BR: Red House sent me a couple of unmastered tracks – “Angel Of Darkness” and “Second Chances”.

JC: What you’re hearing on those cuts is just the basic band playing.

BR: Right. I described my initial impression to Jorma as a mix of vintage Tuna with a freshness at the same time.

JC: I give a lot of credit for that freshness to Skoota Warner. He’s a unique drummer: he’s energetic, but he never overplays. Skoota picks his spots to do things that are unbelievable, but not at the expense of the meter or the groove or anything like that.

For me, it’s one of the best working relationships I’ve ever had with a drummer. We’ll work out good groove parts for the song, but at the same time, when I want to be “Jack” and put in a melody or a long-running line or something, the bottom never falls out. Skoota’s foot is as strong as any other drum he has; the foot doesn’t hole up while he’s doing a long drum roll or something – it’s part of the way he plays. And that frees everybody up to communicate.

The bottom line is, this band is having a great time playing together. You always have to re-evaluate your playing as you go along and your suggested perceptions can fool you in a lot of ways, both positively and negatively. I think as you get older, you have to be careful to keep things in a positive framework – rather than succumb to the “Grumpy Old Man” syndrome. (laughter)

BR: Let’s talk gear for a moment: is your Jack Casady Signature Epiphone your main bass on the album?

JC: Yeah, I’m playing the Epiphone on almost every cut. There’s one song where I play my ’53 Fender bass – which is now referred to as a “Tele bass,” but back then it was the only bass they made – and another where I play my ’63 Fender Jazz bass.

I used to use a Jazz bass back when I first started playing bass at the age of 16 – I’d been playing guitar prior to that. Mine was made in 1960; that was the first Jazz bass that came out. I’ve been wanting to get another one for a while, as the one that I played with the Airplane back in the day was long gone; stolen years and years ago. Fender did a reissue of the old Jazz bass and I picked one up.

BR: That’s interesting to hear – you liked the reissue, then?

JC: Oh, yeah – the Fender reissue was great. Don’t forget: they were all new guitars once. It was all new, green wood once, you know? And Fender guitars weren’t about aging the wood before they made it; it was a block of wood, sawed out on a band saw. That having been said, with any wood instrument, there’s always a shade of difference between them.

BR: I believe that; they each have their own personality, don’t they?

JC: Exactly.

BR: On the song credits for the new album, I saw “Smokerise Journey” listed as one that you co-wrote.

JC: Yeah, I’m really happy with that. Jorma and I haven’t written a lot of songs together, but I think my confidence came up with making my own album. I had the framework for the song and Larry Campbell helped with the bridge portion. It was getting down towards the end of the session and I said to myself, “Ah, well – it’s not going to happen this time.”

But Jorma came up with these lyrics that really express so much of what’s been going on in our lives. He’s really a wonderful poet, you know – and he writes lyrics that you can read so much into according to your own circumstance. That’s how that song came out. I wanted it to be an easy-going song that was a little melancholy at the same time – and it just came out great. I’m really happy with it.

BR: Another thing Jorma and I talked about was Barry’s work on the electric mando – in fact, I don’t mind telling you that I thought that beautiful, jazzy solo on “Second Chances” was either Jorma or Larry on guitar. It’s really lovely.

JC: Exactly – exactly. Another one of the reasons why this band is sounding so great now is Barry. He’s a master musician; a classically-trained musician who worked in the bluegrass field for many years. But in these last few years, he’s been working in the “Hot Tuna field” and he’s really developed this unique sound on both the single-string electric and double-string acoustic mandolin.

When Barry plays outside of the bluegrass context, that’s when you see his jazz background and his classical background – his interval work and his melody work always take you to an interesting place. You don’t feel like he’s listened to these solos and copied what’s been played before; you hear these totally unique sounds. He’s done some lead melody work on this album that’s just superb.

BR: Oh – and I just remembered: along with your basses, Jorma said I should ask you about the amp you used on the album, as well.

JC: Ah – that was a George Alessandro all-tube Class A 30-watt amp. All hand-crafted with a wooden cabinet – look it up when you have a chance; you’ll love it. Mine’s called a Basset Hound, but there’s a bunch of others. George Alessandro is in Pennsylvania and makes these amplifiers that are like old hi-fi amps, you know?

I put that head through a Jack Casady Aguilar cabinet that I developed with Dave Boonshoft at Aguilar Amplification in New York. It’s got two 8s and a 6 and has just a huge sound. That’s what I used for the whole session and Justin said it was the best low-end he’d ever gotten in the studio.

BR: Cool; those unmastered cuts I’ve heard so far sound great – really great.

So now Hot Tuna hits the road – and Jorma mentioned that, besides the “core four,” you’ll be joined by G.E. Smith, Charlie Musselwhite, and Jim Lauderdale.

JC: That’s right. I’ve downloaded all this Charlie Musselwhite material and a bunch of Jim Lauderdale’s stuff and they both sent lists of songs, right? So I’ve been getting up at 4 in the morning and spending a couple of hours writing up the charts and practicing all these songs. Then I hit the treadmill for an hour and a half … and then the day begins. (laughter)

BR: Oh, man – you’ve got your work cut out for you. Once Jorma told me about the line-up, one of the things I wanted to ask you was how you might approach things on bass, knowing that at any given time you could have up to three guitars plus the electric mando … that’s a lot of voices.

JC: You always approach the song first. I listen to the song and work the parts out as they were recorded. At the same time, I’m me – but it’s my job in this format to back these guys up and make the songs recognizable. Later on, you can give yourself a little slack and your personality will come out in the music … but you don’t start out that way. You don’t come out of the gate completely changing stuff around. You have to be responsible to the sound of the song, its atmosphere, and its intent.

You don’t take anything for granted and you work really hard at it.

That’s way Jorma and I have been doing it for a long, long time.

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