The big-toned guitarist talks about his latest songs, discovering the allure of acoustic guitar, and the power of dividing by two.Joe Bonamassa tends to go big. Big tones, big solos, big tours, a big gear collection, and a big road backline. His touring B rig boasts two Marshall Silver Jubilees, two Van Weelden Twinklelands, a Dumble Overdrive Special, a Benson rotary speaker, and a pair of his signature Fender High Power Twins. There’s also his A rig. That’s big.And yet, as Bonamassa spoke from his hotel room in Frankfurt, Germany, he was planning to quietly celebrate his 48th birthday over pizza with his band. Then get a good night’s sleep. And recently he’s truly fallen in love with unplugged acoustic guitar—although when he used one to cut a song for his new album, Breakthrough, he ran it into a Fender DeVille and says, “It just exploded.”That’s logical. Every great guitarist is a master of dynamics. And that sense of difference and balance reverberates in Breakthrough’s 10 songs, from the hard-edged, riff-driven title track, which features some blasting solos and stellar wah guitar, to the classic soul-pop flavor of “Life After Dark,” with its potent sustain and expressive bends, to the slide-dappled boogie of “Drive By the Exit Sign.” Like nearly every post-Cream Eric Clapton album, regardless of how steeped in rock, pop hooks, and other flavors Breakthrough’s songs are, there is always the taste of blues, his bedrock, in the palate—whether it’s a lick, or a tone, or phrasing. And like Clapton, he uses expert songwriting to transcend the limitations of the timeless genre in the modern music marketplace. Still, it’s extraordinarily pleasing when Bonamassa goes all in on the slow blues “Broken Record,” a full-hearted essay in expressive playing and singing, evocative of Gary Moore.When we spoke, Bonamassa talked about how acoustic guitar has impacted his evolution as a guitarist, explained the significance of the new album’s title, his DIY business model, and the power of dividing by two. Joe Bonamassa’s Gear(Note: Joe has similar A and B rigs that are hopscotched to suit tour logistics.)The B RigGuitars’77 Gibson Explorer’63 Gibson Sunburst ES-335 with Bigsby’62 Gibson Cherry ES-335 ’63 Gibson SG’54 Gibson Les Paul Jr. (all maple)’54 Gibson Les Paul conversion ’59 Gibson Les Paul “Snake Bite’’69 Gibson Les Paul “Royal Albert”’55 Fender Strat’59 Fender Strat (refinished)’53 Fender Tele’68 Fender Tele (wide range humbucker in neck)EffectsDunlop Joe Bonamassa Signature Cry Baby wahLehle 1@3Dunlop Joe Bonamassa Signature Fuzz FaceEHX Micro POGVintage Ibanez Tube ScreamerWay Huge Conspiracy TheoryMXR Micro FlangerBoss DD-2Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere MkIIStrings, Picks, & CablesErnie Ball (.011–.013–.018–.030–.042–.052)Dunlop JB Jazz III Gold picksKlotz cablesAmps (with settings)2 Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555s (presence, 4; bass,10; midrange, 6; treble, 4; out master, 10; lead master, 6; input gain, 5.5; each amp runs through half of a split Van Weelden 4x12 cabinet with Electro-Voice speakers)2 Van Weeldon Twinkle Lands w/Twinklelator buffered effects loop (volume, 6; bright, on; deep, on; hot, on; treble, 6; midrange, 6.5; bass, 4; level, 6.5; ratio, 7; master, 7; brilliance, 6.5; each amp runs through half of a split Van Weelden 4x12 cabinet with Electro-Voice speakers)Twinkelator effects loop settings: send, 7; return, 7; bright, offDumble Overdrive Special head (volume, 5; British, off; deep, off; rock, on; treble, 4; midrange, 6; bass, 4; overdrive level, 4; ratio, 6.5; master, 4; presence, 6; into 2x12 with TC Electronic Stereo Chorus)Benson Rotary Speaker2 Fender signature Joe Bonamassa High Powered Twins (volume 9; bright on; treble, 9; bass; 0, midrange, 9, presence, 7.5)2 Kikusui PCR2000MA Power SuppliesJoe, when you’re at home hanging out with a guitar in your hands, what do you play?You know, up until about five or six years ago, my answer would be completely different. I bought a guitar—a 1941 Martin 000-45, and it’s mint. It’s the one they based my model on. And it was so clean that I couldn’t play it. It’s so preserved. And right after that, I got a 1942 000-18 from my friend Jim Hauer in Dayton, Ohio, at Hauer Music. And once I had the neck set and it came back, I was like, “You know what? I get it now. I get the acoustic.” I’ve played a bunch of herringbones and stuff, but I was so focused on electric that acoustics would all sound the same to me. And then at some point, I said, “My God, I get it!” For years, I would just say I’m an electric guitar player, but I had that moment with the acoustic. So when I play at home, I vacillate between two guitars.I have a room in my house in California … it’s, it’s … well, it’s documented how diseased I am. But if you can picture it, if I’m not playing electric, which is only if I’m working on something, I will pick up a 1929 000-42 Martin or a Joe B. Brazilian that Martin made me. It makes me happy. And I’ve found that my accuracy on the electric has improved by embracing the acoustic. I find, especially in the studio, if I’m producing a record and I’m playing on it, just the changes, my chordal accuracy, is a lot better. And I finally figured out a way to, especially soloing-wise, embrace what Leslie West told me. Thirty years ago, his advice was to divide by two. He came to the studio in Ithaca, New York, when I was a kid working with Tom Dowd on what would be my first solo album. This was pre-production, and he guested on a track. And he, in that voice, goes: “You know, Joe, you’d be my favorite guitar player if you’d just divide by two.” I’m like, “You mean half as many notes?” He goes, “Right. Keep doing what you’re doing and divide by two.”“For years, I would just say I’m an electric guitar player.” Now, I’ve noticed a change in my playing. Especially when I’m touring and we’re playing big venues over here, I’ve been using “divide by two.” That and the acoustic thing I’ve been embracing for the last, say, 24 to 36 months has been paying off. Every once in a while you break through a frontier you didn’t even know you were gonna break through or didn’t even know existed.I know I’m a paradox, but when I’m off the road, I try to avoid loud music and crowds. So I don’t play electric at home very loud, and I play these acoustics. When I plug a Les Paul into a Marshall or Fender Strat into a black-panel Princeton, the sounds you expect are going to come up and then it’s up to you to create something. But the acoustic … you’re just kind of wide open. I find that I’m coming up with more original ideas just by not playing electric when I’m home. When you prepare for an album, are there some foundational guideposts or a specific artistic goal you’re working toward?Historically, it was always like: this is the theme, this is what we’re doing, let’s execute it. And we have five days or seven days to do it. This record was different because I approached this album from the point of view that the world does not need another Joe Bonamassa record. So I’m trying not to repeat myself. That’s why we ended up with 20 songs that got jettisoned; 10 of which got jettisoned because we were like, yeah, I’ve heard that before. And we tried to concentrate on things that I haven’t done before, but when you have 50 albums out, including the live stuff, before you even get to the side projects, it’s hard. I think this is my 17th studio solo album.We did this in three sessions, in Santorini, Greece; Nashville; and L.A.—with totally different approaches on each. The Santorini stuff has a certain sound because of the way we recorded it and the lack of options. I was just using the studio guitars. Like the song with Sammy Hagar, “Fortune Teller Blues”—the only guitar that was actually going to stay in tune was an Ovation acoustic, so I plugged it into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, and it just exploded into the mic. I was like, “Okay, now that’s an interesting sound.” I had that and a Slash Les Paul, and I noticed that the pickups were hotter than what I was used to, but I just embraced it.You just have to wrap your head around it. Any guitar that’s not in your normal comfort zone, just pretend it’s the only guitar you own. Because I bought plenty of guitars over the years from people who played them their whole lives and that’s the only guitar they owned. They did their whole musical life on that one guitar and they figured it out, you know?Sometimes, having fewer tools is a lot better. A few records ago, I stopped bringing 40 guitars to the studio. How many Telecasters do you need? Pick one that stays in tune. How many Les Pauls do you need? The one you play every day. And then you bring the flavors: the 12-string electric, the acoustic, whatever. And I always bring my live rig and a couple of different things, like an AC30 or some sort of JTM45. Sometimes, as a collector, you’ve got to justify owning all this stuff. It’s like, man, I paid all this money for this thing; I’m gonna play it!“Every once in a while you break through a frontier you didn’t even know you were gonna break through or didn’t even know existed.”Well, you don't have to justify it to me. When I was starting to play, I had a friend who said, “You should have as many guitars as you want.” I took that to heart.On the internet sometimes, the notion is that I’m depriving other people of having these guitars, because I have such a large collection, one of the biggest in the world. It’s such specious reasoning. How many of these guitars are for sale right now … at the Dallas Guitar show, the Heritage auction, Reverb, eBay, every guitar shop? They’re out there. I’m surprised by some of the conversations I see about you online from the blues police. Complaints that if Joe wasn’t out there, some old bluesman of note would have those gigs. Except for Buddy Guy, nobody who was a sideman for Muddy Waters has a shot at headlining, say, Royal Albert Hall. There’s a lack of critical thinking. You know all the gigs that I do, the arenas that we’re playing over here? Do you know who the promoter is? Me. So I’m not taking anybody’s gig. I’m creating my own weather pattern. Twenty years ago, we started promoting our own shows. It’s proof of concept. Many times was I told, and anybody in this genre has been told, “See those big places over there? Those are not for you. Musicians like you don’t get to play those places.” Well, somebody had to try, and we wouldn’t still be doing that if nobody showed up. I can do everything but make them come out. And if people have a problem with that, if people have a problem with the guitar collecting that I do and the success I’ve had, that’s on them. It’s not on me to apologize for any of it. Because I grew up lower middle class in Utica, New York, and decided that I was gonna do something with my life or die trying. There’s always someone who works harder, who deserves it more than you. You have to just accept that. Then, there’s some luck involved. And what we’re doing as a team is connecting. That’s the records, the production, the marketing, all of it. There’s something there that’s connecting to a wider group of people that don’t normally go to blues shows.“I approached this album from the point of view that the world does not need another Joe Bonamassa record.”You mention a “do or die” attitude. At one point, you were trapped in the blues barbecue joint circuit, before you worked your way out.It always felt that way. The really magic moment for me was 2009 at the Albert Hall when Eric Clapton came out to play with me, and I will always be extremely grateful to him for that. But you realize that if that was May 5, the day after that show, May 6, we were broke. We had put all of our money in the DVD we made there. And when it came out, it did okay. And we had just enough money to keep the machine going and try to build. And then it hit PBS. And after PBS, life changed about six months later. But when you're watching somebody on a DVD seemingly have it all, sometimes the story behind the scenes is way different than the reality.Getting back to Breakthrough, it’s an eclectic album, and you’ve been co-writing with some of the most respected songwriters in Nashville roots music, like Tom Hambridge, Gary Nicholson, Keb’ Mo’. And is there something of a personal breakthrough that sparked the title?I think there is a meaning there. I’m trying not to repeat myself, but not abandon ship. The only thing I’ve abandoned is the notion that anything I’ll do will be pop music at all. I’m a niche guy. I don’t have a radio voice. I’m not looking to get invited to the Met Gala.I’ve written a lot of songs for other people as well, like Jimmy Hall and Eric Gales. You’ve got to come in with some sort of idea, riff, or a title. A title is great because you can write something about that. A riff is like, “Okay, then what are we going to say?” Then you’ve just got to have a conversation and start riffing on it. You try to find a broader concept and try to make it something that’s personal to you that will also be personal to your co-writer and the audience.It surprises me when I go into these old tracks, live, and people start applauding. I’m like, “I had no idea you guys even knew this song.” I just assume everything I put out over my life has not been a hit, and we’ve survived and navigated like that, almost like a jam band.”I’m not looking for a hit. And I don’t want anything to do with that shit that’s coming out of Music Row. None of it. And I’m not looking for radio. So it’s, “Let’s have fun and write a six-minute banger, shall we? With a big fat guitar solo that has no chance of being played on the radio.”“Any guitar that’s not in your normal comfort zone, just pretend it’s the only guitar you own.”Speaking of big fat guitar solos, my favorite song on the album is “Broken Record.” I’m a sucker for a slow blues, and over its 7 minutes, it goes to a lot of interesting places and has a cool tonal palette. I even like small, nerdy things about it—like the way the delay hangs at the end of the song. How did you put the tonal palette together for that one?I remember this: The solo that’s on there was basically a placeholder because I got the call to pick up my car at the shop. I’m at the console, dialed up a quick sound, get a call from the mechanic going, “Hey, your car’s ready.” I called the Uber, and as I’m waiting for the Uber to take me to get the car on a Friday afternoon, because I didn’t want to leave it over the weekend, I go, “Let me just give you a placeholder and I'll be back in a half hour.” I come back in a half hour and everybody’s going, “I think that solo’s good.” And I go, “Okay.” And it was literally just stream of consciousness. The whole song—vocals, everything—was done in an afternoon. And that’s the way I like to work. I like to cut in the morning, get the two or three that we’re gonna do that day, buy the band lunch, tell them to fuck off, then I’ll sing and play, and that’s it. You’re gonna sing, play, and once you’re happy, that’s it. If you’re prepared and know how to do it and hit the marks, three takes of vocals, we’ll comp it, done, move on. We’re at dinner by 6 o’clock. I learned that from Kevin Shirley. [The producer who’s frequently collaborated with Bonamassa since 2006’s You & Me and returns for Breakthrough.] You burn very intensely from about 10 a.m. to about 5:30 or 6, and that’s it. I’m not a night owl in the studio. I want to talk to you a little bit about Journeyman Records, which is a pet project label of yours and your manager, Roy Weisman. What’s the impetus? What do you get from it personally? We have Joanne Shaw Taylor and Robert John, and we’ve invested in those two because what we see in them is little glimpses of what was happening with me right before it hit. You’re a very talented artist, but if a tree falls in the woods and nobody’s there to hear it, does it sell any tickets? [laughs] No. I learned that. So we’ve created a vertical integration of business for those artists—everything from concert promotion to T-shirts to having ownership of their masters.If I said to you 20 years ago that I do my own T-shirts, I do my own record company, and I promote my own shows, the notion, on Sunset Boulevard at the Chateau Marmont, would be, “This person clearly is not talented and has to do it by themselves because nobody will help them.” Now, the conversation taking place is, “My god, I gotta re-record my album because I don’t own my masters.”So we’re using Journeyman Records as a proof of concept. It’s like, if I could do it, anybody can. It just takes hard work. And Vince Gill said it best: “If you don’t bet on yourself, how are you going to get anybody to bet on you?” And that’s so true. Maybe it’s ego, it’s bravado, it’s blind belief … whatever you want to call it. It is so important to have that chip on your shoulder before you even enter into this. Because if you don't believe in what you’re doing, you’re going to encounter some headwinds that may not be surmountable. YouTube ItThis performance from the Rudolf-Weber Arena in Oberhausen, Germany, is from April 29, 2025 and showcases Bonamassa’s range as an artist.
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