RST – Where do you stand with Kantner these days, he seems like a warm guy, but then every once in a while I will read something that he said that’s completely confounding?
Jorma – I don’t really talk to Paul very much. I guess we’re friends. We’re probably friends when we don’t have to work together. I mean we’re all idiosyncratic guys, and Paul is certainly opinionated. There’s no question about it. Sometimes his opinions are confounding. I guess in my old age I’m just a much more conservative guy than he is, really, I don’t know. He is confounding sometimes.

RST – People talk about the fuzz guitar on the introduction of White Rabbit as the beginning of….

Jorma – Actually that’s not even a fuzz guitar.

RST – What was it?

Jorma – What was I playing? I was either playing a Guild Thunderbird, or a Gibson ES 345, just cranked through either the Standell, or whatever the Lovin’ Spoonful guys had, ‘cuz of course if they had one, I had to have one too (or a twin)! It was pre-fuzz tone, it was just what they do when you crank ‘em up, you know.

RST – But it’s credited by many as spawning a whole sound in rock ‘n roll guitar.

Jorma – I’ll take it! I don’t know if it’s true or not but….

RST – And then the whole thing about being lumped in with Cream and The Hendrix Experience, did you guys influence each other?

Jorma – I don’t know if I influenced them. I think there’s no question that Cream influenced me in many ways. I mean Hendrix is a superlative musician, but I really liked Clapton’s crisper kind of style better. I remember the first time Jack and I went and saw Cream live at the Fillmore. I really flipped. In fact, I went back to the Apartment that I had, and I took my Rickenbacker 12 string and threw it through a wall like a spear. I mean, thank God it didn’t break, because I sold it immediately thereafter. But I was like (in a voice mocking youthful petulance) “I’m done with this folk rock crap.” I still think it was one of the greatest performing bands I’ve ever seen.

RST – Do you have any memories from the 1989 Jefferson Airplane reunion tour?

Jorma – The ’89 Airplane tour was a real interesting thing for me, because I got reintroduced to the “music business” again. I saw some things that I liked and didn’t like about it. For whatever reasons, by the time the tour was over the band was just starting to gel. But I talked to a lot of people, guys that I know, that said, “I’m too young to have heard the Airplane in the days. I’m really glad to have heard you guys play those songs again.” So, I think that’s great. Personally, it so much less top-heavy to do the stuff that I do now. I don’t have to deal with six or seven other disparate personalities. I learned a lot from it. I probably complained a lot at the time. But after the fact, it was an educational experience. Like I say, I heard some tapes later, and once again, it sounds pretty good.

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NOTE – I ended the interview by asking him about a bunch of songs that haven’t been performed much recently, and was delighted that he treated me to a private mini-performance of some chestnuts.

Here are some of his comments:

“Killing Time In A Crystal City”:

I haven’t done that for a while. I’m doing Police Dog Blues as an encore now, which is in the same tuning. Maybe I’ll mess around with it backstage and see if I remember all the words to it. It’s been a while. It’s not hard to play, but it’s not in my active memory. But you never now, sometimes things come back if you don’t think about ‘em too hard.

“Serpent Of Dreams”:

We brought it back a couple of years ago with Hot Tuna. Serpent Of Dreams is very similar to I See The Light, it doesn’t really sound the same, but it’s in the same family of songs. I don’t like to do them in the same set. I have my E-minor opus now, or suite whatever you call it. And the cornerstone for this is I See The Light so Serpent Of Dreams is on hold here for a while.

“Land Of Heroes”:

It’s really funny, because you kind of get in your comfort zone with repertoire. And that’s one that I really, I’ve never done it that many times live. I mean I know how to play it, but I really need to get the words together. I really like the song too. I actually wanted to play it the other night, at the same time I wanted to do Re-Enlistment Blues and I realized I didn’t remember all the words, and Re-Enlistment Blues is every day of the week. So, you can’t forget a verse. It’s like, “what happened to Wednesday,” you know?

I should relearn some of the songs off “Land Of Heroes,” I’ve been remiss. on And I Like It (Kaukonen/Balin composition from Airplane days which foreshadowed Hot Tuna, even though it was sung by Marty Balin)

I don’t think I’ve played that song since… the Avalon Ballroom.

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