Interview with Charlie Hunter, playing Rose Live Music, Sundays in August, 2009
by Adam Schatz
CHARLIE HUNTER
Charlie Hunter is a monster on an instrument that very few others can play, or have seen. Armed with his 7 string guitar-bass hybrid, Hunter's sound is completely his own, and uses it as a vehicle to bring great band after great band together. This August, he'll be performing four shows at Rose Live Music in Williamsburg, on August 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th, with a new group each night. Hunter released the album "Baboon Strength" earlier this year, a pop driven groove fest, with Tony Mason on Drums and Erik Deutsch on keys. He took the time to get on the phone with Adam Schatz and talk about the upcoming residency, his history with a major label, and plans for a new record.
S&R: Let's talk about your most recent record, "Baboon Strength" and how you were feeling when you approached putting it together and how it might differ from your previous efforts?
CH: Oh my God. Well, it's been a while...
S&R: How long has it been since you finished it?
CH: We recorded that thing more than a year ago. And as soon as that's done I'm onto the next thing. Right now I'm working on something that I'm excited about. I've been doing a lot duo stuff with drummers, like I'm doing with this residency, and at the last gig I'm doing the duo thing with a drummer, but with a brass section added. That's kinda going to be a rehearsal for the next record which we're going to make a day or two after that. It will be like making a duo record, essentially, but it'll have two trombones and a trumpet which will be very oriented around the tunes. They'll be more like backup singers, so to speak. I'm working on that music right now, and seeing where it's going to go.
S&R: Are you planning on recording just the duo first? Or are you going to do the whole thing live?
CH:: Oh yeah, we're going into the studio and it's gonna be done live to two track tape, no overdubs as usual, totally flying by the seat of our pants. All the mixing will be done while we're recording, so once it's done, it's done. That's it.
S&R: What's going through your head when you're writing for this project, considering your prolific output, is it a struggle to keep things fresh? What choices do you make to ensure this next project is going to be unique? Or is that not even an issue?
CH: Well you just always have to be pushing yourself to do something. It's not always gonna flow, but now I feel that it's flowing and that I've found a good space. I don't know, you just do it day in and day out, that's how it is, and opportunities present themselves in terms of little motifs. You play enough and work it enough that you know how to make it into a tune...
S&R: How composed are these pieces going to be?
CH: Very, very composed, but there will be space for improvisation.
S&R: That's really cool, it's a different approach. Given your popularity among the jam band community, to take that audience and present something really composed is a pretty cool thing to do.
CH: Yeah, presenting anything to them of quality is a cool thing to do. They generally have really big ears, but don't really get in front of music that's all that great most of the time. Unfortunately most of the music that they get to listen to, the guys and gals playing it aren't really ready to play yet, so much, and don't really have much vocabulary or experience. But they're a great audience when you get a chance to reach them.
S&R: How have you been putting these records out?
CH: Oh I put em out myself.
S&R: What's the experience been like?
CH: It just makes sense. I mean, would sign a guy like me? In this day and age? It doesn't make sense for a record company and it doesn't make sense for me either. I sell so few records, and the music business really isn't the music business, it's the image business. If you have some decent music it's a bonus, but it's not really that much of one. And a guy like me, it's pretty much just only about the music. So it kind of works for me.
I'm lucky in that I'm not a kind of musician where people come expecting me to perform a specific set of music and do the same dance moves I did when I was 20. I get to change every time and constantly evolve, and that's what's so fun about it. You meet all these great musicians and learn from them, and it just goes on and on.
S&R: And everyone you're playing with in the upcoming residency, have you worked with all of them before?
CH: Yeah! Everyone before. Tony Mason, in my opinion is the greatest pure pocket drummer I've ever played with, he's on the "Baboon Strength" record, so we're doing a night. Bobby Previte has been a real mentor to me as a great composer and thinker. And he also happens to be a really fabulous drummer as well. Adam Cruz I played with for a good while, duo, and he's an all around great musician. Then at the end of the month I'm playing with Eric Kalb who's a great drummer and the brass section that I'm going to be recording with. It should all be really fun.
CH: I'm having more fun playing music now that I have in years. Certainly more fun than when I had a major label deal and was in the spotlight, I can tell you that much. I can play a lot better now, and I don't feel a need to play all the stuff that you play when you're trying to impress everyone with how much you don't know (laughs).
S&R: Definitely! In those days did you find that things were going in directions that you weren't into?
CH: Well you didn't really have a choice. When you're in that big corporate thing it really is like working on a plantation. You don't get a lot of choice in how the whole thing works out. You have to go with the flow pretty much. But that's the kind of deal you make with being able to make a career happen for yourself. It's like the mafia era kind of thing, the record company would invest in you.
S&R: Let's touch upon the most visited subject matter. It seems in every interview you've done, the first five questions are revolving around your instrument. I wanted to know how that felt to in a lot of ways be known for your instrument as much as the music?
CH: It is a big part of it, and I'm always trying to evolve that too. It seems that the farther along I get with it, the less of an impediment to the music it becomes, and more of the music it becomes. As I get older, it gets farther away from worrying about doing a bass and guitar part at the same time, and becomes its own amalgamated sound, that's more about the counterpoint, and more about dealing with the pocket and the time, that I feel to be really really important. So for me it's about trying to shift that guitar paradigm, because there's so little guitar that interests me or excites me at all, because so much of it seems to be rooted in the adolescent guitar mentality. I'm just trying to go for something at least that I think is deeper, that might not have anything to do with these overt chops, but rather the time, groove and the way that parts work together.
S&R: And sort of rooting your playing in that sound and covert ideas, lends itself to the sound always being an ensemble sound, and a group push, and not just a soloist on top of a band.
CH: Exactly. But even when I do a lot of solo stuff, even then I want it to have more of an ensemble sound. If you listen to somebody like Joseph Spence, he kind of had that sound.
