Nothing Vernon Reid does is arbitrary. Listening to 2025 solo album, Hoodoo Telemetry, it’s evident that he is a player in perpetual search of new sounds, genre expanse, and one who is entirely unafraid to push boundaries.
What’s more, despite his legacy with Living Colour, a band that does plenty of boundary pushing itself, he’s not afraid to set it all aside and re-label himself as labelless. “Making this record has felt very grounding to me,” Reid tells Guitar World.
“It’s grounded me in the same culture that created me,” he says. “You know, the punk, funk, jazz – the thing that New York is known for being: the crazy melting pot.”
Cuts like The Haunting showcase Reid’s omnivorous nature as a listener and guitarist. There are also social-meets-personal-meets-generally-relatable commentaries, like Beautiful Bastard. Reid has always been good at this sort of thing with Living Colour, but Hoodoo Telemetry is a reminder that he’s got his own vision to that end, too.
“Part of the idea is to learn something about the people you love,” Reid says while reflecting on Beautiful Bastard. “Somebody said romance is always tragic. It either ends in disappointment or marriage. You’re either walking away, or you're taking your vow.”
“But there are subdivisions of that which we won't get into,” he laughs. “But I wanted to speak to all different kinds of feelings.”
On the subject of speaking feelings into existence, Reid has always and still does do this with his guitar. And there’s plenty of that across Hoodoo Telemetry. Reid reports that he brought out guitars old and new while recording, but unsurprisingly leaned heavily on his signature Reverend Talisman guitars.
Reid says that the next – and final – entry into that series is upon us in The Dark, an all-back version of his Talisman. These guitars, like many of Reid’s past six-strings, are littered with important symbolism. “The pickup covers have Adinkra symbols, you know, African symbols,” Reid says.
“They reflect cooperation, determinism, destiny, and providence,” he says. “I wanted an instrument that was really about what would aid in a player's journey.”
As for the journey that he plans to take, Reid is working on new music with Living Colour. There’s no release date in mind, but it’ll be the band’s first record since 2017’s Shade. That aside, he’s got designs to tour behind Hoodoo Telemetry, though he’s taking it one step at a time.
“It really is about taking a trip,” he says. “And it’s about not being afraid to take the road less traveled in what you're doing. That’s the thing that I wanted the design of the guitars to encourage, and also, my music.”
What inspired Hoodoo Telemetry?
“There’s so many different threads. I made a record in the ’90s called Mistaken Identity, which brought together all these different worlds, like hip-hop, jazz, rock, blues, and all these different narratives that had been a part of my life.
“And a lot has happened since then. I made two more records, Known Unknown and Other True Self, and some other projects, along with Living Colour, which were pretty spaced apart. I started to consider making a new solo album, just to look at where I’m at now.”
So, where did you find yourself at, so to speak?
“Interestingly enough, I was also looking at music that I hadn’t released and updating it. And then the pandemic happened, and long story short, I suffered a major personal loss in that my dear friend, the journalist and band leader, Greg Tate, passed on December seventh, 2021.
“We were co-founders of the Black Rock Coalition, so it was a rough loss. I was grappling with it, and I’ve been grappling with it. It made me rethink my impulses, and it started to echo. We used to have long phone conversations about music, culture, politics, and on and on. So, this record is really dedicated to him.”
Coincidentally, I conducted one of the last-ever interviews with Greg, just before he died. He was fascinating to speak with, and he loved the guitar.
“He was a great cultural critic. He was a huge Van Halen fan and loved the instrument on its own merits. We were both big Jeff Beck and Tommy Bolin fans. And also, people like Robert Fripp and Ernie Isley. And, oh my God, Prince was always a topic, you know, his genius, and his ability to remain mysterious.”
It goes without saying that you’re a musical omnivore. How did that inform you as a guitarist and songwriting while making this record?
“It’s all kind of keyed to the songs themselves, as opposed to doing a record of a genre, or a way of approaching it. It’s really tied to individual songs. Like, with my approach to The Haunting, that was very much a little bit of Sly [Stone] and Prince influenced. That kind of stayed with me.”
A common thread behind all of your music is that it has a message behind it. It can be positive, stark, or a commentary, but it’s never arbitrary. What was the overarching message behind this record, and how did you express that through your guitar?
“My old boss, Ronald Shannon Jackson [drummer and composer of The Decoding Society] used to say to me: 'It ain’t what you think it is?' Life has layers. It’s about the people you meet, the people you love, and the weird stuff that comes up. It’s also about being in a space of looking forward, being in the present moment, and dealing with things of the past.”
So, this record encompasses all of those things?
“The record, really… some of the stuff is things that people haven’t heard, but also, things that I didn’t have a context for, like Beautiful Bastard. I was thinking about that track for a Yohimbe Brothers record, but it was too challenging. I thought, ‘You know what? What we associate with language, and when you say ‘bastard,’ you automatically think of a rotten dude,’ right?”
Yep. I’d agree with that.
“But actually, women can be that, too. The word ‘bastard’ is not really gendered, right? It’s like, you were born without the benefit of married parents. I mean… why is that kind of stuff put on people? That’s not your fault, right? But being a bastard also comes up in terms of succession, and who is the King’s proper son. [Laughs] So, with Beautiful Bastard, I wanted to play with the idea of gender there.”
Beyond that, there’s a bit of tragic imagery there.
“It’s kind of like a Nick Cave-inspired murder ballad. It’s a tragic story. I think any person can relate to a person in their life, where it’s like, ‘You’re my disaster.’ In terms of loving people, that’s very much a parent to child, or maybe a man to a woman, a man to a man, a woman to a woman, or whatever in-between.”
It’s fluid.
“The fact is that this person entered your life, and one day, you can say, ‘You’re a disaster.’ But actually, it’s more accurate to say, ‘You’re my disaster.’ [Laughs] I’ve had relationships with women… well, we’re not gonna there… [Laughs] But if you live a life where intimacy has occurred with different people, you learn something.”
There’s another song here called Good Afternoon Everyone that seems to have an interesting message behind it, too.
“That’s about a person who is homeless that I saw in the subway. He’s unfailingly polite in how he addresses people, saying, ‘Good afternoon, everyone. Can anyone help me with something to eat today?’ His rage is just under the surface, but he was polite the entire time.
“And I took my phone out and just recorded him, because he was just someone ranting, he was speaking to a certain situation. And when I got together with the hip-hop artist, Nironic, we co-wrote this. He came up with an interesting lyric of him being the person ignoring the homeless person, and he also took the position of being the homeless person.”
As you were putting this record together, what gear did you lean on most?
“There was a lot happening there. I’ve been using the [Line 6] Helix floor [-based processor]. But gosh, I had Red Panda stuff, Chase Bliss stuff, and the Eventide Rose [delay] was a big part of it. The Rose has this weird sort of analog modulation; it’s a beautiful pedal. And with Eventide, the H9 [Max Multi-Effects Pedal] was a part of this, too. But this record goes back a long way, so there’s a lot of stuff.”
How about your guitars? Is it mostly your signature Reverend gear, or did you use some of your older guitars, too?
“With the guitars, I used my PRS guitars from my signature time with them. I used my old Hamer guitars, and I definitely used my current Reverend Talisman. Those were a big part of it. But I also had a Parker, and I recorded with an Ovation acoustic that I’ve had for years. So, there’s a fair representation of the guitars that I’ve been using over the last 20 or 30 years.”
What’s the latest on your collaboration with Reverend?
“The latest thing is there’s a guitar that’s all-black called The Dark. But you know the Mystery Tramp, the Talisman, and the Shaman are the guitars in the Totem Series. And the final guitar in that series is The Dark. It’s a completely matte black version of the Talisman guitar. And it’s also the model that’s going to be available for lefty players.”
The first time I saw The Fool, you know, the Clapton SG, was while it was Todd Rundgren’s. I just loved the idea of the guitar being an art canvas
You’ve had a lot of very personal guitars over the years. Would you say that your Reverend guitars represent the culmination of what you’ve been looking for and trying to create?
“Well, they do represent a kind of culmination. Early on, I worked very closely with Jol Dantzig on my classic Hamers from the ’90s. They were all graphic – and I love graphics on guitars.”
What stoked your love for graphics?
“The first time I saw The Fool, you know, the [Eric] Clapton [Gibson] SG, was while it was Todd Rundgren’s. I just loved the idea of the guitar being an art canvas. And even with my ESP guitars, I did my doodles on those instruments, so I’ve always liked the idea of stickering, artwork, and hand paintings on your instrument.”
It’s a means of expression literally adhered to your chosen form of musical and artistic expression. The Reverend guitars feel like a true representation of that for you.
“I even love all the various carvings. I love that as a mode. And this particular Talisman series took me back to that kind of relationship. Working with Joe Naylor and Ken Haas on the symbology of the instrument took me back to my E=MC² Hamer, which I developed with Jol Dantzig. So, it’s been a great collaboration with Joe and Ken in terms of that.
“Like, the dot markers on my Reverend are all derived from hobo signs, you know, the symbols of people who rode he rails. These are symbols that they’d put in train yards to warn other hobos about the dangers or opportunities that were available if you were coming into the yard. It’s like with Vietnam, and the whole thing with lighters. Do you know about that?”
You mean the engravings or slogans that soldiers would put on their Zippo lighters and tuck into their helmets?
Reverend were incredibly interested in my ideas, and it was a very real collaboration, where I had the hobo symbols, but I didn’t dictate where they should go
“Yes. You know, there were soldiers who would take lighters, and they would etch, you know, well, some of the things they’d say were pretty dark. One of the ones I heard about was, ‘I hope this lighter gives you as much luck as it gave me…’ So, yeah…”
So ultimately, the dot markers on your Reverend are symbolic.
“Yeah. So, the dot marker symbols mean things like ‘Jail,’ ‘Defend Yourself,’ ‘Good Road,’ ‘Police’, ‘Hobos Arrested,’ and ‘Keep Quiet.’ That’s all derived from that symbology. And Reverend were incredibly interested in my ideas, and it was a very real collaboration, where I had the hobo symbols, but I didn’t dictate where they should go.
“Like, I never said, ‘I want this at the first fret,’ or ‘I want that at the 12th fret.’ I didn’t do that. I came up with the chart with all the symbols, and I submitted it to Joe, and said, ‘Hey, man, put them where you think,’ you know? So, I felt good about the fact that it was a real collaboration between artists.”
Hoodoo Telemetry aside, is Living Colour working on its next album?
“Well, we’re engaged in writing and recording. I think our focus for the next couple of months is going to be on that, the writing and recording, and doing that. There is always the odd show here and there to do. But as far as full-on touring, like we did with Extreme, I think we’re going to be focusing a lot on making this record.”
Well, we’re engaged in writing and recording. I think our focus for the next couple of months is going to be on that
Do you have designs to do some solo shows, too?
“I am putting a band together for Hoodoo Telemetry. Donald McKenzie is going to be the drummer for sure, and Leon Gruenbaum is going to be on keys. We’re going to be playing a show at the Blue Note on September 24, and I would love it if [bassist] Steve Jenkins could do that and be a part of it if a tour materializes. He’s a fabulous player.
“And I’m not sure or not if I’m going to have a saxophone, but if I had my druthers, I would have V. Jeffrey Smith, who plays on the record. He’s also a fabulous multi-instrumentalist, who also plays guitar and keyboards. So, there’s a lot of cool stuff that can happen. I’m kind of excited about where it’ll go and to see how the rest of it goes.”
- Hoodoo Telemetry is out now via Players Club.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
