The band Firefall are releasing the album Friends & Family on September 22nd via Sunset Blvd. Records. As the title suggests, this classic Rock band has turned their sights on their long history of touring with other bands that hail from 1960s and 1970s, and on their own experienced roster of players to recreate many beloved songs in a Firefall vein. Two particular things that the fifty-year-old band Firefall brings to their music that are less commonly heard these days are a large band sound and the use of vocal harmonies, both of which feature on all these tracks.
Many Firefall players have played on major albums and hit songs for other bands, so by bringing these songs home, some of these tracks are a bit of a reunion moment for the performers, too. Songs by Fleetwood Mac, The Byrds, The Band, The Doobie Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Heart and other classic rock bands undergo a gentle metamorphosis led by guitarist and vocalist Jock Bartley’s vision for the outcome. Interestingly, Firefall already has a second volume of such cover tracks planned. I spoke with Jock Bartley about Friends & Family, how the performers conceived of their goals for these songs, and what Firefall thinks of the outcome.
How on earth did you choose which songs to do for this album? There were just so many possibilities for you.
The picking of the songs is a delicate matter and also really sensitive. For instance, on the Heart songs, someone suggested, “Let’s do ‘Barracuda’!” And I said, “No way!” Heart is really the only band that should do “Barracuda”, just like when our manager/record label Len [Fico] found out that Firefall had toured a lot with The Band on their last tour, said, “Oh, great, you can do “Up On Cripple Creek!” I said, “No freakin’ way!” Levon Helm is really the only guy that should sing that song. Also, in that mix, I knew there would probably be thousands of Doobie Brothers fans who might be pissed off that we did that song. We did it in a loving, honoring, and respectful way. The late 60s and 70s had so much music that will probably never be duplicated in terms of variety.
So when Len [Fico] said, “You guys should think about doing a second album.”, I wanted to jump all over that. I wanted to hold him to it and complete the idea. One of the songs that we are doing on Volume 2 is a Stephen Stills song, “Love the One You’re With.” There will be a couple of Rock ‘n Roll tracks by The Byrds. Firefall has always been about songs, and Rick Roberts and Larry Burnett wrote all of our great songs on the first three or four albums, but to open it up and be able to choose some of the greatest songs of the 1960s and 1970s across the board? Wow!
The making of these recordings on Friends & Family must have been a positive experience for everybody, or you wouldn’t be thinking of doing another.
You’re right! Had it not been a great experience, we probably wouldn’t be. Once we picked the songs for that 13-song album, we just got busy. I did have a smile on my face, because the five members of Firefall live in five different states and it’s hard to get us into the studio in the same city, so a lot of it was done remotely. For instance, on “World Turnin’” by Fleetwood Mac, I cut four or five guitar tracks really trying to emulate what Lindsay Buckingham had done on that great record.
I did it with a click track, then started sending it around. You do want to make it sound like you’re in the same song playing, like Little Feat did, one of my favorite bands, but I’m really proud of the songs. For me, as lead guitar players, it was really fun honoring those guitar players of the bands whose songs we cut, like the three kick-ass guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Dan Fogelberg. I wanted to do right by those guys, though I didn’t really play their solos.
Right there you have such a big challenge, as big a challenge as vocals, I’m sure. To play the guitar on such a varied group of songs, with such varied people as the original guitarists is a big task. I know that you weren’t trying to mimic them, though.
I did on one song! I did on Dan Fogelberg’s “Part of the Plan.” Dan was a friend of ours and Mark Andy’s played with him for many years. The solo that he plays on his record is perfect, and it would be kind of sacrilege for me to change it. It doesn’t sound the same, it has my phrasing, but I wanted to keep it pretty close. But on Lynyrd Skynyrd, I didn’t. They blew everybody away on stage that followed them, they were so great and powerful. I listened to their version of “Simple Man” maybe once before I started recording the song. I added my friend John Magnie on accordion on that song. For me, the accordion gives the song such a down-home, home-porch flavor.
I love what you all did with that song. I think the melodic aspects of the songwriting come out even more strongly in your version. You’ve separated out some of those elements.
Thank you. We tried to keep true to it, but I know how to make Firefall records, and if I tried to make a Fleetwood Mac record, it would sound like Firefall doing Fleetwood Mac. I’m glad you feel that way because it’s true. It’s all part of the cutting of the record, which was kind of like a celebration. The stresses weren’t there. This was really laid-back.
We actually found lead vocalist and bass player John Bisaha, who is also in the band The Babies, and he’s a great, great Rock ‘n Roll singer. To have Steve Weinmeister and him be the main two vocalists in the band was amazing. I’m the third, and do the bass parts, and I sang three of these songs as lead, but to have these two guys building up all these beautiful harmony parts was outstanding. Believe me, when we tackle a Beach Boys song, it’s going to have all those harmonies on it! We’ll have some more on the next record.
I particularly noticed John on “What About Love” where you can really hear him cut loose. I was very impressed.
I was blown away, too. He’s been the singer in The Babies for ten or twelve years but they only do a few songs a year. Going back to the song selection, when it came to picking a Heart song, I wasn’t sure. But John said, “I could sing the heck out of “What About Love”. I asked my guy Howard Leese, who was the original lead guitar and keyboards on the track for Heart, if he wanted to play the solo, and he said, “Yes.” And he’s good friends with John.
After I sent Howard the track for the solo, he said, “Well, you kind of changed the chords here, so I can’t play the original solo for the record.” I said, “I wouldn’t want you to. You got a shot at this one. Let’s go!” That was how we approached things, somewhat by the seat of our pants. I was pleasantly surprised by how all the songs started fitting together. I had a vision for these songs, but not for how they would sound when they were complete.
Was something like preserving the original energy of the songs the way you envisioned things?
That’s a good question. It opens up a bigger answer. But yes, the way I looked at it, was that the original song that we were going to do was a roadmap. Sometimes, like on “Angry Eyes” by Loggins & Messina, the original version of the song was like nine minutes long. So I decided that we were going to cut it down to the essential parts, and add solos, the flute, the verses. We had to take some songs to the chopping block. But the roadmap approach was great because on something like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man”, I just recorded a bunch of acoustic guitar tracks in the same key as the original to get it started. Then I thought, “An accordion would be great.”
We just kind of built it up and it didn’t really get taken over the top until John sang his vocal. As soon as he did, we realized, “Oh my, this is really special.” I loved being behind the glass and directing those guys doing backing vocals, as well. But I am really glad that in terms of Production, I kept this pretty sparse. There’s not bells and whistles. There’s not extra strings. I just want you to really hear the song and the vocal performance.
I think that contributes to a feeling of live performance on the record, in the sense that it feels like something a large band could recreate live. I think if you’re going to do a cover, that’s a good way to go, because it conveys the sense of the band playing.
That’s a great quality. For the last 30-40 years, I’ve always been blessed as a guitar player to be a right-brained kind of guy and just play. If you screw up, just punch in. Live, you get good at covering mistakes, and you really just play. You’re really in the moment, playing melodies. I learned from my world-famous Jazz guitar player teacher Johnny Smith that soloing, and being a tasteful soloist was not so much about what you played but about what you didn’t play and the spaces that you left between things. As for Miles Davis, that was his deal. One note speaks a lot louder than 20 notes showing off.
I was lucky to be a good enough guitar player to play spontaneously on a lot of the Firefall tracks. On our song “Mexico”, which was recorded in 1975 and came out in 1976, that’s a one-take lead guitar part from me in the studio. I didn’t know it at the time, but my guitar hero, Eric Clapton was in the control room watching me play! It’s a good thing I didn’t know that.
Music is really so flowing and takes people on adventures. The Beatles were one of the best at visually creating that sense. “Strawberry Fields” would come on, and it would take you somewhere. Doing each of these songs, I just kind of directed them in terms of where they were going to go. If I got to a direction that felt like, “Oops”, we’d go back the other way, but I just let the songs and recordings go in the direction that they wanted to go and trusted that.
It sounds like a combination of the right way of thinking and also a ton of live experience that you’ve had.
Well, yes. As for lead guitar players, so many of them would just play fast all the time and just throw out as many notes as they could to show off, but for me, the most important thing about a song I’m playing on, whether it’s live or in the studio, is the song! Everything I play has to enhance or make the song better. Really, it has nothing to do with what my ego might want to play right now.
I was raised in a musical family and used to sit, at three years old, at the piano when my mom played. The concept that came to me was that, as a soloist, whether it’s on the saxophone or the keyboard, you are having a conversation with your audience. The solo is about taking yourself and your audience on a journey with its peaks and lower elements and then, “Hey! The vocals come back in.” It’s speaking to your audience through your instrument. Some people don’t seem to get that.
