FIVE QUESTIONS
Blues man Jonny Lang goes unplugged

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Jonny Lang, performing next week at Pipeline Cafe, is planning a gospel album as his next venture. Kurt Iswarienko Jonny Lang 7:30 p.m. Thursday and May 13 Pipeline Cafe $35, $40, $55 896-4845 for information and mail-order tickets; 589-1999 for Pipeline Cafe Also: Lang performs on the Neighbor Islands; see Page 33

Now 24 and Honolulu-bound for two Pipeline Cafe shows next week, the soft-spoken, self-effacing former teenage blues prodigy phoned in from a Florida tour stop for Five Questions.

The show you're bringing here is an "acoustic" one you've been touring since the beginning of the year. What interested you in unplugging?

"I've just always loved playing acoustic guitar. And I've always dreamed of doing a more intimate show. I've been doing the bigger, rock thing for 10 years now, so it's just a nice departure. It's really good for me just mentally. Musically, it's refreshing for me. ... We were only planning on going out on the road with it for a month but ... and I'm not trying to be cocky, but it was being received so well we just decided to keep doing it."

Aw come on, Jonny. You're allowed to be a little cocky by now, right?

(Laughs.) "Nah, no one's allowed, man. No one's allowed. ... But I'm enjoying myself. The guys I'm out with, for the most part, are just some friends of mine from church who are actually younger than me, so that's kind of different for me. We've been friends for probably four or five years now. I've always known they were really good musicians."

Doing an acoustic tour has probably allowed you to explore your three CDs of work from a completely new perspective as well.

"Yeah, absolutely! It's really made me a better musician just because it's a lot more challenging for me to do something like this. When you're in a big loud rock show, your mistakes kind of get buried and you're not as concerned with (or) aware of yourself. At these more intimate shows, you can hear a pin drop sometimes. (Laughs.) So it's this thing where you really have to concentrate and be more precise."

Some of the new material you're doing from your next CD has a gospel feel to it.

"Lyrically, it's going to be a gospel record. ... My relationship with the Lord is the nearest and dearest thing to me. And (gospel) is just something I've been wanting to do for a long time. ... But it was actually the president of my record company (A&M) who came up to me and said, 'Hey, man, you should make a gospel record.' So I said, 'OK.'" (Laughs.)

You started playing blues guitar at age 12. How did you manage to get so into it when kids your age were mostly listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam?

"I wanted to play Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane's Addiction and all of that. But there was a guitar player for a local band (the Bad Medicine Blues Band) that played blues who really inspired me because I'd never seen or heard anything like that before. I just went, 'Man, I wanna be like that guy!' (Laughs.) He offered to give me lessons. ... But he basically told me, 'I'm not gonna teach you how to play Stone Temple Pilots! I'm gonna teach you how to play blues music. If you don't like it you can go learn from somebody else.' And I'm extremely glad for that. Not that that other music wouldn't have been fun and fine and everything. I just think that as a foundation, musically, for me, (blues) was a good one to start on."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.