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(Summer 2005) by Ken Kirklewski
Hailing from Malden Massachusetts, Johnny A has been a lifelong fan of
all music. Weather it was a pair of drum sticks as a youngster or the feel
and
sound of six strings when he was a teen, music was a big player in his life.
It was only natural that he would have a stint at Berklee College of Music
in Boston. Johnny was in various bands throughout the 70’s,
80’s and 90’s, including a seven year collaboration with Peter
Wolf of the J. Geils Band.
But the solo bug would soon win and in 1999 Johnny
would release the musically acclaimed Sometime Tuesday Morning.
It was a musical feast for both listener and guitarist alike. After extensive
touring to support the disc including some overseas dates Johnny released Get Inside in
2004. Once again raising the bar personally and professionally, Johnny
is out on the road giving the fans what they want, great music! I had the chance to sit down recently at a beautiful Oceanside club in
Matunuck RI and talk with Johnny A about his music. After a lengthy sound
check in which Johnny was totally entrenched in the quality of the sound,
it was apparent why the crowd was so eager to wait for this 11pm start. His
attention to detail not only reflects on his taste, but also pays respect
to the fans that know they're in for a night of multi-layered musical magic…he
did not disappoint!
RIL: Looking at your schedule, you’ve been on tour constantly.
Now with a newer release, will you be supporting that for some time?
How about
overseas?
JA: This latest record has been out for a little over
a year now. We’ve
been out supporting this record since it came out Feb 04. So it’s been
out fourteen months and we have been doing a lot of dates supporting it.
We have done some overseas dates, London I also went to Japan we did do a
publicity tour date in London.
RIL: Any funny or strange stories from the road, spinal tap moments
perhaps?
JA: There’s no time to be funny, we're out a lot. There’s no
days off unfortunately to enjoy the landscape. We did go through one of the
worst
storms we ever went through a week and a half ago in Elkhart, Indiana. It
was lightning like I never saw, all around us. The frequency of when the
lightning
struck...I’ve never seen anything like this before.
RIL: If I hadn’t heard of Johnny A, and I came by tonight to
see you, what could I expect?
JA: You would probably expect to see an instrumental
guitar driven band with multiple styling. It’s not a shred fest, it’s
really more about songs, arrangements and production. It has to do with the
different musicalities
that I love, wether it's rock or blues, jazz ballads, or countryish; you
know we are into a lot of different things, mixing it up a lot. You’re
probably in for a dynamic ride throughout the night. It’s often loud
and changes tempo a lot just trying to be a very diverse evening.
RIL: Will there be a future Johnny A release with vocals?
JA: It’s possible, I’m not opposed to having a vocalist. It
would have to be the right partnering to do something like that. I’ve
always had bands in the past that I was the singer, or songs that I wrote
were vocally
based. It just so happened that the way this project started I really didn’t
want to be beholding to a singer for my bread and butter. So I put something
together where the guitar is the voice and it revolved around that. It’s
more out of survival than anything else.
RIL: Do you find song writing difficult? How do you come up with
names for instrumentals?
JA: It’s a lot easier to do that because you
don’t have words.
I mean, you can kinda name it anything you want so it’s kind of easy.
Usually it has to do with the vibe of the song and how there is a certain
lick that makes you think of something you know like the song “I
Had to Laugh”, it’s the first riff of the guitar that reminds
me of a laugh, so that’s how that got named. Something simple and
it’s
usually something personal I don’t go so over searching for a title.
RIL: There are a lot of your influences on your album releases,
are there any influences that we don’t hear?
JA: I’m influenced by all kinds of people not
just guitar players; singer-songwriters like Jerry Rafferty, Jude
Cole, Chris Whitley,
Beatles, and the Everly Brothers. Then there is the obvious guitar giants;
Wes Montgomery, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix,
Kenny Burrell,
Pat Martino, and guys like that. I have influences that date back when
I was younger like Robert Fripp, King Crimson, Return to Forever, Steve
Howe,
and John McLaughlin.
All these influences have morphed into my music one way or another. Even
if it’s just for a brief part of a riff. Basically it’s a recalled
impression that was left on me and I just try and twist it up.
RIL: Aside for writing new material and playing current songs,
do you practice?
JA: I don’t really practice, but I play almost
every day. I’m
not a guy that ever practiced scales or that type of thing. I practice
in a way of trying to write songs, and if we haven’t been on the
road in a while, I’ll work on my own material and try to keep it
sharp. As far as scales, I really don’t push myself that way, not
that I shouldn’t, but
that's just not really part of my routine.
RIL: You have a great band in Jesse Bastos and Chris Farr, that's
a great foundation to build on.
JA: I’ve been with Jesse for about two and a half years now and Chris
has been with me for about a year and a half. It’s a fun band, good
personalities. Its got a great chemistry as an ensemble, there both
good players. They both have the ability to not only support and give me
a good foundation to work with when I’m on top of them, but also
when it comes time to take the spotlight and step out. They both have the
ability
to do that as well. They have very definite personalities in there playing….I
like players that have personality.
RIL: When between dates what might be in your CD player?
JA: Right now if we took the disc out it’s the Pink Guitar Music
of Henry Mancini instrumental played by a guitarist. It’s hard to
say because generally I just put my iPod on random and it could be anything
from Frank Zappa to The Monkees.
RIL: How did the Gibson Guitars/Johnny A endorsement come along?
JA: I’ve been endorsed by Gibson since 1993/94. The Artist guitar
(Johnny A signature model) was a thing that happened recently. I had been
endorsed
by them since I was with Peter Wolf, 94 I think. When I put out my own
records I chose the Gibson’s hollowbodys and stuff. I took the big
bodies out on the road and I would get all kinds of feedback, so it was
frustrating. They started building me these special Les Pauls. I was still
looking for that hollow body tone which I missed. We were at a conference
one day and
they (Gibson) asked me what I would want in a guitar. They were interested
in developing a guitar because they thought it would have unique properties.
It has been very successful and sells well.
RIL: You seem to have a success formula, do you keep on as is or do you
stir the pot a little?
JA: Well I think that the second album was totally
different than first album. If you listen to the first album, the first
is basically guitar,
bass and
drums with some percussion. The second record, there’s horns on
it and organ on it, it’s layered different. It's a little more
aggressive. Although I think someone that’s familiar with my
style will probably recognize it. It has a different production, an edge.
You know,
I write the
way I write, I try to push myself. I get bored very easy. As much as
my records change, they stay the same. And that’s not that I’m
trying to stay within a formula that I think is successful, it’s
because I like what I do, I just embellish in what I do.
RIL: Do you ever do any songs live that are not on the discs?
JA: There’s a few that we do live that aren’t on the CD’s.
There are some on the CD’s that we don’t play live too, just
because of the difficulty of trying to pull them off. They might have
been multi-layered
or had a lot of procession, so when you hear them live it doesn’t
give them the drive I need to feel confident that there being portrayed
properly.
So a lot of times those are left out of the live set.
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