recoilmag.com
volume 14 issue 2 february
20
INTERVIEW
BLACK JOE LEWIS interview by eric mitts
W
hen going to a Black Joe Lewis show, forget the smartphone, man. Don’t worry about hashtagging or taking any selfies. Just experience the raw soul power live onstage. Not that Lewis really cares himself. His latest album, last year’s Electric Slave, might be something of a sci-fi credo railing against the engrossing invasion of technology in everyday life, but it’s also an open invitation to get on down. His first release under only his name — following his first two records with his band The Honeybears (2009’s Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is!, and 2011’s Scandalous) — Electric Slave is Lewis’ first set following some serious lineup changes and label drama that left the Austin-based blues-rocker reeling. While grabbing some lunch last month, Lewis’ admitted to the irony of talking to Recoil on an iPhone, while explaining Electric Slave’s live sound, his unique guitar style, and why he thinks the NSA scandal should have people rioting in the streets.
Recoil: I know on your latest album Electric Slave you wanted to have more of the rowdy, raw sound of your live show than your other albums. Now that the record has been out for a little bit, do you think it’s a better representation of what you do? Black Joe Lewis: I think so, totally. We just had a lot of changes and it’s kind of the most natural sounding thing that we’ve done. The songs are the most original, so I’m definitely happy with this one. R: For Electric Slave you were the only guitarist. How does it feel to be doing all the guitar work yourself? BJL: I definitely have more control over it, but there [are] times, like there’s a lot of stuff that I used to do in the show when I
had the second guy where he would play guitar and I would sing or walk around or do stupid shit. But now it definitely makes you a better player. You have to pay attention more. I’ve never been like a guitar god or whatever, so it’s definitely made me get better. I do like to control, and you don’t have to tell anybody what to do. It’s pretty cool. I’ve actually been contemplating getting another guitar player and just doing the frontman thing, but we’ll see. R: How do you think your style has developed as a guitarist? BJL: Well my style developed because I didn’t start playing until my early twenties, late teens, and I kind of learned on the fly, whereas most people have been playing their whole lives. So they learned stuff, and
I’m still learning, so I have to improvise, and I think that’s the thing to my style. I’m not the greatest guitar player in the world by any means, but I’ve had success at my style. When you hear me you don’t mistake me for anybody else.
BJL: I hope so, but I don’t know anymore. People aren’t as excited as they used to be. Like the musical movements in the sixties and seventies, and even the fifties, like, art was good. Like back then your pop music was Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones, and now pop music is Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. That’s not really artistic, and they take the art out of everything. And that’s where my frustration comes from, people taking the art out of everything and it just kind of makes us dumber. You know, back then the whole anti-war movement, a lot of it was based around music. Now music is irrelevant. It’s just something we listen to I guess. I don’t know. It’s learning, just another observation.
R: You titled the album Electric Slave as a comment on how people are so connected to their smartphones and so dependent on technology now. For you, how much does that frustrate you as an artist? BJL: You know, it is what it is. I mean, I’m on an iPhone talking to you right now, so, it’s just an observation, I guess. It’s kind of sad how “I’m still the direction of things is goso I have to ing. I mean the government, R: How do you feel the NSA spies on you, has when people are on their improvise, and I access to your telephone, phones or watching you think that’s the can turn your camera on through their phones at thing to my style.” your shows? and off as it pleases, and it’s still not enough to get BJL: I just think it’s stupid, people up in arms. I think that technology but I don’t care. I mean it makes me angry has just made people soft and lazy. Like, as when I’m in the crowd too when the guy in long as they have that, they’ll let everything front of me has got a giant phone and it’s else go. If that happened back in the 1700s, on. It’s like when you’re driving at night and 1800s, people would have burned down someone turns on the dome light. And then everything that had to do with government, they’re watching the whole show through you know. There would be repercussions. the phone while it’s happening right in front But now everyone’s so docile because they of them, so nobody’s living in the moment. But I don’t really care. Whatever. n keep you fat and fed and keep you with gasoline so you can drive around and go on the Internet, and go on Facebook. It’s Black Joe Lewis will play The Pyramid just an observation, I guess. Scheme Feb. 22. Electric Slave is in stores and online now. To read Recoil’s full interR: As a live musician do you hope to view with Lewis, check out recoilmag.com. viscerally shake people out of that digi- For more, click over to blackjoelewis.com. tal daydream?