What label's it on over there?
It's on a new label called SPV out of Germany. We're gonna do an eight week
tour of Europe starting on the second of June. At the end of that tour we
hope to come back to the States and do a promotional tour for this album.
What else can you tell me about the new album?
Well, basically, it's a message album. There's a lot of Wailers 'Legend'
type sounds. Titles like "Jah Love," "Wrong Tree," "Rastaman
Sound." It's a very rootsy type album. We have a few guests on there
like Cat Coore from Third World, and Sly Dunbar. Original Wailer Tyrone
Downie is on the album. Keyboard player Martin Batista, who worked with
us on I.D. and Majestic Warriors.
Tyrone toured with you in the Wailers Band for a while, right?
Yea. He was with the Wailers from like mid-70's, around '75. He's been
with the Wailers a long time. He toured with Ziggy for a while. Then he
took a break from touring and did a lot of session work in Jamaica. He worked
on the last album with us.
Is Al (Anderson) still involved with the band?
Well, he is. We've got a big tour planned next year for Bob's fiftieth Birthday
anniversary with all the original members including Al. At the moment I
believe he's doing work with Bass Culture in Germany.
What else about the album should people know?
Like I said, it's very rootsy. It's got one acoustic song on it. We had
some co-writing with Desmond Smith who worked with Bob on the Uprising
and Survival albums. Family Man wrote a couple songs on the album,
I wrote a few. We have an outside writer from California who wrote a song
called "Where is Love." So we're looking forward to getting maybe
three or four singles out of this album when it does come out in the States.
I think it'll do better than the other two albums. Although one of them
got nominated for a Grammy, it didn't get a lot of airplay and promotion.
Majestic Warriors did pretty good on the college market, but with
the record industry as it is, you have to have a lot of promotion for people
to even know that you have an album out, but we were happy with the album.
Is it difficult to present new material to an audience, because people
want to hear all Bob's old songs?
It's not hard, because we were part of developing those songs in the beginning.
You don't feel alienated to it. I enjoy all those songs still, I think they're
great songs. We have new songs that we're writing all the time. As long
as people love those songs, there's nothing wrong in giving them what they
want.
Was there any commercial pressure when you recorded the new album?
We're not under any pressure, because we're not committed to any label who
says 'you have to do this, or you have to have an album ready in two weeks.'
We more or less do it when we have the inspiration. When we get together,
we go into it and say, 'okay we have about forty songs, we only need ten.'
We try to break it down, (to get) everyone's favorite. We try to get a concept
and get the songs that suit the concept.
What's the process like when this band writes songs. What do each of
you bring?
Well it can be sometimes just a bassline or sometimes just some words. Whenever
we rehearse, we get a chance to jam a little bit, and somebody will say
'let's try this progression,' and we'll have maybe half a song and we'll
come back and have some more words. It'll grow, you grow with it, give it
a couple of months just playing and eventually you find an arrangement that
everyone likes. Sometimes they come instantly, and sometimes they take a
couple of years. There's a song on the new album that I wrote about fourteen
years ago. So there's no guarantee when it'll come out, but normally it'll
come out at a time when you feel it the most.
Do you find it difficult to remember a song for that long or do you put
it down on tape and keep it?
I don't really find it hard to remember, but I try to keep most of them
on tape so you have a rough idea of where you started. How it ends up is
another thing. Most of us have home studios, most people make their own
demos, bring the cassette to rehearsal, and we listen and pick out one or
two that we like and try it. No one gets offended if the song isn't done,
cause maybe it's not the time for that song. Just the ones that you feel
have that immanent kind of feeling. 'Okay, this one feels like we should
really do it now.'
Go back, if you would, to the time around Bob's death. What was that
time like?
It was a little of what you would call stress nowadays. It was not really
stressful, it was more like not knowing what would happen, how things would
turn out. It was like, kind of unexpected as well, with his wishes of (our)
carrying on. (We thought) 'let's stick with the positive energy, don't get
too negative about it. These things happen.' We just kept playing, kept
rehearsing a lot. We were asked to come and do special tribute shows. We
didn't have any time off to think too deeply into it, we just kept on playing.
Then we started doing tours pretty regular. The first big tour we did was
the Reggae Sunsplash Tour of Europe, and then we did the Legend Tour with
the I-threes and Ziggy and the whole Marley family. We continued doing shows
all over the globe. A lot of people never got the chance to see Bob, but
they figure, 'the Wailers are still here.'
It must have been hard when Carly passed away...
Yea, that was rough, because he was such an original. His style is really
what made Reggae what it is today.
Yea, he and Family Man were the original drums and bass. There's Sly
and Robbie, but they'll tell you...
Family Man taught Robbie, and they've done exceptionally well.
Tell me about some of your sessions. Obviously Alpha Blondy...
He came down to Jamaica and did a single with Family Man called "Cocody
Rock" which did very well on the West coast of Africa. Then he wanted
to do an album, and he came back and we did Jerusalem. We recorded
all of it at Tuff Gong in Kingston. It was a very easy session, cause he
(has) a very easy, laid back vibe. He respects Family Man a lot. Family
Man co-produced the album. It was a big hit around Europe.
We also did an album, Hail H.I.M., with Burning Spear. That's one
of my favorites.
Give me kind of a comparison of working on an album with Burning Spear
to working on an album with Alpha or working on an album with Bob...
The difference was the vocal would carry in a certain direction. Alpha Blondy's
got a very kind of bluesy type of thing and Burning Spear, he's bluesy,
but he's very hypnotic and spiritual. It has that kind of Nyabinghi Rasta
type vibe to it. And Bob's thing, it has a strong message and a very very
strong, I don't know, it's like a spiritual thing, it really grabs you.
He was very articulate and crafty with how things were done. There's a lot
of energy put into Bob's things as well, a lot of time and energy. So you
can actually hear the amount of work that went into it. There was a lot
of thought, a lot of time and a lot of patience, a lot of hard work -- and
you can feel it.
We never spent as much time on the Alpha Blondy album, but the time we did
spend on it was very intense and everyone played as well as they could.
Rather than trying to make it sound like Bob, we tried to make it sound
like an Alpha sound. For example, a lot of the guitar work that I did on
Hail H.I.M., Burning Spear, I never used those sounds on any other
album. And a lot of the sounds I used on Alpha Blondy's album, I never used
on Bob's albums. So each project got its own sound.
That's something that we've always done. We never try to give everyone the
same sound, because then it becomes boring and monotonous and it's not as
fresh. Whereas when you hear an Alpha Blondy track, you don't say 'this
came from this Bob Marley track.'
You say Bob's albums took a lot of time. Was it a similar process every
time, or did each session have its own mood...
Each had a different mood, because for example, Exodus and Kaya
were finished up in England. It started off in Jamaica and went to Nassau
in the Bahamas and then came to England. We did a lot of things in England.
Uprising and Survival were done in Jamaica. Just the temperature
(alone) was different. The whole vibe was different. Maybe we didn't eat
as much in Jamaica as we did in England when it was cold. You have a different
type of energy level. In Jamaica, we spent a lot of time in the studio.
In England also, but it was a different time of the day. In England we'd
be in the studio from maybe like six in the evening right through until
as late as we could stay. In Jamaica, it was more like a twenty-four hour
thing. We'd take it in shifts sometimes. We always spent a lot of time on
the albums though, a lot of work.
What do you think is the best, or your best, or the band's best album?
I don't know if there's a best, because the way Bob approached things, it
was like first and last. He went into it one-hundred and ten percent. I
think my favorite is Exodus, cause it was the first one that I came
in on. They were my favorite Reggae band, and when I met them, I thought,
'this isn't real.' Playing on Exodus was like a dream come true.
It will always be the one that got me started with the Wailers. But I enjoyed
all the albums and I really enjoyed working with Bob. He brought a lot out
of me. He pushed really hard to make you get more disciplined, so you were
more focused in what you were doing. In the beginning I thought 'this guy
is tough to work with,' but after I picked up on what he was doing, I thought
'this guy knows what he's doing,' because he made you get the best out of
yourself, or as good as you could at the time.
How did the opportunity to join the Wailers come about?
I was working with Steve Winwood of Traffic on his solo album, Arc
Of The Diver, and he was working with Chris Blackwell also, and he (Blackwell)
heard my guitar playing and thought it was Steve. He said, 'No, it's this
guy down the road.' That's how I met Blackwell, and he told me right away
he said, 'you'd be perfect for the Wailers,' and I thought, 'you must be
kidding.' Then I met Bob and in a matter of an hour, I was in the band.
We jammed together for like three songs and he said, 'If you want it, it's
yours.' I was very honored to be given that opportunity.
That was in '76?
No, '77. February 14th.
I bet that was quite a day in your life.
Yea, changed it totally.
Copyright 1994, Carter Van Pelt
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