Early Blues Interview
Steve (Pablo) Jones, artist/singer/songwriter/guitarist,
Karac and Solo

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"Karac consists of four experienced musicians and songwriters of very different influences who come together to write their own brand of music. We feature an eclectic mix of instruments and styles and our music draws heavily on the light-and-shade principles of song writing adopted by many of the classic bands that influenced us in our formative years. The most important thing for us is that our music sounds original and interesting. We write and play what we ourselves would like to hear and try not to fall into the current trend of borrowing and cloning of other peoples material that so much modern music relies on. Its a journey of discovery. We hope you come along for the ride.

A modest approach!! Were very much a rock/blues based band, punchy & quite raw we think! Melodic, modern aggressive in yer face at times type choones, we suppose!"

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Christine (my wife) and I caught up with Steve (Pablo) Jones at the Skegness Rock and Blues Festival.

Alan:      What did you want to be when you were young – an artist or a musician?

Pablo:    Definitely an artist.  The only thing I was ever good at in school was painting, I was rubbish at everything else but always top of the class in the art.  I have this theory that if you’re good at something then you should stick to it so I always knew I’d have to try and do something with art.

Alan:      Did you come from an artistic or a musical family?

Pablo:    My Gran and my Dad both paint, also my sister, so yes, there is something there.

Alan:      How did you get started in painting as a career?

Pablo:    My first job, because I was so useless at everything else, was in a pottery in Wales drawing birds and animals on the pottery and I used to have to engrave the drawings on.  At the time I was going through a stage of learning to do scraper boards, which are a black background where you scratch the ink off and it becomes white and the pottery was the same theory.  You weren’t allowed to test the pottery and you used to have to engrave the images in.  So I knew even then that it was possible to make money out of art. 

Christine: Have you always worked in Art as a career?

Pablo:    When times have been really bad you could probably name hundreds of “proper” jobs that I’ve done from labouring to selling fish to selling coal. 

Alan:      If art is bringing you money, isn’t a proper job??

Pablo:    Well, it’s bringing me money but you can’t say it’s constant.  The lads on the construction sites were labouring from 7 to 7 and those are the guys that I take my hat off too because they were so keen on the work and they really enjoyed it.  For me it was like being in a press gang.  I don’t know if art sounds as a proper job because it's not consistent and you don’t get a proper wage.  You’re always living on your, well, sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t.   It’s a choice I made.

Alan:      Who has inspired you in your painting?

Pablo:    All art inspires me.  I’ve been to the Tate, to the Louvre and recently I met a top Spanish artist called Alberro ... there’s a painting by Renoir that sort of got me going, there's something about his painting, but all arts inspired me.

Alan:      Tell me about your non-musical art.  We’re used to seeing you at blues festivals with your musical portfolio but I think you do a lot of other work too?

Pablo:    There was a Welsh artist called Caitlin Williams who did palette knife work.  On the face of it, it looks very very easy but when I tried to do it, I couldn’t.  It took me a while but now I’ve got one knife I can use.  It’s a totally different technique and I do landscapes and seascapes but with very very thick paint and a lot more colour.   There’s another type of art that probably too difficult to explain without seeing it visually and I haven’t got many samples it, but lines go through the painting and you’ll see that some of my big paintings there are some lines that go through some of the images.  It’s too difficult to explain how that happens but I’m working on that as well. so there are different types of art I do as well.

Christine:   How has your art developed over the years?

Pablo:    You develop as a person and as an artist as you get older.   They say that as you get older you can leave stuff out, and the more you can leave out, the better it is.  I think you start finding your personality more.  Now, after all these years of drawing and painting, my work is just starting to mature into something.

Alan:      Where do you have your studio?

Pablo:    It’s in Caernarvon, North Wales.   I’ve two studios, one at home, one that I pay for and share with another artist and also a music shop where I sell music and musical gear.

Alan:      You’ve got a diverse artistic portfolio, how did you first get interested in painting musicians, which is what most people know you for?

Pablo:    I used to like drawing people so it was a natural progression to start drawing musicians.  But there’s a friend of mine I owe it to, called Len Jones, and he played Colne.  He’d seen the first one I did of BB King and he said, “They’d love this stuff in Colne” so I approached Colne and I worked outside on the market; and that’s where I first worked, outside on the market but somehow I must have made some contacts because the next thing I knew I was actually inside the main hall.  The blues thing, well, I like blues and some of it I like a lot, but I’m not saying I’m crazy about all blues.  I find that no matter how well you do the blues you know what is coming up next and I like some more obscure blues.   However, even though I just happened to fall into the blues scene I’ve always found the blues musicians and the blues people really nice and there’s a certain type of people who seem to appreciate art as much as they do the music which is really nice.

Alan:      What’s been your most satisfying painting or drawing that you’ve done?

Pablo:    One of them was a pastel of John Lee Hooker when he was young which I sold in Exeter in a festival and I sort of wish I hadn’t sold it.  Perhaps because art is so diverse I’m not sure you are ever satisfied, there’s always something.  Sometime I look at it from the outside and I do like a piece and want to keep it, but I don’t keep many, can’t afford to do that!

Christine:    What do you think of modern art today?

Pablo:    I used to pooh-pooh it when I was younger.  My sister was slightly more of an intellect than me and I think it’s the intellectual people who see more in modern art, but after meeting a modern artist in Spain recently, I’ve come back with five sort of Picasso-ish type of modern works.   It’s  a nice way to express and you can enjoy it a bit more, but it’s not as straightforward as you’d think.  You have to somehow be at the top of your game before you can go into modern art even though you think it’s easy because you have to almost drawn like a child but in a certain way.  It’s like a child but it’s not like a child and it’s a lot cleverer than what you’d think, the concept and the approach.  It’s a very complicated thing.   Picasso going through his various blue and pink periods show him maturing and then I think he crossed the line into something else.  Now whether many artists get to cross that line is another thing.  I hope I can do it sometime.

Alan:      Turning to music, what were your first musical memories?

Pablo:    My sister playing Bob Dylan, and then I heard the Beatles and they had a tremendous impact on me melody-wise and harmony-wise.  Simple melodies from a few chords.  I’ve written songs since I was 16, even before I could play guitar, I always wrote songs first.   For me, music sort of came second and it’s the composition and creating the songs that inspires me.

Alan:      What kind of material were you playing in the early days of being a musician?

Pablo:    All my own stuff.  It shows how old I am but I actually went for an audition with Opportunity Knocks with one of my own songs, which was quite brave when you think about it.  It was probably a terrible song but even then I wrote my own stuff.  People used to take the mickey out of me because my knowledge of bands and music was, well, coming from Carnarvon and living the life I did, I didn’t know musicians, I never listened to them.  There was one band that I did buy an album of, and that was Jethro Tull which was folky rock, there was something quirky.

Alan:      Who are your favourite musicians?

Pablo:    I like Free,  Paul Rogers as a singer, I like anybody that sings well and writes good songs.  Paul Rogers, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC – I like good songs.

Alan:      Who has influence you most in your music writing?

Pablo:    I think just rock in general has influenced me – rock, folk and melody.  There isn’t anybody that I’ve thought, “I want to write like them”, it’s too much like having your own signature.   I couldn’t name a band that’s really inspired me but I like that wild heavy rock, some of the Stones, songs like Angie, a couple of Free songs.  I was very slow getting into rock.  It was only when I met this guitarist from home who was into electrical guitar, because I was always into acoustic guitar.  Like everything else, I was just slow getting started.

Alan:      What’s your favourite instrument that you play?

Pablo:    At the moment it’s the bouzouki and I’ve got a mandolin.  I’ve also gone back to my 12 string and I do stuff on that.  I actually de-tuned my 12 string and that’s opened a few doors.

Alan:      Are there any songs that have special meaning to you?

Pablo:    Only once when my first girlfriend broke my heart because she two-timed me and that’s just an old song, you know,  ”da, da... but I guess that’s just the way the story goes.  Coz you.....”  you know, that one!

Alan:      Tell me about Karac – when you first get together?

Pablo:    Ah, Karak!  Karac's a very special band because the guitarist, Glynn Porrino, I’d been in a band off and on with for 25 years.  We were in a band called Harvest Moon and we won Battle of the Bands at Liverpool Empire and the judges were Gary Moore (great great man), Graham Bonnet and Ian Gillan, and a guy from 10CC and we won Best Band, Best Guitarist and Best Song – we won everything.  Those were absolutely great days.  We went on to do a live song on Granada Television, which you can watch on You Tube (Harvest Moon - Tales of Wonder),  you can see me with a ‘tash.  

So he’s still the guitarist in Karac.  I know it sounds strange but Glynn makes a band sound like a proper band.  I was a singer back in those days and you always have to have your right hand man as your guitarist.  If your right hand man is not strong, then the singer’s not strong.  So Glynn was right hand man, then we found Colin who plays bass and he’s just got a superb voice, so I started to step back from the singing and do the harmonies.  It’s the first time I’ve ever been involved with three people who write together with different influences – you’ve got my folky rock blues, you’ve got Glynn’s Wishbone Ash, Led Zep rock and Colin’s sort of Rush and very musical bands like that.   So, 3 people getting together and writing songs together and it works.  I’ve never been in a band that’s worked like this before.  That’s what makes Karac exciting.  Where Karac isn’t exciting is pushing ourselves and getting things together.  We’ve got two studios but trying to finish our album .... it’s ridiculous really but it’s just because Glynn is from Warrington and we’re in Wales.  Even though it’s not very far, that the difficulty with Karac.

Alan:      At Carlisle Blues Festival we saw you do a solo slot for the very first time and you’ve just done a slot here at Skegness, tell me about the experience. 

Pablo:    I steered myself into Carlisle because I was very impressed with a guy who’s got long hair and a very nice manner and he played acoustic guitar, you probably know his name.

Alan:      Yes, Marcus Bonfanti.

Pablo:    I watched him, and I thought, I could do that, and he sold two boxes of CDs.  I don’t particularly like performing by myself but I thought it’s a shame that I write songs but I don’t perform them, so I just occasionally get off my arse and think, right I’m going to perform these songs and see if I can enjoy the experience.  Carlisle was my first one and as a gig to throw myself into it was a good one.  I did okay but I can’t say I enjoyed the experience.  Even today, there was a part of me thinking, “Why am I doing this.  Am I supposed to be enjoying this?”  But I think if you can overcome that and relax on stage and enjoy the song that you’ve created and learn to put it over, then it might become more rewarding. But at the moment it’s hard to do that, to really relax and enjoy it. 

Christine:     But do you relax when you are with the band?

Pablo:    When you’re with the band, the onus isn’t just on you.  It’s a shared thing, you’re there for the boys and everybody has their part.  All you have to do is concentrate on your part and you’re not just there by yourself.  Okay, if one person lets you down you can probably still carry it.  Perhaps I’ve been doing that  a bit too long but I think now that I’m older I might be able to enjoy it on my own more.

Alan:      So, we’re likely to see you on stage more, solo?

Pablo:    Yes, I think so, as long as I’m getting good responses.   I don’t need to be there because I’m happy with my painting but if people quite like the music I write, then, yes.  Depends what sort of impact I make.

Alan:      From what I saw and heard it went down very well at Carlisle.

Pablo:    Did it?  I’m not sure - Nick is like a stone – if you ask him “What did you think?” you get, “Yeah, yeah, it was good, yeah” but you don’t get a real idea.

Alan:      So, what are your artistic aspirations?

Pablo:    I’d like to create some work which people can look at and immediately say, “Oh, that’s a Pablo”.  It’d be nice to create some work which will stand the test of time and make a mark.  I think everything wants to make a mark and to leave something.

Alan:      And what about the musical side?

Pablo:    I was thinking about this in a sad way the other day.  If I wasn’t here anymore perhaps my kids would put on some CDs and say, “That’s my Dad and we’d like to know more about him”.  By listening to the songs you could understand my character more.   You do write about personal things in songs.

Alan:      Particularly in blues songs.

Pablo:    As I said in Carlisle, most of my blues songs are about breaking up with a woman.  It seems to me all you have to do is meet a woman, she breaks your heart and you write a song about it.

Christine:    If you had to choose between art or music, which would you choose?

Pablo:    I’d choose art.  But then music is a form of art in a sense.   There’s a strange bit of voice that’s been with me for as long as I can remember that, if I don’t paint, this little voice tells me, “You’ve been lazy today.  What have you done today?”  So I answer it, “Well, I’ve painted all morning” but the little voices says “It’s not good enough, you’ve got to paint so many hours”.  There’s a voice that keeps nagging away; I’m not sure whose voice it is.  Sometimes, and this is going to sound a bit weird now, but sometimes if I’m painting I feel as though I go into a different zone and it almost feels like it’s somebody else.  It’s not drugs or anything, it’s just that voice that tells me to paint.  It gets on my nerves sometimes.  Perhaps every man and woman might have that.  If you want to strive and achieve with what you do, do you hear that voice?

Alan:      Err, well no I don’t generally hear voices!   Thanks very much Pablo.  I really appreciate that and wish you the best of luck with both your artistic and playing careers.
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Check out Pablo's latest solo album:

Available from Pablo on his art stand at a blues festival near you

See photos of Steve solo at Carlisle Blues Festival

http://www.myspace.com/karacmusic

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