The Gary Wright Interview

Story by Bill Kopp

Though New Jersey-born, keyboardist Gary Wright first rose to fame as a member of an English band, Spooky Tooth. That group played piano- and organ-centric progressive rock with a blues edge. After leaving that band for a solo career, then returning, then leaving again, Wright enjoyed solo success with the worldwide smash album The Dream Weaver. He continued in a similar style, all the while providing support on albums by some of his closest friends. In the later years Wright turned toward world music sounds. But in 2010 he's back and busy with a more familiar sound and feel. Touring as part of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band, Wright has also just released his latest album, Connected. The album features guest spots from Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter...and George Harrison. I spent some time taking with Gary about his music, now and then.

BILL KOPP: Tell me a little bit about the source of your inspiration for both lyrics and music.

GARY WRIGHT: That's kind of a deep question. I've been a student of Eastern philosophy now for over thirty-five years. And I'm very much into yoga and meditation. George Harrison was actually my mentor; he got me interested and introduced me to all that. So I would have to say that there's a spiritual side to my lyrics. I like to have positive lyrical messages, because I believe music is an uplifting force, not a negative force. So I try to make my music that way, so when people listen to it, they'll be in some way uplifted.

BK: Like most of the songs on Connected, "Satisfied," the leadoff track has a strong hook and a memorable melody. Howe conscious are you when writing songs to make sure there's a hook?

GW: I'm very conscious of it. The word "hook" means drawing people into something. When I write songs, I always try to make them that way -- catchy -- so that people will remember them. They'll be more embedded in people's consciousness.

BK: You manage to incorporate classic-sounding keyboard sounds into the songs. "Get Your Hands Up" is built around what sounds like a Hohner Clavinet D6 and a Hammond organ, tough I'm fully aware in this digital age that neither instrument may actually be on the record. Is your use of 'classic' sounds an attempt to make a, pardon the pun, connection with the past, or is it just down to the sorts of sounds you like?

GW: In the making of Connected, I wanted to tie it into my The Dream Weaver album production-wise. But I just pick instruments that, to me, work best for the track. The priority isn't whether it's a classic instrument or a Hohner Clavinet or whatever. It's how it works in the mixture with everything else; that's how I make my decisions.

The Dream Weaver was remarkable in that it straddled two worlds: it was a highly experimental album for its time, using only voice, drums and synthesizers. But it was also a collection of straightforward, highly catchy radio-ready songs. Did you approach the album as an experimental effort, or did you have a sense it would take off commercially?

GW: I didn't know it would take off as it did when I made it. The theme of having only keyboards, drums, voices -- and no guitars -- came accidentally. I had just left Spooky Tooth, and I had a Minimoog, a Clavinet, a Fender Rhodes, a Hammond organ, and a little Rhythm Ace drum machine. And an Echoplex. So I used all that technology that was available back then in the writing of all the songs, with the exception of "Dream Weaver" which I had written earlier on acoustic guitar.

When I listened back [to the writing demos], I thought, "Wow. This sounds good. It doesn't really need guitars." I had played keyboard bass on the Minimoog, so I decided to just keep it that way. And then people really latched onto it, as did radio, saying "This is the first all-keyboard rock album." We were also the first all-keyboard live touring band. And it worked to my favor.

BK: Spooky Tooth played in a heavy style not far removed in some ways from Atomic Rooster, Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, and on the acoustic-based numbers, early Led Zeppelin. Were you at home with that? Because even though you wrote a lot for the group, your solo material moved away from that style pretty quickly.

GW: My roots were always R&B; I grew up with R&B music. I love it: some of my favorite artists were James Brown, Ray Charles, Bobby "Blue" Bland. But when I moved to England in the late sixties, the scene was more of a rock one. And I had always loved blues, so I kind of added that element of bluesiness to the band. And I wrote songs in that kind of vein. I did that for awhile.

But my first love was R&B. So when I left Spooky tooth initially at the end of 1969, I did a couple of albums that were more rock than the later R&B of The Dream Weaver. The musicians I knew and used on Extraction (1970) were people like (drummer) Alan White from Yes, (bassist) Klaus Voormann, Hugh McCracken the guitarist. And then it evolved into what I later did with The Dream Weaver. I think what made the change was when I started playing the [Minimoog] bass. That changed a lot in relation to how I produced my albums; it made them more R&B-ish.

BK: Starting around the time of Footprint –specifically the song "Two Faced Man" which you performed on The Dick Cavett Show with George helping out -- your career was for many years closely wound up in the whole George/Ringo axis. You played on most of George's albums, several Nillsson records, and so on. I know that Klaus Voormann was involved with your first solo LP Extraction. Was it through Klaus that you fell in with this crowd, or some other way?

GW: You know, it was through Klaus. He introduced me to George. George made the call and asked me if I wanted to play on All Things Must Pass.

BK: On your earlier solo material, though there were all kinds of synthesizers, the sound -- especially on solos -- that I most closely associate with you -- and I hear it on the new stuff too -- is the distinctive tone of Oberheim synthesizers.

GW: On Light of Smiles (1977) I used a lot of Oberheim. Touch and Gone (also 1977) I had Oberheim, and maybe a little bit on Headin' Home (1979).

BK: What sort of keyboards are you into now?

GW: Of the older synths that I have, we use Moog bass on a lot of things. I'd say that fifty percent of the new album -- maybe even more -- has Minimoog bass on it. I use some Super Jupiter stuff, Roland JX-8P. And on some songs I use Omnisphere and Distorted Reality. And then most of the other stuff is on the Korg M3. I haven't used string bass on a record in a long, long time.

BK: After your long run of successful albums in a commercial vein, your interests took a decided turn in the direction of world music. What brought that on?

GW: Having worked with George Harrison on his music, he was very much into Indian music. And I love Indian music as well. So I started to take a step in that direction, and to use those sorts of instruments. The first album where I did that was Who I Am (1987).

BILL KOPP: Two of the bonus tracks on Connected are George Harrison-related. "To Discover Yourself" was co-written with George in 1971. Can you tell me a bit about the circumstances surrounding the writing of that song?

GARY WRIGHT: I don't remember exactly which album...it was definitely after All Things Must Pass (1970). It wasn't when George was actually right in the middle of writing for an album. He just came up to my flat that I had in London at the time. I had been writing this song, and I played it for him. He took out his guitar and he helped me finish it off. And I never did anything with it; I always kept it in the back of my mind. But then when he passed I decided to finish it. The day he passed away, I actually went into the studio to put that song down.

BK: The song's arrangement -- lone piano -- is a stark contrast with the rest of the album. Did you feel a need to be true to some original vision of the song, rather than somehow try and bring it sonically in line with the modern songs on Connected?

GW: It wasn't actually part of the album. It's meant to be an additional track which I had, one that the public wanted to hear. Because I had been getting emails asking "when are you going to put that song out?" So I decided now was the time to do it.

BK: I saw one of the earliest All-Starr tours -- with Todd Rundgren on guitar -- and I get the impression that the whole affair is a sort of loose, back-slapping endeavor where everybody has fun. It doesn't come off as quite the grind that a plain old tour might be. Is that accurate?

GW: I would definitely say there's a spirit of happiness, and everybody's having a good time. When we're onstage, though, I think the band is really serious. It's a great show. I kind of get the feeling it's not loose, not like some of the earlier All-Starr tours. In those, he had a lot more people; I think on the first one he had a lot of people onstage. I think this one works really, really well musically because the songs are strong. The chemistry -- how the songs flow into one another -- really works. I think this is the best show Ringo has ever had.

BK: On the current All-Starr tour, how many spotlight tunes do you take?

GW: I do two. Each member of the All-Starr Band does two, and Ringo does his stuff.

BK: The All-Starr tour ends soon. What's up next for you after that?

GW: I will be going out on tour, probably in October, to promote Connected. I might be going out with another artist, or I might be doing some gigs on my own.

BK: I was very impressed to see that while you're making Connected available digitally, you're paying more attention than most to the issue of quality, of the integrity of the finished product. 320kbps MP3 and FLAC -- that's impressive. Do you think that the rise of digital culture has meant that people are (paradoxically) settling for diminished quality audio, with lo-bit MP3 files everywhere?

GW: I agree with you. It's kind of the opposite of CDs were to records. As opposed to evolution, it's like devolution. You can put more "information" into less space on an MP3 file than on a WAV or AIFF file, but you lose quality. That's why I wanted to make the music available this way.

I also have a cool thing coming out: it's a flash drive that's encased in a pendant with the om symbol (ॐ) written on it. It's to be worn as a necklace, and if you take it off, pull it apart and take the flash drive out, it's got the whole album digitally, plus the bonus tracks we've talked about, as well as a remake of my song "Love is Alive," a duet with my son Dorian. It's also got videos of me taking about the making of Connected, plus stories about George and Ringo, as well as a video I did with George where he's singing backing vocals. Some special photographs, and some other stuff. It's a special package.

BK: This video with George singing backing: is that "Two Faced Man" from the Dick Cavett Show (1971)?

GW: No, it's another track that I did [in 2005] called "Don't Try to Own Me."

BK: Tell me a little bit about your involvement in the upcoming George Harrison biographical film.

GW: I got the call from Martin Scorsese's office, asking me if I wanted to participate. And I did. We had a very special relationship, insomuch that it was rooted in spirituality and Indian philosophy. And I think among his friends, I was the closest to him in that regard, in the spiritual sense. I think that's what interested Martin. He's making this bio-doc about George because he's interested in George's spiritual side. The film will be out sometime in 2011.

BK: Because you so fully embraced synthesizers in the 70s -- and did so in what I would argue is an "organic" and intelligent manner rather than a bloodless, robotic approach -- I'm guessing that you're perhaps more open than many of your musical generation to new technology. Social media, etc. How involved do you personally get in the fan-interaction media like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter?

GW: I get pretty involved in it, and I have people working with me that are really good at that stuff. Because it's something you really have to do. You've got to make your music available. Because we live in an age where -- unfortunately -- there's no more record stores except for Wal-mart and those kind of big chains. And they carry a limited amount of product. So you really have to reach out. And I do get involved: I write letters to my fans, and give updates.

And as far as my website (www.thedreamweaver.com), I try to make that as modern as possible. I was actually one of the first artists to have a web site; this was back in the days of Compuserve [laughs]. I saw then that this was something that was going to be important. And people are spending more and more time on their computers.

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