Canadian Musician: You played the circuit in the early '80's fronting a Jimi Hendrix clone-band called Fire. Tell me about that.

Tony Springer: I was with Fire for five years. In the beginning it was constant touring and working. At the end I started fizzling out on it 'cause it really started weakening me - I was too Jimi-ed, man.

CM: Do you feel at all intimidated by people's comparisons between you and Hendrix?

TS: I was at one point, but now it's great. It's beautiful to be compared to this guitar God, man. I feel very privileged, but I know deep in my soul that I ain't trying to emulate this guy, as far as me and my playing and my style or my soul - it never came from the Jimi thing to begin with. Being a guitar player I see a saxophone player or other things influence me - it's not just a guitar thing. I just wanna play my guitar like a nice person.

CM: How did you get from Fire to Wild T and the Spirit?

TS: While Fire was phasing out I played with Carole Pope and Rough Trade, and I met a couple of guys there and they said, "Tony, write, just keep writing". It was like somebody talking to my soul. I bought a Portastudio and tapped into my soul, man. I would write for two to three days. I got into these boundaries of life that blew my mind. My subconscious, which is just total energy, would keep me up - no drugs or nothin', just total creativity. Thank God I have a tan because summer came and summer went and I never went outside. I just decided to put all my energy into this thing. This is for the last three years.

CM: How did your relationship with Arnold Lanni get started?

TS: I met Arn when I just got started doin' the Fire thing (this is about 8 years ago). He came out and saw me play one night, and he came backstage and says, "Tony, one of these days I'm going to do something with you, man. I love that blues natural raw thing you're doing. Stick to the blues."

CM: How did you start putting the material together for Love Crazy?

TS: I get into the process of sittin' down and sayin', "I'm writin' the blues, man." I got together with Rob (Arnold's brother) and we thought, "Let's go a little raw", so I wrote more blues stuff, and that put me in a neat direction and I started thinking more along those lines. They were all my songs and I took 'em to Arn and he added a little bit of embellishment here and there in pre-production. A few of the songs still had the soul, and Arnie tapped into my soul in a beautiful way. On one song called "Betsy Lou" we went into pre-production thinking it's missing something the second time around. So I start thinking like a child again - I'm thinking, "OK Betsy...B...bass...Maybe the second time I should put some bass!" So the next day I go to pre-production. Before I said anything, Arnie said, "Tony, you know the second time around? It's missing something, maybe we get the bass player to do something..." That's just one instance and that makes me smile deep inside, man.

CM: Sounds like you enjoyed working with Arnold Lanni.

TS: Arn taught me so much, helped me grow so much. I was writin' songs and thought "Wow!" and Arn listens and says, "OK, but this part sucks." He's got a real knack for writing hit songs. There are so many neat things you can do to lift things. You should have heard Love Crazy when I first wrote it. We coordinated on the chorus, lifted it instead of staying on the E, built it - subtle things like that, but they make a big difference.

CM: What's Love Crazy to you?

TS: It's kind of light-hearted and deep - that's the way I am. I don't take myself too serious; I don't take life too serious, 'cause lots of times it presents itself as a thing that can destroy you. You gotta really lighten it. It sounds alright.

CM: It's you.

TS: Yea...

CM: What did you use to demo your material?

TS: It's the basics, man - a 246 Tascam 4-track, Yamaha RX11 drums, Midiverb, Squire jazz bass, Korg 800 polysynth - i don't want too much, like pads and stuff. To record I do the basic drum thing, put the bass down, record a rhythm guitar, then bounce them all to one track with maybe some drum fills. Then I've got the other three tracks to just goof around with leads.

CM: How'd you think of "Wild T and the Spirit" as a name for your band?

TS: A year ago I remember thinking "Tony Springer Band". I got these guys, you know, a band - Tony Springer and the whatever. I started thinking letters again. T.S. are my initials: The Storm, The Spirit, The this, I wrote all these "T" things. About 10 months ago we're in the office and Arnie says, "How about the Spirit, man? You guys like that?" It's a beautiful thing. I'm always one to say, to hell with the name, man, it really doesn't matter to me. But it matters, because this is a good representation of me, man, and I can live up to Wild, and the spiritual side is really cool.

CM: Tell me about the band. You replaced the bass player on the album, Brian Dickie, with Kojo.

TS: Kojo sings like a mother, man. We had back-up vocals on the album and we wanted to do them live, so it was either get a sampler or a bass player that sings. For this raw form - The Spirit - we don't want no sampling or too much of this digital shit. The band - Danny Bilan playing drums, and Kojo - these guys are The Spirit, man, seriously. The thing that excites me about this is gigging, gigging, working, working, getting tight - getting this unit so developed that people can't turn away from it. I really want to do that.

CM: Why did you choose a three piece format?

TS: I find a three piece so basic and raw and real - it's the nucleus of the whole thing. After that you can build horns and strings over it. This is the raw, raw form. Back home in Trinidad I grew up with the three piece thing, man. Me and my buddies had this house, and at 10 o'clock in the morning we would steal some eggs from the neighbours, climb a mango tree, eat breakfast, and then play music all day. And it wasn't like "let's learn this song". All we would do is get up and start jamming something - whoever wanted to start something would just go, and trip out into all these different time things, until 12 o'clock at night. We'd be playing, man, all day and all night. It was neat. I remember watching Don Cherry's Grapevine and he had Bobby Orr on and asked him how he did it. Bobby said, "All I did as a kid in Parry Sound was play hockey all day with my buddies." Play. He knows this shit, man - he didn't just go and take lessons or go to classes. He's a natural. He just played and played. The same thing with me. I just play and get totally involved in it.

CM: How does the future look for Tony Springer?

TS: I'm here, man - I have arrived. They're stuck with me! I ain't no one shot overnight nothing. This is just the beginning. This is my life...the stuff that gets me excited. I can get to play more and in front of more people and grow. I think of myself like a tree - all I have to do in this life is grow. I'm really excited about that.