skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Steve,
Re: JPJ interview
I think the most important issue that you yet haven't touched upon is the potential reunion with Page and Plant and his thinking about why he was left out in the past.
Kind regards,
Peter
Stockholm, Sweden
John Paul Jones and I did spend some time on Dec. 10, 2001, talking about whether a Led Zeppelin reunion would be possible.
Each and every day since John Bonham died, there has been in some form or another, a rumor that Page, Plant and Jones would carry on. That's what everybody wants to know, and so the question was inevitable. I knew it, and Jones knew it.
But I felt uneasy talking about that subject with him because his mind is not really in that place at all. In the interview's second hour, I asked him flat out, "Is there going to be another Led Zeppelin reunion?" He shook his head and said nothing. I rephrased the question for him, and he said:
"While I don't have a problem with it, I don't think we could go back in time and re-tour what wouldn't be Led Zeppelin anyway, apart from the fact that there aren't enough of us to make a Led Zeppelin reunion. We're all different people now anyway."
That seemed like a definitive answer to me, and I felt like the subject was impossible. But I persisted with asking a more specific question. I told him that one of my readers had suggested a reunion with Jones, Page, Plant and drummer Jason Bonham on a high-profile, televised concert, for instance, the Super Bowl half-time show.
The idea of reuniting for a show like that was just foreign to Jones. He responded, "But why? For what reason? For the money?"
Then I echoed to him what I hear every day from people who receive my newsletter: that people of every age want to see Led Zeppelin live again, particularly those who were too young to see it in the past.
He said, "What happens if we did it and we disappointed them all? We wouldn't want that." I had almost no response to that, and he finished it off by saying, "The time has passed."
In November, I posed the question to my readers: "What should I ask John Paul Jones?" A number of people said I should ask where he intended to tour in the future. That question came from all over. Folks in Mexico want him to come to Mexico. Those in New Zealand hopes he visits their part of the world.
I asked him such questions during the interview on Dec. 10, 2001. I asked about those individual places, and each time he said, "I'd like to, certainly." He said that he wanted "terribly to play Mexico and South America too, places I've never played before."
In the past, his solo tours were limited to parts of Europe and the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States and Canada. Jones indicated that he hopes he will cover new ground in the future, but he stated that it is not all up to him.
"People say, 'Do you do this for the money?' What money?" he said, laughing. "It's very expensive to tour." He used the term "budget touring" several times throughout the interview to refer to the ways in which he cuts down the substantial costs of the road. "I just can't play big enough places to pay wages," he said. "It's as simple as that. It costs a lot of money to go and get all this stuff on the road."
Jones used Detroit as an example. His 1999 and 2000 U.S. tours had overlooked this Michigan city, but he was finally able to perform in the Motor City on Dec. 1, 2001. He opened for King Crimson at the Royal Oak Theatre. "It was a killer show, really a great show," he told me. "I thought, man, now maybe they'll ask me back!"
He was, of course, joking about having to be invited back to Detroit. He explained, "I have all these good people at my site saying, 'Why didn't you come to Detroit?' I can't tell them that nobody wants me in Detroit. People think you can choose where you go."
At any rate, Jones should soon be touring to support the release of his new album, The Thunderthief. Although nothing official has yet been announced, the Led Zeppelin newsletter will alert you when new dates are available.
I've spoken with Hugh Manson, who makes Jones' electric instruments and looks over them on tour. He hinted to me that Jones may be bringing to his future concerts a new instrument built by Hugh's brother and partner, Andy. A triple-neck arch-top mandolin could pop up on the next tour. The instrument's curved top joins the three necks: a mandolin, mandola and a bass mandolin. Jones used it on his new album for an instrumental cover of the traditional folk song "Down to the River to Pray."
SPS: What different managers have you had since 1980?
JPJ: I just had two. I had nobody for a while. I had Peter [Grant] for a while, but I didn’t see much of him, and he turned out to be in sort of a strange period at that time. So I got managed in the mid ’80s with Brian Eno’s management, which was Opal Entertainment. Then around the beginning of the ’90s, they kind of wound down, so I got Opium. …Great eccentrics and wonderful people in the English music scene.
SPS: What drew you to Discipline Global Mobile? That’s tough to say [to pronounce].
JPJ: It is, it is. I just really like the ethic. I kind of wondered whether I should go to a major [label] and just didn’t… was disheartened with the whole music scene, which was one of the reasons I really didn’t want to … "Where’s the singer? Where’s the singer?" And we were looking for an outlet really, and [manager] Richard [Chadwick] just said to me, "I just found this label, Discipline. It’s a strange one but strange ideas." And I read all about it, and I thought, "It’s a great one!" The artists have their own work? It’s indefensible that they don’t own their work? I liked it. And they had really good distribution to small key distributors who like the music, and all. And I thought, "This is the place for me!" OK, so you don’t get the big contract. There’s no price to pay working with … But you gotta do the work and you don’t get, you know, there’s no big advances. You have to do a lot of stuff yourself, but you do what you like. Make all the records you like. So I just like that style of approach for it. This is for me.
SPS: What influence has Robert Fripp had on you musically?
JPJ: Probably only his commitment, I suppose.
Two other portions of the interview not included in these 22 transcript segments include:
SPS: How about some of the stuff that you did, like with "Easy," with Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana, that you recorded last year [in 2000].
JPJ: Oh, for the Sun Records thing.
SPS: Yeah. Whatever happened with that?
JPJ: Not a clue.
SPS: It’s just, you’re gonna be on, you’re gonna be on, [clap] you’re not on?
JPJ: Yeah. Yeah, and it was good too, but, you know…
SPS: "I Ain’t Got the Blues," that you recorded for The Thunderthief?
JPJ: I didn’t think it was good enough.
SPS: No? Might it come out?
JPJ: No. I don’t think. The song was good, but [I] didn’t like the performance as much. If it doesn’t get past me, it doesn’t get on the record. [laughing]
SPS: How about "Fanfare for the Millennium"? It came out on the Japanese edition of Zooma.
JPJ: That’s right, yes.
SPS: But we didn’t get it over here.
JPJ: Yeah, well… See, the Japanese thing is very strange because I think it’s to do… I think it’s the fact that if everything’s released at the same time everywhere, by the time it gets to Japan – because of their distribution or whatever, just the sheer distances – it arrives in Japan like weeks after it’s released everywhere else. So then everybody who orders it in Japan, it’s actually cheaper if you get the money for it, they buy the imports. In order to stop this, the Japanese record companies will not release it unless they get A.) either an extra track or B.) have it early. And what happened on The Thunderthief is that we had it set up… This particular record I both recorded and mixed, so I did everything, and I just ran past the deadline, and they’d done all the work on the promotion and everything in Japan. Of course it was gonna come up early anyway, and then I missed the deadline for that... So we said release it now or we’ll never hear from them again, because they simply won’t stop it short. That’s what happens. You know, when all the Christmas stuff comes ... then you get completely swamped. So I said, "Well, we know…" We couldn’t stop the Japan record, the Japanese release, because they’d done all the work. We couldn’t say, "Sorry, guys, stop and do it again." Now, if I were Prince or Michael Jackson, I could do it, but I’m not. [laughing] So what happened is…
SPS: But to me, you’re better than them.
JPJ: Thank you. So what happened is this got put forward until after Christmas, you know, in February, where in Japan it had been released already. [laughing] I guess you just have to live with it. But "Fanfare for the Millennium" I really liked! I thought it was a great piece.
SPS: Were there other ones that you recorded for Zooma that didn’t come out?
JPJ: No.
SPS: What made you want to include vocals on The Thunderthief, the album?
JPJ: Well, as you probably know, I’ve always said that I didn’t want a person on lead vocals, all of it. And I didn’t want to rewrite Zooma. I had this idea that instead of having the riffs as the melody, which was …, I thought I would have the riff and the melody on top. … Then I suddenly thought, "I’m missing…" I really wanted the sound of the voice. I even made the sound of the voice in "Grind" on Zooma, just sampled, because I like the sound of it. So I thought as if I was cheating myself, not using the voice. I still believed I didn’t want a guest singer because suddenly the singer … It’s like walking a dog. All of a sudden, he becomes the producer and I’d end up … So I thought, I can do it. [laughing] So in fact, Peter Blegvad came to me, the singer-songwriter who also did the artwork. And he also handed me lyrics that he hadn’t set to music. And he gave me two, one called "The Thunderthief" and one called "Ice Fishing at Night." And I put them to music and just tried to experiment to sing on them, and if I liked it, I’d put it on. And I thought it was OK. ... And I thought, "I’ve tried singing, now I’ll try lyric writing!" [laughs] So I tried it, and it was great fun! Got the word processor going, and "Ah, this isn’t so bad!" You look up, and you’ve written three verses. "Oh, OK, that’s all right!" ...
SPS: I was gonna say, "Nosumi Blues" – am I pronouncing that right, "No SUE me?"
JPJ: Yeah.
SPS: OK. What’s that title mean?
JPJ: It’s just a laugh, isn’t it? The idea came –
SPS: Don’t sue me?
JPJ: No! You can’t sue me! It’s… Apple had a sound. Do you know much about Apple computers?
SPS: Uh…
JPJ: Well, anyway, it’s a long story. I love these long, winding stories.
SPS: Go ahead.
JPJ: What actually happened was that Apple, when they first were called Apple, came up against the Beatles’ publishing company, and the Beatles said they could use the name Apple provided that they made no music at all. [laughing] OK, so, I mean… that’s kind of ridiculous. Apples don’t have MIDI, which is one of the most frustrating things to musicians.
SPS: That’s why!
JPJ: Yeah, I know. I said… [Screaming:] I cannot even begin to tell you, I cannot even come close, still I am up against the fact that Apple doesn’t have any proper MIDI drivers. And it just drives me mad that it wastes months of studio time sorting this out and that out, this isn’t compatible with that, that doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, time is running out, furious about that! So Apple came out with an alert, what it was was a simple [sings:] "Bonnnng." And it was only used as an alert, and they called it "Sosumi."
SPS: [Laughing] Yeah.
JPJ: S-O-S-U-M-I. And I just remembered it when I was looking for a title for the blues, and I said this isn’t really a blues. It’s come from nowhere except in the blues tradition. So I called it "Nosumi Blues." [Laughing] I don’t know how many people got it, but I didn’t care. I liked it. [Laughing]
SPS: I’d always wondered about that. Now how about "Shibuya Bop"?
JPJ: "Shibuya Bop." That’s much more prosaic. I just, I was walking around Shibuya [in Tokyo] on the last tour, and it just… I heard this techno track around the doorway, and I thought, "Geez, what was that?" And all these people around were just … the intensity of it, a really intense track… and so that’s where that came from. [laughing]
SPS: You did some stuff [in Spain] in about ’89-’91. What was that all about?
JPJ: It was a Catalon theatre group called La Fura Dels Baus, and basically they were debuting this strange, strange show. … It was all deeply conceptual. It was not like our chaos, but it has some similarities. But anyway, they had musicians along with the show, and they based the show on the music. They actually came in and made some fantastic flamenco music as well. And I produced the album. ...
SPS: And you coordinated a whole cultural expo show in Seville?
JPJ: Oh, yes, the Memory Palace, that was produced, but that was different.
SPS: That was the next year or two [1991 and 1992].
JPJ: Yeah.
SPS: It was a government-organized cultural affair.
JPJ: That’s right. We had four sets of composers. I had two Spanish sets of composers, an American set – Tom and Andy – and I did … for the English side, and I coordinated and produced the whole hour. We spent two months… And it was great! A huge quadraphonic system set up and … "Ah, yeah, we should mix like this." It’s a great sound! Imagine a sort of deep, lone, computer-generated … and songs [inaudible].
SPS: How’d you get that gig?
JPJ: That was through having worked with La Fura. ...
Posts
