The
following was taken from an extensive, grilling interview of
Jon by Maureen Magee Shannon, NYC, September 2000:
MS:
Whats your real name?
JH:
Jonathan Reuel Herington.
MS:
What sign are you?
JH:
Yield, usually. No, I'm an Aries. Born on April 14th, around eleven
A.M.
MS:
Where did you grow up?
JH: Well, I was born near Paterson, New Jersey, but I grew up
in a town near the northern part of the Jersey shore called West
Long Branch.
MS:
That's Bruce Springsteen country, isn't it?
JH:
Absolutely. In fact, my first real band (called Highway) got to
open up for him a couple of times in that neighborhood. He was
great back then, even.
MS:
Did you start out early playing guitar?
JH:
No, actually, I studied some piano as a kid, and played saxophone
for years before I ever touched a guitar. I remember trying to
put bands together in my parents' basement as early on as the
fifth grade. All the guys used to leave their guitars there 'cause
they never practiced at all, and I used to just disappear down
there for hours playing all the instruments and trying to imitate
the voice of "the great Oz" really loud through the PA. So after
a couple of months I was playing more guitar than the other guys,
and eventually I convinced my parents to spring for a guitar and
an amp.
MS:
Would you tell us some of your happiest memories?
JH:
The end of this interview, but I guess that's not a memory yet,
just something I look forward to.
MS:
What did you learn in kindergarten?
JH:
That my teacher, Mrs. Pruett, never shaved her legs.
MS:
Who were some of the major influences on your early thinking?
JH:
Besides Mrs. Pruett, you mean? The Beatles. I remember liking
it when Ringo was asked what was the Beatles' greatest contribution
to the music business and he answered, "Records."
MS:
What do you remember about your grade school years?
JH:
Lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, and I used to
set records for perfect attendance. I used to come in second place
in all the spelling bees. After Sydna Bremmer, always. And in
high school I remember failing miserably at the pole-vault.
MS:
Did you study music formally?
JH:
Well, as a kid I took the piano and saxophone lessons, and much
later I studied guitar with Ted Dunbar while I was in college
at Rutgers in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and also privately with
the late, great Harry Leahey in Plainfield, New Jersey, and the
late, great Dennis Sandole in Philadelphia. And, of course, I
took a mess of music theory and composition courses while I was
in college. But I had really learned to play the guitar on my
parents' porch all through high school, by sitting there for hours
and hours, dropping the needle on record after record, with the
guitar in my lap, trying to figure out everything I heard and
had to know.
MS:
What were you listening to then? What were some of the early influences
on your musical taste and style?
JH:
The Beatles! And I guess New York City late night radio when I
was a kid. WNEW FM mostly.
MS:
What other bands or musicians?
JH: Oh, early on it was Zeppelin, the Stones, Cream, Hendrix,
the Beach Boys, Van Morrison, Leon Russell, Crosby, Stills, Nash
and Young, Joni Mitchell, of course, Dylan, and lots of others.
And later all the jazz greats whose music I fell in love with:
Miles and all his bands, Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, Bill Evans, Wes,
Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, so many more. And,
of course, I've been a fan of so much great American pop, folk,
and rock music for so long - there are just so many.
MS:
Can you describe your first professional gig?
JH: I was about 13, maybe 14 years old. My brother was the musical
director. I played the baritone sax at a political rally. I still
feel a little guilty about that. The Republican part, not the
bari sax part!
MS:
Without getting into politics, would you tell us something most
people don't know about you?
JH: I'm a closet extrovert. Sometimes "Bad Jon" surfaces.
MS:
What is the riskiest thing you've ever done?
JH:
Oh, God, I don't know. Wore white in winter?
MS:
You did a record for a Japanese label in the 90's called "The
Complete Rhyming Dictionary". Can you tell us about that record
and its impetus?
JH:
At that time I was coming out of a long phase of writing and playing
in an instrumental vein, having been really deep into all the
bands spawned by Miles's sidemen from around the "Bitches' Brew"
era, like Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin.
I loved so much of that music, and I was trying to find a way
to work the guitar into it that felt natural to me. I had been
doing a lot of recording and producing work with my great buddy,
Jim Beard, on his records and many others that he was making,
so I recruited him to help me produce the record, and we got Peter
Erskine and Victor Bailey (both Weather Report veterans), and
the amazing Arto Tuncboyacian to play. Pioneer was never able
to release it anywhere but in Japan, and I think it's long out
of print by now. If you're very resourceful you can probably still
manage to dig up a copy somewhere, I think, though. There's a
guy at Audiophile Imports, Mike Kermisch, (audiophileimports.com)
who manages to get some copies from time to time, I know.
MS:
How did you land the gig with Steely Dan, and when did that come
about?
JH: It was either 1998 or 1999, I'm not sure which, but it was
toward the end of the making of "Two Against Nature." Donald and
Walter had reached a point in the recording where they were ready
to hire another guitar player to try some rhythm guitar stuff
on the record. They had been using my good friend, Ted Baker,
on keyboards for the tracking sessions and for some overdubs,
I think, and they asked him who he'd recommend to play some guitar.
He happened to have a copy of my record, "The Complete Rhyming
Dictionary," and brought it in for Donald and Walter to hear.
Soon after that I got a call to come in and play on "Janie Runaway,"
I think it was.
MS:
What was your first session with Donald and Walter like?
JH:
Well, they had sent me a chart and a demo of the song which was
basically all synth tracks, no vocals or anything. I think there
was this vibes sounding patch playing little fragments of what
eventually became the melody. The demo had me scratching my head
a little; it sounded a little stiff or something, a little strange.
Then when I got to the studio and they put up the tracks of the
players playing the tune instead of the synth sounds on the demo,
it was like the heavens opening up. The groove was unbelievable,
the bass part and the sound of it was incredible. This repetitive
keyboard figure that had really dominated the demo was gone completely,
replaced by this cool comping with lots of space. And then, when
they finally brought up Donald's voice in the mix, it was just
unreal, it all made this beautiful, perfect sense, and there it
was: this new, vintage Steely Dan. It was pretty amazing, really.
Anyway, we recorded lots of takes of rhythm guitar for several
hours, filling up a mess of tracks. Funny thing is, none of that
ever made it to the record! I did come back after that many times
over the course of almost a year, though, and I ended up on, I
think, four of the cuts on the record.
MS:
Did you feel any anxiety working for Becker and Fagen, in light
of their reputations as perfectionists in the studio? Were there
times when you felt really scared or unsure of yourself?
JH: (Pause) I'm afraid I'm not sure.
MS:
It seems to me there must have been moments like that. What gets
you through difficult times?
JH:
Blinders and earplugs, usually.
MS:
Did you find them to be as fussy and particular as we've all heard
they are?
JH: Well, I didn't find them any fussier than I thought they should
be. I guess I'm a bit that way, myself, but they seemed like they
were after excellence in every way, and I can't find anything
wrong with that. The thing I noticed about them, and I think it
may go a long way toward explaining why they get people on their
records to sound so great, is that they were always "positively"
critical, and never "negatively" critical. What I mean is, like
when I would play a track down, we'd all listen back to it, and
Donald and Walter would comment on it. In all the time I worked
with them, not once did I hear either one of them say "Oh, did
you hear that, don't do that there," or anything negative like
that. Instead, they would point out the things I had played that
they liked, and they'd sound excited and enthusiastic about it
and say something like, "I like that there, let's try some more
stuff like that."
MS:
What is it like to tour with Steely Dan?
JH: Fantastic. Great band, great music, great people, great crowds.
Great crew, too, fantastic help with the gear, the monitors, and
incredible house sound, from all the reports I got from trusted
friends who got to hear it. Everything was right about it. The
music just got better and better, the more we played it. I was
a little disappointed with the Steely Dan T-shirts, though. Except,
of course, the "wonder waif" one. That's my fave.
MS:
Did you find anything difficult about being in the 'Hot Seat"
of the band, considering the long list of great guitar players
that have worked with Steely Dan through the years?
JH: Well, sure, in the beginning, of course. It was a little daunting,
I'd say. The trickiest thing is finding a balance between honoring
what I remember as being great and important about the recordings
with playing in the present tense in a way that feels natural
and vital to me. I couldn't play this music as if it were a cover
band playing Steely Dan songs and just imitate the records. That's
no way to live. That runs so contrary to the spirit that engendered
this music in the first place and contrary to the spirit that
moves me. But there are guitar parts on the records, which, even
though they might have been improvised at the sessions, were played
so well and have been heard so many times that they sound like
parts of the compositions, and not just casual riffing or filling.
So, often, in those cases, I would have to decide to either play
what's on the record, or maybe something similar, until some point
in time when I'd feel like I was able to be true to whatever was
great about the idea of the original, and then I'd try abandoning
the original part and get a bit looser with it.
MS:
It seems as if Steely Dan has kept you quite busy this year, with
the PBS and VH-1 video shoots, rehearsals, the tours of Japan,
the U.S. and Europe, and yet you managed to find time to record
and release a new album of songs. Tell us about it.
JH:
Yes. Well, it's called "Like So," and it's finally done and should
be available in a week or two on my website. I wanted to have
it done before I went on the road, but, of course, I underestimated
the time it would take to finish. It certainly wasn't something
I had a chance to pore over, though, since when we were recording
it I was also in rehearsals with Steely Dan six days a week and
working most nights gigging in New York. I would get up early
and try to squeeze in about three hours of recording at the studio,
then race over to S.I.R. to rehearse, then race to my night gig.
It was really too much. I don't think I'd ever try to do that
again. But it feels good now to have the record to show for it.
MS:
It's quite a different record from your first one? Why?
JH: Well, that's true. I sometimes wonder whether anyone would
even guess that this is the same guitar player or writer if they
didn't know ahead of time. It's been many years since the first
record, and I'm just in a different place now, I guess. Though
I love the first record still, the new one feels more like a return
to my original inspiration in music, mostly because it's a record
of songs; I mean I'm singing on it, and that's the music that
I first really fell in love with when I was a kid, some kind of
pop-rock type of thing like my early favorites the Beatles, Stones,
you know.
MS:
Who or what inspires your songwriting?
JH: Other songwriting, mostly. And desire.
MS:
What can you tell us about love and romance?
JH: Don't try them at home, kids.
MS:
Sex?
JH:
Yes, please.
MS:
Should we end the interview now?
JH: I thought you'd never ask.
More
to follow at some point soon...
|
