By the standards of anyone, guitarist Earl Slick has lived a rock and roll fantasy camp over his 30+ year musical career. While his name doesn’t carry the recognition of a Clapton, Richards or Beck, Slick has played axe for some of the heavies hitters on the rock and roll circuit. Speaking bluntly with true rock and roll bravado, Slick’s not shy to admit that showmanship and style are as essential to a guitarist’s package as nimble guitar pyrotechnics. He admits, “it was just too much fucking work” and “I don’t have the patience for that shit” in regards to playing technically intricate guitar work. By playing with assurance, feel, grit, and flavor, Slick has knocked down a fair share of dream gigs to place on his rock ‘n roll resume.
Back in 1980, Slick got a random call from John Lennon, saying that he dug Slick’s style and wanted him to play guitar on a new album he was working on, soon to be titled Double Fantasy. Slick fulfilled a longtime fantasy of playing with his hero and lending his talents an album that ended up being Lennon’s final studio work. But it’s been his current and past work with the consummate musical chameleon, David Bowie, that keeps Slick on top of his game. Beginning with the Diamond Dogs tour after a fly by the pick audition, Slick would lend his work to three Top 10 albums: David Live (1974), Young Americans (1975) and Station to Station (1976), the latter two featuring the smash hit singles “Fame” and “Golden Years.”
Fast forward to 2004: after two decades of playing solo, collaborations with Whitesnake’s David Coverdale and Mott the Hopple’s Ian Hunter, and work with his own band– Phantom, Rocker & Slick – Earl is back in the big picture. While appearing on Bowie’s 2003 return-to-rock release Reality and performing on the subsequent current world tour performing nightly in front of thousands, Slick has put out a new solo album called Zig Zag.
Zig Zag features collaborations with several guest vocalists and an assortment of instrumental tracks, making the album part action film soundtrack and part all-star compilation. Bowie, Robert Smith of The Cure, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, and Spacehog’s Roy Langdon lend their distinct vocals to the mix. Although the album has been spun to mixed reviews, Zig Zag is a compelling listen, due to Slick’s aggressive songwriting that combines a mix of cryptic electricity and melodic precision.
We caught up with the journeyed Slick via phone aboard Bowie’s tour-bus, amidst a few tunnels and wisecracks on Interstate 505, just east of San Francisco, on the way to yet another high profile gig.
Ironically, your new album came out right around the same time as David Bowie’s new album and tour. Has that helped fuel some momentum for your solo release?
Yeah, it’s going to help, but it’s hard to tell just what’s going on with the new album. Although the reaction to it has been favorable, beyond where I expected it, so I’m happy with that. But it’s a perfect time, it just worked out like that, it wasn’t planned.
What were you going for in the long run? Commercial success, or was going into the studio just a therapeutic escape?
That’s how the whole thing started, and then what started happening, little by little, things kind of started falling into place. [Bowie] wanted to get involved with the record and then soon Robert Smith, and so on and so forth, and soon it turned into something else. For now, it’s business as usual…of course I would like it to become a commercial success, but it didn’t start like that.
Wasn’t this originally going to be an all-instrumental album?
First of all, there wasn’t even supposed to be an album. I just started to write and I was enjoying myself. So, I was writing all this stuff and getting it on tape, and just enjoying it. Then all of a sudden I said, “well, what if I compiled a new instrumental record, which is more kind of a moody thing than a guitar-up-your-ass kind of thing.”
The instrumentals sound like a film score. I feel like I should be watching people surfing or skydiving to the music.
Thank you. Because the other motivation when I decided to make the record, from a commercial point of view, what I was interested in doing was make a record that I could then use as a tool to get some people in the film biz interested in what I do. So, once I made the album, that was one of the ideas, behind the commercial part of it – maybe some people in the movie biz will like this.
It sounds like you were honing down your chops and playing more to the sound of things. Is that more of a coming of age thing for a guitar player?
I think it’s coming of …… I got sick and tired of doing the other shit. You know, you group your phases as an artist, where I was taking a break, and after I took the break when I came back, I said “you know, I’m just not interested.”
One of the reasons I think I took a break, that I didn’t even realize, was that I was so fucking bored, I was expected to do the same thing on every gig that I had. Even expecting it for myself without ever realizing it. It was just time to go someplace else.
Have you spoken with any other guitarists that tend to do this in their career, play more to their senses, rather than show?
I’m finding that more from songwriters, rather than guitar players. And I spent more honing in on the songwriting thing which automatically put the showoff guitar stuff kind of in the back pocket. I’ve actually been criticized for it by one person.
Robert Smith and Joe Elliott obviously had their big creative years almost twenty years ago. Are you trying to push music from the 80’s? Zig Zag obviously sounds very 80’s.
That wasn’t the intention…it’s kind of what came out, came out.
If you look back, Bowie has always had a revolving door of roll players like yourself, Mick Ronson, Rick Wakeman, Brian Eno – did that influence your attempt to get a mix of players to make this album stand out?
Well the way that the singers worked out was, it was all based on things that just happened. It so happened that I was talking with David on the phone when he volunteered, and I had just finished working on a Cure album when Robert got involved. See what I mean? It all just kind of happened, kind of organically.
When you were growing up – there were only so many electric guitar heroes, Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, but how have you been able to create a style all your own without sounding like your idols?
Most guitarists when I was growing up had enough discipline to learn the other guy’s solos note by note. I didn’t have the patience for that shit. I don’t have the discipline, so I would learn the essence of it. And then there’s someone else who can play the “Sunshine of Your Love” solo note by note, but I couldn’t do that because, you know, it was just too much fucking work.
How would you describe your stage presence? You’ve got that, cool Keith Richards thing going on stage. Is the showmanship part of the guitar player something you work on?
In my opinion, for what I enjoy doing, and I don’t necessarily say this has to be for everybody else, but I get to go up on stage and act out. And seeing how I was inspired originally by visuals, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, part of what I do on stage is visuals and I enjoy that part. It’s like when you’re a kid and you’re dad’s a policeman, you want to be able to wear a cop’s uniform. This is the same thing, but it’s rock and roll. You know what I mean? You get to play fucking dress up. You get to live in another world, it’s all part of my personality that gets up on stage and does that every night.
On this tour you’ve been sharing guitar duties with Gerry Leonard. How do you choose which of you takes what solo? For instance, Leonard took the twangy “China Girl” intro at the Montreal show.
You know, when me and Gerry work things out it’s so fucking obvious that I don’t remember half the time discussing who’s going to take the solo. Like for “China Girl,” Gerry just started doing his thing and we never discuss this stuff. We know each other well enough to understand how this stuff works…it’s bizarre.
A song like “Isn’t It Evening,” which Bowie sings on Zig Zag, have you considered working that into the setlists?
You know what, I’m figuring out how to get that one by! (laughs)
How do you think your guitar work holds up on Reality versus the prior Bowie album you worked on, Heathen?
Well I’m hardly on Heathen at all, and it’s a different thing. Heathen was a different kind of album. On the Reality album, David obviously went a lot more aggressive in the rock sense, which is the role I play in this situation, so obviously there is more of me there. But on Heathen I’m on a couple of bonus tracks, there wasn’t much there, which is cool, because it wasn’t the vibe, it wasn’t a real live album – Reality was.
Were you able to boss Bowie around in the studio, and tell him how to sing his parts?
You know, the funny thing about that was, he didn’t work any differently doing his thing when he came into the studio for me, than when I’m working with him. It’s the same exact format.
The Dandy Warhols opened the European tour and their recent album really reminds me of the “Ashes to Ashes” era of Bowie. Have you taken anything from these younger bands at all?
I get a ton of inspiration from them. It’s cool because of the genre of music that they are in and their whole visual thing is so much what I dig.
They’re also not afraid to put style over substance.
It’s wonderful, I like their work a lot.
You’ve said it was the time of your life playing with John Lennon on his 1980 Double Fantasy album. Was that because you were living out a dream, or was it the leadership and musical visions he brought to the studio, that helped shape your outlook on making music?
The experience was a unique experience, because I got to do it, and I got to do it right at the end, you know. Sometimes the press can get very brutal when somebody that has been very successful and someone becomes a celebrity because a result of their talent. People start to think that they don’t have talent or that they have been faking it or shouldn’t have notoriety and they get bitter and shitty about it. I spent two months in the studio with John Lennon and I’ll tell you what – it was all there! It was all there in a way that I’ve seen very few people be there. One of them who happens to be my fucking current boss. I mean those are rare birds, he died doing something nobody else fucking does and they are not who they were or they are by mistake. You get that sometimes, I get that sometimes from bitter fans or press people. It’s always the same ol’ thing, we want to see the guy win, then as soon as he gets up there and is ready to win and it’s going good we want to tear him down. It’s called the human condition.
Do you feel like the 90’s passed you by with the alternative rock era kicking in?
Not really, I think that the 90’s set me up real good, to where I am now. Everybody kind of hits that point in your life where you kind of have to take a step back and read just because things stop working. So, I had to step back and say, “you know, you need to get away from this and see what the hell is going on.”
So it sounds like you have had a bit of a rebirth.
Yeah, well without sounding all metaphysical and all fucking weird’ed out, I needed to clear my head…..yeah.
Was that the closest you’ve come to walking away from music during your career?
I did walk away! I walked away and I walked away with a clear head. “You know what, you did some great shit, this is really cool, it ain’t working out anymore, and get the fuck out while you still feel o.k. “
