I’m playing 10 feet from Mike Campbell every night. I look across the stage, there’s Howie. Tom’s in the middle and we’re playing all this stuff I love. It’s great.
You can go crazy and play solos in the right place, and that’s great because it can intensify and bring an emotional lift. But the thing is you don’t want to get in the way of the song.
We started with Denny Cordell, and he was a great record producer. He knew exactly how to take a band that knew absolutely nothing, and guide you without trying to tell you what to do.
Jeff Lynne is an arranger, and I think it’s probably much easier for him to go ahead and play a part himself than to try to show somebody else what he wants. But it’s hard for me to say; I barely know Jeff.
