Legendary guitarist and songwriter, Leo Nocentelli returns with The Meters Experience for a run of gigs, which includes a date at the Mexicali Live on Thursday, January 27 and Brooklyn Bowl on Friday, January 28. The innovative funk musician continues on in a career spanning over four decades with no apparent end in sight. Indeed, Nocentelli plays like a young man, and still has that original spark that moved his fingers across the fretboard those many years ago.
Jambands.com sat down to talk with the guitarist about his recent appearances at the NAMM Convention, the jam during that event at the Mint in Los Angeles, his role as a special guest on Jam Cruise earlier in January, and his ongoing efforts to remain not only a grounded person, but a musician who is always attempting to enhance his craft. Indeed, Nocentelli is rightfully protective of his legacy, and can speak at great length about his contributions and influential power, but he is also wise enough to learn to forget the past. The musician is a friendly, amiable, and deeply honest man who appears to have a refreshingly candid feel for his musical impact, while setting his sights on the future.
RR: Let’s begin with your experiences at the NAMM Convention in Anaheim.
LN: Sure. How this originated, man, was that (bassist) Bill Dickens and I were on the road last August, and he was talking about doing something at NAMM. We got in contact with Dan Del Fiorentino at NAMM, and he came up with the idea of performing at this tribute—I think it’s the second or third year that they’ve done it—to the great artists that we’ve lost in 2010—Catfish Collins, Bootsy’s brother, Marvin Isley, Michael Jackson, and the list goes on and on, man, for the great people that we lost.
It felt really good for me to do this, so we got together with them, and tried to do it. We played two or three songs that the musicians had performed on, like “Sex Machine,” because Catfish Collins played guitar on that James Brown song. We were fortunate enough to have Jonathan “Sugarfoot” Moffett, Michael’s drummer for 30 years. Actually, he’s originally from New Orleans. A lot of people don’t know that. I remember Sugarfoot when he first started playing in New Orleans. He used to come around and see the Meters and frequent wherever we performed. We did “Thriller” with Jonathan in honor of Michael, and, also, we did a song called “Footsteps in the Dark” in honor of Marvin Isley, which is one of the Isley Brothers songs. It was just a phenomenal time that we had there. I’m hoping that this gets to be an annual thing every year at NAMM, and go do it next year.
RR: You had Stanton Moore play with you, too.
LN: I was trying to get as many friends as I could up there. Stanton played “Hey Pocky Way” with us because he’s a New Orleans second line…(laughs)…he’s familiar with that. Stanton was great. The jam at the Mint in Los Angeles was just completely overwhelming, man. It was really great—sold out, packed house, and that night, Stanton played with me the whole night.
RR: How much preparation goes into a jam gig like that? How much do you leave open, and how much do the musicians come in already knowing the material?
LN: Well, a lot of preparation. Fortunately, for me, the songs I wrote for the Meters everybody is familiar with, so it makes it kind of easy like if I say, “Hey, man, we’re going to do ‘Fire on the Bayou,’” they’ll know the song. Now, the only disadvantage, I think—well, you can call it a disadvantage; I hate to say it like that—is that I change things around in different songs, so even “Cissy Strut” will be rearranged. Everybody knows it’s “Cissy Strut,” but there are some little tricks that I’ve instilled in that and some of the other songs and it takes time. Even though you might know the song, it does take time to rehearse, to learn it. I would say it takes a lot of time, but it’s pretty fun. The good thing about it is that it is good music to play, so it doesn’t seem that hard to do.
RR: Over the years, you have written material that was innovative, and continues to sound contemporary while containing passages which can be musically flexible. And then, I think of Jam Cruise, which you just played, and features many musicians who have to be pretty mobile with well-known and obscure music.
LN: In my particular experience, it was extraordinary and unbelievable event, man. I’m so glad I was invited to do this by Annabel Lukins. My hat goes off to her for the way she’s put it together, and for inviting me to do this. The thing about it is that my position in the Jam Cruise—they had about fifteen different acts on the boat—and I was hired as a special guest. What it allowed me to do was that I got to go around and sit in with who I wanted play with. I was really a gun for hire, so to speak. If I didn’t want to sit in with anybody, I didn’t have to do that. It was like a paid vacation.
But I got so enthused with all the music that’s on that boat that I was just trying to sit in with anybody that I could think of, and I was very welcomed by all the bands. I sat in with Karl Denson, God Street Wine asked me to sit in with them, the Pimps of Joy Time asked me to sit in with them, and Karl and I sat in with Robert Randolph. The real thing that culminated that event was the Maceo Parker jam. I had the privilege of performing on one of Maceo’s albums, Southern Exposure. We did it a while back, and Maceo recorded one of the songs that I wrote called “Keep on Marching.” I was asked to perform on that, and I was really lucky that George Porter was on the cruise, too, so George and I got together in one of our rare moments to play together. We performed with Maceo, Pee Wee Ellis, and Fred Wesley of the JB Horns. That was phenomenal, man; they ended up having everybody performing in that thing because it was like a jam. Stanton was playing drums, also, and everybody was switching up and doing different
things, and I played on a couple of songs for that. But the Jam Cruise is a phenomenal experience for anybody.
RR: Indeed. Taking a cue from your sit-in experience on Jam Cruise and elsewhere, when you look at the generations of musicians that have followed you, are you influenced by these modern musicians, or are you just coming in and mixing in your own thing with what they are doing?
LN: There’s groups out here that I like. I guess it’s a good thing; with anything that I get involved with…the things that I did with the Meters, and the songs that I wrote, are so influential, man, with all the groups that’s really out here. It’s unbelievable to me when I look back at it—I look at it in retro, and I look at it right now—and every group that I’ve been around that is in my genre of music has all been influenced by the music that I did. It’s really kind of hard for me to…when I go to sit in with anybody, the first thing they want me to do is my stuff—even if I go in there and say, “Hey, man, let’s do blah blah song,” or one of their songs, it wouldn’t work as well to them as them wanting to play Meters’ material. I’m not saying I’m not influenced by anybody. I’m influenced by anybody that is able to pull off what I feel that has been influenced by me in the Meters, and they’re able to pull it off and get something out of it, of what we did. It’s very encouraging and very flattering and I try to abide by that.
RR: It extends pretty far so I can see the dilemma. I look at bands that have been influenced by the Meters, and I’ll just name a few: Led Zeppelin, Prince, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and about two and a half decades of hip hop acts. Obviously, the issue is whether a band is influenced by your work, or they are directly copying the work. Is it safe to say that your opinion has remained fairly consistent about that?
LN: Yes. One interesting thing you just made me think about it is that you have groups that have been influenced by the Meters’ work, and, then, a lot of people who don’t know who the Meters are listen to these groups that were influenced by the Meters, and they get influenced by the group that was influenced by the Meters. (laughter)
So it’s an ongoing thing. If you’re seeing and hearing stuff that’s like the Meters’ music, they might have never heard about the Meters; they’ve heard the music that other groups have gotten from the Meters, and it might not be associated with the Meters.
We were invited by Led Zeppelin to play a party in New Orleans in 1973, right before we went on the road with the Rolling Stones. It was in Cosmo’s Studios, where we recorded “Cissy Strut” and all the stuff. We said, “WOW, we’ve been invited to play a party by Led Zeppelin.” So we got all dressed in our outfits and uniforms and whatever we wore, and we got to Cosmo’s Studio and there wasn’t nobody there; I mean nobody. You know, the owner, Cos, himself, and the people setting up for the party with the food and stuff were there, but there weren’t any guests. We started setting up our stuff and getting ready to play, thinking that the people were going to come later. The elevator comes up, and it’s just three people and their entourage and their manager. It was just three people—Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. Just those three. In point of fact, we played a party for them. They were the only guests. Know what I mean? We were thinking there might be a hundred people in this place, and there was never any intention of having anybody else there but them. They just sat down and watched us play.
RR: Yeah, I think of Stanton Moore again. Two of Stanton’s biggest influences were John Bonham, the drummer in Zeppelin, and Zigaboo Modeliste, the Meters drummer, so it all comes back around to your band anyway.
LN: Exactly. Wow, you know…I just had…the longer I live, the longer I’ve been around people, makes me know, makes me realize, how much of an impression, that impact that music had, and what that music did to the music industry.
RR: Right. Several generations have been influenced by your work. What about the audience? How have audiences changed in your mind over the years? Has their knowledge base shifted? Are today’s audiences too far away from some of the roots of music in the same way that you were influenced when you started out?
LN. I would say no. I wouldn’t say that. In particular, specifically, let’s look at Meters music. I play in front of fans from ten years old and on up to people that are 70 years old. They come to my shows, and I think the younger people are still aware of the Meters through an engine called sampling. That has helped re-make those songs. Songs that were written 30, 35 years ago, all of a sudden become new. It has to stand the test of time because of the structure of the music, but, still, you have to think that these people are aware of the Meters because of the samples. The Meters have been the number one, two, or three most sampled groups in the world. And it’s a process where a rap artist is doing a rap over your music. They have the credits now on the back of the CDs or the albums or whatever, so everybody knows that Ludacris or Heavy D has sampled the Meters. They’ll look and say, “This is a track by the Meters. Weren’t they around in the 60s and 70s?” They get familiar with the Meters music through that engine. That makes them know who the Meters are and know the music.
I’ll often get e-mails from people that are like 15 years old, and they’ll have questions about certain songs that were written 40 years ago. A lot of the material is in movies and television and stuff like that, and people see the credits and see the Meters’ name, and even though the Meters have been around for 40 years, it’s like they’re still here, a group that will never go away.
RR: What about the economic implications of sampling songs you’ve written?
LN: Well, the economics are great. If you’re referring to the financial benefits of that, yeah, everything is in order. Find out one time we wasn’t really getting paid, but I would say that it has been a pretty consistent avenue of (laughs) economical help. I know some people have said, “Look, I’ve heard about the Meters stuff; man, I hope those guys get paid.” Business is well together now that we’re finally getting paid for it, I would say, over the last 20, 25 years.
RR: Fantastic. Let’s talk about now. You’ve got two dates coming up, including a gig at the Brooklyn Bowl, on January 28, which also features Russell Batiste—
LN: Russell Batiste is Zigaboo personified. (laughter) Right now, I’m performing under the marquee name The Meters Experience.
RR: Yeah, you also have Bill Dickens on bass, who played with Janet Jackson, among others, and George Laks, who played with Lenny Kravitz, among others.
LN: I’m just elated that I am able to do these things; actually, to play with the caliber of musicians that I’m going to bring up there. I’m really looking forward to it. Bill Dickens and I, you know, I’ve been wanting to hook up with Bill for years, and finally got a chance this past August and took him out on tour with me. He’s a phenomenal player. We played the NAMM together, we played the NAMM jam at the Mint, and I try not to do nothin’ without Bill Dickens. He’s just a meek and humble person, and a lot of people know him, and a lot of people don’t. I’m hoping him playing with me brings his notoriety out more. I just love playing with him. He plays a seven-string bass. George Laks, of course you know him, he was with Lenny Kravitz and he’s a great player. I’m very excited about playing with Russell Batiste because I remember Russell when he was 8 years old. I need not say too much about Russell; he’s just a phenomenal player.
One thing I want to bring up. There’s somebody that I’m starting to use, and that’s Russell’s younger brother, Jamal Batiste. I’m doing these two dates with him in Chicago. I’m doing Evanston Space in Evanston, Illinois and in Benton Harbor, Michigan at a club called the Livery. I’m also doing a couple of clinics with Bill and Jamal sponsored by a facility called the Music Garage, which is a studio and a musician’s institute.
RR: I’d like to hear your opinion about doing clinics for younger musicians.
LN: Yeah, I haven’t been doing too much, but I’m starting to get a lot of interest in me going around and doing clinics. You know, it’s something that I like to do. I like to teach, and if there’s anything I can pass on to the next generation about the guitar or the music business, I’m always anxious to do that. I’m looking forward to doing more clinics around the country, maybe, around the world because there’s some interest over in Europe about me coming over and performing at those kinds of engagements.
RR: Yes, but isn’t there only so much you can pass on to another musician? Do they have to bring their own creativity, inspiration, will, and motivation to learn? What elements does the modern musician need to play these days?
LN: The only thing I can do is try to initiate an embryonic, try to introduce the beginning, and, maybe, give them as much knowledge I can give for whatever time I have with them. In Chicago, at the clinic at the Music Garage, I’m doing individual classes, as well, and all I can do is try to answer questions that they might have. I would need to do some demonstrations, too, and then let them vibe on that. I think, in order to get to any point, you have to have some kind of spark; to have fire, you have to have some kind of spark to
make it happen. So I was always look at myself as maybe the spark. If I could do that, if I could just be a spark to somebody, where would they go from there? It should be O.K. if they evolve from the spark, if they evolve from there. I think, regardless of how much time I might spend with somebody, if they’re really concentrating, and they really understand the answer that I give them on something that they might want to know, they’ll take it as far as they can take it. It’s like me being with them all the time—understanding what I said, I think, for the rest of their career. I look at it as a thing where whatever I start from the beginning, they take it along with them throughout their career.
RR: When I think of the genesis of a particular career, your original spark was rooted in jazz music and the music of New Orleans.
LN: Yeah, it’s a funny thing, man. That’s an interesting question, and I like answering that because it brings me back to…yeah, I started out listening to jazz—guys like Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel, Charlie Christian, and a little Wes Montgomery. That was all I wanted to be was to be one of those guys like a George Benson or somebody—a great individual jazz player. Now, you would think that because of my way of thinking that when you start something, that’s usually what you turn out to be, and it wound up being the opposite. Well, not the complete opposite because in some of my playing, there’s still some jazz influences in there. I think that’s what makes Leo.
I think what happened to me is that by being born and raised in New Orleans, comin’ up playin’ in New Orleans, when I was comin’ up, just to survive, most musicians, most New Orleans musicians, had to learn how to play all genres of music. There were some days where I would do three or four gigs in a 24-hour period. I’d do a jazz gig, and I would leave there and do a rock ‘n’ roll gig, and I’d leave there and maybe do a Dixieland gig, then maybe I’d go somewhere and do some R&B, which is funk today, but it was R&B then. So, I think, having the knowledge to do different types of music, informed me by being able to incorporate all those different genres into one particular situation, and into whatever style I play today. I think that’s what makes me seem like I have some type of individualism about myself.
RR: It isn’t just the accumulation of information and musical knowledge. A guitarist needs to find their own unique voice coming from their instrument, and that’s a difficult thing to do now or back then. What are your artistic aspirations? What would you like to accomplish in the future? Do you still wake up and think, ‘You know, I want to do this next time we go out to play,’ or ‘I want to veer the other musicians off into this area’? What drives that force for you?
LN: I think what drives…and you’re right, I still have that. I think what drives it—and I hope people understand this—is the fact that I’m not aware of it. I’m not aware of too much of what happened in the past. It’s hard for me to really look at everything that I’ve done, all the songs that I’ve written, and everything that I’ve accomplished as a musician and a songwriter because it’s all a blur to me. It’s just a big blur. I know it happened, but to actually look at it and say, “Well, you know, I’ve done this, and I’ve done this, and I’ve done this, and let me do something else…”—the fact that it’s a blur to me keeps me grounded to what I was. It doesn’t make me change. I still have the same force, the same energy, to do what I’ve been doin’ for the last 40-some years due to the fact that I don’t remember what I did. (laughs) So I just keep on doin’ it.
I just look at what I did…it’s hard for me to remember writing those songs. Of course, I can remember “Cissy Strut.” I’m not saying literally remember; but, most of it is a blur. I can’t say, “Well, I wrote “Cissy Strut,” let me do something else.” I’ll just continue on doing what I’ve been doing all my life. I remember songs. “Cissy Strut” came up. We were playing a club called the Ivanhoe on Bourbon Street. This is before we were named the Meters, and we were Art Neville and the Neville Sounds, and we used to play this club and every night, we’d open up with the same song called “Hold It.” I got tired of it, so there was a melody that I had been foundering in my head for years, and I decided to show this melody to Art, George, and Zig, and it didn’t even have a name. We just opened up with the song and that would be to open up our set. One night, Allen Toussaint and his partner came in, and asked us if we wanted to record. So we went into the studio, and one of the songs that we recorded was this melody. We still didn’t have a name for it, but we recorded it and finally named it “Cissy Strut.” That came out and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks. We decided to do a co-op thing and we called ourselves the Meters, and that’s really how it happens.
I’m not saying that I’m oblivious to what I did, but I don’t like to pound on it too much because I always want to be that person. I don’t want to change. That keeps me with the same drive, just as though I was 18 or 20 years old.
RR: And it helps you move forward without being weighted down with the past.
LN: Exactly. I guess that’s a better way to say it. No, I’m not weighted down with that.
RR: You’ve worked with a wide variety of artists from many genres, including Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson in various one-off projects, but I also loved another unique group setting you were involved with, the New Orleans Social Club.
LN: The Social Club…I don’t want to say “was,” but still is phenomenal because I’m in hopes that maybe one day that group can get together and start performing again. Playing with those guys—that was a rare assembly, man. There’s a lot of great musicians in New Orleans, man, but that particular group of people—myself, Henry Butler, George, Raymond Weber, Ivan Neville—possessed—they are old enough and young enough—possessed that magic, man, that most groups will never have. We were all on the same page; we all came from the same roofs, the same place, and you can hear it in each individual’s playing, and each individual’s playing all came together in that group, which
made that group a phenomenal group when the music came out. I really enjoyed playing with that group, and I hope that it can be rekindled again one day.
RR: And you gave back to the city at that time, too, post-Katrina, to give it a sense and a reminder of what New Orleans was and still very much is today.
LN: Yeah. There was a lot of opportunities for that group to continue, and to become bigger, and a huge force in the music industry. But, I think what happened, even though we played together and did an individual project, is that everybody is such strong individualists. The individualism kind of separated it, kept it from really gelling, from really melting together, because everybody was doing different things.
RR: It must be really sweet to be up on stage these days, in the moment, look around, and you’ve got Russell, George, and Bill. That’s a pretty strong quartet.
LN: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was careful selecting these guys. I wanted to go out there with these guys that I could depend on to come to my level. That’s always an interesting thing. That’s always important. I’ve noticed I’ve gotten people…and I’m not trying to be braggadocio or egotistical, but I’ve been around a long time, and I feel like I have a lot of confidence in what I’m doing, and I know what I’m doing. To have musicians at a lesser level than you, and in order to make that happen, to click on stage, you have to come down. If you have to come down to another musician’s level, it takes away from you. I’ve been in positions like that. I had to come down to whoever I was playing with. So, this particular group does not. It puts me in a position where they are on my level, or he’s above my level. Preferably, I like playing with musicians that’s above me, where I can, maybe, try to come up to their level, and it can’t do nothin’ but help me. I’m glad to have these guys. I can just do what I want to do. I can be Leo, or, in some instances, I can be better than Leo.
RR: I’m assuming that the band is playing classic material, some covers, and other songs, as well, that are drawn from another place?
LN: Yes, that’s the whole idea. The whole idea of this marquee name is that when they come to see The Meters Experience that’s what they are going to see and hear. They’re going to see music that was done, that I’ve written for the Meters, and, also, new material. It’s hard for me. A lot of people criticize me about…it’s changing now, though, with the Meters. A lot of people criticize me and say, “Leo, if you’re doing your own band, Nocentelli, away from the Meters, why are you playing so much Meters stuff?”
And to be honest with you, Randy, the Meters music is my music. I wrote the music. It’s hard for me. That’s Leo. That’s it. I don’t know how to do anything, but that because that’s me. If I play “Cissy Strut,” that’s my music. That’s Leo. Now, I’ve written new material, but even new material is reminiscent of the stuff that I wrote for the Meters. It’s just newer, that’s all. So, it’s always…whenever you see, whenever you hear The Meters Experience that’s what you’re going to hear. It doesn’t make any difference. It could have Paul McCartney in the band. People will start to beat me up if I don’t get Paul to play (laughter) one of the Beatles songs. I’m exaggerating. It could be Paul McCartney. It could be Keith Richards. The Meters Experience is what you’re going to hear regardless of who is in the band. That’s why there is no definite group of people that I use all the time. I am always trying to mix it up.
I might have Bernie Worrell play with me next time I perform, but it will still be The Meters Experience. I don’t get too much resistance to that, man. Even Bernie Worrell—who is an individualist himself with his P-Funk thing—is willing to play Meters music all night because he likes the music because the music is good. Yeah, playing with those guys and having those guys is really a reward for musicianship, and the fact that they like playing the music because I could have some great guys, some great players, but if they don’t like what they’re playing, it’s going to be academic.
RR: To me, the heart and soul of great music is a collaborative process. I love that you bring different musicians into The Meters Experience and make it work.
LN: Yeah. You just said a very profound statement. Bringing them in is one thing, but making it work is another. Thank you. Thank you for thinking about me. A lot of people sometimes don’t know where I’m at, or even if I’m alive, believe it or not, and it’s always good to get it out there that I’m alive and well, and that I’m still playing, I’m still doing my music, and looking forward to seeing the fans that support me.
