Do It In The Raw!

Adam Levy Reveals How to Make a Naked Guitar & Drums Record— and It Has Nothing to Do With the Black Keys or White Stripes

- Michael Molenda

ADAM LEVY—FORMER GP STAFFER, side person to the stars, and man of a million chord voicings—seems to love upsetting his own apple carts. Perhaps it’s that restless jazz-musician mindset, but Levy has navigated everything from pop, rock, jazz, and beyond, and he even transformed himself from an instrumentalist into a singer/songwriter. But when a planned organ-trio recording went off the rails last year due to schedule conflicts, Levy was confronted with perhaps his riskiest project to date—the beautifully stark and raw Blueberry Blonde.

“I had everything all booked, and then the organ player had another commitment and needed to drop out,” he says. “I thought, ‘Oh, sh*t—should I cancel or reschedule?’ And my drummer, Jay Bellerose, just said, ‘No. Two people is enough to make a record.’”

So how do you make a last-minute conceptual transition from a trio to a duo?