Jens Johansson: talks about his solo recordings featuring Allan Holdsworth, Shawn Lane,

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JLP: You must be proud to have it on a Johansson CD!

You have no idea how proud! Of course it's scary putting your own lame solos next to Allan's... I'm quite proud that I had the balls to do that as well, instead of collapsing into a blubbering heap saying "we can never release this because I suck"!

JLP: You seem to particularly like the legato style for guitar players since, after Allan, you played with Shawn Lane who has a similar sound and style. Even Mike Stern used a sound slightly different from the one he generally uses.

Yeah, most "distorted guitar" players end up with some sort of legato sound. I think Mike uses the pick quite a lot though, don't know if that's what you meant.

Shawn uses both a lot of picking and a lot of legato! Lots of everything..

JLP: Don't you think that recording separate sections in various studios (especially for the guitar solos) makes albums lack the special alchemy that form during group rehearsing and recording?

Yes!

But if I have to choose between that method, and not doing a record at all, of course I would chose to do the record. Especially Allan has a very busy schedule and is difficult to commit to get in the studio to "jam". He hasn't done some much of that type of "loose and not complicated" type music for a long time, recording almost solely as a leader the last decade or so — only his own material, which is very brilliant and advanced harmonically. The last guys that got him to "jam" with them failed to get him to accept the end results, if I remember correctly (these were the dreaded "neverwas, neverwillbe" demos). So with Heavy Machinery the goal was make very modal material, and to record the backing tracks as "natural" sounding as possible (synth bass and drums at the same time, not so many keyboard overdubs either, mainly solos) and to see in what direction Allan took it. But in my head I also knew it probably would have been impossible logistically to get us together in the studio at the same time and to get a result everybody would be comfortable with. So it's a compromise. But at least it's a CD! Such is life. I still love the record.

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