MAGAZINE: 'ACOUSTIC' www.acousticmagazine.com

Michael Messer Interview by Mark Tucker

Originally published in issue 5 Aug/Sept 2005

Having only spent 10 minutes talking to Michael, what became immediately apparent was his exuberance and love for performing and writing music, also his ease and ability to share his skill and knowledge as a teacher. Having recorded hours of our talking for the interview, I now had the huge task of editing down this interview into magazine format – I must admit it was a challenge. Not because Michael was difficult to interview, but because he had so much to say that I felt was valid.

I believe that when you play music, particularly the blues, there is no blagging. It’s clear that Michael loves what he does for all the right reasons and this shines through in his music. In May 2001 King Guitar reached No. 1 in the American Living Blues chart and as a result of persistent US college radio, Michael is enjoying the benefits.

Having had the late, great Johnny Cash write liner notes for Michael’s album Rhythm Oil in the form of rhyme is just one indication that Michael is doing something right.

‘Word pictures playing through my mind as I listen to the refreshing, earthy, panting sound of Rhythm Oil.
What I hear here is the real thing - Bare-bones blues gut-bucket rural rock
This record carried Me away to a long time ago, down a delta dirt road
to a land of my musical good-old-daysing.’
‘PS… Don't squeeze the trigger, if you can't stand the recoil.’ Johnny Cash

You’re currently working on the new album: when is it due for release?

Later this year. There’s also a new DVD just been released called Gourmet Guitars. It’s made by the German company, Sushi Overdrive. They’ve travelled the world filming and interviewing luthiers and players of hand-made instruments. I’m in the first of the series about Fine Resophonic Guitars, together with Robbie McIntosh and Louisiana Red.

Tell me about your musical upbringing. What got you into playing guitar?

I was born in 1956 and have two older brothers – which often helps with these things. By the time I was seven I was listening to pop music and there was an electric guitar in my house – a Watkins Rapier with a Shaftesbury 66M. That early-60s music of The Beatles, Rolling Stones period, was my original turn-on to music. My mother had all the hits from the 50s, Elvis Presley etc, so I heard all that as well. By the time my brothers and I were all young teenagers, we had a band and I was playing bass. My first instrument with the band was double bass.

That was a brave step…

My next-door neighbour was a double bass player in a folk band. He went off around the world on a hiking trip and said ‘look after the double bass’…she was called Gertrude!

In the early to mid-70s I started meeting people. I got to know a crowd of people who were quite a lot older than me who were around in that first UK blues boom and would now be in their early 60s. We were the right age to be around when the whole folk/blues boom happened and I heard a lot of records that really sent me crazy, which got me into that old music. I was already listening and playing a lot of blues music, but I had no idea about who Robert Johnson was.

I was steered towards the likes of Rory Gallagher, Rod Stewart and Led Zeppelin, there was a lot of folk and a lot of blues in that pop music. And Led Zeppelin, when I hear it now, I realise how influenced it was by English folk music.

Rory Gallagher always championed the early blues players and covered their music, so when I met these people who were older than me and had all these records, it just all gelled and made sense.

And your first guitar?

That wasn’t until the 70s – it was a big step. I never looked at music professionally back then – yes, I had schoolboy dreams of being Mick Jagger on Top Of The Pops like most kids do. In the late 70s I got to know Chas Jankel very well. He’d been an old friend for years, but I got to know him when he was playing with Ian Dury & the Blockheads, and I got to hang out with them a lot.

What a great band!

Yes, right through the whole hit-making period. I was one of the first people to hear ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, and talked with Chas about whether there should be one or two saxes on the solo – it was a wonderful time.

I believe you had a wide range of influences, bands like G. Love and Special Sauce, R.L. Burnside and Tom Waits, all of whom cross over quite considerably from that rootsy to modern produced sound?

An enormous amount of my influences come from the blues and old music. But I’m not American, and it’s not 1930. I use those influences to create contemporary music, which are the bands I grew up on, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Little Feat to name a few. Ironically, I didn’t hear R.L. Burnside play until after I’d done Second Mind. I really like G. Love’s records, and I thought it was a great direction. I like the way they mix musical styles and bands that have a rock guitarist and a guy on the decks in the corner. That really intrigues me.

Which is your favourite band line-up?

Well I would say, Ed Genis and myself, as a duo, we’ve done that for over 20 years, and we’ve got it nailed, its fantastic. But equally I love the band & the trio....each has its own qualities and I enjoy the variations in the music with each line-up. So they all my favourite line-ups!

Your line-up with The Second Mind Band incorporates Louie Genis on decks. How did the hardcore blues fraternity receive that?

Very well. I think the reason for that is an interesting one in as much as it’s contemporary, and it pushes the boundaries. Because of the old sounds that we are scratching with, it actually makes it very traditional. Louie is Ed Genis’s son and we’ve worked together for years, so Louie grew up listening to our music. He’s now 27 years old and totally absorbed in his world of decks, computers, rapping, hip-hop and all that stuff. So it’s only natural for him to sit and jam with us, which is how the music came into being.

So audiences are now more accepting of change in what could be seen as traditional music?

There’s no question of it. In 1990, I had an album come out called Slidedance and the opening track was a reworking of a 1930s blues song (The Lone Wolf by Oscar Woods), which we did with screaming guitar over reggae backing. I did a Radio 2 session for the Paul Jones Blues Show and the producer at the time said ‘we don’t want to hear that!’ In 2001, I was called in to do a session for the Paul Jones Show on Radio 2 to promote the release of the King Guitar album, and what song did they want..?

Have you heard of Bob Log III, he’s pretty up-front?

Yeah, he’s quite outrageous, but is very good at what he does. I think there is a whole wave of people at the moment, and I guess that it’s to do with my generation having children! There are people now in their 20s, so many of them who are, I guess, people like Bob Log, Jack White, those kind of people who are really heavily into blues and I like that a lot. There are a lot of young punk bands using blues material. Although what they are doing doesn’t necessarily turn me on, I would rather hear what they are doing than a lot of the stuff that’s around. They are trying to take it forward and use it for their own generation, for their own music. So use the blues in your music, but don’t copy it.

Do you feel there been significant change in the UK blues scene in the past 10 or so years?

Yes definitely. It’s broadened its mind and is more prepared to accept different styles of ideas within blues. There is definitely a lot of blues about, good festivals and venues in every town. I think what has changed over the past 10 years in the rhythm and blues scene generally is the acceptance of acoustic blues and early pre-war blues. When I first became professional and was playing, there was less knowledge of it and less acceptance of it. That’s partly to do with recording techniques and stage equipment. People are more prepared to go out with an acoustic guitar and do a gig nowadays.

Is that because it’s easier to get a better sound now?

Yes, I think so. You can actually do a concert with an acoustic guitar these days, whereas there were times when people couldn’t do that. I think the technology is probably advanced, so there’s a bit more confidence there. It’s also very difficult to make good records with an acoustic, so much easier with an electric sound. With the kind of listeners’ demands, they almost want instant gratification, more impact. I also think that the guitar industry itself has played a big part in it. There have never been so many good quality, cheap instruments available. I think with resophonic guitars it’s fantastic, and everybody can get at it. It’s a lot harder to computer-copy a resophonic guitar. The mass production and quality of music, over the last 10 years, the boom of getting old music on CDs, that’s never been available before.

These days teaching appears to be big business for musicians?

And I think that has helped spread the word. Available instruments, available music, a lot of people of my age reaching a point in their lives where they say ‘To hell with this, I don’t want the family holiday, I want a nice old guitar. I’ve always wanted to play, I’m going to do it’ – that has created an industry.

Do you teach aspect of playing that you have learnt yourself or are they techniques that you have been taught?

Well, I think this is a very interesting area: something that I always tell students when I am teaching, is that most of what they are learning from DVDs, books and teachers, is only what the teachers have taught themselves, not what they have been taught, because before our generation it wasn’t taught. So we all taught ourselves and now we are putting that to print. In a way I think is a slightly dodgy thing, it does worry me a bit, and I say to people, find your own way. I will teach it as near to what I would call the real way of learning folk music, which is we sit in a circle and we all open-tune our guitars to the same tuning, open G or something. First of all I teach them how to play a one-chord-rhythm, and we can just sit and vamp, and I can talk over it, and then round the room I give each person a lesson.

That sounds like a Johnny Cash song?

Exactly! ‘I Walk The Line’, and that is how it works. We are all playing while I am giving one person a lesson and showing them a mix and getting them to play, everyone else can hear what’s happening, but they have to keep the rhythm together, and it works.

Great, empowerment!

Yeah, so at the end of an hour and a half, everyone will have been playing their guitars non-stop. I teach at the European Blues Association once a year, their Blues Week. This year it was at Northampton University. There are about 80 students with a dozen teachers, mostly all acoustic American guitar styles. So it’s guitars, harmonicas and voices. It’s a fantastic week. Apart from that, I only do the odd workshop here and there.

I think too many people teach folk music as an academic subject, you know, I really don’t see the need to write notes on a blackboard. I’m quite happy for them to write it down, quite happy for them to record it, to log it, but I have nothing to write down. Then with slide there’s what tools you use, should you use glass, should you use steel, should you put it on your little finger, or your third finger, should you use finger picks, and I explain all the variations of it, and then I say ‘it’s up to you’, and then I name a handful of musicians that don’t do any of those things. I really try to put it across as folk music in that way.

In terms of your own technique, do you use all of those elements for specific jobs, or do you have a very focused style?

No, I use all those elements. I would say I am a slide guitarist more than a blues musician. I love to play country Dobro and I play that with a band regularly. I love to play delta blues acoustic guitar and electric Chicago blues. Then there is my interest in Hawaiian Steel guitar playing.....I am very into that style. The early acoustic Hawaiian guitarists that made records in the 1920s & 30s are some of the greatest exponents of slide guitar ever.

Does each style incorporate a different technique and slide material?

Yes. For example, if I’m playing lap acoustic guitar, I may be playing Hawaiian or jazzy guitar, that requires as much perfection as you can create. Quite often if I am playing bottleneck blues, it’s the opposite. But I love the roughness as much as I love the opposite to that. I would go and see players and would gather any bit of information from any interview I read.

I love the Paul McCartney story, about when John and he heard about a guy the other side of town that knew E minor, so they got the bus across town one Saturday afternoon to learn E minor!

What is your approach to songwriting and recording?

I write with a friend, Terry Clarke, a great songwriter and lyricist. Most of my albums we’ve done together and we share ideas. He comes out with a very traditional idea for a blues and approaches it with a slightly different slant. But I’m always trying to make what I feel is a great record that I would love to hear. Each time I make an album, it has been natural, it’s important it hasn’t been contrived. Second Mind is almost totally live – I still make records with the same mind-set that I always have.

You’ve just signed a new record deal with Cooking Vinyl – can you tell us about that?

Eighteen months ago, Catfish Records, who I was signed to, went out of business and left me high and dry. I’ve been with a few record companies throughout my career and six months or so ago I contacted Cooking Vinyl. We struck a deal to re-release my back catalogue and to record a new album. Cooking Vinyl is a label I have respected since day one, and funnily enough Cooking Vinyl is one of the first companies I sent my demos to.

The new album, Lucky Charms, will be released in February 2006.

Do you gig in America?

Yes, but I gig in Europe more than America. America is about to open up because that’s an area that I’ve had success with my records. King Guitar was No. 1 in Living Blues. America’s an enormous place to crack, but there’s definitely a good response over there to what I do.

Johnny Cash wrote the sleeve notes on Rhythm Oil, which is pretty cool.

Well, my brother Alan is a photographer and went to live in Nashville in the mid 1970s. He became friends with the Cash family. When we cut Rhythm Oil, Alan took the album to Johnny Cash, and said ‘What do you think of this?’. From there he said he would write the liner notes for it. It wasn’t what we expected at all. He wrote a poem and the poem, if you don’t know the album, is all lines from the songs. He was an amazing artist. For me, meeting June Carter (Mrs. Johnny Cash – Ed) was fantastic. She was a lovely woman and talking to her one day about slide guitar and Nationals, she was saying ‘Oh I grew up with Cliff Carlisle, (early slide guitarist) and he used to sit me on his knee and play steel guitar to me’. It was great!

I did find out many years later from John Carter, their son, that Rhythm Oil was a big favourite in Dad’s office! So I am very proud of that. He was a great artist, The King of Tennessee.

How many guitars do you own?

Oh, quite a few. There’s about 20 in the house at the moment.

Do you play brand-new resophonic guitars as well as old ones?

My main resophonic guitars were made by Mike Lewis in Paris. His guitars are called 'Fine Resophonic Guitars' and he is the leading maker of National-type resophonic guitars in the world. I have a Koa single cone and a maple square neck Tri-cone (which is known as the 'Michael Messer' model). I also own a National Havana 12-string guitar which was restored by Mike a couple of years ago. My square neck Dobro was made by Ondrej Holoubek in the Czech Republic. My electric guitar was made by Dave King and is now part of his range of instruments as the signature Michael Messer model. I own vintage Nationals, but I have to say I haven’t played one on stage for seven or eight years.

What instruments do you take on the road?

I usually take four guitars out when I play with the duo, a single cone, a tri-cone, my 12-string, and an electric guitar. Ed plays a Martin acoustic. With the band I play my Dave King 'King Guitar' electric.

Tell me about your equipment and setup?

When I play electric guitar, I use a 1958 little old National Westwood 8-watt amp, which I’ve had for years. I don’t go through any effects, nothing, I just plug my guitar in. My main guitar is the Dave King/Michael Messer signature model. It’s a semi-acoustic F-hole Telecaster, which we put in Rickenbacker horseshoe pickups. So it’s half lap steel, half regular guitar. I get what I feel is a very pure electric guitar sound, very simple setup, no tone controls on it, no volume controls. I just plug it into an amp.

What kind of picks do you use?

I use plastic, white Dunlop heavy gauge finger pick.

And slides?

For electric guitar I like a glass bottleneck, or handmade glass slides, good quality glass slide for electric. For acoustic and resonator guitar I use a very heavy steel bottleneck, steel tube. And for lap guitar I use a Hawaiian bullet, which again is the old way.

Do you find using the old amp is fraught with it failing just when you need it most?

Incredibly, it has never ever failed me. I bought it about 12 years ago: a friend of mine in Canada phoned me, saying ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just seen… I said ‘Buy it, buy it, buy it!’ It was £50. I put a transformer in it, and I’ve used it almost every day since then, on every gig and every album.

I noticed on the website you say that you don’t use condenser mikes on the acoustic guitars. Why is that?

I use a microphone when I’m playing a resonator guitar, and I use the microphone for my volume and tone control, because I have none. It’s just you and a microphone. The Shure SM57s are fantastic at powerful, directional picking up. I just don’t think for stage use on a resophonic guitar that you can do better than an SM57. I don’t like resonator guitars that burn your ears and split the enamel of your teeth, so for a nice warm sound I can move over the F hole to get a bass sound, maybe move over the cone to get treble sound. You couldn’t have it any more simple. I’ve got this great pickup for my resophonic guitar, Highlanders, they are the best things made, there’s no question about it. I only use them very occasionally. I also have very low level monitoring. I’m relaxing and listening to this sweet sound. And if there are two acoustic guitars on stage and a voice in a theatre, I can actually hear the guy next to me.

Always keep things simple…

Simplicity is very important to me. Plugging in the acoustic instrument often ruins acoustic performances. And the crazy thing is technology is so good now we don’t need to. PAs and speakers are fantastic.

What is the best gig you have ever been to?

Well, possibly Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Albert Hall in 1969, which stayed with me for a bit. Maybe also Muddy Waters with Johnny Winter, Chuck Berry and Lightning Hopkins at the end for ‘Manish Boy’. It was Alexandra Palace in the late 70s – that was good! But Creedence was good though – come on, they set the benchmark!

Have you ever played air guitar, and if so, what to?

I grew up playing air guitar! I can tell you that I learned to play air guitar when I was six years old, I learned to play air Rickenbacker, John Lennon style, I learned to play air Höfner bass, I learned to play air drums and can play a perfect air Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts.

Mark Tucker for Acoustic Magazine - issue 5 Aug/Sept 2005

RETURN TO INTERVIEWS INDEX

RETURN TO HOMEPAGE

IF YOU HAVE FOUND THIS PAGE WITHOUT THE INDEX HOMEPAGE OF THE WEBSITE CLICK HERE