RORY GALLAGHER: IRISH ROCK DISTILLATION

The flying Irishman is back with an album that he is about to finish up in London. Your favourite magazine didn’t miss the opportunity to ask him some questions about his next return. Surprise! Rip Rory has become a fan of the Telecaster!

Rory Gallagher started his career in 1963 in an Irish showband playing Chuck Berry and Big Bill Broonzy, as well as various chart hits of the period. He played in the band for three years. In 1967, he formed Taste, a trio undoubtedly inspired by Cream but with less jazz connotations and more rock influences. After two albums worth their weight in riffs, the group split in 1970 and Rory started a solo career in 1971 with a black and white album whose classicism and sobriety have always been ignored by night clubbers of all stripes (feathers?).

Behind the pub/Guinness/Ireland cliches, the main value of Rory Gallagher is having crossed the boring seventies and the electronic eighties without ever changing his music.

His personal style is a natural synthesis of blues, hard rock and folk, which owes absolutely nothing to commercialism. We call it integrity and he is not on sale in the supermarkets.

How has it been to record your latest album and why has it taken so long?

I needed a rest after a long period of tours and time to familiarise myself with digital recording techniques. I started this album last year in Radan Studios on an old Nieve console to obtain a basic and warmer natural sound. Then, it took me a while to transfer everything to digital without losing the warmth of the sound because the frequencies change during transfer. The other problem I had was the skills of sound engineers. I produced the album and the sounds that I know are those of Memphis and Chicago. I had problems finding technicians able to understand that I didn’t want an old sound; I was looking for an authentic sound! The majority of them treated me like a maniac because I asked them to cut the Dolby, for  example. Finally, everything was sorted out, I started the overdubs in Maison Rouge Studio in London and the album is now practically finished.

Which musicians play on the album?          

The same who tour with me. Gerry McAvoy is  always on bass. He plays on a Silvertone with one ‘lipstick’ style pickup. Brendan O’Neill is on the drums, Lou Martin and John Hook took charge of keyboards on some tracks. I have also used a brass section on two songs. Mark Feltham, my usual harmonica player, played on 4 or 5 tracks. He is fantastic. Before him, I played harmonica on my albums, but I heard Mark, I immediately used him instead. He can play in the country style of Charlie McCoy and he is also a master of Chicago blues and the Louisiana style, where the harmonica sounds like an accordion. That reminds me actually that I used an accordionist on one track called King of Zydeco, dedicated to the deceased Clifton Chenier. Gareth Watkins, a Welshman who plays with Dave Edmunds. He also appeared on ‘Never Asked You For Nothing’, another very relaxed zydeco track where the drummer uses brooms rather than drumsticks. As you can see, this album is very rootsy, very ethnic.

You have always wanted to make an acoustic album. Is that still the case?        

Absolutely. The only reason why I haven’t done it yet is because I need more time to write acoustic songs. Of course, the easy solution would be to do ten covers of blues, folk and Irish music, but I have never liked to be one for the easy option. I want at least two thirds of the songs to be original.

Apart from Messin’ with the Kid and Out on the Western Plain by Leadbelly, you never do a lot of covers…      

A few anyway: “Pistol Slapper Blues” by Blind Boy Fuller, “I’m Movin’ On” by Ray Charles, “Don’t Start Me Talking” by Sonny Boy Williamson. For my next album, I have recorded more than 20 songs and there is one cover: “Empire State Express” by Son House, which I play on the mandola. It is a tenor mandolin, tuned an octave lower than standard.

Your guitar style is based on the pentatonic scale, but where do the other notes come from? Irish music?     

If I do an acoustic album, there will definitely be some Irish songs. But it’s funny. I have a good command of the rhythm of Irish folk, I have the attitude and the mentality, but not the discipline. It’s another form of blues, based on Greek music, did you know? It’s a very all-encompassing type of music that you have to devote yourself permanently. I got interested much too early on by blues and rock & roll to be a true Irish musician. There were quite a few in my family, but since I first heard Eddie Cochran, everything else went out the window.

You are interested in recording techniques. Do you have a home studio?

I have a Portastudio Yamaha XMT-1 and a two-track with a built-in drum machine. I also have an eight-track, but it is already much too complicated and I use it very little. When I have an idea at home  I need a machine with only one button to press. Otherwise, I forget what I want to record! However, in the studio, I have familiarised myself with the SSL console and I don’t have any problem with that. I can manage digital sound quite well now.

What do you think of the re-editions of your old albums on CD?  

They have been remixed. I really like the result. There is a clear improvement in their sound. I am also going to remix Photo Finish and Deuce. They will be the next two re-editions.

Let’s move on to your guitars. Do you always have your Strat?    

Of course! It has never left my side since I bought it in 1963. The pickups are the originals, the paint too (laughs infectiously).  Recently, I bought a Harmony Stratotone and a Les Paul Junior 59 with humbuckers. Great sound! I also purchased a Supro like Jimmy Reed’s.  The sound of the lower strings is incredible, very funky, almost reggae. However, on Jimmy Reed’s albums, there is no bassist, just Eddie Taylor on second guitar. I have an Anniversary Strat, which I often play, and a Chet Atkins model Gretsch, which I play on two of the album tracks. I also have a 1932 National Duolian steel resonator. I am trying to get another one too. My cousin in Boston has one exactly like I want and I am going to steal it off him sooner or later! It allows you to use light strings, while mine only sounds good with heavy strings. Taj Mahal and John Hammond Jr. play with light strings and it’s the type of sound that I want. As for other acoustic guitars, I have a Martin D35 whose natural sound is really excellent. It is made electric by a Ibanez  pickup in the soundhole and by a Barcus Barry fixed on the bridge. But the electro-acoustic sound that it produces doesn’t entirely satisfy me. Too much bass because of the resonance due to the dreadnought case of the D35. I am going to try an electro-acoustic Gibson J-45 which the bassist of Taste, Richard McCracken, who was a guitarist before joining Taste, lent me for the solo in “I’m Movin’ On” and the sound was perfect.

As for electric, I must confess that I have become a Telecaster man.  On this album, I used a white 1963 Tele and a 1953 Esquire. I am looking for a Broadcaster because there isn’t a truss rod on the neck and the sound is different. The guitarist of Procul Harum wanted to sell me his a few years ago, but I stupidly hesitated because I was satisfied with my Strat. My old Strat is on the album too, of course. I am not really a collector. I use all my guitars on stage. I take them on tour.

David Gilmour has an incredible collection of Fenders and he refuses to use the no. 4 Strat or no. 9 Tele. Why? Life is short and a musician must live in the intense present. In terms of using whatever is available. A lot of my instruments are older than me. I have a 1935 Martin O.M. (Orchestra Model) mandolin. Terry Woods from the Pogues recently  loaned me one with incredibly sophisticated tuning. It took me a while to figure out what he had done with it.

Do you use a lot of open tunings?   

There are no tuning rules nowadays. Whatever works does the job. I spent years studying strange and different open tunings and it was a great experience because now I can play in standard tuning and adapt my fingers in such a way that I obtain the same result as with open tuning. I only have to go up a fret at such a place to alter a given chord. I play bottleneck in standard tuning on my Strat or on my Tele and I do the same thing, whether in open D or G.

Nevertheless, I have a Gretsch Corvette at home that looks like a Gibson SG and I tune it in A or G for country blues. However, if I want to do some Elmore James, I use D or open E like Brian Jones, the first slide player that I saw on stage in 1963. He called himself Elmo Lewis and he had a thundering accuracy because he knew the secret of placing the bottleneck behind the fret and not in the middle of the fretboard. He also had the electric tremolo mastery of Bo Diddley. Brian was a bit of a lunatic, but his heart was in the right place…

Open tuning varies according to the guitarist. I have done some concerts with Lowell George from Little Feat and he tunes in A because he was unable to get on with G. Hound Dog Taylor played in E Minor and Ry Cooder resembles a lot what Brian Jones would have become if he had grown old. I heard the songs that Brian recorded with Alexis Korner in 1969 just after having left the Stones and the similarity is apparent.

Ry Cooder loves to play rhythm in D or in G and solos in G or in A. He has therefore built a Strat with a lever that enables him to change tunings in the blink of an eye.

Let’s move on to amps. What is the secret of your sound? What do you use?      

On stage, I have a Vox AC30 connected to a Marshall Bass stack reconditioned for guitar without master volume. The Marshall is good for power and the Vox  gives a character to the sound. A while ago, I played on an Ampeg. In the studio, I play rhythm on a Vox-Marshall combo and for overdubs, I use a 1961 Fender Concert Del Shannon model and a 1955 Fender Bassman Tweed. I have also played on a new custom amp, a combo made by an ex-Vox engineer. There is no master volume, no boost, nothing. It truly starts to work when the volume is at 7. The sound is really tight, impeccable.

What effects do you use?           

I have a DOD Analog Delay, a Fuzz Face which belonged to Jimi Hendrix, a Tube Screamer, a compressor and a Octaver Boss.

What strings do you use?           

Fender Rock ‘n’ Roll. 42/36/26/15/13/10. For acoustic and slide, I use more medium strings.

What is your right-hand style?  

I use a semi-heavy plectrum and I play mainly by plucking the strings downwards. But I also do sweeping on rock tracks. For picking, I keep the plectrum and I use the middle finger and ring finger simultaneously. For acoustic blues, I currently use a thumb pick and I suppose I’ll master it when I’m around 50 years of age [laughs].

Your playing has always been based on harmonics. Do you do tapping?

Ah yes! I did tapping without knowing the name. Today, I do it a bit more, but I can’t last more than one or two minutes. On stage, at least. Because on albums, all experiments are permitted and even recommended. But it is a matter of taste. Look at Eddie Van Halen who is a tapping specialist. He doesn’t use it on all his songs and from what I hear, he does it less and less. It’s an important but necessarily limited technique at the same time. But there is life after death and you have to continue exploring the possibilities of the guitar.

What do you think of modern guitars?  

The Kahler or Floyd Rose systems are excellent, but I prefer the new Fender blocks or their Schecter version. The problem with blocking is the permanent temptation to use vibrato without it truly being necessary and for me, that shows a lack of taste. The worst thing is that it’s difficult to realise. If it becomes systematic, it’s dangerous. It’s okay at the end of a show, but if you do it at the start of a show and you do it always after ten songs, there is a stylistic problem. You have to know how to be universal. What Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani do, by the way.

You have always been close to hard rock without ever completely jumping the fence… 

Hard rock was born with my generation. I knew Jimi Hendrix and I started around the same time as Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. Then again, you have to know how to be universal, not stay constricted to one style. I like hard rock, but not the mythology, which is truly sterile. On the other hand, the only true commandment is: do what you feel like and if that works, so much the better.

You have sometimes been compared to Ritchie Blackmore. Do you have classical influences like him?            

I listen to it sometimes, but it’s not an influence. That’s what differentiates me from Ritchie Blackmore . We both play on a Strat, but Ritchie is a showoff star and I am a musician. But I respect what he does. He is talented. Even if he hides it sometimes.

Which modern musicians do you like? For a long time, rock critics have classed you as a staunch custodian of the past and I know they’re wrong… 

I like New York rap from the start of the 1980s. Grand Master Flash had style. But the rhythm boxes hurt my ears and rap has lost a lot of its original momentum because of it. I like the reggae of Bob Marley. It’s got a transparent beauty that those who emulate it don’t have. I also like Toots & the Maytals and Bluebeat ska. I listen to French groups like Bijou and Patrick Verbeke, I appreciate les Negressess Vertes, they are interesting. In terms of Irish groups, I like the Waterboys. Their music has a rare sensitivity. The attitude of U2 is too rigid. They are never funky, always lost in their heroic fantasy, their personal Bible. I am friends with The Edge, but they need to evolve, to PLAY rather than continuing to pretend to be demi-Gods. They still have a lot to do.

You started off in a showband. What were your influences?       

The showband is a typical Irish phenomenon. It’s a dance group that plays 4 or 5 hours per evening, all styles of music. For me, it was the only way to get out of Ireland. I played guitar since I was 9 years old and I had tried to form several groups, but nothing stuck. My influences were Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy. Ireland was incredibly isolated at the start of the 1960s. To read Melody Maker, I had to go get my hair cut because the local hairdresser was the only subscriber around!

One day, I read that advert: showband is looking for a guitarist. Thankfully, I already had my Strat, but no amp. I paid the installations somehow every month. The bassist in the showband lent me a Vox AC20. They let me play rock. I was 14 years old. That was a true education for me and other Irish musicians like Van Morrison. It was the only way to get out of the system and then we changed the system…

Why did Taste break up?            

It was in 1970. Are you sure that your readers care about that? Anyway, John Wilson who had been the drummer in Them wanted to make progressive music, fusion style and he refused to let go of the idea. It is quite funny in retrospect because today it’s him who does the sampling for Jive Bunny’s records. To top it all off, our manager ran off with the group’s money. All I had left to do was get myself out and go solo.

What are your current plans?   

It’s a typical expression, but I am in a transition period. At the moment, I am under pressure until the album is finished.  Then, I will go and play in Australia and Japan. Then, I will play in Europe and France will be on the programme. You can be sure of that. Bonjour les amis! (says it in French).