Atlanta-based rock quintet Blackberry Smoke return with a new album. You hear Georgiawe got on the phone with bassist Richard Turner to ask him about the thinking behind the big notes.
Did you record the new album before lockdown Richard?
“Just before. We broke the record at RCA in Nashville and then shot to Canada, and then a couple shows to Canada, we had to flee or got locked up there. So it was crazy. It’s weird being up for a year sitting on a record.”
How many tour dates do you think you lost in 2020 and 2021?
“Oh dear God. Maybe 200, although a lot of these shows are being postponed.”
The benefit is that You hear Georgia is a great album.
“I love it. It’s pretty damn clean as far as the recording goes, and the bass is well thought out. After all this time as a band, everyone plays the role they see fit. You know exactly where you’re going, and when you’re going “If you want to put a little signature scribble in there, you can do it, or you can leave it super clean. It’s often done without speaking. We’re thinking with each other’s heads now.”
Some of your bass playing reminds me of AC/DC.
“Well, Charlie [Starr, bandleader] is a big fan, so that’s probably where it comes from. I totally hear how they do it in the structures of their songs. It is extremely complicated to sound so simple. Over there at AC/DC it’s a tangled web of complicated shenanigans, although everyone thinks it’s that simple.”
I stood right next to Tony Levin and watched him play at this small club in Atlanta with 1,300 people. I thought, ‘This is definitely what I want to do’
How did you get into bass in the first place?
“My father was an Air Force colonel, but before that he played saxophone, clarinet and all kinds of woodwinds in high school and college. I was born in 1965 and he was retired from the Air Force by that time, but he gave me one of his clarinets. And then my cousin, his nephew, wrote a song that was on CBS News one morning, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, there are all these musicians in my family. I think there might be something to it – and I would like to do that too.”
“It seemed natural to me, so I asked my parents for a bass, but they said, ‘We can’t sit around the campfire while you play the bass because we can’t hear it,’ so I woke up on Christmas morning and there it was a regular Les Paul shaped electric guitar.”
Did you agree to it?
“Well, I went to guitar lessons and I tried, but I was like, ‘That’s just not what I hear in my head. It’s not what I hear in my soul. I don’t hear the pitch of this instrument because I definitely have a thing for the bass guitar. Eventually I traded that guitar for a titanium BMX road bike and won a bunch of races and then I traded that bike for a bass and hit the road with what I wanted to do.
“Later I was security for clubs all over Atlanta, so I saw a lot of bass players. Who is the crazy bald player playing with the little chopsticks on his fingertips?
Tony Levin.
“I stood right next to Tony Levin and watched him play at this small club in Atlanta with 1300 people. I thought, ‘This is definitely what I want to do. This guy plays the craziest shit!’ I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of some of the biggest acts while standing to the side of the stage and security guards working. I totally cheated because I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in the crowd. I was totally hooked into the band.
“I’ve seen Aerosmith’s Chris Squire, Trevor Bolder, Tony Butler, Tom Hamilton… so many killer players. I started to really care about what these people were doing, even though there weren’t any bassist Magazine when I was growing up, or any media specifically focused on bass players.
bp started in 1990.
“Okay, that would have been later. I’ve found a lot of bass players by reading articles in guitar magazines. I would pick out small pieces in it guitar player Magazine, where the guy would say, “My bassist does this, and it helps me,” you know. Carol Kaye’s playing with the Beach Boys was a real influence on me, along with Spiders From Mars’ Trevor Bolder and the Spiders’ Johnny Colt Black Crowes and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“There’s a long list of great bass players I admired growing up – Berry Oakley, Chris Squire, Dusty Hill. I also think Scott Devine and Mark Smith from the UK are excellent teachers and I would like to thank BBC2’s Bob Harris for sponsoring us.”
What is your favorite bass gear?
“Man, tell you what, Orange has been really good to me for live gear: I use their US made amps for shows. My absolute favorite gear are these two Acoustic 360-361 rigs that I own. Whoever bought the rights to that name makes them by hand to order. They’re expensive as hell, but oh my god, this is the most incredible sounding rig I’ve ever heard.
“For bass guitars, man, Joe Hamilton built my first custom bass down here in Georgia. The guy worked on it for about six weeks and it’s the best bass I’ve ever played. You can feel its vibration throughout the structure of the thing. And there’s another New York City tom named Robert Mondell who deserves credit for making some nice custom basses that I keep around the house. My strings are Thomastik-Infeld Flatwounds, I also use an Avalon U5 DI and an Ampeg V9 amp.”
Any effects in the chain?
“I have a lot of effects at home. A lot of them are prototypes coming from manufacturers and hobbyists and kit and boutique types, and they don’t even have any lettering, just knobs and switches. I’m starting to experiment with them and it’s killer. I have a great time with them.
“I love loopers, I love delays, I love playing with envelope filters, but I’ve never taken them on tour. I don’t want to water down anything when I’m playing live. Something about me wants to go straight from the bass into the console. I watch everyone with an effect in my band do this constant tap dancing on these damn things.”
Are you a pure four stringer?
“I play a four-string, but I have a drop tuner on it. I don’t care about the weight or width of the fretboard on a five-string. I don’t like all that extra bulk.”
Would you say your game has matured over time?
“Oh, absolutely. A while ago I started digging really deep into Carol Kaye’s teaching materials. I dived in and I was like, ‘She knows exactly what’s going on around the fretboard. She knows what everyone else is playing and can probably play what everyone else is playing. Whether it’s the guitar line or the bass line, hands down, every song she’s ever played, she can play both.”
What is the format of your lesson package?
“You can get a DVD or CD of a book, or you can book her on Zoom or Skype and get a one-on-one lesson, but you have to complete her lesson first because she wants you to know some of the theory. It’s one of the best lessons I’ve ever taken.”
Did you have a private lesson with Carol?
“No, I was too intimidated. She’s just too damn cool. You know, Billy Sheehan took a lesson from her and so did all these other great bass players. I’ll just keep watching her classes…”