Audley Freed first gained recognition as guitarist and
primary songwriter with acclaimed North Carolina-based
rockers Cry Of Love. The group released two albums,
Brother (1992) and Diamonds & Debris (1997), before
splitting up in the late 90s. Shortly after, Freed
hooked up with the Black Crowes. His soulful
blues-rooted riffs proved the perfect complement to
the group’s sound and he has since been an essential
part of the Crowes’ lineup.
A first-rate player, Freed can jam on almost any style
of music and holds his own aside veterans like Jimmy
Page, Leslie West and Warren Haynes. Currently, while
the Crowes are on hiatus, Freed is staying busy and
enjoying the opportunity to play stints with bands
like Gov’t Mule.

In an exclusive interview for gibson.com, Freed
recalled his early musical influences and noted
various players who inspired him along the way,
helping to develop his style and shape his tone, and
steer him towards the gear he uses today. He tells us
why his Les Pauls, Firebirds and Gibson acoustics are
the essential tools in his touring arsenal.

Who were your influences as a musician? What inspired
you to play guitar?

I guess I’d always shown a certain amount of interest
in it. As a kid, I really liked music and there was
some music in my house. My mom played piano in church
and my dad was a country music fan, so there were
always George Jones records and Dave Dudley
truck-driving records to go along with my mom’s Tom
Jones records and things like that.

One of my best friends who I grew up with, he played
guitar and I suppose that he inspired me to pick it
up, too. It always seemed like an insurmountable task
to a little kid. You think you’ll never be able to do
it and two or three months seem like two years when
you’re trying to practice. My folks signed me up for
lessons and I just showed a bit of aptitude for it. I
remember coming out of my third lesson and my guitar
teacher telling some of the other guys who were
working in the music store, “This guy is going to be
the next Eric Clapton.” I remember thinking, “Who is
that?” I was a little kid... I had no idea who Eric
Clapton was. So I took some lessons for a while, but
most of my education came from the turntable and once
I got enough, from going out to see local guys play
and hanging out with dudes who were older than me.

Which players were most influential to you in the
development of your style and tone?

When I first started out, I was into rock and a lot of
music that was on AM radio. Back then, you’d hear Al
Green next to Yes, next to Neil Young, next to Sly &
The Family Stone, next to Led Zeppelin. But once I got
hooked on this guitar thing, it became the guitar
stuff that I really sort of gravitated toward. It was
always the usual suspects for kids that were my age
were listening to. I remember buying a copy of Kiss
Alive and ZZ Top Tres Hombres on the same day. My dad
had been in the army, so we would go to the PX at Camp
Lejeune in Jacksonville Marine Base in North Carolina
to look at records and then I’d save up my money for
the ones I’d want. I grew up in a really small town
called Burgaw, North Carolina and we didn’t even have
a 7-Eleven or any kind of chain store until I was
about 16 years old. Every once in a while we would get
a Creem or Circus magazine and I’d see pictures in
there of guys playing Les Pauls and ads for records. I
remember thumbing through the records at the PX and
seeing Robin Trower and ZZ Top records. I would have
four dollars and I’d have to decide which one to get.
I was into Billy Gibbons and ZZ Top, especially Tres
Hombres and Fandango, which both had a big affect on
me as a player, especially the guitar sounds. Lynyrd
Skynyrd’s live album, One More From The Road, was a
really big influence on me because there were three
guitar players and they all had their own sound and
their own approach. I wasn’t really far enough along
in my ear development to really know who was playing
what all the time, but I could figure it out some of
the time. I could pick out what a Les Paul or a Strat
sounded like. I was also into Jimmy Page and I learned
a lot of the Zeppelin stuff and his solos. I also
listened to Allman Bros. and Marshall Tucker Band and
that’s were where I got a lot of my major pentatonic
riffs. I was also influenced by songs that were on the
radio by bands like Bachman Turner Overdrive, the
Doobie Brothers, the Outlaws and Johnny Winter.

Were there particular players who influenced your
choices in gear?

The first guitar I ever had was a Crown Les Paul copy
with a little Marlboro amp and I remember wondering
why I couldn’t make it sound like “Black Dog.” I’d
turn it up to 10 and I just couldn’t get it to sound
like Led Zeppelin or the stuff that I was hearing. I
didn’t really understand why and then somebody finally
told me about something called a fuzzbox. So I got
one. Then my folks - God bless them for supporting me
- bought me a Les Paul Custom. It was a ’77 - it was
back when they were making the natural wood ones with
a three-piece top. It was so cool to have a real Les
Paul. I had wanted a Peavey Mace amp because I had
seen it in an ad in Creem magazine and it said, “As
used by Lynyrd Skynyrd.” But my buddy talked me out of
the Mace and I ended up with a 2x12 Marshall JMP
combo, which is a great sounding amp. But at that
point, I still didn’t know what I was doing. I was a
late bloomer as far as that stuff goes. So that was
what I had going into college and I also had a
Firebird that a friend had sold me, which was a ’66
straight-body one. I think it had been sunburst at one
time, but somebody had painted it white. A friend had
sold it to me for $300 in 1980 and I later routed it
for a humbucker....

I think I got the Les Paul because all the rockers
back then were using them - everyone from Billy
Gibbons to Jimmy Page to Mick Ralphs and Gary
Rossington. I’d wanted a Firebird because Allen
Collins and Johnny Winter had one, but I couldn’t get
my hands on a reverse one. This one had a great neck.
I used the Les Paul and Firebird for a while and then
the Van Halen phenomenon came along and I switched
over to a whammy bar guitar for a couple of years and
used a variety of amps, but never really got into the
effects. Then I got into Hendrix, Trower and Stevie
Ray Vaughan and I had a Warmouth Strat built with a
hard-tail bridge and I used that through the Cry Of
Love period along with a couple of other Fender
Strats. But then once the Cry Of Love thing grinded to
a halt, I felt like I wanted to make a change and
start fresh. That’s when I got back into Gibsons and
using Les Pauls. I got a ’56 Historic Goldtop that I
used quite a bit on that first Black Crowes tour and
then I got a ’59Historic that Tom Murphy had aged. The
finish on it was really cool. To me, this one looked
more like Joe Walsh’s guitar and some of the original
bursts you would see back in the day. I’ve used it a
whole lot since I got it.

How does your approach to playing differ with your
different Gibson guitars?

Well, I would approach a Firebird a little bit more
stacatto, whereas with a Les Paul, you can use your
neck pickup and get that really creamy, legato thing
flowing. With a Firebird, I would probably tend to go
in between the two pickups and go for a little more
snap.

Which Gibson guitars did you have out on the last
Black Crowes tour?

I was using that ’59, mostly. That was my number one
guitar. In fact, for some shows, I would use it for
just about everything, unless there was open tuning
involved. I had a Firebird that Chris Robinson gave me
that I used for open F# tuning. I also had my ’56
Goldtop and a J-45 acoustic, which is an absolutely
great-sounding guitar. But for that gig and that tour,
I really leaned on the ’59 Les Paul.

How are your guitars set up?

I usually use .010-.046 gauge strings on all the
electrics. But if I’m tuning down, I might use a
heavier set. I like a medium action and like my neck
to be adjusted so it’s fairly straight, but with a
little relief in them. For playing slide, I like it
totally straight.

Which effects were you using onstage?

I usually use some kind of overdrive for solos, but
not for rhythm. I have a Klon Centaur that I love and
I was using a Tube Screamer, which I like for certain
characteristics. The Klon is really transparent, which
I really like, but the Tube Screamer colors your tone
with a specific sort of midrange spike that’s cool,
especially if you’re using the front pickup on a Les
Paul. If you’re playing leads, it’s real articulate. I
also had a Chandler echo, a Fulltone Deja Vibe,
Fulltone Tonebender Fuzz, an MXR Dyna Comp that I
would use if I was using an country licks, along with
an Ernie Ball Volume pedal and a little bit of echo.
I’ve got a Prescription Electronics Clean Octave box
that I kick on now and then and a Vox wah. That was
about it. The real mainstay effects for any gig are a
good overdrive, a wah pedal and some kind of
modulation pedal like a Deja Vibe and a Rotosphere,
which I didn’t use on this gig because there’s another
guitar player and a Hammond organ player.

What was it like to play with Jimmy Page? What did you
learn from the experience?

It was pretty insane. The gigs were one thing, but the
rehearsals were something else. To be able to stand
there, face to face, discussing parts and figuring out
who was going to play what, it was a mind blower. I
was playing with a guy whose licks and songs I’ve
tried to figure out for years. I’d woodshed a whole
lot on that stuff for about a month before we started
rehearsing because I wanted to make sure that I had my
end of it down. I learned all the parts on the songs
from the original recordings. If there were three
guitar parts, I learned all of them. I also had some
bootlegs that I used to sort out what he played live,
back in the day. Then I got together with Rich and we
went over the parts. I’d point out the parts that I
thought Jimmy would play and then Rich and I would go
over the parts that we thought we should do. I was
bound and determined to not look like an idiot when
Jimmy Page walked into the room. When he got there, we
showed him what we were doing and asked him what he
thought. About 90 percent of the time, it was correct,
so we kind of had it covered. We just kind of worked
around what he did.

Going back through that Zeppelin catalog and figuring
a lot of those songs out was quite an experience, too.
I realized where I had gotten a lot of my own riffs
from. I learned a whole lot just listening to those
Led Zeppelin records really closely and figuring out
these parts. Nothing was too precious. There was a lot
of yin and yang in the Zeppelin compositions and in
the performance end of it. Some of it would sound
really tossed off, but so charming that it worked.
That’s what gave it the vibe and made it rock. But
there were other things that were so meticulously
crafted, too. It’s really admirable when you see
people who are able to let go of things when they need
to and to really get down and fine tune things when
they need to. I think Jimmy Page was a master of that.

Tell us about some of your other highlight gigs.

The tour with Oasis was really fun. They’d come out
and play a different song with us every night and it
was just a good hang. They’re great guys. We did some
shows with Neil Young in England that were really
educational. Talk about a guy whose still potent and
still viable and really into his thing.... It was
really inspirable in that way. We played the Allen
Woody Tribute show at Roseland last year. That was
pretty touching - everybody coming together, like the
Allman Bros., Leslie West, Artemus Pyle. All of those
people had such respect for Woody and he wasn’t some
major star who was in the media all the time. It just
goes to show that quality as a person and as a
musician affects people a lot more deeply than things
that you’re told to like and appreciate.

What kind of music do you listen to for enjoyment?

It depends on what kind of mood I’m in. The four
records that I have in front of me right now are
George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, disc 3 of the
James Brown box set, the first Leon Russell record and
a Charlie Rich compilation. I’ll crank up some rock if
I’m just having a good time on a Saturday night, like
anything from some ’70s AM compilation to a George
Jones record to a Thin Lizzy record. There are plenty
of new records that I like, but I tend to gravitate
toward the older stuff.

What advice would you give to other guitarists on
developing their own sound and style?

Take in everything and mix it up. I’ve been through a
lot of phases of playing. I grew up learning honky
tonk rock while at the same time I was into Led
Zeppelin and Hendrix. Back then, I didn’t realize that
when Hendrix was playing “Wait Until Tomorrow,” that
it was all Curtis Mayfield licks and R&B stuff. Years
later, through a little digging, I learned where it
came from and realized that maybe I should get a
Curtis Mayfield record and listen to it. So I started
searching out the roots of my favorite players. Now I
understand that in Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allen Collins was
the Clapton-ish guy, Gary Rossington was more the Paul
Kossoff. Ed King and Steve Gaines were more the
country-type guys. So once you know who your heroes
were listening to, then you figure that you should go
and check those guys out. I remember reading
interviews when I was a kid, where guys would talk
about Clapton’s Wheels Of Fire, so I figured that I
needed to go out and get this record.

I knew a lot of local guys who were a bit older than
me and in bands. I’d go out to see them play and they
probably influenced me as much as any other guitar
player I grew up listening to. They also turned me
onto some important players. I remember that I had two
Kiss records, Destroyer and Alive, and a buddy told me
that those Kiss records were cool, but he turned me
onto Mountain Twin Peaks live. I was lucky enough to
have guys who would kind of guide me and turn me onto
some of this stuff. It was the same thing with the
Allman Bros. Fillmore East record. I had the Brothers
& Sisters album, but I didn’t really understand
Fillmore East. It was a little bit over my head as a
kid. But once you do the digging, then you understand
where this comes from. Duane Allman introduces this
Bobby Blue Bland song, “Stormy Monday,” then says that
it’s actually a T-Bone Walker song, then years later,
you figure that you should actually go and check this
T-Bone Walker stuff out. You keep following the roots
and learn where all of the riffs came from.

The history of all this stuff is important and you
begin to understand where it comes from. You really
understand where everything is coming from tonewise
and from a historical perspective. I figured that if
Hendrix had so much of an R&B influence then maybe I
should start learning to play some decent R&B guitar.
I just make stabs at playing some R&B, straight blues
and country licks. Even though I’m a rock guitar
player, that stuff still gets into the mix. I think
it’s really important to take all of those influences
and put them together. If you like Stevie Ray Vaughan,
don’t try to play exactly like him. If you like his
guitar sound and his licks, take ‘em, but turn them
into your own thing. It’s more fun to do it that way
anyway and then you end up sounding like you. I never
really got fixated on any one player, wanting to play
exactly like that guitarist. There are just so many
good players out there and there’s so much you can
learn from them. I think I have a definable sound and
style of my own, and I guess that’s how you arrive at
it - plus, a whole lot of hard work playing and
working at it. Just go with what you feel in your
musical soul and what you hear in your head. Gravitate
towards what you like and try to have an open mind.

What tips can you offer on practicing? Do you have any
sort of regular practice regime?

I do. I go through phases with my practice routines.
Sometimes I won’t practice that much for like three
years. Instead, I’ll work on writing songs and
recording. I think that one of the best things in the
world you can do is to learn songs off of records and
learn about what you’re doing. Learn some theory, even
if it’s just the basics. You don’t really need to go
beyond that. In the end, it will really help you to
understand what you’re doing. If you’re painting, it
really helps you to understand what the names of the
colors are. I think that taking stuff off records is
really good to inspire ideas and working with a
metronome is great for your timing, but it’s really
boring and I’m not so sure it’s really going to make
you any more musical or soulful. I think it would be
better to put on a record that’s got a good pocket and
really concentrate on that and just play along.
Repetition, for me, is the key to getting something
down. You can learn a song or a riff, but if you don’t
come back to it then it’s really of no use. When I’m
really working on stuff, I’ll take things apart and
then play them every day. That way, it becomes part of
your vocabulary. Try to make the learning process fun.
Play things that you enjoy hearing and focus on
strengthening your weak spots, like maybe your timing
or your intonation. If it’s specific technique things
that you’re working on, just figure out what works for
you as a regime and then just do it every day.

Lisa Sharken is a New York City based freelance
writer. She regularly contributes to national guitar
and music media as well as gibson.com.