A Conversation With Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell talks about being a young musician in New York City, the making of 'Future Shock,' the story behind his different labels and collaborations, and the roots of his eclectic tastes
Not many artists have been at the forefront of everything, but that seems to describe producer and bassist, Bill Laswell. Although originally from Illinois, Laswell came of age in late-‘60s Michigan, where people like MC5 manager, John Sinclair, were putting on shows with eclectic, incongruous lineups—as in Archie Shepp opening for the Stooges, or Miles Davis’ Wayne Shorter-era band playing with Sly and the Family Stone—and that diversity rubbed off on him.
Laswell relocated to New York City in the mid-1970s, and fell in with the city’s booming loft scene, where he interacted with artists like Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill, and Phillip Wilson. But it was a fortuitous review in the New York Times of his band, Deadline—the precursor to Material—that put him on the map. That review piqued Brian Eno’s interest, who included him on his 1981 release with David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. That led to many other projects, including Laswell’s breakthrough, Herbie Hancock’s 1983 effort, Future Shock, which, among other things, introduced record scratching to the masses.
Laswell has also had a close association with a number of record labels, the first being Jean Georgakarakos’ Celluloid Records. Although it wasn’t his label, Laswell was responsible for a significant chunk of Celluloid’s output, including early hip hop releases by artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Mixer DXT, and Fab 5 Freddy. His next label was Axiom, which was an imprint under the auspices of Island Records’ founder, Chris Blackwell, and afforded Laswell the opportunity to record albums as disparate as Sonny Sharrock’s landmark final release, Ask The Ages, the Master Musicians of Jajouka, and recordings of his own bands, Material and Praxis. His current label is M.O.D. Reloaded, which continues his diverse offerings, including a project with songwriter, Kristo Rodzevski, his own, Against Empire, and many others.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Laswell’s name is associated with artists as varied as Mick Jagger, Motörhead, Yoko Ono, various members of the P-Funk crew—including multiple projects with Bernie Worrell—Buckethead, tabla master Zakir Hussain, and on and on.
Laswell and I spoke on the phone—he was at home in Manhattan—and discussed his early years in Michigan, the ramifications of John Rockwell’s review in the New York Times, the making of Future Shock, his role at assorted record labels, and his thoughts about the impact of different changes in the industry over the years.
I first saw you in the ‘80s in Boston, at a place called Johnny D’s, with Last Exit. Was the point of that project to get Sonny Sharrock out of retirement?
No. I got Sonny out of retirement two years before that. He managed to make his own groups and continue. What happened with Last Exit was that around 1986, I had a gig with Fred Frith and I think it was Anton Fier and Peter Brötzmann, and something happened with Fred and Anton. I had been working with Ronald Shannon Jackson on and off, and I decided to contact Sonny. We had a tour in Europe—we weren’t even called Last Exit yet—that name happened in the middle of that tour.
Is that band what led to Sonny Sharrock’s Ask the Ages sessions?
We were on a tour and I think we were in Berlin. Sonny and I had arrived a little early, so we went to the bar in the hotel, and we were talking. At that point, I had established a label with Chris Blackwell, and I pretty much could do whatever I wanted. I asked Sonny, “If you really wanted to do something, what’s the thing that you would do?” He said, “I’d like to work with Elvin Jones and Pharaoh Sanders”—he was looking at his major influence, who was John Coltrane. I said, “Let’s do it. I’ll get the budget, and we’ll make it.” As far as a bass player, I was pretty sure I wanted it to be an acoustic bass. I thought that would resound well with Elvin’s sound. We started talking about ideas, like Reggie Workman, Charlie Haden, and those kind of people. The next day Shannon Jackson came. We said, “We’re going to make a record with Elvin and Pharaoh, and we’re looking for a bass idea.” He recommend Charnett Moffett. He thought Charnett would listen to Elvin, respect him, and maybe even be slightly intimidated. That would be a nice addition to the three others, and that’s how it happened. As soon as we got back to New York, we started mapping it out.
That album was on Axiom, which was your imprint. Did you have free rein to do what you wanted?
Yes. At the end of the day there were about 30-plus records that came out, and then later on, when Chris changed labels to create Palm Pictures, I did a few more. That was basically Axiom again.
You’ve been around to see many changes in format, from vinyl, to CD, to downloads and streaming, how have these changes impacted both things like budgets and funding, but also creative decisions?
I wasn’t so conscious of format. It is true that with the CD, you could put a lot more music, which was a great thing. In certain areas, you could do pretty long extended pieces, and the CD format helped that a lot. Everybody right away still missed vinyl, because they missed the covers and all that. Now vinyl has come back. I am sure there’ll be future formats—if there is a future—but in case there is, there’ll probably be different formats. Hopefully, one day you will be able to make an endless release, which doesn’t have to be limited to any time. The time is not relevant, it’s the quality of the work.
Were you impacted during the Napster era and with piracy? Did that have an impact on budgets or what you were able to do?
Starting around 9/11, budgets got different. Labels started to disappear, and everything has been gradually different. In some cases, in the last two years, other things have changed. Vinyl is back in a big way in some territories, and there are more people making good music. All the people who quit, should have quit. There were too many bands, too much music, and a lot of it was pointless. For all the hardship and struggle, there are a lot of good points that came out of that. You are going to rise to the top if it’s great, and if not, maybe it’s time to pack up and go away. There was just too much at one point.
Are you saying that you see these changes as a weeding out process? It’s a positive thing.
Well I did. I haven’t really thought that way for a while, or even paid attention, but yeah, I guess there was a moment when I thought that way.
When you were starting out, in Michigan, the scene was extremely diverse.
I lived very close to Ann Arbor and the colleges—Lansing and East Lansing—and of course Detroit. Funkadelic was very present, and the Stooges and MC5, especially in Ann Arbor, these groups and mixing it was pushed pretty hard. You could go to a concert, and it would be Archie Shepp opening for the Stooges or MC5. In Ann Arbor, there was an organization called the White Panther Party, created by a guy called John Sinclair—he’s still alive—and he’s the one who would promote these gigs. Ornette Coleman, Charles Lloyd, even high end artists like Miles Davis, and they would be playing with the Stooges, or Funkadelic, or those kinds of bands—also weird rock bands from that scene. That was perfect place. A lot of how I formed my thoughts about what to do and what kind of combinations work, and far you can take it, came from those experiences of seeing those combinations happen at the same time.
Were you a fan? Were you able to meet these people and play as well?
I would go to concerts. I had opportunities to play in bands that would open for bigger bands. I didn’t meet a lot of people though. The musicians that I liked, I would go to the concerts, and in some cases, if I opened for somebody I would know get to them.
The artists from these disparate backgrounds, would they hang out as well?
I don’t know if they hung out, but it was certainly inspiring to see those bills. The Art Ensemble of Chicago with the MC5, or Archie Shepp opening for Iggy, or whatever. It was different. I don’t think anywhere in the country had quite that diverse a pairing of musics, and taking it from brutal pre-punk, into free jazz, the avant-garde, and the experimental music of the times.
Were the audiences receptive?
Very much so, at least, it seemed that way to me. It was kind of mythic in a way. In the period before, at Cobo Hall and at the Grande Ballroom, I twice saw Jimi Hendrix, and it was unreal. It wasn’t like it was really happening. But I was young, I was probably 14.
When did you relocated to New York?
I think it was in 1976. I had a band—we had a van that we owned—and one day we said, “OK, that’s it. We’ve done all we can here.” How many times can you play at the [local] college? We had some success, not financial, but we were getting known, and I thought it was time. They agreed, and we drove to New York. We owned a lot of gear, too. Back in those days, bands from Michigan and places like that tended to acquire a lot of amps. We had a truck full of amps. Once we arrived, we sold them one-by-one to survive. I got lucky. I found the right place at the right time. Met people. It all happened very quickly.
Did Material start when you got to New York?
Material started about a year or two later. I didn’t even discover the East Village for almost six months. I was on 30 Street where there were a lot of rehearsal studios, and we got lucky. We pulled up in front of the musicians union, and we went in. We said, “We’re musicians. We just came from Michigan, and we need a place to live.” The guy standing next to me at the counter said, “I’ve got a loft and you’re welcome to rent it if you want.” We just moved in. It was the first place we stopped, and that was a street where there were tons of musicians rehearsing. You’d hear something and say, “Wow, that sounds like Tony Williams,” and then go downstairs and say, “Who’s that playing?” “Oh, it’s Tony Williams.” Me and this guitarist, we used to stand in the street and say, “We’re musicians and we need a gig.” Sometimes it worked. We actually did auditions, and went to see people and such.
Were you open to whatever you got hired to do?
For the most part. The whole punk rock thing was just opening. I always tell people when they ask, “Why did you go to New York?” I say, “I wanted to meet Miles Davis. I wanted to meet Ornette Coleman. And I wanted to play with Tommy Bolin.” Tommy Bolin was a guitarist from Colorado. I liked him and I want to play with him. I got to New York, I met Ornette right away. I met Miles Davis. Tommy Bolin died. It turned out that the guy that I knew, Fernando Saunders [Lou Reed’s bassist for many years], was in Bolin’s band, and he was getting ready to leave. I would have got it, but that didn’t happen. I went back to going around and introducing myself to people. Out of nowhere, the guy who was running CBGB—his name was Charlie Martin—he introduced me to a lot of people. That was a jumping off point for doing sessions, playing in other bands, and at that moment, counter to the punk thing, there was this whole loft jazz thing. Ornette’s music, and James Blood Ulmer was coming up. I started working with Fred Frith, and it all started to happen. That would have been around 1978.
I interviewed Fred Maher recently for a piece about Robert Quine. He said that at one of your early gigs—the band was called Deadline—that you managed to get the New York Times to show up. How did you pull something like that off?
I don’t know, but it’s an interesting story. I remember that gig. I thought it wasn’t good. We didn’t really have it together. Fred was playing, but he wasn’t playing drums, he was playing a very minimal guitar idea. The drummer was Phillip Wilson from the Art Ensemble of Chicago. We played these gigs at one of those trendy clubs—like Hurrah or Danceteria—and for some reason, John Rockwell came to the show. He loved it, and wrote this very positive review in the New York Times, which everybody saw. Years later, I got to know John Rockwell. I told him that that review changed what I was doing. I lived down the street from Brian Eno, and every day I would see Eno, and I’d say, “Man, give me a gig. I’ve got to play on some stuff.” He would say, “Ok, let me think about it,” or “We’ll talk about it,” or whatever. But then he saw that review, and that changed everything. He said, “I have a session tomorrow at 12 Street. You should come, and we’ll record.” That’s all because of Rockwell’s article.
My bass had been stolen the night before out of a truck, which was parked somewhere in the East Village, in a drug area. I was playing with Denardo Coleman, Ornette’s son. I had no bass, and that morning, I was supposed to walk over to the studio with Eno, but a lot of things triggered those few days. For example, Eno and I were passing through Washington Square Park, and I used to go there and listen to a guy play the zither under this big tree. His name was Laraaji, and nobody knew who he was. I told Eno, “This guy is playing this ambient, repetitive thing. You might like it.” And he did. When we left, he gave some money in Laraaji’s case, and also a card. He said, “This is my number, call me. We should do something.” That was how Laraaji started, and we hadn’t even got to the studio yet. When we got to the studio, that turned out to be a record called, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which is pretty much how I got started. I worked on and off with Eno for probably another year and a half at least, and that all comes from that Deadline gig, because Rockwell wrote that review. All those little things you can attribute to that review.
What led to your relationship with Celluloid?
I lived on 24 Street at that time at the loft where Giorgio Gomelsky was. He was a producer—he started with the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, and somehow drifted into the prog rock scene, like Magma, Gong, Henry Cow, all those things. I was there, and one morning the bell rang. I was the only one around. I went downstairs and opened it, and there was a crazy looking guy there with a flannel shirt and a jazz hat—a glitter hat—and a big mustache and kind of long hair. He said, “I am Greek traveler. I have just returned from Minneapolis.” I said, “OK, come inside.” That was Jean Georgakarakos, who started Celluloid. We got along and he liked what we were doing. Clubs at that point were mixing a lot of really good jazz musicians with rock musicians, and it was starting be trendy, but it was only happening like that in New York. So Georgakarakos decided to move to New York. He got a place, and started a label—the funding was in France—and we started doing stuff. It hadn’t even happened yet, but it was the beginning of hip hop. That was his idea, that hip hop was going to be popular. It was going to sell records, and it was going to be commercial. With Georgakarakos, we not only did the jazz-related stuff, but we also started doing early hip hop.
Was your relationship with Celluloid similar to Axiom?
At Celluloid, I was probably responsible for maybe 80 percent of the stuff. I started to get other work. The label was really Georgakarakos’—everybody thought it was my label—but it was his label. He had a lot of stuff that he would put out that I had nothing to do with, like licensing things from Europe and England. I would just bring him the things I wanted to do. After the hip hop phase, we started doing a lot of work in Paris with African music. He had the first gold record of African music in France, which was Touré Kunda. We were getting a lot of success with the African stuff, and around that time, I started to get a lot of work. I got busy and drifted from Celluloid. I would come back and do things here and there, but it wasn’t consistent like the beginning.
Were you working on Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock at that time as well?
Future Shock is what I mean when I say was getting busy. That was about 1983. That was a success, and with the success of Future Shock, I really started getting offers. I would do whatever I could with Celluloid, but I had to experience all these other possibilities. That’s when I first went to Japan. I was working a little bit more in Europe, too. It all started expanding, one after another, there were things that led to other things, that were generating—well, they were generating `money, you could say.
How did you get Pete Cosey on that album?
It’s not difficult to get Pete Cosey on any album [laughs]. Pete was in Chicago. We all used to listen to Miles Davis’ Japan recordings when Pete was unleashed, so I thought as soon as I get the opportunity, I am going to bring Pete to New York. That happened, and then we found him. It didn’t take any time to find him. Pete agreed immediately and came and played. I tried to do things with Pete a few times, but he wasn’t the easiest to get great results from. I got him again years later on a PBS show, which was in Chicago, where he was. He played on that, but he was not really focused. We never got out of Pete what I felt we could. But we tried, he was funny, and original in his way.
Did he and Herbie know each other?
Not really. Herbie didn’t really know he was on the record. I brought him in and put him on it. Pete didn’t have that kind of relationship with elite jazz people. No one really took him serious. I tried that many times, but I couldn’t get inroads with the big names to support Pete at all.
What was the process with Future Shock? Was it your album with Herbie Hancock added later?
I knew a guy named Tony Meilandt. He came to New York looking for people to help Herbie, because Herbie at that point he was still signed to Columbia, but he hadn’t had too much success. He was in debt with them. Tony was pretty young, and he was the guy to come to New York and get rid of all the cocaine to start with, and then after that, he was looking for musicians to work with Herbie. He started coming to these loft gigs where I would play with Olu Dara, Henry Threadgill, or Phillip Wilson. He saw that as a new thing. We started talking, and he said, “Why don’t you do two tracks for Herbie? We’ll start with two and see how it goes.” I agreed immediately and put together these tracks, without Herbie, I just did it here in Brooklyn, and then went to L.A. with two tracks, which were pretty much finished except for what Herbie would do. I don’t think he knew what to do or what it was, but he played on it. We did the whole thing so quickly, and mixed it in like an hour-and-a-half or something. We didn’t know what it was or what it would do. I used those tracks to introduce the turntable as an instrument, because we were hearing it a lot in the clubs in New York. I don’t think anywhere else really had scratch DJs, or DJs who would play a set and have scratches. That was my reference.
We didn’t really know what it was going to be. I remember, on the way to the airport, we were early, and I asked the guy, “Can we stop at this place? I want to check out some equipment.” We were starting to make money. We could buy stuff now, and I wanted to look at some speakers. We went into a place and they had amazing stuff. I said to the guy, “We want to hear this speaker and this speaker,” and he would put on something like Kansas or something like that. I said, “We don’t listen to stuff like that, play this.” I gave him a cassette, which was “Rockit” and a song called “Earth Beat.” They had just been mixed and not mastered. It was myself, D.ST, a guy called Grandmaster Caz, and a guy driving. We put that on, that track, and after about a minute, we feel this chill. We turned around and there were like 20-some kids from South Central or somewhere, and they were trying to figure out, “What is this?” When it stopped they asked, “Can you tell us what the hell is that?” I looked at D.ST, and we knew right then that that was going to be big. Because kids, they feel it, and that’s future.
Before that, hip hop artists were singing over live R&B tracks. They weren’t using drum machines or scratching on records.
Drum machine started, but not fully blown. Sugar Hill and those things, they were still using live drums. But the thing I brought to Herbie was more like electro. The only thing hip hop about it was the scratching. Then I mixed things into it, like there’s a Cuban percussionist, and there’s a real live bass.
Did scratching take off after that?
There was scratching, but it wasn’t known outside a certain scene. For example, Malcolm McLaren put out “Buffalo Gals” a little before “Rockit,” but nobody really heard it the way they heard “Rockit,” so “Rockit” established scratching in the mainstream.
What’s the story with your current label, M.O.D. Reloaded?
For almost 10 years, I had M.O.D. Technologies. M.O.D. comes from Method of Defiance, which started doing electronic, and drum and bass, and then turned into a live band, and which still exists as a live band. When we lost the investor for it, the technologies part, we continued with Red Eye Distribution, and called it “Reloaded.” It just started. I have about eight records to put out. Two are out already.
Did you start with Giacomo Bruzzo from Rare Noise?
Rare Noise has continued, and he helped a lot to create the funding for M.O.D. Technologies, but after a while, it was like he was competing with himself in a way. But I don’t put out stuff like Rare Noise.
Do you sell everything on Bandcamp?
I have a deal with Red Eye Distribution. We’re getting hard copies, and sometimes vinyl.
Are CDs selling, too?
They order them. There are no stores. But a lot of people have been ordering, especially the first one. The second one it just came out last week, so we’ll have to see how it goes.