Paul Jackson Jr. Breaks Down his Most Iconic Guitar Parts
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2023
Paul Jackson Jr.: Sir. Beautiful. Talk to me. How are you today? I'm doing great. We have the one, the only Mason Marangella, is that I pronounce that right? Yeah, you did. Mason Marangella. The one, the only Mason Marangella. Yes. The genius behind Vertex Effects. Uh, the pedalboard guru, the do it yourself mastermind and all around nice guy.
Mason Marangella: I hope I can give you as an illustrious of an introduction. Mr. Paul Jackson, Jr. Thank you so much for being here with us today in lovely Oakland, California. 25th Street Recording. Yes. Beautiful.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Absolutely. If you were looking for a studio in the greater Bay Area, please come here. It is a wonderful, wonderful place.
This studio is amazing. I actually called my wife, the studio owner, Gabe is over there in the corner, but I, I called my wife and told her, I said, baby, I said, this place is amazing. Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. It is, it is unreal. Really,
Paul Jackson Jr.: really nice place. So.
Mason Marangella: It is unreal, and I don't think there's a better place, uh, around us where we could take the opportunity to talk to you about your career, the sessions that you've played on, and even get a chance to hear you play some of the iconic parts that you have come up with, as we know.
If I can remember them. If you can remember them. And this is all cold, by the way, folks, like Paul hasn't Mike. You know, such musicians don't spend a bunch of their time like learning their old parts. So some of this stuff I'm asking you to go back 30 or 40 years in the memory banks to try to figure this stuff out.
So thank you for being willing to go down this path with us. You got it.
Anything for you, Mason. Well, I appreciate that.
So how about we start, I think with, with what everybody who is familiar with your just. just amazing session career. Everybody always wants to know about the Michael Jackson stuff. And for those of you who know Paul's work, he's played on thriller and bad and some of the most songs that are on those records, but there are also some other amazing songs that are on.
Let's start in chronological order. Let's start with Thriller. Uh, Lady In My Life. First of all, amazing song. Yeah. I want to firstly know about the gear. What was used on that? Cause that, that song is iconic. It was sampled by LL Cool J and Boyz II Men with the song Hey Lover. What did you use on that? That was a
Paul Jackson Jr.: Gibson 335.
Okay. And my Rivera modified Fender, uh, deluxe amplifier. Used on everything. Yeah, pretty much. That was like the go to amp back then and everybody had them. Yep. And, uh, it's funny. Um, I was talking to Paul Jr. one day and he said, Do you want to sell your amp? And I said, well, not really. He said, yeah, there's a guy in Japan that wants to buy it for 15,000.
And it's like, well, maybe not, but here's the funny thing. And, and no slam against anyone or any gear, but Paul, or the, you know, the fender, the Rivera modified deluxe was kind of like. before there was a dumbbell. It was a go to amp. All the studio guys used them. They're on countless recordings. And it's funny because you can't really find it.
Well, I take that back because what Paul did Paul senior and junior is, is they released the stage four, which for all intents and purposes is that app with a few, with a few upgrades. But anyway, so that was a, a, a Gibson three 35, which I purchased at Valley arts guitar center. Interesting story behind that.
I had a really nice three 35 and I walked into Valley arts one day. And I met Mike McGuire and I picked up a three 35 on the wall. And I said, man, this one really plays great. I said, what can you do to make my guitar play just like this one? He said, well, probably nothing. You should buy that one. So I did.
And so that was a guitar on a lady in my life. And it sounds like it's pretty clean, no pedals, or is it just No pedals, it was just, you know, and it was a line that Rod Temperton had already come up with.
You know.
Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, he came up
Mason Marangella: with it. He
Paul Jackson Jr.: came up with
Mason Marangella: that. Um, and when you were doing the session for this, obviously, you know, I, I presume that Quincy Jones was there, was Michael Jackson there when you were recording these parts?
Paul Jackson Jr.: Actually, neither Quincy nor Michael were there, that it was just myself and Rod.
Okay. And, and obviously Bruce Sweetin.
Mason Marangella: Okay.
Paul Jackson Jr.: The, uh, the master engineer and the genius that he, that he still is even though he's passed away.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Yeah. And so they, they kind of had, how much of this part was sort of developed versus like what you came out with? Obviously you said that, you know, that that line was already sort of.
Right. Constructed and it was just kind of like bringing somebody in who could bring like the essence and the vibe of the sound.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Right. So he had me play that. The, actually the only line I came up with on that song was in the, um, in the B section or the end. Uh huh. There's a rhythm part that goes
So, that's actually the only line I came up with, but Bruce, um, Rod came up with a, excuse me. And then I think there's one line. Sorry.
That he came up with, but, or maybe I came up with that, but definitely the opening line was his.
Mason Marangella: Now, would you have any objections if we tried to, like, bring in a little bit of the track and just had you play over a little bit? Well, let me
Paul Jackson Jr.: make sure the octaves are in tune, wait a minute.
Mason Marangella: Yeah, I'll give it a shot. Alright, you ain't the right lady in my life. Let's see what we got.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Of course
the OCS came back
in second figure,
right?
Yeah, so basically, um, rod came up with all the octave, you know, all the melody things, and I just came up with the groove thing at the end.
Mason Marangella: I mean, it's such a, it's such an amazing song. It was guitar. I mean, just listening to it, it's just like, it's, it's,
Paul Jackson Jr.: uh, and there's not a lot of guitar in there. There was actually no guitar really in the verses except, you know, the intros and then Right.
And the vamp. Right. Mm-Hmm. . Well, but
Mason Marangella: it's, it's, it's knowing the placement, like how to bring it in the vibe. I mean, like, that's. This is why people hired you because you could take even in the most simplistic parts and turn them into this. I mean, it's like an iconic hook and everybody knows that song and knows that line.
They're like, Oh my gosh, that's, you know, I'm going to
Paul Jackson Jr.: forgive the a hundred bucks. You owe me then.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Checks in the mail. Um, also on thriller, you're also on beat it. And there, I guess there are multiple guitar credits on that. Steve Lucas is credited. You're credited. I'm curious, what is the part that, that you did on Beat It?
Obviously there's like different guitar layers and of course Haylin's on it as well in the solo section. So, tell us a little bit about that session.
Paul Jackson Jr.: All I did, and it was once again overdubs, I think that one was just myself and Bruce. Okay. And all I did was the
With a, with an overdrive sound with that, in fact, same app. The uh,
Mason Marangella: the
Paul Jackson Jr.: Yea. The Rivera Amps.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. And so just kind of using it for like a crunch sound and then just, and what was the guitar that was used on that one? Uh, I believe that was, uh, Les Paul Standard. Les Paul Standard. Okay. And it was like a vintage one or was it just like of the time?
It was
Paul Jackson Jr.: just of the era. I just also purchased a Valley Arts. Valley Arts back then was like the go to player for Mike McGuire and Al Carness. And so, uh, yeah, I just went in one day and bought it off the shelf. Yeah. Beautiful.
Mason Marangella: Beautiful. Well, let's fast forward to the, the, the, the next Michael Jackson album you played on, Bad.
Okay. Going, uh, chronologically. And on that one, One of the huge hits that you were playing on was Dirty Diana. Yeah. And that had Steve Stevens on some of the lead guitar parts, right? And then you were doing kind of all like the rhythm part that was kind of leading up to that kind of dirtier guitar part.
So, um, what was the, what was the gear? What were you using? Anything remarkable about the session that you can share with us?
Paul: Uh, well, the interesting thing was the guitar part was actually conceived and, and, and written down by Jerry Hay. Okay. The arranger. Mm-Hmm. . And he had been working on the song, he says, Hey Paul, I have an idea for a part.
And he'd written it out and says, okay, great. And I used a, um, a Tom Anderson. I had a, a red Tom Anderson guitar with the three plus pickup in the back. Okay. And, uh, once again, the same amp, the Rivera Amp. Yep. And the part was, if I could remember, was the.
Something like that, you know, it's got so much grease on it though, it sounds so good, but that was, that was kind of the part. And, and this is one thing I tell people and tell my students, regardless of genre, bebop, hip hop, rock and roll, straight ahead, whatever, uh, funk, every song has to have a groove, you know, um, Telling my students because one of the songs they're working on in school and performance class is walk this way.
And I consider Joe Perry to be one of the greatest rhythm guitar players in the world. I mean, how do you, how do you think of that? You know,
That's genius.
Mason Marangella: Yeah,
Paul Jackson Jr.: it's got a lot of
Mason Marangella: attitude.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Right, and, and, you know, the, uh, Let's see.
I can't remember.
You know, you have to play it in the pocket, and it has to feel good, you know. So, um, Yeah, so that, that Dirty Diana, getting back to that, it's like, okay, it's, it's a, it's, it's a, really a groove part and muted guitar part with overdrive on it, you know? And so hats off to Jerry Hay on that one.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. If we wanted to play a little section of it to the track, would you be?
I could give it a shot. All right. Let's give it a shot. Let's give it a shot.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Something like that. It was, that's close, but like I said, Jerry had written it out and it's like, just come in and play it. And so I remember it was the red Anderson because I think that was actually the first record I've used the Anderson on. Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. I mean, it sounds, it sounds great. So Tom Anderson.
And of course the Rivera, uh, stage modded, which, which stage, how many stages is yours, your stage two, stage three? I
Paul Jackson Jr.: think I had stage two. Okay. I think stage three had an effects loop and some other stuff that, uh, you know, yeah, but, uh, yeah, I think I had the stage two.
Mason Marangella: Well, that's, that's amazing. I mean, again, bad, that whole record's amazing.
Dirty Anna, of course, one of the big iconic songs and then Thriller. That's just so cool to be, you know, hearing these stories about, The gear, the session. And so interestingly, so Michael and Quincy typically were not present in those. Those are just you and the engineer or the, well, it
Paul Jackson Jr.: depended,
it always depended on what the session was. Like for instance, when we worked on PYT initially, when we cut it, James Ingram wrote it, right. And so we did a tracking date of it. And then I went in. By myself with and Quincy was the other day Quincy and Bruce and did like all the parts that I ended up on the record So it just kind of depended on on the day
Mason Marangella: Paul's gonna be doing his own video specifically about PYT So if you're interested in that check out the link above We're gonna post Paul's video there so that you can go check it out When he releases it, because I'm sure it's going to be absolutely amazing.
Also, during that era, one of my favorite guitar parts and just like rhythm guitar, like clean tones was a lot of the stuff that was coming out on DeBarge. And of course, you played on one of their biggest hits, Rhythm of the Night. Yeah. And it was you and Dan Huff. That's correct. Yeah. I'm curious in arrangements like that.
Like, you know, when both guitar players, you had told me in advance of us filming that you were both present at the session. Right. It was a tracking date. Yes. And was it typical that there'd be, if there were multiple guitar players on a song that they'd be at the same date or would they usually have them separately?
Like how does the dynamic work when there's two? Usually they were on
Paul Jackson Jr.: the same date. Okay. Uh, you'd have, uh, two, three, sometimes as many as five. A lot of the original Barry White records were four and five guitar players in the studio at the same time. Wow. Wow. So, uh, but that particular day was myself and Dan up on the tracking date.
Mason Marangella: And so how do you guys sort of ensure that you're not standing on each other's toes? Do you guys sort of, like, communicate before the session starts? Like, okay, I'm going to be doing this part, you're going to be doing this, or how does that work?
Paul Jackson Jr.: Not before the session starts. Always the, you let the song dictate where it's going to go.
Okay. And so we listened down to the song and played it down and it's like, okay, you play there, I'll play here. And we had a, you know, discussion and we worked out some parts and, and so it was just, you know, pretty much that simple. And do you remember which parts on, uh, rhythm of the night that you took versus the ones that Dan took?
Yeah, I played all of the single note stuff, uh, in the verse and the chorus. And then in the b section of the verses, we did arpeggios together. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do you mind if we
Mason Marangella: try to play, we give it a shot? Yeah. This
Paul Jackson Jr.: I remember a little bit.
The party's
just beginning, the music's playing, a celebration party,
under the streetlight, the seniors being
sick,
a night for romance, a night you won't want to go to, come join
Mason Marangella: That was, uh, it's such a cool part and I love the clean tones on it. Do you remember what you used on that? It sounds like that might have been some sort of Strat.
That was a Strat. Uh, probably Your
Paul Jackson Jr.: Valley Arts one? The Valley Arts Strat. The, uh, the The Rosewood. The Rosewood, uh, guitar Impossible to Make with the Bartolini pickups. Yeah. Yeah, I believe it was that guitar.
Mason Marangella: Rosewood on Rosewood.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Mm hmm. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah, Rosewood, uh, let's see, Rosewood body.
Mm hmm. Uh, bur eye, maple neck, ebony, fingerboard, bartini pickups, Floyd Rose, woo as God intended. , you know, and uh, yeah. It's funny, those guitars I have, two of them I match said back then, it's like I always wanted to spare in case something happened to the primary. Yeah. And those guitars, they still get used on a lot of records.
They just never leave the house.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, and I saw, I think like Tim May or somebody like had tried to sell one. Similarly equipped, did not exactly the same. And I think he got like 15 grand or something. Yeah. What
Paul Jackson Jr.: happened was, you know, all of the guitars were one off. Everybody kind of had their own thing.
And Mike McGuire made all of them. And, uh, like Luke had them and, and Larry Carlin had them and stuff. And Larry still has a few. Um, but they were all, they were all one offs. And, uh, one, I remember one thing I do remember is I was in the shop one day and I picked up one of Larry's guitars and it felt really, really good.
And I said, you know. I said, What'd you do to his neck? He said, Well, I, you know, I kind of shaved it and did some other things. I said, Can you make all my necks like this? And he said, Sure. So all of my necks that from the period of the guitars that Mike made were the same as Larry's. The other distinction is Larry has acoustic guitars made by Valley Arts.
I actually have a nylon string guitar made by Valley Arts. True story. Back then I had a Jose Uribe, uh, classical guitar, nylon string guitar, and it was my primary guitar and I didn't want to take it back and forth to sessions all the time. Right. So I said to Mike, I said, Mike, can you make a nylon string just like this one?
He said, yeah, I think we can give it a try. And it just so happens one of the builders in the shop used to work for Jose Uribe. And I think he in fact said, you know, this guitar, I think I built your original guitar. Wow. So I have a. Valley Arts, um, nylon string guitar, acoustic guitar. And I don't know if it's the only one, but it might be the only one in existence.
Mason Marangella: Well, it's gotta be rare. And I mean, I guess the only other choice at that time, or maybe it wasn't even out yet as those Chet Atkins, uh, Gibsons, we kind of had like, you know, well,
Paul Jackson Jr.: this wasn't even a thin line or with a pickup or any of that kind of stuff. It was a legit, you know, like a full blown nylon string, no pickup, nothing.
Yeah.
Mason Marangella: That's incredible.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Yeah, I
Mason Marangella: still use it for recording to this day. Amazing. Amazing. And, and do you remember the amp that you might have used on Rhythm of the Night? I think it was, was, I think that was a boogie. It was a boogie. I think I'd gone to boogies at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, how about, uh, another one kind of during that era, Denise Williams, let's hear it for the boy.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Oh, shoot. Da, da, da, da, da.
Mason Marangella: Another movie soundtrack on, right? Yeah. That was Footloose. Footloose. Yeah.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Um.
Mason Marangella: That was the Strat. That was the one with the Bartolini's? Bartolini's.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Um, George Duke was the producer. Uh huh. And it was myself, George, Eric Zobler, the engineer. Uh huh. And, uh, we did that actually at George's studio.
Boogie on that one as well? That was
It
Mason Marangella: was a Boogie and I think direct as well. Okay. Yeah. Was it doubled or was it just dependent on the part or the section you had just changed
Paul Jackson Jr.: to? It was just a single part. Okay. The one thing I do remember was the solo, he remember one he won.
See?
Because he wanted something that was country ish, but still funky. And so I said, well, let's, let's do something as simple and memorable. So I think it was
something like that, something, you know, and I think if you listen to the record, that's the solo, but I don't really remember the guitar, the rhythm guitar parts on that one.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's just the, it's just a beautiful clean tone. It was clean. Yeah. And so, and so you think it was just like, it's like the DI was just off the guitar and like one side went to the boogie and the other side went direct and then they just mixed it.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Yeah. We used to blend back in a lot of records. Okay. Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. I mean, I guess it explains sometimes like almost on, on some of your clean tones, it's like, there's almost like an acoustic quality and then it feels like you feel like some of the elements of the two
Paul Jackson Jr.: band. Well, yeah. Well, the thing about it is that, you know, when you're going direct, obviously the sound is not as.
Warm and full, but the transients response can be a lot faster. And so you get kind of the attack from the, from the DI and then you get the warmth from the tube. So that's why I did a lot of times is combining the tubes and the, the, the tube, the amp and the DI. The thing you have to be careful of is the phase phasing.
And, uh, cause sometimes it could be a little weird and cancel each other out. So,
Mason Marangella: but I did that on a lot of records. And would you normally go into a compressor from the DI first? Um, like when you hit the board or would you use compression on the amp side as well?
Paul Jackson Jr.: At that point, I, I always would probably, I think I usually did compression before the amps, uh, and it's weird at that time.
I, uh, like, and not on this particular record, but I was using a Bradshaw rig and Bob had wired up a, uh, I used a dbx 160 X. was my go to compressor.
Mason Marangella: Yep.
Paul Jackson Jr.: And, uh, it just sounded real good on guitars, and it had the thing called over easy. You hit the button, it was kind of like, you know, idiot proof. But I used that actually a lot, and I would do that before the amp.
Mason Marangella: Okay. And then the DI one would just be, like, whatever the producer wanted. Well, they were
Paul Jackson Jr.: both, you know, they're both compressed, and I'd, you know, send, and then we'd split it after that. Got it. Got it.
Mason Marangella: And, and for, like, Sweet Freedom, like we were talking about before, Rhythm of the Night, Let's Hear for the Boy, were those all Bradshaw racks at that point, or were they sort of I think at that
Paul Jackson Jr.: point they were Bradshaw rigs,
Mason Marangella: yes.
Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Let's move into the nineties and talk a little bit about, uh, a different Kenny Loggins era, but even though we did talk about footloose, I guess it's appropriate. Um, but this is moving into leap of faith in the nineties. And I think it's again, one of the, the, the Kenny Loggins records that a lot of people overlook, but it really sounds great.
Again, people on it are incredible. And, uh, I'd love to just listen to like a tune or two off this and just cut it. See if it jogs your memory on anything that you might have played on at the gear. So let's have a listen and then we'll, we'll, we'll come back and talk about it. You got
Paul Jackson Jr.: it.
Yeah. I remember now. Yeah. We actually, I think this one we actually did in Santa Barbara. Yeah, that's me. Back then, the two main guitar builders, you know, were obviously Valley Arts Mike McGuire and James Tyler. Yep. You know, both made incredible, incredible instruments. I think on this particular date, uh, Dan was playing a Tyler.
That sounds like a Tyler. Yeah. Through probably the tri stereo chorus. He's had that mid boost odometer thing too. What I was using was actually a thing that was actually made in the Bay Area. By a DA called the stereo tap delay. Oh, the STD? Yeah. And um, it was cool because you could split his stereo. Yeah.
And you know, one side would modulate the other guy. Yeah. Was kind, because would be straight was the Allen
Mason Marangella: Holdsworth
Paul Jackson Jr.: thing. And he used to, and then, you know, for delay back then I was using a, believe it or not, a lexicon Primetime too. Yeah, those are great. And you know, back then it's like there was no such thing as multi effects.
It's like you had one big piece of gear that did basically one thing. And one of the things that Primetime 2 did was the ping pong delay, you know, so that was probably listening to it. That sounds like the trice, the, um, the stereotype delay and the, uh, the Lexicon Primetime 2.
Mason Marangella: And, and we're using like a rack based preamps and power amps at that point.
Are we using physical amps or what do you think you were using? That time, I think it was, uh, preamp power amp. Okay. Yeah. Were you using the Bradshaw one, like the CAE, like 3 plus, or were you? No, I didn't get a C, uh, 3 plus until a lot
Paul Jackson Jr.: later. Okay. Um, that would have been, oh shoot. Was it Mesa Boogie, like studio?
It was probably Mesa Boogie, Mesa Boogie studio preamp, yeah, back then. And then, and
Mason Marangella: then like a, this, like a Simo class, uh, like are the 50 50 power amps? Simo class, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Mm hmm. I
Mason Marangella: mean, it's still, it's still a great sound. Um, and, um, man, that, that Kenny Loggins record to me, uh, Leap of Faith, I think it came out in 91 or 92.
It was, uh, my parents had the tape and so I used to listen to it a lot in the car. Yeah. Um, my mom had like a, I don't know, like a late eighties Nissan Sentra and, uh, we just, uh, we listened to that, that Kenny Loggins, you know, and I, and I lived in Santa Barbara when I was a kid and so he was kind of the hometown hero.
Right. Um, and, uh, you know, you'd see him sometimes around town and, and, uh, yeah, it was a great record. I think, I think it's one of his most underrated records. Again, just looking at the it's like you, Dean Parks, Tim Pierce.
The thing I always
Paul Jackson Jr.: appreciated about Kenny was not only his songwriting, but also his approach to production. And it's like, he always likes to experiment. It's like, let's get, you know, really good players, but let's experiment. Let's try different ideas. Let's, you know, what if he did this? What if he did this?
What if he did this? And when people take that type of care and, and, uh, And give that much input and, and are willing to try that many ideas, you know, you stumble on to more stuff, you know, which is cool. And so, you know, working with him was always, you know, it was a little taxing, but it was always great.
Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. So let's now fast forward to The last 10 years and talk about Daft Punk because the random access memories thing, it was a huge record Grammy winning. You have credits on some of these songs as well. And you played on the biggest hits, get lucky, give life back to music. Tell me about how. That whole thing came about, the gear, any, anything that
Paul Jackson Jr.: you can tell us about that.
Okay, well, I can, you know, tell you without a doubt, that was a Bradshaw rig. Okay. Uh, at the time it was, uh, and actually still is in that particular rack, um, a, uh, oh gosh, drawing a blank, preamp, uh, MIDI preamp. The, um, Traxxas. Okay. Traxxas preamp. Okay. Uh, the, um, I use a variety of power amps. I use a, the, uh, the, I think it's a dual 20 watt that they make that has, uh, EL 84s in it.
Okay. And I also would use a Fryette, uh, power amp that's 100 watts a side that has, I think he has, uh, Is he, is he KT? I think it's KT88s in there. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I don't remember which, I think it was the Fryette that I used the power amp on that one. Guitar wise, it was. Obviously the Brown Strat, uh, from Valley Arts.
It was, um, a few different PRSs. Uh huh. Because there's so many layers of guitar. Yeah. When you're listening to it, it's just like I have a PRS called a 245. Uh huh. And It's based on the name of the scale of the guitar. It's 24. 5 inches. Kind of shaped, kind of like this actually. But, uh, it has a, it had a, um, you know, vibrato tailpiece.
And, uh, so it was primarily, that record was primarily the Brown Strat and the, uh, 245. Uh huh. Okay.
Mason Marangella: Got it. And, uh, anything, like, about the session? Like, was it, how long was, was the, was like the arc of, you know, playing on these songs? Was it, like, one hour?
Paul Jackson Jr.: Days, weeks. It, it was about a week I wanna say. And the good thing once again about them is, is trial and error.
It's like, Hey, you know, these are the changes of the song. This is where it's going. Right. Just play some stuff. Right. And so, you know, you end up playing a lot of things. Yeah. And, uh, and then, you know, because the pro tools, we have an infinite amount of tracks. Right. So you try this and try that and try this and try that and, and, uh, and then you know, what they like ended up on the record.
Right, right.
Mason Marangella: And is, and obviously Nile Rogers was also involved in this project. Yes. Did how much direction was he giving you as far as like, this is, this is the direction we want to go or like, I'll take these parts. You take these parts. Or was it just sort of like inorganic just kind of came together when I
Paul Jackson Jr.: did my parts now I wasn't there.
Okay. And I think that was partially intentional because. You know, I think they just wanted everyone to kind of just play what they heard, right? You know, so, uh, you just kind of went for stuff
Mason Marangella: So they had like kind of the the basic like they kind of like the beat the rhythmic Parts of the song already created when you came in or like what was there when you
Paul Jackson Jr.: basic, you know The harmonic structure and the beats and things and some of the vocals and okay, it's like, okay and just play what you hear
Mason Marangella: Okay.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Yeah, uh, would
Mason Marangella: you be willing to play a little bit of the part for us? Sure. Absolutely Should we start with uh, give life back to music or get lucky?
Paul Jackson Jr.: Uh, we can, well get lucky is pretty straight ahead. We can do that. That's simple because, okay. You know, all I did really on that was, was a very simple part
and there's a little thing in the intro I did, uh, it was like. That little thing that, that starts it and ends it. But,
Mason Marangella: yeah. Yeah. And, and otherwise it's just Niall kind of doing the shucking part. Yeah, let's, let's play a little bit of it just to the, just to, So we can. To the track that we could in a Get Lucky game.
Paul Jackson Jr.: See if we get lucky.
that's it. That was me.
Yeah. So forth and so on. Yeah. But that was, that was basically what I did in that song. And like I said, the little interesting Mm-Hmm. , all that stuff. Yeah.
Mason Marangella: Beautiful, beautiful. Um. You want to give, give life back to music a little try? Now there's like three, three guitars or four guitars? There's actually four guitars.
Four guitars. I was just
Paul Jackson Jr.: listening to it because in, in the verses there was the, let's see. Let's see. I want to put keys in. Let's see, uh.
And the harmony of that. And then there were some arpeggios. Right. Yeah.
And then
the low part.
Something like that. Yeah. Man. That's it. That's it. Yeah. It was, yeah.
Yeah, like that.
Mason Marangella: Man, what a cool song. So four layers of guitar and then, and then like the rhythm shucking in the back, is that Nile or is that also you? No, that's, that's Nile. That's Nile, okay.
Paul Jackson Jr.: What did you call it, shucking?
Mason Marangella: Yeah. Yeah, don't use that term. Don't use that term. Terrible term. What's the term, what's the term, please correct me.
Rhythm guitar. Rhythm guitar. Yeah.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Shucking is what you do to corn
Mason Marangella: and oysters and oysters.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Yes. Conjunction with jive and shucking and jive. Yeah. Yeah, no, that is, that is deliberate rhythm guitar. Yeah, man. It's, it's all just like, yeah. Shucking skank and bubble picking are three of my least. Favorite terms and when
Mason Marangella: you're talking to your students, are those like, you know,
Paul Jackson Jr.: terrible, terrible words.
Yeah. Absolutely
Mason Marangella: bad. Call it what it
Paul Jackson Jr.: is. You know, it is, you know, it is not a stab. It is a backbeat. You know, it's, you know, we're not shusking, we're not bubble picking, we are playing, we're playing rhythm guitar or single note rhythm guitar. And see, that's an interesting thing. Okay. When you say, okay, single note rhythm guitar, okay, is it, is it, is it, or is it, you know, so what is it?
Or is it a combination of the three? You know, um, there's a record by, um. It's done by Shalamar, great guitar player by the name of Ernest Pepper Reed. He played a very monumental part.
Get ready. It's called Night to Remember, actually. Oh, Night to Remember, yeah. But then you have a song by Evelyn King called Love Come Down, which was done by, um, Ira Siegel.
You know.
Now! That's kind of a combination of the two because he's playing hard. Let's see.
I
think it's actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But
he's
digging in.
So, you know, so. It's their levels of intensity, levels of muting sometimes. And it's interesting because a lot of people mute with their right hand. does a lot of muting with his left hand is sometimes he's playing.
Some of these, some of these playing,
which is left hand. So, you know, so that's why it's like, I, and I just don't like to generalize, you know, so that's the thing. And, and, uh, so anyway, so those are, those are terms I never use. So band terms, stab stabs, bubble, bubble picking, Shucking. And there's one more. Oh, skank skank.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Paul: Okay. Gank parts.
Yeah.
Mason Marangella: So now, now we know the terms I never use. Illegal in the Jackson house. So you did this work with. Daft Punk. Yes, correct. Daft Punk also is working, and still continues to work, I believe, in some capacity, uh, with The Weeknd. With The Weeknd, yeah, okay. And somehow you got to work on one of The Weeknd's biggest hits, uh, I Feel It Coming.
Right. And, uh, How did that materialize? Was it an introduction from Daft Punk? Or they're just like, you should use Paul Jackson Jr. on this or? Well, actually neither.
Paul Jackson Jr.: I was actually in the studio with Daft Punk. Similar session, different musical ideas coming up with different things, you know, different parts.
For the same, where, when you were working on that, that record? Oh, this was another occasion. Okay. Yeah. This was not, uh, Random Access Memories. It's, this was, So we're just working on different things, trying different ideas, you know, and, uh, this particular song came up. So I came up with those parts and so didn't think about it.
I said, okay, well, maybe they use it. Maybe they didn't cause they lots of things that would use and not use. Um, so I'm driving down the street one day and I hear this week, this record with the weekend. I said, oh, man, it's pretty cool record. I'm listening. I said, man, I kind of liked that guitar part. I said, wait a minute.
That's me, . So I, I called their, uh, called their manager on the phone. I said, Hey, did they use that on the weekend? Said Sure did. I said, man, it sounds great. So, so that's how I ended up on the, on the record. We, it was a da punk session, Uhhuh, and I guess they ended up collaborating with on that particular song.
Yeah. With the weekend.
Mason Marangella: Yeah.
Paul Jackson Jr.: And, uh, the rest is, is, and that
Mason Marangella: was also the Bradshaw rig on that one. That was a Bradshaw rig.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Same setup. Yep.
Mason Marangella: And, and the, so like a VHT or Fryette. Uh, power amp, uh, Traxxas preamp, and then, and then obviously some compression it sounds like on there.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Yeah. Uh, that was a Deminer, what he calls his optocompulator, which is an optical compressor in a box.
Great compressor. Yeah. And so that was that. Beautiful. And was that the Strat or? That was, in listening to it, I think it was a Brown Strat and also the 245. Okay. Yeah. Was that, it just, it's done different parts or was it doubled or? It was two different parts. Okay. Yeah, there's a rhythm part like And there's a separate part lower.
Awesome. Yeah. Can we, uh, try playing through a
Mason Marangella: little
Paul Jackson Jr.: bit? Sure. There's, yeah. If I, yeah, I'll remember it in a second. 'cause I was fooling with it earlier. This one.
Yeah, the other part was like, like, uh.
So, so it was, you know, different ranges, different sound, you know, and then a call and response. A lot of, you know, uh, a lot of things are call and response, you know, so you, yeah. So that's
Mason Marangella: what that was. That's, it's such a cool part in, in, like I said, when I first heard it, um, I guess like some of the stuff that I heard of the weekend leading up to it, it wasn't as like, uh, uh, Uh, didn't seem to have like the same sort of like funk groove that this song had and it was just like man, I was totally sucked in by the guitar part.
I had no idea that you'd played on Intel. I was like trying to research other sort of the offshoots of Daft Punk and man, it's such a cool part. And yeah, like that kind of like the lower register stuff that the single notes is just like
Paul Jackson Jr.: I didn't know I had played on it either until I'm driving down the street and it's like, Oh man, I'm going to hit a record!
Yes! You know, so it was kind of cool.
Mason Marangella: Yeah. I mean, and so like you were just playing to like some sort of, you know, skeleton version of, of had the
Paul Jackson Jr.: chords and laid out in the groove and everything. Yeah. So it's, you know, once again, just, you know, come up with some parts and do some things. And, and fortunately, you know, with Pro Tools, I say fortunately, I'd say fortunately, most of the time, you never run out of track, so you can always try things, you know.
Mason Marangella: Well, man, this has been such a cool opportunity. And obviously this could have been a multiple day or week long version of this. You've played on so many different songs and just so many hit records that, you know, again, we could be, we could be doing this for, for weeks and weeks and weeks and still not run out of tracks.
Yeah. And I just really appreciate you, Paul, taking the time to go through some of this stuff. I know the value to people out there and getting to kind of see how you do it exactly the way that it was played on the record. Getting to hear about the gear. It's like, nobody we can know this from except for you.
And I'm just really grateful that you allowed us the opportunity to kind of tell the story, at least of some of the songs that have kind of outlined your session career, and of course an amazing solo career, which I'm hoping I get to see you tonight at Yoshi's. Yay! Yay! So, uh, man, just thank you so much, Paul, for, for agreeing to do this.
And again, I know that I speak for the people watching this too, that we're just so grateful that you, you, uh, were willing to share your stories with us.
Paul Jackson Jr.: Well, Mason, I thank you, Lord bless you, man. I appreciate being here and, and, uh, you know, got to leave some knowledge here, you know, for, for folks, you know, as, as we move on and stuff like that, it'd be good to leave some of the knowledge and some of the things we know still here.
So I am very appreciative that you had me.
It's been a pleasure.
