By Ryan
Sparks
Famed
English keyboardist / violinist Eddie Jobson really needs to
introduction to fans of classic and progressive rock. When he
was still only a teenager he joined the British prog band Curved
Air in 1973 before quickly moving on to replace Brian Eno in
Roxy Music later that same year. After a short stint in Frank
Zappa’s touring band in 1976 (check out his work on Zappa’s
excellent double live album Zappa in New York), Jobson
began assembling the pieces of progressive rock super group
U.K.
Comprised
of ex- King Crimson members, bassist John Wetton, drummer Bill
Bruford and ex- Soft Machine guitarist Allan Holdsworth the
band’s time in the spotlight was relatively short lived as they
would go on to release only two studio albums and one live
record before disbanding at the end of the 70’s. However the
impact of both the self titled debut released in 1978 and the
follow up Danger Money (recorded as a trio with Terry
Bozzio replacing Bruford behind the drums) in 1979, cannot be
understated and a strong case can be made that some of the bands
more commercial forays actually paved the way for Wetton’s
future success in the 80’s with Asia.
After U.K.
disbanded Jobson basically retreated from live performances, and
save for appearing on Jethro Tull’s A album and
subsequent tour in 1981, he began concentrating on his own solo
material as well as branching out into composing music for
television and film. In the mid 90’s both Jobson and Wetton
decided to try to resurrect U.K. which was somewhat surprising
considering their apparent mutual contempt for one another.
Although the duo worked on material with guest contributions
from both original members Bruford and Holdsworth for a couple
of years the “Legacy” project as it came to be known never
surfaced and Eddie eventually pulled the plug.
Fast
forward to the end of 2007 as Jobson re-enters the arena so to
speak with a new project called UKZ that can be seen almost as
an extension of the original U.K. concept. UKZ quite honestly
features some of the best musicians in the game today including
touch guitarist Trey Gunn, guitarist Alex Machacek , drummer
Marco Minnemann and vocalist Aaron Lippert. After releasing
their Radiation EP on Eddie’s label Globe Music and playing a
few select gigs, he is extending the band further on his
upcoming Ultimate Zero tour which is making stops in select U.S.
cities as you read this. For this all instrumental outing Eddie
has put together another all-star lineup which features
guitarist Greg Howe as well as drum legend Simon Phillips in
addition to Minneman and Gunn. I recently caught up with Eddie
to get the story behind his return to action with both UKZ and
now U-Z , his thoughts on the aborted U.K. reunion in the mid
90’s and how the internet has changed everything.
Ryan:
You had been out of the public eye and off the stage for almost
thirty years but you’ve returned with two rather large scale
projects, UKZ and now your U-Z or Ultimate Zero Tour. I guess
the most common question you’re probably asked is where have you
been?
Eddie: I
made a conscious decision to leave the stage and leave live
performing a long time ago. I almost went back with Yes on the
90125 tour but even that was '84 or something like that.
When that sort of didn't play out in the right way, I thought at
the time that I was just done with this and done with the band
thing. I needed to find things that were more fulfilling and
didn't have as many downsides, like dealing with the politics of
band members, touring around the world and all the rest of it,
dealing with agencies, management companies, record companies
and all that. I really wanted to move on to other passions, I
had started out doing the Theme of Secrets album with at
the time my new Polyphonic Synclavier which led me to start
developing the scoring side of what I did, and having more
control if you like over the whole digital recording. We had
direct to disk and I started getting into hard disk recording at
that time and that led to scoring opportunities initially in
advertising in New York. That went very well very quickly as I
won the best Clio with the first original score that I did with
my new company. Then I was a Clio finalist or winner every year
for eight years after that, mainly because doing the work that I
was doing led to other really good work. So that was actually
quite a satisfying time to be learning so much about recording,
scoring and digital hard disk recording. For instance we did one
of the first ever direct to disk via satellite voice over
recordings with Leonard Nimoy being in Los Angeles recording
right to our studios in New York. Nobody was doing that at that
time so that side of it was all very exciting.
Ryan:
You were taking advantage of the new technology that was
becoming available.
Eddie: We
were right on the cutting edge as usual and even though I was
out of the public eye I've remained on the cutting edge in many
ways.
Ryan:
You didn’t retire as such but people who were used to seeing you
in the public eye might have presumed you had disappeared;
however you had been working on your own music and writing for
television and films.
Eddie: Yeah
I just went out of the public eye but I was still producing as
much music and working as hard and doing many interesting
projects. Either people didn't bother to find out what they were
or they were hearing them and not knowing it was me, like some
of the famous jingles I did. The one I wrote for Amtrak that
Richie Havens sang was on the television everyday [laughing]. Or
the Volkswagen campaign that I created with the Euro Pop sound,
those were the more commercial things I did but everybody heard
them because there were over a hundred commercials for
Volkswagen and over a hundred commercials for Amtrak. I did
every Amtrak score and song for about five years. So people were
hearing it on the radio and on television.
Ryan:
You were responsible for creating what is seen as one of the
last progressive rock super groups with UK, although I don’t
necessarily consider the music to be progressive in the standard
sense of the word. Given the amount of compromise and such that
goes along with having three or four supremely talented
musicians in a situation like that were you a bit wary of
walking into that scenario again with the formation of UKZ?
Eddie: Yes
I was and I still am [laughing]. The difference now is I've been
managing myself since 1980 and I've become my own record
company, engineer and producer of all my own stuff. I even got
into mastering my own CD's and designing everything and building
websites. Basically I've been learning all the different sides
of what needs to happen in order for a band or an artist to
exist, I've learned how to do all of that myself since 1980. As
I said I've kept on top of all the technology and the
opportunities. The internet has since come up and that's changed
everything with YouTube and all the rest of it, mini-DVD cameras
and Final Cut Pro. So keeping on top of all of that has put me
in a totally different position than when I was leaving Frank
Zappa to hook up with Bruford and Wetton to form U.K. Now it's
something I can completely visualize and execute.
Ryan: Is
it also about having more control?
Eddie: I
mean yeah, although control seems to be looked at as almost a
dirty word, but it really is more about having a structure that
no longer exists, it’s about creating that structure. Back in
those days, as in the case of U.K. there was a rather large
structure instantly in place. We had EG Management who were the
record production company, who funded the making of the record
and had very good arrangements with AIR Studios. We could go
into AIR on say Danger Money and have the Beatles
engineer Geoff Emerick kind of there ready to work with us to
record the drums and whatever. Then we had worldwide
distribution through Polydor, and road crews, tour managers and
accountants as well as promoters who were already on board. That
structure allowed us to form without ever having to think about
it. We could go into a rehearsal room that was organized and
paid for. I had been able to go out and spend large amounts of
money to put together a state of the art keyboard rig, with a
Sadie and a Hammond and all the rest of it. I could go into the
rehearsal room or the studio and work on some music and record
it. Then the next thing was you had to fly to New York because
you were going to play New York, Philadelphia, Boston and so
forth, so that structure was there. That structure has since
completely dissipated. The record companies are no longer there,
they're not supporting tours in the same way and there are no
A&R people there to sign interesting projects. It’s all been
taken over by MBA's who are just trying to regurgitate the same
pop hit formulas.
Ryan:
Right its run by people who don’t always have music in their
best interests.
Eddie: Of
course it's not about music it's just about money and as a
result all of the structure to support more artistic projects is
gone. So what I've been doing, and fortunately I was on the
right path as far as doing this since 1980, was to take over
things myself. Even on The Green Album I did everything
myself on that album, I even hand drew the lettering on the
front cover. I got my own record deal and that has kind of
developed to this point where now I have my own record company
and my own distribution. I'm still with a major for distribution
to get it into the stores however.
Ryan:
You had that DIY ethos much earlier on.
Eddie: A
long time ago. Now the internet has allowed all this other stuff
to take place. For example once I did decide to go back and give
it one more shot, it was like "I need a band", but now I've got
YouTube and can look all around the world and find the best
musicians without leaving my office.
Ryan:
That is basically how you found everybody correct?
Eddie:
That's how I found everybody yeah.
Ryan: So
you weren't necessarily aware of everyone's work prior to seeing
them on YouTube?
Eddie: Only
Trey Gunn from King Crimson. I had discovered Aaron Lippert the
singer a few years earlier but certainly Marco (Minnemann) and
Alex (Machacek) ...
Ryan:
Did they come through Terry (Bozzio)?
Eddie: Alex
came from looking at Terry's videos, well really looking at
everybody who I'd played with before to see who all the top
musicians were playing with. Following that path I saw that Alex
was playing with Marco so I discovered him that way as well.
Like Trey, I had been aware of him but I hadn't heard anything
he'd done since Crimson, so I was able to find his KTU project
with Kimmo (Pohjonen) which is all pretty interesting stuff.
Then I thought that Aaron would be good for this so that's how
it all came about.
Ryan: I
think it would be safe to call you a perfectionist.
Eddie: You
wouldn't be the first [laughs].
Ryan:
You’re someone who has incredibly high standards as far as the
quality of your music goes, so how do you feel then when someone
goes to a UKZ show and a couple of hours later posts the footage
on a place like YouTube?
Eddie: The
frustration of that for me is part of the general frustration of
going public again. The larger overview of that problem for me
is that the internet, and going back into a live band or being
available again for people to record, videotape or photograph
you, is a huge encroachment on the sense of privacy that I've
enjoyed since 1981 you know? [laughs] For many, many years not
being in the public arena has made me something of a private
person, some would even say a recluse. I tend to not go out that
much. I've got my studio in my house and I don’t have a reason
to- I was kind of done with the travel to a great degree, so I
didn't have a lot of reason to be going back out anymore. I
don't enjoy having my photograph taken or any of that other
stuff either. It’s all part of dealing with it, and to be honest
with you it's the hardest part of dealing with this idea where
now that I've put something out is that some idiot in his
mother's bedroom with a Dell is able to tell the whole world how
much it sucks [laughing.
Ryan:
Sounds like you're referring to the comments that people post on
places like YouTube.
Eddie: It’s
like wow! All of a sudden everybody is like Simon Cowell and
feels the right and obligation somehow to express their view of
what they think about it, and the way you've failed you know?
Sometimes they might be right; there might be some weakness in
it or something in it that is less than incredible, but there
all these reasons for it. You look at the video I did make for
"Radiation" and if you stand back and ask how it was made, well
I'll tell you how it was made, it was made with consumer DV cams
attached to the roof of my home studio. Either on top of the
drum kit or with me sort of holding it as I'm recording the
guitar player, or the singer is starting the camera before he
does a take back in Boston. Trey is starting a camera with a
green screen that I sent him. It's all completely homemade. Then
I had to get all these QuickTime movie files from various
sources and compile it all together. I'm sitting there with this
two thousand page manual for Final Cut Pro trying to figure out
how to create graphics and how to cut it and edit it [laughs]. I
did everything myself. I was holding the camera as I was
recording Alex with one hand and I had the hand held on the
other hand so I could capture all of the live performances.
Ryan:
I've seen the video a few times and I think it came out great.
You wouldn't know all of the things you're telling me by
watching it.
Eddie: Well
thanks [laughing]. This is part of the new way that you have to
create all of these structures yourself and figure out how
things can get done, because there is no Atlantic Records
anymore giving you two hundred thousand dollars to go make a
video that is guaranteed to end up on MTV.
Ryan: I
actually think that's a good thing though.
Eddie: It
is a good thing but it makes for an awful lot of work and a lot
of things to take on and learn, so I continue to expand into
basically doing everybody's job.
Ryan:
There's a lot of work that goes into it as you said but from an
aspect of artistic control it has to be better for you because
there isn't someone standing over your shoulder telling you that
there needs to be more chicks in the video do you know what I
mean?
Eddie: That
is the great beauty of it, and then you have to put it
out there and sort of put your neck on the block and say "Well
look I just made my first video, here it is". Then of course
you’ve got some nobody from Iowa who's typing in that the video
looks really amateurish. You just feel like saying "Well what
can you do? Let’s see your video pal". I'm just one guy sitting
in a room creating this stuff, and with each one you learn what
works and what doesn't and how you can improve the next time,
but at least you're growing and moving forward, and you take
responsibility for it.
Ryan: We
haven't even talked about your upcoming Ultimate Zero Tour in
the middle of August. You're doing six shows in six nights on
the East coast and Midwestern United States. (ed note: three of
these dates have unfortunately been cancelled) The obvious
answer to my question is that there are other musicians involved
to some degree but what are the differences between UKZ and this
U-Z tour? For example why not just do these shows with UKZ?
Eddie: Well
there are a few reasons for it. Having put all the film and
television work on the shelf more than two years ago now to just
fully focus on- I tend to need to fully focus twenty four hours
a day on what it is I'm trying to do at that time. I'm not that
good at saying "Ok I've got this rock band, we'll make this
album and do this tour and I'll do these choral arrangements on
this Disney movie at the same time". I do multitask a lot within
one project but not in terms of my focus of what it is I'm
concentrating on trying to make work and create. To create
something like UKZ or lets be broader than that, to create a
whole new Eddie Jobson returns to the live concert stage, and
have CD's to back it up, to have a new environment, is more than
a full time job, it's ten full time jobs. The larger overview is
how do I make that work? Because the CD's sales these days are
down the tubes and we've got all this illegal downloading of
everything that can be digitized which is obviously going to get
worse and worse.
As you said
people are putting up YouTube videos within hours and bootleg
CD's within a few days or whatever and posting stuff on the
internet all over the place. The quality of that stuff is going
to get higher and higher and it's going to be that everyone has
a hi-definition camera on their lapel button. You sort of have
to accept this brave new world where you can't control digital
content, you can try and you have to try to make it worthwhile
for people to pay, as Steve Jobs managed to do. However,
essentially to make any of this work you have to be a performing
musician and this was the impetus for me to understand that I
needed to whip out the violins again and say "Look this is who
Eddie Jobson is and I'm going to be performing in your town,
pick up the CD's at the gig as well as your local record shop".
I have to try to work out a structure again for that and a model
for how that works. The conclusions that I came to was certain
things like UKZ are difficult to have going around just playing
every bar in America. That’s not something I want to do with
that project, it's hard to do because the other musicians are
off doing their other projects all the time, there's always
something going on. Trey is off working with KTU and Marco is
travelling around the world doing drum clinics and doing a solo
album every three months [laughs]. So it’s one of those things
where even though I’ve formed this band I still don’t have the
flexibility with it. I also don’t really want to be playing to
seventy people in a bar in Billings with UKZ. It's too special
and what I want to do with it is what I did with it in New York,
where we can have a real serious light show, play on a large
stage in a decent size theater and I've been trying to keep it
in that place. Having said that I've been looking for other
projects to do and I started out playing with a King Crimson
project in Russia, that was the first thing that I did. I also
guested with Fairport Convention and the idea of that seems more
practical in many ways, just like I'm doing next week. It's
possible that I can take my rig which is all computerized and
small these days and zoom off to a gig and sit in with Curved
Air. Maybe I'll do more dates in October in England if Daryl
(Wray) can't do them, why not? I'll go and do it and use the
opportunity to try and promote UKZ in England. So the U-Z
project is just kind of a different idea. Rather than UKZ being
a fixed band, this is who the band is, this is the record and
the video, and trying to forge a new path, which I'm still
doing, the idea of U-Z isn't to forge a new path its really
more of a tribute to the old path. It's an opportunity to play
with young hotshot musicians as well as old name players who
I've played with over the years. The idea is about putting
together something that is just about great players, that’s all
it’s about, great players. There are so few bands with really
great players and the ones that are out there are really only in
the jazz realm. So the question became how do I do more of a
rock thing and have some fusion element to it? I want to have
great players for each tour and have a flexible arrangement
where each tour can be completely different.
Ryan: So
what can fans expect to hear from your back catalogue with this
band?
Eddie: Well
it won’t be just from my back catalogue. It will be things that
have influenced us. It's basically about my career but not
necessarily just stuff I've written. There could be a Mahavishnu
Orchestra track in there or a King Crimson track that I didn't
play on. Maybe something from Simon Phillips that would be fun
to play or would fit the parameters of what this is about. So
that’s the idea, it gives us a lot more flexibility that UKZ
wouldn't have. I might play a Curved Air, a Roxy Music or a
Frank Zappa track. If I get guests come in and they could be
singers as well. If Phil Collins wanted to join in maybe we
could morph into a Genesis tribute band or whatever. That
flexibly is there and allows me to be in touch with promoters in
places like Poland and they can say what have you got in
November? Then I can see who's available. It's a revolving
lineup and that is sort of the whole point. Each U-Z tour will
be a vehicle for great rock players to come to together and play
the music that we like to play.
Ryan: It
will definitely keep things fresh from the fans perspective
because they're never going to see the same show twice.
Eddie: No
they won’t see the same show twice and it’s unlikely they'll see
the same lineup twice. So that's what's different about the
concept and that is something that I'm much more prepared to
play a bar in Philadelphia and be ok with that. I know it's a
bit more of an obscure concept, there's no radio play or
mainstream interest, this is just for the diehards.
Ryan: I
don’t know if there's an easy for way for you to answer this
question but in the mid 90's you and John were working on a
proper U.K. reunion. You worked for a couple of years on the
project and the plan was to have both Bill and Alan involved as
well. What happened?
Eddie: Bill
did play on it eventually, a lot of people played on it such as
Steve Hackett, Francis Dunnery, the Bulgarian Woman's Choir and
the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. I had about ninety
people on the record by the time I finally just shelved it
[laughs]. First of all before I get into what exactly happened
with it and I'll try to keep it short because its too long of a
story, but the overview of it was to as I said, what I started
doing in 1980 which was to keep on growing and developing things
and learning how to expand and move forward. That Legacy project
started out as an idea to try to reform U.K. to do that, but it
was also more than that. It was about trying to build a new
studio, getting a Euphonix mixing console and doing more of my
own engineering, just setting myself up to be able to do high
quality digital recordings myself. I wanted to learn about being
a better producer and engineer and all of those things. It was
also about trying to discover who Eddie Jobson / U.K. might be
in 1995 as opposed to 1979. Where would I have gotten to had I
kept doing it, where would U.K. be had they kept doing it and we
had kept on growing and absorbing more and more influences from
what happened in the interim. One of the conclusions that I came
to was as we had embraced classical music and jazz and so on, by
that time in 1995 I assumed that we would have embraced African
music and all kinds of world music, which is how the Bulgarians
came into it. Here was something exotic and truly fascinating,
incredibly deep and rich and musical. I thought well there’s an
element let me look into that and see if it can be integrated
into the whole thing. I had Tony Levin on stick and the
Bulgarian women’s choir doing their whole dissonant yodeling
thing and Bill Bruford doing this sort of hip hop beat and I was
wondering how I could pull this whole thing together.
[laughing]
It started
out as more of a partnership idea with John but the reality of
it was that John was really focused on doing his solo records.
In fact he was doing a solo record at the time I was doing it,
so a lot of it landed on my shoulders. That was fine because I
got to go to Bulgaria and conduct the choir and compose music
for them and all the rest of it, which eventually led to
me forming Globe Music in 2000 and having them on the label and
putting them on tour. I still have a very strong association
with them and I just love working with them when I can. That was
the beginning of that for me, as well sort of expanding into
world music and even that led to not only Nash Bridges, scoring
that because that was all African percussion and didgeridoo’s
and strange world instruments, but also doing all the choral
arrangements for the Brother Bear Disney movie with Phil
Collins. It led to a whole array of other opportunities that
were really interesting to me musically. It was also a way that
I could generate some income, yet keep on developing, growing
and doing interesting things whether the progressive rock public
knew anything about it or not, that really didn’t matter to me.
It turned
into this enormous project and that's again when I truly
discovered that there was just no structure left on the business
side of things. No record companies were even remotely
interested in it, except in Japan. So I knew that things had
really changed.
Ryan: So
that project is sitting in your archives.
Eddie: Yeah
in my vaults. I've also got tons of film footage of everybody
recording as well. Stuff nobody has even seen. I've got Tony
Levin, Bruford, the choir and everybody.
Ryan: So
I guess the million dollar question is will anyone ever see or
hear this material?
Eddie:
[laughing] You know I don’t know is the answer to that. I don’t
just do things to get it out there and to try and sell records.
I do things for all the reasons that I've said, to continue
developing, exploring, learning and growing and trying to be an
artist. Whether or not things come out or not depends a lot on
how - it gets to the point where I have to ask myself how cost
effective is it for me to sit, for even just two months, and
pull all this stuff together to try and make something out of it
when the music is fifteen or twenty years old and I've kind of
moved on to other things. Even though it's interesting how many
people are going to bother to buy it? Shouldn't my time be more
focused on moving forward? So that’s where I get to a lot.
Ryan: I
can totally understand that.
Eddie:
Having said that some of this footage should probably come out
at some point because it's really cool [laughs].
Ryan:
Maybe you can put some of it up on your website.
Eddie: Yeah
that’s the thing; I could just make some YouTube videos or
something.
Ryan:
And then sit back and wait for all the comments.
Eddie: Yeah
exactly. Sit back and wait to be abused.
Ryan:
Last question for you Eddie. You had to be one of the first
musicians to play a see through plexiglass violin. Who designed
that for you?
Eddie: I
have five of them. The original and the one that everybody
knows, the clear plexiglass one with the silver frame was made
for me in 1972 by a sculptor in England, an old white haired
Einstein fellow. He was a real sweetheart of a man and an
interesting guy who has since passed away a few years ago. I had
kept in touch with him over the years and I would send him a
card every Christmas. He was the Father of Curved Air's sound
engineer and part of the concept of Curved Air was that their
logo was a rainbow, so the concept of the prism was associated
with curved air. That was part of their original look when they
first came out and at one point in the early days they had a
plexiglass drum kit and plexiglass guitars so my plexiglass
violin was part of that.
I turned to
him in around 1980 or '81 and asked him if he would make me a
green one for The Green Album. In order for him to make
these violins he had to carve and make fourteen wooden jigs, so
there was so much effort in just making those jigs that he
decided he would make a bunch more, so he ended up making a pink
one and a white one that has lights in it as well. He made the
blue one that I'm using now with UKZ, but what happened was by
the time he made these violins I never went back on stage again
so they never got used. So the only one that's ever really been
used onstage until I played in Russia with the King Crimson
Project, that was the first time I'd used the blue one.
Ryan: So
people are really seeing these violins for the first time.
Eddie:
Yeah. I still haven't introduced the white one with the lights
or the pink or green one. Except that the green one is on The
Green Album and you can see a picture of that, but live
people are just getting to see the blue one which is a beautiful
instrument, and they're hard to play to be honest with you.
They're not easy to play but they've become such a trademark of
mine that I've just kind of stuck with them.
Ryan:
Well I'll tell you it sure as hell looks cool and at the same
time it makes the violin a pretty appealing instrument to play.
Eddie: I
know people dig it. I like them and it’s a beautiful collection.
Now we've made them all invisibly wireless as well, which is the
latest technological accomplishment [laughs].
Ryan:
Thanks a lot for your time today Eddie you have been more than
generous.
Eddie: No
problem I can see how interested you are. I appreciate your
support.
www.ukzband.com
www.eddiejobson.com
