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| The Exclusive Interview with Smokey Hormel! |
| Smokey Hormel has established himself in the music industry as one of the most diverse and in-demand guitarists available today. With a list of credits that includes the likes of Beck, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Mick Jagger, and Beth Orton, it is clear that Smokey is capable of adapting to any musical situation, but on the side, his passion is brazillian music, a genre that he has been exploring with great passion with musical collaborator Miho Hatori, and their collaborations have resulted in a haunting and lovely collection of 60's era Brazillian music, including a hit song for the soundtrack of 2002 Independent film Y Tu Mama Tambien, entitled Ocean In Your Eyes. Smokey was gracious enough to spend some time to answer some questions fresh off of his Oz/Japan tour with Beck! |
| Q: Smokey, it is great to have you here as a guest! Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. This interview is being conducted fresh off your lengthy tour with Beck throughout Australia, Japan, and Europe, so I know you must be exhausted right now! How are yourself, Beck, and the gang feeling about the results of the tour? What was the reaction of the international audiences for the new Sea Change material? A: First of all, I didn't go to Europe with Beck. That was a solo tour. We only did the Australia-Japan leg. (This was due to lack of planning and poor comunication from his management.) But it was a great thing to have Justin, Joey and myself back together on tour again. This time we had Greg Kurstin (an awesome musician) on keyboards. This was Beck's best touring band ever. It's just too bad that it couldn't happen for the US and Europe. The audiences responded well to the new material, even though he didn't do enough press in that part of the world when the album came out. So the audiences weren't as familliar with the Sea Change songs. And Beck seemed to want to rock-out a lot, so he was favoring the Midnight Vultures songs on the set list. Q: What did you think was the most eventful, significant, or even the funniest moment of the tour? A: To me, the most significant part was just being away from the US at the start of the Iraq war. It was really interesting to see the difference in press coverage outside the US. We don't get much of a sense here, from our press, of how the rest of the world sees Bush. And how America is now seen as an Imperialist threat to world stability. A lot of people worldwide hate Bush. I was crossing the street when I happened to get caught up in an anti-war rally in Sydney. It was very inspiring. Even the cops were sympathetic. The protesters shut down a major intersection for about 20 minutes. Of course Beck never once mentioned the war on stage or in interviews. He's become rather a-political in his old age. Q: From your own experiences working with Beck on the road and in the studio, what do you think makes Beck appealing to such a wide variety of fans on a musical level? A: Good songs and a sense of humor about himself. Q: I was very sad to hear that you will not be going out on tour with Beck this summer in the U.S., but I know you have quite a few projects coming up this summer, including more shows with Miho Hatori and your great acoustic band. Now this is a very interesting project based on your love of 60's Brazillian music. Can you describe how Miho and yourself conceived this great project? A: We both loved that Baden Powell record (Os Afro Sambas), and we just wanted to play some of these songs live. After 9/11, it just felt very right to play this music. It was a healing thing for us. Q: I really loved what I have heard so far from the first two EPs by yourself and Miho, and anyone interested can go to your official site to hear the MP3s. In fact, Ocean In Your Eyes from the first EP was a top track from the hit soundtrack of 2002's popular independent film Y Tu Mama Tambien. Is a full-length album a possibility any time in the near future? A: Not in the near future. But maybe down the road a piece. We are writing new songs but it's a slow process. Q: I know that Baden Powell, Cuban guitarist extraordinaire, was one of your biggest influences in your guitar studies, and you had the great fortune of meeting him shortly before his death. Who are some of your other guitar or other musical influences? A: Actually Baden Powell was brazillian, not cuban. I would have to start with Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Hank Williams, Claude Debussey, Miles Davis, and Hendrix. My other big influences (from a guitar viewpoint) are Charlie Christian, Lonnie Johnson, Grant Green, Eddie Taylor, Kokomo Arnold, Luther Perkins (The Tennesee Two), Jimmy Wyble (Bob Wills and Spade Cooley), Joao Gilberto, Ali Farke Toure, John Lee Hooker, Earl Hooker, Gatemouth Brown, Link Wray, Hollywood Fats and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. I've also had the great pleasure of playing with some of my heros.....Luther Tucker, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, Jimmie Rogers, Ry Cooder and Marc Ribot. I would consider them all big influences. Actually, these days I'm mostly listening to African guitarists. My favorite period is the sixties, when the groups played dance music with handdrums and low-powered amps. The guitar tones are amazingly beautifull. Lot's of reverb and tremollo. (Once the amps got louder and the handdrums were replaced with drumsets, they lost some of that magic). Q: I mentioned your track on the Y Tu Mama Tambien soundtrack earlier, and I wanted to ask you about some other soundtrack work you have done in the past, mainly for director David Lynch, my favorite movie director! You did the scores for his short lived Cowboy and the Frenchman series, as well as for the full length film The Straight Story in 1999. Fantastic work, by the way, on both of those projects. I know that David himself takes quite a hands on approach with his films' scores, so how did you enjoy working with him? A: It was one of the highpoints of my life. He is the kind of person who makes you feel like a star. He brings out the best in people because he has so much love for the artistic process. He is also such a strange and funny character himself, it makes you feel comfortable with your own weirdness. The last thing I did with him was a project called Fox Bat Strategy. It never came out. It was a spoken word and music project that was rejected by Warner Brothers. It was an exploration for all of us involved. He, like Tom Waits, really knows how to talk to a musician to keep their imagination engaged. Q: You actually made an appearance as one of the members of the house band in the Bang Bang bar in the Lynch film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and it is easily one of the most memorable and controversial scenes in the film with the graphic sexual content and drug use of all of the characters, complete with a menacing strobe light setting the tone of the scene. Do you have any vivid recollections of shooting that scene? A: No. Just waiting in the band trailer. That's the hardest thing about film work, the waiting. Q: Looking ahead, do you have any plans to do any more recording with Beck or perhaps more tour plans later in the year? A: Not at the moment. I've been talking to Josh, Beck's new guitarist, trying to help him decipher the parts and sounds. He seems really good and eager. So, I don't think I'll be needed anytime soon. Q: Smokey, it has been a real pleasure having you here, and I appreciate your time very much! I wanted to wrap up here by asking you what other projects you have lined up for the next few months along with touring with Miho? A: Right now, I'm playing in a great band called Forro In The Dark. It's an accordion based group playing the music of the brazillian composer Louis Gonzaga, "the king of Baiao". It's really fun music. very upbeat, like zydeco. People dance. One of the main components is the triangle. The guy who plays it is an amazing dancer. We play lots of little clubs in New York, sometimes until 4 AM. Hot and Sweaty. Everybody dances. It reminds me of why I started playing music to begin with. Very fun. And lots of hot Brazillian ladies. I'm also going to be recording again with Johnny Cash in the next few weeks. His last album won a Grammy Award. I was very lucky to be part of it. We had some great moments together. He is such a sweet guy. I'm so proud of that record. And I will be releasing an album I recorded in the 90's called LET EM BLOW. It's a bluesy collection of songs featuring the late New Orleans tenor sax man Lee Allen. It also features Ralph Carney, Stephen Hodges, Larry Taylor and the LA blues singers....Top Jimmy and Lester Butler, both departed. I meant to put it out in '96, but then I got caught up in Beck's world and never had a chance. So hopefully it will come out sometime this year. |
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