Robert Randolph: Interview
Robert Randolph has only gotten high once. He mistakenly ate one of Gov’t Mule’s potent brownies before a show. At the Bonnaroo Music Festival, he demonstrated its effects, collapsing to the ground and convulsing his legs until his signature wide-brimmed hat fell to the floor.
For Randolph, music is the ultimate high. With his sacred pedal steel guitar in tow, he seamlessly blends genres – from funk and gospel to rock ‘n’ roll - unifying their associated histories and followers through an uplifting and spiritual songs.
I recently spoke to Randolph about his numerous collaborations for his latest album, Colorblind.
Austin in Austin: Obviously there’s more of an emphasis on song structure and capturing the energy of your live performances on the new record. What’s the most difficult aspect of doing that for you?
Robert Randolph: The only thing that was difficult at first was learning how to work with other people. Only the really great musicians can adapt to other people. I really had the chance to learn from Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana and so many different people, Dave Matthews. You got to get used to learning from people who’ve been around longer than you. There’s this thing Clapton was telling me: Everybody thinks that they’re good enough, but until someone has the balls to come around and tell you that you can be better, you can’t really take it to the next level. These musical pioneers were helping me become the best musician that I can be. I’m learning to put the guitar around the song to build choruses. If you look at Hendrix, who to me is the best guy at doing it, he’s the greatest guitar player of all-time and he’s written some of the greatest songs as well. People are still trying to take from him.
For me, this whole writing process was a learning experience. I don’t know if I was ever really done recording the record. It was newfound thing for me to pull so much more out what we were already doing. We wrote about 40 songs, recorded maybe 20 of them, but there’s just that constant energy to it that’s easier now. A conversation I had with Steven Tyler, for instance, helped influence the first song, “Ain’t Nothin Wrong with That.” It was us just us talking about music and listening to some older rock bands, stuff that influenced him, that produced that song. You wouldn’t guess it though. There’s a huge party vibe, but it feels rock, if feels fun. Bringing people together, having the guitar up there and a big huge chorus up there, it’s like Sly Stone meets Outkast meets Hendrix meets going to church and bringing everyone together. There “Ain’t Nothing Wrong with That.”
AIA: What exactly was it that Steven Tyler said and what were those records you were listening to?
RR: We were listening to The Pretty Things, a song called “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which I ended up taking with me. It has that same vibe but it was recorded in the ‘60s.
AIA: What was your first experience with Eric Clapton like?
RR: You know the first time, we had just started the European tour and I was sitting in the back of the guitar playing acoustic and he walks in and stands at the end of the room and is like ‘man, what’s going on.’ We just started talking for hours up and until show time. He’s really just a down home guy who loves music. We started talking about our histories and backgrounds and that went on for our whole six months we were on tour together.
AIA: Aside from working with a lot different musicians you brought in a lot of different professional songwriters as well. What was the reasoning there?
RR: It’s all learning. It’s the reason why Michael Jordan has to go to basketball practice. It’s not just about guitar scales or being able to jam live, you learn a different aspect to writing a song. It’s about getting into the headspace and putting things in prospective. Most people don’t have the ability to call up Rob Thomas or Carlos Santana and say I have this idea, what do you think? It’s just a blessing.
AIA: Is the ultimate goal then to get to a place where you can write it all yourself on a future record?
RR: I enjoy working with other people. Unless it’s a total song that the good Lord just gives me, sometimes we just get those gifts, but I would rather sit down and feed off these other people. That’s what makes jamming and recording fun. What happens then is that you get another five ideas from that one session or jam.
AIA: Going back in time a little bit, I can’t help but wonder what those early church services were like with you rocking the “Sacred Steel.”
RR: If you’ve never been, it’s one of the greatest experiences you can even imagine. Going to church anyways is the greatest experience. At the same time, in our church there’s a great tradition of music since the1930s, guys like Calvin Cook, Ted Beard and Henry Nelson. Their style is more joyful than anything else. A lot of people like old gospel music, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. All of those people come from that old Baptist/ Pentecostal tradition. Al Green … it’s the ultimate experience. Some of the different ones were given the message and the ability to go out their and share it with the rest of the world. Here I am playing pedal steel, a young African-American; my goal is always to bring joy to people through song and music. Hopefully there will be thousands of people inspired to go out and do the same thing, especially in day in age with all of the young African-Americans wanting to be rappers, want to be kinda from the ghetto and have that kind of anger to where they’re not really trying to influence people to better – it’s just thug life, you know? That’s different from me.
AIA: Because of your notorious live performances, you are a heavily bootlegged artist. Do you have any particular opinion on the matter?
RR: With technology of today, you can be recorded at any given time, just look at YouTube. It’s a different musical time, but that’s one of the things that allow us to out there and do improvisation a lot more. Stevie Wonder used to tell me that the studio used to be like going to the club. You went there and drank, and did whatever drug you were doing, and you’d play music for hours on hours. "Superstition" was probably was about four different jams combined. It’s kind of like that. It pushes me to not do the same thing and actually try new things, unlike some of these low-end rock bands.
Robert Randolph and the Family Band will be performing at Stubb’s on Friday, October 28th.
For Randolph, music is the ultimate high. With his sacred pedal steel guitar in tow, he seamlessly blends genres – from funk and gospel to rock ‘n’ roll - unifying their associated histories and followers through an uplifting and spiritual songs.
I recently spoke to Randolph about his numerous collaborations for his latest album, Colorblind.
Austin in Austin: Obviously there’s more of an emphasis on song structure and capturing the energy of your live performances on the new record. What’s the most difficult aspect of doing that for you?
Robert Randolph: The only thing that was difficult at first was learning how to work with other people. Only the really great musicians can adapt to other people. I really had the chance to learn from Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana and so many different people, Dave Matthews. You got to get used to learning from people who’ve been around longer than you. There’s this thing Clapton was telling me: Everybody thinks that they’re good enough, but until someone has the balls to come around and tell you that you can be better, you can’t really take it to the next level. These musical pioneers were helping me become the best musician that I can be. I’m learning to put the guitar around the song to build choruses. If you look at Hendrix, who to me is the best guy at doing it, he’s the greatest guitar player of all-time and he’s written some of the greatest songs as well. People are still trying to take from him.
For me, this whole writing process was a learning experience. I don’t know if I was ever really done recording the record. It was newfound thing for me to pull so much more out what we were already doing. We wrote about 40 songs, recorded maybe 20 of them, but there’s just that constant energy to it that’s easier now. A conversation I had with Steven Tyler, for instance, helped influence the first song, “Ain’t Nothin Wrong with That.” It was us just us talking about music and listening to some older rock bands, stuff that influenced him, that produced that song. You wouldn’t guess it though. There’s a huge party vibe, but it feels rock, if feels fun. Bringing people together, having the guitar up there and a big huge chorus up there, it’s like Sly Stone meets Outkast meets Hendrix meets going to church and bringing everyone together. There “Ain’t Nothing Wrong with That.”
AIA: What exactly was it that Steven Tyler said and what were those records you were listening to?
RR: We were listening to The Pretty Things, a song called “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which I ended up taking with me. It has that same vibe but it was recorded in the ‘60s.
AIA: What was your first experience with Eric Clapton like?
RR: You know the first time, we had just started the European tour and I was sitting in the back of the guitar playing acoustic and he walks in and stands at the end of the room and is like ‘man, what’s going on.’ We just started talking for hours up and until show time. He’s really just a down home guy who loves music. We started talking about our histories and backgrounds and that went on for our whole six months we were on tour together.
AIA: Aside from working with a lot different musicians you brought in a lot of different professional songwriters as well. What was the reasoning there?
RR: It’s all learning. It’s the reason why Michael Jordan has to go to basketball practice. It’s not just about guitar scales or being able to jam live, you learn a different aspect to writing a song. It’s about getting into the headspace and putting things in prospective. Most people don’t have the ability to call up Rob Thomas or Carlos Santana and say I have this idea, what do you think? It’s just a blessing.
AIA: Is the ultimate goal then to get to a place where you can write it all yourself on a future record?
RR: I enjoy working with other people. Unless it’s a total song that the good Lord just gives me, sometimes we just get those gifts, but I would rather sit down and feed off these other people. That’s what makes jamming and recording fun. What happens then is that you get another five ideas from that one session or jam.
AIA: Going back in time a little bit, I can’t help but wonder what those early church services were like with you rocking the “Sacred Steel.”
RR: If you’ve never been, it’s one of the greatest experiences you can even imagine. Going to church anyways is the greatest experience. At the same time, in our church there’s a great tradition of music since the1930s, guys like Calvin Cook, Ted Beard and Henry Nelson. Their style is more joyful than anything else. A lot of people like old gospel music, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. All of those people come from that old Baptist/ Pentecostal tradition. Al Green … it’s the ultimate experience. Some of the different ones were given the message and the ability to go out their and share it with the rest of the world. Here I am playing pedal steel, a young African-American; my goal is always to bring joy to people through song and music. Hopefully there will be thousands of people inspired to go out and do the same thing, especially in day in age with all of the young African-Americans wanting to be rappers, want to be kinda from the ghetto and have that kind of anger to where they’re not really trying to influence people to better – it’s just thug life, you know? That’s different from me.
AIA: Because of your notorious live performances, you are a heavily bootlegged artist. Do you have any particular opinion on the matter?
RR: With technology of today, you can be recorded at any given time, just look at YouTube. It’s a different musical time, but that’s one of the things that allow us to out there and do improvisation a lot more. Stevie Wonder used to tell me that the studio used to be like going to the club. You went there and drank, and did whatever drug you were doing, and you’d play music for hours on hours. "Superstition" was probably was about four different jams combined. It’s kind of like that. It pushes me to not do the same thing and actually try new things, unlike some of these low-end rock bands.
Robert Randolph and the Family Band will be performing at Stubb’s on Friday, October 28th.
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