Interview by Joe Montague
To
say that guitarist Blake Aaron is a funky guy would be a gross understatement,
and to try to apply just one label to his special brand of music would not be
accurate either, as his new CD
Desire clearly
demonstrates. The album has received rave reviews, including in this
publication, and has been charting spectacularly since it was released earlier
this year. Currently
Desire sits in
the number one spot on the Indie Charts, a position that it has occupied for
five straight weeks. Aaron’s versatility as an artist appears to be paying off.
“I
have never been a musician who pigeonholes himself, or a musician who has always
been into just one kind of music. I have always been into many different things
at the same time,” says Aaron.
Admitting that his diversity of musical styles can be
somewhat of a double-edged sword, Aaron says, “It has been both an asset and a
bit of a hindrance in a way, because I have not been focused on one exact type
of music. It can therefore take longer to become successful.”
While still in college the guitar maestro learned the
art of getting down and funky with a band called Positive Source. “I was the
only white guy in the band, so I had to learn how to groove real quick. (That’s
where) I really got the idea of how to play within a pocket. That is just
something that you (can only) learn through experience,” he says.
Realizing that this journalist is a neophyte in the
world of funk guitar, Aaron takes time to explain, “In the pocket, is a
musician’s slang that has been used for years. There is a special feel that
rhythm guitar players such as Wa Wa Watson and Paul Jackson Jr., have. They have
a certain groove and feel to their playing, that goes beyond just being correct.
There is correct, and then there is in the pocket. Correct can sound stiff. As
the beats go by in music, there is a certain clock and every beat has a pocket
to it. You can hit it towards the beginning of the pocket, or the end of the
pocket, then there is just plain wrong, and that occurs when you are playing
outside the pocket. Every player’s feel is different depending on where in the
pocket they decide to play. That pocket is only a split second in time.
Depending on whether a musician decides to play in the pocket, just ahead of the
pocket or perhaps on the backside of the pocket, can really change the feel (of
the music).”
Continuing my music lesson on playing in the pocket,
Aaron further explains, “You can tell when a guitar player, drummer, or bass
player is playing very laid back, because it has a different feel than when they
are pushing a little bit. A lot of the older school guys would tend to lay back
a lot, and it had a certain feel to it, like the guys who played for James
Brown. Some of the pop guys in the eighties such as Paul Jackson Jr., had a way
of playing a little bit on top (of the music), but it was really cool because it
pushed the energy forward.”
Pushing the energy forward is
just what Aaron does with his funky opening track from
Desire,
“Bumpin’ On The Wes Side,” and his song “Harmonious Funk,” is aptly named.
His cover of the already funky and spectacular
Billy Preston tune, “Will It Go ‘Round In Circles,” almost didn’t make it onto
the album. It was a last minute addition that originated from a conversation
that Aaron had with one of the individuals who was working on the production
side of things for
Desire. They
had already recorded all the songs that they thought were going to be on the CD,
had the project mixed, and were just two weeks from sending it off to be
mastered. The two men happened to be checking into a hotel when “Will It Go
‘Round In Circles,” started playing over the house speakers.
Aaron picks up the story, “He said to me, ‘It’s too bad
that you have finished your record, because that would be a great tune for you.’
I stopped, thought about it and said, ‘Well…it’s not too late, we could throw it
in there.’ My thinking being, that I didn’t have a funky cover. I had “Fragile,”
but it is more of a Latin thing and mellower. We put it (the cover of the song)
together in one week from (the time) we cut the tracks until it was on the
mastering table.”
It would be doing a
disservice to both the artist and his project, however to only talk about the
funk side of
Desire. The
album has much more to offer. For instance the song “Run Away With You,” carries
a strong Afro Cuban flavor. “It is a song that I wrote way back in ’95, and it
was on my first CD, an EP that I did at my house. It was back in the day when
Carl Griffin was the Vice-President at GRP Records. The label was really
interested in me, but I didn’t have any tunes to give them, so I quickly put
together a six song EP for them. “Runaway,” was one of the songs on that EP. It
became a song that we would play live all of the time, however we thought that
it was pushing the envelope a little too much for a smooth jazz record. It was a
little too Latin, or a little too eclectic. We got such a great reaction from in
on the first record, that I said let’s go ahead and put it on this one. It
turned out great.”
Aaron says, “I envisioned it
(“Run Away With You”) as having an African Cuban beat, and (during the course of
the song), we went back and forth between a samba and a songo. I had guys
playing on the record who know those grooves much better than I do, and they
made that song really come alive. Jimmy Branley played drums for the song. He is
actually from
Aaron describes his music as having lots of depth and
passion. It is, he says, music that can become very romantic and captivating. He
certainly achieves that end with songs such as “If You Were Mine,” and “In Her
Own Sweet Way,”
Blake Aaron continues to grow as an artist and that can
be attributed in part to his desire for achieving excellence in his compositions
and playing, combined with the fact that he has enjoyed a long tenure
contributing to the music for major television productions, including a
fifteen-year stint with MAD TV, the Ben Stiller Show and The Jamie Kennedy
Experiment.
“The television work keeps me as current as possible
with all of the styles of music that are out there, because with MAD TV, you
have to do every style of music that you can imagine. It keeps me current with
that the other guitar players are doing. It keeps me inspired and gives me fresh
ideas,” says Aaron.
Comparing the two facets of his career, Aaron observes,
“It is like being an artist. There are artists who will take hours and hours to
sculpt something, and then there are performance artists who may paint something
in a matter of minutes. There is something to be said for both of them. When I
do studio work, it allows me to go into depth concerning the details of my
planning, and the parts that I am putting down. It allows me to become a
perfectionist. The downside of that is you can get so caught up with it that you
can take the life out of your music by becoming too much of a perfectionist. If
you aren’t careful you can wind up sounding a bit stiff. My live performing
allows me to keep my studio playing a little fresher sounding. It has a little
bit more passion, and off the cuff spontaneity.
Spontaneous, fresh and
passionate are three words that easily can be used to describe the fifteen
tracks that comprise Blake Aaron’s current CD
Desire.