Our tech guru Matt Reasor sat down with Jerry Douglas after Election Night to talk about his life, dreams and his new Fishman Solo Amp.

Who would be in your fantasy super group of all time? All time.
All time, hmm…I’d have to say Django Reinhardt, Clark Terry, Vinnie Colaiuta, Jaco Pastorius, Oscar Peterson, Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice, Eric Clapton, and me.

Now would you be playing dobro or leading the band?
I’d be playing dobro, but I’d be playing the Bob Wills thing too, playing the band. We could put Stuart Duncan in there too.

Any thoughts on a female vocalist….?
Ohhh… of all time… hmm, you know, you’d need someone like Patsy Cline on one end of the spectrum and, on the other end of it, Tina Turner. You want to cover all areas of it, you know. I didn’t even get into the horn section…you’d need Miles and Coltrane; we’ve got Oscar [Peterson] playing piano; we’d also need some like Glen Gould to warm the crowd up a little bit.

Rumor mill….is it true you’re being considered to replace Robert Plant in the new Led Zeppelin?
[Laughs] I’m gonna keep bricks handy at all times. I’ve got some vices, and I’m not talking about the smoking kind. I’m talking about the clamping kind. I’ve got a dwarf handy onstage who hits a lot.

I think Big and Rich have a guy who does that, a midget…
[Laughs] I hope John Rich is having a good time out there in Phoenix this morning. I bet he got drunk and punched someone last night…[laughs].

Tell me about the Fishman Jerry Douglas custom pickup and Aura Microphone simulator.
It took a lot of work to decide and a long time. There’s maple on the bottom and there’s the metal that creates the element of the pickup, but we needed something up top to give us the acoustic qualities; a good tone going through a sandwich, going through an element. So soft woods didn’t work. We started using this stuff called Tusk. It’s in black so it looks like ebony. It’s a man-made material, but it’s a better tonal consistency than ebony or bone; it’s more condensed.

We recorded the guitar with a great series of microphones, one at a time, recorded the pickup signal at the same time with the microphone and made the pickup follow the wave of my favorite mics, the Neumann U67, etc. So, whenever you go through the Fishman Aura box, you can dial up anything from U67′s, AKGs. We even have an SM57 in there so if you want that bar sound. Your dynamics come from how hard you play.

I really don’t play with a volume pedal anymore. I’ve got a mute and a boost. It completely freed me from a microphone.

You can actually show people how you feel. You can play your guitar and move with your guitar. You don’t have to worry about where the microphone is placed to keep your tone; your tone is always there. You can walk around the stage. Why shouldn’t you be able to do that?

I’ve been messing around with this stuff since 1980. For the longest time, I’ve always been like, “Well, it’s a pickup and it’s gonna sound like that pickup.” Not with the Aura; you’re going to get your sound. The cone, the wood, everything. It’s all in that box.

What have you been listening to lately, anything that might surprise your listeners?
I love the new Ry Cooder record, I Flathead, I love the song “My Dwarf Is Tired.” Also “I Wanna Go To Steel Guitar Heaven.” I just got Sonny Landreth’s new record that’s got Clapton and Eric Johnson on it-From the Reach. Rodney Crowell’s new record Sex And Gasoline. All those might not surprise too many people. I discovered [laughs] on my iPod…one of my daughters had put a Fergie record on there…that surprised me one afternoon. [Laughs]

Do you ever listen to any synthetic music, of any era?
I’ve listened to some Enya records…my chill-out record is this woman named Gabriella, she’s from Argentina. She covered a bunch of Bill Frisell songs, wrote lyrics to his music, but it’s all in Spanish, so I don’t know what she’s saying. I’ve had the record ten years and it never fails to chill me out. I also like those Putumayo collections, too, Euro Lounge, you’ve got some ‘50s bachelor music there…hold your cigarette funny, music that can’t touch your soul, everyone hates everything. [Laughs]

What is the strangest or most interesting variation you’ve ever played on dobro?
Strangest, I did a thing at Carnegie Hall once with Edgar Meyer and the St. Luke’s Orchestra. It was a commission piece Edgar had written about Native Americans and the transformation from human spirit to animal spirit and I was the snake. I was sitting in front of a 66-piece orchestra, a conductor, Edgar and an audience… and my pants were unzipped and I didn’t know it. I’m glad I had a dobro on my lap. Anytime someone in the studio producing you tells you to become something else, or go out of character, become an animal or an industrial sound. Which you can do with a dobro, that’s always interesting.

T&A, Q&A

Fries or Rice?
Rice

Shake or Soda?
Soda

Diet or Full Flavor?
Full Flavor

Acoustic or Electric?
Acoustic

The world is round, or the world is actually controlled by an ancient Egyptian society based on a triangle?
I’d rather it was round

Coffee or Espresso?
Espresso

Bela or Earl?
Belearl

Sunny day outside or rainy day inside?
Rainy day inside

Beatles or Stones?
Stones