Eric Clapton Talks Addiction,

Cream's Brilliance, the Future of

the Guitar
The guitar icon looks back on his turbulent history, as
chronicled in new doc 'Life in 12 Bars,' and ahead to what's
next
By David Fricke
2 days ago
Eric Clapton talks to David Fricke about his days of alcohol and drug abuse, the tempestuous
brilliance of Cream, the future of the guitar and more. 

There is a remarkable scene early in Eric

Clapton:  Life in 12 Bars,  the new Showtime
documentary about the guitarist's career, that sums
up his meteoric rise as a British-blues prodigy and
worldwide superstar: Bob Dylan in a London hotel
room in 1965 watching John Mayall's Bluesbreakers on
television and raving over that band's guitarist
– Clapton, now 72, then barely out of his teens. "I still
can't believe that's real," Clapton says, laughing, in a
New York hotel lobby the day after a screening. "I
thought, 'Oh, that must be Photoshop-ed.'"
'A Life in 12 Bars' closes the book on Slowhand's career, while 'Gaga: Five Feet
Two' documents the singer catching a second wind
Directed by Lili Fini Zanuck, Life in 12 Bars  also has
extraordinary footage of Clapton onstage with Cream
in the Sixties and revealing interviews with the women
in his life including his grandmother Rose – who raised
him after Clapton's 16-year-old mother, Patricia, left
England with his father, a Canadian airman – and first
wife Pattie Boyd, the object of Clapton's romantic
obsession on 1970's Layla and Other Assorted Love
Songs. The film is unflinching, too, about the deep
blues inside those he sang, with painfully frank
sequences on Clapton's battles with heroin, alcohol
and the accidental 1991 death of his young son Conor,
which inspired the Grammy-winning ballad "Tears in
Heaven."

But Clapton is also facing forward, working on his next

studio album. "I'm in the middle of it," he reveals,
noting that "it started with the leftover" from the
cache of rare and previously unrecorded demos that
formed the basis of his 2014 covers tribute, The
Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale. "I still have some
JJ songs that we're playing with. "Sometimes we mix
them with dub, sometimes we take it back to pure
country." Clapton is writing new material as well with
his studio collaborator and keyboard player Simon
Climie.

"And then I'll do some shows next year," Clapton

declares late in this interview, conducted for the
current issue of Rolling Stone and greatly expanded
here in depth, range and candor. In fact, two weeks
after this conversation, the guitarist announced a huge
outdoor show on July 8th with special guests Santana,
Steve Winwood and Gary Clark Jr. in London's Hyde
Park – the site of Clapton's live debut with Blind Faith
in 1969. But, he insists, "I don't see it as touring
anymore – just one date at a time."

You saw the film again yesterday. What is it like to

walk through your life like that?
It's not as bad as the first time I saw it.  I was in an
editing room. There was one scene that I was really
uncertain about, which was the semi-racial thing that
went down during my worst period. I made remarks
onstage about foreigners [at a show in Birmingham,
England in 1976]. Being the drunk that I was, I just
went on a rant.

Did you ask Lili to take it out? 

I just have to face the guy that I became when I was
fueled on drugs and alcohol. It's incomprehensible to
me, in a way, that I got so far out. And there was no
one to challenge me. Because I may have become
quite intimidating. People said they couldn't challenge
me because I came back twice as strong.
The only guy who did was my manager [at the time],
Roger Forrester. He said to me, "You've got a
problem." When I decided he was right, he was the
person I called. He packed me up and sent me off to
[the rehab facility] Hazelden. When I got to Hazelden, I
had to sign this thing saying who is your significant
other. Anyone else would have put a family member –
or my wife. I was married. But I put him. Because he
was the only one who would stand up to me and call
me out.

Clapton with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty Brian Moody/Rex Shutterstock/ZUMA

The first part of the film is about how you became a

musician. The second is about how music saved you at
every turn – from obsession, drugs, alcohol and even
the death of your son. When things were at rock
bottom, you always had the guitar.
I would add one thing – listening to music became just
as important as being able to play. During all of those
periods of my life, I found new or old music that helped
me, that got me through even when I wasn't playing
well or I wasn't playing at all. It might be Maria Callas
singing or the playing of [Delta bluesman] Tommy
McClennan. I remember coming out of the smack
period [in the early Seventies] – anything I heard would
reduce me to tears, especially if it came from the
heart. The music from Carousel still does bring me to
tears.

That clip of Dylan watching you on TV with John

Mayall is an example of the incredible happenstance in
your life. You lived at a historic intersection of cultural
forces in the Sixties. And you participated in them,
because you actually had the gift.
It was a good time. Lili and I were talking about it
again today, about how free that period was in the
Sixties and early Seventies. There wasn't a
consciousness about what would be successful or not.
It didn't matter as long as you took a shot at
everything and just kept on playing. And if anyone
came in, [they could] join in. It was open.

By the time I got to the Nineties, I was really confused

about the competitive nature of music. Bands were
aggressive to one another, judgmental. You just make
records and hope that they do better than the other
guy's records. In that point you're talking about,
anything could happen, and it had nothing to do with
success.

The film opens with your video tribute to B.B. King

after he died in 2015. It sets a tone too: Many of the
faces and voices in the movie – Duane Allman, Cream's
Jack Bruce, George Harrison, your friend and Cream
roadie Ben Palmer – are gone.
I don't want to even think about that. I'm determined
to stick around as long as I can. I'm watching
everything. I go to the doctor's at the slightest sign of
anything.

How is your health? On the back cover of your last

album, I Still Do, there is a photo of you playing guitar
with a fingerless glove on your hand.
I had eczema from head to foot. The palms of my hand
were coming off, and I had just started making this
record with [producer] Glyn Johns. It was a
catastrophe. I had to wear mittens with Band-Aids
around the hands and played a lot of slide [guitar] as a
result.

When I saw you in concert this year, in the spring and

fall, there were no gloves.
My hands are good. It hasn't gone completely, but I put
ointment on. It's just getting old now. I'm as good now
as I've been in the last two years.

Have you ever considered the possibility that, because

of illness or age, you couldn't play guitar again?
That would be alright. I would accept it. Because
playing is difficult anyway. I have to get on the bottom
of the ladder every time I play guitar, just to tune it.
Then I have to go through the whole threshold of
getting calluses [on the fingers] back, coordination.
"Playing is difficult," Clapton says. "I have to get on the bottom of the ladder every time I play
guitar, just to tune it." Kevin Mazur/Getty

But the guitar comes up a lot in the film as a place of

refuge for you.
I still go there. If there is trouble in the house, which is
very rare, I pick up my guitar and remove myself from
the situation. I will inevitably play something bland, an
exercise. But it will keep me from being engaged in
the conflict.

Is that something you recognized as a boy? 

I became acquainted with it pretty quick, because I
would go to it immediately. I would always go to that
place to find some peace. It would always be a staple
for stress.

Yet you did have a thing about attachment – leaving

the Yardbirds and Mayall, breaking up Cream and
Derek and the Dominos.
Ben [Palmer] says that [in the film] – I could achieve
very strong relationships, and the next day I'd be gone.
Yeah, that is peculiar. But it was never like that with
the music. To this day, I can return to the stuff that I
first heard, and it will have the same effect on me that
it did then. There is a section of the film where Cream
is playing at the Fillmore; we're playing around Ginger
[Baker]'s drum solo ...

"Toad."
It was so good. We were playing so well together. And
watching that, I thought if only they [Baker and Bruce]
could have found a way to resolve their conflict. I was
having the time of my life musically. But like Ben said,
the bickering was outrageous. I don't know if you
could fairly say which one it was, or if it was my
inability to take part. Maybe it wasn't the same guy all
the time.
At least one of you was crazy at some point in the day.
Exactly. But the music was getting so refined that it
made it alright.

One of the shots in the film that I like – and it goes by

in an instant – is the photo of the Crawdaddy Club in
London, where the Yardbirds played. And there are
two guys ... 
Climbing on the ceiling.

It looks like a punk-rock moshpit.

It really was.

People who see you in arenas now might not realize

you made your bones in these wild environments.
We were club musicians – low-ceiling places where
you'd share a dressing room with the other band. When
you came in, they were taking their trousers off. Very
tight, small places – that was what I was most
comfortable with. Doing arenas – I'm still not used to
it. I like to create a little space in front of me where I
think I'm playing in a little room.

How do you do that in the Garden?

I  look at the exit signs [laughs]. I look somewhere in
the back, into the darkness, and I think, "Oh, I'm in the
Marquee" or "I'm in the Flamingo Club."

You also have that open space, when you solo in blues
numbers like "Little Queen of Spades," where you
seem most free as a player.
That's always there for me. I have to maintain that.
Any time it gets into set pieces, I don't really want to
be there. It's another version of "For Your Love" [the
Yardbirds' 1965 pop hit – Clapton played on the record
but quit before it came out]. Anytime I can play free,
it is in 12 bars. That's a good title [for the film]. It's
the way I approach everything.

It's the most difficult thing to write, a modern blues.

The only person I know who can do it well is Robert
Cray. It comes straight out of him. I saw him recently
this year, and he's still doing it. He's on fire, the real
thing. I wish I could be like that. Really, I'm a
musician. I try to be a singer and songwriter, and it's
interesting to me. But I would never think of myself as
that. I'm just a blues musician.

Would you consider "Tears in Heaven" a blues? The

circumstances would suggest that.
It isn't. I was trying to write [Jimmy Cliff's ] "Many
Rivers to Cross" or [Bob Marley's] "No Woman, No
Cry." It's the same chord progression. I don't know if I
could express what I'm feeling in a blues, because a
blues is at a level of anger and self-pity. And this was
different.

There is a great B.B. quote in the film in which he

describes the way you play a blues solo as "like
putting pieces in a puzzle." 
That's how I see it. I create a portion of time for a
beginning and an end. It has to make sense, make a
picture. If left to my own devices in the studio, I will
go over and over and over until I think it is as refined
as it can be. "Layla" was like that, like building a
puzzle.
Is the puzzle ever complete?
It's never complete. But I remember one night in
Philadelphia with Cream. It was near the end of our
touring together [in 1968]. We knew it was over. We
were just having a good time playing. And I remember
thinking "This is as great as it will ever be." Have I
ever been satisfied? Definitely for one night, yeah.

Ed Sheeran has said that you were the reason he

started playing guitar. What do you say to younger
artists like him about navigating the perils of success?
I don't think you say anything, to be honest [laughs].
He has asked my advice. And what I've said to him is,
"Slow down. Don't burn it all up too fast." But he
seems to be committed to go as far as he can. He
wants to conquer the globe. But what do you do then?
Where do you go from there? It can't always be up – for
anybody.

How do you look back on your stardom in the Sixties

and Seventies? You had pursuit of the music without
worrying about the celebrity – as if the work was
enough.
We didn't consider what we were doing as business. I
always use Cream as an example. We were just told
where to go. We didn't have time to think about how
much money we were making, what was the right
strategy, which town you should go to. Now you have
guys like Ed who direct and produce their own shows.
The music is part of that. But we couldn't have done it
that way then. It would have been a distraction.
 Clapton in 1967 Getty

What do you do to get away from the business – the

distractions from your craft?
I have a business manager who talks to me almost
daily about what we should be doing, like how we're
managing Crossroads [Clapton's addiction treatment
center in Antigua]. A lot of the time, I've told people to
leave me alone, because I need to play. And it isn't
easy. It takes a lot of devotion to get to the point
where what I'm playing is presentable.
When I was young, it was easy to get to that place. I
had no relationships, no children, no business. I had
nothing to worry about but play. Now there are all
these things which I'm happy to be responsible for. But
it does distract me from what makes it all possible.

We've talked before about the future of the guitar.

Some people think the instrument has said what it
needs to say in the culture, in music. Do you believe it
still has a future as an expressive force? And what
would you say to a young player looking for an original
voice in there, especially going up against icons like
yourself, B.B. and Jimi Hendrix?
This is funny, because I've had a conversation about
this phenomenon just a while ago. In the last few
months, I've been talking to a guy who doesn't know
where to go next. It was a conversation with a young
musician who contacted me through some friends. I
could see that he was genuine and I was interested in
what he had to offer. Finally we had lunch and he said,
"Do you want to listen to something?" It was esoteric
and abstract, and I thought, "Where would this go?"

I wanted the guy to be taken somewhere. I could hear

that he was in his own head too much, and that can be
a cul de sac. There is always something to listen to, to
aspire to, with the guitar. It is still the most flexible
instrument. You can improvise on it. You have such
freedom. I don't think there is a limit to it.

That is heartening. Because I love guitars – the more,

the merrier.
Me too [smiles]. Anyone who talks about it [the guitar
as a spent force] should listen to Roebuck Staples
[founding guitarist of the Staples Singers]. It is so
moving. And that's in the past. So it's not about what's
to be. It's already there. If you can get in touch with
that, you can do anything.