Photo by Lee Vincent Grubb
As a hired gun, Barrie Cadogan’s resume is impressive. The guitarist has recorded or played live with artists like Liam Gallagher, Primal Scream, The The, Morrissey, and Edwyn Collins, all the while writing and recording his own music under the name Little Barrie. Most recently, Cadogan has been collaborating with bassist Lewis Wharton and drummer Malcolm Catto, and this trio released Electric War in mid-April. The album’s got a cinematic quality to the music the band creates, no surprise considering Cadogan’s dabbled in soundtrack work as part of his storied career including writing and recording the Better Call Saul opening song.
We covered a lot of ground during a lengthy Zoom call, from how Catto’s unique style is the trio’s secret ingredient to how the band wound up on a label owned by one of The Black Keys to Cadogan’s considerable network of friends, peers and bandmates, many of which I’ve interviewed in the past.
I’m not that familiar with the band CAN but I’ve heard the song “Vitamin C” in movies and TV shows. When I listened to Electric War for the first time, I thought, “This is what I imagine CAN sounds like.” Are you a fan of CAN and is that the vibe you were going for?
BARRIE: We are all big fans of CAN. And I can understand the connection. The CAN drummer, Jaki, was one of the greatest drummers of all time. There is some of that in Malcolm’s style at times. Malcolm’s style as a drummer is a mixture of a lot of things, really. He’s very unique. But the style of drumming on a CAN record, not many people can get close to it, but I guess Malcolm’s one of the guys who does.
Malcolm’s very dynamic and his playing brings character to the songs.
BARRIE: I’ve never met another musician like Malcolm. Me and Lewis first met Malcolm in the early 2000s because we were on the same label back then. Malcolm was in a heavy funk band called The Soul Destroyers, and we were on this label called Start Reality, which was a spin-off label from a label called Jazzman Records that used to reissue soul and funk jazz records, basically, and licensing old 45s and repressing stuff, rare 45s. Malcolm also worked for Gerald around the label to track down musicians and people who’d been in bands that had made one-off 45s in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, to get the licensing.
So we first saw Malcolm play drums then in The Soul Destroyers, and we met him in the Jazzman office because Malcolm used to work from there, and when we first saw Malcolm back then, we were as blown away as we still are now from his drumming. He had that feel, and he just had that instant musicality, a whole other level of musicianship that we hadn’t really seen before. So to get to work with him much later on is a privilege, and also key to the sound of the records is that Malcolm hasn’t only drummed on these, but he’s produced them and recorded them, mixed them.
And he has his own band called The Heliocentrics, which he is a big part of in the same way, recording and producing and mixing that.
Do you find the songs, or do the songs find you?
BARRIE: Interesting question. I think sometimes it’s a mixture of both. Sometimes some of these songs came about—I mean, if you hear the demos, they’re quite different. I made some kind of crude demos on my own and then played them to Malcolm and Lewis. We went from there. Tempos are different, the sounds are different, the feel is quite different. And then we worked on them with Malcom, and he brought a lot of new ideas in, kind of reworking things, which was always for the better of the music.
Sometimes I sit around with a guitar, and a few songs, like the really short track on there, “Said Soul,” I wrote that song very quickly. But a lot of songs I write don’t really happen that way. Normally, I start with a beat or a drum groove and then start playing the guitar over the drums because it makes you work with the rhythm more, with the space. “Electric War” was written that way, but the demo is much slower than the version that came out on the album. Sometimes I’m just putting music down first and then seeing if words and melodic ideas come to me for vocals from the music. But “Said Soul” was written very quickly. I just actually wrote that on the guitar, which is less common.
I think one thing that’s hard is letting go and allowing yourself to be in that mindset to let that happen. Maybe you can’t always make that happen. Maybe you have to wait for it to happen a bit, but I do think there’s a certain exercise element to songwriting as well, where working at it regularly, maybe you do get more into a zone more easily. But there’s no right or wrong way, and maybe it is good to change up the ways that we write sometimes to keep things fresh.
I think it’s worth saying that because we’ve already made a few albums, it’s good to work with Malcolm because he has brought in new ideas and new approaches. There could possibly be a dangerous slip into formulas a bit when you’ve already made a few albums, and maybe you don’t even realize you’re doing it. You might slip into writing songs in similar tempos, similar arrangements, similar sounds used. So it’s good to keep it moving.
And Malcolm’s brought a fresh energy into this, not just with his fantastic drumming, but with his production. And it’s interesting how we have kind of different sounds on different songs in this record, but to me, it still feels like a complete body of work, but different songs are approached differently.
I’ve interpreted your record in a certain way in my head. I hear it as a ‘70s movie soundtrack.
BARRIE: There is a bit of that definitely. I’ve got to be honest, my knowledge of movie scores isn’t that big, but I did do a small soundtrack for a documentary a couple of years ago, did it during lockdown, during Covid. The interesting thing about film music is it’s not in the constraints of songwriting. Pop songs might be between two and three minutes long. A scene will require the music as long as the scene is, whether it’s 15 seconds or four minutes or whatever. It’s interesting working out of that and also working to visual briefs.
There’s some old film soundtracks that I really love, and I like the kind of drama and the use of things like dissonance in the music, notes that clash and things like that. A lot of my guitar playing is sort of grounded in Blues and R&B and ‘60s Rock, and some alternative bands from the late ‘80s, which is what I first started listening to when I was playing guitar. But it’s the other elements you hear in movie soundtracks and trying to sometimes use the guitar in a way that isn’t too stereotypically “guitary” for want of a better word, but still mixing that with the feel and the spirit of things that we love about the Blues or R&B, or The Stooges, or the MC5. Sometimes mixing things out of the box, I’m sometimes trying to use the guitar in a non-stereotypical way.
Other tracks like “Zero Sun” have a very R&B feel—you could say it’s more inspired by a kind of New Orleans thing, but flipped on its head in a weird time, and with a broken old keyboard that Malcolm found in the road on it, to change it up a little bit. But yeah, there’s definitely a cinematic soundtrack feel. Also, Malcolm in The Heliocentrics has done soundtracks before.
*Sometimes you can listen to a record and geographically pick out where it’s from or where you think it might be from. I can’t listen to this record and say, “Oh, this was created in New Orleans, or Los Angeles, or New York, or London.” It fits more of a cinematic feel than a geographic feel.
BARRIE: We’ve had a few people say that, they said they couldn’t work out where the record was from in terms of geography, or even chronologically. People didn’t know when it was made or couldn’t quite pin it down, and talking to one of the guys at the label, Easy Eye Sound, Tom Osborn was saying that people were trying to work out where this record had come from, which is cool. That’s a compliment, really, to see that it can’t be pinned down, because especially if you’re in a band where you’re using conventional rock and roll band instruments for the bulk of it, like guitars, bass, and drums, it’d be pretty easy to slip into things that are quite familiar.
How did that relationship with Easy Eye come about?
BARRIE: I met Dan Auerbach at a festival when The Black Keys were playing. I did a couple of years standing in, playing in Liam Gallagher’s band, and we were playing a festival where Black Keys were on the bill. I met Dan in the backstage area, and we got talking, and after a few minutes, the first thing he said was that he wanted to get me over for a session and to record at some point. At the time, I thought, “Well, this would be amazing if it happens, but I’m sure he’s a really busy guy, and he’s surrounded by so many good musicians that if it doesn’t happen, it’s okay.”
That night we hung out because him and Liam met for a drink, and I went with the band. I spent quite a lot of the night chatting with Dan, talking about records and guitars and stuff. I thought, “He’s a very busy man, I don’t know if this would happen.” But two or three months later, Alan, his studio engineer, sent me a text and said, “Could you come up to Nashville and do a session for an artist Dan’s producing?” We’re like, “Yeah, of course.” And they asked Malcolm as well to come up and play drums.
So we went over. We played on Jeremie Albino’s record. The studio sessions were January 2024. The album came out, I think, in November last year, and it was so much fun, and we had a really great time. Another friend of ours was on the session, Tom Brenneck from The Budos Band on bass. That session was down at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studios in Nashville.
Because the session went well, and we’d already kind of finished and had rough mixes of our album, our manager Richard sent the album to Easy Eye Sound for Dan to have a listen to, and he liked the record, and he wanted to put it out. That’s how the record ended up coming out on Easy Eye. Since then we’ve also played on a couple of other sessions earlier this year for other artists on Easy Eye, when we went over to Nashville to do some promo and do some videos for this song.
How common or uncommon is session work for you?
BARRIE: I sort of fell into session work gradually. I started doing it when I moved to London, when we first started the band. When we were on the same label as Malcolm, I had a job in a shop that sold vintage guitars on Denmark Street, a famous street in London. I met a lot of musicians, and I got offered my first session, which was for a film score actually, playing a guitar part that somebody had composed on piano. Trying to transpose it to guitar was so difficult. I was so nervous. It was terrifying, this first session. It was in a big studio, and the live room was just one chair and a microphone. I had to sit there. I was terrified.
But I guess the word got out because my band was making records, and we were gigging a little bit. So I got offered one session, and then you get offered something else, and the hardest part is getting started in that. Fortunately for me, one thing sort of snowballed a bit from another. I’ve done stuff with higher profile artists, but I’ve done stuff with people who are starting out or people who are self-funding records, the whole mixture.
I guess there is a bit of a scene. I guess it is kind of small, and sometimes I get younger musicians asking me, “How do you get into the session world?” I don’t fully feel like I’m in it. There’s some session musicians who are slightly more classically trained musicians or tutored musicians who can read music and stuff. I just feel like I’m sort of the outsider of it in sessions. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s my insecurity, but there is a scene. Sometimes you’d end up being on sessions, and there’d be the same musicians you were with on another one, or I ended up doing some work for a record label where some similar musicians are on the sessions, but you’re working for different artists under the same umbrella. Some of it’s studio work, some of it’s live work. Some of the musicians you work with are purely session musicians. Some are doing sessions and doing their own music as well, and that’s something I’ve been doing—a mixture of the two.
Is there a big difference between doing session work for others, where you are told the direction of the song, and working on your own stuff where you decide the direction? I’m guessing in your band, it’s a democratic process based on what you mentioned earlier, how Malcom and Lewis make suggestions.
BARRIE: It depends on the artist you’re working with. But if you’re talking about the session stuff first, quite often you’re hired to do a certain thing. Some sessions will be like, you get in there and people go, “I want you to play this line,” and they might have the guitar line even written. “Can you play this riff, a better version of this riff?”
I remember doing a session where a guy was singing the riffs, and he was a great producer. I played on a track for the TV series Peaky Blinders, the British TV series, and the music director, in the series, there were a lot of cover versions of different versions of the same song. I played on a version of the Nick Cave song, “Red Right Hand,” that was sung by PJ Harvey and Jarvis Cocker. I was called in to play guitar, and the producer had an idea, he basically kind of sang the guitar part. He said, “Could you play something like this?” It was really fun because he was very direct in what he was looking for.
Some sessions, people don’t know what they’re after. Some people say, “We just want you to do what you want, see what you come up with.” There’s a bit more freedom, which is also nice. And sometimes you get sessions where they say, “We want you to be you, just be you.” And then you start playing and they say, “Oh, can you change that bit? And actually, can you not play that?” By the end they finish with it, it’s nothing like you at all, but you’ve just got to serve them.
It took me a while to get my head around that because I’d be thinking I could be so much better if I did this. But you have to let go and realize it’s not your record. It’s not your baby. It took me a while to get my head around that, because all I’d ever done is written my own music for myself before.
But with our band, it is a democratic process, and Malcolm’s brought so much to the sound. A lot of his ideas have taken us out of repeating ourselves. On the first album, Malcolm suggested changing a bass line. I had this demo that I was really quite proud of, and he was like, “I’d change the bass line.” I was like, “What’s wrong with it?” And then when he suggested it and Lewis played it, I was like, “Oh, he’s right. This is making the record better, and this is taking this somewhere really exciting.”
Malcolm’s always good to hear out, because he really cares about the music. I’d say it’s like 95% of his ideas, we end up having to go with because he’s thinking from a different place, which is good for us, and it’s taken us out of some clichés and out of some things that we’re doing a bit too much of several albums down the line.
It is a democratic process. Sometimes because we’re short of time, I do feel like it helps to come in with a demo that is complete in some way rather than coming with only half a song. At least if we have a song, we can dissect it, pull it apart, completely change it, but we have a starting point because sometimes we don’t have the luxury of time to spend a week in the studio working on one song because we’re all doing other projects, and we have other things in our lives. So to come in with something is generally a better use of your time, I think.
What about when you’re touring as a sideman, as a hired gun? It probably varies from artist to artist. Are you given the freedom to kind of take the guitar work and add your own flavor to it, or do a lot of artists ask you to stick to what people know from the records?
BARRIE: I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been given a fair amount of freedom with stuff. But sometimes, when you’re playing guitar in a band where you’re not the first guitar player in the band, you didn’t play on the record, sometimes some songs are loved because of the way a certain part is. So sometimes I think it’s right to be faithful to what the song had originally, because that’s what people want to hear. When it’s not your music, I think it’s the honorable thing to do—you’ve got to serve the song and serve what the artist is asking you to do.
Some people I’ve worked with, for example, Matt Johnson with The The, Matt’s quite interested in reworking his songs when he’s got different lineups, or he’s in a different frame of mind. Matt was very open with the band, he was interested in each band member’s input. So he’s quite interested in reworking songs. And he did bring the different band members in. I brought a few ideas in. I did co-write a couple of songs with Matt on the last record, and the other guys in the band as well.
So there’s a lot more of a democratic thing with The The. Obviously he is boss, and he is driving it because it’s his lyrics, and it’s his vision. But he’s interested to hear what we’ve got. He did give us quite a lot of freedom and allowed us to be involved with the writing. He said to me, “If you’ve ever written anything that you can’t imagine doing with your band, but that you think we could have a go at.” And I was like, “Yes, straight away.” And that was really nice. It’s very inclusive. You wouldn’t always get that because Matt doesn’t really need my input. He could make a great album without me.
Do you have a favorite guitarist that you step into their role as a hired gun? Is there somebody that every time you play somebody’s songs, you’re like, man, that is genius?
BARRIE: There’s definitely the thing that you can never quite play like anybody else. And I’ve been in bands where I’ve stepped in for guitar players who were really great musicians, and they had a great style, and it’s never quite going to be the same. Sometimes some people are fans of bands, and they don’t want to see another guitarist. They want their original person there, and I get it.
Someone like Johnny Marr, no one else can play like Johnny. It just can’t be done. He is so unique, and Johnny’s inspired me loads. I’ve taken loads of inspiration from Johnny. He’s been a big hero of mine since I first heard him. I liked The Smiths before I started playing guitar. But when I started playing guitar, I started to realize to a whole other level how incredible the guitar work was when you’re trying to work out how to do it.
We do play songs that Johnny originally played on with The The and stuff, and I can’t quite play it like Johnny, but because Matt’s interested in me reworking them, I try. All I try and do is create a sentiment that Matt is happy with, that feels like it supports the song, but you can never fully play like somebody else. So you just have to try and serve the song to make the people you’re working for happy, and do the song justice, but serve it in a way that feels as true to you as possible, I think.
Looking at it another way, sometimes if you’re in a session, it’s good to draw on music you love. You might think, actually, maybe a Neil Young guitar sound would work on this song. Or Steve Cropper. There’s so many guitar players that I admire who have worked either in the composing side of songs or more as session players. Someone like Cropper. Johnny Marr’s worked with a lot of people. It’s interesting how some careers of people who started out as session musicians later became huge stars, such as Jimmy Page over here in the UK. And I guess someone like Glen Campbell in the US. He was a hot guitar player working on people’s records before he became a star. He did Sinatra sessions, didn’t he? Glen Campbell was such an incredible musician, and he was doing that before he became a singing star.
As I was scrolling through your Instagram, I saw a lot of recognizable faces and names, people you’ve played with that I’ve interviewed in the past. For instance, I saw you’ve worked with the band Alberta Cross.
BARRIE: Petter is an old friend of mine. Years ago I met him when he was living in London before he moved to New York. So I first met Petter probably 20-odd years ago. I saw Alberta Cross in the early days of the band, and I was really impressed with him. Petter has been an old friend for a while, and we would catch up when we’re in New York. Sometimes I would stay with Petter when we’re on tour in New York and he was living in Brooklyn. He put me up once because I had a hotel, and I got to the hotel, and the room was not very nice, and I wrote, “Can I come and stay with you? Sleep on your couch?” And he’s like, “Yeah.”
So he’s a good friend, and Petter did the thing where he was kind of reimagining songs off his mini album, and he got us involved. James from The The also played on those sessions as well. They live near each other actually in Somerset in the South. So it was great to be able to record with Petter again.
He’s written some great songs, and he’s got such a beautiful singing voice and his guitar, he’s got an interest in unusual tunings. It was really great to work with him, I was really flattered that he asked me to do it. It’s really nice to record again, because we’ve known each other so many years.
I interviewed Zak Starkey.
BARRIE: I haven’t seen him in a while, but I met Zak through Johnny Marr initially, because I first met Johnny when I worked in the guitar shop years ago on Denmark Street. So like 23 or 24 years ago. I met Johnny when he was working with his band, The Healers, with Zak. So that’s when I first met Zak, and then when I was in, when I was playing with Primal Scream, Zak knew those guys as well, so I would see him. Sometimes he would come to shows, and there was a one-off band called The Silver Machine, that was me, and some of the members of Primal Scream and Zak Starkey on drums. We just did a set at a London festival in East London playing covers. We did a mixture of kind of garage and Nuggets-y type songs, but also things like The Flamin’ Groovies, and Zak played drums, and Glen Matlock played bass. So I did get to play with Zak then as well, and he was great, wicked drummer. It’d be nice to see him again. He’s got a good heart.
Later today, I’m interviewing Young Gun Silver Fox and I found out that you recorded an album with Shawn Lee.
BARRIE: I need to catch up with Shawn, as I haven’t seen him in a while. He played in London the other night, but I couldn’t go. They did a Young Gun Silver Fox week at this beautiful venue in East London, Hoxton Hall, a smallish venue, but it’s a beautiful old theater, with like an extra sort of balcony on it. It’s lovely.
I first met Shawn years ago in the guitar shop also, but Shawn was good friends with Virgil, our drummer, who sadly passed away. We were working with him before we were with Malcolm. Shawn also mixed one half of the Little Barrie album we made, King of the Waves, in like 2011. Because we were working at Edwyn Collins’ studio, but Edwyn was busy on other projects, and we didn’t have time to finish the mixing, Virgil suggested, “I think Shawn could help mix the second half of the album, match it up sonically.” Shawn and his engineer Pierre. So that’s when I first properly worked with Shawn.
We always talked about doing a side project, doing a record. We talked about trying to do it with old drum machines rather than live drums to make it different. And during lockdown, Shawn called me up and said, “Hey man, you know, we talked about doing that record. Now’s the time.” He sent me a drum machine beat off an old Maestro drum machine, and I played a bit of guitar on it. I sent it back to him. He played some bass, and he added some keys and things. And then we just started ping-ponging emails, basically. We did a few days in his studio.
Shawn’s amazing. I love his vibe, and I love his output. It was great to finally make a record. I was really proud of that record, because it was a different direction, a different side of us, but it was so much fun working together. We’d like to do something again in the future if we can. There’s so many things he could do. He’s played me loads of stuff in the studio that I don’t think he’s released yet. He can turn his hand to a lot of stuff. Not just with production, but with instrumentation. He’s a great guitar player. I did a bit more of the guitar on that record, but Shawn still plays some guitar. There was one song where we were sort of bouncing the guitars off each other, and he’s a great bass player. He’s a phenomenal drummer and percussionist, and his studio is brilliant.
It’s just this wonderful sort of collection of things—there’s loads of things on the walls, and it’s like a mixture of proper sort of pro quality instruments, but also loads of toy instruments, homemade percussion items, things he found in charity stores, things he’s just bought on eBay, toy electric guitars that have a little speaker. He has one little toy electric guitar. He bought it on eBay, and he had to go to this guy’s house and collect. He had to go to this block of flats in London, and he knocked on the door, and he told the guy he was going to collect it—it was about like 15 pounds or something. And he knocks on the door, and the guy opens the door, he goes, “You really want this?” And Shawn’s like, “Yeah, man.” It has like one string on it, but it makes this amazing feedback sound. So we used that on the album. He’s just really cool for finding interesting things to make records with. Super creative guy, really prolific as well.
One other person I wanted to bring up was Aaron Lee Tasjan.
BARRIE: I met Aaron through a guy called BP Fallon. I met BP through Primal Scream because they knew him, and he’d always come to gigs when we played in Dublin. Little Barrie were playing at South by Southwest once in Austin, and BP had finally formed a band. He asked if we would come up and jam with them, and I said, “Yeah, of course,” because you have lots of time off between your gigs there.
So we went to a small bar, and I sat in and played with BP and his band. His band was Clem Burke on drums, Nigel Harrison on bass, Aaron on guitar, and then Scott Asheton got up and guested with us on second drums as well. I’d met Scott through Kevin Shields actually, so I got to know Scott a little bit when he was alive. It was this incredible band of people, and I was blown away by Aaron’s guitar playing, so we always sort of kept in touch.
Aaron did play with Alberta Cross for a while. He just played in London, but I missed him. I think he played the same weekend that Shawn did, actually. I suppose Aaron’s always doing lots of different projects, but maybe in some ways we are slightly similar in the fact that we do a mixture of work for other people, and we do our own records. But he’s a brilliant musician.
We used to do this version of the Them song “Gloria” with BP. We played twice, I think, at South by Southwest. BP basically told the story about Van Morrison and Them over the groove of “Gloria.” We’d have sections where we’d cut loose, and there’d be twin lead guitars where Aaron would do a solo, and then I’d do one. It was just really good fun. He was such an exciting musician, and it was an honor to play with Clem and Scott because they’re suddenly no longer with us. You realize how precious those times are.
I kept in touch with Aaron. We talked when Clem passed and all that. So yeah, we do keep in touch. He’s a class musician. He’s super cool. He did a little gig in this bar in Islington—I don’t know if this was post-lockdown or before. We went to a friend’s bar afterwards and just hung out and chatted. It was good to see him up close on stage.
Is Electric War your focus right now? Are you going to play shows for it, or are you pulled in five different directions with playing with other artists?
BARRIE: I’m being pulled in different directions a little bit. We’re doing one more gig next week, but it’s more like an industry event in Brighton where we’re playing a short set. Between the middle and end of May, I’ll be back into rehearsals with Matt Johnson with The The, because we have some festivals in June. We just finished the UK tour about three weeks ago. After that, in August, I’m going to be back in the US doing a tour playing guitar with The Black Keys. When I come back from that, I’m going to do more Little Barrie and Malcolm Catto shows. We’re looking at possibly Europe, and we’d love to come to the States if we can make it work. So those are the next few things—a bit of The The, Higher Ground stuff, and then back to us.
How do you listen to music? Vinyl? Are you a Spotify user?
BARRIE: I have mixed feelings about Spotify. It helps us because it’s where people discover us, but what artists get out of it doesn’t make me feel terribly comfortable. I don’t have a working turntable at the minute, which is disgraceful for someone like me, because I’m still getting records. I prefer to listen to music where there’s no screen, so it stops you looking at the screen. Sometimes I do use things like Apple Music. But streaming platforms don’t make you feel terribly great about things, really.
For me, there’s music that I feel is good enough for streaming, but then there’s music like your record that seems like something I want to focus-listen to—not look at a screen, but put it on in a room. Your music lends itself well to the vinyl experience.
BARRIE: Thanks. It does sound really nice on vinyl, but it’s the thing about not looking at a screen. Unfortunately, if I was on Apple Music, you could end up ordering something else at the same time. You’re not really fully immersed in the experience. A friend of mine said something interesting—in the old days, an engineer recording a band would be at the console fully listening. They wouldn’t be looking at the music on a grid thinking about timing differences. We’re meant to be listening first. There are pros and cons with everything, but to be purely listening is the most important thing.
I heard a podcast with Paul Simon discussing how music tastes change depending on your life stage and age. He mentioned that the bands you love, the ones with you the longest part of your life, are the ones you hang on to and still listen to regardless of how your life changes. So what bands or artists have stuck with you from when you were young?
BARRIE: The band that made me want to play guitar was The Stone Roses. It was John Squire’s guitar playing, so I guess that’ll always be very close to my heart. There are records you go back to, and I wonder if, as you get older, there’s a comfort thing in listening to familiar records. Maybe it’s a safe place, or it triggers something. I don’t think it’s necessarily nostalgia, but some records you still appreciate.
I did an interview recently where I had to pick eight favorite albums, which is really hard because you always feel like you’re leaving something out. But there are records I’d always go back to. One standard would be Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I still love that record because it’s got the depth of the blues in the past, but it took it into the cosmos and into the future. That record has a good mix of instrumental work and song craft.
Jimi was obviously an unbelievable guitar player and an obvious reference for so many guitarists. But there’s a reason—it’s not just the impressive playing. It’s the songwriting, the production, the vision, and the soul and spiritual energy. He was channeling something deep and deeply moving. It’s not just someone with fancy fingers or someone who can put on a good live show. There’s something deeply powerful about that music. And the depth of music being made by young guys as well—to do something as deep and real and authentic as “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” when you’re in your mid-twenties.
The interviews are fascinating as well, just hearing how intelligent he was and how aware. A lot of musicians back then—I found a really good interview with Brian Jones recently. These people were in their early twenties in the earliest days of The Stones, and just how smart they were, their take on things. When The Stones were getting really big, they asked him about the future of the Rolling Stones, and he described it as uncertain then, in 1965. Quite interesting.
But I go back to certain records. Some I mentioned in this interview: Notorious Byrd Brothers by The Byrds, Edgar Broughton Band’s self-titled album, You’re Living All Over Me, by Dinosaur Jr., Fun House by The Stooges, Live at the Apollo, Volume II by James Brown. There’s a record I really love which isn’t very well known, especially in the US, Soothing Music for Stray Cats by Edgar Jones, or Edgar Summertyme, a Liverpool musician. He made it on an eight-track cassette machine in his flat in Liverpool. It’s a mixture of old doo-wop, jazz, and R&B. He was around the scene between The La’s and bands like The Coral and The Zutons. He did a stint in The La’s on bass as well and played in Johnny Marr’s band for a while. Edgar’s done a lot of stuff, played with Paul Weller. He’s a fascinating musician who’s done a mixture of sideman and his own work like myself, but he’s made way more records than me.
I also still really love Computer World by Kraftwerk. My knowledge of jazz is nearly non-existent, but In a Silent Way by Miles Davis, I still listen to that. There’s something confident about that record. Moanin’ in the Moonlight by Howlin’ Wolf. There are loads.
It’s interesting—some records I really love now, I didn’t get when I was in my teens, like The Band. I didn’t get it when I first heard it. It was too country for me, but it’s not really. Some records and bands take a while to fall in love with. The Band I definitely appreciated later, or more country-tinged things like The Flying Burrito Brothers. My knowledge of country music isn’t vast, but I really love some things by people like Waylon Jennings now. It took me a long time to get into those records.
Some records creep up on you over time. The Stone Roses did when I first heard them—I wasn’t particularly focused when I first heard it, but I was 14. It was over a period of months, because my sister was playing that record all the time. It was everywhere in the UK—on radios, in shops, played by people older than me. Some records seep into your consciousness, and then you start looking for that record. My sister would leave the record out for me to listen to. Some things you fall in love with gradually, but they become things that stay with you. The more country Byrds-sounding records took me a while to get my head around, but now I really love them.
Sometimes we’re not ready for certain music. It took me a while to get my head around certain things. I remember being a teenager when some of my friends were huge into The Doors. A lot of teenagers at 15-16 are discovering music in their parents’ record collections. I just couldn’t get my head around it at first, but after a while, you just fall in love with it.
I remember when I first heard Forever Changes by Love, I didn’t get it. Some of my friends considered it their favorite band ever, so they were horrified and disgusted by me saying that. But it takes a while to get into things sometimes. You’re just not ready for some things, and I’m sure that will happen again. It’s interesting that some of those records end up being your favorites over time.
Now, The Band’s musicians, Levon Helm is one of my favorite musicians. The first time I saw the clip of Woodstock, I wanted to see Sly and The Family Stone and The Who, things that were more in-your-face. I thought, who are these guys with beards and hats playing this down-tempo thing? But now I realize how beautiful it is, how wonderful the playing is, and that it was a cultural shift. Some bands who were messing with psychedelia stripped things back to roots again. It changed a lot of people’s perception and ideas about what they wanted to do.
You’ve been doing this a while—have you had anybody come up to you saying they’ve been influenced by your style?
BARRIE: I can’t believe it, but yes, I have, which is hard to see in yourself because you’re always trying to refine and improve what you’re doing. You’re never really satisfied with your own performance. But I’ve met quite a few people who said, “I bought a certain guitar because I saw you play one,” or “I heard you play one and love that sound.” I can’t believe it. It’s really amazing to hear.
I’ve definitely said to people like John Squire and J Mascis that they’ve inspired me and they’re a big part of why I play guitar. That makes total sense to me. But when someone says it about you, it’s like, “Come on.”
It’s really nice. I remember saying to John Squire that if it wasn’t for him, I might not be playing this gig with him, because I played bass in The Seahorses on Squire’s tour. I said, “Without you, I might not be playing here.” John said it was The Pistols and The Clash for him that made him want to play. It all gets passed on somehow, but you never think of yourself as being worthy of being in that kind of lineage. It’s a nice thing, but still hard to take in sometimes—not in a rude or aloof way. You just can’t imagine yourself in that position.
One last thing about young people listening to music—I heard from a friend similar in age to us about his daughter. On streaming sites, teenagers are just finding music that’s new to them and not questioning when it was made. His daughter started listening to The Smiths or Black Sabbath without knowing when it was recorded or that it’s 55 years old. It’s new to them, which is interesting.
It was interesting being on tour with Liam Gallagher. There were quite a few people my age, but also lots of youngsters in their teens and early twenties. I know Liam is an icon, but I was thinking maybe for a fair amount of the kids, it’s their parents’ record collection, just like we experienced. There were lots of young people, especially at the front. When people get older, they don’t want to be squashed up at the front—they want to be more comfortable. But there were loads of young people. I was blown away by that.
My dad only had a few cassettes in the car. One was a compilation tape someone made for me. I think he also had Let There Be Rock by AC/DC because my dad was quite into heavy music. He got into music as heavy music evolved. He wasn’t like me—he was listening to doom stuff in the nineties because as music got heavy, he just liked things with loud guitars. He loved Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, and in the eighties, he got into heavy metal, Metallica, thrash stuff, and then doom. Then he came back around and loved The White Stripes. He liked loud guitars. He liked punk as well—The Pistols—and he loved The Jam, and weirdly, The Smiths. Those songs from youth, even if played by others, stay with you.
I remember going to a friend’s house—I’m really into the early Peter Green Fleetwood Mac stuff, but never really played into the era when they got huge with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. My friend put Rumours on. I’ve never bought Rumours or sat down to listen to it, but they put it on, and I knew every song.
I got a free ticket to see The Eagles through the opening band. My parents never owned Eagles records, and I kept thinking I’d stick around until they started playing stuff I didn’t know, then leave. But every song—“Oh, wait! I know this one!” They played like 35 songs that night, and I knew every single one. It’s just ingrained because of radio.
BARRIE: I went to see Prince at the O2. He had so many hits, he had to do a medley at one point because there wasn’t time to play them all. Just to be able to play like that, sing like that, move like that—it was flawless. He was jamming for hours with his band at the after-shows as well. It’s crazy.
That’s wild. Great that you saw him.
BARRIE: I feel fortunate. That’s another thing to feel fortunate about—you’ve got to go see people when you can.
I’m doing that at my age now. I never saw Tom Petty. I always said Tom Petty tours enough that I’ll see him next time, and then there wasn’t a next time.
BARRIE: Same with B.B. King. I always wanted to see B.B. King or John Lee Hooker because they were still gigging when I was playing guitar. There are a lot of people I missed, but you feel grateful for seeing the people you did get to see.
You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to see these people. I feel fortunate to have seen some people while they were still here. In the early days of our band, in 2005, we went to New York to make our second album, and we got to meet Hubert Sumlin, who was Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist. He was Howlin’ Wolf’s right-hand man. He played the riff on “Smokestack Lightning,” “Killing Floor,” “Shake for Me.” We were on the same US label briefly, so we got to meet Hubert, and we did a gig opening for him in New York. Then he asked me to get up, and I played a song with him in his band.
Hubert passed away, but to get to play with these people—Hubert first started playing with Wolf in the fifties, then played with Muddy Waters for a while, went back to Wolf. These people were a direct connection—he played with Wolf, and Wolf knew Robert Johnson. So this is a direct link to them. When you get a chance to see these legends, you have to go and do it.
