Eric Johnson: Our Complete 2012 Interview, Part 1

On Old Strats, the Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster, and Other Favorite Guitars

Eric Johnson, 2012. Photograph by Max Crace. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

For Eric Johnson, the creation of sublime music has always been about the journey inward – an approach shared by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix, and others who’ve risen to the top of their art. In 1982, during our first interview together, Johnson explained, “I always try to connect myself with what I’m feeling inside and hearing inside. I think that’s the best way to try to achieve your own feel for the guitar. It’s like intuition: ‘Intuition’ is like the ‘tuition from inside.’ And if you get with that, your own self will show you how to play guitar.”

During the decades since the then-nationally-unknown Johnson spoke those words, his devotion to his art has become legendary. It’s evident in his songs, interviews, instruments, and the way he plays guitar. To those who knew him early on, this quality was evident from the start. As Stevie Ray Vaughan said in 1986, “The guy has done more trying to be the best that he can be than anybody I’ve ever seen. He plays all the time, and tries to get his instrument in perfect shape all the time. He works hard on his tone, sound, techniques. Eric is a wonderful cat. He’s always been one of my favorite people in the world, as well as one of my favorite guitar players.”

Eric’s dedication has paid off with astoundingly good albums – Tones, Ah Via Musicom, Venus Isle, and Up Close, to name a few – as well as the old-school-meets-state-of-the-art Fender Signature Stratocaster that bears his name. (In preparation for our interview, I spoke at length with Fender lead engineer Michael Frank-Braun, who spent more than a year co-designing the guitar with Eric.)

Near the end of our first interview all those years ago, I asked Eric about what he’d like to accomplish. “I’d like to have my own studio,” he responded, “and be able to record albums the way I want, which is really experimenting with guitar. I’d just like to contribute some new things for guitar.”

The following interview took place on October 13, 2012, in – dreams do sometimes come true! – Eric’s own studio in Austin, Texas. Joining us were Ryan Rhea, on hand to make video recordings, and Eric’s longtime friend and current manager, photographer Max Crace. Due to the extraordinary length of this interview — two hours and forty minutes — I’ve split the transcription into two parts. During this first part, done sitting in the kitchen area of Eric’s studio, we focused on early Strats, the new Fender Eric Johnson Signature Stratocaster, and some of Eric’s other favorite guitars. In the second part, which will be posted soon, we discuss the origins of several of his most beloved songs, the role of spirituality in creativity, our favorite musicians, and how undertaking a journey inward enhances the creation of a unique style. Moments before we began talking, Eric placed one of his Signature Stratocasters on the table in front of us.

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What is it about Stratocasters from 1954, 1957, and 1958 that is so special for you?

That’s a really good question. I think it’s several things. I’ve always wondered what it was. I think that they had a shipment of wood at Fender that was real special – that was one thing. I think that kind of wood is really hard to get nowadays, and even though it’s a solidbody guitar, it makes a difference in the way the sound travels. You know, when you go out to a restaurant and you eat a meal and you feel really good, it might have been because the person preparing the meal had all this great emotion and vibes. It’s like whatever we do goes into what we do. You know what I mean? On a very subtle level we can feel that. People probably build the guitar with the same kind of love and excitement, but I think there’s two factors that you can’t deny, and that is it has become more C&C and more computer and more mass-produced. So it’s hard to infuse that same amount of personal touch that was there that would, perhaps – depending on the individual – permeate the instrument to have that old violin thing.

And the other thing that’s kind of undeniable is it was a point in time where the electric guitar was so new, and every week you’d hear somebody on the radio or on a record and say, “I’ve never heard that!” It was so new that people’s vibe about doing it was just like brand new. It had that kind of birth energy to it. It’s almost like you’re in the studio and you record that first track, and it’s got this magic. And then you go back and do it ten times, and it’s, “Oh, it’s actually better now, but it’s not as fun to listen to or it’s not as good.” So I think those two factors play into it. They’re still making great instruments, but it’s hard to recapture those two issues as time rolls on.

Do you think it’s possible that the fact that 1950s Fenders are more than a half-century old and have aged and become more of a unit . . . .

One unit – yeah, I think so. Yeah, you’re right. That – definitely. That’s why whenever I see a vintage instrument, I always think it’s cool if somebody didn’t take all the parts off and put them in a big box and put everything back together somewhere else, because it’s had 40 years to be the way it is and grow into that entity. I’m kind of ridiculous about that: “Oh, make sure the screws go back in the same place,” you know. And the only reason for that is because they’ve been there for 40 years, and I think they do what you say. All these parts, because they’ve sat and they’ve had time to gestate, turn it into a complete entity. And if you do disturb that, it does affect the sound.

When you purchase an old guitar or trade for one, what do you look for? How do you tell? Is it something you know intuitively, is it something you hear?

I go for a particular thing. I like it where when you’re playing with a clean tone, the sound is real crisp but it kind of punches out. But then when you go to the lead sound, it kind of sucks in, more like a Gibson does. They have more of this kind of folding-in character to them. So it’s almost like you get the best of both worlds. You get that real pronounced EQ clarity for the rhythm tone, but the more you push the amp or you push the guitar, it starts folding in upon itself. It’s a response of the parts and the wood and the way it resonates. Some guitars will do the exact opposite – they’ll kind of be a little bit edgy-sounding on the top end when you’re on the clean tone, and then as you push it more and more, they start going out, so they bloom out. As they bloom out instead of folding in, you hear every single pick attack. And it’s not only the sound of the pick attack which bugs me a little bit, but it’s also the fact that if you’re pronouncing that pick attack so much, the note is not recovering quick enough for you to go to the next note. One way is in favor of your picking, and it’s kind of more like an impulse ballet thing that breathes out and folds back in the same sync of your pick, and the other way is like you’re fighting it and you’re actually tripping-up your sound. So I look for a guitar that kind of does that.