It’s the hottest night of the year in New York City, and between the sticky heat and the occasional thunderstorms, many
of the city’s typically insatiable scenesters are
content to stay home and laze out in front
of an air conditioner. But not at the swank
Thompson Hotel on Manhattan’s Lower
East Side. There, a crowd of beautiful people,
journalists, and top-tier musicians are gathered on the roof for an invitation-only, post-gig party for blues phenom Matt Schofield.
Earlier in the evening, he had a CD-release
show next door at the Rockwood Music Hall.
While most blues aficionados would say exot-ic-sounding cocktails and high-maintenance
blondes are about as far removed from the
blues as you can get, there’s no questioning
Schofield’s cred as a blues artist. For years, he’s
been one of the most buzzed-about up-and-coming blues guitarists, and his last album,
Heads, Tails & Aces, won a 2010 British Blues
Award for both best British Blues Guitarist
and best British Blues Album.
Schofield’s latest release, Anything
But Time, marks several firsts for the
young blues sensation: It’s the first album
Schofield has recorded in the States, it’s
the first album with his new band, and it’s
his first album with an outside producer—
blues legend John Porter. Having already
amassed heaps of critical acclaim—
including our 4.5-pick review [July 2011]—
Anything But Time is poised to catapult
Schofield into blues superstardom.
“I’m just going to go with my ideas and
he’s going to say if it’s good or not.” When
we first met, he said something that stayed
with me. He said, “I think we’d have a lot
of fun making a record.” And I never had
fun making a record—it’d always been
really stressful.
Some guys are into putting a sonic signature on a record—that’s the way they
produce. They give you their sound. John
is quite the opposite. He’s very transparent,
sound-wise. He gets in on the material and
works on the arrangement with you—really
trims the fat off the arrangements. I couldn’t
have done it this time without him.
I’ve done all of my other records
myself—I produced them and mixed them
with an engineer. This time, I decided I
was going to do the exact opposite and be
totally hands-off. I was just going to play
guitar and sing, and I was going to let John
do his thing. So maybe next time I won’t
be so hands off, but it was kind of like an
experiment for me to see if I could.
Tell us about the new album.
It was recorded in New Orleans and is the first
album with this new lineup, which features
Kevin Hayes on drums. He was with Robert
Cray for 18 years, so I’d known his playing
for a long time. We met at a festival he was
playing with Robert in Holland a few years
ago, and he gave me his card. So we came
out here last year to start touring, and Kevin
joined us then. What started as a few gigs with
him evolved into this current band. Then we
thought, “We need to make a CD of this.”
This is your first album with an outside
producer. What was it like working with
John Porter?
I grew up listening to records he made, and
he’s made like 150—he did Buddy Guy and
B.B. King and Otis Rush—so I could really
trust him on it. We kind of have the same
reference points, even though we’re from
a different generation of music. I thought,
. . . there’s no great
master plan for me,
like, “I gotta make
it more poppy.” I
think John [Mayer]’s
fantastic . . . But
that’s not for me.
Everything that we
do, you’re going
to cheer or smile
when it gets to the
outro—it’s blues
time for me.
Were you happy with the results?
Yeah.
What gear did you use on the album?
I used my old ’ 61 Strat and the new
Daytona Blue SVL 61—which matches a
late-’60s Ferrari Daytona—on about the
