5

The Multitalented Chris ScruggsWhen your mother is singer Gail Davies, your father

songwriter Gary Scruggs, your maternal grandfathercountry singer Tex Dickerson, and your paternalgrandfather the great Earl Scruggs, it is only natural that you would also end up amusician. Toting awesome musicality and playing skills that well surpass his blessed musicgenes, Chris Scruggs has made a name for himself as a talented singer and songwriterwho has mastered the guitar, bass, mandolin, and steel guitar. He’s worked with suchnotable acts as Marty Stuart, She & Him, M. Ward, Andrew Bird, and Charlie Louvin(among many others) and in 2009 released his first solo album, Anthem. In 2013, Scruggsplayed on both ofMichael Nesmith’ssolo tours,impressing Nesmithfans with hisbacking guitar andpedal steel. I caughtup with Scruggsbefore the last stopof the 2013 Moviesof the Mind Nesmithtour.Alexandra Newman:

When did you startplaying, what gotyou interested inplaying aninstrument in thefirst place, and whatwas your firstguitar?Chris Scruggs: I’d always loved music and been fascinated with the guitar and at eleven I

was old enough to wrap my fingers around a guitar neck and make chords. The moment itclicked for me was when I saw The Beatles in A Hard Days Night. After that I was like,“Ok, time to start taking this seriously.” I learned my first chords on my mother’s 1961Martin D-28.AN: You come from a very musical family, who I’m sure played a great role in shaping

your career today. Who are your other major influences?CS: Yeah, particularly my mom (country singer/songwriter/producer Gail Davies) played a

big influence on me musically growing up. Even when I was a little kid, we would be inthe car and she would sing a line off of the top of her head and then she would look atme to come up with something that rhymed. It was a fun game for me at the time butshe was actually teaching me how to be a songwriter.The Beatles were huge for me, as were Bob Dylan, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry and

all the ‘50s country singers like Hank Williams, Webb Pierceand Carl Smith. I briefly got into punk rock as an early teen,but it quickly just led me back to the early rock and rollers

By Alexandra Newman

continued on next page

Chris onstage with the great Michael Nesmith

of the ‘50s like Eddy Cochran and Gene Vincent. I still think “Be-Bop-A-Lula” might just bethe most perfect recording ever made.AN: What kind of guitars do you use? Any interest in vintage guitars?CS: I am absolutely obsessed with vintage guitars.It was the perfect storm back then of relatively smaller builders making things largely by

hand with better materials and you just can’t beat that. After the British Invasion,everybody and their cousin wanted a guitar and the old quality standard couldn’t keep upwith the new production demand. That and the best raw materials like highly figuredBrazilian rosewood and old growth Adirondack spruce went from plentiful to almost non-existent.There are some great utility instruments being made today, but they just don’t have the

soul of a great vintageguitar, nor will they,because the guitars fromthe ‘30s, through the early‘60s were exciting andinnovative, rendering theolder styled instrumentsobsolete. You couldn’t playbluegrass guitar before thecreation of the Martindreadnaught, you couldn’tcut through a big bandbefore the Gibson L-5 andyou couldn’t play what isnow considered rock & rollbefore the Telecaster orLes Paul. The same goesfor the Fender Bass.The best guitars being built today are trying to recapture what Martin and Gibson did in

the late ‘30s with acoustics and what Fender and Gibson did in the ‘50s with electrics.Some of them are doing it very well, but the innovation has been replaced by tradition,much like with violins. The Stradivarius has not yet been rendered obsolete and that’swhy, centuries later, the real Strads are still the most desired.Some of my collection highlights are my ‘62 Telecaster, my ‘63 Stratocaster, my ‘56

Gretsch Firebird Jet, my ‘61 Gibson ES-345 and my 1938 L-5N.AN: Could you describe your set-up, amps, pedals, strings, tuning, etc?CS: I use different set-ups depending on who I’m playing with. With Nesmith my main

two instruments are my 1954 Fender Dual Professional steel (tuned to C6/A7 and F13)and my 1963 Fender Jaguar. I have a 1919 Gibson Model A I use for mandolin and alate model J-45 for my road acoustic. I have a nice old Martin D-18, but I leave it athome because it doesn’t have a pickup.With She & Him and M. Ward I use either an ES-335 or a Telecaster and a Precision

Bass with flatwounds for the songs when bassist Mike Coykendall plays acoustic guitar.I’m pretty boring in regards to effects. I always like to have reverb, tremelo and an

analog delay pedal handy. I use overdrive very sparingly. I typically use a Fender DeluxeReverb amp.Sometimes I use flatwound strings and sometimes I use rounds. It all depends on the

6

gig. I prefer .011-.049s for most of my electrics.AN: When you write, do you find yourself dealing more with lyrical content or the music

itself?CS: It tends to happen at the same time. The melody might happen in my head just a

moment before the words kick in, but it’s a very simultaneous process. Usually I’m justwalking down the street or tapping my foot and then start humming and then start writingon the first piece of paper I can grab.AN: For years I’ve read all the different approaches to recording. What is the process like

for you? For the most part is everything written and rehearsed before you hit the studio ordo you go in cold? Is much improvised?CS: I think a fair amount is improvised. I love recording live in a room with other people

and I like to keep that experience as pure as possible. Many of my favorite records wererecorded that way, from Carl Perkins at Sun Records to Highway 61 Revisited andbeyond.There is, however, something about that “perfect pop record” and Paul McCartney

definitely set a standard for one guy going in and doing it all perfectly himself, from drumsto guitars to bass to vocals. While I prefer the wild live approach, I have sometimes donethe multi-tracked do-it-all-yourself approach, too. As a multi-instrumentalist that issometimes the easier path.AN: Out of everyone you’ve had the pleasure of working with, who stands out as being

particularly memorable? Why?CS: I was out on the west coast a couple of years ago opening for Jonathan Richman.

He definitely stands apart from anyone else I’ve ever seen play, night after night. He hasa sincerity and a purity to what he does that I don’t think can be matched by anyone elsein the world. Ever. He is absolutely a true artist. He breathes it.AN: Whose music do you listen to when you want to relax?CS: For relaxing I love instrumental steel guitar music. Jerry Byrd will always be the

greatest there has ever been. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Benny Goodmanrecords. The small band stuff with Charlie Christian on guitar.AN: Between your touring with She & Him and your tours with Michael Nesmith, how has

the difference in fan base affected your stage presence? Or do the fans play a role foryou?CS: It’s apples to oranges, really. With Nesmith the whole band is seated so that kind of

rules out any chance of doing the splits or anything like that. With She & Him or with M.Ward I get to strut around a little bit more, but I try to remain in a supportive role. Whenyou are a side musician, the last thing you want to do is detract from the singer. I try tomake it so that anything flashy I do directs the attention back to the singer at centerstage.My buddy Kenny Vaughan is an absolute master at that. He will walk out to the very

front of the stage, play the most amazing solo you’ve ever heard, shake his legs and leanhis guitar neck towards the singer right at the end of his run in a way that elevates thewhole song and never takes away from the person he’s playing with. That is such a finewire to walk and he does it with such grace.AN: Your playing style and musicality boast of your well-rounded knowledge of music

history. How did you get involved with Michael Nesmith? Were you aware of his solowork?CS: Michael did a UK tour last year with just a two piece

7

continued on page 33

backing band. Early this year Paul Leim (sessiondrummer extraordinaire) called me and said Nezwas going out on a US tour and wanted a

guitarist/steel player to help round the sound out. I was in LA with M. Ward and luckilymy schedule had me flying home to Nashville the day before the Nesmith rehearsalsstarted, so it all worked our beautifully!I was born in 1982 and grew up on the

Monkees TV reruns. Nez was always myfavorite as a kid because he played theguitar and wore than cool green cap. I knewhis more popular tunes like “Joanne”, “SilverMoon” and “Different Drum” but didn’t knowsome of his deeper catalogue stuff like theTropical Campfires songs until I startedplaying with him.AN: Has there been any pressure (real or

imagined) to follow in the footsteps of RedRhodes’s legacy or have you beenencouraged to forge your own way on stage?CS: Not so much. A little at first. From day

one Nez told me to play in a certainaesthetic Red used where you play bigchords and let slight changes within thechords define the chord changes.Red Rhodes was a definite stylist on the

steel and that’s something you don’t hear somuch of anymore. In a way the pedalsopened up endless possibilities but in theend I think the evolution of pedals on steelguitar has led to many steel players soundingvery similar to one another. Because of this,I’ve always played in the non pedal tradition, because even while I’m sure there is muchto be discovered on the pedal guitar, I figure I have a better chance of sounding differentand unique on a “lap” steel. I pull the strings behind the bar and use a lot of bar slantsso it’s not like I can’t keep up with what a pedal player does. It just sounds a little bitdifferent and a little more unique because I’m doing the same thing organically and notmechanically. You’re style is dictated by your limitations, you know?I think Nez tuned on to the different quality of what I was doing very quickly and

basically gave me free range to play what I feel on the songs. I suppose he maybe sawthat I was a different kind of steel player in the spirit of how Red was a different kind ofsteel player, so I try to keep his unique flavor present in what I do on the songs hestylistically defined.No matter how hard you try, you will always wind up sounding like yourself on a steel

guitar. It’s such a personal instrument. That bar doesn’t lie! I like to keep the signaturelicks present and maintain the trademarks that made a song memorable on the originalrecording, but at the end of the day, you will always sound like yourself, so you need tobe comfortable with who that is.

Chris Scruggs continued from page 7

33