Rusty Paul: The Les Paul Interview Part III

By: Rick Landers

In the third and final segment of our three-part interview with Les Paul’s son, Rusty Paul, Rusty delves into how he plans on perpetuating Les Paul’s legacy, the early days of Fender, competition between the guitar makers, Joe Satriani, and the magic that inherently came along with Les wherever he went.

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Rick: I was talking to a mutual friend, George Dassinger, who mentioned you got a couple of phone calls recently from a couple of guys who invited you to their concerts. You want to talk about those guys a little bit?

Rusty Paul: Yeah, one last night. I went down to see Aerosmith. They played last night. That was phenomenal. They did one hell of a trip. Steve Tyler was great. Joe Perry played his ass off. I haven’t seen him in awhile. Ace Frehley was there. Robert Randolph was there, Brad Whitford. Bruce Springsteen came and Frankie Valli came.

Rick: Wow.

Rusty: George Nicholson came. This is the third time they’ve had the induction of the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Rick: Cool.

Les Paul playing live Photo: Wikipedia

Rusty: I thought that was something special. I brought my band down and played two songs. It’s just something that is really special. Dad didn’t know anything about him being put into the New Jersey Hall of Fame either. That was done after his death.

Rick: Aw, that’s a shame.

Rusty: And I’m trying to get the Kennedy Center to give the award to him. We’ve been trying for five years. Last year he missed by one vote.

Rick: Amazing.

Rusty: This beats the things that I don’t understand in the business: why they wait ’til somebody passes away to give them something so important, you know.

Rick: Yeah.

Rusty: Mentally, it means a lot to get something like that and feel as though you’re something worthwhile to the public and to everybody, and it’s hard. When you pass away and they give it to you, it doesn’t mean anything when they give it to you when you pass away. I mean, why?

He had one of the biggest honors he got was getting the Medal of Honor from the president, from Bush. That was something special he didn’t expect. He didn’t go out looking for it, you know, promote it, but it’s given to him. I have the flag and the Medal of Honor from the president when he got a 21-gun salute from the funeral. And I didn’t know anything about it and nobody told me.

Rick: Oh really?

Rusty: They kept it a secret ’til it happened. When I walked up to the place where he was gonna be buried, at Prairie Home in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and I saw two soldiers on both sides of the grave site, I said to myself, “I hope they’re not gonna do what I think they’re gonna do.” I look behind them and there’s 21 guys with rifles behind them. I knew then what was gonna happen. That’s when I couldn’t handle it. I broke down for that whole funeral.

Rick: That’s touching though, that they would do that for your father. He was an army veteran, right?

Rusty: He was the third one inducted into the Armed Forces Radio in California.
So, he had part of that in the music end of it there. He was one that was supposed to put all of the major artists together that do USO and command performance and all that stuff like that. That was his job. So, he had one of the greatest jobs in the world that you could have, to be able to get all of these wonderful artists together and play with them and do the USO tours and stuff like that. That’s what his job was, and I think that was a super job.

Rick: Yeah, he did his part during the big one.

Rusty: Yep. There’s a lot of special things and a lot of things that people really don’t know about what he was involved with. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that don’t know anything about him being in the Armed Forces Radio. So there’s a whole thing there. It was Bing, the Andrews Sisters, everybody you can think of.

There was one other thing with Dad that was very hard for a lot of people to understand. He was the kind of a guy that everybody thought that they were part of him, like Gibson. All the guys thought that they all had a hunk of Dad, like Gibson, but he was probably one of the rarest individuals that had everybody at his fingertips any time he wanted, and he admired them as friends. That’s what the whole thing is. Fender Guitar, the reason Fender started was because of Dad in the garage in California.

Rick: What happened? I’m not familiar.

Rusty: People used to hang out there at his garage, and that’s where it started.

Rick: With Leo?

Rusty: With Leo Fender. Leo hung out at the garage and he says, “I want to build a guitar company. I’ll give you the same deal that you want with Gibson.” Dad says, “I can’t do that. I’ve been fighting to get with the number one guitar company in the world, that’s Gibson, and that’s where I want to be.” And he says, “Well, I’m gonna go ahead and build a company called Fender.” So, he went and built the Telecasters and all that, Stratocasters and all that, and he gave Dad a pair of them with no serial numbers on them or anything, and he’s got that in his collection.

Rick: Now Les told me he never played those. Is that true? [Laughing]

Rusty: No, he didn’t play them, but they gave them to him. He was one that was very interested and they worked together a lot on sound and striving for the same thing. They were very close friends for years, many years.

Rick: That’s good. Better than cutthroat competitors.

Rusty: Oh, I know. But, this is the thing that was so interesting with Dad and the other companies and everything. He was so close and so friendly with everybody that there were no enemies. There was no competition. There was competition, but it’s a nice competition. Nobody was trying to cut throat. If you had Fender, you got Fender. If you were Gibson, you were Gibson. You had Epiphone, you got Epiphone. All the different companies…

He used an Ovation. He knew all these guys from all the different companies. They all felt that he was like the guru and they always wanted to be around him and friends and forget the business part of it. Being able to know Dad was more important to them than competition.

Rick: Yeah, he was the great godfather of guitar.

Rusty: This is where I want to be with the museum part of it. We have a big museum up in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It’s at the Discovery World. Have you seen that yet?

Rick: No, I haven’t.

Rusty: That’s a great one up there. It’s an on-display museum. It’s permanent. And it’s fantastic and it’s really something special. Most of his stuff is up there.

Rick: So what are you gonna bring on the road?

Rusty: I’m gonna get some special things that we’re gonna put in the bus and get some videos to put in the bus, you know. In a bus you can’t put too much, but there’ll be enough up there to bring the most important things out there, like the videos, Chasing Sound, a couple of his guitars, some of his albums, some video clips and stuff, some paperwork and stuff like that.

Yeah. It’s very interesting. I really, really work hard at getting Dad’s legacy and keeping it going as much as possible, just letting everybody know more about what he was and what he is. It’s just so important. I’ve been getting close with Singer Style magazine. They’re gonna be doing a big article on me shortly, and Guitar Magazine. Billboard Magazine is another one that called me. One of the things, I just did some stuff for BBC and CNN. And there’s a lot of good things that are happening. It’s just overwhelming to be put in a position that I am and just hope that I can fill his shoes in a small way. It’s big shoes to follow.

Rick: But ,who else is there to follow? You’re the right guy.

Rusty: I just had no idea that it was gonna boom into anything like it is. To have so many people come to me and say, “Look, if you need anything, you call me. I’ll be there.” It’s been overwhelming with everybody.

Rick: Yeah, what an honor to be in that position.

Rusty: You don’t realize it until you lose somebody that special and then you find out all these people that will just do anything to help. This is beyond belief.

Rick: Well, he was special. What amazed me about him: I met him twice, but I felt like I was his best friend when he was talking to me. He just had that kind of a personality.

Rusty: That’s the way he was. He was always that way. If anybody was sitting there at the end of the night and they wanted to have something signed or to talk to him, he would go through every single person in that line before we’d leave. And there could be 100 people waiting in that line every night. But, every Monday night he would make sure he goes through everybody before he leaves that building.

Rick: What a nice impression to give everybody, but also what a benchmark for other people who are celebrities and guitarists.

Rusty: By all means. Just before he died, a couple of weeks, about a month, it couldn’t be any more than that, three important guitar players came into the club on the same night. One was Zakk Wylde. One was Eric Johnson.

Rick: Oh, Eric’s great.

Rusty: And the other one was Joe Satriani.

Rick: Just amazing, yeah.

Rusty: Now those guys, I invited Joe and Joe came up to me and says, “You know, your dad is something special to me.” He’s quite an accomplished musician. He’s up there in the balcony with a napkin jotting down finger placements on the guitar, so he can steal some of his runs. [Rick laughs] So, he goes back to Dad later and he says, “I’m up in the balcony and I’m trying to write all this stuff down, how you’re playing it and where you’re playing it,” and Dad looks over at him and says, “Joe, if you can figure it out, you can have it.” [Both laughing]

Joe Satriani Photo: Wikipedia

Knowing his arthritis and everything else, when he puts his hands on the neck, it would be like a clump and the whole clump would move. You couldn’t see the finger actually moving. It would be a clump and that’s why he said to Joe, “If you can figure out what I’m playing, you can have it.” [Rick Laughing] And Joe cracked up and Dad cracked up. I appreciated that.

That was probably one of the last of the bunch of guitar players that came in to see him, just before he passed away. That was something. Satriani, he’s a very low key guy, very low key. He’s not one of these, “I’m super super star,” and looking for that. If you didn’t know him, you’d say, “What happened to Joe Satriani?” Well, he’s sitting right next to you there and you’d never know it. That’s how cool he is.

Rick: Hey, what did you think about the Coors commercials that your dad did?

Rusty: That was great. I was there with him on that one.

Rick: Oh, were you? [Laughing]

Rusty: Oh yeah. That’s when he fell, on the plane, coming off the plane.

Rick: Oh really?

Rusty: He tripped and fell coming out of the plane and he bruised his eye and his right cheek and everything and they had to put a whole slew of makeup on him.

Rick: Oh, gee.

Rusty: They had to do that shot where you didn’t see it because he was a mess when he got there.

Rick: Oh, what a shame.

Rusty: But, he did the commercial anyhow and it was probably one of the best commercials he ever did.

Rick: It’s a great commercial, just great.

Rusty: Absolutely fantastic. That was a real special deal on that. Very low key type of commercial, too.

Rick: Yeah, I just watched it on YouTube the day before yesterday.

Rusty: Oh, really? Had you seen it before that?

Rick: Yeah.

Rusty: Oh, gee. That must have been a treat.

Rick: It just cracked me up. No, I’ve seen it before.

Rusty: “What’s your name?” “Oh, it’s on the end of your guitar.” [Both laughing]

Rick: Yeah, that’s the one I saw. I think he did two for Coors and that’s the one I was watching. That was hilarious. I’d seen it when it first came out, but I went back and Googled Les Paul YouTube and there it was in the list of videos of him and it was just great. Hey, I’ve got one final question, and if this is too personal, just let me know and we can move on and talk later. When you’re alone with your thoughts and memories of your dad, what shared experiences bring you joy and the joy that makes you feel fortunate to have been his son?

Rusty: There are a lot of things in there. He was such a very sharp individual and yet he was…it’s hard to say. It’s a very complicated answer. He was a great dad, but he was more into music and electronics. That was his number one in there, that he lived and slept and ate electronics and guitars and everything.

A lot of good things, the pleasure of him saying, “Gee, that was a nice night.” Everybody played great. We had a wonderful night, met some special people, people that would come and sit in and we’d get done at the end of the night and we accomplished so much. We got in the car and put the cassette in the car and we’re listening to it on our way home and he says, “You know, that sounds good. Boy, we really accomplished a lot.” That probably made more happiness and everything in there than anything we could ever ask for.

Rick: I guess the term ‘we’ really says it all, you and your dad.

Rusty: That was like Tommy Doyle, myself and Dad. We’d listen to that thing from the time we left the club till we got home and then listen to it again at home and in different places. It was very rewarding to know we had gotten something that he was happy with.

It was very disturbing to him that he couldn’t get what he wanted to get in his head, and I said to Dad many times, “You know what? The hardest thing in the world is to be able to know what you’re feeling and hearing in your head that I’m not hearing. It’s hard, because I never know what is in your head. I’m anticipating. I’m guessing at it. I’m trying to get the same.”

We had the same feelings a lot in the sound of a guitar, the way it should be. It was very good when we accomplished something to where both of us said, “Boy, that sounds good.” That made me happy. It made him happy and if he said, “Look, we’re going in the right direction here. This is great,” that meant we could go home and sleep for two days. [Both laughing] Because that means we’ve gotta go build this thing and get it done and work the following week.

But, it’s really a lot of good things, happiness in there. He’s a very sharp businessman which a lot of people didn’t realize either. He made a lot of things in his life when he was told he shouldn’t do this, he shouldn’t do that, and it was a mistake; because he was right.

Rick: Well, I guess there’s always a certain magic that ties in with the name Les Paul.

Rusty: Oh, yeah. You have no idea because I’m saying a lot now, but he left a big plate and left a lot of goodies on it and you’re gonna have to figure them out because I’m not here to give you the answers. One thing he used to do and say all the time is, “I left everybody a lot of goodies, to use them and not abuse them.”

Read Part 1 of Our Interview with Rusty Paul

Read Part 2 of Our Interview with Rusty Paul