November 4–11, 1999

20 questions

interview by Michael Pelusi

Richard Thompson was called "England’s finest electric guitarist," by no less an authority than one of the music dorks in Nick Hornby’s music-dork novel High Fidelity. Thompson is an elegiac, fierce player, mixing dark passions and virtuosity — more like Coltrane than a grizzled, Strat-wielding road warrior. From his freewheeling early days in the late ’60s with folk-rock avatars Fairport Convention to the edgy grace of his albums with former wife Linda to his fairly fiery solo work — he’s even better as a songwriter. See "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight," "A Man in Need," "When the Spell Is Broken," or "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." His latest album Mock Tudor (Capitol) is a three-part concept work outlining his relationship with London from his youth to the present. No dry social study, the album lets Thompson map out his classic themes onto larger terrain. It’s all about the struggle to break free.

How do you think the viewpoint of London changes throughout the album as it moves from the ’50s to now?

It certainly moves out from the suburbs into the real city. But that’s kind of the background for the songs. The songs are set in the landscape, but aren’t necessarily about the landscape. "Walking the Long Miles Home" is [like if] you’ve missed the last bus so you have to walk home. Because you live in the suburbs, you have several miles home. So I suppose that’s the landscape acting directly on the song.… Although the suburbs are sold as a kind of dream, it’s almost like being in the country. You’ve got all this space, you’ve got a big garden. But actually, they tend to be really dull. You have to make your own entertainment. The lure of town, especially if you’re a teenager, is very strong.

What drew you into London? Clubs and bands?

It was a lot of music, and art galleries and sometimes parties. But a lot of the time it was to go see music. At that time there was a great variety of stuff to see. You could go see The Who at the Marquee Club… or The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. You could go see really good jazz, really good folk music. There was a wide selection of stuff.

Do you find songs improve the more you play them?

I think a record is a necessary froze performance. You perform a song as best you can. You tweak it a bit in the studio, and you make it slightly more perfect than it would be live. And that’s a kind of statement of the song. But playing them live, songs tend to grow in different directions. Tempos change, the length of a song changes. And that’s a necessary thing. It’s a kind of an organic process.

Can you think of an example of a song that’s changed fairly dramatically on the road?

A simple song like "Wall of Death," which we basically play the same as the record, it hasn’t really changed that much. But it’s become progressively angrier, heavier and more emphatic. It’s become a lot more of a boy’s song. On the record it sounds almost poppy. It sounds polite and poppy and I think, gosh it was never really intended to sound like that.… I think the song requires a punchier expression. I think it achieves that more now.

Do you think guitar-based rock has come to a standstill?

Well, I hope so. I hope it comes to a standstill. Well, a lot of it’s crap. I’d certainly be delighted if it all disappeared overnight, that’d be great. In a sense it’s been superceded, popular music has moved on to hip-hop and rap, if you want the truth. We’re all a bunch of dinosaurs, really. And it’s just as well.

Really? Why?

Because it’s been around a long time, and since Hendrix guitar-playing’s gone nowhere.

You don’t think it could go to another level?

Well if someone had the kind of musical integrity of Hendrix. There’s a lot of flashy guitar players. There’s very few real notes being played. [pause] Yeah, good.

Bonus Web-Only Excerpts from Michael Pelusi's interview with Richard Thompson

Your albums seem to have developed a conceptualized bend lately. With this obviously, you?me?us? [1996] and Industry [1997] also had themes running through them. Is this a conscious decision or just something where you just started writing, coming up with ideas that ran across more than one song?

This album was a conceptual idea. I thought, well this would be an interesting project at some point, perhaps I'll do it in collaboration with someone else, but it would be fun to do it. I had a couple of songs put aside for this project as a starting point. And it just seemed at a certain point that this would be an interesting thing to develop now, and it was actually fairly quick to write an album's worth of material. It was choosing the time. There are some other things on the backburner that will hopefully see the light of day.

Can you give some sort of preview?

No. [laughs] No I can't. It's secret.

Do you find you need to keep things under the works, under wraps.

Absolutely. If you talk about them, you kind of fritter them away.

It seems like your guitar solo on "Hard on Me" echoes on the solo on "Shoot Out the Lights." Or is that just me?

Well, they're similar songs.

I could almost pick up melodic parts of the solo…

Oh, I don't know about that. I hope not. I hope it's different. I think the solos on "Hard On Me" are better, but the "Shoot Out the Lights" record is pretty old isn't it? And I thought it wasn't the greatest version anyway.

"Hard on Me" or "Shoot out the Lights"?

"Shoot out the Lights." It's a song we’ve played 500 times since live, and almost every version live has been better than the record.

What was is like working with [producers Tom] Rothrock and [Rob] Schampf?

Oh, it was quite fun. I suppose it was a bit of a blind date, really. But because I'd met them, and I talked to them and I'd listened to records they'd made, but there was no real way of knowing what it was going to turn out like.

Which ones did you listen to?

I quite like Elliott Smith, Mary Lou Lord, Beck, Foo Fighters.

Were you already familiar with those records?

I was familiar with Foo Fighters and Elliott Smith. And I think I was struck by the fact that they didn't have a signature sound. They would mold themselves around the artist. And I'm always a fan of the artist being at the center of the project. Sometimes you hear a producer has such a style that it stamps itself all over, and you think, well the artist is kind of incidental to this record. I thought that was a hopeful sign. And it turned out to be a lot of fun. And I felt that I was absolutely at the center of the album, and I feel it was the way I would've wanted it to turn out. I think that's high praise.

Was it different than working with Mitchell [Froom] and Tchad [Blake, the production team who helmed Thompson's previous five solo albums]? Was it odd after all these years of working with those two — the switch?

Yeah, it was good to switch. I should have switched earlier — I'm just very conservative in the studio. It was the same in the sense that with both recording teams there was an intention to make a kind of live-sounding record. Both sets of producers have different approaches to that. With Mitchell and Tchad, it's a real garage, off-mike kind of sound. With Tom and Robert, it was just a straight-ahead, almost an Abbey Road EMI ’60s recording style, basically very live and a bit of compression.

Do you think you'll work with them again?

Well, I'd be delighted to. I hope I will, if it's not the next project, then sometime in the future. We had a lot of fun and I think we became good friends.

Richard Thompson plays Fri., Nov. 5, 8 p.m. (sold out) and Sat., Nov. 20, 8 p.m., at the Keswick Theatre, Easton Rd. and Keswick Ave., Glenside, PA, 215-572-7650.