Smitty: Yeah, and “Your Move,” man, what a track.
EM: Well, thank you. That’s one of the ones that I wrote with Lorber. Jeff and I, we actually got back from a really nice tour in Europe just a few days ago, as a matter of fact.
Smitty: Nice.
EM: And he’s been involved in almost every record I’ve done. Jeff Lorber practically invented smooth jazz.
Smitty: Yeah.
EM: He’s one of the founding fathers, right?
Smitty: Yes he is.
EM: He’s great. He’s an absolute mad scientist genius.
Smitty: (Laughs.)
EM: And he plays everything. He plays guitar, he plays drums, he plays bass, he obviously plays keyboards. I mean, he’s just a wild man.
Smitty: Yeah. Well, yeah, he’s the Schiznick, you know? (Both laugh.) Yeah, that’s a name I gave him years ago and it’s just stuck.
EM: That’s good.
Smitty: Yeah, it just kinda stuck, you know? And you got my boy Dave Weckl on there, man, on that track “Your Move.”
EM: Yeah, Dave is in the Electric Band with me and so over all these years we’ve become super good friends and Dave is just one of the preeminent drummers in the world.
Smitty: Oh yeah.
EM: And it’s just so cool to have such a huge drum god as a good buddy who I can just call and say “Hey, Dave, you’re playing on my record. You have no choice.” (Both laugh.) “I’ll be over tomorrow.”
Smitty: Yeah.
EM: Yeah, he’s a great guy. He was actually on this tour that we did with Jeff in Europe and it’s always great to hang with Dave.
Smitty: Yeah, great guy. Man, and I guess Paul must’ve heard some acoustic guitar on this track or something, right? (Laughs.)
EM: He sure did, yeah. Actually, on that track it’s both Jeff and Paul playing guitars.
Smitty: Yeah. How ‘bout that?
EM: Yeah, that’s a combination you don’t see on too many records.
Smitty: Yeah, I was gonna say that’s rare there, man.
EM: There you go. You heard it here first. (Both laugh.)
Smitty: Wow, well, I gotta tell you, Eric, just sitting next to Brian Culbertson and you said “Hey, how would you like to produce my next record?” Think about the opportunity that you may have for someone to say that to you, you know? You’re sitting next to someone who says “Hey, Eric, how would you like to do this on my next record?” I think that is one of the ultimate compliments of a musician, for someone to just casually say something like that and really mean it and then make it happen. I think that’s a beautiful thing.
EM: Yeah, it’s one of the cool things about the jazz community of musicians, quite frankly, is that it’s—it really is a brotherhood. I mean, people really enjoy playing in different configurations of bands together. From a business standpoint you go out and play with collaborations. In fact, I’m out right now with Chuck Loeb, great guitar player.
Smitty: Yeah.
EM: But it’s really more about the music and it’s just so much fun to play with different musicians and not just play, but write and produce and do different things musically, and it’s just one of the great joys about being a musician, getting to know the people on a friendship level but through music.
Smitty: Yeah. Are you ever without music? Man, I think you live and breathe music 24/7. (Laughs.)
EM: Yeah. Well, you know, like you mentioned, I have my family and we have two great kids who are actually both in college now, so family is obviously more important than anything, but music is part of that and music is a big part of my family. Both my kids are musicians and my wife plays the radio. (Both laugh.) She likes music. She doesn’t play it, but she likes it a lot. She’d better.
Smitty: Well, that helps. (Both laugh.)
EM: But yeah, just like anything else. We’re all really into the things that we like the most, but there certainly has to be a balance and you’ve gotta make sure that balance is in your life, I guess.
Smitty: Absolutely, man. Well, I’ve gotta speak of the liner notes. I love the cover. I think it’s a really cool cover. And thank you for doing a cover, an album cover, that I can read. (Both laugh.) I hear this all the time that fans get certain projects where—and they love to read the liner notes. Trust me, they love to read them and so do I. I mean, it goes back to my days of the LPs. That was part of the experience.
EM: Yeah.
Smitty: And sometimes you get these liner notes where the colors all blend and you’re cross-eyed and you’re trying to read it and the colors don’t contrast enough, and then the text is ultra tiny and small and you can’t read it unless you get some bifocals or a pair of binoculars, so I can’t compliment you enough for keeping it real and keeping it simple, with great photography, and it’s just a beautiful project all around, man.
EM: Well, thanks. Yeah, Peak Records, I think, does just a terrific job with their artwork and with all those kinds of things, like liner notes and all, and I think nowadays that certainly helps so, I mean, most people—I don’t know about most people, but a lot of people certainly buy their music—hopefully buy their music online as opposed to going and getting the hard CD.
Smitty: Yes.
EM: But it benefits musicians more to sell the actual CDs. Quite frankly, you make more money when you sell a CD than when you just sell songs online.
