You’re not going to hear a heavier guitar album — and a damn good sounding one at that — in 2013 than Leslie West’s Still Climbing. Battling some severe health hiccups these past two years (most notably, having his leg amputated due to diabetes), one could have easily counted this mountain of a musician and songwriter out of rock and roll for good.
But, as you’ll see in the following interview, this legendary Long Island native Leslie West is here to stay, feeling stronger than ever and thrilled to be still climbing…
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We thank you so much for doing this. Vintage Rock is filled with readers who are definitely big fans of yours and so happy to hear new music from you.
Well, listen, that’s a mainstay for me — the fans’ support.
I’ve read quite a few pieces of press on how you got inspired to make Still Climbing — hell, to play again — when plugging in your guitar and just hearing its tone at a Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp gig.
Well, the fantasy camp was only a month or two — I lost my leg two years ago in June and the fantasy camp was August of that year — so it was less than two months when I played for the first time since losing my leg. I see all these guys and girls at the fantasy camp and first thing they do is they plug their guitar in and they turn their amp up all the way and that’s it. The most important thing is the tone. I’m not known as a shredder or a fast player, and I work on my tone every day, trying to improve it. So yes, hearing it coming back to me on stage like that was very important to me.
The work you do on your tone certainly shows on Still Climbing. I’m not sure I have heard a guitar sound like this…probably ever.
That tone I got, whatever you hear on the album, is just the sounds coming out of my amp, not processed. I mean there’s some reverb, delay but my co-producer Mike Goldberg just recorded my amps as I plugged into them and played.
And you say you got some very good encouragement early on, huh?
Yeah, on the first track, “Dyin’ Since The Day I Was Born,” I have Mark Tremonti (lead guitarist for both Creed and Alter Bridge) playing on it with me. Slash is a good friend of mine and I wanted to get his opinion, so I sent him the track to see what he says, and he wrote me back saying, ‘Leslie, you can’t get any fatter then this track!’ That’s all I had to hear.
Besides that fatness, which I adore really, I think there are some solid hard commercial rock tracks here. But I understand your songwriting process was slightly different this time around, right?
Yes, my wife Jenni wrote lots of the lyrics here. I never wanted to work with my wife because my past experience is my partner Felix Pappalardi (Mountain bassist, songwriter and producer) worked with his wife and she ended up shooting him! So I just didn’t think it was a good idea. But when I started this album, I didn’t have any new songs. Usually it’s like the record company tells you, “We have to have the album in two months.” But I took a year to write this and I found I’d get up in the morning to find these lyrics appearing in my iPad Cloud’s note section — Jenni and I both have iPads — and I realized Jenni was sending me lyrics just to look at. Sometimes I had music I needed lyrics for or I saw the lyric was so strong I’d write music for it. It worked out great; I couldn’t deny how strong some of her stories were. Jenni wrote lyrics on my last album Unusual Suspects, but here she really showed a great talent. I’m so proud of what she did.
I also enjoyed your choice of the covers, like the Anthony Newley’s “Feeling Good.”
It’s funny you say that — most people don’t know it’s an Anthony Newly tune. The real reason I did it was that I originally heard Stevie Winwood do it with Traffic, but everybody and their mother has done that song — from Barbara Streisand on up. I always wanted to do it, so I called Dee Snider up, I said, “Dee, I got a song I’d love to sing with you” and some lady heard our version, I think she was either English or Scandinavian, and she said she couldn’t tell who is me and who is Dee.
That’s funny, I thought the same thing. Then you and Johnny Winter trade off slide on “Busted, Disgusted or Dead.”
Oh yeah, Johnny’s got his own distinct style for sure!
I also loved your rendition of “When A Man Loves A Woman” with Johnny Lang.
Johnny was on tour in New Jersey with Buddy Guy. He had a day off before his show so he came over to the studio and we sang together. I always loved that song, of course, but never knew I could sing it. We stayed in the control room a foot away from each other playing, his guitar solo and mine. And he sings so great!
So, what about a tour, is that possible at this point in time?
Well, I know I’m playing the Iridium in New York City on November 13th for the launch of the album, but it’s a little difficult getting around. Believe it or not, in the whole country there are no tour busses that are handicapped accessible. I have a great vehicle, an MB1. It looks like a big Range Rover but in the middle there are these two ramps that come out to fit to where I drive up to and I can fit and lock my wheelchair into where the passenger seat would be, it fits right in. But for a long ride it’s rough. So we have to plan that out and it’s not easy. A lot of things changed over the past two years.
I recently played with Peter Frampton on Long Island. All the years Mountain toured when Peter Frampton did and I never got to play with Peter. It was amazing we got to play together and he’s such a sweetheart of a guy. So I just know that where there’s a will there’s a way.
Speaking of Frampton, you and so many players I have seen lately well past their 29th birthday, if you know what I mean, all seem to be getting better if anything. I even saw Corky Laing recently at the Bonzo Bash and he kicked ass.
Well, I work at it. I mean, I haven’t talked to Corky in two years. The last show we were gonna do was in Biloxi, Mississippi, and that’s when I lost my leg and we couldn’t do the show. I don’t talk to or about him anymore; it’s an internal problem. But yeah, there are lots of us still doing it, some not so well, out there probably just to make the mortgage; yo know, that was never my main motivation to play. But I have to say there are some young guys out there that I like a lot. One of my favorite is Bruno Mars. He’s super talented and he’s got the band so tight.
Does the title Still Climbing have a bunch of meanings for your specific situation?
Well, my brother named the album and if you notice on Still Climbing there’s a picture of a rocket ship blasting off with my logo on it. The reason for that was to tie in to my past, with the first Mountain album released in 1969 and that summer was the first manned lunar landing. So I’m just tying it together with that rocket and the fact that I’m still climbing.
