Can you point out specific songs
where you were thinking about Drake
when you wrote them?
From an early song like [the Black
Crowes’] “Thorn in My Pride” to stuff
from Flux, I feel that you can really hear
a Nick Drake influence in the way that
the rhythms roll and, even more so, in
the timbre of the ringing open strings.
Robinson
wields one of
his Teye guitars
onstage with Bad
Company earlier
this year. “I
always thought
Paul Rodgers
would be fun to
work with,” he
says. “Obviously
that wasn’t
something I
could even think
about doing
when I was in the
Black Crowes.”
RICK ROBINSON’S GEAR
GUITARS
• Echopark Ghetto Bird with
Arcane P-90 pickups
• 1963 Gibson ES-335
• 1969 Gibson Les Paul goldtop
• Fender Custom Shop Telecaster
• Martin 0000-21 acoustic
• Zemaitis George Harrison models (two)
• 2010 Gretsch Black Falcon
• Teye La Mora
• Teye El Dorado
AMPS
• 1955 tweed Fender Vibrolux
• 1971 Marshall JMP with Matchless 4x12
• 1989 Marshall Silver Jubilee
with Matchless 4x12
• Rich Robinson signature model Reason
• Vox AC30 Hand-Wired
Being a big gearhead, what did you
play on the album?
I actually kept things pretty minimal. I got
a new Echopark with P-90s, and I used
my goldtop and my 335 like I always do.
Those are my main guitars. For amps, I
had some Vox AC30s, my signature model
50-watt Reason amp, and an amazing
’50s tweed Vibrolux. I also used a 1971
Marshall 50-watt JMP that sounds great,
as well as a Silver Jubilee that I’ve used
forever. Then I have these Fulltone Tube
Tape Echoes that I use three-at-a-time.
As for acoustics, I’ve got a quad 0
[Martin 0000-21] that was built to
George Gruhn’s specs and a couple of
Zemaitis George Harrison signature
models made when Tony Zemaitis
passed away and the company moved to
Japan. They farmed out their acoustics
to Lowden, who are based in Ireland
and make incredible guitars.
STRINGS & PICKS
“Music That Will Lift Me” has some
particularly great acoustic and electric
guitar textures. How did you record them?
A lot of the time we used a pair of Gefells
on the acoustics, and on the electrics we
used a mixture of Shure ribbon mics with
a range of placement. We miked some up
close and others far away, to really get a
depth of different sounds. I’m really happy
with the way all of the guitars sound on
the album—very natural and organic.
• Assorted D’Addario electric and
acoustic sets (.010–.052)
• Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Overall, what were you going for when
you made the album?
EFFECTS
• Fulltone Tube Tape Echo (three)
• Way Huge Red Llama
• Way Huge Swollen Pickle
• custom Red Rooster Booster
• Fender Vintage Reissue ’63 Reverb tank
72 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2016
I’ve done every album I’ve made for the
last 25 or so years in a slightly different
way. On my last record, The Ceaseless
Sight, I wrote a few songs and song
fragments, and I wanted to use the
studio to finish them. I liked the way
it turned out, so for this record I said
I’m not going to finish anything—even
more so than the previous record.
For Flux I decided to channel all
the inspiration and energy you can get
going on in the studio. I like to use
the studio as a source of inspiration.
When you go into a high-end place like
[Woodstock, New York’s] Applehead,
with a certain past, you really have a
finite amount of time available, and so
there’s an urgency to make decisions
on the fly and to finalize everything as
efficiently as possible. I really work well
with that kind of pressure.
I love the fact that Flux is a very
eclectic record. It draws from all of my
different influences and it’s kind of like
a journey, which is what a good record
should be. It was interesting to see
where the music took me in the studio
and where the album takes you when
you listen to it from start to finish.
You mentioned pressure—how long
did you have to make the album?
We only had two weeks to record, and
we basically tracked one song per day.
Sometimes I came into the studio with
skeletal melodies, and some of the songs
were more fleshed out, but, again, I
opted to do most of the composing and
arranging in the studio, to see what it
would elicit from the music.
What are some examples of the
skeletal ideas you fleshed out in
the studio?
“Ides of Nowhere” and “Sleepwalker”
were songs that evolved from these
little ideas. They really came to
life when the band and I were in
the studio. They weren’t anything
like originally planned, and it was
really exciting to experience that
transformation with the band.
With “For to Give,” I went into
the studio with just the verse and the
Photo by Ken Settle
How has Nick Drake influenced you?
I don’t really use Nick’s tunings, but he’s a
profound influence nonetheless. He really
sent me down that road of exploring
alternate tunings on my own, and it’s
something I’ve been doing for years.
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