Prague meeting filé gumbo: an interview with Zoot
This is an interview with Bill Harkleroad aka Zoot Horn Rollo, conducted at the beginning of 2000 by Robert Carey. Many thanks indeed to Robert for making this available exclusively at the Radar Station.
RS: You mentioned on your website, quite a while ago, that you were working on a new project. Then that didn't get updated for a long time. I was wondering what the status of the project is.
ZHR: Well, that is what I am trying to regear everything towards. Rather than pushing a large rock uphill, it's been like I'm crawling uphill with the rock on my back. I've been really entrenched in supporting myself for the last fifteen years, outside of the music business, and it has been really hard, with all of the commitments I've made, to get away from that - to create time to do music. A lot harder than I expected when I wrote on that page two years ago that I was going to whip an album out.
Well, I finally recorded a tune and sent it off to Rudy Vanderlans - who did a book that's a tribute to Van Dyke Parks, and he's doing one on Don. So he contacted me, John French, and Gary Lucas to do songs on a CD that will be included with a book of poems and photographs. I thought, this is great, because I've got the gear at home now, I've got the studio, I'm just starting to get rolling - and I did a tune for him.
So I finally got a tune done. I quit most of my commitments at the store, so I'm not doing that. I'm just doing some computer work, believe it or not, computer work, for the store at odd hours in between teaching and working on music. So I am actually doing this now, but it's been a very slow process. And there's the learning curve of learning software programs in computers. Doing home recording I need computer-based music.
RS: What are you doing with computers?
ZHR: I'm not using computers to play parts. Right - human beings, those old fashioned things. I'm using computers for noise reduction. Using them for reverb, and the things that would cost money in the real world that don't cost money in cyberspace. You know, a Lexicon reverb is $3000. Well, it's $300 for the plug in. So I'm using it that way. There's a million things you can do. I mean you can do anything you want. I'm just trying to learn the software to use it for mastering, mixing, that type of thing.
RS: Are you doing all the recording at home?
ZHR: So far, yeah. All is a big word for the project at this point. But that's the intention and that's the way its moving. I am actually getting tunes done.
A friend of mine, Gregg Bendian, a drummer, came through here the night before last with guitar player Nels Cline, and they were doing a John Coltrane tribute - his last album. Awesome. I mean absolutely awesome, I'm still not over it. I mean, players from a way to play and an ability that I could never dream of, but it was just awesome. Anyway, Gregg says he wants to record. We were going to try to get it together for him the one day he was here, but I couldn't get it all together in time. I plan on using him as much as I possibly can afford and he wants to do.
RS: That's something else I wanted to ask - if you were going to be playing with other people. It seems in a lot of the things you have released in the past ten years, like the IOFR stuff and John French's stuff, that somebody basically sent you some tracks and you played over them. And in fact, in the French thing, that caused some problems because they changed the tracks later. I was wondering if there was going to be any more live work - "live" in the sense of two people playing at the same time in the same room...
ZHR: As much as possible. But again quite frankly, the intent is to have that sound, but recording like that costs a lot more money because of space, because of studio, because of isolation, because of mikes, because of blah blah blah. It costs a lot more money to record that way, believe it or not.
RS: All the technical stuff gets more complicated..
ZHR: Well, it does, cause like I need isolation between the guitar and the drums if I'm playing at the same time. Unless I'm doing - throw up two room mikes and rip. And I want to do some of that, too. But I am trying to at least have it sound that way and/or work towards that as much as possible.
RS: To get that chemistry between two people playing..
ZHR: Chemistry between people - just sonic realness. I'm not a purist. I think when you record something... Picasso got to paint over a part he didn't like, and recording's the same exact thing. I've never been a purist about, "Oh, you've got to just play it, make it real." I think that can be an aspect, but it's just a choice you make rather than how its supposed to be. Does that make sense?
RS: It seems to me that you can do some work on it in the studio to get the sound you want, you can change what's recorded, but the basic tracks may have a different feel if they were recorded relatively live rather than if they were recorded over another recorded thing.
ZHR: Of course they will. Of course they will. At the same time, I think there's an element of - other than the people playing it, people think they can hear that, and I don't think they do. I think if they don't read the liner notes they might not know. Know what I mean? "Oh, yeah, man, you can tell they overdubbed that."
RS: It varies from recording to recording, though, cause some musicians have put out albums where they do all the tracks themselves. It has sort of a flat sound.
ZHR: Oh, it does.
RS: On the other hand I remember in the Sixties hearing people talking about Clapton's solo on Crossroads like it was just this amazing thing he whipped out, and in fact it is just loaded with edits.
ZHR: Yeah, it goes both ways. Again, my intention, with cost effectiveness and my ability to record someone in New York when I'm here, is to... The thing is that things are written, you know, and when the tune is written as opposed to "here's this free section, here's that free section" it's a lot easier to have it sound as organic as the tune is allowing, when you record it piece by piece. If it's all open you really need to play at the same time. There's just no way to do that.
So, as far as what I was thinking about with Gregg - because I'm honored that somebody who can play like that would want to play with me - in using somebody like him, the concept I'm trying to work on right now is kind of a real old pop concept, and rappers are using it now, but it's just the way I'm hearing what I'm doing, is having basically two chunks of sound. In other words the tune, if it's a three, five, six, seven minute tune, the chunky tunes, I want them interspersed with ditties in between. A bunch of reasons for that. I play a lot of different sounds, a lot of different ways to play guitar, and when I'm writing the tunes they kind of come back to center, in this kind of stirring the cauldron, grungy, garage, weird - I don't know how to describe it - Prague meeting filé gumbo, I don't know.. But anyway, then there's a part of me that wants to play nylon string guitar piece with violin, right? So I'm thinking of having these stripes that just go together like a zipper, that in between tunes I might just have gonzo slide distorted guitar with drums only, as a duet, play the tune, then the next piece is semi-classical.
And it gives me the ability to throw different sounds in there, that I like, and also I don't have to write some ten minute classical piece of music that I'd work on for the rest of my life.
So, those things need to be recorded at the same time. You know - the tunes - if I can do it great, if it works out. If not, I'll do it as close to that as possible.
I am finally getting started and I've got three tunes kind of going. The one that I did for the book is called, "Don's Secret." All the puns intended there. One I just finished in the last couple of days is called "Miniature Mojo." I haven't recorded it yet, but I have my whole MIDI mock-up of it - right, computer-based stuff - and then me recording the guitar parts and stuff. And I've got a few where I'm not comfortable with the titles yet.
RS: You were working with, I think, a baritone guitar?
ZHR: Yes, Miniature Mojo, and Don's Secret are just baritone guitar. Well, no, Miniature Mojo has some regular guitar, too, as well. But the thing I did for the book, which I will include - I'll probably re-record it - but I will include it as baritone guitar, bass, drums, and violin.
RS: Do you play any instruments other than guitar? I seem to have seen some stuff written over the years.
ZHR: Yeah, but well, no. I mean, somebody picks up a thing and they bang rocks together and get album credit for banging rocks...
RS: Or bass clarinet, in some cases...
ZHR: Right... Well, yeah! No, as a teacher I teach bass to people as long as there is enough room in between what I know and what they know that I can help them. Cause I did play in functioning bands for a while.
RS: What kind of bands?
ZHR: Oh, they were cover bands that we would play a pop tune and then turn it into a Samba or something. We tortured the tunes. It was just something I could do to support myself without a lot of stress at the time. It's my dark period. My coma in the late Seventies and early Eighties. The lost years.
But it was good for me because I was studying classical guitar, and the right hand technique lends itself to bass.
RS: And you were playing, at least, at that point.
ZHR: Oh, yeah. I have been playing the whole time. The only thing I've done the whole time. A little more now... No, the mandolin stuff, and flute and all these different things that I've, you know, blown one note on - or the mandolin stuff, hey, it's a fretted instrument, you can figure out something to do on it.
RS: But its mostly guitar.
ZHR: I'm a guitar player.
RS: I'm sort of curious about your using the name Zoot Horn Rollo again. Your internet domain name is zoothornrollo.com, and on Slide Crazy it says Zoot Horn Rollo in parentheses after your name, and on IOFR you are only listed as Zoot Horn Rollo, and I was wondering what that name means to you now.
ZHR: Good question. The first answer is pretty businesslike, to tell you the truth. When the Guitar Player article came out - I don't know if you are familiar with that - that changed things. I mean that really changed things. Between that and Billy James calling me to do the book, the idea of... before that somebody would tease me about it, but most people didn't know anything about that - people in my current life, which was fine with me. Um, long winded story here, I'm just trying to figure out how to answer it. I didn't consider it, and then with the book and all that, and then just a flood of email, and people - the resurgence, the obvious resurgence with the box sets and all that, that's been happening the last few years. And so I'm going, well Jeez, maybe I can play music and actually get paid for it this time. Without going, "OK I'm not going to pay the rent anymore. I'm going to go out on the road and smell like an ashtray."
RS: So, in other words, name recognition. That's what you recorded under and that's what people would be looking for.
ZHR: That's exactly right. Also, the part I really like, as I started realizing well maybe I should use this name - you've got to remember that Don owned those names.
RS: I was going to ask about that later...
ZHR: Well the thing is, he's in breach of contract because he's supposed to have paid us our royalties on those albums. Which he's never done. So he can't really - he's in breach of the same contract. So he can't contest it. Since then, I went and paid a bunch of money in trademark law to trademark the name. Register it.
RS: Do you think there's anyone who would try to challenge it at this point?
ZHR: Him. He would, I think if he was well enough. I don't know. This is all guessing cause I'm out of contact, but I don't think he cares much about anything - just doesn't want anyone to bug him, even if he's healthy enough to think that way right now. I don't know.
Anyway, as I started getting comfortable I liked the idea of "dual citizenship." Dual realities there. You know, I can be this other person. And fall into that and treat myself like I'm that guy. An easier way to break this hold that day to day life has created.
RS: Well, in that view of it, who do you see that person as being, as opposed to Bill Harkleroad?
ZHR: Zoot, you mean?
RS: Yeah.
ZHR: He's a guy who is a musician and always has been all his life. Bill Harkleroad worked very hard to reclaim his life from a really bad period, to being - I won't say successful, because I don't know what that is - to being very comfortable and happy and married.
RS: and have a regular existence
ZHR: and have a regular life, whatever that is again, but having something that was like "Man, I'm not starving. I'm not worried about where my next cheeseburger is coming from. Or, whatever it is, um, 'tofu pate'."
It was a really great period of my life. I was really proud of myself coming from the whole music business, and then not taking care of myself, and being really a drugged out weirdo, and reclaiming myself and getting successful. So that's who Bill Harkleroad became.
Paid the bills, and taught, and was really into teaching, and played golf, and was just like nobody knew anything about where I'd been.
RS: He spills over a little bit into Zoot Horn Rollo, who named his piece on Slide Crazy after a golf club.
ZHR: Well, ya know. What can I.. you know.
RS: It cracked me up. When I first saw the name, I thought, "Mashie" I know that from somewhere.
ZHR: A MIDI Mashie.
RS: Yeah, a number of plays on words...
ZHR: So anyway, I've grown into the idea a lot, and now my almost conservative, very conservative friends, they are conservative, my golf buddies and stuff like that. I'm now Zoot, and they can't get enough of it. They've found out. It was just like being a kid and being two people.
<pause>
ZHR: Rob, you're doing this for you? For what?
RS: I wanted to see an interview with you about what you're up to. Not about what you did thirty years ago. And, people brush on it. It seems there have been a number of interviews in which you said, "It feels really strange that everyone asks me about what I did thirty years ago. Do people do that to you? Don't they want to know what Zoot Horn Rollo's up to NOW?" It doesn't feel like that's been answered in depth. Also because the zoothornrollo website was getting kind of stale, I thought this would freshen the web presence. And as far as why I'm doing it, it's really because I'm a fan. That's what it comes down to.
ZHR: I realize that this is Bill being Zoot's manager, and he's got to talk to people, even if they're talking about thirty years ago, if I have a chance to not have a day job and play guitar for a living, I need to talk to people.
RS: And people do want to hear about thirty years ago.
ZHR: Oh, I'm sure they do, if there was something to hear. But there isn't and I can't blame them a bit. My youth is well documented. But "what have you done for me lately." I did one tune, one little MIDI thing on that slide album.
The other, IOFR, was supposed to be film music as far as I knew, and they wiped out a lot of the guitar parts - I put four and five guitar parts all over there, and they wiped them all out. So they say, "lead guitar" and there's no lead guitar. All the stuff I was playing, they didn't give me any idea at all, they just said, "Well play a bunch of parts." And I did. And they erased them all. And left some weird little slide part in there, so it was like, I'm not doing that anymore. Whatever they were doing they did well. The sound was good. It was not musically what I would like. But what am I supposed to do here? Give me some direction, so what I play gets used. It wasn't, and the little backing parts are the only thing they left in, and they say, "Lead guitar - Zoot Horn Rollo."
RS: How do you feel about the stuff on Waiting On The Flame, aside from the places where it got out of synch?
ZHR: I felt uncomfortable about the whole thing. Just because of that. Not because of John; John is great. And John was working hard to get something done. And it was the only way that he could get me involved. But, that's as far as I can go with it. I didn't like what I sounded like at all.
I was trying to play parts that fit what he was doing, and they didn't fit, very much so, and it isn't what I really played to. I played to MIDI tracks and then the parts were re-recorded and I sounded rhythmically foolish.
RS: Ah. I didn't really understand how that was done.
ZHR: Yeah, it was all just MIDI parts so there were all these quantized, perfectly rhythmed parts, and I played my parts to it, and then when they re-recorded things and changed things the rhythm is loose and human, and I'm playing my robot parts, I sounded out of time. When in fact I was in time.
RS: Too perfectly.
ZHR: Maybe not that, but you got the idea.
RS: I gather John French has retired as a musician. You'd mentioned him as a possibility on your record.
ZHR: I still am thinking of that, too. And he's not retired, actually. He played a couple of gigs with Henry Kaiser and he's doing this free music thing with him, and they were going to go down South somewhere and do a tour for two or three weeks or something, so he's back doing it.
RS: I'm glad to hear that.
ZHR: I am too. He keeps trying to quit. But he realizes that it's a hard life out there and that because he's been busier in more current time than I have, he gets calls and gets paid for it.
And as long as his body will let him play... In your fifties, as a drummer, that starts becoming a real issue.
RS: Were it a possibility, would you be interested in playing with any other Magic Band alumni? I notice that Mark sort of resurfaced, one sentence worth on the Internet several months ago, and then disappeared again. He seemed to have been missing in action before that
ZHR: Yes, he was.
RS: And I gather you are still in touch with Artie and some of the other guys are still around. Any interest in that?
ZHR: I don't know how it would happen. Do I have interest in that? Not particularly. From a musical place. From a friendship place, it would be fine to sit in a room with them and it would be kind of fun. Business-wise it would be smart.
RS: I was thinking that. Putting more of those names together, now that you can use the old names, would certainly get attention
ZHR: It would - that's one of the reasons I'd like to work with John. Art Tripp is not going to do anything musical ever again. Mark - I'm not sure that Mark and I musically are on the same planet.
RS: It's interesting, that's another thing - it kind of raises expectations if you do something with people you worked with before like that.
ZHR: Better sound like Trout Mask!
RS: Or whatever. When I think of Zoot Horn Rollo and Rockette Morton I think of things like Peon, and the interaction on Bellerin' Plain, things like that. And from the outside, and from my being a teenager at the time, it just sounded like anyone who's playing that tightly together and that concentratedly on such a peculiar sound, they must be tight. This must be what they both want to do. Of course that's the outside view, but from inside there's all kinds of stuff driving it.
ZHR: Well, yeah. You've read the book. And the thing is, it is what we wanted to do, but however tight and peculiar our playing was, was out of blue collar sweat. It really was. How we perceived it individually could have been night and day, I don't know.
But, after that experience with us two playing that tightly together, if you forget anything of why it came like that, there's just so many years apart that to deny where we've grown as people since then is the biggest thing, you know, and I'm not at all trying to rekindle thirty years ago. It is a part of me and it will show up, and in everything I do I think people will recognize more and more how much I affected Clear Spot.
-Robert Carey, 2000
