L4LM had the pleasure of sitting down with the Pedal Steel’s living legend, Robert Randolph. Randolph and his Family Band have been recording and performing for over a decade, and the amount of albums and shows he’s sat in on are impossible to count. His guitar playing can only be described as otherworldly. Some licks sound have devilish ring deep from the Mississippi Delta, with a voice that shouts high to the heavens with that signature guitar slide to match. He’s the artist’s artist.
Read on to see what he had to say about his Thanksgiving Brooklyn Bowl Run, his unconventional rig, and wisdom he could pass on to the young musicians reading this:
L4LM: Legend has it that you didn’t listen to any secular music until you were 16. How were you exposed to it and what was that transformation like for you?
RR: Well, it was actually pretty interesting and I’m actually still finding a lot of music that I hadn’t listened to before that still interests me, so it’s kind of an ongoing thing. It just helped me do a lot of stuff on the pedal steel guitar that hadn’t been done before.
L4LM: Nice. When you think of Gospel music it’s not readily identifiable for people such as I with the pedal steel guitar. You think Organs, you thing Gospel Chops, and you think Tambourine. How did you get into that instrument specifically?
RR: Well our church goes back as an organization where the pedal steel is really the man instrument. Sort of the like the Buena Vista Social Club, if you would say, and it’s been going since the 1940s basically that I grew up watching all these guys in my church playing pedal steel, and I wanted to be like those guys.
L4LM: Cool. Do you have any Gospel musicians you’d recommend to any of us heathens?
RR: You could look up sacred steel. You’ll see a bunch of live recordings we did early on.
L4LM: Yea I’ll definitely have to check that out. It sounds like you’re influenced today by whatever you are hearing. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. There’s Spiritual music and worldly music but it’s just about you working on your instrument and always getting better, am I correct?
RR: Yea that’s exactly what it is. Growing up in our church, Gospel is sort of the root of all music, especially in this country.
L4LM: Absolutely.
RR: All of these great bands have been influenced by gospel; All these great rock bands like The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd have gospel overtones, undertones, sayings, and chord changes that really come from gospel. So for me it’s just sort of translating all of that onto a pedal steel and approaching it in a sort of Jimi Hendrix style way.
L4LM: I hear you mean, your music just floats so well. I saw in the “Rig Rundown” you did a while back you tune it to E9, E7, C6. Those are very wide, spacey, colorful groups of notes to put together.
RR: Yea, that’s kind of what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to cover a lot of different things in terms of Jazz because on pedal steel you’re actually limited because you have to sort of find the chords within the pedals. It’s not as mobile as guitar but once you start to figure it out it really starts to get interesting, every day. You got so many different voicings, so many things going into it.
L4LM: You never got bored of it, you can’t.
RR: Yea.
L4LM: I think that speaks to how people see you and listen to your music because so many people have not heard the sound that you have. So when you hear it, it’s this amazing experience, it’s perhaps what keeps us coming back. I want to talk about the song “Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That” because it was use in some commercials for NBC sports and the discovery channel. What was it like getting that call, and why do you think that was the song they were gravitated to?
RR: Everyone knows that we are very much into sports growing up. I think a lot of the sports teams in a lot of different sports they just look for not only good music, but guys who have great images who believe what they say. I’m happy to be that kind of artist who writes a lot of songs to influence people but also make you want to dance, rock out, and have a good time.
L4LM: Nice, I like that. Jersey born, Correct?
RR: Yup, Jersey all the way.
L4LM: What are your teams?
RR: Giants, Mets, Knicks, Rangers
L4LM: Fair enough. Speaking of that Rig Rundown, from a musician’s perspective, the two most fascinating pieces of gear you had in my opinion were that old rickety chair and the car speakers that you put in your amps? Can you explain that for our readers?
RR: Uhh, it just gives it a different sound. With the car speakers you get more of a mid range, ringy tone. A car speaker can take a lot of thump, definitely car subs. I Actually use in my cabinet a 12 inch car speaker and 4 inch car speaker, the 4 inch help your highs scream out a little more.
L4LM: Yea, that’s so cool. After I heard that I just thought, “That’s so brilliant, but I can’t think of anyone who’s done it.”
RR: I mean, it took a lot of time to get the gear. I don’t usually recommend people spending a lot of time or money on it. I’ve had a lot of time over the years to make a different thing. I kind of got the idea from Santana. I think Santana showed up into the studio with this very strange boombox, and all of his tones were coming from this little boombox.
L4LM: Hmm, that’s cool. Especially for a young musician who doesn’t have the revenue to buy the highest end equipment every year, that’s the best way to do it, by being resourceful.
RR: I’m still trying new stuff everyday, that’s what makes it fun.
L4LM: Sounds like a good way to live and play. You still use that chair with all the tape and brackets? The one that shakes but never breaks?
RR:(laughs) yea, yea I still use that.
L4LM: Nice, man. How did the “biological family” come into the family band? What it an easy or difficult process to get that happening?
RR: Well it’s always a process but it was actually pretty easy because I got a big musical family so at any given time people who’ve seen enough of our shows they’re seeing different members of our shows. A lot of my younger cousins are getting older so they would come out and play, sing, and do a bunch of different things. It’s really a fun thing to have your family there, you know?
L4LM: Totally. That’s why I ask whether it was easy or difficult to start because you could have people butting heads at home or it could work perfectly, which it sounds like it does.
RR: Well, you kind of get the best of both worlds. You get arguing, you get all that kind of stuff. But at the same it’s the same thing you’d go through any other day.
L4LM: I hear ya. Another question for you, I was on your facebook page and I saw a little video of Eric Krasno(Lettuce, Soulive) playing some licks on some stuff, you guys recording right now?
RR: Yea yea we’ve been in the studio finishing a bunch of new songs and stuff, so I had Krasno come in. We’ve always played and jammed together. He lives in Brooklyn, I live in Jersey. We got together throughout the years so we just figured it’s time to get a sound together. You know, to get some finished material so we can go out and play together.
L4LM: Absolutely, so the next album is in the works?
RR: Yea we should have another album out by…I’ll say January.
L4LM: Excellent. What Studios are you recording in?
RR: We recorded at MSR Studios, and then we did some at Brooklyn Recording Studios. Brooklyn Recording Studios is one of the best recording studios in the country.
L4LM: How so?
RR: They have so many instruments and things in there. Basically you can just show up with no guitar or anything. They got probably 100 guitars, 100 different basses, 30 different types of keyboards. It’s really a great place.
L4LM: Nice. So it speaks to your exploratory nature of an instrumentalist, huh?
RR: Yea, a lot of guys like to record there. Citizen Cope, John Mayer records there. A lot of bands, especially indie bands go there because you could really explore so many different options of sound you know? So it really makes it fun.
L4LM: Sweet. Speaking of Brooklyn, you guys are playing a 4 night Thanksgiving run at the Brooklyn Bowl. What draws you to play the Brooklyn Bowl for the Thanksgiving run?
RR: I don’t know, we started it about 5 years ago now. We always sort of, like, I’m actually this week trying to figure what the hell were going to play. For some reason, we always find a lot of material to play because there’s something about Brooklyn Bowl. We always get into all these different jams and all these different guests come by, it really makes it a fun time.
L4LM: That’s great. So it sounds like a lot of work but done with such ease.
RR: Yea man.
L4LM: Nice. I wanted to ask you also as a young musician myself, and anybody trying to do the stuff you do musically, do you have any advice for trying to survive the music industry and get to a place where you get to have this much fun and grow everyday with your instrument?
RR: You know, I just tell people to stick by whatever feels right, you never know. There’s a band called BlackBerry Smoke. Their a southern sort of indie rock and. These guys were out on the road for 5 or 6 years, just touring bars and stuff, doing all that. And now their becoming this big band because they just stuck by it. They got better, they continue to write great songs, their great performers and they just been out on the road and now they’re way bigger than we are right now! It’s great, there’s a lot of bands out there right now like that.
L4LM: Cool. So it sounds like you pay your dues, put in the time, learn from your mistakes, and you just make true music.
RR: Yea because now there are so many ways of keeping the fans engaged and I think, I’ve even had to learn this lesson. You really want to stay close and stay true to your fans because, you know, when they become your fans they become a part of your family. They will criticize when you write a bad song and they really latch on when you write a good song.
L4LM: I hear you. So back to the subject of Thanksgiving shows, you know I gotta ask: What are you thankful for?
RR: Me? I’m just so thankful to be alive. With so many people dying today, I’m thankful to be alive. I’m thankful to have all my family around me. You know, people are dying, sick, and depressed you know? I’m just happy to be in the right state of mind and to be alive. That’s what I’m thankful for.
L4LM: That’s nice, I like that. It sure gives me something to think about.
RR: As much a death is a part of life, and when you die that’s just a part of it, I’m trying to live. I like to be around to see things right now (laughs)
L4LM: Yea, well that speaks to how you are with your music and how it can be so improvisational yet can be so tight and just groove. I’m watching videos of you, your drummer and your bassist locking in and it’s not just your average praise break. There’s a spirit in between you and your musicians, you know?
RR: Yea well I think that’s just a testament to how we like to create, how we like to lock in and we just like to find a thing. Sometimes we’ll be out shows and we’ll just get into something and next thing you know, to be honest with you, that how basically all our songs have been written during some jam at a show and that’s the fun part about it. The more exciting thing is, I think that one of the best songs written, right now, that we’ve recorded last week in the studio, was just a testament of that. The song is just so great and it sounds good and its kinda everything I really wanted when we start jamming. It’s a song called “Got Soul.”
L4LM: Got Soul.
RR: Got Soul. Now that might be the name of the record but we’ll see.
L4LM: Ooh, very nice. That’s beautiful; that is something to be thankful for most definitely.
RR: Definitely.