THOMAS LEEB - Radio Hill
Broadcasting from Our Own Hill
Written by: Jimmy Wah - Sense Music Media | Monday 15 November 2021
Since the release of his third studio album Riddle in 1999, THOMAS LEEB has become a name synonymous with fingerstyle guitar around the world with a beautifully accessible sound that appeals to listeners and continues to inspire countless guitarists. Emerging from Austria, it is clear to recognise the uniqueness of his sound through somewhat traditional influences integrated with that of fingerstyle pioneers and heroes like DON ROSS. The song Äkäskero by THOMAS LEEB is a particular stand out that has the ability to transform anyone’s appreciation of acoustic guitar. Thomas joined me from his home in California for a chat about all things THOMAS LEEB.
Pictured: Thomas Leeb
The Interview
I was talking to you nearly 2 years ago about some new music that you were excited to release but understandably it’s taken a while to come out. Tell us a little bit about that process.
Part of it comes down to the fact that my priorities started shifting a bit before the pandemic and lockdowns only accelerated that shift. Without the prodding of some of my students it probably would have dragged on for another 6 months haha. It’s fun to finally get it out, it feels good. I’m glad that we got it done at a slow pace and I’m really happy with the product. Even if no one cares, I’m happy with it.
Radio Hill has a very smooth, chilled out vibe like one of my other favourites Äkäskero, which is a nice segue into something I’ve always wondered… What does Äkäskero actually mean?
Äkäskero is a place. It’s a small hamlet all the way in the north of Finland in Lapland, north of the Arctic Circle. I got to spend Christmas and new years there in 97-98 and started writing the first few chords there. Then I finished writing it later… when the hangover was done. That’s my travel warning: Drinking with Finnish people is a bad idea.
What boggles my mind about the song Äkäskero is the way it basically took on a life of its own. It was just a little tune that I’d put together with a couple of other tracks from the Riddle album that I decided to put out on mp3.com when that was a thing. It was completely alien for musicians to put their music out for free but that’s what made it become its own mini viral hit. Since then it’s gone right around the world and I’ve made so many friends and connections through that song. In the fingerstyle scene it was my breakout thing; Erich Roche transcribed it for Guitar Techniques magazine back in ‘99 and that’s what really got the ball rolling.
What is the motivation behind most of your original pieces?
It really depends. For example take Radio Hill… It took me a long time to find a title for that one because I’d just about finished writing the song and the pandemic came along. There’s a place called Radio Hill in Los Angeles just outside of China Town and it got me thinking… It’s not much to look at but I liked the name. When the pandemic happened I thought about how we’re all living on our own remote mountaintops and we all have our own radio towers where we broadcast signals. Some people have a great radio tower with a far reach and lots of things to say, while some people have a dinky little radio tower that keeps breaking down that they have to repair, then some people don’t have much to say at all and turn into little hermits living quietly on their hill. So that was the kind of idea behind the piece.
I’m a father and you’d understand when I say my songs are like children, they’re all different. Äkäskero is my star child in a way; everyone seems to like it, it’s very popular in school and it has a lot of followers on Twitter. I have other songs that nobody likes and they never made it anywhere… but that’s ok, I still love them. Just like Radio Hill, they’re all different but I still love them no matter which way they turn out.
Pictured: Thomas Leeb
You’re living in California now. How long have you been there and what prompted the change?
I’ve been here for about 22 years now and when I made the move I was actually living in London. My brother was living in California and invited all 4 of us siblings over to visit in about April - which was very dark and dreary, cold and wet in London. Then I came over to California and it was t-shirt weather which was thoroughly acceptable.
While I was over there (in California) a jazz guitar teacher back in London suggested that I go to CalArts (California Institute of the Arts). He told me they had great people teaching there as well as a road music department with African music, North and South Indian music, things like the Javanese and Balinese gamelan and Latin American stuff… so I ended up coming over to CalArts where I spent more time playing African drums than playing guitar - I still do - and ended up getting married.
One of the people there is Miroslav Tadic who is an absolute beast and I think he’s one of the most amazing but underrated guitar players I know - he should be on the cover of guitar magazines all the time.
What prompted the shift from Austria to London?
I moved to the UK in ‘98 to do some busking in Dublin for a few months where I met an amazing guitar player named Sam Pacetti who came from Florida of all places. I picked up quite a few techniques and tunes from him like a DON ROSS tune called The First Ride and The Claw by JERRY REID. There’s a fun side-story to that actually… When we were all busking, at a certain point I got invited to hang out with these two guitar players from Mexico who were busking on Grafton Street in Dublin at the same time as us. I didn’t end up going cos I was too hungover, but it turned out that I missed my chance to hang out and have a drink with RODRIGO & GABRIELA. I never got to meet them but it’s funny that we were all hanging out around there at the same time way back then!
Did you start playing the guitar at a very young age?
Not really, I was about 13 years old when I started playing the guitar. I did play the violin for a couple of years from about 9 or 10 but then I realised it wasn’t cool [haha] so I put it down. It’s not that it wasn’t ‘cool’ it was just very scratchy and wasn’t for me in the end.
You’re teaching a lot of guitar at the moment. How did that come about?
I teach guitar at the California Institute of the Arts which is the same place where I studied. I did my bachelor’s degree there in 2003 and went on to produce my Desert Pirate album in 2007. Then in 2017 I went back and joined the faculty at CalArts and have been teaching there ever since. It’s a really quirky school, it inspires me and it’s fun, I have a bunch of really cool students and I’m glad to be there. The last time I had a regular pay-check was delivering flowers in 2003 after I finished my degree. Working there (CalArts) takes the financial pressure off a little bit but I couldn’t survive off just that.
I also run a (guitar) bootcamp over in Austria and we’re gonna do one in California as well. So between that and CalArts and my wife working as a personal trainer we can make things happen. I used to be on the road a lot and I still want to be… but I don’t at the same time. Album sales have almost completely gone these days and when I was touring that was about 50% of my income. Now I have 2 kids and a wife at home and for the past 10 years I’ve been thinking “Do I really want to be out on the road that much for less money?” and the answer to that is no, I don’t. So right now I’m in a very privileged position where I can go on the road if I feel like it, if it makes a lot of money or both.
How did the lockdown over the past 2 years affect your teaching?
We had to move basically everything everything online and even teach our bootcamp via zoom which worked surprisingly well. I mean, there’s no substitute to being in a beautiful space with wonderful people and drinking beer together at night, but we put the price point of the bootcamp right down to something like $200 and even got some money donated from people who had done well out of the pandemic; for instance we had one guy who was a carboard box manufacturer so he’d done really well through the pandemic by supplying hardware stores that ship stuff haha. Moving online meant that we had people from all over the world like India, Africa and a bunch of places so it was actually really fun!
Pictured: Thomas Leeb
What would you suggest for someone that was new to guitar, or even someone that was thinking of trying out fingerstyle guitar for the first time?
Just pick up a guitar and fail. Make mistakes. That’s the thing, if you look at somebody like me or JON GOMM or somebody like that. He plays this incredible shit and sings on top of it - bastard, I wish I could do that - and what is it? I mean, obviously there’s a factor of talent there but you also need to have the will to just fail and just fall on his nose. Somebody that’s really good at something has failed more than some other people have even tried. By making mistakes and fucking up I think that’s where you really learn things.
The other thing is to just take it in small bite sized pieces. If that is a quarter of the whole bar… if you have that and it’s solid, then you can move on and try the second quarter of the bar. None of this stuff is rocket science you know? Otherwise we knuckleheads wouldn’t be doing it. It’s really just putting all the textures and techniques together slowly and cementing that into your reptilian animal brain. After a while it goes faster and becomes natural.
For someone outside of music that doesn’t have those techniques cemented in their reptilian animal brain, watching someone like you play the guitar is like watching a magician making an inanimate object sing.
You know, after I recorded that Riddle album that has Äkäskero on it and came to CalArts, I promptly went on to fail my first theory course… twice. It doesn’t make any SENSE if you just know guitar. Until someone sat me down at the piano and went through chords, inversions, intervals etc. then of course it clicked and all made sense.
So you grew up playing the guitar without knowing any of the theory behind it?
Uhuh. It’s a curse and a blessing. The reason I went to CalArts is because I had recorded Riddle and was probably pretty cocky at the time because there wasn’t anyone really doing what I was doing. After musicians like DON ROSS, LEO KOTTKE and MICHAEL HEDGES, I was the first kid to come out playing that style of guitar and come up with my own stuff. So even though I could take what was there and put it together in my own way, I had no idea what I was actually doing from a theory standpoint - and quite often I still don’t. My brother who is a mathematician and has a PHD and taught at Yale and now the University of Vienna said to me “Thomas that’s all great but there’s a lot of stuff you could learn… and sometimes it can save you from reinventing the wheel yourself.”
Do your courses focus on music theory or teaching technique?
It totally depends on the student. There’s this one guy Marcos Mena who plays this insane math rock stuff with usually just a drummer and a guitar player. Some of it is really good and some of it I’m like “What are you doing?” but that’s the thing I don’t have to understand it or even like it to be good. That’s the great thing about music. Some people I have are just great song writers and we talk about their creative process and different ways to look at things. Then I have some students that really want to learn my pieces and those techniques, so it’s really up to them.
It’s very difficult for artists to be successful these days with the advent of online media and a societal expectation that everything is available for free. What are your thoughts on surviving as an artist?
I work outside of just playing music on stage. I teach at CalArts which I am very lucky to be doing but I also run a guitar bootcamp… I even sold flowers after I finished my degree at CalArts. You’ve gotta do whatever you’ve gotta do. As you can see with this Rubik’s Cube (he says as he holds it up to the camera), I’m a nerd, so I would be very happy as an accountant or something boring like that actually. I hope that’s what my children do and make lots of money haha.
Pictured: Thomas Leeb