Robin Trower Interview

Recorded 7/23/94 backstage at The Ballpark, Old Orchard Beach, Maine

SC: How's the tour going?

RT: Great, Yeah. Pretty good.

 

SC: That's great...

SC: I don't have your whole album collection, although I'm still working on it. As a matter of fact, in my younger days, what little I heard of you (on the radio) was from the same couple of albums and at the time, I wasn't really paying attention. Between that and the current lack of concise information about you and your long career, some of my questions may seem quite lame to you. I hope you forgive any lack of insight that I may have when I ask questions and understand that I have nothing but the utmost respect for you and your music. With that said, I guess we can get on with it. Okay?

RT: Yeah.

SC: I've noticed on the older stuff-from '73 to '78 your sound was basically consistent. You were working with Bill Lordan and James Dewar...

RT: "Well, the first couple of albums, Reg Isidore was the drummer."

SC: The point I'm trying to make is that your style seems to stay consistent depending on who you're working with. D' you see what I'm saying?

RT: "Yeah, yeah."

SC: Is that because of the people you're playing with, or the musical direction you chose to take at that point?

RT: "Ah, well, I mean, I think I went through my most radical changes with Jimmy and Bill from back to the sort of three piece blues/rock thing into like "In City Dreams" and stuff like that which is more of a blues, straight out and out, rhythm and blues stuff. Ah, and then back again with "Victims Of The Fury" which was more back to the blues/rock thing. So it doesn't really line up, what you're saying about your saying about it being consistent about the players, I think the most radical changes came while I was still working with the same guys."

SC: 'Cause for instance, "Take What You Need" or "Back It Up..."

RT: "Yeah"

SC: "Take What You Need" was more of a lighter rock album...

RT: "Yeah, It was more rock than blues at the time. I think a lot of that was due to the sort of pressure from the record company and management."

SC: I kinda figured as much.

RT: "Yeah, which was, y'know, the whole idea of having my own label now and making the record myself, is that with this record I'm able to do exactly what I want to do."

SC: What did you do between '78 and '80 after "Caravan To Midnight" ? There wasn't really much recorded output from you.

RT: I think the next thing I did was "Victims Of The Fury," yeah."I can't remember... (laughs) I wasn't working very much obviously."

SC: Jeff Beck works on antique cars to the point that he bangs up his knuckles so can't play the guitar anymore. What do you do with your spare time?

RT: "Ah, well, most of my spare time off is spent with my family, y'know basically that. I mean five years off from about '80 to '85 or '81 to '86, I just spent some time with the kids really, that's the main other thing that I do, y'know, apart from the music.

SC: Where do you live?

RT: "At the moment, I live in Essex, in England."

SC: I was working in a record store from '83 to '85 and I remember when "Back It Up" came out and then you disappeared shorty thereafter.

RT: "Yeah well, I did two albums with Jack Bruce during that time off..."

SC: Yeah, BLT.

RT: "It was a great experience, but I wasn't very happy with it. In fact I can look at all the stuff through the '80s and sort of say that, ah, it was a brave attempt to do something and I ended up not being very happy with it."

SC: And from '85, I found an album in the cut-out bin somewhere, there was a live album on Passport...

RT: "That's right, "Beyond The Mist", yeah.

SC: I listened to that last night as a matter of fact. That album featured Dave Bronze on vocals, not James Dewar.

RT: "Yeah, James Dewar sang on "Back It Up" and then we parted ways."

SC: Have you ever done a guest appearance on anyone else's album?

RT: "Ah, well, I've played a little bit for Brian Ferry, but I've just done something for ah, what they call a"symphonic rock" version of Procol Harum that was quite nice. It was interesting.

SC: Did you enjoy working with an orchestra?

RT: "Well, I didn't actually work with them, my parts were overdubs in the studio just to finish the track. It was great... really fantastic. I played on just one track, it was an instrumental called, "Repent Walpurgis," which is a piece of music off the first Procol Harum album. But it's a great version of it...a really, really great version."

SC: Why don't we talk about the new record. Why a blues album now?

RT: "Well, I've promised myself for twenty years that one day I would do a blues album when I felt I was up to it , y'know, but when I started looking around at the material that was available, ah, all the great stuff has been used and abused to death basically, so in the end, I had to write my own material again which moved it away, I think, moved it quite a long way away from a real blues album. It became a more power blues kind of thing."

SC: Are you getting any air play?

RT: "We're getting a bit, I mean it's only been out a few weeks. We're getting a good response at all the shows. Obviously when we play on our own we get to play a lot more of our new material. On this part of the tour we only have a 45 minute set which makes it hard to expand on anything."

SC: Any chance of a live album from this tour?

RT: "No. I consider this album to be pretty much live because it was recorded live in the studio, y'know there's not much more to play than that."

SC: How 'bout another album with the same guys?

RT: "Oh yeah, I'm definitely considering another album, but that's a ways away. I want to promote this album in Europe, Japan and Australia, so that's a ways off yet. I've only just started to write new material, so it's a long ways off."

SC: I've noticed that you've been pretty consistent in releasing an album a year.

RT: "I have been on and off, obviously this is the first album in about four years."

SC: Yeah, in the early '70s you...

RT: "But that wasn't through choice, that was just pushed... Contracts, y'know. It's not the way to go. You can't really write that many good songs in a year. It took three years to come up with the material for this album. It's hard and it doesn't get any easier as you get older does it? You've done a lot of stuff already y'know... "

SC: Any chance for a video? MTV et al ?

RT: "There hasn't been any need at the moment. I think we'd have to get a bit more happening elsewhere before we went to that length unless there was a track picked up across the board in radio, if you know what I mean."

SC: How popular are you these days? I'm sure you've got a large core of fans...

RT: "How popular am I today? I don't think myself as being popular in so much as the audience recognition today, but I think of myself as having a fantastic reputation. Actually that's about it, y'know, other musicians tend to, sort of, think highly of what I do but, to get that to spill over into some sort of public recognition is another thing altogether."

SC: Yeah, Richard Thompson seems to have to same problem.

RT: "Usually people trying to do something perhaps a bit more creative or artistic in any way end up being not commercial, to put it in sort of cheap terms. You make a choice... You either go for the money or you're gonna go for the music. There are some who manage to straddle both, but it's rare."

SC: What do you think of the state of the music business/radio in general?

RT: "There's a lot of good stuff about insomuch as that at least we're getting away from that whole machined-up, over-produced stuff they used to call rock, at least now it's got a feeling of having a performance about it with Pearl Jam and stuff like that. But unfortunately, the more new bands I hear, the more I realize nobody's got a good idea. It all sounds the same. They've all grasped something from somewhere that's worked for somebody else. All these new acts sound very, very similar, y'know, it's very hard to tell them apart. But you recognize Pearl Jam because of the guy's voice. But instrumentally I think there's a lot of bands that actually sound like that. Unless you're really so into them that you can pick up on the guitar parts or sound or something. Taking it on that, I think that's the problem with it. It's become pretty much a sausage factory of an idea. I'm pleased that it's at least real performance. It sounds like people playing for real, rather than just lots of overdubbing, it's not all machined-up."

SC: Yeah, I can name four or five bands these days that sound quite similar and yet the record companies still record and release them while touting them as the next best thing since sliced bread.

RT: "That's the unfortunate side of music today. Record companies will only sign new acts that sound like stuff that's a hit already. I mean, it's not all negative, there's some positive sides to that. Although it's still not my cup of tea, I much prefer it to the sort of over produced rock that we were dragged through in the '80s. At least it's a bit more live, alive, it's a living thing. They're putting their heart and soul into it."

SC: I remember seeing Pearl Jam on MTV's "Unplugged" and that's what sold me on them. They can actually play their instruments.

RT: "There's a lot of good players out there but I don't think that making great music has anything to do with being a great player, y'know some of the guys that made some of the best music ever couldn't play worth a damn. It's all from in here. (points to his chest) Muddy Waters was not a great guitar player, but the noise he made with his guitar and his voice was just incredible. There's lots and lots of guys you wouldn't call players. But it isn't about that, it's the music that's created it's not about technique, technique is only something that allows you bring the music out from inside you.

SC: When you write songs do you write the lyrics first or...

RT: "Oh no. I have once or twice written a lyric first but it's always based on a guitar part."

SC: Is it some sort of riff you come up with or...

RT: "It's some sort of guitar thing that catches my ear or my fancy as it were."

SC: So you're just sittin' home on the couch with the kids running around...

RT: "No, I have a room that my gear's set up in. I play for my own amusement basically, it's a form of practice and looking for ideas as well at the same time really. I don't sit down specifically to write, I just sit and doodle as it were."

SC: What kind of equipment are you running your guitar through?

RT: "Wa-Wa, various makes of Wa-Wa's, I keep messing about, I've got three different makes that I kinda go between. Tube Screamer Classic, which is an imitation of the old tube amp from the '70s, and basically three Marshall 100 heads and 3 or 4 guitars.

SC: If I remember right there's only one song on the new album you didn't write?

RT: "That's right, it's one of my all-time favorite blues songs."

SC: "Reconsider, Baby" wasn't it?

RT: "Yeah."

SC: When you're writing your songs do you ever get any ideas from your family?

RT: "Well, all the lyrics are definitely part of what's happening to me. I say all of them, but, I can't say all of them really, a lot of the lyrics do come from part of what I'm into... a lot of them are very religious based..."

After answering this question, Robin's tour manager came in to escort him to the stage and I left the dressing room to join the faithful who stood in the pouring rain to watch his all too short 45-50 minute set. (Needless to say, he blew us all away!)

(Stephen Curtis)

© Dr. Rock'n'Roll
All Rights Reserved