13 QUESTION METHOD: NOEL AKCHOTE

I normally include biographies of the players featured in 13 Questions, but I don’t know how to put Noël Akchoté into a neat little paragraph. Maybe that’s why I love his work so much. Google him, search him on YouTube, check out his records—each one beautiful yet very different from the others.

1. Which was the first record you bought with your own money?
I think that must have been Johnny Guitar Watson’s 7" single, “Booty Ooty / Jet Plane.” One side led me always to the next one, and again, and again.... It still is in my Top 5. One thing I’d like to add is that when I was in primary school, like 8 or so, my best friend’s grandparents use to run the local music store—records, instruments and music lessons. We used to go straight out from school there, so I could actually listen to a lot without buying them.

2. Which was the last record you bought with your own money?
Motörhead, The World is Yours—their last one, it came out in December.
I can’t stop listening to it, so I started to dig their complete discography as well.
All is in there. They’re the kind of records you could send out in the cosmos to let E.T. know We do “exist”…. (Come over rock.)

3. What was the first solo you learned from a record — and can you still play it?
I actually haven’t transcribed so many in my life—just a few slices and phrases on given changes. The one I’m never finished with is by Belgian guitarist René Thomas, on “Pent-Up House,” from the album ‘Chet Is Back’ by Chet Baker. I can sort of, yes, still play most of it. I’ll probably be working it out my whole life.

4. Which recording of your own (or as a sideman) are you most proud of, and why?
Well that’s a difficult question, but maybe Alike Joseph is my “favorite” one. It came out at a moment in my life where all was falling apart around. It started to grow inside me like an evidence and something I absolutely had to do now, even no one got my point because it didn’t exist before. It’s a solo, when I got a literal hangover from playing phrases on canvas, or tunes. I rejected completely playing any intentional phrase, so I dropped the guitar on the floor, laid next to it and let it resonate, speak alone, say something. But it is a very lyrical album—not an avant thing so much. Some years ago David Sylvian mixed it again for a reissue sometime.

5. What's the difference between playing live and playing in a studio?
Less and less difference, actually. That’s one thing I improved after 25 years inside me, I think lately. My all concern and “problem” in the last years is that I don’t like so much the “blowing” thing—the show-you-can-play type of thing. So I try to set a room on stage, some place, start somewhere and let the people slide inside it. A lot of what I do has a rather cinematic pulse, it’s not purely made to be listened to on a single musical side. In studio, I can really set things further like on a film set—decide the light, the angle, the room etc.

6. What's the difference between a good gig and a bad gig?
Well that’ s the whole philosophical question underneath : in real, often there isn’t such a difference. It’s more a feeling of things going well, or things dull, going nowhere. But in fact if you d’listen afterwards, once you forgot about your emotional state on that given gig, the « bad » one might just be the same basis as the « good » one, but a bit more … sharp, or tight. I mean given that after a certain amount of years playing you know more or less what you’re doing and how to.

7. What's the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar?
Yourself. A same guitar I loved 20 years ago, IU hated 10 years after, and could not live without it now. At the moment, I’ve sort of lost the “vintage,” unique, collected old gear side. I wouldn’t mind, for example, to be up to a level where Fender would endorse me and provide a new model each night. Long ago, I had real angst that if I didn’t have my own gear—well known and used to—I’d lost a lot of my playing. So I worked on that 20 years ago, at first by not asking for any particular amp, to put myself in troubles and learn how to recover, gig by gig. Since then, what I do is 90% with my fingers. This also applies to effects pedals too. I can sometime buy a lot, just to learn to do the same but without it. When the Paul Motian trio started, with [Bill] Frisell and [Joe] Lovano, I was such a fan of the band. I once met them in the airport. They almost didn’t carry anything—just a guitar, a tenor, and a bag of cymbals. Since then, I always think of that: Travel light, carry the music in yourself, not in the rack. One other shock was that photo of Don Cherry playing with band in the woods. I immediately saw the huge “problem”—how could I play with such a band? Nothing would be left of me. I thought, so I started to practice all acoustic, just in case....

8. You play electric and acoustic. Do you approach the two differently?
No. Actually, I never ever plug in any electric at home, since over 20 years now.
I don’t even really own a proper amp. I use a small Vox AC15, because of the tremolo, at home—extremely rarely. The only time I do plug is for half an hour when I bought a new pedal and don’t get what I want from it. But not even that anymore. I often order a pedal and bring it to the gig directly and try it there. The thing is, the instrument we (most of us) play is always a complete hybrid. I mean, you can’t totally say a Martin D-28 is just an acoustic instrument and a Telecaster just an electric one. To me they work pretty much the same, in fact. I don’t play nylon because, well—it’s another type of instrument for me—like, say, for a pianist to play Hammond, or harpsichord. All the instruments I play can be acoustic or electric, but more or less work on the same basis, and then each has its own “logic” or “center” that we each for ourselves set a different place. A Danelectro is an acoustic instrument for me. A Framus is an electric, even though it’s archtop acoustic. What’s the difference between an Ovation and a Les Paul ? Not too much difference.
The great thing, for me, about guitar is that it will never be pure. It has some approaches, some possibles ways. But all the “heroes” did it totally differently and their own. That’s why I love guitar so much—because it will never be an end to try and bring your own. John Fahey, Randy Rhoads, Derek Bailey, Jerry Garcia, Clarence White, James Burton, etc. You name one, any—Blood Ulmer, Jeff Beck—no two use the same technique. If you’d play violin, you’d have much more the weight of history, technically. My problem, for example, with nylon-string Spanish guitars is that whatever I do they sound like a nylon-strings Spanish guitar. The same like harp, flute, or vibraphone. Whereas with guitar, even the Roland Synth period (GR 300, 700, etc.), no one got same sound out of it.

9. Do you sound more like yourself on acoustic or electric?
As I said, I can’t say because all I practice is on acoustic, and when I switch to electric, I carry on the same. All starts with fingers. It’s all there. Then the main difference, for me, between acoustic and electric is that on an acoustic your “amp” is on the same block where your strings are, while on electric the “body” is next to you. An electric guitar is a two-piece instrument—it’s in two parts. Most younger guitarists ignore that and see the amp as a thing to get louder signal. They lose a lot of their sound because they do not embody the two pieces equally. For me an amp is still an acoustic-driven object. An amp is on the same level as, let’s say, a pick. Most “effects” I use (very little) are also in the same line—they need to be “natural.” Like tremolo on amps is just like lungs and breath to me. Distortion (boost, gain) is something I can very well produce with fingers on an acoustic, etc. etc. (Or phasing is like when I had too many drinks before the gig.)Basically, if I can’t get what I want on an acoustic—naked, I mean—there’s no chance electric will make it for me.

10. Do you sound like yourself on other people's guitars?
Unfortunately, yes. In older jazz days, they sometimes had those tribute shows, or for raising money for an ill elder musician, so they would bring one double bass, one drum kit, one guitar, and everyone would play on the same instruments. You couldn’t tell the difference, even when the instrument was miles away from what the player used normally. After 8 bars of fixing yourself to the instrument, all would sound as it always did.
I remember Paul Motian—again—playing on Peter Erskine’s kit. It didn’t take long before you couldn’t hear no difference at all. Same with double bass—I’ve seen Ray Brown, Eddie Gomez, Jean-François Jenny-Clark, NHOP, Pierre Michelot, and others all on one same bass one evening. Chet Baker never carried a trumpet, only the mouthpiece he kept as a jewel—the one Dizzy gave him after he had to relearn because al his teeth had been smashed.
I see gear a bit like Lingerie. It for sure opens a lot of fantasy and raises insane desires, but at the end you end up often naked with the lady—no?
I can be complete fetishist. I looked for years for the same 12-string Silvertone/Danelectro as Arto Lindsay, knowing too well it would never do Arto’s sound, but it didn’t matter. I had to have one. And I’m glad I have it, though it’s very puerile, I know that.

11. Which living artist would you like to collaborate with, and why?
That’s my turning point today. I’ve sort of played with all my heroes—far more than I could have ever imagine when I started. The living artist I would love to work with today is one I still ignore and would totally be amazed the day I would hear him or her.

12. Which dead artist (music, or other arts) would you like to have collaborated with, and why?
Freddie Green. Or Slim Gaillard, or Robert Quine. I did appear on an album with Quine once—Corin Curschellas’ Rapa Nomada, which Robert seemed to like a lot. RIP.

13. What's your latest project about?
Rewinding the guitar history as probably I always did. I don’t stop at styles. In fact, I enjoy them all, from worst fusion to very cheesy easy-listening or pop, all goes for me. I love pleasure. Lately, I reopened after 30 years my classical methods, and from then went deeper into classical guitar repertoire and came to “before” the Spanish classical guitar. I entered the Baroque guitar (five courses), or lute, cittern, etc. Which is what I was looking for so many years but didn’t know it existed. Those people were as much players as composers—like in Jazz, say, Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Ornette, Rollins, Miles. Everything they compose fully exists and stands on a compositional level, but also totally raises a guitar intellect from the instrument. I feel always a bit like a baker or an artisan, the idea does not come from outside, it comes from the instrument itself for me. It has its own language, it cannot be replaced and hardly described in words. I mean, you can sure talk for hours about Jim Hall s sound, but if you hear one note from Jim, your text looks pretty miserable compared to experience of listening to him. I do a lot of solos and studio recordings, mostly. At this point I could well leg it for 10 years and only release solo albums. On my list, coming soon, are Gaspar Sanz (Baroque guitar) solo, the six books (125 pieces) of Madrigals for 5 Voices composed by Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (all voices overdubbed on my own). A sort of themed solo album rereading the history of Jazz-Rock & Fusion—Jaco is a baroque master, isn’t he? I know most people are disgusted by Jazz-Rock but I would like to offer a different view on it. And then some more insane projects—like a solo-guitar “trilogy” of songs by Kiss/Ramones/ Motötorhead. Last but not least, I’ve wanted, for the past 20 years, to play many of the Spielberg soundtracks (by John Williams ) reduced for acoustic solo guitar. Of course I would like to upgrade this with a full ‘Jaws’ album. Then many more things—like I started to write a book based on guitars and humans. Why they fit together, how, and also give a bite to other people of how things happen when you play guitar every day for 30 years. This book will be—is—a novel. It’s for absolutely all audiences, not a music-publishing book at all. I gave myself two more years from now to get somewhere with it.