13 QUESTION METHOD: ROB BAKER

Rob Baker is the lead guitarist of the very successful Canadian rock band the Tragically Hip, though you don’t have to like hockey and Tim Horton’s to appreciate Baker’s skills. The band recently released their first DVD/CD box set, entitled Hipeponymous.

1. Which was the first record you bought with your own money?
By age nine, I had already bought a few singles, but that summer I purchased two albums and I don't recall which came first — Elvis’ Aloha from Hawaii and the Beatles Hey Jude.

2. Which was the last record you bought with your own money?
Last week, I purchased online a copy of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos Live in Japan.

3. What was the first solo you learned from a record — and can you still play it?
The first solo I tried to copy note for note from a record has to be Hendrix’s "Purple Haze," from the Woodstock album. I spent hours putting the needle back and back again, trying to tab it all out before rationalizing that I had the spirit of it, if not the exact notes.

4. Which recording of your own (or as a sideman) are you most proud of, and why?
I'm proud of everything that has been released with my name on it. I know that sounds like a cop-out answer, but even when I hear the earliest recordings it is without a trace of embarrassment and rather a vague sense of pride. I think, “That sounds good to me. How did I do that? I think I was a better player then.”
As for specific recordings I would single out the Strippers Union album — my collaboration with Craig Northey. Not so much for its guitar work — although I got to do virtually all of it, which was big fun — but because it gave me a certain personal validation as a songwriter, as I had never really worked outside of the Hip cocoon.
As for a session of which I am proud, I would say "The End of This Song (All the Way to New Orleans)” by Bob Kemmis, because my playing was just a reaction to the song. I don't think I even listened to it before we hit record — I did two cold passes, and that was it. When I hear it now, it sounds ragged and spontaneous, and it makes me smile in a big way.

5. What's the difference between playing live and playing in a studio?
In the studio you are under the microscope. Every note can be lifted out of its natural habitat to be poked and prodded, and without context an otherwise solid guitar line may sound anemic or lame. Any singer will tell you how disconcerting it can be to hear your voice soloed during a mixing session.
The studio can be fun, exciting, and very conducive to creativity, yet it has an air of the unreal about it. Time doesn't exist the way it normally does in “regular” life — unless you are watching the dollar meter rising by the hour. Even the current fashion of digital recording emphasizes this, as time is measured in razor thin slices which can be displaced and reordered on a whim. You are there to manufacture and bottle magic, to capture or “flash-freeze” a “performance” of a song, which will then be placed into a time capsule where it will exist unchanged for all eternity — and yet I have always thought of songs as living, changing things.
The stage is truly about performance and the moment. On stage notes fly out, hopefully to tickle auditory nerves in a pleasing or seductive way, but once they are played they are gone and replaced with a moment filled with new notes. - a bad note or cliché can be quickly swept away by a wave of inspiration. Small imperfections seem irrelevant in the spirit of a live performance yet in the studio so much time and effort are placed on 'fixing' or eliminating these 'imperfections' that the spirit of a performance may be lost. On stage every moment is filled with possibilities for greatness, disaster, redemption...I usually leave the stage feeling exhausted but satiated - I often leave the studio feeling shattered and discouraged though, with the passage of time I can look back and see that I did good work and that the experience made me a better player.

6. What's the difference between a good gig and a bad gig?
There is a thing that happens to musicians, artists, athletes, perhaps everyone at sometime in which you cease to exist - there is no thought of who you are, where you are or what you are doing...there is just the doing, and it is in those moments that you are completely open and great things can happen. You are not forcing or seeking - you are ready to receive and channel. I know this sounds quasi religious or perhaps it is purely a biological matter of shifting one lobe of your brain into neutral and the other into 4th gear. I just know that when it happens you feel that you are one with the music and everything else. That is a good gig.
A bad gig is when you get caught up in the 'imperfections', are trying to force something to happen, or some trivial or trying element of your day keeps insinuating itself into your onstage conciousness - you become painfully aware of who you are, where you are and what you are trying and probably failing to do. Bad. It doesn't happen too often as the rush that the audience provides can make you forget about almost any physical or emotional distraction.

7. What's the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar?
A good guitar has a straight neck and holds its tuning. It is just a tool. As long as it is capable of doing its assigned job, it is a good guitar.

8. You play electric and acoustic. Do you approach the two differently?
I try to let a song dictate to me. Perhaps it is intuitive — occasionally it is the result of trial and error — but I seem to end up with the guitar that feels and sounds right for that song as played by me. Different guitars will make you play differently, so I do approach acoustic and electric guitars differently just as I would approach my Epiphone Joe Pass archtop with flat-wound strings differently than my Parker Fly strung with Super Slinkys.

9. Do you sound more like yourself on acoustic or electric?
I wouldn't say that I sound more like myself on either acoustic or electric. I think of both electric and acoustic guitars as palettes with a wide range of colors to work with, and I choose the palette which seems appropriate for the situation in which I find myself.

10. Do you sound like yourself on other people's guitars?
I think my character will largely come through regardless of the tools available to me. Tone is only one of the aspects of personal style. I can't help but play what I want to hear. We all play within our limitations as well, which may be like the columns around which we build our “sound.”

11. Which living artist (music, or other arts) would you like to collaborate with?
I have been so fortunate to be able to collaborate with and learn from great producers and engineers over the last 20 years, but to be able to explore music and share my journey with my oldest and best friends is a true privilege.
I have always thought it would be great to work with Dan Lanois. I had the opportunity to play on a single for Greenpeace that Dan produced, and he would occasionally drop in on our New Orleans sessions — it was his house after all — so I have had a small taste of his approach. I have great respect for him as a musician and a producer. I think in both fields he shows his depth, sensitivity, eclecticism, complexity, and simplicity. I know that he has a true understanding of the spirit of performance.

12. What dead artist (music, or other arts) would you like to have collaborated with?
I can't say that "I wish I had jammed with..." I've never really had those thoughts. A few years back, I had the pleasure of a stairwell jam at a hotel in Cleveland with an artist who I had really admired for several years — Chris Whitley. He was a phenomenal and unique talent and very generous with me. I treasure his music and the memories.

13. What's your latest project about?
Our/my latest project is the Tragically Hip's eleventh studio album, and I can't tell you how excited I am to get going on it. We began recording in Vancouver in September 2005 with Bob Rock, who brings so much to the table. We got four rockin' good tunes in our week together, so we booked ourselves in to a Toronto studio for the last couple of weeks of February to see how far we can take things.

Web site: http://www.thehip.com/