Jovitalk - Bon Jovi Fan Community - Interview with Hugh from Summer 2000

Note: I copied and pasted it. I know of course that the former bass player's name is Alec but not Alex :).

Hugh McDonald Interview

(Reproduced from the Summer 2000 issue of Guitarist Magazine)

Since Alex John Such left, Bon Jovi have been a band with no bass-playing member, despite the fact that Hugh McDonald has played with them since before they were called Bon Jovi! Steve Lawson investigates…

'Ghosting' - the practice of session players recording albums uncredited - is a music industry hush-word. Everyone knows it goes on, but many studio players are contractually obligated to keep schtum. Occasionally word gets round, as in the case of Hugh McDonald, who at last is getting the chance to play live with the band he's been recording with for over a decade. In fact, his only legitimate credit with the band before the two new tracks on 1997's best of album, 'Cross Road', was on the very first Bon Jovi single Runaway,

"In the very early 80s," Hugh says, picking up the story, "Jon was working at his second cousin's recording studio - the Power Station in New York - doing odd jobs. During down time in the studios he'd get to do his demos, and they'd bring in different people who were recording in the studio at the time to play on the demos.

I was introduced to studio boss, Tony Bon Giovi by Lance Quinn, and was brought in to play on a song called Runaway. The rest of the band for Runaway was Roy Bittan from Springsteen's band on Keyboards, Tim Pierce on guitar and Frankie La Rocka on drums who were in recording the first John Waite album.

"Before Jon even had a deal, Runway was put on a local unsigned band album, and it got such a great reaction that Mercury used it as the single when they signed Jon. So that's how the hook up took place - before there was a Bon Jovi, I knew him" he adds with a smile.

So one wonders why Hugh was replaced when Bon Jovi did finally get together -

"Well, there was no 'taking over'," Hugh counteracts, "I did the session and after that Jon put the band together with [keyboardist] David Bryan who Jon had played with since his teens. Alex got in there as he'd been in a fairly successful New Jersey band called Phantom's Opera. Alex found Tico and Richie came in as well. The funny thing was that I knew Jon and Richie before they met - I'd helped Richie through his first ever recording session - what goes around comes around. It was pretty natural for me to take over when Alex left - something I'd looked forward to for years."

Hugh's bass playing life goes back a long time before Bon Jovi though,

"I'd give away my age if I was to say exactly how long ago it was but suffice to say it was at least 20, maybe 25 years ago," and his reason for taking up bass was the same as so many other players of the same generation,

"Paul McCartney. The Beatles - that's what made me start. He was my favourite Beatle before I started playing. I'd fake playing left handed, holding a broom like it was a bass. I found that it came fairly easy to me, I was comfortable playing the instrument."

He does have one regret about his early years though - not learning to read,

"When I started play was my parents forced me to take lessons, and I happened to have a good enough ear to memorise the homework when the teacher played it to me. I'd go home and wouldn't do any practice, and I'd go back the next week and make like I was reading it. I didn't fooled any body but myself and over the years my reading has suffered because of it. I've never been able to get my sight-reading to the point where it's workable."

Inspired by the Beatles, forced by parents to take lessons - sounds like the typical bass player beginnings. But Hugh's journey down the well worn path to the life of a professional musician didn't stop there,

"I played in cover bands, wedding bands and everything - all that stuff, anything that paid! I've never really done anything else. I always felt that there was a living to be made - I thought, 'someone's going to pay me to do this? This is great, I'd do it for free!'"

Hugh's first session experience was with songer/songwriter Steve Goodman, and it was that session the introduced him to former Dylan guitarist David Bromberg and uber-producer Arif Mardin.

"I ended up playing with David for about 6 years, and did some work with John Prine which was great except that for years after that I got pigeon holed as a folk bass-player."

Hugh still managed to diversify and ended up recording with a wide range of artists, from Willie Nelson to Alice Cooper, Gladys Knight to Michael Bolton. The move from the world of the studio-inhabiting hired-gun to that of touring the world with stadium-dwelling rockers was smoother than you might have expected.

"I love being in a band - I just wish it was a little more regular. Since we took the two and a half year hiatus, I've been dying to get back playing with these guys. We'll see what happens this year - I'm still not a formal band member."

A potential cause of tension, you'd think,

"No, it doesn't bother me any more," he responds sincerely, "but it's a very interesting situation to have played on the records, and now play live, and not be a band member. But when Jon's ready to do it, it's fine. If he doesn't want to, that's fine also. I'm not treated any differently - I travel with them, I don't have to get in a cab and follow the limo! I just love the guys in the band, and I love being part if it - I'm a happy camper."

But hey, at least the infrequency of the touring frees him up to do other projects. Or perhaps not…

" Well, Yes it does," he says hesitantly, but adds "It's a double-edged sword - a lot of people will think 'oh we'd better not call him cos he's in Bon Jovi and won't be interested' or whatever. But yeah, any other projects that come up, I do, though I've not done that much recently. I did Jon's solo record, his tour, and I did some work with Richie."

Does that count as outside work? Mmm, not sure about that, but Hugh reckons there's a difference between Jon solo and Bon Jovi the band,

"The music was a little different," he confirms, "I don't think I could hear Bon Jovi playing Midnight in Chelsea. Jon tried to go a bit of a different direction. Bon Jovi tries to stretch in it's own way, like on 'Keep The Faith', but it still has a different stamp. Once that particular aggregation of people get together and play, it comes out sounding like Bon Jovi. The solo album came out sounding different, with Kerry Arranoff playing drums, and Jon and Dave Stewart playing the guitars."

The Bon Jovi sound occasionally comes off as a bit contrived, but is that stamp by design or default?

"I think it's a little of both," he says with surprise, as though the question had never been raised before, "I think that it might have been designed to sound a certain way in the beginning because everybody had their influences of the bands at the time, so it was a little of this and a little of that. But after a couple of albums it found it's voice and then it became by default. Then it just sounded the way it does when we get to play. Everyone would bring their own thing to it."

For a bass player with as diverse a CV as Hugh, you'd be forgiven for thinking that having such a set sound is a major constraint,

"Not at all!" he fires back, "Nobody tells me what to play, it's always just what I come up with for the part. If something's not working then it's worked on between me and Jon. I don't feel constrained, I never get asked to play a specific way - 'slap now, rock now' whatever."

One interesting twist to the Bon Jovi story is that they are credited with kicking off the recent resurgence in 'Unplugged' sets by bands known for rocking out,

" Yeah, Jon and Richie started it really. At one of the MTV music awards things, they came out and played 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' acoustically, and up until that point no one had done that in that forum. That's what started the MTV Unplugged show.

"When we did the last tour a stage came out from underneath the front of the main stage and we'd go down right in front of the people and play 'unplugged' - well, it's not really unplugged, you're just playing acoustic guitars plugged in.

"I don't think it presents any new challenges," he says, commenting on playing acoustic music in a stadium, "I think the only thing is trying to hear yourselves without the instruments feeding back. You can take it to other places, with different arrangements of songs, but it's become something that expected on stadium shows."

Playing stadiums surely raises a few sonic problems for a bass player anyway. Does he have to simplify the parts to work in those conditions?

"No, because most of the stuff bass-wise is pretty simple anyway. I try to keep it as simple as possible from the get-go. I can't think of any of the parts on any of the songs that are all that complex. I figure if it's going to be too busy live then it's going to be too busy on the record.

"The acoustics in clubs are hard too," he says in response to the suggestion that stadiums aren't that great for bass clarity, "In that respect the only thing I think I do to make it be heard a little more succinctly is to make sure there's not too much low end on the instrument. I work with the sound guy on that because when it comes right down to it, all I can do it play the part, he has to get the sound. It's the same in the studio - engineers have said to different bass players, 'how to you get your sound? Where's your stuff to get your sound?' I don't get my sound, you get my sound. I just plug in and play, and rest is up to you!

As a result of this philosophy, Hugh's studio set up is pretty minimal,

"I don't have any effects or anything. If they want to plug into an amp and have that on another track, that's fine with me - either way, but it's just plug in tune up and play."

Having confessed that the lines 'aren't all that complex', it comes as no surprise that super chops work-outs aren't high on the McDonald priority list,

"I think that for my style, less is more, and it comes naturally. My style of playing isn't brain surgery! I'm a firm believer that the groove is the main thing - the choice of notes and the groove of the song, whether it's a ballad or a rocker or whatever. I'd rather people said 'wow, what a great song' than 'wow, what a great bass line' or 'what a great bass player'."

Gear List,

Hugh is a long time Sadowsky lover, his main basses being a Sadowsky Vintage 5, quilt top on swamp ash with a maple board, a Sadowsky 24 fret 5 string fretless, quilt top on swamp ash with a lined ebony fingerboard, and his latest addition to the family, an Olympic White Vintage P-J 5 string with an alder body and Brazilian rosewood fingerboard.

It's clear that the McDonald-Sadowsky appreciation society works both ways - "Hugh is a wonderful bass player and a wonderful human being," says the man himself, Roger Sadowsky, "He's very devoted to us and genuinely appreciates our work. He is one of the first people we will call to evaluate something new we are working on. Yet he is also very particular about his needs and preferences and it is out of that kind of constructive criticism that we always continue to get better at what we do."

He's also got a Rick Turner Renaissance that he uses for the unplugged sets ("It's gorgeous" he says,) and strings all his basses with LaBella strings, mainly Hard Rockin' Steels.

A long time Hartke user, Hugh recently switched to EBS, having spoken with the company at this years NAMM show, and is using the mighty Swedish amps on the Bon Jovi world tour.

(Note - the version in the magazine was editted from this.)

Words - Steve Lawson.

http://www.steve-lawson.co.uk/sadowskyetc.JPG