Photo by Vernon Webb
It’s impressive enough that the “official” history of Hot Tuna as a living, breathing band begins in 1969. The fact of the matter is, you can actually trace Tuna’s roots back another 11 years – as 1958 marks the first time that bassist Jack Casady and guitarist/vocalist Jorma Kaukonen played music together … and plugged in or unplugged, there’s no Hot Tuna without Jack and Jorma. While the band’s roster (and sound) has grown and shrunk (and grown and shrunk) over the years as many talented players have shared the Tuna experience, the one constant has been Jack and Jorma’s long-standing friendship.
2011 sees Hot Tuna fired-up and sounding better than ever. The present core line-up of Casady, Kaukonen, mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff, and drummer Skoota Warner will be touring the US beginning in late January, followed by the release of a new studio album (the first in 20 years) in April.
Jambands.com recently had the chance to talk with both Jorma and Jack about their new album (_Steady As She Goes_, to be released 4/12/11 on Red House Records) and the current version of Electric Hot Tuna on the eve of their tour. You can read Part I with Jorma Kaukonen here.
Part II – Jack Casady
For having been aware of Jack Casady and his music for a good portion of my natural life, I don’t know as I’ve ever actually heard his voice, whether it be on a recording or in a live setting. (Anything I’ve ever witnessed him say to Jorma Kaukonen onstage has been totally off-mic.) The fact of the matter is, the acknowledged master of the womp, the groove, and the lower frequencies has always let his bass do the talking. So just getting to have a conversation with Jack was a major treat (he speaks!) – his humor and passion for everything from his wife to his music to displaced box turtles was an unexpected Crackerjack bonus. In short, it was a lot of fun.
After some preliminaries covering our respective weather situations (it hit a high of zero on the thermometer here in Maine while we were talking; I don’t remember if Jack quoted a California temp, but I’m pretty sure it was warmer than that), we dove into things.
BR: First of all, Jack: Jorma sends you his best and says he’ll see you day after tomorrow.
JC: Day after … yes, that’s true. (laughs)
BR: Looking back to when the two of you first began playing together, do you remember thinking that you’d still be making music when you were 66?
JC: Oh, absolutely. I don’t know what it is anyone thinks I’m doing out here in this world, but I’m a musician – I wasn’t a “rock star” trying to die before I was 30, you know?
My heroes are people like Les Paul – doing what he loved into his 90s. Musicians like Shostakovich … or Stravinsky. There’s a guy who worked until he dropped late in life. He was well into his 80s … and I figure on doing the same – at least.
I’ve never not thought that, you know? I mean, it’s a different culture when you’re a musician. All the bluegrass, all the country musicians I knew when I was growing up … people like Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs – who I thought were ancient when they were in their 40s, of course – Bill Monroe, all those guys … you just assume that they play better when they get older. Their life’s work is music and they keep accumulating material and working on their craft.
BR: I did an interview a couple of months ago with Jesse McReynolds, who’s been playing bluegrass all his life. Jesse just released an album of Grateful Dead songs after basically discovering their music at the age of 80 … and it sounds great.
JC: Life is about discovery, you know? When I was growing up in Washington, DC, my way of discovering the music that wasn’t on the radio was to hop a bus and ride to the Library of Congress. I’d go into the music department, sign out records, and go into one of those little listening booths with my stack of 78s and listen to all kinds of music from around the world. When I got a little older – 13 or 14 – I’d go to record stores where the cut-out bins were … you could buy records for a quarter apiece or something like that. Often they didn’t even have covers on them. I’d save up money from my lawn-cutting business and my newspaper route and haul this stuff back home – not even knowing what I had half the time – and listen to music from everywhere.
I think it’s the nature of young people to want to discover, to want to know more … and now, of course, everybody has their own “Library of Congress” with the internet. You lose some of that physical aspect of handling a nice, big ol’ 12” LP, but you can explore in so many other ways.
BR: I’m still a sucker for the hands-on format. I love liner notes. I love album art.
JC: Well, it’s funny you should mention that …
BR: I sense a segue … (laughter)
JC: Because it just so happens that Hot Tuna – a partnership of Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady – has just finished recording our first studio album in 20 years, full of new and varied material that goes in all directions. Our label, Red House Records, has suggested that we put this album out in vinyl format as well as in CD and download formats. So there’s something that will please those audiophiles out there who love the sound of vinyl and the feel of a record.
BR: Everything goes in circles, right? Years ago, we were told that vinyl was out; we went from 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs … and now look where we’re headed.
JC: Oh, yeah: 8-tracks. (laughs) I just fired my old 4” turntable back up – of course, all the rubber had rotted out and it needed to be refurbished. I go online now and see what people are paying for tube amplifiers – it’s staggering. I remember back in the day paying $1500 for my Macintosh 3500 amplifier, which I still use on stage. Nowadays, people pay as much for stereo equipment as a house costs, you know?
BR: It’s true; it’s true.
JC: And if you’re talking about things going in circles, think about this: back in the 50s, everything was released as singles – and they took collections of singles and made albums, okay?
Then came the 60s – and I’m part of that “new generation” of music makers that made an album a whole entity unto itself. At that point, you had FM radio, which would play long cuts – or maybe a whole album. It was a revolution in music.
Now you have digital downloads, and people are splitting up albums – those little 55-minute or whatever entities – into singles again. (laughs)
BR: I hadn’t thought about it that way. I still think about albums as records: the lead-off song; the song that’s perfect to end side A; the killer song to begin side B; the album closer.
JC: Exactly.
BR: Look, I know we need to talk about the new Hot Tuna album and the upcoming tour, but I need to tell you something or my wife will never forgive me.
JC: Oh?
BR: Your solo album that you released in ’03, Dream Factor, is definitely a go-to album for us … especially during the winter months, for some reason. It has been since it came out.
JC: That’s fantastic to hear, as you’re one of the few people that even know about it. (laughter)
BR: Well, it’s true – it’s a great piece of work.
JC: Thank you. It’s funny you should mention that album, as I was dragging my rear end back and forth on the treadmill this morning for an hour and a half – like I do every morning – with my download collection on shuffle. The instrumental “Outside” from that album came up and I thought, “Damn – that doesn’t sound too bad.” (laughter) I hadn’t listened to it for a couple of years.
BR: “By Your Side” is probably my wife’s favorite cut. That’s a goal of ours: to live out that song, driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains together.
JC: That’s wonderful; thank you for sharing that. That song was inspired by my beautiful wife Diana … and we did take that drive. We just love to be together; we can do anything and have a good time – we love to just get in the car and take a drive with no agenda.
BR: Well, I may be calling you for directions someday …
JC: Anytime – anytime. (laughter) I’ll tell you a story about that trip: we were driving along and my wife sees this little creature making its way across the road. It was a box turtle – right on the centerline. And she says, “Look out – don’t run it over!” And I steer around it, but now that we know it’s there, we can’t just leave it in the middle of the road, right?
So, we pull over on the shoulder and dash back to save the turtle. It’s like something out of a cartoon: he’s just crossing the centerline, you know? And we get back to the car with the turtle about the time some big vehicle goes roaring by … and we say to ourselves, “What are we going to do? We can’t leave him here – he’ll just be out in the road again and be crushed.” We end up taking the turtle with us.
BR: In the car.
JC: That’s right. And we get to the lodge where we’re staying that night – a very rural setting – and check in.
BR: With the turtle.
JC: With the turtle, because it’s night and we’re figuring we’ll set it free in the morning. Which we do: we find a nice little spot in the woods and we let it go. Everything’s fine.
It was a few days later when we’re driving along and all of a sudden I go, “I wonder how that turtle’s doing?” And it was my wife who came up with this whole scenario: “Suppose he was on his way – the family had sent him out for a carton milk or something? And he never made it back …”
BR: But you saved him from some horrible fate …
JC: Yeah, but as far as his wife and the kids know, it’s like the classic ‘husband walks out the door to go to the store and never returns’ scenario. (laughter)
BR: Oh, man – you hope that he at least kissed her before he left, right?
JC: Exactly – exactly! (laughter) So we kept this routine going for a couple of years; we’d bring it up from time to time. Finally, we figured it must’ve taken him a year to get back home, you know? And we were talking about it and Diana suddenly looks at me and says, “Suppose … suppose she went ahead and … married someone else?” (laughter)
BR: Like Tom Hanks in Castaway!
JC: Yeah! He finally makes it back home and a whole new family meets him at the door! (laughter)
BR: Well … you had good intentions.
JC: It’s true …
BR: I tell you what: when the day comes, if we’re driving through that area and we see a really sad-looking turtle by the side of the road –
JC: (laughing) Talking and mumbling to himself …
BR: “I never shoulda took that ride.” (laughter)
Okay – I need to get back on track here with the matter at hand, which is the new Hot Tuna album. I know Jorma had recorded at Levon Helm’s studio before – was this your first experience there?
JC: Yes, it was. And it definitely has an atmosphere of its own. All wood construction with a great tone … and everybody was enjoying themselves. We set up as a band to play the basic tracks, got the sound so that everybody was happy, and then just played like crazy. We even played a Midnight Ramble with Levon while we were up there.
BR: Jorma and I were talking about the experience of working with Justin Guip as engineer …
JC: Oh, Justin’s great. He just settled in and got everybody’s tone right first; made everybody happy and comfortable.
We went into those sessions with a lot of material prepared and a lot of partial material that we completed while we were in the studio with input from everyone. It was that kind of true band format that I really love – we went in and made an album, you know? And I’m not talking free-form here; I’m talking good, solid musical ideas being put out to make the tracks sound good and concrete … really solid songs. Plus, we also had a couple of songs that really came out of left field … unique ideas that we wouldn’t have gotten if we hadn’t been in that environment.
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.
