Guy Pratt: 2020 Interview

Here are excerpts of an interview English bass player Guy Pratt gave to Paul Sinclair of SuperDeluxeEdition in which he talked about his collaboration with Robert Palmer. 

You played on Riptide, even though I think it was only on one song in the end?

Guy Pratt: Yes, I played on about five or six songs but only one of them made the album (first single Discipline of Love). I was fucking just terrified the whole time I was there. I was so out of my depth.

How old would you have been then?

GP: I was 22. Bernard Edwards had asked… I’d been snuck out to play on the Power Station because I co-wrote one of the songs (Go To Zero) and apparently John Taylor couldn’t get the bass line quite right, so I literally had to go to New York just to put a guide bass down. And I met Bernard, it was terrifying. So when it came to doing Riptide, Bernard was like, ‘no, forget your guys, we’re using my New York boys, Jeff Bova and Eddie Martinez and Tony Thompson’. But then he said, ‘hey, that English kid of yours, I like him, get him in’. I thought, what? So I got flown out to Nassau, and I was just terrified. A lot of the other musicians didn’t make me feel particularly welcome, so I was very on edge the whole time.

Advert for Robert Palmer's single 'Discipline Of Love' (1985)

Robert Palmer came across as someone who's very serious about his music...

GP: So serious, and so… he just knew so much about it and he was so Yorkshire about it, you know, an incredible worker. I will always miss Robert, and I could never, ever repay the debt, that leg up he gave me was amazing. We were friends until the end, I used to go out and stay in Lugano (Robert’s home in Switzerland). He’d fly me out to play, and if they ever had a TV show to do in England, he’d always get me to come and mime. Or play, in fact. But yes, he used to do things like, for instance, if he was writing a bossa nova, he would write the lyrics phonetically but he would use words. He would write it in English but he would use words that sounded Portuguese, so the lyrics weren’t necessarily what he wanted to say but they sounded Portuguese. Amazing.

He was a great. I saw him at the Albert Hall when he did his Ridin' High orchestral concert...

GP: Oh, that was dreadful.

You didn't like that ?

GP: Well, it was meant to be the Royal Philharmonic and it ended up being the BBC Radio Orchestra and the orchestra, I think, wasn’t quite up to it. But live he was amazing, he just worked so hard. There would be like six songs before he even said good evening.

Ticket for Robert Palmer and the BBC Radio 2 Band at London's Royal Albert Hall (1992)

The other songs that you worked for Riptide, can you remember what they were or where they ended up?

GP: No, not those ones, but I’m on about four of his albums. I co-wrote a song, a minor American hit called You're Amazing. I spent a month in Milan working on Don't Explain.

There's a great track, Aeroplane, on that album. It ended up on both Ridin' High and Don't Explain. He obviously loved that song.

GP: And I think I played on two versions of that. But this was a classic Robert Palmer thing because he was such a fucking heavy drinker and everyone would get completely hammered, but he woke up the next day and he was fine. More to the point, he remembered everything he had said, and he remembered everything you had said. After some bender with him at the St James’ Club in London, apparently he just said: ‘do you play the double bass’ and I said yes, of course I play double bass, I’ve got an electric double bass. And then three days later I get a call from fucking Switzerland, saying, ‘hey, listen, Guy, we need you to come out and play on this song with your electric double bass that you said you can play’. And I thought, what? I have this old famous Triumph bass, but it’s basically furniture. I bought it after my first Australian tour, and I never really learnt to play it. More to the point, I had to fucking get a flight case built for it and then fly… I did get away with it, just about. But I think that might have been Aeroplane, because I think I played on both versions of it.

Don't Explain is such a weird record. All his records are very diverse. You've got the kind of almost heavy metal tracks, and then it goes off in all sorts of weird directions.

GP: Yes. There’s one song where I came up with a fill I was really proud of. It was one of those things where I just played something, and I went, ‘oh, sorry, is that all right, Robert?’ He went, ‘oh, that’s great, man. That’s a thing, people are going to be copying that’.

Adverts for Robert Palmer's singles 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight' and 'Mercy Mercy Me' (1990)

What was great about that record is that he had some good hits off it, the UB40 one and the  Marvin Gaye cover.

GP: Well Teo Macero was producing it, right? Who was fantastic at all the jazzier stuff but I think was at a bit of a loss on the metal tunes. One of the things as a bass player is the first thing any producer always says to you is, ‘yes, that’s great, can you play less’. Whereas Robert, he’s the only person I ever knew who would go, ‘oh, no, can you play more’. Which is brilliant psychology because you’ve got nothing to prove. The other way round you’re always trying to get away with something. Anyway, the bass is kind of me trying to do a James Jamerson (American bass player who played on most of the Motown hits). Yes, it’s got chords and everything, it’s all over the place. I’m on History, too, that was one of his things he used to do, which I love, where nothing is what you think it is. There’ll be a guitar part or a vocal part which is actually three different parts all recorded in a different rhythm, and then together it sounds like one thing but it isn’t. I really like the bass on that, and also Happiness, I play half the bass on that. I think Frank (Blair) plays on the verses and I play on the chorus.

Happiness is a great song. I mean, the whole album is really good. I'll have to give that another listen, since we've talked about it so much!

GP: You should read my book (My Bass And Other Animals), I think you’d enjoy it. We’ve got loads about this. It’s funny too.

Guy Pratt performing with Robert Palmer in London (1996)

Guy Pratt interviewed in 2020 by Paul Sinclair for SuperDeluxeEdition

superdeluxeedition.com