Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / The Whereabouts Of Will Bernard Is Right Here Psychodelic Soulful Jazz And Beyond
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello and good afternoon!
- 0:30Speaker 2: Hi, how's it going?
- 0:31Speaker 1: Doing very well. How about you, Will?
- 0:33Speaker 2: I'm doing all right.
- 0:34Speaker 1: How's that imagination of yours? Is it active already today?
- 0:36Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been working on some stuff. Don't you love that?
- 0:41Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, do you ever have to just
- 0:43Speaker 1: sit there and say, calm down, go to sleep tonight.
- 0:46Speaker 1: Just give me, give the rest of my body some rest.
- 0:50Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, for sure.
- 0:52Speaker 1: That's what's fun about when you're exploring music, and that's
- 0:54Speaker 1: what I love about your music, because I look to
- 0:57Speaker 1: you because I know you're going to take chances where
- 0:59Speaker 1: other people are taking what's already been proven. And I
- 1:02Speaker 1: learn so much by listening to your music.
- 1:06Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Thank you.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Where do you get that confidence to do that? Is
- 1:10Speaker 1: it just because it was born with you, or is
- 1:13Speaker 1: it something where you just go, I think we can
- 1:15Speaker 1: do this? You just get it and then take a
- 1:18Speaker 1: chance on it.
- 1:21Speaker 3: I mean, I don't feel like I'm taking chances. I
- 1:25Speaker 3: feel like I'm just doing my music, which I've always
- 1:30Speaker 3: done and developed a vocabulary. Like this last record, I
- 1:41Speaker 3: try to make it all kind of coherent and cohesive
- 1:45Speaker 3: so it fits together.
- 1:46Speaker 2: I don't know how familiar you are with my work or.
- 1:52Speaker 3: What you're referring to exactly.
- 1:56Speaker 1: Well, there's a circle of us that get together. And
- 1:59Speaker 1: what we do is that we always try to educate
- 2:02Speaker 1: each other on music. And your name has come up
- 2:04Speaker 1: so much. And it's amazing when someone says, did you
- 2:07Speaker 1: try this one? Did you try this one? Did you
- 2:09Speaker 1: try this one? And the fact that it continues to
- 2:12Speaker 1: come up, it's like, they're either rediscovering you or they
- 2:16Speaker 1: have just found you for the first time. But it's still,
- 2:19Speaker 1: it's a part of our conversation. And I find that
- 2:22Speaker 1: so fascinating in this age when we stopped doing this
- 2:25Speaker 1: when record stores went away. But now it's like, oh
- 2:28Speaker 1: my God, we're returning to the days of swapping stories.
- 2:35Speaker 2: So what is your organization? I don't know. you just
- 2:38Speaker 2: gave me your number one one.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Of the things i i'm i'm with uh um i
- 2:42Speaker 1: have a host of podcasts but we're heard on iheart
- 2:44Speaker 1: spotify every platform we were part of the the gang
- 2:47Speaker 1: that that brought everything together called streaming in fact when
- 2:50Speaker 1: streaming first came out everybody was going what is that
- 2:53Speaker 1: and of course we went well we don't know what
- 2:55Speaker 1: it is either but we're going to continue working on
- 2:57Speaker 1: it and then and then we went ahead and then
- 2:59Speaker 1: everything built around it and here came Hulu and here
- 3:01Speaker 1: came Netflix. And we're going, wait a second, you guys
- 3:04Speaker 1: weren't around when we started this thing called streaming. So, so, but,
- 3:08Speaker 1: but what I try to do is I try to
- 3:09Speaker 1: get out into the real community and find out what
- 3:12Speaker 1: every age group is listening to. And it just blows
- 3:15Speaker 1: me away that your name will come up. And, and
- 3:18Speaker 1: it's like, I've got to figure out how to get
- 3:20Speaker 1: in touch with this guy.
- 3:21Speaker 2: Oh, that's great.
- 3:24Speaker 1: So when you do a song like whereabouts, I mean,
- 3:26Speaker 1: the amazing work that goes into this, I mean, to
- 3:28Speaker 1: be a fly on the wall, How do you not
- 3:31Speaker 1: want to be a perfectionist when you're sitting there inside
- 3:34Speaker 1: that studio?
- 3:37Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, of course, I try to be a perfectionist.
- 3:42Speaker 3: I try to find the best players that I have.
- 3:45Speaker 3: And for instance, that song is very simple and open.
- 3:50Speaker 3: So it allows people to express different things around it. this,
- 3:58Speaker 3: you know, pretty simple composition. And I knew John Modescu
- 4:03Speaker 3: would be, you know, great on that one.
- 4:08Speaker 1: One of my good friends, his name is Artiste. And
- 4:10Speaker 1: the thing, what he does is he likes to take
- 4:12Speaker 1: music and he will compare it to things that are
- 4:15Speaker 1: happening in nature. And what he did with this whereabouts is,
- 4:19Speaker 1: is that he connected it to the colors changing in Colorado.
- 4:23Speaker 1: And I went, Oh my God, I said, that's what
- 4:25Speaker 1: you envision when you hear this song? And he goes, yeah.
- 4:28Speaker 1: And I said, well, I envision here's this guy that's
- 4:30Speaker 1: walking through a very crowded street, but he's got his
- 4:33Speaker 1: earbuds on, and he's in this other zone because of whereabouts.
- 4:37Speaker 1: So I just love the way that everybody has their
- 4:40Speaker 1: own interpretation of your music.
- 4:43Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing I like to do a lot, actually,
- 4:47Speaker 3: is just imagine things like that when we're working on
- 4:53Speaker 3: a piece. I can't remember what I was thinking about
- 4:59Speaker 3: for that one, but it's kind of, you know, it's
- 5:02Speaker 3: kind of a little bit spooky and like, you know,
- 5:08Speaker 3: like underworld kind of, you know, whereabouts, you know, I
- 5:11Speaker 3: got from, you know, like, like crime dramas are always
- 5:15Speaker 3: trying to find the whereabouts of, of, you know, the
- 5:19Speaker 3: criminal they're chasing.
- 5:20Speaker 2: So, I.
- 5:30Speaker 3: Don't know what the exact emotion is, but yeah, I
- 5:35Speaker 3: like both of those ideas.
- 5:39Speaker 1: Well, right away, I was taking a slight return when
- 5:41Speaker 1: you were talking about a crime drama type of music.
- 5:45Speaker 1: I'm going, oh my God, I know exactly where he
- 5:47Speaker 1: might be going right now, a slight return. OK, because
- 5:52Speaker 1: I mean, if that's not featured in a movie right now,
- 5:54Speaker 1: we need to get Spielberg on the phone and say,
- 5:56Speaker 1: I got the song for you.
- 5:57Speaker 2: This is the one.
- 5:58Speaker 1: This is the one you got to go with.
- 5:59Speaker 3: That one, there's part of it that really reminded me
- 6:05Speaker 3: of a Sly Stone, Sly Stone kind of.
- 6:11Speaker 2: Chord changes underneath the organ solo.
- 6:15Speaker 3: And I was thinking sly, but I didn't want to
- 6:17Speaker 3: call it sly something, so I called it Slight Return, which.
- 6:22Speaker 2: Is also a reference to the Hendrix song.
- 6:28Speaker 1: So do you ever find yourself studying the craftsmen of
- 6:31Speaker 1: the past, such as a Hendrix, and try to figure
- 6:34Speaker 1: out what his vision was versus what you're feeling in
- 6:38Speaker 1: your moment? Because everything that I've ever read about Led Zeppelin,
- 6:41Speaker 1: it was the mystique about Led Zeppelin that drew people
- 6:44Speaker 1: to them.
- 6:48Speaker 3: Well Hendrix for me was one of the guys that
- 6:52Speaker 3: really made me want to play guitar like the first
- 6:58Speaker 3: when I got my first acoustic guitar I was like
- 7:00Speaker 3: how do you make those sounds on this thing it
- 7:04Speaker 3: was like I have no idea what this guy's doing
- 7:08Speaker 3: I would listen over and over and try to cop
- 7:11Speaker 3: the solos and things you know.
- 7:16Speaker 2: Try to learn the stuff. So it's in there, you know.
- 7:20Speaker 2: That's one of the things in.
- 7:22Speaker 3: Sly, Stone, and all that early stuff, you know, is
- 7:29Speaker 3: kind of the bedrock for a lot of stuff I do.
- 7:33Speaker 1: I totally get that.
- 7:34Speaker 3: Especially in this kind of funk kind of situation.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Since you brought up funk, how about that song, Hella Bees?
- 7:44Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out why these club DJs have
- 7:46Speaker 1: not jumped on this song and put an EDM beat
- 7:49Speaker 1: behind that song.
- 7:52Speaker 2: Yeah, that could be remixed and sampled, probably. Oh, yeah.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. It's almost like we're moving back into that
- 8:02Speaker 1: era again where people can sit there and start playing
- 8:05Speaker 1: with the songs.
- 8:06Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 8:08Speaker 3: That's something I'm really interested in doing. And, uh, I
- 8:12Speaker 3: have two songs. Do you know who Bill Laswell is?
- 8:15Speaker 1: Please, please inform me.
- 8:17Speaker 2: Uh, he's a.
- 8:18Speaker 3: Very famous producer and bass player that, um, you know,
- 8:23Speaker 3: Herbie Hancock's rock it.
- 8:25Speaker 2: Yes. That's, that's him. He, he did that one.
- 8:29Speaker 3: That's probably his most famous thing, but, um, he's done probably,
- 8:33Speaker 3: I don't know, thousands of records, but, um, He remixed
- 8:38Speaker 3: a couple of songs from the earlier Freelance Subversive record,
- 8:45Speaker 3: which I haven't released.
- 8:46Speaker 2: I haven't figured out how I'm going to release it. Right.
- 8:49Speaker 1: Is that tough for you to do to think about that?
- 8:50Speaker 1: Only because I was with Diamond Rio this morning, and
- 8:53Speaker 1: they were talking about how songs that are on this
- 8:55Speaker 1: brand new album are 8 to 10 years old. And
- 8:58Speaker 1: I always stand back when I hear that going, The
- 9:01Speaker 1: average listener does not understand that, that it doesn't just
- 9:05Speaker 1: pop out and suddenly appear in their earbuds, that it
- 9:08Speaker 1: really does have to go through a journey. And basically,
- 9:12Speaker 1: it's like making sauerkraut. You've got to let it do
- 9:14Speaker 1: its thing before it comes out.
- 9:16Speaker 2: Yeah. Are you a sauerkraut fan?
- 9:22Speaker 1: I am a fanatic on sauerkraut, dude. I'm going to
- 9:25Speaker 1: tell you that right now. Oh, my God.
- 9:27Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 9:30Speaker 3: There's a guy in New Orleans who always brings sauerkraut
- 9:34Speaker 3: to gigs, like all these different variations.
- 9:37Speaker 2: That's it.
- 9:38Speaker 1: That's it. And see, a lot of people don't realize,
- 9:41Speaker 1: like music, sauerkraut is absolutely fantastic for the mind and body.
- 9:44Speaker 1: It really is. It's not like an interpretation. It really
- 9:47Speaker 1: is good for you.
- 9:48Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they say.
- 9:53Speaker 1: So then when you're writing a piece of music, does
- 9:56Speaker 1: it come out in a riff at a time, or
- 9:58Speaker 1: is it something that you're feeling? and you, you choose
- 10:01Speaker 1: to chase the beat and then you come back and
- 10:04Speaker 1: you start adding everything in?
- 10:05Speaker 3: You know, somebody once said, how do you compose? And
- 10:13Speaker 3: they said, however you can.
- 10:16Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, But a lot of times I'll start with
- 10:23Speaker 2: bass lines. Ooh.
- 10:25Speaker 3: I really like good bass lines, and I have a bass,
- 10:29Speaker 3: and I'll come up with something on the bass or keyboards.
- 10:38Speaker 3: It just depends kind of on what genre I'm working with. Yeah,
- 10:43Speaker 3: I mean, I also just use Logic Pro.
- 10:48Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, yeah.
- 10:49Speaker 1: Yeah, because, you know, Bootsy Collins will start off with
- 10:51Speaker 1: that bass beat, too. So that's what really, you caught
- 10:54Speaker 1: my attention the very second you said that.
- 10:56Speaker 3: Uh-huh. Yeah, there's a, I'm actually, record this, there's a
- 11:06Speaker 3: project coming out, this guy, Navarez.
- 11:09Speaker 2: Yeah, I know Navarez.
- 11:10Speaker 3: Who works with Bill, works with Bill Frizzell.
- 11:13Speaker 2: I mean, sorry, Bill Laswell. Bill Laswell's really sick right now, so. Oh. Unfortunately. Unfortunately.
- 11:20Speaker 3: But anyway, his studio is still there, and I recorded
- 11:23Speaker 3: half of this record there, kind of in hopes that
- 11:26Speaker 3: maybe he would do some more remixing, but he's not
- 11:30Speaker 3: in shape to do that. But anyway, this other project,
- 11:33Speaker 3: this Navaras, we did one record already, but then another
- 11:38Speaker 3: one's coming out, and Bootsy actually played on.
- 11:41Speaker 2: Two tracks with me on it. Really? Really? He overdubbed
- 11:45Speaker 2: on it.
- 11:47Speaker 3: It was like riffs I came up with, and then
- 11:49Speaker 3: he played my riffs. So yeah, it's a bucket, super
- 11:55Speaker 3: bucket list thing for me.
- 11:57Speaker 1: Did you get to be in the studio with him
- 11:59Speaker 1: to see that big smile of his when he hits
- 12:01Speaker 1: those damn notes?
- 12:03Speaker 3: No, he overdubbed it from Cincinnati or wherever he is
- 12:08Speaker 3: that he lives.
- 12:08Speaker 2: But he really did a great job.
- 12:13Speaker 3: I've met him a couple of times and he's like,
- 12:16Speaker 3: he's such a great human being as far as I
- 12:18Speaker 3: can tell.
- 12:19Speaker 2: It's super nice.
- 12:21Speaker 1: How is, how is your creative spirit in the way
- 12:23Speaker 1: that it seems like this has been the summer of
- 12:25Speaker 1: this new thing that's called hip hop jazz, the fusion
- 12:29Speaker 1: of hip hop with jazz. Are you picking up on
- 12:31Speaker 1: that vibe at all?
- 12:33Speaker 2: I mean, I was involved with that in the nineties.
- 12:36Speaker 2: It was a big thing. I don't know. Is that bad? Oh,
- 12:39Speaker 2: my God. Dude, dude.
- 12:40Speaker 1: I mean, it is amazing. Because my favorite thing to
- 12:43Speaker 1: do is when I see somebody with buds on, I'll
- 12:45Speaker 1: sit there and I'll say, what are you listening to?
- 12:47Speaker 1: I'll interrupt them. I'm sorry. I'm just that guy. And
- 12:49Speaker 1: I mean, they could be on the street and I
- 12:51Speaker 1: see they got the buds on and they're bouncing that head.
- 12:53Speaker 1: As far as I'm concerned, they can share it with me, too.
- 12:55Speaker 1: And I'll sit there and I'll say, describe it for me.
- 12:57Speaker 1: What is it? What is it? And I heard hip
- 12:59Speaker 1: hop jazz a lot this past summer.
- 13:02Speaker 2: Interesting. What artists do you listen to?
- 13:07Speaker 1: Boy, that's where we would have to get that artiste
- 13:10Speaker 1: guy in here because that man can spout out those names.
- 13:13Speaker 1: And I sit there and I say, please just send
- 13:15Speaker 1: me a link. I'll go do the research on it.
- 13:18Speaker 1: And it's a different kind of collaboration. You've got a
- 13:20Speaker 1: radio guy who loves music and then you've got the
- 13:23Speaker 1: fans who really love music. the ones that really dig in.
- 13:27Speaker 1: And then you sit there and you collaborate together and
- 13:30Speaker 1: then create this connection that you just, you hope to
- 13:33Speaker 1: God it never breaks. So it's almost like a collaboration
- 13:36Speaker 1: post the band that came together for the collaboration.
- 13:41Speaker 3: In the 90s, I was really into hip hop. Listened
- 13:44Speaker 3: to it all the time. And then I wasn't, you know,
- 13:47Speaker 3: I'm a guitar player. How do I fit into this?
- 13:50Speaker 3: And then I read, there was an article recently the
- 13:55Speaker 3: paper is this guy charlie hunter and played with uh
- 14:00Speaker 3: disposable heroes of hypocrisy and i hadn't met charlie you
- 14:05Speaker 3: know charlie hunter is right i do i do and
- 14:08Speaker 3: uh said wow this guy's really doing he's like hip-hop
- 14:13Speaker 3: guitar player and then uh i met him we got
- 14:17Speaker 3: to be friends and then we.
- 14:20Speaker 2: Yeah. I was playing at that time.
- 14:21Speaker 3: There was all these like hip hop jazz groups in
- 14:24Speaker 3: the Bay area where I'm from, like a group called
- 14:27Speaker 3: alphabet soup.
- 14:28Speaker 2: And then, uh, I know that band.
- 14:30Speaker 3: I played with, uh, midnight voices was a band I
- 14:33Speaker 3: played in and then, uh, disposable hip heroes of hypocrisy,
- 14:39Speaker 3: which became spearhead.
- 14:42Speaker 2: And, uh, anyway, there's a lot of that going on.
- 14:46Speaker 3: And, uh, Charlie and I started a band called TJ Kirk,
- 14:50Speaker 3: which ended up being way, way different than just like
- 14:54Speaker 3: a funk group.
- 14:59Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 14:59Speaker 3: So that's interesting that it's, it's happening again, which I mean,
- 15:03Speaker 3: it's a, it seems like a natural thing, but back then,
- 15:06Speaker 3: you know, it was, it was sampling. It was like,
- 15:08Speaker 3: you know, Tribe Called Quest and groups like that, that
- 15:12Speaker 3: would sample really great.
- 15:14Speaker 1: See, that was one of the reasons why I would
- 15:16Speaker 1: go into certain music stores, especially Tower Records, and I
- 15:19Speaker 1: would go, I need to know where your concept albums are.
- 15:21Speaker 1: And only a few people would even know what a
- 15:24Speaker 1: concept album is. And they would take me back into
- 15:27Speaker 1: that section, and that's what I would purchase. Because to me,
- 15:30Speaker 1: that's where the exploration was. It was a concept. Okay,
- 15:34Speaker 1: we're going to try this. Let's just go ahead and
- 15:35Speaker 1: get it down. And Eric Johnson was just unbelievable on
- 15:39Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. He would always do a concept.
- 15:41Speaker 1: He was never really released, but it was a concept.
- 15:47Speaker 3: Yeah, that goes over pretty well. I think people like
- 15:52Speaker 3: to have a story.
- 15:53Speaker 2: Yep.
- 15:55Speaker 3: For me, I'm just writing music most of the time.
- 16:00Speaker 3: But yeah, for like the group we had with Charlie
- 16:03Speaker 3: Hunter was called TJ Kirk.
- 16:05Speaker 2: Originally it was called James T. Kirk.
- 16:09Speaker 3: But it was the music of James Brown, Thelonious Monk,
- 16:11Speaker 3: and Rosson Roland Kirk.
- 16:13Speaker 2: And we would mash it together.
- 16:15Speaker 1: Did you do it on the three beat like James
- 16:17Speaker 1: Brown did?
- 16:18Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we did James Brown stuff and then
- 16:23Speaker 3: we added Thelonious Monk melodies over it and then we'd
- 16:25Speaker 3: go to a.
- 16:29Speaker 2: Different song.
- 16:31Speaker 3: We did a lot of crazy stuff and we did
- 16:33Speaker 3: a couple of records.
- 16:34Speaker 2: On Warner Brothers. And we toured around a bit. Wow. Wow.
- 16:41Speaker 2: But TJ Kirk, you can check it out.
- 16:44Speaker 3: We had to change it to TJ Kirk when we
- 16:47Speaker 3: got signed to a label because they didn't want to
- 16:50Speaker 3: use James T.
- 16:51Speaker 2: Kirk. Yeah, I could see that.
- 16:53Speaker 1: Please don't move. We'll be right back with Will Bernard.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Exploring music. Exploring those who make the music. We are
- 17:02Speaker 1: back with Will Bernard. It reminds me so much of
- 17:05Speaker 1: the days that even when Kool and the Gang, before
- 17:07Speaker 1: they started adding vocals, I mean, they were a jazz band.
- 17:10Speaker 1: And I feel like that we have re-entered that stage,
- 17:13Speaker 1: which is totally setting us up for another music movement. Because,
- 17:17Speaker 1: I mean, from that jazz band, from Kool and the
- 17:20Speaker 1: Gang and everybody else that was doing it at the time,
- 17:23Speaker 1: I mean, it's like something happened. And then they took
- 17:26Speaker 1: another chance, added vocals. Okay, took another chance. Now we've
- 17:29Speaker 1: added more guitars. We've added this. And then we went
- 17:31Speaker 1: into an entirely different music movement.
- 17:35Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, true.
- 17:36Speaker 3: I mean, it's all liquid, and it doesn't always stay
- 17:45Speaker 3: in the boundaries, thankfully. But yeah, I mean, there's groups
- 17:52Speaker 3: like this group Lettuce, and there's a lot of groups
- 17:59Speaker 3: that are a little bit younger than the scene I
- 18:02Speaker 3: was in that were kind of listening to what we
- 18:04Speaker 3: were doing.
- 18:06Speaker 2: Back then you know.
- 18:09Speaker 1: When you have a song like mystic change what was
- 18:11Speaker 1: that like to put together inside the studio because that
- 18:14Speaker 1: one right there once again that one of the things
- 18:15Speaker 1: that fascinates me about you is the way that you
- 18:17Speaker 1: love to explore.
- 18:19Speaker 3: His name is skerrick he's not he's a guy i've
- 18:23Speaker 3: known since the 90s um yeah he had a um
- 18:30Speaker 3: he had a group called critters buggin with uh matt
- 18:35Speaker 3: chamberlain who became one of the LA's most popular session
- 18:41Speaker 3: drummers and Mike Dillon and Brad Houser I think who's
- 18:48Speaker 3: not around anymore anyway it was a really.
- 18:53Speaker 2: They were very they were a very.
- 18:55Speaker 3: Experimental but funky group from Seattle and so I've you
- 19:02Speaker 3: know I've been he's a guy I've been in touch
- 19:04Speaker 3: with for all these years and We play sporadically. You know,
- 19:09Speaker 3: we end up usually playing down at Jazz Fest in
- 19:12Speaker 3: New Orleans. I'll go to Seattle and play with those guys.
- 19:20Speaker 2: Sometimes.
- 19:23Speaker 3: But, yeah, he's a very creative, interesting guy. He plays
- 19:26Speaker 3: with Les Claypool, you know.
- 19:27Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Him coming from that Seattle area, every time that
- 19:32Speaker 1: I ever hear of that, any type of funk or
- 19:34Speaker 1: any kind of a dance beat like that from Seattle,
- 19:36Speaker 1: it takes me to Sir Mix-a-Lot, who, for some reason,
- 19:40Speaker 1: he got all the credit for bringing hip-hop to that area.
- 19:44Speaker 1: I mean, was he inspired by Sir Mix-a-Lot, or was
- 19:46Speaker 1: he well after the musician?
- 19:50Speaker 2: Who's that? Skarek? Yeah. I'm sure he was inspired by him.
- 19:58Speaker 3: I mean, he was kind of more in the alternative scene, like,
- 20:06Speaker 3: you know, like those alt-rock bands from the Northwest, um,
- 20:11Speaker 3: whose names I'm escaping, escaping, you know, like Soundgarden.
- 20:15Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
- 20:16Speaker 3: Um, what's another, what's another, not Nirvana, but yeah, I mean,
- 20:24Speaker 3: he played with a bunch of those guys. So he's
- 20:27Speaker 3: kind of like goes into the rock territory and uses
- 20:31Speaker 3: a lot of effects on his saxophone. um, So, you know,
- 20:38Speaker 3: so he's kind of, but he can do, he's one
- 20:41Speaker 3: of those guys that kind of fit in anywhere.
- 20:44Speaker 1: So now then, are you thinking of them when you're
- 20:47Speaker 1: putting a piece of music together? Because I read somewhere that,
- 20:49Speaker 1: that when you're writing, you're actually thinking of who you're
- 20:52Speaker 1: going to be creating with.
- 20:55Speaker 3: Well, that again was an overdub. He was in Seattle
- 20:58Speaker 3: and overdubbed his parts. And I mean, I, the rhythm section,
- 21:08Speaker 3: you know, like there's a few, it's like the special guests, Skarek,
- 21:14Speaker 3: Robert Walter, John Medesky, those guys, uh, overdubbed, you know, from.
- 21:21Speaker 2: Not from here, from different areas.
- 21:24Speaker 3: Robert lives in Los Angeles, but, um, yeah, the main,
- 21:33Speaker 3: the main rhythm section and most of the, Songs, you know,
- 21:37Speaker 3: I definitely was thinking of the people that were.
- 21:43Speaker 2: Playing.
- 21:43Speaker 3: You know, everybody, yeah, of course I'm thinking about them,
- 21:46Speaker 3: but the main songs that I'm thinking, what would be
- 21:49Speaker 3: a good.
- 21:50Speaker 2: Song for Skarik to play on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 21:54Speaker 3: It was kind of more how I looked at it,
- 21:55Speaker 3: you know, and then I left Room on the track for.
- 22:00Speaker 2: Somebody, you know, for him to play on.
- 22:03Speaker 1: That'd be like with Henry Hay when you're doing Silent Partner.
- 22:07Speaker 2: Henry was in the studio.
- 22:09Speaker 1: Oh, that's a blessing.
- 22:14Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
- 22:15Speaker 3: I live in Brooklyn and there's a studio about 20
- 22:17Speaker 3: blocks from me. This guy, Craig Dwyer, excellent player.
- 22:25Speaker 2: He ended up, we did half of.
- 22:27Speaker 3: The record there or part of the record there and part.
- 22:30Speaker 2: Of Bill Aswell's studio.
- 22:31Speaker 3: But Craig ended up mixing it as well. But yeah,
- 22:39Speaker 3: Henry doesn't live too far away, so I get to
- 22:42Speaker 3: play with him.
- 22:44Speaker 1: And of course, as a listener, I'm sitting there thinking, well,
- 22:47Speaker 1: they were putting this song together. They had to have
- 22:49Speaker 1: been dancing around in that studio because I can't keep
- 22:52Speaker 1: myself still now, so they must have been feeling it
- 22:54Speaker 1: before I felt it.
- 22:55Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, that's maybe my favorite track from Mystic Change.
- 23:01Speaker 2: Oh, wow. It's just somehow it came together really nicely. Yeah.
- 23:09Speaker 2: I like my guitar solo on there.
- 23:11Speaker 3: Scarix, you know, his stuff sounds great on there.
- 23:17Speaker 2: And the drums and bass sound amazing.
- 23:21Speaker 1: Do you see a movement going back to the guitar?
- 23:23Speaker 1: Because it seems like anything that's coming up on my
- 23:25Speaker 1: social media anymore is guitars, guitars, guitars, guitars. And I
- 23:29Speaker 1: sit there and I think, finally, are we moving away
- 23:31Speaker 1: from Imagine Dragons and we're going to finally get some
- 23:33Speaker 1: guitars here? what's your question sorry so basically it's like
- 23:39Speaker 1: we've gone through such an edm and electronic age over
- 23:42Speaker 1: the past 10 years it's like but yet all of
- 23:45Speaker 1: these videos that keep coming up on my social media
- 23:47Speaker 1: guitar guitar guitar and it's like yes bring it i
- 23:51Speaker 1: want to hear that guitar i want to go to
- 23:53Speaker 1: a concert where i where i get to feel what
- 23:56Speaker 1: that guitarist is doing on that stage.
- 23:59Speaker 3: Okay yeah cool I mean, it didn't seem like there's
- 24:03Speaker 3: any shortage of guitar players, that's for sure.
- 24:07Speaker 2: A lot of really great ones.
- 24:09Speaker 3: Here in New York, it's just insane how many great
- 24:13Speaker 3: players there are.
- 24:14Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite that you jam out with
- 24:17Speaker 1: or one that you would like to work with? Because
- 24:18Speaker 1: I would love to hear you work with somebody like
- 24:20Speaker 1: John 5.
- 24:22Speaker 2: I don't know who that is.
- 24:23Speaker 1: John five is he was he has a history well
- 24:28Speaker 1: before Motley Crue. He's the dude that took over Mick
- 24:30Speaker 1: Mars and Motley Crue. And so and it's like and so,
- 24:34Speaker 1: of course, the radio guy in me has to go
- 24:35Speaker 1: and do the research and get real Snoopy ass on him.
- 24:38Speaker 1: and try to figure out where he's come from. And
- 24:41Speaker 1: all he really promotes is that if you're in your bedroom,
- 24:45Speaker 1: learn how to do it, master it, do it, make
- 24:47Speaker 1: it happen, do what you feel, have that emotion come
- 24:50Speaker 1: out of you, and use that guitar as your language
- 24:52Speaker 1: if that's exactly what you've got to do. And it's like,
- 24:54Speaker 1: isn't that what we all do in our bedrooms with
- 24:57Speaker 1: that damn guitar before somebody finally sees us?
- 25:02Speaker 2: Yes, I mean.
- 25:04Speaker 3: did a lot of that for sure. Um, yeah, I mean, there's,
- 25:12Speaker 3: who would I want to play? Like, uh, guys I admire,
- 25:16Speaker 3: like Nels Klein is a guy I admire a lot. Um,
- 25:23Speaker 3: you know, there's guys like John Schofield and Bill Frizzell
- 25:26Speaker 3: are way too busy to, uh, play with me, but, um,
- 25:33Speaker 3: John Schofield, yeah.
- 25:35Speaker 2: Yes, yeah.
- 25:37Speaker 1: See, all of these names look very familiar, or sound familiar,
- 25:39Speaker 1: only because I read about them. And that's the thing
- 25:42Speaker 1: about it, is that if there's print on them, we
- 25:45Speaker 1: gotta go find them. And then we gotta start digging
- 25:47Speaker 1: and find out what their actual, what somebody used to
- 25:49Speaker 1: call it. There was a gentleman that used to call
- 25:51Speaker 1: it the family tree. That if we sat there and
- 25:53Speaker 1: we really did a family tree on every piece of music,
- 25:56Speaker 1: that listeners would have a new respect for sound.
- 25:59Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's It's definitely a family tree around.
- 26:05Speaker 3: That's the nice thing about being musicians is, you know,
- 26:10Speaker 3: all the connections.
- 26:13Speaker 2: That you have.
- 26:15Speaker 3: Last night I played with this guy, Josh Roseman, who's
- 26:19Speaker 3: a trombone player, and.
- 26:21Speaker 2: He has this project.
- 26:26Speaker 3: This project is funded by one of the founders of,
- 26:30Speaker 3: I think it's Oracle. So he's got these studios where
- 26:35Speaker 3: he can do really experimental music, and we played last night,
- 26:40Speaker 3: and it was really fun just to play with musicians
- 26:44Speaker 3: that are just playing for the music part, you know,
- 26:49Speaker 3: not necessarily trying to care whether they're filling a club or.
- 27:00Speaker 2: getting numbers on some kind of chart or something. Exactly.
- 27:06Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always wondered about that. How has the algorithm
- 27:10Speaker 1: changed the face of a live performance? Because a lot
- 27:14Speaker 1: of comedians will tell me, well, I can't do this
- 27:17Speaker 1: because research shows the algorithm says that market doesn't like
- 27:20Speaker 1: this and this. And I'm going, oh, my God. Whatever
- 27:23Speaker 1: happened to just do it? Just do your thing. Feel
- 27:25Speaker 1: that audience as you grow with them.
- 27:28Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 27:31Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm always kind of more in that camp,
- 27:38Speaker 3: you know, rather than I'm not a good algorithm.
- 27:42Speaker 2: Guy, probably.
- 27:43Speaker 3: But people like the music that I'm really excited about that.
- 27:47Speaker 2: That's great. So true.
- 27:49Speaker 1: Where can people find more information about you and everything
- 27:53Speaker 1: that you're doing? Because I want them to go love
- 27:55Speaker 1: the music, but I also want them to follow the musician.
- 27:58Speaker 1: I want it to be on the tip of people's tongues.
- 28:00Speaker 1: and bring out your name and, and say, have you heard,
- 28:03Speaker 1: have you heard that? That to me is so exciting for,
- 28:06Speaker 1: for me as well as the musician.
- 28:09Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'm on, I'm, I'm on most of these sites.
- 28:13Speaker 3: I'm on, uh, you know, I have a website, will Bernard.com.
- 28:16Speaker 2: And then I'm on, uh, Facebook.
- 28:19Speaker 3: I have two Facebook pages, one, you know, more, more
- 28:24Speaker 3: of the band page and one, uh, more of the
- 28:26Speaker 3: personal one. But then I have, uh, instagram will bernard
- 28:32Speaker 3: music there's band camp which is a great it's a
- 28:35Speaker 3: good one place to hear music yep and all my
- 28:38Speaker 3: stuff is on band camp so i support that because
- 28:42Speaker 3: it's more music musician friendly like uh we actually might
- 28:49Speaker 3: make money if people purchase music from there rather than
- 28:53Speaker 3: listen to spotify or a you know, Apple music, but
- 28:58Speaker 3: I'm on all those other platforms as well.
- 29:02Speaker 2: So, um, you can go find me. I love it.
- 29:07Speaker 1: Well, you got to come back to this show anytime
- 29:08Speaker 1: in the future. And if you come down here to
- 29:10Speaker 1: one of our jazz fest in the Carolinas, we got
- 29:11Speaker 1: to get together for a face to face.
- 29:15Speaker 2: Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. North Carolina. Yeah.
- 29:18Speaker 3: That's actually Charlie Hunter was living in North Carolina for
- 29:23Speaker 3: quite some time, but I don't know if he ever, Yeah.
- 29:29Speaker 1: We've got we've got a few jazz bars here. And
- 29:32Speaker 1: then we used to have the big jazz fest. And
- 29:34Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where it's like, you know,
- 29:37Speaker 1: it's got to kick up again because, you know, people
- 29:39Speaker 1: just come from everywhere. everywhere because it's such a centralized
- 29:41Speaker 1: area where you can come from any state and use
- 29:44Speaker 1: it as a hub city.
- 29:46Speaker 2: Where in North Carolina are you? Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte, right. Yeah.
- 29:50Speaker 2: I haven't been there in a long time.
- 29:54Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, I used to, I used to
- 29:57Speaker 3: be touring all over the states with various bands, but.
- 30:01Speaker 2: Lately, maybe you never know when that might happen again. Absolutely.
- 30:07Speaker 1: The evolution of sound. Just hold on for the ride.
- 30:10Speaker 1: We'll get you to the top of that roller coaster
- 30:12Speaker 1: and let's hit it again.
- 30:13Speaker 2: Sounds good.
- 30:15Speaker 1: Dude, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
- 30:17Speaker 1: The door is always going to be open for you.
- 30:21Speaker 2: Okay. Sounds great. Excellent, man.
- 30:22Speaker 1: Well, you be wonderful and have a brilliant day today, okay?
- 30:25Speaker 2: All right. You too.