Reading Today speaks to John O’Brien about touring, Tokyo, and tastes in the UK.
JOHN O’BRIEN has written, produced, and toured music professionally for more than forty decades.
He has performed around the world, including in Sydney, Madrid, and Tokyo, with seven studio albums to date.
“I was all prepared to do this tour going to the UK in May 2020, but you know what happened.
“We postponed four times, and in that time we were stuck in our home studios.”
Originally from the US, John combines hard rock, pop, dancehall, and even ballads in his approach to his music.
Now, he is touring the UK, with dates in London, Leeds, Oxford, among others, and Reading, where he will play Sub89 on Thursday, July 28.
“My pleasure comes from writing music and producing it, it’s what I love doing, and I was really able to do a lot of that,
“My space is not the kind of the kind of studio you’d walk into and see a computer, a few screens, a microphone– I put things together where I know they’re going to work or not work.”
John says that there are advantages to a modern setup, however.
“It sort of deepens what you can do, I hear some of the stuff that’s out there and it’s clear that somebody sat down at a keyboard with a bunch of patches and put together something that sounds like a band,
“But it’s a synthetic version of it.”
He says also that there is a knack to working on music, especially when working with other musicians.
“Part of being a musician is being willing to give up your piece of it, you need to care about the finished product more than your own ego.”
This is true of playing live, too, he explains.
“I started in cover bands, playing stuff people wanna hear, because you can’t just go out into a bar when people are drinking, having fun and talking and play original songs,
“Actually, there’s more of a taste in the UK for that than in the US, definitely.”
In fact, John says that the UK is particularly accommodating when it comes to live performance.
“In my mind, the UK is an oasis for musicians, because people actually want to hear you.”
As a US musician, he enjoys travelling and performing in Europe, and particularly Asia.
“I performed in Madrid, which is a really cool place, and Tokyo, where everyone is very polite,
“I was in Jamaica on vacation, and I heard some guitar playing at the back of this fruit market, so I go and see what it is, in this deserted area, which is not smart.
“And there were these three Rasta guys with bottles of rum and a guitar, and they handed it to me.
“But they were saying how the tourists were never happy with what they had– nice houses, and driving nice cars, but still not happy.”
This encounter would go on to inspire Not Enough, which would be released as a single in 2018.
“So I wrote about that, how for some people it’s just not enough, and I put it out.
“Then all of a sudden ASCAP sends me a cheque for a large amount of money, and I was like what is this for?”
“And it turns out it had been on Sirius XM on regular rotation for months.”
He says that there has to be something in the work which comes from your self.
“That’s how you write a song, it has to be something which is just dying to get out of you.”
With his tour approaching, John says also that he’s looking forward to spending some time in the UK, something which can be difficult to do properly when performing a more conventional tour.
“The keyboard player and I have been playing since the 1960s, he’s coming over and we’ve decided the two of us, instead of travelling from London to the gig we’re gonna stay over in each city.
“We’re going to Oxford, and I’m dying to see the Oxford University, then up to Leeds, down to London, then Birmingham, then Reading.
“When I usually tour, I play a different city every night, and that means I don’t see any of them, because they need that momentum.”
This way, however, he says that they’ll have two days in each place.
“It’s a trade-off– it’s tough, and there’s money involved too, you’ve got to look at that.”
When asked whether there’s anything about performing he wishes he could take home, he said: “There’s a lack of curiosity about live original music at home and it can be a bit problematic.
“But we decided to put on a show here, and there’s a lot to it– we have a lot of movement, some beautiful video elements, costume changes, and a number of things that we’re doing.
“Once that’s on videotape, we can bring that back to the states and say hey we don’t just stand there and play, we’re theatrical.”
He says that he wouldn’t mind a Rolling Stones-esque Steel Wheels kind of tour, too.
“But it’s not that– we’ll interact with the audience, and we have a lot of those moments in the songs which we try to capture.
“And we really try to push those out onto the audience, too, because that’s what makes a really good show.”
The John O’Brien Experience will be playing Sub89 on Thursday, July 28.
For tickets, visit: premier.ticketek.co.uk
