Q&A with Eric Johnson on the ‘Up Close’ tour

Grammy Award-winning guitarist Eric Johnson kicks off the new year with a month of live dates supporting his most recent album, Up Close. Johnson begins the 2012 leg of the tour at Showcase Live in Foxborough, Massachusetts on Jan. 4, and in March he’ll join the Experience Hendrix Tour alongside famed axmen like Billy Cox, Buddy Guy and Robby Krieger.

In this exclusive interview, I spoke with the Austin native on his evolution as a recording artist, the fussy nature of guitarists, and the performance advice he took to heart from a legendary late comedian.

It’s been a little over a year since the release of Up Close. How have the songs evolved in the live show?

We have a lot of improvisation, so it can be different every single night. We’re always changing the setlist and we leave these big holes so everyone can create a dialogue together; this plays into it. We’ve actually changed some songs and rearranged them a little bit, and it’s much freer live.

What can fans expect on this new tour?

It’s kind of what we’ve been doing these last few months, but we do have a couple of new songs that we’re adding to the mix, and a cross section of different stuff. The bass player, Chris Maresh, is really fine in all styles; Wayne Salzmann on drums is a real swing jazz player, so it’s a nice band for the sound. We’ll just be doing a cross section of all sorts of stuff and the stuff on all the records.

As a teenager you traveled with your family to Africa. What were the circumstances, and what did you learn?

The circumstances were my sister married a man in South Africa, so she went to live there with him as a nurse. It was a completely different culture, and just traveling out into different areas we got to hear some of the natives play and [see] some interesting handmade instruments and string-based instruments, drums and stuff. My sister said it was all about getting out of your own little world.

Have you had a chance to return since then?

I haven’t been back since then, but I’d like to. I’d really like to go to Cuba; it would be a wish of mine to go there....A lot of the guitar players, when they play solos, it’s refreshing. A lot of musicians over there, especially from Cuba and Brazil, we never hear about.

How do you come to choose signature equipment? Is it a lifelong process or are some of these things love at first feel?

I think it can be that love at first feel, but for instruments it’s nice to keep adjusting or tweaking or seeing the diversity in them. There are certain historical ingrained beautiful vintage instruments that you just don’t even want to mess with.

How did you originally get signed with Warner Bros. Records in the mid-’80s? Some reports say that Prince recommended you while others say it was Christopher Cross.

I know for a fact that Christopher Cross helped me out there. He would talk to [label execs] about coming to see and meet me and hearing my tapes, so he was very instrumental. I heard the Prince story, that he saw the first Austin City Limits show that I did, and he helped, but I’ve never met Prince and never substantiated that, so I don’t know for sure if that’s true or not, but I have heard about that.

You were one of the original performers on the very first G3 tour back in 1996 with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. How did you get involved in that?

Joe and his manager put the contract together back then, and they came up with the idea for Steve Vai and myself. I think the whole idea all along was to have concerts where these guitar players could meet and play live.

If you had a wish list of any three guitarists whom you’d like to see play together, who would you pick?

Maybe Pat Metheny, Jeff Beck and David Gilmour.

On your last tour, your set would include covers from the Beatles, John Coltrane and Bob Dylan. How does the audience react to this kind of diversity for a “rock” concert?

I think it’s a really nice thing. There’s good music from the past and so many musicians have been constantly doing songs from other people, and that also gives us the opportunity to do a rearrangement so we’re not just copying it….I like experimenting with different areas of music. It just broadens your passion to play solid.

Why are instrumental guitarists such perfectionists, or have a reputation as such?

(Chuckles) I think maybe sometimes they have a certain sound in their head and just need a really pure tonality instrument. I think sometimes a guitar is a kind of an unbridled horse, you know? You’re dealing with electricity and it’s wired to get into that place where it has that elegance, which is something that may look funny sometimes, it you’re trying to lead a song in a real elegant musical way. It can be a real challenge sometimes, so I guess you have to be pretty discerning to get to that benchmark.

How do you deal with these challenges?

I like to just get my sound to a place where I’m happy with it and try to keep it consistent. If it gets near that bull’s-eye where you really liked it, it’s like, leave it alone, forget about it, just play music and try to just dig deep in the music and let everything kind of work its way out.

These days, do you tend to make most of the final decisions on a record, or do you take advice from other musicians and producers?

I’m trying to open up to take more advice from other people, because none of us can—even if somebody can hear something very well or have a very good idea about how to edit themselves, it’s really hard to see 360 degrees. Most people can’t, and I think that’s why having other years or other advice or other feedback will just give you a perspective that will be a slice of the 360 degrees, and it can only help. I mean, worst case scenario is you don’t agree with the advice and maybe you don’t use it, but it’s so much more valuable because you just made stuff for people and you see how they respond. And that’s important.

If you play a song for a bunch of people and you want to make it valid and they think about it and go, “Oh, that’s okay,”  you can sit there and spend 30 minutes arguing why it’s okay, but what’s the point? If it didn’t get them, if it didn’t affect them or have a connection, what’s the point of arguing for an hour trying to prove your point, you know what I mean? Music is supposed to be for touching somebody, so there’s really nothing to say. It’s good to just play for people and see how they respond. If they don’t respond you just have to go, “Well what is it? Is the song not good enough? Am I not keeping it live enough?” Your whole goal, your priority, should be making music that touches people.

Two of your tunes showed up on the Guitar Hero video game series. How did that come about?

They called us and asked if we wanted to do it and we were like, “Sure, yeah.” And at the time, they were kind of like, “Well, we don’t know if anybody’s going to like this game, it’s kind of a longshot,” but it ended up being quite a popular game.

Did you ever get a chance to meet or perform with Eric Clapton since the 2004 Crossroads Guitar Festival?

At Crossroads it was a real honor for me, and I got to meet him—it was the first time I’d ever met him. That was just a big deal for me, because I grew up listening to him, so yeah, I was stoked.

I hope you get a chance to perform with him; Crossroads is a popular event whenever it’s held.

Yeah, I would love to do it again; that would be awesome and I’d do it in a heartbeat.

You performed at that particular show, but not with him?

Exactly. He actually watched my set, so after the set I went over and met him and stuff, talked to him. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him very much, but it was thrilling.

I’ve read that the late comedian Bill Hicks was fan of yours, but was pulled as an opening act for you after making some ill-advised drunken comments about you onstage. Did you have any contact with him after that?

I don’t think that’s exactly true. He always opened shows for us, and there was never a time that he didn’t open a show. He would do it anytime that we could work it out, and he got really popular and his career did real well, so he was out to make his own fame. The only thing was, for whatever reason our audience has always [included] eight-year-old kids and 80-year-old people, and it was always kind of a running joke that when Bill would open the shows for us we’d say, “Hey Bill, can you kind of just make it R-rated, you know? Just back off the X-rated stuff a little bit? Because there’s eight-year-old kids out here.” And he’d go, “Yeah, sure, sure, sure, no problem.” Then he’d go out and do the X-rated show (laughs).

That was the only thing, but no, there was never a problem or anything. After we played he would always come back and criticize my show. He would tell me, “You’ve gotta to talk to the audience more, you’ve gotta put on more of a show,” you know? “You’re staring at the floor, too.” He really cared about the show and how to make it better.

A lot of people don’t realize he was a fair guitar player in his own right.

Yeah.

Do you remember the last time you spoke with him?

It was at one of my shows in Houston. That was probably a year or so before he passed away.

Who are some unsung heroes of the electric guitar you’d like more people to rediscover?

Wes Montgomery, but I guess people already know him. The general public does, and he’s one of the greatest guitarists who’s ever lived. Thumbs Carllile—awesome, awesome player. Julian Tharpe, steel guitar, killer player. Oh my goodness, there’s so many of them. There’s a guy named Scotty Anderson from Nashville—really awesome player. I’ll think of ten people when we hang up.

What compositions are you most proud of?

I guess there’s little pieces of each one that I like. I like the song “Battle We Have Won” a lot; I like the lyrics.

Any other messages for your fans?

Thanks for listening and letting me play music. I love the opportunity to try to just turn people on.

Eric Johnson is on tour Jan. 4-29, and joins the Experience Hendrix Tour March 14-22. For more information, visit www.ericjohnson.com.

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