Desert Jewel: The BissList Interview with Eric McFadden

By Josh Danson, BISS List Contributing Editor

If you have lived in San Francisco for any amount of time and are a fan of live music, you have no doubt seen Eric McFadden playing around town. With his Trio he anchored the lineup at the Boom Boom Room for years. He also played lead in the powerhouse Stockholm Syndrome (you want to call it a “Supergroup,” go ahead), with fellow road warriors and rock icons David Schools, Jerry Joseph, Wally Ingram and Danny Louis, in addition to playing guitar and mandolin with George Clinton and P-Funk and touring with Eric Burdon and the Animals. In fact, the list of groups McFadden has formed, fronted, played in or contributed to is too long to list here. Suffice it to say that over the past twenty years McFadden has been one of the leading lights of the SF live music scene and his influence now extends from coast to coast, as well as internationally.

Prolific as he is ubiquitous, McFadden has released more than 30 albums – five in the last two years alone! His latest release, Starving at the Feast (Bad Reputation, 2020), is an acoustic album of shifting moods and sounds, featuring tales of love, loss and humor, with a bluesy foundation but with an overarching latin-gypsy aesthetic that is out front on songs like, “The Way I Loved You,” and “Easy Tiger”. McFadden’s soulful baritone and equally emotive playing transport you to the desert Southwest and southern Spain, navigating through encounters with the Devil and with devilish women, with unexpected twists and turns along the way.

Known for his fiery leads and Hendrix-like solos, on Starving at the Feast, McFadden highlights another facet of his wide-ranging and virtuosic talents. Go back to his previous studio album, Pain By Numbers (Whiskey Bayou Records, 2018) and you’ll hear another side – the raw, bluesy, authentic rock & roll that he is perhaps best known for. But just when you think you know him, he switches up on you, chameleon-like, and issues an all-acoustic tribute to AC/DC.  

Most recently, McFadden has been working with singer-songwriter Kate Vargas on a crowd-funded album that is currently in pre-production. I caught up with Eric over the phone the other day at the Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival in Zihuantanejo, Mexico, where he was one of the featured performers – along with Omar Torrez, with whom he also put out a recent album – and asked him about his musical roots, his current projects and the Kate Vargas Kickstarter campaign. 

BissList: You've been associated with the San Francisco music scene for quite some time, but I gather you originally came up in Albuquerque and took some lessons there with the South-Western bluesman, Stan Hirsch.

Eric McFadden: That's right. Yeah. The great Stan Hirsch.

BissList: I just listened to some of his stuff earlier today for the first time and he's got a very cool sound. You definitely hear that Southwestern influence coming through in your playing too. On songs like "Cactus Juice," and "Rio De Lagrimas," that sound like they grew up right out of the desert sands. But tell me a little bit more about your musical background and how you got from Albuquerque to San Francisco.

Eric McFadden: Well, I guess I'll start with the roots. My parents had a pretty diverse, extensive record collection and I just kind of rifled through that thing from an early age and found stuff that first off looked good to me. You know, I judged the book by its cover – or the album by its cover. And whatever looked good, I put that on. But the first thing I became really obsessed with was the Beatles. And after the Beatles, of course, I found some other great gems in there, from the Stones to Stevie Wonder to Bob Dylan. Beethoven and Brahms to Miles Davis, to you know, some old blues stuff like Mississippi John Hurt. They had a pretty good variety of stuff… Roy Buchanan being another that ended up being a guitar influence.

So, from George Harrison to Roy Buchanan to Jeff Beck... Then my dad bought me a John McLaughlin-Mahavishnu Orchestra album, Inner Mounting Flame, and Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced. Just listening to those was an epiphany in and of itself. So, there was a lot of cool stuff musically at my disposal. Or, at least, in my parents' collection.

Then I started collecting my own records and buying Zeppelin and Sabbath and all that. And then punk rock happened for me, you know, The Clash and the Sex Pistols, Black Flag and Bad Brains and the Minute Men – that kind of thing.

And I just kept exploring after that. Got into Hank Williams and Django Reinhart. Flamenco was also something that I kind of stumbled upon earlier that certainly had a profound impact on me. So, there was a lot of different stuff happening musically, from an early age as far as exploring different genres and time periods.

I was seven when we moved from New York to Albuquerque and I lived there through most of my 20s, with the exception of going back to New York at 17 years old for a while. But my parents made the move to New Mexico for some opportunities that were at hand. My dad was a goldsmith, so that's how he got his start in jewelry. And my parents were both very into music. My mother lived in the East Village in the 60s, and Sun Ra and Allen Ginsberg were her neighbors, and she hung out with Richie Havens and Miles Davis and shit like that. She was pretty immersed in it. And my dad played guitar and danced as a teenager and such. So, we were definitely all into music.

Then, San Francisco, you know, I had toured through there a couple of times with my old punk rock band, Angry Babies, and then I was sort of coaxed by a couple of people to move there. One being my dear friend Ron Donovan, rock poster artist extraordinaire from the Bay Area who passed away a couple of years ago. He was one of my favorite people of all time and is sorely missed. But between him and Michael Dean from the band Bomb, and my friend Bean, a.k.a. Paul Kirk, a great bass player who used to play with Helios Creed, they had me join their band, Slish, back in ’94 and I slept on their couch – that pretty much began my time in San Francisco.

Then, of course, Robin Reichert at the Paradise Lounge was very generous, getting me a regular happy hour gig there. That helped out quite a bit. So that was kind of the beginning of it for me in San Francisco. Then I convinced a few of my friends to move from Albuquerque to San Francisco and started Liar with Paulo Baldi, Marisa Martinez, Paula O'Rourke and myself. Then we got Alien Lovestock out here, too. So, I got two of my bands to move to San Francisco to make life more pleasant for me. And that was that was a ride. Paulo's still one of my closest friends and one of the best drummers I know. He's played with Claypool Lenon Delerium and Cake for 13 years.

So that was kind of how that all happened, sparing you some of the more boring details, or the ones that I can't recall.

BissList: Haha, perfect. That's great background. Thanks for that.

I was listening to Starving at the Feast (Bad Reputation, 2020), your new acoustic album, which was just released this January. And as you just referenced flamenco – you play some very tasty, very authentic sounding flamenco-style guitar on there, the track “Easy Tiger,” in particular leaps to mind – I was wondering, how easy or difficult was it to go from shredding on the electric on one album to playing classical guitar, fingerpicking, mostly nylon strings, I would guess, on the next? I'm sure some time elapsed between your last two studio albums, but just getting in that different mindset, how do you go from one to the other?

Eric McFadden: Well, it's just... both are somewhat second nature because I've been playing both electric and acoustic pretty much the entirety of my time playing the guitar. So, there's somewhat of an adjustment, of course, because the physicality is a little different, but mostly it's just getting in a different mindset, a different frame of mind really. It's just a different facet of my playing personality. So, it's not really that difficult to access one or the other so much, and once you're there, you're there.

BissList: Right, I guess you're exercising some different muscles, in your hands as well as in your brain, but you know they are there.

Eric McFadden: Oh yeah.

BissList: So, you were playing a traditional classical guitar mostly on that last album?

Eric McFadden: Yeah, it's all just nylon string, Spanish guitar for the entirety of that one.

BissList: Cool.

Eric McFadden: I'm in Zihuantanejo now and I actually recorded a couple of those guitar parts in Zihuantanejo when I was here last year. But I recorded most of the record with Phil Milner at Okey Doke Studios in San Rafael. But tidbits were picked up here and there. You know, New Orleans, a little bit in L.A. with Seth Forcione who plays bass on it along with Mike Anderson, but mostly done and mixed by Phil Milner.

BissList: Very cool. And is that Kate Vargas singing background vocals on it, on "Steady on the Mark"?

Eric McFadden: No, she's not on this one. That's actually my friend Kris Doty.

She's a great songwriter, singer, and bass player living in Portland. So she's one of the co-writers on that song.

BissList: Yeah, well it's a great song. 

Eric McFadden: Thanks.

BissList: And who is it playing the fiddle on the album?

Eric McFadden: That's Emily Palen. She's a uniquely talented violinist from the Bay Area and it was just a joy to play with her.

BissList: Well she definitely adds a cool sonic element.

So where does that love of the Latin, Flamenco style, that's a recurring theme in your music come from?

Eric McFadden: Well, I can't say specifically. But I think that I can pinpoint some of that coming from me being 13 or 14 years old and bringing a younger kid to his flamenco lessons at the request of his parents because they didn't want him going alone. And when I heard that teacher, John Truitt, play flamenco guitar it just blew my mind. Then I was off and running and I had to learn a little more about that. So, I listened to some Paco De Lucia and Carlos Montoya and those two guys kind of set me off in that direction. Then I just came to really enjoy the Latin influence and Gypsy stylings of certain artists.

Just living in New Mexico, and also getting to see Paco de Lucia perform a few times. And then my first time going to Europe, I went to Spain and that also led me farther down that path.

BissList: Gotcha. And did you study in Spain, or were you just there for a visit?

Eric McFadden: Really just from touring over there. But I met a lot of musicians, you know, on the street. Sometimes we'd see musicians playing on the streets, playing flamenco, and I would just join them. And they would want to play the blues and rock & roll with me. And I wanted to play flamenco with them. So we would just sort of jam and learn stuff from each other.

BissList: That's awesome. So you're mostly self-taught in that style, it sounds like. 

Eric McFadden: Yeah. I wouldn't consider myself a flamenco player. I have just borrowed some things from the style or incorporated some of that sound or instrumentation into my play.

BissList: Very cool. Well, like I said, it sounds very authentic.

One of the first albums that really blew my mind when I was starting to play guitar – and almost made me put down my guitar – was listening to Friday Night in San Francisco and just being like, "What? How the hell are they doing that?"

Eric McFadden: Yeah, that was insane. I love that album.

BissList: Right? Amazing.

You've worked with everybody from Anders Osborne and Eric Burdon to George Clinton and P-Funk. Not to mention in bands where you were a featured member like Stockholm Syndrome, T.E.N. and Tasty Face [with Angelo Moore from Fishbone]. What do you enjoy most about working with other artists in more of a sideman role, versus on your own solo recordings or as a bandleader and vise versa? What do you get out of both of those roles?

Eric McFadden:  Well, obviously when I'm doing my own stuff and leading the band, I'm expressing something that's much more personal or something that is coming straight from me. So, there's a very close personal attachment to it. And there's also a lot more responsibility being a frontman and being responsible for the trajectory of things and just everything surrounding what I'm doing. Whereas being a sideman kind of alleviates that responsibility or pressure and you can just focus on contributing as best you can to whatever you're there to contribute to. So I enjoy playing that role too, just serving the music, serving somebody else's music the best that I can. And I tend not to want to do that with music that I don't enjoy or like [laughs]. But I like it. I like being a sideman. I think it's freeing, you know, in a way, because I don't have to think about fronting or leading the band. I'm just there just to try to add something, to sort of embellish or add or enhance what's happening already, you know? I really enjoy doing both. I would never want to give up doing my own thing entirely, but it's nice to take a break from it sometimes and jump on somebody else's train for a while. And I always learn something. I mean, I learned a tremendous amount touring with George Clinton and P-Funk and things I might have thought I'd already known, I just learned I didn't know shit about and then gained a little more knowledge. So, I think all of these different projects have served me in that way, you know?

BissList: Yeah, for sure. Nice to have both of those outlets and be able to indulge both those sides of you.

Eric McFadden: Absolutely. Yeah.

BissList: For your 2018 release, Pain By Numbers (Whiskey Bayou Records, 2018), the last studio album you put out before Starving at the Feast, you worked with Tab Benoit down at his Whiskey Bayou Studio in Louisiana. How was that experience?

Eric McFadden: You know, just really easy. I had come straight there from a very difficult situation. A bad break up. But then we just dove into the album and everything was done very spontaneously and live. I had actually just lost a lot of my work because my computer and some hard drives had been stolen, so some of the songs had to be written very quickly. You know, one or two were written during the session and a couple right before. And there were some co-writes, songs that I had written with other people that I pulled out, and most of that stuff was one or two takes, with very few overdubs. But I had an incredible band. You know, working with Tab Benoit was a real pleasure. He also played a little keyboards, drums and guitar on the album. But most of the drums were Terrence Higgins and the bass was Doug Wimbish, so you can't really go wrong with a rhythm section like that.

BissList: Uh yeah, that’s a great band.

Eric McFadden: As good as it gets with those guys.

BissList: I love Tab. Remember being introduced to him down at Jazz Fest one year and having my mind blown by him.

Eric McFadden: Oh yeah, he's the real deal, man. Yeah, that was a great experience, you know. That was sort of a me getting back on my feet again record. And that same year, right after that, Omar Torrez and I put out an acoustic album recorded in Cholula, Mexico (Cholula Sessions, 2018). Then a month after that, my all-acoustic AC/DC tribute (Eric McFadden Does AC/DC: Acoustic Tribute, 2018) came out on the French label, Bad Reputation. So, a lot happened in that little time span.

BissList: Yeah, that's some serious productivity. And now that you mention the circumstances -- the breakup, the stolen computer -- I can definitely hear it on that album.

Eric McFadden: Yeah. Yeah. It's all over that one. But I'm pretty stoked about this acoustic album. And Bad Reputation also just released a live album that I did in Corsica, myself and Pat McManus, a double live album (Two Big Mc's: Pat McManus & Eric McFadden -- Live at Patrimonio, 2020). So that just came out a few days ago.

BissList: Wow, that's cool. Tell me a little bit about that. I'm not familiar with Pat.

Eric McFadden: Pat McManus is an Irish guitar player who tours a lot over in Europe and has a pretty good thing going there. Really great guy and player. I met him years ago when I was playing in Paris. And Eric Kubar from the label brought him over to meet me and we played together and he sat in. So then we just did a festival together again recently in Corsica. They recorded it and released this live album in conjunction with the festival label. I didn't even know they were doing that. I didn't know they recorded it until after, which maybe was a good thing, except that I really botched the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long," and wished that hadn't included that on the album. But people can get a good laugh at my fuckery on that song.

BissList: Cool, well I'll definitely look forward to checking that out. Not the part where you fucked up, but you know what I mean [laughs].

Tell us a little bit about your friend, Kate Vargas, and her Kickstarter project that she's working on. Tell us about your involvement and how you two met.

Eric McFadden: We met at Steelbridge Song Fest, which is one of the song-writing festivals founded by Pat mAcdonald [his preferred spelling] that happens out of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. And we are all housed at a renovated 1950s-style motel called the Holiday Music Motel.

BissList: Right! Wally was telling me about that recently. [Click here to read the recent BissList interview with Wally Ingram]

Eric McFadden: Yep. He is actually part-owner. He and Pat and Melanie Jayne. And Jackson Browne's got some involvement there too. It's an incredible thing. One of the most incredible things I've ever done in my life. I go every year. Been going since 2006. Kate Vargas and I met there a couple of years ago and when I first heard her, before even meeting her, I was just blown away. I just kind of stopped in my tracks and was sort of compelled to stand there and listen and was pretty taken by what she was doing. Her voice. Her lyrics. Performance. And then the next day saw her perform a couple of songs again out there and the same thing happened. So I was just immediately... I became a fan immediately. I consider her to be one of the true greats. I think she's one of the best songwriters of the last decade, easily. Her songwriting, her voice; just the way her mind works and her performance style I find very appealing, unique and compelling. So I just wanted to be more involved with what she was doing. And we finally got to write a song together after doing a couple festivals together. The first song we wrote together was called "Freakification," and we've written a few since. And one of the songs we collaborated on will be on her new album, which, as you know, there's a Kickstarter that’s going on.

As most people probably know, that's a crowdfunding platform that helps musicians and artists fund their projects, since these days it can be hard to make it happen in the current climate, the way the music business is today. It's really become where fans have had to play more of a hand in seeing to it that their favorite artists can actually create and produce music.

So, we've got that Kate Vargas Kickstarter that's nearing its deadline. So anybody that wants to check that out and support the cause would be great. I'm playing on the record. Granville Mullings Jr. is playing drums on the record. Charles Newman is producing it. Of course Kate is playing guitar and singing. It's already underway and it's going to be a pretty amazing piece of work. I mean, the songs are incredible already. So, I definitely encourage people that are fans of good music to go check the Kate Vargas Kickstarter out.

BissList: We’ll definitely provide the link to that. Do you know what her target date for completion is? I know it's probably dependent on a bunch of different factors, but is she in the studio already, or is she waiting for the Kickstarter campaign to run its course first?

Eric McFadden: Well, the Kickstarter campaign is running until March 21st, but we started pre-production in New York just last week before I came down to Mexico. And then at the end of this month, actually April 1st, we go back into the studio.

BissList: Got it. All right, cool. We will definitely do our best to get the word out and help get this thing funded.

Eric McFadden: I appreciate that. This world needs this record. I know I do!

BissList: Well, it’s high praise coming from you. And that means a lot, so I Iook forward to hearing it.

Eric McFadden: I'd pay for the whole thing myself if I could. But that's the story with that. And then we'll be out in the Bay Area doing some shows. April 10th, we'll be at Peri's in Fairfax. Then on the 11th we'll be in Albany at the Ivy Room. So we're bringing it out there and it's going to be me, Kate Vargas. Paulo Baldi on drums, Mike Anderson on bass. And then at the Ivy Room it's going to be Reed Mathis on bass. So that'll be me, Kate, Paulo, Reid and Mike.

BissList: Oh, awesome. I love Lani who runs the Ivy Room over there.

Eric McFadden: Oh, yeah. She's the best. And most likely Emily Palen will be there to play some violin too.

BissList: Excellent, I'll definitely have to check that out. All right, last question for you. Any chance of another Stockholm Syndrome tour anytime soon?

Eric McFadden: Well, it's not something to be ruled out. I just saw Schools recently in New York. You know, they [Widepread Panic] were at the Beacon and we hung out with them a couple of nights. And Jerry [Jospeh] and I have been in touch, and obviously Wally and I talk all the time. So, it's not something that couldn't happen. We'll see. I know Wally and I, and Jerry, we're all kind of pretty interested in it.

You know, Wally and I have been doing the Sophistikits together. So, we've got that going, with Eddie Roberts, Chris Spies and Seth Ford-Young. So, we'll see what the future brings. I do not discount the possibility entirely, but I have no definitive answer.

BissList: Hah, that’s about exactly what I got from Wally when we spoke.

Eric McFadden: Hah, exactly! [Laughs]

BissList: Well, thank you so much for your time and I look forward to seeing you in person back here in the Bay Area.

Eric McFadden: Absolutely. Look forward to it.