and then I was just; "that's okay, I'm going to change this". There's a lot of hammer ons and pull offs in time in that solo, and it really worked out in a lyrical way very well, but on other things, like on 'Good Afternoon Everyone' it's a very minimal kind of guitar solo. It's not like I'm going to play a whiz bang.
I was about to ask you about 'Good Afternoon Everyone'.
I really wanted to focus on what that song is saying about homelessness, and how we just casually walk by people. The sound in that song, that was the actual recording of somebody who was basically asking for help. And the thing that was so interesting was that he unfailingly stayed at that same tempo; "good afternoon everyone. Can anyone help me with something to eat today? Good afternoon everyone"; it was like this weird minimalism that he performed. In a way it was a kind of performance, and afterwards, I knew I was going to do something with that; "is there anyone who's not ungrateful for what they have in their life that could help me with something to eat today?", and he kept it in that same cadence, almost, and that's where the knife comes out. That's when he goes, you know,; "you fuckers", like; "you think that I'm so different from you?", or "you're taking all what you have for granted. Can any y'all help me?"
Dou still live in the New York area?
I do, in Shaolin, aka Staten Island. Thank God for the Wu-Tang Clan.
The reason I ask is because of 'Bronx Paradox'; I mean, that's where hip hop started, right?
Yeah, the Bronx is fabulous. In New York City we have five boroughs, and sometimes those boroughs have conflict, and in terms of hip hop, the Bronx is where it started, but of course, it immediately shows up in Brooklyn, and in Queens, before you get to East Coast, West Coast, inside the same city. There's been conflict between Queens and the Bronx, and the thing that's fascinating to me is that the 'Bronx Paradox' refers to a couple of things. There was this whole campaign of painting the Bronx as the worst place, and the most dangerous place in America. They had this movie 'Fort Apache, The Bronx', and they have all these fantastical narratives, but the last great music movement of the 20th century started in the Bronx.
Yeah, that impact can't be understated.
I'm talking about what happened in hip hop, and what happened with turntablism; it's literally a manifestation of Marcel Duchamp, the great artist and theorist; the idea of Dada, and the ready made. The turntable was not meant to be a musical instrument, and when Marcel Duchamp took a urinal and called it 'Fountain', or he took a bicycle seat and handlebars and called it 'Bull'; these are not intended to be. His whole argument was; "it's art. I'm a trained artist, and this is art because I'm saying that it's art", and the turntable was an appliance. The turntable was not meant to be a musical instrument, and lo and behold, turntableism starts right there in the Bronx.
That's quite the parallel!
They weren't thinking about Marcel Duchamp. They don't know who Marcel Duchamp is, but it's pure Dada. It's not trying to be clever, it's actually the proof of concept of what Marcel Duchamp was talking about. So, this whole thing about the Bronx, there's something paradoxical there, and the other thing is that that song was also a tribute to my long time colleague, friend, and partner, DJ Logic. He embodies the Bronx paradox. I've never scripted him. He was discovered by Medeski Martin & Wood, Chris Whitley; all these different artists started using DJ Logic, and I started using DJ Logic because he was the first DJ in a rock band. The band was called Eye & I, and the leaders of the band DK Dyson and Melvin Gibbs were dear friends of mine from Brooklyn, and they found this kid, and he was 17 years old, from the Bronx.
A lot of people didn't really accept turntables, and still don't, as instruments. So that's kind of a Miles Davis-esque song, and paradoxically, one of my favourite things on my record is the trumpet solo by JS Williams on 'Bronx Paradox'. That is worth the price of admission. I mean, it's one of my favourite things on my record. It's the guitar player record, and I'm singing the praises of a trumpet solo; that's the Bronx paradox for you.
I wanted to touch a little bit on when you had your first major success with Living Colour. Obviously, Mick Jagger had a hand in your early success.
Life is weird, and as we live right now, there's a weirdness, there's a strangeness. The universe is, they say, not only stranger than we know, it's stranger than we can know. I was a guy in my parents' house, and I heard 'Sunshine of Your Love', and that riff jumped out of the am radio; how would I know that I'd end up playing with Jack Bruce? That's crazy, but the journey that I've been on includes so many little details. Like, you could focus on meeting Mick Jagger, but the funny thing about that is I could tell you that there were seven other things that happened before I met Mick Jagger that made a huge impact. I played in an R'n'B band with the singer, producer, keyboard player, Kashif. I used to fight with Kashif all the time. I was in his band, and we bumped heads all the time over rock and roll music. He was firmly convinced that rock and roll music was white music, and I didn't buy the premise. I said; "we started this music and also, we're still in it"; I mean the definition, what you call 'rock',
Absolutely!
The Isley Brothers influenced The Beatles. The first thing that the Beatles did when The Beatles played at Shea Stadium was 'Twist and Shout'; a cover of the Isley Brothers. The Isley Brothers had Jimi Hendrix; he was in their band as a guitarist. Their youngest brother took up the mantle, and not only did he manifest that, he manifested that on hit records. That's the other thing too, 'That Lady' was a bossa nova, and they did that as a bossa nova in the '60s, and he dragged them kicking and screaming, and then that was one of their biggest hits of all time.
So anyway, my belief in that, eventually led to me being fired by Kashif, then Melvin Gibbs - who I used to play with him in the neighbourhood - he calls me and he says; "you have to hear this drummer I'm playing with", and the drummer is Ronald Shannon Jackson, and hearing him, his music was entrancing. It was completely avant-garde. I'd never heard anything like it, but there was something compelling in the centre of it. It wasn't just noise, it wasn't just random, there was something about what he was doing, and eventually Ronald Shannon Jackson hired me. Here's someone who played drums with Ornette Coleman. He was someone who was a Buddhist from Fort Worth Texas, who was an ex-junkie, who was a rageaholic. I'll become verklempt if I talk about him too much.
So, Living Colour would not have happened without me being fired from an R'n'B band and playing in the most avant-garde context you can imagine, but the whole time, I never stopped loving Led Zeppelin or rock and roll, so all of that is led to where I am. It's kind of unexplainable, even to myself.
You've worked with Carlos Santana too, haven't you?
It's strange that I've sat in with Carlos Santana, and I wrote an instrumental for Carlos Santana that got nominated for a Grammy. I wrote this song called 'Every Now and Then', and it's crazy. It's like; "what?!" I heard 'Black Magic Woman, 'Gypsy Queen', and that was the thing that said; "the guitar is a voice".
Before I let you go, I have to ask; do you still own the guitar from the 'Type' video?
The guitar from the 'Type' video, I do not. Interestingly enough, the 'Cult' guitar, before Trump tears down the African American History Museum, I'm going to try to get my guitar back. Some things went to charity, some of my ESPs went to charity, some of them went to the Hard Rock Café when they were starting out. I did manage to get an Aria Pro II recently on reverb, and I found a Univiox copy of a Mosrite. I found that guitar, and I got that, so I at least have a model of my guitar.
Vernon Reid's 'Hoodoo Telemetry' is out now.
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