WORKING MAN

HE MAY BE THE HARDEST WORKING MAN IN SHOW BIZ, AND 2017 LOOKS TO BE NO DIFFERENT FOR JOE BONAMASSA. HERE, THE BLUES ACE DETAILS HIS NUMEROUS PLANS FOR THE COMING YEAR AND SHEDS SOME LIGHT ON HOW HE SIMPLIED HIS APPROACH TO TONE.

BY ANDY ALEDORT for GUITAR WORLD

GUITAR WORLD: WHAT RECORDING PROJECTS DO YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR 2017?

BONAMASSA: My most current release is Joe Bonamassa: Live at the Greek Theatre, which is our tribute to the “Three Kings,” Albert, B.B. and Freddie King. Beginning January 3rd I’ll be in the studio with Black Country Communion, my rock project with Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham, and Derek Sherinian. So far, Glenn and I have written about 14 new songs, and we are going to try to bang out another half-dozen before we start to do the record. Ideally, what we are trying to do is to make an “all-killer” album, so if we have 15 tracks we like but 10 we really love, let’s just focus on the 10 strongest tunes. And if it fits on a vinyl record, even better!

Glenn and I spoke after his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year [as a member of Deep Purple], and part of the impetus is that I realized that it’s been five years since we’ve made music together. He and I work well together – we finish each other’s sentences, musically speaking. Life is too short to put things off indefinitely, so I reached out to everyone and they were all into it. We make good music together and it’s fun, and I am really looking forward to it.

You have always pulled from a lot of different styles and sounds in your own music. Can you put into words what makes it special to work with someone like Glenn Hughes?

Working with Glenn is a direct conduit to an era that I love. I was born in 1977 and I idolized Deep Purple as a kid. I love early seventies British rock and, call it what you want, Deep Purple were a blues/rock band with progressive leanings. Working with Glenn, Jason and Derek, we get all of those elements into the music. I’m the blues/rock foil; my job is to keep it in the “delta,” so to speak, Derek has the prog thing, Jason does the Zep feel that his father pioneered, and Glenn is really the leader in that situation, simply because of the way he plays his bass. It harkens back to an era that doesn’t exist anymore. He could play a Squire Jazz Bass through an iPhone and it’ll crunch and have the tone like it’s 1972. It’s in his pores – it’s in his DNA. And that allows me to play in a way that I’ve always loved but had never been in a situation where that was encouraged. It’s rock, and you don’t have to worry about the blues police carrying you away! To me, Glenn doesn’t get enough praise as a bass player – he’s in the John Paul Jones, Andy Fraser league, even though his voice gets most of the attention. But on bass, he uses a pick and he gets that rock drive thing happening no matter what.

He played a Fender Mustang back in the early Seventies Trapeze days.

Yes, and at Cal Jam with Purple [in 1974] he was playing a P-bass. He can get the right bass sound out of just about anything. So I’m really excited about getting back together with him and the guys for a new record.

Do you have plans for another solo record this year?

Yes, we are scheduled to begin the new solo record in July, and I’ve already begun working on the material for that. The last six months, creatively, have been as good as it’s ever been in my entire career. I feel really inspired again. You know, sometimes you sit down with a guitar and nothing happens, but other times you sit there and say, “Well, that’s interesting…” The hands are doing weird shit, and that’s fun to discover.

It seems there’s a natural evolution to the musical projects, moving from the blues vibe to the “three Kings” to the rock aspects of Black Country Communion.

I also have this jazz/funk project called Rock Candy Funk Party where we do Herbie Hancock type stuff, and I have the collaboration I do with Beth Hart. To me, this type of diversity makes everything I do in the “solo project” world stronger, having these different outlets to explore. Then when I come back to what I do day-to-day, it’s fresh to me…

There have always been different influences that come out in your playing in different ways, and in the last two years, I hear the Paul Kossoff thing emerging.

Well, I’ve always been a huge Free/Paul Kossoff fan, and in the last couple of years, I’ve switched from a very complicated rig filled with Marshalls and Dumbles to a setup that is much simpler. Then I discovered the beauty of an 80-watt Tweed Twin! And I’ve gone cold-turkey: the pedalboard is gone, and I only have two pedals taped to the floor, my signature Dunlop Cry Baby wah and a Way Huge Overrated Special overdrive pedal, both running on batteries, and both designed for me by Jeorge Tripps. The Overrated Special is so named as a piss take; Jeorge likes to come up with funny names for his pedals and we had a good laugh over it. It’s basically a green rhino pedal that’s been modified to suit my tweed amp rig.

For the rest of the article, check out Guitar World Vol. 38 | No. 3 | March 2017