When we was fab (5)
Xuño 30, 2008 | Filed Under Life, Music | Leave a Comment
GW: With digital recording today you can also do an infinite number of guitar solos. Back then, did taking another pass at a solo require redoing almost the entire song?
Harrison: Almost. I remember doing the solo to “Something” and it was dark in the studio and everyone was stoned. But Ringo, I think, was also doing a drum overdub on the same track, and I seem to remember the others were all busy playing. And every time I sad, “Alright, let’s try another take” - because I was working it out and trying to make it better - they all had to come back and redo whatever they’d just played on the last overdub. It all had to be squeezed onto that one track, because we’d used up the other seven. That’s why, after laying down the basic track, we’d work out the whole routine in advance and get the sound and balance. You’d try and add as much as possible to each track before you ran out of room. On one track we might go, “Okay, here the tambourine comes in, then Paul, you come in at the bridge with the piano and then I’ll add the guitar riff.” And that’s the way we used to work.
GW: “Something” was your most successful song. I think every guitar player wonders, did you get that riff first?
Harrison: No, I wrote the song on the piano. I don’t really play the piano, which is why certain chords sound brilliant to me - then I translate them onto the guitar, and it’s only C. [laughs] I was playing three-finger chords with my right hand and the bass notes with my left hand. And on the piano, it’s easy to hold down one chord and move the bass note down. If you did that on the guitar, the note change wouldn’t come in the bass section, it would come somewhere more in the middle of the chord.
GW: But you did play that Beatles-sounding bridge riff in “Badge” on Cream’s “Goodbye” album, didn’t you?
Harrison: No, Eric played that! He doesn’t even play on the song before that. We recorded the track in L.A.: it was Eric, plus Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, and I think the producer, Felix Pappalardi, played the piano part. I was just playing chops on the guitar chords and we went right through the second verse and into the bridge, which is where Eric comes in. Again, it sounds Beatles-ish because we ran it through a Leslie speaker.
GW: Any contemporary bands that strike you as having a bit of the same spark that your early heroes had?
Harrison: I can’t say I’ve really heard anything that gives me a buzz like some of that stuff we did in the Fifties and Sixties. The last band I really enjoyed was Dire Straits on the “Brothers in Arms” album. To me, that was good music played well, without any of the bullshit. Now I’m starting to get influenced by my teenage son, who’s into everything and has the attitude. He loves some of the old stuff, like Hendrix, and he’s got a leather jacket with Cream’s “Disraeli Gears” album painted on the back. As for recent groups, he played me the Black Crowes, and they really sounded okay.
GW: You made music that awoke and changed the world. Could you sense that special dimension of it all while it was happening, or were you lost in the middle of it?
Harrison: A combination of both, I think. Lost in the middle of it - not knowing a thing - and at the same time somehow knowing everything. Around the time of “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” it was like I had a sudden flash, and it all seemed to be happening for some real purpose. The main thing for me was having the realization that there was definitely some reason for being here. And now the rest of my life as a person and a musician is about finding out what that reason is, and how to build upon it.
GW: Finally, any recent acid flashbacks you care to share?
Harrison: [laughs] No, no, that doesn’t happen to me anymore. I’ve got my own cosmic lighting conductor now. Nature supports me