Nils Lofgren Interview

Nils Lofgren is one of the most prolific and multi-talented guitarists working in the music industry today. Lofgren got his start working with the ever enigmatic singer-songwriter Neil Young in the early 1970s and hasn't look back since. The guitarist has stayed busy ever since releasing four albums with his first band Grin, and almost twenty-five solo records including his newest effort, Old School. Currently Lofgren works as a sort of swing man in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and has acted in that role for the past twenty-five years playing acoustic guitar, electric guitar, twelve-string, banjo, and dobro among other things. In this extensive interview Lofgren discusses working with Bruce and Neil, the passing of the legendary of Clarence Clemons, his latest album, his online guitar school and what we can expect next.

CR: How is the current tour going?

NL: Couldn’t be better! I’m just honored and thrilled to be in this eighteen-piece band – roaring rock band, soul band, soul review, whatever you want to call it. It’s everything I love about rock and roll wrapped up in one beautiful show and band. I’m really grateful that Bruce decided to take on the huge challenge of another chapter for us without Clarence [Clemons] and of course Danny [Federici], which were terrible losses, but I’m really proud of him. I’ve never seen him stronger or working harder to put on a great show. You know we’ve got a five-piece horn section, some extra percussion, singing, it’s just an amazing band to be in the middle of playing my guitar. I think we’re doing the best shows we’ve ever done.

CR: What is the dynamic of playing in a group with three other guitarists, not to mention all of the other members of the E Street Band?

NL: Well when Steve [Van Zandt] came back in 1999, and of course with Patti [Scialfa] playing rhythm a lot I certainly recognized that we don’t need four guitar players. So it was a great opportunity for me to challenge myself to basically become the swingman in the band. I went and took some lessons to learn a little pedal steel guitar, a little dobro, lap steel, bottleneck and six-string banjo. There are four or five new sounds and tools to throw into the tool box and certainly it’s very natural. I look over and I see Steve and Bruce and look to see what they’re playing, a lot of times it will be two electrics, so usually I want to pick up an acoustic – I love playing rhythm. It’s certainly something I don’t get to do a lot in my own shows.

CR: What kind of dynamic do you have between Bruce and Stevie?

NL: Occasionally, Bruce will want three electrics so I have a couple Fender Jazzmasters that have the heaviest strings you can buy on them so they’re kind of a different warm sound that you can put between Steve’s Strat and Bruce’s Tele; It’s kind of natural. It is a great opportunity to play some different instruments and get some different sounds. The songs kind of dictate what needs to be there, and of course Bruce is the singer and a lot of times Steve is singing with him so if there’s a line or two when the singing is going on – they’ve got that great rough rock duet thing going that only Mick and Keith did in the past – you’ve just gotta look at what those two guys are doing. I’ve never stopped hearing parts or sounds so I’ll just pick the next sound I hear; that’s what’s most important. A lot of time Bruce will have an idea too, but in general it’s pretty organic, and whatever two instrument they’re playing, I’ll just grab the next sound I hear, whether it’s acoustic, or one of those instruments I’ve mentioned, or just a different type of electric.

CR: How has the absence of Clarence and Danny affected the chemistry within the E Street Band, and how has it affected you personally?

NL: Well…they’re very unique, soulful players. There’s no Danny II, and there’s certainly no Clarence II so it’s not like you’re going to get anyone to recreate what they did, and with that in mind you just carry on. I stood next to Clarence for twenty-seven years and we talked every week offstage, we were very close friends, and he was always very kind to my wife and son, Amy and Dylan. We both liked to chat, so we talked a lot and I’d be a guest at some of his shows with his band; we had a great friendship. I feel it’s spiritually carrying on, and I feel him with us every night, but of course we can’t bring him back so I thought, getting a five piece horn section, with two sax players to share the duties and a couple of trumpet players and a trombone with great great players we have, I mean look, there is no Clarence II, but it’s a chance to carry on and create a new chapter that’s still as powerful and presents Bruce’s great body of work.

Nils, Clarence and Bruce

CR: How did you first meet Bruce Springsteen?

NL: Well, I was aware of him as a great new artist out of New Jersey, I was out of D.C. with my band Grin. In fact Steel Mill, his band, and my band Grin shared an audition night in 1970 for Bill Graham out at the Fillmore West; we were both looking for an opening act slot. I used to go see Bruce play in the early seventies, I saw him at the Bottom Line in 1974, then the Roxy in L.A., the sports arena in L.A., and was always an admirer of his and had a distant friendship with him. I went out to L.A. in 1968 and I’d see him out there and we talked about music and kinda had the same view of its potential and power in a positive light

CR: How did you feel about the prospect of joining up with the E Street Band so many years ago?

NL: Well, to make a very long story very concise, I’d spoken to Bruce about working with Neil Young in the past and how much I loved taking a break from being a bandleader and being in a great band just playing great music and I think he filed that away. When he needed a guitarist prior to me getting a call I did go up to jam for a couple of days with the band just to see how it felt to the both of us and them and fortunately it felt great to everybody and he asked me to join up in May of 1984. A week or so later we brought Patti in to cover some of the high harmonies that I couldn’t nail and just carried on from there; it was great! Then of course in 1999 to get Steve back in the band was wonderful, it was kind of like a homecoming. I mean look, I’m happy to sing, “Prove it All Night” every night, but it’s nothing like hearing Steven Van Zandt sing it with Bruce. When you make a powerful record like that you want to hear those voices.

CR: How would you describe Bruce Springsteen as a bandleader?

NL: He’s a great bandleader. He’s got a great sense of humor but at the same time he’s very professional. You don’t sit around wasting time; you get to the meat of it right away and very clear. A lot of time he’ll start playing something and we’ll all just pick up whatever we hear and pick a sound we think will fit and a lot of times it does. Occasionally he’ll have some instructions or if you have a question he’s always very clear, sometimes he’s like “Sounds good either way, just use your instincts.” He really is a great combination of professionalism, intelligence and most of all passion for live performance. He’s very intuitive about what to do, changing songs every night, changing the show, changing arrangements. He’s just got a natural gut instinct of what works moment-to-moment best for a great live show. Something I’ve always admired about Bruce is that he’s determined to make each show a once in a lifetime night for the audience every night.

CR: Bruce is of course famous for changing the setlist every night, even including crowd requests, are there any songs that you particularly enjoy playing, and that you hope end up in the set from night to night?

NL: I love them all; I love playing all of them. Certainly more of the complex songs you don’t want to see as an audible, you want to have time to work on it and do some homework. Some of the songs are quite complex to perform live, but that’s for all of us and we have a good sense about that. Occasionally I like to go over early ahead of the band and work on songs that I know I’ve forgotten. I mean, I know the song, I know how it goes, but I might have two guitar changes during the song, or need some special foot pedals, sometimes different gauge strings or a bottleneck slide. Some songs just have more complexity in regards to how you present them, but they’re all great. It’s kind of a healthy homework situation in the back and we all help each other out to try and remember things; a lot of tapes and notebooks full of chords. It’s such a really healthy and fun vibe to do shows that change every night like that.

CR: What kind of amplifiers are you using on this tour?

NL: I’ve moved into a new amplifier called Fuchs, which are 50 watt heads with 4 6V6’s Tubes. I’ve got two heads running into some Buzzy Feiten cabinets; Buzzy Feiten is one of my early guitar heroes and he’s designed some beautiful cabinets. They have twelve-inch speakers, there are two twelves in each one.

CR: How about guitar pedals?

NL: I’ve got a G-Force for choruses and delays, which is a rack-mounted piece. Then I’ve got a foot pedal filled with presets I did with my tech. Like with “Jack of All Trades”, I’ll hit one button then it’s programmed into a rack that was designed by my guitar tech Roy Witte that’s underneath the stage with him. So I’ll hit a button and it will kick in an overdrive, it’ll kick in a chorus, it’ll kick in a delay all at once. It’s pretty complex, I certainly couldn't put it together but over the years working with Roy, who’s fabulous, we’ve gotten together a pretty formidable system of presets. Sometimes though I’ll jump down there and turn the dials and change the sounds as we go because I get ideas that I might have never had before. We stay away from the preset thing a lot of people do where their tech does all the button pushing for them; I like to be in control of that. 

I also have a lot of the old standard foot pedals that if I wanna hit on the fly. I’ve got a Boss Chorus, I’ve got the delay octave pedals, I’ve got an Electro-Harmonix Micro-Pog which kind of makes everything sound like a church organ. For fuzz tones or overdrives, I’ve got two of them and each one has two settings each; they’re called Burn Units. A guy named Barber out of Annapolis makes these beautiful overdrive pedals and the advantage is that there are two sets of settings so I might have a screaming fuzz on one and the other might just be a bit of saturation just to beef up the sound without getting too fuzzy. I’ve got a wah pedal, a volume pedal just to keep things down or move them up. Sometimes I’ll shut the sound down in tune on the fly because sometimes with different weather or conditions, or you bump into something and knock your guitar out of tune, I don’t want to have my tech do everything so I’m pretty self sufficient up there with all the sounds and pedals.

CR: How important have your guitar techs been to you in helping you capture the sounds you feel you need in a particular moment or that you hear in your head?

NL: Well recently Roy has had some back surgery, he’s off getting well from that so Jon Gosnell is out there running my rig and he has actually been the guitar tech on my solo tours over the last number of years; Roy Witte moved to mix front of house. You need a lot of help, you need great guys, great tech guys helping you out with the backline support because it is a very ambitious show, especially with the improvisational nature of it. I mean I’ve got over fifty instruments on the road, just a massive collection of acoustics, electrics, twelve-strings, Gretsches, Paul Reed Smiths, a lot of old Fenders with different gauge strings, pedal steels, lap steels, bottle necks, dobros, six string banjos. It’s like a music store out there.

CR: Wow! How do you end up deciding which ones to use on stage?

NL: Well in rehearsals we’ll mess around, sometimes Bruce will have an idea. A simple thing would be like if there is a banjo part on a song in the studio, Bruce will want someone to play it while he sings and plays guitar so I’ll take that. Steve has been actually playing banjo on this trip and there’s a song called “We are Alive” where there’s a baritone part and Steve move over and is finger picking the six-string banjo which is kind of like a guitar so it’s kind of like cheating. But you have you have to put the metal on your fingers to get the right sound which if you’re not used to playing with metal on your fingers, that’s a bitch to get used to. It’s very natural though, and that's what you do in rehearsals.

CR: What are rehearsals like in the E Street Band?

NL: Well, Bruce is focusing on the overview and his thing and a lot of times he’s so wrapped up in the arrangements and the overall sound so while he’s over there working with the horns or something, I’ll keep trying it out using other guitars or maybe two or three days in I’ll hear a different sound or think of a heavier string that will work. You kind of get deep down in it in your own little world but all of our instincts are pretty good because we love the music and understand it so it’s very healthy. Sometimes we don’t rehearse enough in my opinion and in this last tour of course we took a lot of time to get prepared and I really appreciated that. There are some days when we would be working on all of our tech stuff and Bruce wouldn’t show up, he’d be doing other things…probably in his notebook on how to put a show together, so we were all taking advantage of the time with our techs. You can’t really work with you tech and get deep down into the minutiae in your own world if the whole band is playing together. It was fun, I’m just glad we took our time to put the whole show together from the technical side to the production side then of course the music side. It’s a big jigsaw puzzle, a big beautiful jigsaw puzzle.

CR: If you could only use one acoustic guitar, one electric guitar and one amplifier for the rest of your time, what would you choose?

NL: [Laughs]

CR: It’s every guitarist’s nightmare I know.

NL: Well without getting too serious about it, right now with the audible nature of everything, sometimes a song comes by so fast that you’ve never played like with the audience requests, you don’t get time to get the right guitar from your tech so I have a backup Strat onstage, I love the Strat. That would be the first electric guitar I would pick up. Then I have a cutaway Takamine acoustic that I love playing live, I’m very used to it; comes with medium gauge strings. I love that. Then right now, I’m loving these Fuchs amps, so if I had to do a show tonight with only one acoustic, one electric and an amp, that’s what I would use.

Nils with his Guitar of Choice

 CR: To go back in time a bit, you got your start in a lot of way working with Neil Young on the albums After the Gold Rush and Tonight’s the Night. How did that opportunity come about, and what were those sessions like?

NL: I met Neil when I was seventeen when my band Grin was headed out to L.A. I did the After the Gold Rush album when I was eighteen, mostly playing piano, a little acoustic guitar and some singing. That was all pretty much done live in the studio, those sessions, with Greg Reeves on bass and Ralphie Molina, the Crazy Horse drummer and I. We did it all up at Neil’s home with a remote truck. They were great sessions, very earthy. Neil was always singing live with us in the studio, a tiny room in his home. We would take breaks and have a sandwich on his deck overlooking Topanga Canyon. It was a very beautiful project to be a part of. Tonight’s the Night was kind of an antithesis to production. There was no overdubbing, we all did everything live, it was always a live take on a song. Neil didn’t even want us to know the songs very well; he wanted to get a very powerful, emotional performance before the musicians had time to really craft parts, which happens inevitably if you work on a song long enough. It was kind of a theme record, kind of a wake for our friends that we had lost, Danny Whitten and Bruce Barry. They were just historic records that I was very honored to be a part of.

CR: Neil in his new autobiography Waging Heavy Peace has said that when you arrived to L.A. from Washington you actually walked fifteen miles from the airport to his house in Topanga, is that true?

NL: Yeah, that was kind of crazy. I had met him three weeks earlier, he was very kind and supportive and said come up to L.A. and eventually turned me on to his producer David Briggs so I moved in with Dave and I got to know both of them pretty well. But, the day I landed in L.A. I dragged a giant suitcase, and of course I tried to hitchhike, but no one would pick me up so I ended up dragging this thing. It took me all day long, I got there early in the day and I didn’t get to Neil’s house until mid-afternoon; it was hours and hours of dragging this suitcase. So then I got to Topanga Canyon and I dragged it into the middle of Topanga, and I didn’t have any idea of where he lived. It was weird it was like a Mission Impossible Force. I kept asking people and trying to assure them that I meant him no harm, of course I was just seventeen and a tiny teenager so it wasn’t like I was threatening. Finally someone pointed to this beautiful wooden house way way up on a…well, I won’t call it a mountain, but it was a high as hell hill, and a I dragged my stuff up there and sure enough, there he was. I was sweating profusely and delirious by that point from hours in the sun dragging a suitcase, and he was jumping into a van to go back into Hollywood and like an idiot I didn’t ask for a ride. He said, “Oh yeah, yeah, it’s good to see you. Come on back tomorrow and we’ll talk.” Then he took off and left me standing there on top of this mountain realizing it’s about twenty miles into Hollywood and that’s my job now to drag this suitcase and get back into town which took me most of the rest of the day and night. I did however, get a few rides headed into Hollywood, but it was a crazy adventure that only a nutty seventeen year old could pull off.

CR: One of my favorite songs off of Tonight’s the Night is the track “Speaking Out”, and there’s that moment right before your solo when Neil says, “Alright Nils.” And then you take off. Was that a planned moment or was it more like, you’re up at bat, let’s see what you got?

NL: Yeah, there was nothing planned about that record. That was a record where he would show us a song, or three or four, and we would play a mini-set. We would shoot pool and drink tequila until midnight starting around dinner; we wouldn’t even play until after midnight and into the early morning hours. So we’d get up and do a performance piece of four or five songs that we barely knew. Neil was looking for this really primitive, souful rough vocal and [Producer] David Briggs warned us that as soon as he got the vocal that was it, we weren’t going to change a note. Ralphie Molina, the drummer, and I would often ask to re-sing our parts because we barely knew the words and we’re sitting there trying to sing harmonies and play a song that we had barely learned, or were learning. But that was the theme of the record, and that moment was a totally improvised moment that just happened and it just so happened to be on the track where he thought his vocal was right so we were done.

CR: Both Neil and Bruce are incredible songwriters, what are some of the similarities and differences you’ve noticed between them, and what have you personally learned from them?

NL: Not to get too analytical about it, they’re both at the top of the list of songwriters. I think really you’ve got Dylan, and Bruce, and Neil Young, The Beatles and the Stones; I think those are the top five bodies of work in popular music history.  There’s a lot in common with Neil and Bruce in the sense that they kind of leave you alone to your own instincts. While they’re working on their stuff they give you some rope to find something that feels right for you to add, and it usually works. Just to be around them is inspiring, you don’t analyze it too much you just work with them and watch how they tweak their songs. Look, a lot of it is rock and roll, and we all came from the same soup, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and all the way back to the early blues, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and Robert Johnson; we all kind of grew out of that soup. So I mean, just being around them and putting a song together as a musician in the band you learn and you get inspired, you just kind of soak it in and it rubs off on you. In general though, the similarities are greater than the differences other than obviously a different tonality in their voice, but they’re both very passionate and powerful writers and performers. They are both into the immediacy of a live performance even in the studio. In general they’re very similar in the sense that they’re all about a great song and delivering a high level of emotional content in the performance.

Nils and Neil Young

CR: Would you mind telling us a little about your online guitar school?

NL: Yeah, you know for years people would tell me that they wanted to play rock guitar and they weren’t allowed to because they had no talent and they had no rhythm. I would ask them who told them that and of course they never knew; it was just an impression. I studied classical accordion for ten years when I was a kid and took some guitar lessons in the early days but also self-taught a lot and I felt like I could put a beginners school together for people. There’s an intermediate school for people who play a bit more as well, but the beginners school is for people who want to start at zero and I teach them tricks, shortcuts and a new angle at it that makes it easier to enjoy playing music. Its gymnastics for the hands so it can be frustrating so what I try to do is say here’s something that takes one finger to do with no practice and very little rhythm and I’ll back you up and let’s make music right now, today. People are too busy today with the crazy world we live in with kids, parents, dogs, cats, employers, teachers, bosses; music needs to be a gift immediately and a lot of times it isn’t when you’re learning. The theme of my school is, here is something that sounds like music, and you’re making music, and if that’s all you do, it’s not a race, don’t worry about learning anything when you don’t want to, when you’re excited about learning something, here’s what to practice. They are hour-long lessons and you can download an hour whether they last you a week or a year, whenever you’re ready, just order the next one. 

(You can check out Nils' Online Guitar School Here)

CR: You recently released your first album of original material in five years, Old School, what made you decide it was time for a new solo record?

NL: Well, we’d been really busy with two back-to-back album and tours with Bruce, Magic and Working on a Dream so when we got off the road I was really excited about another chapter for me as a solo artist but I was not musically rusty, I was very sharp from recording and performing live for the past couple of years with the E Street Band. It was a good combination, I was coming up on my 60th birthday and I wanted to write an authentic record about being around for a while; it’s not all good and it’s not all bad. I waited until I had about twenty songs that to me reflected an authentic look at forty-four years on the road and life as a professional musician on and offstage. So I started recording, and I didn’t even didn’t even record until I could sing the songs live, again trying to trick myself into what I do best which is playing live. I don’t have much patience in the studio for crafting things and analyzing things so it really was a homegrown thing, and I think one of my best records ever. I called up a few great friends to sing on it and all three of them, Paul Rodgers, Lou Graham and Sam Moore all listened to the tracks and said they’d help me out and just sang beautifully on the record.

CR: It seems like a running theme to me on the album, to me anyway is looking back, especially with the songs “Ain’t Too Many of us Left” and “Miss You Ray”. Do you find yourself looking back more often these days?

NL: Yeah, but not in a bad way. I’m always looking forward to what is my next chapter in music, but looking back in the sense to find some gratitude and comfort amidst the loss and the reality that, hey, there’s more of my life behind me than in front of me. That is not an easy thing to swallow if you’re still a seventeen-year-old kid at heart. Then when you start burying friends, I mean the greatest hero in my life was my father and we buried him fifteen years ago, we lost Clarence last year so I wrote that song “Miss You Ray” about that loss. It’s carries a message of, hey, we’re losing our heroes, not just in music but also in life and the grief can take you out if you don’t work a little harder and focus on what’s left. That was theme of that song, and I thought it was one of my best songs ever. There’s actually a video of “Miss You Ray” that you can find on YouTube that I did with a high school class in Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona they just did a great job with it. You know, three months after I wrote the song Clarence died so I started singing “Miss You C.” in my shows and it’s just a very powerful message. I was hoping to fly to Florida when Clarence was recovering and visit him but tragically he passed away before I could make it down there. I got my wife Amy and we went to Florida and on my 60th birthday we had Clarence’s funeral service. I just wanted to get back home, I was feeling pretty miserable, but my wife Amy insisted on taking some of the band and the crew and some of our friends out to a birthday dinner, which was much like the song. It felt like, yeah we just lost one of our dearest friends and it’s a terrible loss and it reminded me while I was sitting there looking at the people I loved in my family and in my band and realized that they were still there. It helped me to keep a perspective that I had lost that day and that’s the thing, sometimes that kind of grief will take you out but you have to focus on today because it’s still a precious day with a lot of gifts.

CR: Are there any plans to extend the current tour you’re on with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band into 2013?

NL: Yeah, we got one show booked next year so, next September 13th I know I’ll be working [laughs]. There are no plans past that but that’s between Bruce and his management but obviously as a big fan and a member of the band I’m thrilled that we didn’t…originally we were going to stop after the stadium tour at MetLife Stadium and was grateful for this two month extension. So they’ll figure that out, if Bruce and Patti feel up for doing more work next year, but right now the only plan for next year is to play the Rocking in Rio Festival. I’ve learned even back with Neil Young that until you can buy a ticket it’s just a rumor; don’t pay attention to them. So if you can buy a ticket, then get excited.

CR: Have you heard any rumblings about a new album? I’ve heard some rumors that there might be a new album in the works.

NL: No, I’m just so deep into the show that I’m kind of insulated out here.

CR: Bruce and the E Street Band are notorious for playing three to four hours on a given night, and I know you’ve recently had some work done on your hips, how are the hips holding up, and how are you feeling?

NL: Yeah, I had both hips replaced four years ago; too much basketball on city courts and trampoline stuff and jumping off drum risers, but the hips are great! They’re holding up wonderfully, I had a great surgeon out of New York City who did them both at the same time. My wife Amy flew in and moved into the hospital to be with me, in fact my first during my first three block walk outside of the hospital about four days after my surgery we walked up the road to Clarence’s room. He had just had his first knee operation and three weeks later ha had a second one done so it was kind of funny to hobble into Clarence’s room with two new hips. He had three new hips at that point in his life so it was a new crazy thing to commiserate with my buddy Clarence about. The hips are holding up great but I tore my rotator cuffs falling over monitors on this tour. I got used to a bare stage with everything hung underneath, all the monitors are under grates that blow the sound up at you, but then we’ve done nine or ten festivals where there are thirty or forty metal boxes all over the stage. You can’t really look over your shoulder over a three and a half hour show with Bruce and I’ve taken some nasty spills. I tore my calf muscle to shreds, tore both rotator cuffs but I’m doing physical therapy and knock on wood we’re done with the festivals until Rocking in Rio and I can back up safely knowing our monitors are all under the stage.

CR: What would be the one piece of advice you would like to impart upon young aspiring guitarists trying to make it into the music industry today?

NL: Jeez, that’s a rough one; it’s a little bit of a complex answer. Thanks to technology you don’t need a record label, you can make music inexpensively and share it on a website, develop a little fanbase on your own even if it’s just open-mic nights at a coffee club. It’s such a complex field now and there’s so much information that I would advise people, even if they think they’re going to be a professional musician for life, to stay in school, go to college and take some music courses and engineering courses. You have to find a way to just cover your bases and maybe be able to make a living as you pursue your dream then if your dream becomes so big that financially it can support you then you can give up your day job if you will. Even just to have the tools that if you are a singer, if you learn how to engineer a little bit or video or whatever, if an opportunity comes up to help out some people and it might turn into a job and might lead you to another group of people. Just don’t burn all of your bridges. It was a simpler time when I came up and I got very lucky because I burned all my bridges. There were a lot of ups and downs and some pretty bad downs at that, but it worked out for me in the end. I guess the main thing would be to stay in school, keep learning and don’t sign any long-term bad record deals [laughs].

CR: I have to say on a personal not that I have been a tremendous fan of yours for years and I’d just like to thank you for speaking with me today; it has been a real honor.

NL: Well thank you so much. As you can imagine I would never have been so greedy when I was seventeen and hit the road that forty-four years later that I would be fairly alive and well and healthy, getting better at what I’m doing and playing in a band of this caliber. I’ve been very blessed and grateful because although I’ve worked very hard at it, I’ve been very lucky too.