INTERVIEW WITH NILS LOFGREN

The telephone interview was held before the final Vote For Change concert in New Jersey after Nils had performed with Neil Young and Bruce at St Paul on the tour.

Parts of the interview featured in the Basingstoke Gazette, Southern Daily Echo and Daily Echo Bournemouth before Nils concerts in Basingstoke and Southampton.

N.B. Everything must be a bit of a blur at the moment?

N.L. A little bit, but it's not the first time. I just did a show last night and I'm rushing off to New Jersey to do another show Wednesday and then rushing back here to get on a plane to London to start the tour. It's been a few years since I was over there with my acoustics show in the little theatres and I love that and I've been coming to the UK for 30 years now to sing and play and I'm looking forward to it. You know this last month, September, it's 36 years on the road. It's good to be alive and singing.

2001 was the last time you came here.

Yeah, I used to try to get over there every year but I've been busy with the E Street Band tours and I'm excited to come back. Buck Brown, who's in my electric band is coming with me and we're going to do an acoustic duo and we're in pretty good shape and looking forward to doing some great shows and letting people know we're still around and I'm hoping after I get back in November that we're going to start working on another solo record for my website, nilslofgren.com.

There are some interesting conversations going on amongst your fans on that website.

Yes, they kind of police themselves. There are some interesting debates that go on and try and log in every three or four weeks and just give an overview of what I'm doing and it's just kind of a new permanent career for me for the last eight years and especially the last few with the listers and website. I just can't see having a record deal again without some distribution help from a great company called Hypertension all over Europe. The music business is just so crazy I just don't see myself hooking up with a record company anymore.

It's so much easier nowadays with the internet, when you know you've got a fan base out there who are going to be looking for anything that you put out?

It's much more grass roots, it's smaller numbers but it's very authentic and it's really how I started 36 years ago. It's about the music and it bypasses all the politics, 90 percent of the nasty politics, and the whole music industry too - it's not like they're having trouble finding a slot for me in this soft porn pop. I'm happy to just make music I'm proud of and to share it on the website.

There are a lot of fans over here that are looking forward to seeing you again.

Yeah, I'm thrilled to be coming. You get on the bus and do 18 cities in 19 days but you get into a groove and it's nice to wake up every morning and know you've got an audience coming and expecting a good show that night.

Your brother Tommy accompanied you on the last acoustic tour.

Yeah, Tommy and I continue to work together on and off and Buck and my electric band had a live album out a couple of years ago. I've done quite a bit of touring with the band this summer but it's time I think for a more intimate acoustics show in the UK and that's what we're coming to do.

Can we expect any newer stuff or anything from the stuff you've been writing?

Well most of my songs are works in progress at the moment. Once we get our sea legs and get three or four shows into it I'll probably start to pull out some more obscure Grin songs or maybe even some songs I've been writing or working on that no-one's heard yet but that will evolve as we get into the tour.

Looking at the website and looking at what people are saying about you, there are certain songs which seem to strike a chord with a lot of your fans.

I'm grateful for that. I feel like I'm a songwriter first and everything else is after that. I had a lot of good ideas and hopefully in November I'll get home and work on a new record.

On of the interesting things I've noticed as well is that you've still got this fan base who say that you shouldn't be working as much with Bruce when you're a star in your own right.

I take that as a compliment and I understand the sentiment. I'm grateful people feel that strongly that they would prefer I put out more music and I'd prefer I was more prolific and creative but I'm a very band-orientated person. I love being in a great band and arguably, if you look at my 36 years, my work with Ringo, Bruce and Neil Young is really about 15 per cent of it and that's not a lot. As far as really going on the road and investing huge amounts of time, it's really those three and you get a chance to play with some of your musical heroes, especially in a band setting. It's good for my musical spirit and when I come back to my music I feel a lot more energised and refreshed. I'm very comfortable being a band leader but it's nice not to be the boss all the time and to take a break once in a while. It keeps the experience musical but it gives me a break from being the leader and when I come back to being the leader I feel like I'm a little bit recharged. I think it's a good thing, but I'm grateful people would rather get more music out of me. I would too and I'm going to start working on that in November.

Who's coming over with you on this tour? Are you bringing the family?

No, my stepson Dylan is in school and Amy's going to stay and help him with that. Roy Whitty my fabulous guitar tech is coming with us. Richard John is a great PA and has been mixing my shows for years - he's going to be running round with a little crew. It's really grass roots and very musically creative and I'm excited about it. It's good to just get out of the aeroplane and get on a bus again and tour some cities all over the UK - it's something I really love to do.

So no electric guitar at all?

Yes I am. The show is mainly acoustic, but I'll pick up the electric occasionally and do some soloing and stretching out and I'll go over to the piano and sit down and play the piano for four or five tunes in the middle and Buck's playing mandolin, synth, piano, acoustic, singing, so we cover a lot of territory with a lot of different sounds, trying to keep it fresh for the audience.

Do you have one song which defines your writing career or which you actually think "I can't wait to play that" every night?

I don't know about that. There's one song that keeps popping up in the set - it's very ancient - it's a song from the first Grin album called Like Rain. It's one of the first records I ever did and it's one of the only repeat songs on the last double live band CD and we came up with a new version of it which I think presents the song in a better light and is a great combination of melody and rhythm and has a certain majesty to it. It's one of my favourite songs I've written anyway.

Just going back to the last few days - I saw you hooked up with an old friend at St Paul. Mr Young?

Oh yeah. He came down and we had a ball. Neil and Bruce are, I think, two of the greatest writers in history. I love them both and to be on stage with them singing their music was really a treat for all of us.

What did you actually play?

We did Rocking in the Free World, All Along the Watchtower and then Neil sat in with us on our encores which were Peace, Love and Understanding by Elvis Costello and People Have the Power - Patti Smith joined in on the encore. So we had a great night and it was beautiful to have Neil there helping us. As always he was very intense and very emotional and powerful.

You've also been working with Patti as well?

Yes, I was in the studio over the last couple of years on and off helping Patti a great solo record she released this summer and she asked me to help out and do some TV shows and an old friend, Steve Jordan, put a beautiful band together, so again it was not a lot of time but we've just finished a three week run and did some one-nighters, some TV promotion and actually our last show on Wednesday night is for this Vote for Change and Patti's going to be the opening act, so I'll go up and play with her and then change my shirt and go out and play with the E Street Band. The last time I did something like that I was on the Tonight Tonight tour and Grin was opening for the Neil Young Tonight Tonight band (tape cuts out) be on stage with a great band and I'm looking forward to that too.

Have the audiences been any different this time around with the Vote for Change tour than they were with the E Street Band?

Well it is more of a political thing and there's a different slant on it. Plus we're sharing the stage other bands which is great. John Fogerty and REM; a band called Bright Eyes; Tracy Chapman did a night with us, so it's fun to have some other great music to listen to and of course we want to play for more like an hour and a half. Last night we only played 30 minutes because there were 12 great bands but it is a different perspective but it's still music and the message is hey - I don't think there's a single person on the planet that wouldn't like to see the world for the better.

Just coming back to the tour you'll be doing in the UK. What's it like stepping off a stage with maybe 40,000 people and then stepping onto a stage a few days later with 200. Is there anything different in the way you approach it? Obviously you're a band leader this time but is there a difference between that?

Yeah, what I've learned over the years it that my job is to prepare enough and to do enough homework so that when I walk on stage I can try to turn my mind off and use my musical instincts and you really want to get down in the music and get lost in it as soon as possible and stay there and I've noticed that that's a bit more difficult when you're in front of 20,000 or 100,000 or whatever. You walk out into these little theatres and clubs and you can see the eyes, people are on top of you and it makes it almost easier to get down to that place where you're lost in the music and I've learned that in these big spectacle kind of arenas I have to really ignore the audience a bit longer and really concentrate a little harder on the band and the music. Also I get kind of distracted by the spectacle of it all, which is the advantage of the little bar with 200 people on top of you - there's no confusion - you're basically surrounded and it helps you get down in the music a little bit easier but it's an adjustment you make when you walk onstage - you maybe need a little more focus to get down in it in a bigger place.

And I suppose as well there's always the opportunity when you're dealing with small audiences, who are genuine Nils Lofgren fans, to meet them and say hello and sign merchandise after the show. Is that an extra buzz you get?

Yes, especially as for eight years now I've been out of the music industry. I have my website but it's fun at the end of the night to sit at a CD table and make some of the obscure music that people can't find available in the shops and sign it for them and have a chat or try to answer questions. It's just more of a grass roots, hands on communication that usually you don't get to do and it's one of the things that I'll try to do every night on this tour.