I take out everything I can play myself. Depends on the song, but I've played live bands all my life. Few of them had horns, string sections, rhythm AND lead keyboard players... I was expected to do all that myself. I usually had a bass player, a drummer and one guitarist. And we managed to pull it off...

So, primarily, all I want is that rhythm section. The rest should be me. I don't do bigband, so no-one is expecting an 18 piece band. The minute you start allowing the machine to take over, you dilute what YOU are doing. The audience rarely knows what is playing what, but they can smell out when more is being played than one man can possibly do!

I want my audience to know, when they hear me, that it's ME...