A Conversation with Jack Bruce

Mike Ragogna: Jack, you have a new album, Silver Rails with many special guests.

Jack Bruce: Especially guitar players! I must be a glutton for punishment. [laughs] No, I love the guitars, that's what rock music's all about, really, to me. You've got to have great guitars.

MR: You recorded Silver Rails at Abbey Road.

JB: I did, yeah.

MR: What was the experience like at Abbey Road this time out?

JB: Oh it was great to be back there. I haven't recorded an album there for some time. Abbey Road, what can you say about it? The music's just sort of dripping off the walls. You just kind of start to soak it up. It takes everybody's playing up just a little bit more. You always tend to try a little harder at Abbey Road. It's a great place, it's like working in a museum, but it's got all of the equipment to the highest standard, it's all maintained fantastically, you might be singing into a microphone that John Lennon used or something, it's just phenomenal.

MR: Speaking of soaking up the vibe, did recording at Abbey Road affect the twists and turns that the album creatively took?

JB: Oh, I'm quite sure it did. Obviously I'd written the songs before I went in there, and originally I didn't plan to record at Abbey Road, but one of my daughters is a film maker and she had a premiere of her first film and she had done some work for Rob Cass who's the house producer at Abbey Road. He was at the premiere and he said, "Hey, why don't you come and do it at my place, Abbey Road?" Wow, I thought, "That's a fantastic idea!" No doubt that it did influence the music in a good way. No doubt about that. It's a lovely place to work. All the people who work there are all great. It's like stepping back in time as well.

MR: Okay, and the then sonically, how did it come off versus other places that you've worked?

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