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An
interview with Amber Turrill |
An
interview with Tony "Wild
T" Springer |
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1. Describe the early years of your musical roots and how your talent was nurtured. I started singing soul and blues early on. One night when I was about ten, I was sitting outside on my mom's back porch, feeling blue because I had some puppy love thing go horribly wrong. My mom walked to the back door and heard me literally howling Otis Redding at the moon. Later on that week, she told me I was getting a guitar and started taking me around to sing. When I started playing, I took lessons from an awesome blues player and practiced metal in my house alone until I was about 14. That's when I started to sing and play in front of people. My family was always supportive of me playing, and pushed me to be a performer. 2. Where there any events, people or catalyst(s) I definitely found myself as a guitarist by going to music school and receiving classical training. Even so, I think the biggest change happened when I moved out of West Virginia, where I grew up. Moving to Washington DC did two major things for me. For one, the punk music I was listening to took root - I found its character in the things I was seeing and the gambit of emotions I was dealing with in the moving transition, which wasn't easy. My move here inspired me to truly love it - I think of it kind of like my second wife. After a few months here, I found La Gorda (http://www.la-gorda.com) , and playing guitar with them has taught me a lot about music and my own playing. They're very supportive of what I do. Also, the guitar ladies I've interacted with for my thesis research at the University of Maryland have inspired me to keep going, to keep growing and expanding in my music. They're amazing. 3. What does your live set up consist of? Gibson Les Paul Double Cutaway Studio (I call him Dirty Jimmy) and I just bought a Rocktron Replitone amp. It's fun to play with, but so huge and finicky and grouchy that it kind of reminds us of a grandfather. We tend to call him Vern. 4. Who have you released a CD with? How did you contribute? Where did you record and what did you use? Right now we're about to record our first EP next month with a friend in Northern Virginia and our partners in the Philippines. I'm going to be using my Les Paul (of course!) 5. Who does your booking? Are you under management? We do all of our own booking, with nudges and trades from friends in the DC area. Our biggest asset has been the respect and admiration we have for some of the other amazing musicians in our local scene. We're proud of our punk and indie here in DC. 6. What are your musical aspirations? I just want to be able to go to bed at night loving what I do. I want to learn as much as I can about my instrument and have people respect what I'm doing with it, even if we don't see eye-to-eye stylistically. I hope I never stop learning from the guitarists I surround myself with. 7. What would you say to another indie guitarist who is going on tour for the first time? Stomach meds. Don't take the small things for granted. Write it all
down. 8. Do you have a quote of inspiration to share? I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. But if you go to sleep at night knowing who you are, and what kind of musician you want to be factors into that, you're well-equipped to make the right choices. For more information on Amber Turrill visit: http://www.la-gorda.com
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"Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you". Holst
"It is only that which cannot be expressed otherwise that is worth expressing in music". Delius
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1. Where there any events, people or catalyst(s) that were musically influential? I have been influenced as much as
I’ve lived.
Being from Trinidad, its a different scene, and a different style of music.
It’s steel drums and calypso, that's my main influence. I think now
that I look back it sets the stage for a wider variety of music in general
as opposed to sounding exactly like somebody you say influenced you. I was
more influenced by the music that was around, everybody's musical, we played
music all day everyday. I use to listen to music a lot and I never really
learned any of these songs. I listened to Sly & the Family Stone, Al
Green, Otis Redding, James Brown but not learning the stuff. In Trinidad
somebody tried to turn me on to this guy named, Jimi Hendrix. Well I couldn't
understand it, I didn't like it. When I came to Toronto, a guy made me an
offer to learn some Jimi Hendrix material and get into a Jimi tribute band.
He guaranteed me a huge amount of money. I thought okay I like that and so
I did it. Since then I’ve realized that I’ve been influenced
by Jimi, we have a similar soul, a free spirit.
As far as influences, back in trinidad you have lots of spare time I would
just pick up my guitar, I new I had the music in me. I wanted to write, just
develop my fingers and play whatever I hear or feel. That’s what would
spark it up or triggers it. When I do big shows like outdoor concerts and stuff I like to use a Marshall 4x12 cabinet or two and a 100 watt JCM Marshall head. I cant stand 50 watts, drives me insane. I like my sound to be loud and clean. So you don't have to whack your strings hard and end up breaking them. I have a crybaby vox wah wah, delay, chorus, octave, multi effects pedal. For the clubs and smaller gigs I use a Fender twin100 watt and the same array of pedals. And also, sometimes when I feel a little groggy I use an octaver. Any sound is a good sound if you utilize it wisely. The main thing is don't get scared when you hear strange sounds put them into the mix. 3. Has there been lows & highs of touring? I really love it . I can’t say its all a high. What I really like about it is that you get into a zone. Knowing that your not gonna be well rested for too long. I get into a zone, no sleep, travel, do interviews, talk to people. It’s all good, its all a high to me. I just look forward to it, talking to people turning them on to what we do. Honestly I can’t really think of times when I’m touring and I’m down. 4. What was it like to record for Warner Brothers and to have your music produced by Arnold Lanni? It was a great influential and learning process for
me because I’ve never recorded my own music before. Warner is
like big time, it was a real high. The recording session with Arnold
that was a learning process. Me being the green horn and Arnold, he
had number one billboard hits. He was at the helm, controlling everything.
We locked horns a few times because of things he would say to me, like
you will do it my way because I’m the one with the billboard
hit, you know nothing. I had to let that fly because you know you try
to get by. I learned so much from that guy. The songs that I brought
to him, he took my songs and rearranged some things and stuff like
that. We never sat down and wrote stuff together. It was all my stuff.
He would open up a whole new door that would show me, I knew how to
do it but I never did it. 5. You have portrayed Jimi Hendrix in the Monkey movie, “Day Dream Believers” for TMN What was that like? I did that almost three years ago. It was fun doing
the movie. 6. What kind of feel is your new CD,” True Bliss”? Is there a particular song that you’d like to mention? I did two CD’s with Warner that had a blues/rock feel. “True Bliss” is really what I want to do, songs from my soul not for radio. There is a couple of heavy, classical, Wild T songs but the feel is mostly playful. Songs about love. The world needs more love. “Heaven Knows How Much I Love You” was written for my eight year old daughter. Unlike past recordings every song has keyboards. Jeff Healey makes a debut appearance on “Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind”, its haunting. There is a cover of Carol Pope’s “High School Confidential”, she sings back up vocals and the version is nothing like the original. It’s done in a different way, a much heavier way. Trumpet legend, Guido Basso plays flugle horn & trumpet on the CD as well. The music on “True Bliss” is MLM, that stands for Music Lover’s Music, a new title for music as opposed to R&R. 7. How long is the European “True Bliss” Tour and what do you have planned?
In August we’re in California for the Fire on the Mountain Blues Festival with Robben Ford. For more information on Tony “Wild T“ Springer contact: Guenther Kapelle
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© 2005 Yonge Music