Soon to release his latest album, ‘the truth’, Laurence Jones is fast becoming one of the most prominent figures on the UK blues scene. Having toured with some of the greats (including Walter Trout, who championed Laurence early on in his career), Laurence has honed his skills, taking every opportunity possible to head out on the road, often supporting his heroes in the process. As a result you’d be forgiven for expecting a certain degree of ego, and yet Laurence remains firmly grounded (helped by advice from Walter) and he takes time and care over each question, as eager to talk about the artists that have inspired him as he is to talk about himself. Read on and find out more about the truth of Laurence Jones.
You’re obviously promoting your latest album, ‘the truth, and the first question is perhaps a little off-base: you listed in the credits a vocal coach, so I wanted to ask how you’ve been working with the coach and what you felt you gained from the experience?
Well, obviously, working with a vocal coach who has that much experience… I mean vocal coaching itself is a whole different ballgame, it’s rare to find a good one or even any of them around. He was great, he was good at fine-tuning my vocals. We tried a few different lines on each take and he’d say “can you do this one, but a bit more like this?” and then he’d sort of sing it back to me and he almost taught me how to breathe properly as well. He was great – he’s a Grammy Award winning vocal coach.
One of the things that is perhaps not so much spoken about, but it can be quite difficult to be a vocalist because there’s a lot of pressure on you to perform every night and it’s not like a guitar where you can change a string – have you had difficulties with vocals or was it purely about improving?
Well, the record label hired ___ to come in and he actually works just for the label and their artists. The record label’s called Top Stock Music and they’re a Grammy Award winning record label, more in the Latin world, so when they decided to distribute my CD, they put me in the same category as Santana, which is cool, because he’s one of my heroes and it’s crossover. But, yeah, it was just really cool to work with him.
Thank you – I’m always very interested to hear about vocal development and approaches.
On the new record, it’s almost like I wanted the vocals to be really strong. You know, I can listen to some of my other albums and it’s very guitar fronted and lots of my favourite bands are all about the lyrics and the vocals and the songs and that’s what I really tried to put across this time.
I’ve been listening quite a bit to the album and, I’m not sure if this was something you were going for, but for me it’s got a smooth, soulful vibe that reminds me of Robert Cray…
Yeah, Robert Cray is a massive influence on me. I love the song ‘right next door’, I think it’s genius. I opened up for Robert in 2015, I played at a big, big blues festival in Finland and there were 20,000 people there and I got to have dinner with him after the show and I asked him about song writing and things like that, so definitely that comes across.
It’s interesting that the blues community is so supportive and it’s interesting to see how the older generation are happy to nurture the younger talent. As you got quite successful quite quickly, was there anyone in particular who took you under their wing and gave you advice?
Well, I was lucky enough to open up for… my first ever tour was with Johnny Winter, his biggest tour of the UK. One of my first ever gigs was in London at Shepherd’s Bush Empire playing 3000 people with Jonny Winter, and then I went on tour with Pat Travers, Wishbone Ash… but really it kicked in when I was supporting Walter Trout on his UK tour. Before I even met Walter he was supporting me. I wrote on Facebook that I couldn’t wait to support my hero on tour (I think the first date was in London) and he wrote back that he couldn’t wait to have me on the tour, that he’d heard lots about me and that he wanted to jam. You know, so before I even met him, he was supportive and he’d never heard anything. He was very, very keen to get me up on stage. Every night, I think he’s the only one who’s done this every night on tour, he stood at the side of the stage and watched me until he thought I was good enough and then he invited me up to actually play with his band. He invited me up on the encore of all of his sets every night. Learning from Walter; he sat me down and talked about the music industry and drugs – don’t get into drugs and also about song writing and being a showman. It’s not just about playing guitar. Also, what he taught me the most was to always stay humble and keep your feet on the ground. He’s so loyal to his fans and I try to be like that. Also, he’s one for helping the younger, up and coming people. I’ve just started helping a guy called Toby Lee, a young guy, so yeah – I’ve learned a lot from Walter over the years.
I remember I that tour because, I think, during that tour you had either just been nominated for (or possibly even won) the first of your blues awards and I think Walter announced it from the stage, which was a very big thing at that point.
Yeah, it was great. I did an interview today and they asked me what my favourite is so far and I said “Walter’s new one” and I saw him in the latest guitarist magazine and he mentioned that I’m the future of the blues, so it’s great to still have that.
The Blues does seem to keep coming back in cycles – sometimes it slips out of the public consciousness, but it certainly feels like in the last five to six years it’s really come to the fore again. There’s you, Danny Bryant, Mollie Marriot – there’s a whole host of younger blues artists emerging right now…
When I first came out, I think there was only me, Ollie Brown and Joanne Shaw Taylor…
Have you been aware of that surge of interest as you’ve been releasing each subsequent album?
Yeah, massively. It literally came from nowhere and some people actually see that as a massive threat, but I think the more people who are playing music, getting their names out there and actually doing it and the more people they get out to and play to and start recording and letting other people hear their music – it’s great for the blues community. Not just that, it’s real music! There’s a lot of shit on the radio now, and I’ll say that happily. I think it’s absolutely great that people are doing this and I think a lot of people will still stick to the Stevie Ray Vaughan, you know, traditional blues. But what I like to do is to progress with the blues. I’ve seen a lot of young players trying to do that as well, which is great.
I read various interviews with you and I saw you picked up on the blues by listening to your dad’s record collection. Was it always the blues or are there other genres that also appealed to you.
Definitely other genres… Obviously the second one would be rock. I went to see…, well, I supported Status Quo on tour which was great because a lot of people take the mic out of them, but when we supported them, there was like 10,000 people in Amsterdam and I’ve never seen anything like it. I actually stood in the hall before the concert and in the space of two minutes, everyone just ran to the front for them. SO, obviously, rock. I went to see Motorhead, I recently saw Black Country Commiunion, who I absolutely love. They’re rocking! And I’ve definitely got the more pop side too. One of the first bands I listened to was the Cure and I love it when rock artists cross with rock and blues like John Mayer and Lenny Kravitz. My all-time influence is Eric Clapton. He has a mixture of genres throughout different times. He did pop, he did blues, he did the song-writer. He did the trio… I love that versatility.
So, the blues is not so much about genre as having that passion and sense of soul and self that comes through the blues that makes it what it is rather than genre loyalty…
Yeah, I agree. People get really caught up about all that but at the end of the day, music’s music and a lot of people like to box things and label things. A lot of big record labels and even independents… ones that are coming through really trying to box it and serve it on a shelf. But that’s one thing about the blues – it’s very pure and I feel that , to me, blues is a feeling that you play with. It’s passion and that can be crossed over into blues rock, blues pop, you know… whatever you want to call it. People label the Black Keys as blues, and people label Joe Bonamassa as blues, but it’s still not traditional blues. It’s what’s great about it – it has that feeling.
In terms of getting this record together – what sort of song-writing process do you go through? Is it just you working up material and taking it to your band of the moment, or is it you and a producer or you and the band?
This album was really structured out. We knew exactly what we were doing. I wrote twenty-five songs for this album and then, I signed my record deal and a lot of the songs were sort of saongs that I’d kept for a more mature time of my career, and basically, I just felt like it was the right time to do that. So basically I got a new band together and the record label sent us out to the Caribbean (because the owner lives over there), which was very nice. So, we spent three weeks in the Caribbean, locked in a room (we partied at night, though!) So, we were locked in a room and I bought all twenty-five of my songs to them. When we chained them together as a band, some of the band… well they’ve all got a writing credit on the album, because they all wrote little sections and progressed what my songs were… then the producer would come into the room after we spent like eight hours there, and then they’d stay with us another three hours and change the songs even more than what we’d just done. So, it was just blossoming, and then we went to the studio, and that’s where the magic happened. We listened to these songs for like six months… even seven months (because we recorded in September), so yeah there was a lot of work there.
One of the big finds on this record is Bennett Holland, the keyboardist – there’s a really nice interplay between the guitars and keys on this record.
Yeah, Bennett’s an absolute master of his instrument. I actually saw… when I supported a band years ago called King King, Bennett used to play for them and the guitarist was actually late, so Bennett was doing the soundcheck and he was doing the vocals. I’d never heard of King King at that time, and I basically watched Bennett do the soundcheck and I thought he was the front man of the band. He was amazing. So, coming back to having him on the record – it’s really cool because he’s great at singing and he studied jazz at university, so he knows all the intervals and he’s very musical. That goes for each members of the band, they all have their different and it’s definitely a team thing.
It’s interesting you mention King King, because the one thing I think you share with that band is you have a gift to take the blues and make it very catchy, not in a deliberate way, but in the way the melodies sink under the skin quite quickly and that’s a rare talent.
Yeah, and I think people want that as well. They want to sing along to a song, they don’t want to go to a concert and be bored. They want to be able to hear those melodies, and because it’s on the radio a lot now, that’s something I’ve always looked into, even through listening to Hendrix – he’s a master of that.
So, what’s next? You’re out on tour very soon…
Less… a couple of days – we’re off to Switzerland. We’ve got three shows there, then a show in Holland and we’re doing really well in Holland at the moment, we just got number one in the blues charts there…
Wow! Congratulations!
Thank you, yeah, it was really cool to see that. I did a TV show out there and I was invited to play at a festival out there with Buddy Guy which was incredible. So, I’m looking forward to that show, and then we have a day off and then we’ve got our big show in London, we’re playing at the Borderline.
A lot of work to come then to promote the album…
Definitely, but it’s what we love to do!
Any final words for your UK fans
Yeah, we look forward to getting out there and playing a mixture of everything off my five albums, now… god! Sounding old! We look forward to just being out there and playing for you guys.
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