Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us.

It’s my pleasure. Anything for my old friend Hans-Peter.

Before we talk about your association with Warwick, I just wanted to talk to you briefly about your earlier instruments. It’s always intrigued me that, in those early days as a bass player, you could have played anything you wanted to and yet you made the unusual choice of a Fender VI baritone guitar.

Well, in actual fact I didn’t start with that, I started on upright bass and it took me a long time to switch because I was very much a purist, I wanted to play modern jazz and my heroes were the great double bass players. At that time, late ‘50s, early ‘60s, there weren’t that many fantastic bass guitar players and, because of recording techniques, you didn’t hear a lot of bass on records. In about 1964 I was asked to play a session for a West Indian guitar player called Ernest Ranglin. He was the guy who more or less invented ska, which led up to reggae – a very influential guy – and he specified bass guitar. I borrowed a semi-acoustic Guild for the session and I loved it immediately.

How was the move from double bass to bass guitar?

I found the switch incredibly easy because it’s just such a compact instrument. The first bass I bought was a Japanese model, a Top 20, which was a load of rubbish. I suppose it was vaguely a Fender Precision copy. But a very imprecise copy. Then I started looking for something different. I’ve always liked different approaches and, because I was in a band that didn’t have a guitar player at the time [The Graham Bond Organisation], I thought I would try the six-string bass, so that I could play chords and a few little guitar solos now and again.

And you stuck with the Fender VI through the early days of Cream.

Yes, when Cream happened, I began playing on that, but soon realised that it was limiting what I could do. Playing with Eric Clapton, I didn’t really want to try to compete, so I started looking around for something else. I was never a great fan of Fender bass guitars. Obviously they are the standard instruments and maybe that’s the reason that I wanted something a bit different. So I found the Gibson EB-3, which suited me because I could put light strings on it and actually bend the strings and get a very individual sound. The EB-3’s short-scale was good for what I was trying to do with Cream because I wanted to play it like a guitar. I don’t mean playing high, but bending the notes, which you can’t really do so easily on a long-scale instrument. In hindsight, what I should have done was started playing fretless immediately, but then that may have limited what I was trying to do as well. I think, by accident, I happened to find what worked best, which is often the case with me. Not a lot of thought goes into it; it just happens.

How did your association with Warwick come about?

After I got tired of the short-scale thing I tried all sorts of instruments. I had a Dan Armstrong fretless. A couple of Arias. But I could never find anything that really satisfied me. And then I was in Germany doing some recording in the mid ‘80s and needed some strings, so I went into this music shop somewhere in north Germany and there was this Warwick – a very early fretless model. It must have been one of the first ones they made because there were a few problems with it, mainly to do with the balance, but despite that I really liked it. Warwick heard that I had bought one and so they got in touch and asked would I want to endorse it and did I have any feedback to give them? I made a couple of suggestions – nothing major, just to do with the balance – and eventually we came up with a much better balanced instrument.

So you became Warwick’s first celebrity endorser. Which led on to the introduction of your signature model in 1988?

Yeah. They’ve been very good about coming up with different basses over the years. What tends to happen is that I’ll come up with an idea and say to them, “How about this?” and they’ll come back with this amazing version of it – way beyond anything I had envisaged. A couple of years ago, around the time of the Cream reunion, I thought it would be nice to have a new bass from Warwick to actually play on those gigs. So I worked with a couple of the guys there and I suggested something almost like a Gibson SG shape with a double cutaway. In the end it wasn’t ready for the Albert Hall shows but I had it on stage with me as a prop. It’s now available as a fretted or fretless model [Jack Bruce Cream CRB] and looks incredible. But my favourite instrument of choice is still the Warwick fretless Thumb bass. I’ve still got that one from many years ago. I’m a bit like Ron Carter, the great double bass player who played with Miles Davis, and with my friend Tony Williams, and he’s still got the same bass that he’s been playing since he was a kid. I’m funny like that. I get one instrument and, unless I fall out of love with it, I’m not looking for anything else.

What about five-string basses?

Yes, I’ve got a couple of Warwick five-string basses, and a six-string. I like them if I’m playing a particular type of song, to have a low-tuned C for example, but for me the classic instrument is a four-string bass.

You also play fretted Warwicks?
Yes I’ve got several fretted Warwicks. My favourite is the Jazzman, which is similar in tone to a Fender Jazz bass.

And do you still play double bass?

I do, yes, and I still play cello. I was playing double bass last week with a young local band called The Rushes. We were just jamming in somebody’s house, which was fun, but I haven’t played double bass or cello on stage for a while.

One of the things I noticed about the most recent Cream concerts at the Albert Hall was how strong your voice is still.

Well it’s much stronger now. I was still quite ill at the Albert Hall. I’d had a liver transplant and I was still recovering from that. The gigs were just a little bit too early for me, but now I’m firing on all cylinders again.

When it comes to the difficult job of singing and playing bass, you seem to be a real master of it. Do you think it’s something that only some players can do successfully?

I think it’s something that you can work at. There is definitely a displacement. There’s no way that you can sing and play the bass at the same level. You have to kind of compromise a bit. I remember the first thing that I did that was difficult was ‘Politician’. That’s hard because the vocal goes right across the beat. The first time we played it was on a BBC broadcast and we laid down the track and then I sung over it. But when we came to try to do it live, I realised that I would have to work at it. It was good for me because it enabled me to get into this other way of playing which is very similar to what a drummer does, having independence and being able to do two things at once. It’s easier for some people than others but you definitely can improve it.

I also noticed, from watching the Albert Hall DVD, that it looks as if you’re almost using a flamenco style with your right hand?

Yes, it just kind of developed in line with my role within the band now. It probably stems from the fact that I learnt veena, a classical Indian stringed instrument. It’s a fairly deeply pitched instrument and the technique for it is a kind of strumming with one finger, the index finger, up and down, and I adapted that technique to the bass. It just happened naturally really.

Can you compare the two lots of shows at the Albert Hall – the ones in 1968 and those in 2005? How did it feel to be back there after all that time?

Well obviously the first one was the end of something, so there were mixed feelings on that gig. We were also all pretty exhausted because we’d been working hard for the lifetime of that band. Some people seem to think we just had a hit or two. But we did hundreds, if not thousands, of gigs over that short period. Having spoken to Eric, in particular, after all these years, when we were playing that farewell gig we were all looking at each other and thinking, “Are we doing the right thing here?” But by that point it was too late. Our pride wouldn’t let anybody say, “Let’s not pack it in after all.” It was a strange one. To be honest I don’t remember a lot about it. Obviously I’ve seen the Tony Palmer film of the concert but I don’t actually remember the gigs. They just went by in a flash. I didn’t even remember that we had played two shows, one in the afternoon, one in the evening. The more recent shows were just a joy really, apart from the physical aspects. Because I wasn’t quite there yet, it was hard, physically, to say the least. But I really did enjoy it once the music took over. It was good fun.

You said on the end of the Albert Hall DVD that the best thing about the shows was that you and Ginger were buddies again. But recently in an interview with The Scotsman you said that you and Ginger still don’t get on and that you won’t be getting together again.

Well, it kind of goes up and down. Yes, it’s true that me and Ginger still don’t get on, which is pretty stupid after all this time. He was really sweet at the rehearsals for the Albert Hall, and at the gig, but then something happened when we did the Madison Square Garden shows. It’s not really right for me to come up with theories about what upset him, but he wasn’t as happy. And when Ginger’s not happy, no one is happy! But we are getting together again around November because Ginger is getting a lifetime achievement award from Zildjian and they’ve invited Eric and myself to go along. I’ve said yes and I think Eric’s said yes as well, and I guess that we’ll have a little play. I wouldn’t say it’ll never happen again because we all said that it would never happen in the first place, and then it happened. I think there might be a time when maybe we’ll do one or two more, but certainly there won’t be any world tours, put it that way.

You’re 65 this year.

I know! Unbelievable. I shouldn’t really be around at all, but here I am.

Any thoughts on retiring?

I don’t think musicians retire as such. They’re like birds – they just keep going till they fall off the perch. I’ve got a US tour lined up for later in the year so I’m looking forward to that.

And you’ve got an amazing amount of material coming out at the moment.

Yes, most of it is from the past, but it’s nice that it’s coming out. There’s a ‘Live at the BBC’ 3CD set called Spirit, and a DVD collection that’s coming out at some point this year.

Will that include the film Tony Palmer made about you [Rope Ladder to the Moon]?

It will, yes. It’s not been available for a long time. And then in June there’s this boxset coming out with six CDs, which is more or less taken from all my solo stuff, plus some other interesting things like the Ernest Ranglin session I mentioned. And the thing I wrote with Frank Zappa, Apostrophe, will be on there as well.

And your new CD with Robin Trower came out recently.

Yes, I’m quite pleased with it and it’s been selling well.

And there’s a new big band CD as well?

With the Hessischer Rundfunk Big Band. That’s a very good record as well.

So you’re as busy as ever?

Well, as busy as I want to be, which is nice.

I was reading an interview with you recently where you were remembering the very early days of Cream and you had said to Eric Clapton that you wanted to take the blues and develop it a step further. And you were laughing about it because you felt it was such an arrogant thing to say. But, looking back, do you feel maybe you did achieve that?

I think in some ways we did, yes. Because we took things like ‘Spoonful’ and…well, there was a time when we played in Chicago with Muddy Waters and Otis Span and people like that, and they got up on stage and actually played our versions of their songs. They loved it. They loved the fact that we had taken this music and got them some attention.

Another example was when I was playing with West, Bruce & Laing at the Spectrum arena in Philadelphia, and one of the roadies came up to me and said, “There’s a little old lady sitting in the dressing room who wants to talk to you.” And it was Mrs Skip James. She’d come to say thank you because he’d earned more money from Cream’s ‘I’m So Glad’ than he had earned in his entire career. And it meant that he could die with dignity because he was quite ill and would not have been able to afford the doctors’ bills. So this beautiful old lady came to say thanks and I was so moved by that.

Everything was always done with the most tremendous admiration and respect, and I think we did achieve something. It wasn’t just putting a British slant on it, although we did do that, but we tried to make the blues a language that would be relevant to the young people at that time. And then they took it and built on it as well. So there was some validity in what I said but, obviously, when you do put those things into words they can sound pretty egotistical.

What do bands today need to do to push the barriers a little bit?

Well I think there are some great bands around today, but there are not great record companies. We were fortunate to be with Atlantic for most of our career with Cream, but now it’s more difficult for bands because the record companies are so unadventurous, so timid, that it limits them. That’s not to say that there aren’t some great bands around. You can’t knock Radiohead, for instance. System Of A Down – great players. And I think in a way they are taking what was done in my day and they’re building on that as well. Someone like Amy Winehouse is really great. It’s easy to say that it’s just pastiche, that her drummer’s just playing like Al Jackson [Booker T. and the MGs]. But there are certain things that go into the musical language and become standard and are just as valid today as they ever were.

And what about your influence on the bass as an instrument?

There are some great players around at the moment and always have been. On any instrument there are a lot of jobbing musicians and then you get the odd virtuoso, the odd person who takes it out there. Flea is a good example – a great player. The bass is just such an important instrument in a band and you can actually change the whole direction. I mean, the function of a bass is to make other instruments sound better than they actually are – that’s what you’re there to do. But you can also change the whole direction of a live band more than any other instrument. It’s a wonderful instrument to play.

What would your advice be to young bass players out there who are looking for some inspiration?

I would say get on the road and just play as much as you can in a live situation. Don’t just sit in your bedroom recording and analysing things and playing along with other people. That’s a good way to start, maybe, playing along with records, but whenever I’ve crossed a barrier with my own playing it’s always been in a live situation. You can practise and practise and practise, and it’s good to do that, but you don’t really start playing until you play live.

You’ve been quoted several times as saying that you never wanted to be a pop star. That you just wanted to be a good musician. When you look back over your career, do you feel content? Do you feel satisfied with what you’ve achieved? Or do you ever wish that you’d just stayed playing double bass in a jazz band and not had to put up with all the trappings of stardom?

I was a window cleaner for a few weeks – I could have carried on doing that as well! Obviously, when things go wrong, you do get these ideas, but as I sit in my country estate looking out of the window at the rolling acres, I think maybe it wasn’t so bad after all!

Where did it all go wrong, Jack?

Exactly! I mean, I was asked to be the house bass player at Ronnie Scott’s, for instance, and if I’d done that I’d probably be dead by now. And if I wasn’t dead I’d be even more ga-ga than I am now. I’ve never really made big plans – things have just come along. I guess people say I should have sold more records as a solo artist, but my answer to that is, “Look, I’m still going, mate!” And that’s the sort of achievement I respect.

Story: Peter Chrisp