Blues powerhouse Eric Gales starts his national tour tonight. This tour is one that will deliver the utmost combination of fiery guitar mastery and soul-stirring emotion. Five years sober and creatively reborn, Gales is riding high on the momentum of his masterful album Crown, produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith and now new album A Tribute To Little Jimmy King.
The Memphis born blues virtuoso has spent over thirty years and eighteen albums reinvigorating the genre with his guitar excellence and bold song writing. A child prodigy at just sixteen years old with The Eric Gales Band, Eric has been praised by his peers and guitar legends the world over ever since.
Often hailed as the second coming of Jimi Hendrix, the Grammy Nominated Eric Gales has redefined blues playing with his rock swagger, searing guitar solos, heartfelt lyrics and a stage presence that absolutely commands your attention. He is boldly vulnerable, uncompromisingly political, unflinchingly confident and has absolutely earned his status as a true guitar hero. Eric talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour and the impact of the passing of another legend D’Angelo.
Great to be talking to you. You must be starting to get a little bit excited about another return to Australia?
Nope! Of course, of course. Been excited, man. I’ve been excited since the earlier part of the year. It’s something we’ve been looking forward to. This’ll be our first time actually, doing a full run, more than just a festival such as Byron Bay, which is amazing. I mean, we have had wonderful times at the Byron Bay Festival, and just as recent as a couple of months ago in Broadbeach, it was awesome, so we’re looking forward to the tour and having fun.
So what can fans expect on this tour? Are you leaning towards the new album A Tribute To Little Jimmy King, or is it going to be a bit of everything?
It just all depends. I really never do a set list, but I would say that I’m inclined to be leaning toward more of the material from this most recent record. I’m looking to push it as much as I can. My goal is to have the CDs and the vinyl on this tour for sale. I’ll have them at the merch area, and I’ll be there signing, taking pictures and doing what I normally do in the States and everywhere else. That’s just my routine. After the show, I go out to the merch area and spend as much time with the people as possible. That’s just who I am as an artist. But with that being said, though, I’m promoting this new, Little Jimmy King record, and it is going over really great. People are really in support of it. They’re happy about it’s all for a good purpose. It’s bringing back the memory of my brother and keeping the legacy of a family name.
Fantastic album. Did you have a lot of fun recording that one? The songs are just so vibrant.
Thank you. It was a lot of fun to do. You know, all these songs I had been quite fond of for quite some time. I’ve been listening to them for years. I mean, some of these songs come from albums that was in the 90s, off my brother’s records, and I had been guilty of having them on my playlist on repeat. Baby Baby was something that I listened to all the time same with You Shouldn’t Have Left Me. It was something about how those songs moved me. It allowed me to be able to put them on this new record, and that was awesome to be able to do. So, it’s just a real eye-opener to be able to give a tribute to my brother in this way.
The guests you had involved, especially the likes of Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Joe Bonamassa, were they obvious choices for you?
Yeah, it was intentional to incorporate a younger generation with Buddy Guy, you know, my predecessors, and have me somewhere in the middle. So, that was intentional and include a trifecta sort of thing, and you know, all of us, I have a deep connection to my brother. My brother played some shows with Buddy, they knew each other, and Kingfish has gone on record to say several times that my brother was a big influence on him. It all made sense to have them come together to make them part of the record as well as Collier Roosevelt who is a fan of my brother, Joe is a fan of my brother, Josh is a big fan of my brother, so everybody included definitely had a stake in the fire with being involved with my brother.
How did the process work? Did you already have the songs, or did you come together and work songs through?
Yeah, a little bit of both. Joe and Josh produced the record, but they followed up with the vision that I had for this record. I had a vision for doing this record that I set, and they were like, hey, we’re here to just help you make it happen and that’s exactly what they did. I had a few of the songs picked out prior to recording the record, and I would say the last two came while we were tracking, but they were, you know, very easy to. I just had ones that were very memorable to me. I was saying these are ones that I want to definitely do and give it a little twist and do this and that. The ones that featured my brother, I wanted to incorporate those. We had a fun time and it wasn’t a really difficult method or process coming together To do them, we just went for it and it turned out great.
Being a tribute album, were there even more songs available that you could almost have a second tribute album?
Oh, of course, yeah, yeah, definitely. My brother put out quite a few records, so there could definitely be a second, maybe even a third down the road, just from the abundance of work that my brother did and was able to do prior to his passing away.
Are there other artists or guests you’ve got in mind for collaborations in future as well?
I haven’t thought about it, man, but there are quite a few. There’s Bobby Rush, there’s Mavis Staples, the list goes on. They’re not coming to my mind at the moment, but you could include Gary Clark Jr, Jimmy Vaughn, there’s just a massive list there. I have been so grateful to be allowed to cross paths with so many throughout my career that I wouldn’t know unless I asked the question and see if they would do it. But, until you just asked, I never even thought about a potential follow-up tribute record with other songs or anything like that. I think I’m just more so focused on this one out and seeing the life of this one through. It’s very, very, very much in the primitive stages right now, so I plan on rocking this record out for at least another year and a half even before the thought of another record being ready to roll. Then, when that happens, I think next up is a live record for sure. It’s time to do a live record. Those are some of the things that I have floating around in my brain as far as records.
Does inspiration come to you at the most unlikeliest of times?
All the time. Just random moments. It could be during a TV commercial, it could be a train horn, a car horn, a doorbell, a cell phone ring, just random sounds. It could be elevator music, a TV show, movie score, anything. A bark, a meow, could be something, and then just out of thin air. I like moments like that, man. You never can dictate when it is, and I like when it is organic like that. It’s just so random, and I try to have an avenue to where I can be able to capture it, such as my phone, or some sort of memo device that I can go and at least get a glimmer of the idea that’s in my head so I don’t forget it. Never will I think, that an idea be a fully constructed song, when it first pops up. I don’t think I have ever heard of anybody that was able to just out of thin air have a fully developed idea, you know, full tilt, from first note to last downbeat, everything included, all in one whop. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. There’s some sort of element of pause and go that I think comes into it, reflecting and bouncing things off of yourself, or somebody else to collab with, or whatever, that goes into a song or piece or any creation. Nothing is meant to be rushed, or sometimes you’re in a situation or circumstance that you have a very quick, swift deadline that people need something pretty fast. To be able to work on your feet that fast, which I have been in that circumstance before, I think that’s a huge skill in itself. I’m at liberty to go at the pace that I choose to go and scrutinise it and bounce things off of people that I trust in the industry or whoever that may some inspiration that I’m talking to.
I would be remiss to not bring up, we lost a very iconic artist, human being, writer, composer and individual, in D’Angelo. It’s just been really tough, not only in the music industry, but I think all over the world. I’ve been perusing, on social media, and I’ve never in my life seen so many tributes to the passing of someone that I have seen happen for D’Angelo that I have ever seen in my life. That just goes to show the magnitude of how influential and inspirational that, whether he knew it or not, this guy is very, very powerful. The influence of D’Angelo’s life on all of these people that he influenced, it’s full circle because D’Angelo was also a combination of the people that he was influenced by, such as Prince, Michael Jackson, Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield, Bobby Womack, Buddy Guy, all of these different people that influence us.
The people that come after us, they’re inheriting something very, very powerful. So I inherited everybody that my brother and all the people from before me, I inherited all of their influences. People that’ are after me will inherit not only me, but they’ll inherit all of my influences as well. That’s evolution, man, and I’m just reminiscing about how powerful that is and the mark that D’Angelo has left.
You were reflecting on D’Angelo’s influence and the emotional power of music, how did that resonate with you personally?
Being able to recognise the power and the source that he pulls from that generates who he is as a musician when he’s on stage. All of that power and inspiration that comes is very, very, very familiar to me. It looks and feels the exact same for when I’m on stage, and when I’m doing what I do. I’m a very emotional player. I’m a very emotional person. When I play. It’s not any secret that when I perform, tears just come down my face while I play, and those are the type of things that are very special to me as I think about other artists and their gifts that they have. I just hope that there’s a legacy that’s left just a tiny bit to the magnitude as much as what I’m seeing that’s happened with the outpouring of grief for D’Angelo if something ever happens to me. We’re just blessed individuals to be able to participate in this thing called music that allows us to be able to touch people. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t be here doing an interview with you ten thousand miles away from where I live, if not were for the gift that I had been given to play music and do what I do.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Eric Gales on the following dates, tickets from Gerard Allman Events…
