If Chuck Berry was still alive, he’d have celebrated his 100th birthday on October 18 this year. Sadly, the pioneering guitar legend and father of rock ‘n’ roll died in March 2017, aged 90, but his incredible legacy lives on.
Berry created the blueprint for modern rock music, and was a huge influence on The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen – all those young aspiring musicians who first picked up guitars in the mid-to-late ’50s and early ‘60s were in awe of him. In fact, John Lennon once famously said, “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.”
As well as being an extraordinary guitarist and a master of showmanship – Berry drew influences from blues, R&B and country and western, popularised double-stop riffs, put the guitar in the spotlight and became known for his ‘duck walk’ signature stage move – he was a gifted songwriter who created an exciting and rebellious new sound that appealed to post-war teenagers.
To celebrate Berry’s 100th birthday, maximum rock ‘n’ roll duo His Lordship, James Walbourne (guitar, vocals) and Kris Sonne (drums, vocals) – with some help from bassist and engineer/mixer Dave Page – have recorded an inspired album of re-workings of tracks from Berry’s back catalogue.
Called Promised Land, after the Berry song of the same name, it’s made up of both well-known and obscure Berry tunes, but His Lordship have put their own stamp on them, incorporating elements including proto-punk, garage rock, grunge, doo-wop, and New York girl-group harmonies, albeit with a modern twist.
Promised Land is ferocious, frantic and feral at times, but also great fun – it certainly sounds like the band must have had an absolute riot recording it.
To find out about the making of the album and the enduring influence of Berry, we caught up with Walbourne – who is also the guitarist with The Pretenders, one half of folk-rock duo The Rails, and currently a member of Primal Scream. We also got him to share some of his thoughts on another guitar legend, Johnny Marr, whom His Lordship supported on a US tour earlier this year.
MusicRadar: Hi James, let’s start off by talking about your love of Chuck Berry – you saw him play at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, when you were six years old. Your dad took you to the gig we understand?
James Walbourne: “Yeah – it was ’86 or ’87. I was very much in love with rock ‘n’ roll when I was a kid. That was my thing: Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis… I was enamoured with it and it just consumed me – that was the start of me being involved in music. I used to watch videos of those guys over and over at home, and I was fortunate that my dad took me to see some of those people that were alive in the ‘80s. I think the first gig I saw was Fats Domino at the Royal Festival Hall.”
MR: Can you remember anything about that first Chuck Berry gig you went to?
JW: “I remember waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘Oh my God – it’s eight hours before we see Chuck Berry!’ I remember there were Teddy Boys there and an underlying air of violence about the place – it was very different to what it would be like now.”
MR: I was going to ask you how much Chuck Berry has influenced your guitar playing, but, in a way, he’s subconsciously influenced every guitarist, hasn’t he?
JW: “That’s exactly right – you can’t get away from it, especially if you play some form of rock ‘n’ roll. His double-stop thing on the guitar… It’s like reading Shakespeare – you know how much Shakespeare influenced the English language? I guess it’s the same thing… He [Chuck Berry] is like the Shakespeare of rock ‘n’ roll, isn’t he?”
MR: Thanks to his showmanship, like his famous ‘duck walk’, Chuck Berry was one of the first artists to bring the electric guitar to the fore, rather than it being a background instrument, wasn’t he?
JW: “I think it had been going on before that with T-Bone Walker and Guitar Slim, but, I guess, until the advent of TV, no one had seen it. You read things about Guitar Slim and you think, ‘Oh my God – I would’ve loved to have gone and seen him’. Chuck Berry was playing rock ‘n’ roll pop music, and, suddenly, it was consumable for a much bigger audience.”
MR: He also embraced different genres, like blues, R & B and country…
JW: “And jazz… all of it. You can hear a lot of country in what he did. It’s a melting pot – a whole gumbo of musical styles. Elvis was the same.”
MR: Chuck Berry influenced The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan and Springsteen…
JW: “He’s almost too big to discuss in that regard… It’s like he wrote the book.”
MR: Last year, you played in St. Louis, Missouri – birthplace of Berry – as part of Chuck Berry’s Birthday Bash, with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. How was that?
JW: “It was a brilliant show, with Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun [from Living Colour] on bass and drums, and Chanel Haynes, who sings with The Stones. Lawrence Rothman did it, and Maggie Rose. I found it difficult to play Chuck Berry with an orchestra – it was challenging. I met Chuck’s family there – they’re a great bunch of people and funny. I got on very well with Charles [Berry Jr.] who is Chuck’s son.”
MR: So, how did the new His Lordship album, Promised Land, which is a Chuck Berry covers record, come about?
JW: “I came back to England, and we realised it was his 100th birthday [this year], so we thought, ‘Why not? It’d be a great thing to do to honour Chuck.’ We’ve got our own studio, [Karma Studios, London], so we thought we’d just do it. There wasn’t much thinking about it – we had the means to do it, so we did it, and the Berry family seemed into it; that was part of it. But we did f*** around with the songs quite a lot!”
MR: You’ve certainly put your own stamp on them, which is great. That’s what cover versions should be – not a pale imitation or a straight copy of the original…
JW: “As it’s the holy grail, I’d rather not do it like that… There’s been enough cover versions of those songs… I think the first song we did was Promised Land, which is my favourite [Chuck Berry song]. So, we started playing it and when we listened to it, it was quite disappointing because it was normal. I thought ‘the world doesn’t need this – it just sounds like us playing Chuck Berry’, so we decided we had to tear up the rule book and do it how we would approach our own songs, which is in a very different way. We had to deconstruct them, for want of a better word. That would be a better way of showing respect – what would Chuck Berry do in that situation?
“We had to try and reimagine the songs. That took a while to do. The journey was interesting and we had the luxury of the studio, so we could just go in and record – just the three of us; me, Kris Sonne and Dave Page. Dave is a great engineer and mixer – he understands it. So many times, you go into a studio, and people don’t understand what you’re after.”
MR: Tell us a bit about Karma Studios, where you made the album…
JW: “We originally got it to rehearse in… We rent it, and it’s got a great, big live room. We don’t have loads of old gear – we’re not that type of band. We’re very much into the modern style of recording. We didn’t want the album to sound like an old record.”
MR: You played a white Japanese Guyatone guitar that used to belong to Ry Cooder on some of the songs on the album, including the title track…
JW: “Yeah – it was hanging up in the studio, and we were told it was Ry Cooder’s – from an auction that he had not that long ago. It’s on a lot of the tracks – it didn’t sound like any other guitar; it’s very strange. I don’t think Ry Cooder might’ve used it like we did. It’s a mad old thing. I’m after one – I’m going to buy one…. It added some different layers and textures to the record.”
MR: Your version of the song Promised Land is quite grungy – it has layers of stacked-up guitars and sounds like Dinosaur Jr. meets Neil Young…
JW: “Because it’s my favourite song, I didn’t know how to approach it. The first time we did it we sounded like three guys playing down the pub! We went back several times to try it and, at some point, I just started playing it slow and finger-picked, almost like a folk song. I think we captured something a bit different there. It’s almost sort of Neil Young and Dinosaur Jr., with the screeching and loud guitars. They take over everything.”
MR: You’ve covered some well-known Chuck Berry songs on the album, like Roll Over Beethoven, Memphis, Tennessee and Brown Eyed Handsome Man, but there are also some deep cuts…
JW: “We didn’t want to play Johnny B. Goode – what’s the point? We listened to everything – several times – and I reacquainted myself with Chuck Berry a lot. I did a deep dive.”
MR: The album is fun to listen to. Was it fun to make?
JW: “It was, but at some points it was quite challenging – we went around the houses a bit to try and reimagine the songs. It was like, ‘How would Kraftwerk do Chuck Berry? OK – that sounds pretty good; let’s do that’. I’d go away and do a demo at home and then come in and play it to the boys, and then we’d go in and record it.
“The actual recording of the tracks we would only do a few times – it was very spur of the moment. We didn’t re-record and re-record… Once we’d found what we wanted, we’d only do a couple of takes – all live.
“There were only a few overdubs, we recorded some [extra] guitars on the song Promised Land, because that’s what it needed, but what you’re hearing [on most of the album] is a live band and live singing. I didn’t even have earphones on – none of us had them on – and I had a little monitor. We just recorded like they would’ve done back in the day, but we modernised it with the sounds we were using. The initial recording took five days, then we went back… The master tapes got nicked somewhere along the way! Luckily, we had made initial mixes that we loved and that’s what we had to use.”
MR: The album opens with Come On, which features Lisa Kekaula from The Bellrays on guest vocals, and is blistering proto-punk-meets-New-York-girl-group…
JW: Part of it was born out of frustration – how the hell do we do it? That one took a while… After going round the houses, we got a burst of energy and I said, ‘Let’s just stay on two chords’, and it worked – we just went full throttle for two minutes.”
MR: How did you hook up with Lisa?
JW: “We love the band, we asked her to do it and she said yes – it was as simple as that, and she adds a lot to it. I’d love to do some more stuff with The Bellrays.”
MR: Your version of I Want To Be Your Driver is frantic and ferocious…
JW: “It nearly killed Kris… That was a great one to do; it was inspired by Hendrix and Buddy Guy – the sound of those old recordings was wild, and I wanted to get that across.”
MR: Too Much Monkey Business is fast and garagey, with you spitting the lyrics out…
JW: “Yeah – I was totally spitting them out because they’re so great. There’s not any flashy guitar playing on it – it’s just purely about the song.”
MR: Little Star is a ballad with a doo-wop feel. It’s a Chuck Berry deep cut – an early ‘60s B-side…
JW: “Yeah – his version doesn’t sound anything like ours; there’s a girl group singing on his. For His Lordship, I wanted to make it sound like Lonely Saturday Night by Don French – for me, it’s the holy grail of how to make something sound: it’s a very haunting, slow and strangely played and recorded rock ‘n’ roll song. It was on an Ace Records compilation that I found when I was a kid – The Golden Age of American Rock ‘n Roll Volume 4. I would play it over and over again. Subsequently, I found out it [Lonely Saturday Night] was one of John Peel’s favourite songs. I had no idea.”
MR: On Jaguar and Thunderbird, you’re rapping…
JW: “I am. I was a little unsure about it, but the others pushed me into trying it. We had a lot of fun doing it and I think that comes across. We had to do our own thing with it – it’s quite far out; almost like The Beastie Boys meet Chuck Berry.”
MR: For Brown Eyed Handsome Man, you created a new guitar riff and a new melody…
JW: “That’s the one where we went quite far with reimagining it – I thought it needed to be completely different. It took a while to come up with it, but I was imagining Kraftwerk… even though it’s not… It’s that relentless riff that goes around. The whole thing with this album is not to concentrate on the sound of Chuck Berry – the big red ES-335 – but it’s more about his songs and how we reinterpret them. I didn’t want to sound like a facsimile of Chuck – I wanted to focus on his songwriting.”
MR: The last song on the album, Let It Rock, is a big way to end the record – it’s raucous, intense and unhinged…
JW: “It was unhinged. We were thinking along the lines of Jim Dickinson and those Memphis records he did with Alex Chilton, which were unhinged and played wildly. We just didn’t think about it – ‘let’s just f***ing play it!’ We were all off on a different planet – that’s the sort of rock ‘n’ roll we like. You don’t know where it’s going and there are mistakes in there. It’s a journey.”
MR: As well as the album, you’ve also made a 7in single for the resurrected Chiswick Records label – your version of Chuck Berry’s Nadine with his version on the B-side…
JW: “Yes – I’m finally on a record with Chuck Berry! It was an honour to be asked to do it.”
MR: Your take on Nadine is great – it’s very menacing…
JW: “It’s very straight-ahead garage rock. I think Nadine would’ve influenced all those Chiswick Records bands. I grew up playing in pubs all over London – that’s how I learnt the craft of playing in a band, and Nadine was one of those songs that everyone played. It was a massive song – the Wonderwall of pub rock!”
MR: What do you think Chuck Berry would make of your interpretations of his songs?
JW: “He’d either love it or hate it. We didn’t want to play it safe, so I think Chuck would possibly get off on that.”
MR: Do you think how you approached making the Promised Land album will influence how you make the next His Lordship record
JW: “Absolutely – our approach to it was a lot more free musically – we weren’t constrained by anything, and we thought out of the box. Now we can f***ing do anything – it doesn’t matter!”
MR: Earlier this year, His Lordship supported Johnny Marr on his US tour. How was that?
JW: “It was great – I love Johnny! Since I’ve got to know him, he’s been a tremendous supporter. What can you say about Johnny Marr? He’s obviously a great musician and a great songwriter, but he’s an even greater bloke. He’s very generous with his time.”
MR: He invited you on stage to play How Soon Is Now? with him and his band…
JW: “That was a real honour, and I was very proud to do it.”
MR: Were you tempted to buy any of his guitars when he put them up for auction this year?
JW: “I was away in the States… I couldn’t have bought anything at that price, but I’m glad they went. I could maybe have stretched to a poster. I was pleased that Johnny sold everything… Guitars come and go for me, but I’ve got my favourite SG and if anything happened to that it would kill me.”
MR: Did you play the SG on the Promised Land album?
JW: “Yeah – it was the SG and the Guyatone. When I first joined The Pretenders in 2008, we went to LA and recorded an album called Break Up the Concrete and we rented a bunch of guitars. I never thought I was an SG guy, but I picked one and I ended up f***ing around with it and using it on the whole record – I loved it! So, when I got back to London, I went to my mate Andy Hackett’s shop, Angel Music, in Denmark Street, which is now gone, and he had two SGs in there, so I bought one and I’ve had it ever since.”
MR: Have you bought any guitars or guitar tech recently?
JW: “I’m the worst person for this sort of thing – you need Johnny for this stuff! He would talk to you about pedals… I’m just not into the tech side. I tell you what, though, I bought a pedal called an Eventide H90 [Harmonizer], which is great – Troy [Van Leeuwen] from Queens of the Stone Age put me onto it. It’s a guitar processor pedal, which has many different sounds. It’s got me experimenting with a few things – it’s very powerful.”
MR: What’s the latest on The Pretenders?
JW: “I can’t say much about that yet, but I’m always working with Chrissie [Hynde] and writing songs. We’re having a bit of time off because we went quite hard for a few years, so we’re going to have a little break for a while.”
MR: You’ve been playing in Primal Scream this year – how’s that been?
JW: “It’s been great. It’s funny for me stepping into another band at this point – I haven’t joined another band for a long time. I’ve been playing in The Pretenders for 18 years and I’ve done The Rails… You never know what it’s going to be like, and you hear all these stories about the madness that goes with it, but everyone’s been great.
“They’re music lovers and I’ve learned a lot of new stuff from Bobby [Gillespie] – he plays records all the time. I love playing guitar with Andrew [Innes] – it’s great to play with another guitarist, because in all the other bands I play in, I’m the only guitarist. Andrew’s a great guitar player and I’ve loved hanging out with him.”
His Lordship’s Promised Land is released on November 13 on Psychonaut Sounds / PIAS. The album will be preceded by a one-off 7in single of Nadine, on Chiswick Records, with Chuck Berry’s version on the B-side (released October 30).
Next month, His Lordship are playing two nights at London’s legendary 100 Club. For more info head to the band’s official website.
