Ottmar Liebert visited The Drive with Steve Jaxon yesterday, to talk about his show last night at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma. He spoke with Steve, played a song and they gave away a pair of tickets to the show. Here is a transcript of the interview.
Ottmar Liebert on The Drive with Steve Jaxon
Steve Jaxon: We’re honored to have as our first guest today, the wonderful guitarist Ottmar Liebert. Welcome and a pleasure to meet you.
Ottmar Liebert: Thanks very much, nice to be here.
SJ: He will be at the Mystic tonight, folks, we’re going to be handing out a pair of tickets plus a CD and a chance to meet up with Ottmar tonight at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma. OK, the new album, “Waiting n Swan.”
OL: Say it fast.
SJ: Waiting and So On.
OL: “Waiting and so on.”
SJ: Waiting and So On. Very clever!
OL: It’s Caribbean. I didn’t come up with it. It’s Caribbean Creole.
SJ: So you were telling me, off air, how this kind of came about. Talk about it, because it’s mostly Bob Marley tunes that we all know and love.
OL: Right. Well, I wanted to do something that showcased the rhythm called Tangos, which is a Flamenco rhythm, always sounded similar to Reggae to me. And so I discovered that the rhythm was actually brought to Spain by sailors from the Caribbean, and then it became Tangos Flamenco, and I wanted to show how those two rhythms even to this day hundreds of years later, they really relate, they work together. So we’d have on the record, we’d have the drum kit would play Reggae and the percussion would be in Flamenco Tangos rhythm. Or one guitar would play Tangos and the other would play Reggae. And the reason I liked this idea so much is that, you know, we always think of some of these things, whether it’s Flamenco or Bluegrass as these pure traditions, but when you go back far enough, there’s always a meeting of different cultures that came, and people found something that other people were doing. “Oh that’s really cool.” When you think about it, that’s what America is.
SJ: Rock and roll!
OT: Lots of different foods, and Rock and Roll has, you know, its influences from all kinds of other places,
SJ: Very cool. How long have you been doing this now, I know you started at least playing guitar at a really young age.
OL: Yeah, and my first record came out I think in 1990 so even that is now 26 years. It’s crazy!
SJ: And, this is fascinating to me too. You were born in Cologne, Germany. Your father was Chinese German and your mother was Hungarian.
OL: Right.
SJ: Wow. What was that like growing up? How long did you live in Germany?
OL: I left when I think I was 19. I, uh, my grandfather obviously spent most of his time in China, so I had heard about him traveling back and forth on the Trans-Siberian train and so I got myself a ticket from Cologne. There’s a Paris-Moscow express, took a train to Moscow, and then the Trans-Siberian train to Nakhodka, which is near Vladivostok, it’s the harbor, the civilian harbor, and from there I took a boat to Yokohama and basically travelled around Asia for a year until I was 20 years old, then I came here at some point.
SJ: And now you live in the US, don’t you?
OL: Yeah! I have lived in Santa Fe for thirty years now.
SJ: That’s what I figured because I know this album was recorded in Santa Fe. Very cool.
OL: I tried to leave but I can’t find anything like it.
SJ: That’s how I feel about this place, you know? This area is like…
OL: The food, the culture, the landscape…
SJ: Tonight at the Mystic, this is going to be great, are you going to be solo?
OL: No, we’ll have, I have a great band, I play guitar obviously, John Gagan has been playing bass since 1989 and he was on the very first album, then the last four or five years we’ve played with Chris Steele, who plays Flamenco percussion but he was also for years and years in a Reggae band, so he’s one of the few people who can actually handle both, which is great. And then this year we added Peter Adams, who plays accordion and keyboard that it just gives it that vibe. For some reason the accordion… You know, most people think of accordion as more of a Polka thing, but there’s a whole other part of playing it that I discovered years ago that, for example, the Algerians do, sort of an Arabic version of the accordion and it just fits great with the music.
SJ: Very cool. Tonight, at the Mystic in Petaluma, and live here in the studio with his guitar, the great Ottmar Liebert, on The Drive.
(Ottmar Liebert plays the guitar, from 4:33 to 7:15)
SJ: That guitar is custom made, I assume?
OL: Yeah.
SJ: And the strings look interesting.
OL: I think it was a thing in the ‘60s where they had black nylon, and I think this company, D’Addario, is making those again as Flamenco strings and they just sound great.
SJ: Yeah, they really do.
OL: I really like the way they stay in tune.
SJ: OK, 636-1350, we have a pair of tickets for the show tonight at the Mystic, Ottmar Liebert, and also you can meet Ottmar and you get a copy of his new CD. So give us a call right now and jump in on it, the first person in will grab it. We’re a little short on time, so just talk to Mike and he’ll make it happen. And can we do one more?
OL: ahh
SJ: You’ve got to do a sound check?
OL: Yeah, we’ve go to go back.
SJ: We’ll play some more from the album. Ottmar Liebert, tonight!
OL: Thanks, man. Thanks very much.
SJ: Great to meet you, man.
OL: Thanks very much.
SJ: I’ve really been a fan for years. Tonight, the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma. All right, we’ll be back on The Drive. Stay tuned.
(Music plays)
For more information about Ottmar Liebert, visit his website http://ottmarliebert.com/index-html5.php.