[In 2018, I was approached to do an interview with Andy Volk, author of ‘Lap Steel Guitar’ and numerous other steel guitar books [Volk Media Books website] for a guitar publication. We had a pleasant conversation and Andy went on to write this piece which, unfortunately, never made it to publication. Andy was kind enough to share it with me, so I am proud to share it with you. Thanks, Andy!]

MIKE NEER INTERVIEW FOR ***********
By Andy Volk

The sound of the steel guitar is deeply ingrained across a broad spectrum of American music. The first commercial electric instruments were non-pedal steel guitars (or lap steels), yet it still remains something of a cult instrument. Perhaps that’s because its learning curve is so steep.

Like learning the violin, in learning to play steel guitar well, you have to pass through hell on your way to heaven. It takes a lot of practice to deal with intonation on a fretless instrument. Add in blocking, making sure you control which notes sound and which are muted, and you have a bit of a hill to climb. The rewards is that on the other side, you have that sound – that superb, voice-like, liquid sound where notes and chords ring out and meld in such beautiful and exciting musical colors. That’s why more and more guitarists are adding lap steel to their skill set.

Mike Neer is one of their leading inspirations. New Jersey-based Neer is one of the players creating a significant buzz in the steel guitar community and beyond for his musicality and technical control of the instrument. His 2016 CD “Steelonious” reimagined the music of Thelonious Monk as a non-pedal-steel-centric universe where jazz was filtered through Hawaiian, lounge, blues, Western Swing and New Orleans R&B. music. Neer’s long history playing R&B and jazz guitar infuses his steel playing with some surprising twists and turns. ****** sat down with Mike to talk about his journey with the lap steel.

AV
What was the first music that caught your ear?

MN
I listened to a lot of AM radio. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder – soul music– Stevie Wonder tunes like “My Cherie Amor” was the first music I can recall really latching onto.

AV
How did you move from listener to player, and then to professional musician?

MN
My grandfather was a professional musician on saxophone going back to the 40s and 50s. His son, my uncle, played accordion, keyboards and guitar. So, from a pretty early age I had an interest in playing music. I got my first guitar at probably about six years old. The first paying gig I ever got was for the local high school dances. I was probably 13 or 14 years old at the time and maybe a little precocious.

We played a lot of R&B and even some disco. All the time I was in high school, I was playing in bands with my uncle and grown men, making TV appearances and things like that so it was a pretty quick jump. My father wasn’t too thrilled with the whole notion of me being out late at night playing nightclubs at fifteen but it was cool while it lasted.

AV
Where did you first hear a steel guitar?

MN
Early on, I was attracted to steel guitar but I had no idea what it was that was making that sound. I wasn’t much into Country music at all but I heard the instrument on some pop tunes. I had a pretty vast record collection, and I’d see it listed in the credits on records. I didn’t find out what it was till much later on. The thing that really hooked me once and for all was hearing Gabby Pahinui on a Ry Cooder record called Chicken Skin Music and David Lindley. I just became attracted to what I felt was the real emotional weight of the instrument. It just had another degree of emotional weight that you didn’t hear with a fretted guitar. I see it as the ultimate musical instrument.

AV
What was your gateway into playing steel guitar?

MN
I got a pedal steel and thought I’d give that a shot. I didn’t know that there were any pedal steel guitar players in this area (NY/NJ). It felt really difficult. I felt I was coming at it from the wrong direction, so I decided to focus more on lap steel. I heard about this band called The Moonlighters who were playing music I was interested in at the time, so I decided to get a guitar and see if I could become a sub for that band and that’s exactly what happened. I emailed and the leader who said, “Let’s get together – like, now!” They didn’t have anybody at the time and I got the gig. It was literally a situation where I was learning on the bandstand. I had a great 1929 [National] Tricone that I bought online. I was playing it in the Sol Hoʻopiʻi C# minor tuning. (6th to 1st string: E,B,E,G#,C#,E).

AV
Over the years, you’ve delved into the technique of your favorite steel players on an almost forensic level. What did you learn from studying Sol’s music?

MN
Humor has always been something that’s important to me in music and I heard that in Sol’s playing. He was kind of an acrobatic player out of necessity, because in order to make certain things happen on the instrument, you kind of have to be acrobatic about it. He would use open strings as passing tones. That was one of the really big eye openers for me. When I began to dissect all his stuff, I began to discover how he played it all.

AV
You recently acquired a vintage Rickenbacher Bakelite guitar that was Sol’s personal instrument. How did this guitar come your way and is the Sol Ho’opi’i “mojo” still in there?

MN
Ian Ufton (Canadian steel guitarist) posted online that he was thinking of selling it or giving it away. I guess it could have been anybody. I don’t think he really knew me from anyone else. We were doing a Skype call and after we talked, he got a tear in his eye and said, “I’ve decided to give it to you”, which is when I got a tear in my eye. He had been given it with the promise that he would play it and he did. Whether it still has the Mojo in it, I haven’t discovered yet but it definitely has the sound.

AV
What are the obstacles and challenges for guitar players who want to learn to play lap steel?

MN
There are certain sacrifices you have to make in learning to play an instrument. I don’t know anybody who was just born with the ability to play. It takes a lot of hard work. I have devoted a lot of energy to it and made the decision to just play steel; I couldn’t see going back and forth [from guitar to steel] anymore. I didn’t want to just pick up the steel guitar to play a couple of songs. I wanted it to be an instrument that, at will, I could play anything that I wanted to play. In order to do that, I needed to put the guitar aside.

I think one of the hardest things to do is to put aside, to some degree, what you already know and learn how to approach the instrument. If you were suddenly left to play guitar with just one finger, you might have to rethink the way that you look at harmony. You have to keep thinking: reduction. That process took me a lot of years to realize. You think you’re making progress and you’re nailing all this really cool stuff but it sounds like you’re really struggling to make it happen. With steel guitar, it should have a sense of ease to it.

One of the things that I figured I needed to do was to simplify it; look at harmony in a new way in terms of upper extensions and triads and to start building from there. I think there’s a little bit of progression going on [in my playing] now. I can feel it. I feel pretty excited about it, actually.

AV
When you come to the steel guitar from standard guitar, one of the first things you have to deal with is that there are a number of different tunings in common use.

MN
If you’re a guitar player, you’re always baffled about which way to go with tunings. I know that I wasted time with tunings. People are always trying to figure out what tuning to use. My advice is to just go with a tried and true tuning and get as much mileage out of that as you can and, eventually, you’ll make your own tweaks to it. My main tuning is the Jules Ah See [late Hawaiian master steeler] C13th tuning (8th to 1st string): C,Bb,C,E,G,A,C,E.

AV
When people first take up lap steel, there’s a tendency to make a lot of the inherent sliding capability of the instrument. I notice that in your playing, you’re very controlled about when you hit a note or chord or slide in and out of it.

MN
Once you’re on the path to discover your own voice, you find the sounds that you like. Sometimes we listen to other players and hear something we want to avoid. So I really did make a conscious effort to not be a very “slidey” player. I listened and decided that I didn’t really like sliding too much unless it was for an exaggerated effect.

I use less of the gliss effect than some other players because I thought it took away from the right-hand articulation. I wanted to make the melodic lines more articulate. That was the goal. Now that I’ve gotten to the point where I can control that more, I’m bringing more of the sound of sliding into my playing and hopefully, I’ll sound like I have control over that as well.

AV
You’ve deservedly gotten a fair amount of attention for your record “Steelonious” which places the steel guitar into an unexpected place: the music of Thelonious Monk. Monk’s tunes are often treated very reverently by jazz musicians but you’ve brought a sense of fun to this music incorporating references to surf, pop, New Orleans second line, BB King-style blues, Hawaiian, lounge and Bob Wills-style Western swing.

MN
People hold Monk’s music pretty sacred, but it’s actually been a springboard for people to go off and treat it in a kind of avant-garde way. In conversations I’ve had with people who were not jazz musicians, they confided to me that they really didn’t dig Monk’s music. I felt it was important to present Monk’s compositions in a way that people could really see a different side of it, that there was more to it than dissonance or that oddball quality that some suspect Monk of having.

I viewed his music as beautiful and kind of a history of jazz, from the beginning up through his time. So I wanted to present the music to people who may not have otherwise been indoctrinated to it. I chose to use the steel guitar to sort of meet it halfway by also paying tribute to some of the steel guitar styles that I admired when I was learning to play the instrument.

AV
Throughout the CD, I can hear references to some of the signature moves of a number of well-known steel players – and maybe a little Jeff Beck?

MN
(Laughs). Always. I think Jeff Beck would probably tell you steel guitar players influenced him too.
You’ll definitely hear touches of all the players that were important to me: Curly Chalker’s vibrato; there a couple times where I’m trying to get Speedy West’s emotion that I felt when listening to his music. There’s some also Buddy Emmons-type licks in there, borrowing from here and there, filtered through me. I’m paying tribute to the steel player and Monk. But I wanted to avoid the record sounding like it was stuck in the past, not like a period piece; looking backward, but moving forward.

AV
How did you approach arranging Monk’s music with the steel guitar in mind?

MN
The material was there as far as being great compositions, that’s where it all starts. You can do what you want with it because the essence of Monk’s music is so great. If I felt I had to work too hard to make something happen or it just didn’t sound natural I didn’t use it. I do have alternate arrangements of the tunes and a lot of times I go on gigs and we play them completely differently. That’s the beauty of this music.

AV
Have you had any pushback from the jazz community about incorporating the steel guitar in this music?

MN
Surprisingly, just the opposite. I’ve been in situations where I’ve been around jazz musicians who were elderly cats who told me how they remember watching Speedy West on TV in the late 40s. – we’re talking about African American jazz musicians who, going that far back, talk about how they idolized Speedy West. It was really interesting to me that these older jazz cats recognized the steel guitar. I’m grateful that people in the jazz community are open to the steel guitar making its way into the music.

AV
You play an aluminum, 8-string Clinesmith non-pedal steel guitar. What appealed to you about Todd Clinesmith’s guitars?

MN
My first experience with the Rickenbacher Bakelite guitars was that I felt like the instrument was very easy to play, very comfortable and of course, it sounded great. That instrument was always my standard for a what a steel guitar should be. Then, of course, Bigsby steel guitars were the stuff of dreams. All the great players played them in their heyday and they looked so amazing.

So when Todd started making his guitars, I just had to have one. I got one of the early console steel guitars which I thought was beautiful and I loved. Times can get tough and I had to part with it. It was a really dark period where I thought maybe I’d stop playing steel guitar ‘cause I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Todd sent me one of his lap steels, I started playing it and everything changed for me. I had a guitar that sounded and looked the way I wanted and felt the way I wanted it to feel; made of metal, made of wood, and great craftsmanship.

Later on, he decided to make these all-metal [aluminum] guitars and when I got one of these from him it was just absolute perfection. I was on a gig the other night and I was playing Jitterbug Waltz and I just couldn’t believe the bell-like clarity coming out of that guitar. It was remarkable. The articulation and clarity with these guitars is really in a league of its own. I’ve never had anything that gives me the sound the way I want to hear it the way the Clinesmith does.

AV
What’s your next project?

MN
I’m working on a CD of Horace Silver songs. This one will go in a more R&B and straight-ahead jazz direction. The idea with Steelonious initially was to just do it and see where it goes, just do something different, but I think I stumbled onto something that I’m going to continue with for a while – that whole concept. I think it’s got some legs.