 I meet one of the most popular session musicians, keyboard player David Garfield. When he was eighteen years old he moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles, and from then on, he has been busy. The list of people that have used his talents is extensive and include artists like George Benson, Cher, Quincy Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Earl Klugh, Michael McDonald, Jeff Porcaro, Joe Sample, Spinal Tap, Tom Scott, Clark Terry and TV-series like Fame.
- Los Angeles has developed many keyboard players over the years and some are only on the top for a few years, but some managed to stay on the top. One of these is David Garfield, one of the guys who's been in the game for years, and is today a top session musician.
Right now David Garfield is on tour around Europe with Steve Lukather (yes, the one from Toto), who recently released his soloalbum, with a lot of influence from David Garfield. On this tour Steve Lukather and Los Lobotomys are playing in Copenhagen. I am meeting David Garfield at the Plaza Hotel in the Library Bar (by the way, excellent coffee).
David meets me with a very friendly mind, he is surprised that it's him that I want to talk with and not Steve Lukather, in all the other countries, they are more interested in Steve. I say welcome to David and tell him about the magazine where the interview will be published. As a great fan of the Los Angeles musical culture, I start with the first question there.
If you look at your career as a keyboardplayer, you will see that you came into the "businees" very quick without any building phase, how did this happen?
As in all other business, contacts are the important thing, and has been a major point for my career. I moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles when I was 18 years and the first day I was in town I called Carlos Vega (L.A. sessiondrummer). He was one of my friends from high school, and I told him that I was in town, and before I could I knew it, I had my first gig the day after, and it has been like that since then. Carlos Vega introduced me to the whole L.A. music business and this was the cornerstone for the beginning of my career in Los Angeles
- On albums and in daily talks, people call you Creatchy, why is that?
When I came to L.A., I was looking a bit different than others at that time, I was big with long hair and beard, and with this look, I looked a bit wilder than I was, but the name came because of that.
- You are well-known for putting together some jambands, which, along the way, become established bands and record projects. How do these bands begin?
As you said, they normally begin as jambands that I am making with famous and respected studio musicians who play at clubs like The Baked Potato and At My Place. Normally we play my material that I have composed, sometimes music that I co-write with other musicians. Right now I have two bands under my wings: Karizma and Los Lobotomys (currently on tour now with Steve Lukather). With both bands I have recorded albums, 4 albums with Karizma and 1album with Los Lobotomys.
- You have recorded a lot of albums on the label SOHBI Creatchy Label, is it your own label?
SOHBI Records is a japanese label. They released the material that I have been doing with my production company called Creatchy.This is a label that I have together with my partner, the producer Alan Hirshberg. It all began when I got the job to make music for a japanese cartoon. A video company named SOHBI was hired to make this film. When I recorded the songs I had a lot of studio musicians to play on the tracks, and when the songs were recorded, the company and I agreed to release the music on an album. This project was called Riding Bean, and actually this was the beginning of a lot of the Karizma recordings.
- Your albums are difficult to get in Europe, why?
It has been difficult to get European distribution companies to relases my recordings, so much of the releases in Europe are imported by special shops from Japan, and sometimes that has an effect on the price. I have some good contacts now and am very close to come to an agreement with a new label, and maybe soon I can re-release the first Karizma album "Dream Come True", an album that never came to Europe. Actually I have nearly finished my next album. This time it is very acoustic, all material is recorded live, with myself at the grand piano, Luis Conte on percussion and Abraham Laboriel on bass. This album is called "Season of Change", and I expect that it will be released on Vital Records later this year. This album I consider as being my first solo album.
- On the Los Lobotomys album there is a presentation of the band, and after your presentation there is a lot of funny noises, sounds like a sampler that is going crazy, what is that?
This must be the first time, I've been asked about that. When we recorded the Los Lobotomys album, Steve Lukather and I played in a lot of bands in and around L.A. At that time I had a Prophet 2002 sampler, where we always put the vocalmic thru, and we always sampled some seconds of the vocals, and I reversed the sample and played it live all over the songs. It was a crazy idea, but we used it a lot that time. I think that it was the only time I used my sampler too.
- Right now you are on tour with Steve Lukather, and you have played with him for a lot of years. I have also seen you play with Jeff Porcaro on his drum video, and you have recorded albums with all the Toto members. Why is Toto in such high regard in L.A.?
I've had that honour of playing with the Toto guys in lots of different sessions, and I am glad for my personal friendship with these guys. As a session musician in L.A., I meet a lot of different artists and creative musicians. All the Toto guys are so extremely talented and they have played with everybody. Their talent and style does prove that they are among the best in the world.
- Is it the first time that you play in Denmark?
I have played here recently with Oleta Adams, and it was very good. My impression of the Scandinavian countries is real nice, people are very kind, and they give good feedback when we play here. Actually I have had a fantastic experience with a guy from Denmark. He flew all the way from Denmark to see us play with Los Lobotomys in Los Angeles, I think he was working in SAS.
- Yes he does, this is Henrik Bohm, one of the most respected west coast freaks in Denmark
At this time David tells the story about Henrik Bohm´s visit and how he sold him cd´s from the back of his stationwagon. I promised to give Henrik a message from David. At this time, Steve Lukather enters the room and we all get a good talk about music, and then some...
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