John Norum - Europe - Interview Exclusive Written by Tazz Stander Thursday, 15 July 2010 06:00 PART 2 Youve taken a massive side step away from the sound on your previous six albums and gone in a very bluesy direction. Have your inspirations in writing changed at all? I always looked at myself as a blues guitarist. I learned and starting listening in the mid 70s to John Mayall Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and people like that. A lot of people from my generation dont know a lot about those albums, the 60s, either because they were too young or into other types of music but I was very fortunate that my step dad was a drummer and he played that kind of music, he had all those albums at home. He heard I was practising and he said that I had to listen to all these bands as they are the foundation or the bible of rock blues guitar. I started playing along to all the records so I always had that blues base. Later on I got into more hard rock like Black Sabbath. The whole thing started a couple of years ago when I did a Frank Marino tribute album. Its called Smoke something, I cant remember the exact name, I just remember smoke something. (Laughing) Not Up In Smoke because thats something completely different, that is Cheech and Chong the movie, which is a really great movie by the way, I would really recommend it (Laughs). If youre an old hippy like me, you will enjoy it. I did one song on the Frank Marino tribute album and I just thought that it was so cool and I had so much fun doing it so I decided that my album was going to be more in that kind of style, more blues rock. [John and I then have a pretty in depth conversation with lots of banter about how were from the same generation age wise and he continued that with ....] The first album I ever did was with a guy in Sweden called Eddie Medusa and the Roaring Cadillacs. It was kind of like Chuck Berry sounding. My step dad was playing drums in the band. When I recorded the album, I was 14 years old and my step dad was 25 or 26 and he was very, very old. The rest of the band ... The singer was 30 and he was really old, a really old man (laughing). When I went on tour with them I was 17 and I kept wondering how I was going to deal with these old guys but now looking back, they were so young (laughs). youtube/watch?v=DoWD6ZX1F6o
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 22:02:49 +0000
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