Interviews

Interview: Guitarist Robby Krieger Discusses The Doors' Albums and Working with Jim Morrison

Alan Paul — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:48:11 +0000

The Doors’ Jim Morrison lit the world on fire, but it was guitarist Robby Krieger who supplied the matches. In 2008, the legendary axman shed light on one of rock’s most mysterious bands for Guitar World.

The Doors’ Jim Morrison lit the world on fire, but it was guitarist Robby Krieger who supplied the matches. Here, the legendary axman sheds light on one of rock’s most mysterious bands.

“It was hard living with Jim.”

Robby Krieger is talking about his days as guitarist with the Doors, reflecting on his role as creative sidekick to one of rock’s all-time great lyricists, singers, sex symbols and extreme personalities, Jim Morrison. “It would have been so great if we’d just had a guy like Sting,” says Krieger wistfully. “You know, a normal guy who’s extremely talented, too. Someone who didn’t have to be on the verge of life and death every second of his life.”

The guitarist laughs at his own fantasy. He knows better than anyone that it was Morrison’s inner demons, which surfaced all too frequently, that gave the Doors’ music its resonance and power. But while Morrison was undoubtedly one of rock’s great visionaries, the contributions of the other Doors to the band’s unique sound and success cannot be overlooked. The blues-based, often hypnotic music created by Krieger, organist Ray Manzarek and drummer John Densmore perfectly complemented Morrison’s commanding, sensual vocals and mesmerizing lyrics. And it was actually Krieger who penned many of the Doors’ greatest songs and biggest hits, including “Light My Fire,” “Love Me Two Times” and “Touch Me.”

Remarkably, when Krieger joined the Doors in 1965 he was only 18 years old and had been playing guitar for just two years — electric guitar a mere six months.

“I really learned to play as a member of the Doors,” he asserts. “I just tried to sound like myself—I consciously avoided copying Chuck Berry or B.B. King because that’s what everyone was doing. I tried to come up with the right part for the song and play something that would complement Jim’s singing.

“It must have worked,” he adds coyly. “I think we came up with a pretty good body of work.”

Pretty good, yes. Good enough to have gotten the Doors inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last January and to have inspired Oliver Stone’s reverential 1991 biopic. And, most of all, good enough to enthrall three decades of rock fans with music that remains as powerful and profound in the Nineties as it was in the Sixties.

Robby Krieger cannot escape his past with the Doors, even though the band essentially died with Morrison in 1971. Although he has remained active, touring regularly and recording seven solo albums dominated by instrumental music, Krieger says, “I realized pretty quickly that I would never again have another band like the Doors. Music has become more of a fun thing for me, much like painting is — something that’s personally rewarding. It’s what I do and how I identify myself: I’m Robby Krieger, guitarist.”

Most people would say: Robby Krieger, Doors guitarist. What follows are Krieger’s recollections of the Doors’ career, from their 1967 self-titled debut to 1971’s brilliant swan song, L.A. Woman.

THE DOORS
Released January 1967

GUITAR WORLD: What was your first impression of Jim Morrison?

I first met him when he came to my house with John Densmore and he seemed pretty normal. I didn’t really get a sense that there was anything unusual about him until the end of our first rehearsal. Initially, everything was cool. Then this guy came looking for Jim. Something had gone wrong with a dope deal, and Jim just went nuts. Absolutely bananas. I thought, Jesus Christ, this guy’s not normal.

What were your impressions of Ray Manzarek?

When I first met him, he was the “big man on campus” at the UCLA film school. In fact, our first gig as a band was to provide music for one of his student films. Afterwards Ray got up in front of an auditorium full of people and gave a speech. I remember it well, because he had them in the palm of his hand. He was down-right mesmerizing. He was a major character, but Jim kind of kept him in his place. Jim was so out there that Ray’s personality was overwhelmed — which, oddly enough, created a good balance.

And you were pretty much what you appeared to be: a nice, quiet guy who fit in between these two powerful personalities?

Well, dealing with Jim kind of changed me, too, because I was pretty crazy myself. I was the first one at my school to try acid and I was always the one pushing things. Then I got into the Doors and I couldn’t hold a candle to Jim and Ray. [laughs] But I had already gone through acid and I was onto meditation by the time I joined the Doors—I actually met John at meditation class—so I had already mellowed out.

When were the Doors thrown out of the Whisky-A-Go-Go for performing “The End”?

Well, that’s overstating it a little bit. That whole incident has been blown out of proportion. There was a fight with the owner and we were thrown out, but I don’t think we were actually fired. We kept playing the Whisky after that.

Jim’s antics are held in such reverence now. Were they funny at the time?

It was always a bummer. We had this group which we all knew had the potential to be something really big, and Jim was trying to sabotage it by fucking up at every turn. We would call a rehearsal, Jim wouldn’t show, and we’d get a call from Blythe, Arizona, telling us that he was in jail.

Yet you guys were amazingly productive. You produced six studio albums in three or four years. Were his work habits really that bad?

No. the music was all he lived for. A lot of times he was at the office when we weren’t. He’d even live there sometimes, because that was his whole life. We all had lives other than the Doors, but he didn’t, and he kind of resented that. He felt like he was living it 24 hours a day, and we weren’t. And he was right.

But the recording sessions really bored him. We had to hang around interminably until they got the drum sound down and all that shit, so I can’t blame him for going crazy. Paul Rothchild, our producer, was a real perfectionist.

How important was Paul to your music?

It really differed from album to album. On the first one, he just turned on the mic and stepped out of the way. The second album, when we actually had a budget, Paul really got involved in the sound.

We were all kind of freaked out recording the first album because we didn’t know what it would be like. For example, it really bothered us that we couldn’t turn up as loud as we wanted.

Yet it really sounds like you were all playing with total abandon.

That’s because we had been playing those songs for so long that we really had the material down cold. Everything was cut in one or two takes.

Your version of “Back Door Man” is really effective. Were there any debates about how faithful you should be to the original version?

No. For one thing, we probably weren’t good enough musicians to do exact copies and we knew that Jim would never sing it anywhere near the original anyhow. So we just went on our own.

For years it was a little-known fact that you wrote “Light My Fire.” That changed when Oliver Stone made it a point to show how the song evolved in his movie, The Doors. Was it as simple as pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of your pocket and offering it to the band like the movie suggests?

It’s pretty close. Jim had been writing all the songs and then one day we realized we didn’t have enough tunes, so he said, “Hey, why don’t you guys try and write songs?” I wrote “Light My Fire” that night and brought it to the next rehearsal. It was my idea to have that scene in the movie, by the way. I wanted it there because it’s always kind of bugged me that so many people don’t know that I was the composer.

Your solo on “Light My Fire” is truly one of your shining moments as a guitarist. Was it improvised in the studio?

It was the kind of solo that I usually did, but it was different every night. To be honest, the one on the record is not one of my better versions. I only had two tries at it. But it’s not bad; I’m glad it was as good as it was.

Was the whole album recorded live?

No. Jim always sang with us, but they rarely used the scratch vocal. “The End” was an exception.

What do you think of the song now?

I think that particular version of “The End” was nowhere near as good as the way we played it many other times. All the songs on the first album were like skeletons of how we really played them. It was just a combination of not having any studio experience and having to do everything so fast. I also think that studios are, by nature, limiting. You cannot get the sound of five big amplifiers on a little piece of tape.

Did you ever think about how strange it was not to have a bass player?

Definitely. We always thought about that. We wanted a bass player, and we auditioned a few — but we never could find one who was right. Looking back, I’m glad we didn’t, because the Doors’ sound was largely a result of the fact that Ray had to play really simple bass lines, which gave the music a hypnotic feel.

And not having a bass player affected my guitar playing a lot. It made me play more bass notes to fill out the bottom. Not having a rhythm player also made me play differently to fill out the sound. And then, of course, I played lead, so I always felt like three players simultaneously.

“Light My Fire,” the first song you ever wrote, was a number-one hit. It’s sudden success must have been mind-boggling.

It wasn’t that sudden. It actually felt like forever to us. We started the band in 1965, and nothing happened for two years. We were going crazy. Finally, after being turned down by everyone in town, Elektra signed us. Our first single bombed, and it was another six months before “Light My Fire” hit. So it seemed like a long time. We felt like veterans.

Did you use your standard gear in the studio? Were you playing an SG?

Yeah, though the first red one I had was a Melody Maker. I had a few red SGs in the Doors, but they’re all gone now, mostly stolen or lost. Amp-wise, I usually used a Twin Reverb in the studio.

You almost allowed “Light My Fire” to be used in a car commercial before Jim put an end to it. Did Jim do the right thing?

Oh yeah, absolutely. In fact, it’s been our policy to reject any subsequent offers—and we’ve had quite a few. I really hate it when I see other bands selling their music to commercials. And by the time a big corporation is interested in using your music, you don’t need the money. So there’s really no excuse.

STRANGE DAYS
Released November 1967

When the second album came out it was attacked by many critics as being a retread of the first. Do you think that was valid criticism?

Only on one count. I’ll admit that “When the Music’s Over” was similar to “The End” in length and structure, but so what? Something works, so you do it again. It’s one of my favorite songs.

I don’t think that Morrison’s poetry rap is quite as interesting on “When the Music’s Over” as “The End.”

No, it’s not. How can you possibly top “The End”? What’s left once you’ve fucked your mother and killed your father? [laughs] The reason it’s my favorite song is my solo — I think it’s my best.

That solo is composed of two solos being played simultaneously. Did you improvise both of them on the spot?

Pretty much. In fact, I’ve never been able to reproduce them. That solo was really a challenge because the harmony is static. I had to play 56 bars over the same riff, which isn’t easy. It’s a lot easier to play something over an interesting chord progression. But we did that a lot because we were really into [saxophonist] John Coltrane, who pioneered “modal” jazz and soloed brilliantly over static harmonies and minimal chord progressions. I was always trying to play something that sounded like him — just totally out there in terms of tonality. I think “When the Music’s Over” is the closest I ever came.

You recorded Strange Days less than a year after your debut. Did Elektra put a lot of pressure on you?

No, we were ready. We had tons of material for the first two albums; the pressure came on the third album. We ran out of stuff and Jim was pretty fucked up on liquor by then, so it was hard to write with him and that’s when I started writing more of my own songs. It was also difficult to write while we were touring, so we started writing a lot more in the studio.

What was life on the road with the Doors like?

Not as crazy as you would think. At first, it was mostly teenyboppers and groupies and a few local nuts hanging around. But a couple of years down the road, when people realized how weird we were, we really started drawing some creeps. We still do, I might add—Morrison wannabes show up on my doorstep all the time. And they always want to sing. [laughs]

Speaking of weirdoes, “People Are Strange” has a great chord progression. Did you write that?

Yeah. Jim came up to my house in Laurel Canyon one night, and he was in one of his suicidal, downer moods. So John said, “Come on, Jim, we’ll go see the sunset. That’ll get you out of this.” We went up to the top of Laurel Canyon and it was incredibly beautiful — we were looking down on the sun reflecting off the top of the clouds. Jim had a total mood flip-flop, and said, “Wow! Now I know why I felt like that. It’s because if you’re strange, people are strange.” And he wrote the lyrics right there. Then I came up with the music and we went back down the hill.

Why wasn’t “Moonlight Drive,” the first song you wrote and rehearsed together, on the first album?

It wasn’t really the first song: “Indian Summer” was, and “Moonlight Drive” was the second. But we didn’t think the version that we cut was good enough, so we decided to drop it off the first album and try again next time. Unfortunately we’ve never been able to find the damn master for the first version. I think we may have found it now, and I hope I’m right because I always thought it was good. It was totally different than the one on Strange Days. It was real dark and laid-back, very spooky.

Any strange memories from the Strange Days album?

One time, we were getting ready to leave for the night and Jim didn’t want to stop because he was feeling good. He kept saying, “Man, I want to play all night.” But we were all tired and wanted to go home. Jim finally left, but he came back half an hour later, climbed over the fence, broke into the studio, took out the fire extinguisher and sprayed it into the piano and all over everything. It was quite a surprise in the morning. [laughs]

Were you guys around when Jim recorded “House Latitudes”?

Yeah. He said he had a poem he wanted to read and he wanted something real weird to back it. There were all these instruments in the studio from an orchestra session — harpsichords and pianos and timpani. We all started banging on them and fumbling around inside the pianos, and there were 10 or 12 people just screaming at the top of their lungs. After we laid that down, Jim overdubbed the poem.

The funny thing was, as we were listening back at full volume and Jim was reading, the guys from the Jefferson Airplane came straggling in — high as kites, or course. They stared at us like we were out of our minds, but we just acted casual and said, “Oh yeah, this is one of our songs.” [laughs]

Were you friends with them?

Sort of. We always played on the same bill, but we didn’t really hang out much. There was always a bit of competitive vibe—to see who could blow who off the stage.

We didn’t hang out with other musicians that much — just Van Morrison when he came to town, and occasionally the guys in Buffalo Springfield. We didn’t get too close with the San Francisco groups — especially the Grateful Dead, who wouldn’t let us use their amps one night. We had a gig at Beverly Hills High School in the afternoon and then one about an hour up the coast in Santa Barbara, so we left our gear, figuring the Dead would let us use their stuff. You’d always let people use your amps in those days, but they just refused. I ended up playing through a Pignose or something equally ridiculous.

Ray was aghast at the fact that Pigpen wouldn’t let him use his organ. He kept saying, “Pigpen? Someone named Pigpen won’t let me use his instrument? I could catch cooties from his organ.” He couldn’t believe it.

WAITING FOR THE SUN
Released August 1968

It seems like the band was in a creative lull and feeling a lot of pressure by the third album. Do you see a band like Pearl Jam going through a similar thing?

Their situation is a lot different, but, yes, I see the similarities. I know Eddie [Vedder] — he sang with us at our induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year—and he wants to be like Jim. He was drilling me about Jim — asking me a million questions about how Jim would have reacted to various situations. And he is kind of a troubled person and a very serious guy, like Jim was. But I don’t think he, or anyone else in that band, is too fucked up to write good material. They may not be the straightest people in the world, but it’s not like our situation, where you have a guy who’s really out of control. Eddie’s not like that; he knows what he’s doing.

Does it trouble you to see someone emulate a person whose self-destruction you witnessed?

Yeah, it really does. I always tell people, “Don’t drink because Jim drank. That was a mistake. That’s what fucked him up.” If it weren’t for the booze he might still be writing today.

Had his drinking gotten seriously worse when you were recording Waiting for the Sun?

Definitely. That’s when the liquor really started being a problem. Before that, everything was more or less fine. LSD was no problem because it was a creative thing. There’s nothing good about liquor — it just fucks you up—though at first it relaxes you, which is what you probably need after taking eight-zillion acid trips. [laughs]

“Hello, I Love You” was a number-one hit and Waiting for the Sun topped the album charts. Can that kind of success get you through a creative lull?

It helped a lot. In fact, we were just going out on tour when “Hello, I Love You” hit number one, and it really buoyed our spirits. People always think that we stole that track from the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night,” but we weren’t thinking of them at all. What I did steal was the drumbeat: I told John to play something like “Sunshine of Your Love.” So, we ripped off the Cream, not the Kinks.

What specific recollections do you have of these sessions?

A lot of very horrible ones. By that time, Jim was being taken advantage of by various hangers-on. He would bring them to the studio and Rothchild would go crazy — all these drunken assholes would be hanging around, fucking in the echo chamber and pissing in the closets. It was a mess.

Jim would drink with anybody because we wouldn’t drink with him. He would take on all these assholes, who used him: “Hey, we’re hanging with Jumbo.” And they wouldn’t care how fucked up he got—they’d leave him on somebody’s doorstep in his own puke.

At what point did you guys refuse to drink with him?

I never drank with him because I didn’t like to drink to excess and he loved to go until he couldn’t see. I knew what was coming and hated to see it, so I would usually be gone by that point. John and Ray felt the same way.

Were you three using a lot of drugs at that point?

No. Not at all. And the fact that Jim was using so much made us use even less. The romance was definitely gone. Once in a while he would talk me into taking acid — just like you saw in the movie — but not often.

THE SOFT PARADE
Released January 1969

The Soft Parade features several heavily orchestrated, intricately arranged songs. Were you compelled to go into this direction because of the Beatles?

Yeah, totally. In those days you had to try to keep up with the Beatles! But, to be honest, I didn’t really like orchestrating the songs. It definitely wasn’t my idea — it was Paul Rothchild’s. I never would have done it.

Does it sound better to you now?

Actually, it does sound better with time. But I never thought it sounded bad—I just thought it didn’t sound like us. The Doors were lost. It was Jim and the orchestra.

This was the first album where you had individual songwriting credits.

Right. Jim originally wanted everything to say “written by the Doors” to keep things mysterious. But everybody just took it for granted that he wrote everything. I think he realized that wasn’t fair and wanted to give others credit.

Did he actually write the music on those songs where he alone is credited?

No. He would hear the song in his head. But he didn’t play anything, so he would sing a vocal melody, and we would have to figure out what to do. But a lot of times he just had a poem on paper and I would come up with something. Other times I would come up with a melody, and he’d put words to it.

What about the Soft Parade sessions sticks out in your mind?

The endless mixing sessions. That was a very long, drawn-out album. We spent more money on it than we did on any other album. And Jim was hard to find. All the mixing bored the hell out of him. But I think his drinking problem wasn’t as bad as it was on Waiting for the Sun, because he had started making a film, which kept him busy.

There was one funny thing that happened. This crazy guy appeared and apparently he thought that “The Celebration of the Lizard” [a Morrison poem which appeared on Waiting for the Sun] was written about him. He was yelling, “How did you know that I’m the Lizard King, goddamn it! That’s me. You wrote a song about me!” And he smacked Ray right in the eye because he thought Ray was Jim. Ray had his glasses on and they just crumpled. It was a mess.

Before the poem appeared had you ever heard Jim refer to himself as the Lizard King?

He was always obsessed with lizards—he loved that kind of stuff because he’d seen it on acid a lot. But I don’t know when he came up with “I am the Lizard King.” I think he wished he had never said that. It was just another thing he had to live up to.

During the Soft Parade tour, your Miami concert erupted in pandemonium and was canceled. Later Jim was charged with indecent exposure. What do you remember of the concert?

Well, first of all, Jim did not pull it out. But it was bedlam, just total craziness. The place was oversold, thousands of people swarmed the stage, and it collapsed. I remember Jim just rolling around in the midst of all those people and I was wondering if we would ever get out of there. It was very much like in the movie — they did a real good job on that one.

But you had no sense that the incident was going to turn into such a big thing?

No, hell no! Okay, the concert was fucked up, and we didn’t finish, but nobody was angry, nobody asked for their money back. And the cops were friendly — they sat around drinking beers with us after the show. Nothing happened until a week later, when somebody decided to make a stink about it. Some politician decided to make their career at our expense. Then it fucked everything up. We couldn’t play anywhere for a year. The Hall Managers’ Association basically banned us.

Did Jim feel very persecuted?

I’m sure he did. But he wasn’t surprised. He knew he was pushing authority as far as it could go. We really did have the sense that we had pushed the system to the edge and finally they were pushing back.

MORRISON HOTEL
Released March 1970

“Roadhouse Blues” and a couple of other songs on Morrison Hotel hinted at the changes to come on L.A. Woman—heading in a bluesier, more bare-bones direction.

I think it was a reaction to the overproduction of The Soft Parade. We wanted to get back to basics. “Roadhouse Blues” is one of my personal favorites. I was always proud of that song because, as simple as it is, it’s not just another blues. That one little lick makes it a song, and I think that sums up the genius of the Doors. I think that song stands up really well as an example of what made us a great band. And the session was really cool — one of my fondest memories of the band. We cut the tune live, with John Sebastian playing harp and Lonnie Mack playing bass—he came up with that fantastic bass line.

How did Mack end up on there?

He just happened to be hanging around. I think he had a contract with Elektra and wasn’t recording so they gave him a job at the studio. We just said, “Hey, why don’t you play bass?”

You co-wrote “Peace Frog” with Jim.

Yes. I had written the music, we rehearsed it up, and it was really happening, but we didn’t have any lyrics and Jim wasn’t around. We just said, “Fuck it, let’s record it. He’ll come up with something.” And he did. He took out his poetry book and found a poem that fit. But it always seemed kind of forced to me, to tell you the truth.

The legend has Ray and Jim being very tight, but you’re the one who wrote with him a lot.

In the very early days Ray was very close with Jim; Jim actually lived with Ray and his wife. He was almost like their son, and he was great for a while—he wasn’t drinking or anything. The problem was that Ray became a father figure, so Jim rebelled. He fucked their house up—trashed it on more than one occasion — and took advantage of them in many ways. Then I joined the band and sort of latched on to Jim, and we hung out a lot.

Ray worked up all the early songs with Jim — everything on the first album. Then I wrote a lot with Jim — before I started really writing on my own—and those songs went mostly on the second and third albums.

Did you ever talk about lyrics with Jim?

Not much. He didn’t like to explain lyrics because he wanted people to interpret them themselves. But he thought about that stuff a lot. He was also somewhat into pure impressionism — which I think is what he liked about my songs. I always tried to write something that just fit the music, even if it didn’t especially mean anything.

L.A. WOMAN
Released June 1971

Legend has it that L.A. Woman was cut entirely live.

Not entirely, but a lot of it was live, and the song “L.A. Woman” was completely live. I think that could be the quintessential Doors song, and the way we came up with it was amazing. We just started playing and it came together as if by magic. Jim made a lot of it up as he went along, which is amazing because I think it’s one of his most poetic songs. I can remember Jim sitting in the bathroom with the mic singing and all of us just having a great time.

That album was the first time you had a rhythm guitarist— Marc Benno.

That was basically just so we could do it live. It freed me up. And we thought it might add a different flavor. I actually enjoyed it, and I didn’t have to do as much overdubbing.

You still did some overdubbing; it sounds like there are at least four guitar tracks on “I’ve Been Down So Long.”

Yeah, there probably are. Ray played a guitar and Benno played, and I probably overdubbed one too. I think I also overdubbed two or three slide parts.

That slide solo is one of your craziest.

Definitely. I was just trying to capture a mood without worrying about technique.

The beauty of your slide playing — and your blues playing in general — is you don’t mimic the originators. And you never really cleaned your blues up — you left it a little messy. Some white guys tend to be very anal.

That’s right. That’s what I didn’t like about Mike Bloomfield — too perfect. I always just tried to do my thing. I could play traditional blues slide, but all the other guys reacted more enthusiastically to my untraditional slide playing. In fact, that’s what got me into the band. Jim always loved my slide playing—he wanted me to play it almost exclusively.

Did Jim ever critique your playing?

He would always tell me that I was the most underrated guitar player around. What’s funny is that the four of us hardly ever criticized the others’ playing—or even suggested anything. We worked so well together that we hardly ever had to talk about it. Everybody just played the right part in the right place at the right time.

“Cars Hiss By My Window” is a rather unusual blues.

Yeah. That was our Jimmy Reed piece. Jim was really getting into the blues at that time and he loved it when I would just play straight blues. He’d sit there and make up songs on the spot. He just wanted to play all night. It’s too bad because I really think that had we done another album it would have been a lot more straight blues stuff, which I always loved.

How did “Riders on the Storm” develop?

We were fooling around with “Ghost Riders in the Sky” one day and somehow it turned into “Riders on the Storm.” It just happened.

Another change on L.A. Woman is the absence of reverb, particularly on Jim’s voice, which was so heavily reverbed on your first few albums.

Well, Sunset Sound, where we recorded the first two albums, had one of the best echo chambers in the world. It was a live chamber, which they don’t make anymore. And it sounded so great that we used it a lot more than we might otherwise have. We piped everything through there.

But L.A. Woman was recorded on an eight-track in our rehearsal space and Paul Rothchild was gone, which is one reason we had so much fun. The warden was gone.

So, even after all your success, you still had that sort of relationship with the producer, where he was cracking the whip?

Yeah, we just kind of took it for granted that he would produce and we would do things his way — you stick with success. And, finally, he was like a rat deserting a sinking ship. I think he figured it was time to bail.

So there was a sense that the Doors were a sinking ship?

Yeah, definitely. We couldn’t play anywhere, we were fucked because of the Miami incident. Morrison Hotel didn’t do that well, Jim looked bad and was getting fat… All things considered, I thought it was pretty cool that L.A. Woman did well.

I think we came up with something so loose because there was no pressure. We figured we were already screwed, so we were having fun again. we were so far gone that it was like our first album.

Just weeks after the album entered the Top Ten, Jim was dead. Do you remember finding out?

Yeah. I got a phone call and I didn’t believe it because we used to hear shit like that all the time—that Jim jumped off a cliff or something. So we sent our manager off to Paris, and he called and said it was true.

People often talk about the inevitability of him dying young. Do you buy that?

No! I thought he would never die. I thought he’d outlive everybody, like one of those Irish drunks who’d drink a fifth of whisky a day and live until they’re 80. He seemed invulnerable, the way he would do things and jump out of windows without getting hurt. I never saw those things, but I would hear about them the next day. For some reason, he was fairly well behaved around me. Somehow our relationship developed where he stayed fairly calm around me, thank God. [laughs]

After Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died, Jim supposedly told people that he would be the third to die at 27. Did you remember him saying such things?

Yeah. He was definitely obsessed with death. He talked about it all the time.

There’s always been talk that he’s not dead, and Ray has occasionally fueled that idea. Have you ever thought that?

Yes and no. I’ve allowed myself to fantasize at times, but I’m sure that if he wasn’t dead he would have gotten hold of us by now. But then again, if there’s anybody who could pull off something like that, it was him. I still think about him quite a bit. I always have dreams that he’s alive, and we’re playing together again. Wishful thinking.

Additional Content

Juke Box Hero: Lou Gramm Discusses New Autobiography and Foreigner

James Wood — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:07:02 +0000

Former Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm pulls no punches in his new autobiography, Juke Box Hero.

In the book, which was co-written with Scott Pitoniak, Gramm leads readers on a journey from his humble beginnings in Rochester, New York, to the biggest stages in the world. He recounts his stint with Black Sheep, plus the ups and downs of working with guitarist Mick Jones in the band that made him famous.

From the diagnosis that nearly took his life to his solo career success and fascination for muscle cars, Gramm’s book is an honest portrayal of self-reflection from one of the greatest voices in rock history.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Gramm to discuss Juke Box Hero and get his thoughts on being inducted with Jones into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 13.

GUITAR WORLD: What made you decide to write a book at this stage?

It was a good point in my life to write the book. I had a lot to talk about and fortunately, I remember all of it! [laughs]. Those were exceptional times with a lot of great groups, and I really wanted to tell my story.

What was the writing process like?

Scott [Pitoniak] lives here in Rochester, and once a week he and I would meet at my recording studio for a few hours. It took almost a year and a half, but it was a good way to do it. We weren’t in any hurry and didn’t do it in any kind of chronological order. Scott would surprise me with questions from things that happened 30 years ago and then ask me others that were from six months ago.

Many of the questions would often instigate something, and I’d come up with an old story that usually had a funny end to it. Of course, there were also some questions that actually stirred up a little anxiety or anger, but I really wanted it to be off the cuff.

Prior to joining Foreigner, you were with Black Sheep when a van accident destroyed most of your equipment and ended your tour. Do you think if events had been different, that tour may have been the breakthrough for the band?

Who knows? We already had two albums out on Capitol and were opening for Kiss on a huge world tour. At one show we played in Boston, we received a standing ovation. Kiss’ management and crew were very good to us. Even though we were the opening act and knew we shouldn’t go back out, their tour manager told us to go answer our encore! If that accident didn’t happen, maybe that tour might have been our stepping stone.

One of the things I found intriguing about your time with Foreigner was that you always carried around notebooks everywhere you went. Tell me about that.

I always had a spiral-bound notebook or writing pad with me. I’d usually carry them around in a satchel and whenever I was reading a book or watching TV or a movie, if someone would say a phrase that caught my ear, I’d write it down. In my book of lyrics, I’d have song titles, verses and choruses all written out.

Can you give me an example of how that book came in handy?

I had just finished reading a book about the Civil War and remember they were talking about how guys in the heat of battle became hot blooded and would kind of come out of themselves and just be mean warriors. Of course, I wrote “hot blooded” down in one of my books. A few months later, Mick was playing me cassette tapes of some of the guitar ideas he had been working on. I heard this one particular riff and as I was looking through my book, that “hot blooded” part just jumped right out at me and I started singing it along with the riff. We both just went crazy because it sounded so good [laughs]. That’s when we started working on the song.

What was it like working with producer Mutt Lange on the 4 album?

Mutt was a nice guy; very knowledgeable and knew how to get the best out of you. But a lot of things he did at the time were derivative to AC/DC (because that’s where he had his success). So when he wanted you to do things a certain way, he’d say, “Do it like AC/DC did on this song." He’d often try to get me to sing like Brian Johnson. Now I could tear it up and sing tough songs, but I certainly didn’t sound like Brian Johnson. But Mutt was pushing me to go in that direction, so I pushed back. By that point, we already had completed three successful albums. So why would I want to change my vocal style?

How did you and Mick determine royalties for Foreigner songs?

At the end of recording every record, Mick and I would both sit down with a list of song titles. For each song, we’d write down on a little scrap of paper what we thought the split should be and then show it to each other. Most of the time it was pretty close: 50-50, 60-40, 55-45. But for the song "I Wanna Know What Love Is," he wanted most of it for himself. Even though I had spent weeks and weeks with him on vocals, chords and words, he only offered me 5 percent.

Do you feel that one event was the turning point in your relationship with Mick?

Absolutely. Up until that point, we had always worked it out and I walked away satisfied. He was always a fair guy, but in that one instance he was determined to have most all of the song to himself. Offering me 5 percent was very insulting, so I told him I wanted nothing.

Having seen the success of that song, do you lament your decision?

Of course, but I think he goaded me into that decision. By insulting me, he was hoping I’d say I didn’t want anything, and I played right into it. I did help write that song. Maybe not 50-50 or 60-40, but I’d say at least 35 percent of that song was my input.

Is there one single event over the course of your career that stands out above everything else?

I’m proud of most everything I did. Playing Madison Square Garden was unbelievable. Playing the Forum in LA was fantastic. Then there was playing Cal Jam II in front of 450,000 people. That was a crowd as far as the eye could see, and beyond.

You and Mick will soon be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. What does that honor mean to you?

It’s an incredible honor and will be the first time Mick and I will play together in a dozen years. I enjoyed working with him and it’s going to be a good time. As a songwriter, it’s good because I had hits both with him and without him.

Before it’s all over, do you ever foresee a time where there might be another Foreigner reunion with you and Mick?

Honestly, I don’t know. If we could have some sort of friendship, that would be enough for me. Mick has his Foreigner and we really don’t have to play together other than this award ceremony. Unless something interesting happens, I’m just going to leave at that. But I wouldn’t anticipate it at this point.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

Guitar Girl’d: Interview with New York City Country Girl Ali Isabella

Laura B. Whitmore — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:18:47 +0000

I wasn’t sure what to expect from singer/songwriter Ali Isabella.

I met her at her hotel in Los Angeles the day before she was to perform for a showcase I hosted at the ASCAP expo last month for the Women’s International Music Network. I can honestly say I was delighted with everything about her — her smile, her giggle, her infectious music, her strong songwriting, and her energy. Like a breath of fresh air.

At the tender age of 17, Isabella has checked more off her bucket list than some do in a lifetime. She’s opened up for Reba McEntire at Wembley Arena and was the youngest performer to ever appear on that famed stage.

She’s headlined pre-Grammy parties that honored Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder. Her debut single, “New York City Country Girl,” reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Sales Chart and was No. 1 for four weeks on the Billboard Country Hot Single Sales charts.

Now Isabella is poised to release her next album, which will include co-writing credits with top writers like Chas Sandford, Susan Ruth, Marty Dodson, Ryan Tyndell and Matt Bednarsky.

Her music has matured into a lovely blend of country-tinged pop songs that showcase her sweet voice and knack for writing those niggling hooks that play over and over in your head. I for one anticipate her star will continue to rise. And I’m usually right about these things!

GUITAR WORLD: Tell me about your background. Why did you start playing guitar and writing songs?

I got into music because of my dad. My grandma lives in Queens, New York, and we lived in Westchester. When we came home from her house, it seemed like a pretty long drive for a little kid. My father would play Frank Sinatra in the car, and those are some of the first songs I learned. I remember my favorite song of his, and it still is today, “My Kind of Town Chicago Is.” I know all the words to it.

You have some country tinges to your music. How did you get into that?

I do like country music. I don’t consider myself a full-on country artist. I definitely have country influences, but the reason I love country music is because a lot of the songwriting is story-telling, and that’s what I love to do with my songs. That’s why country music is so relatable. I really love the story-telling aspect.

I hear you have some new songs you’re going to be releasing.

On my last trip in Nashville, which was a couple of weeks ago, I had this new song, “Stay.” I wrote that with Chas Sanford, and it’s got a bossa nova kind of feel to it. It’s really cool. It’s really different, but it’s really fun. I’m also doing this other song, “Remind My Heart,” which I wrote with Marty Dodson and Ryan Tyndell. Ryan Tyndell, actually, he co-wrote “Springsteen” for Eric Church, so it was really cool. It was awesome.

And you’ll be touring this summer?

Yes! I’m doing Cirque Musica. It has an orchestra and there’s also like trapeze artists. It’s really cool. It’s kind of like Cirque du Soleil. But I’m going to be headlining that for them. I’m going to be singing some songs Debbie Gibson wrote. Then I’m also going to some summer camps and performing there for kids, so that should be a lot of fun.

Can you tell me a little bit about your guitar?

I have a Taylor 814-CE, and it’s really nice. It’s acoustic-electric, and I really love it.

Do you play any other instruments?

Yeah, I play the piano. I really wanna master both of them. I also picked up mandolin. It’s just really fun. And you can take it anywhere, it’s so small. I kind of know ukulele, but not that well.

You're not a ukulele master?

No, I think I know like two chords on that. It’s a cool instrument. It’s just, I don’t know, I really wanna master the guitar and piano first before I start doing that. Also, it doesn’t really help me with my music, but I played French horn for the longest time ever in elementary school and middle school. So I know French horn, and you can’t really use that to sing bu ...

Well, you probably learned how to read music from playing the French horn.

Yeah, I think doing band in middle school and elementary school really helped me.

That’s why there needs to be music in school, right?

Yeah, definitely. And actually, at my school where I am, they didn’t have music before, but a couple of friends and I were suggesting it, and now they do have band and orchestra.

What advice would you give other aspiring musicians if they wanna move ahead with music?

I think it helps a lot if you write your own songs, ‘cause I think by doing that, people are able to relate more to them because you’re telling your own story. I think that’s really important just to have your own music. I just think it’s different if you’re singing a song that someone else wrote for you.

I heard you are involved in a Foundation, can you tell me about that?

Yes! I recently became a creative activist for the Creative Vision Foundation in Malibu. This lady, Kathy Eldon, her son Dan Eldon was the youngest Reuters photographer over in Somalia. There was an international crisis over there, and unfortunately, he was stoned to death when he was 22. But the way that she dealt with this ... her son was really into inspiring people and spreading a positive message, so she created this foundation Creative Vision Foundation. Its goal is to inspire other people to make change to the world through media and art. I recently wrote a theme song for them for their movie. You can find out more about them at creativevisions.org.

What’s the name of the song?

It’s called “All of my Life.” It’s about making change in the world and inspiring other people to be inspired. I think that’s really important, because especially with all these tragedies, to send positive messages out there.

Find out more about this talented singer/songwriter at aliisabella.com.

Laura B. Whitmore is a singer/songwriter based in the San Francisco bay area. A veteran music industry marketer, she has spent over two decades doing marketing, PR and artist relations for several guitar-related brands including Marshall and VOX. Her company, Mad Sun Marketing, represents Dean Markley, Agile Partners, Peavey, Jammit, Notion Music, Guitar World and many more. Laura was instrumental in the launch of the Guitar World Lick of the Day app. She is the founder of the Women's International Music Network at thewimn.com, producer of the Women's Music Summit and the lead singer for the rock band Summer Music Project. More at mad-sun.com.

'Human Nature': BWB Guitarist Norman Brown Discusses New Album Paying Homage to Michael Jackson

James Wood — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:48:44 +0000

With an incredible catalog of songs accumulated over the course of a lifetime, Michael Jackson’s music was something that transcended genres and influenced a generation of listeners.

Growing up, I remember not only being glued to the TV watching the Jackson 5's cartoon, but also being on the front lines for the Thriller and Bad album phenomena (The former still ranks as the biggest selling album of all time).

People just couldn’t get enough of Jackson's music — and many a child of the '80s will tell you that they regularly (and secretly) paid homage to Jackson by imitating his moonwalk or wearing jackets and gloves similar to the ones he made famous.

Grammy-winning jazz guitarist Norman Brown never had the opportunity to meet the King of Pop, but his work on the new BWB album, Human Nature, channels the connection between Jackson and his music in a powerful way.

Fans have lamented that more than a decade has passed since Brown and BWB (with fellow jazz greats Kirk Whalum on sax and Rick Braun on trumpet) released their last album, Groovin. With Human Nature, not only has the supergroup reunited, but the reunion has allowed them to put their own spin on 11 Jackson classics, including tasty renditions of “Billie Jean," “Beat It” and “Man in The Mirror."

I had the pleasure of speaking with Brown and discussing Human Nature and more in this exclusive interview.

GUITAR WORLD: When you think of Michael Jackson’s music and legacy, what are some of the things that come to mind?

I remember being real young and had just started getting into guitar. I was fairly good at the time, and when Michael came on the scene, I said, “Oh man, now I have to learn how to sing and dance too?” [laughs]. He just blew my mind. He truly was one of a kind.

What made you, Rick and Kirk decide to reunite and make this album?

We made our first BWB record together back in 2002, and ever since then, everywhere we go fans have been asking when we were going to do another one. So last year, the three of us got together and decided that it was finally time to do something. Rick was the one who came up with idea of doing a tribute to Michael, and for us it was a no-brainer.

How did you decide which songs to use from Jackson’s catalog?

We started off with a list of about 30 songs, then we narrowed it down to 20. We actually had a few extras in there too because we couldn’t make up our minds [laughs]. We finally were able to get it down to 11.

As a jazz guitarist, was there a lot of preparation required in terms of how to approach these songs?

There was a lot of listening involved. First, finding the favorites and then finding things that worked for this kind of instrumentation (guitar, trumpet and sax). All of the music has jazz elements with melodies that really sing on their own, without the lyric. In a lot of lyric songs, the melody can be so plain for an instrumentalist (because the actual words take over), but the songs we chose really lend themselves well to melodic ideas.

Tell me a little about your background.

I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. It was a great place to live because within a six-block radius there was nothing but musicians. I remember the family across the street from me had seven people, and six of them played instruments. Then there was a drummer down the street, and another family had three people who played. At my house, me and my brother both played. Growing up, I played in a few neighborhood bands, but I really started playing guitar formally in high school as part of the jazz band. From there, I graduated and went to GIT and taught there for 12 years until I got my deal with Motown.

Did you have a practice regimen?

I did a lot of technique exercises. I learned how to play chromatics up and down the neck. That way, you’re able to work all four fingers, hit every note on the neck and get the right hand going as well. The right hand is the biggest challenge for guitarists because it’s similar to the way wind is for a horn player. A horn player blows into the sax and moves their fingers, but they get that sound from the wind. Since we as guitarists don’t have that luxury, the right hand has to become the wind.

What elements make for a great jazz guitar solo?

It’s all about personal expression. You have to have a good musical vocabulary, with enough technique and “colors” within that technique. Then you put all of that together and try to express yourself in a way that touches someone and moves them.

You grew up listening to players like Jimi Hendrix but eventually decided to focus more on jazz. How did that happen?

I actually did start out with Jimi and learning all of his stuff. But once my father saw that I was serious, he took me down to the basement and said, “Now you need to listen to this guitar player!” Then he put on Wes Montgomery, and man, it was an expansion for me. Wes had all of these great elements that I wanted in my own playing. And then George [Benson] came along and he took it a little further with his skatting and lightning-fast licks, and that was it for me! [laughs].

Human Nature will be released June 18. For more on Norman Brown and BWB, check out Brown's Facebook page .

Photo: Lori Stoll

Additional Content

Interview: Blues Guitarist Popa Chubby Discusses His New Album, 'Universal Breakdown Blues'

David Reffett — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:37:52 +0000

Popa Chubby, a larger-than-life figure on the blues scene, has built a rabid following around the world through his relentless touring schedule and ever-expanding discography. His latest album, Universal Breakdown Blues, will be released May 28 via Provogue Records.

Chubby describes his performance style as, “the Stooges meet Buddy Guy, Motörhead meet Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix meets Robert Johnson." His eclectic tastes and approach brings with it a straight-ahead, no-BS attitude — and lots of passion.

We recently sat down to talk touring (His current dates are available here) and to hear all about his new album.

GUITAR WORLD: You've been in this business for a few decades. Does Universal Breakdown Blues bear witness to your finding your voice and place in the blues?

It's been an organic progression of owning who I am. The music comes and instructs the soul. Life’s lessons add to the mix. Pain is a factor. Carlos Santana used to say he took LSD to suffer. I don’t need the substance. Life provides enough opportunity. The blues becomes a conduit. One day you wake up and you get what all the old cats were saying. It's like standing on at the crossroads, and as the devil hands you the contract to sign, he says, "Son, if there is anything else you can do, do it." You sign 'cause you have no choice, that’s the blues.

I love the lead-off track, “I Don’t Want Nobody,” in particular. Which songs are your favorites on the new album?

A new CD is like having multiple births. You can't really play favorites, but I hit some highs on this one, guitar-wise! Check out the solo work on “Rock Me Baby.”

You're known for your relentless touring schedule. How many days out of the year are you on the road? Also, please talk a bit about your “road warrior” lifestyle. How do you unwind when not touring?

I’m a single dad of 17-year-old twin girls who are about to enter college. I tour constantly because if I stop for a month, I'm broke! Welcome to the blues. Europe is big for me. I sell out 3,000-plus in France. We are taking America by storm on this record! Unwind? What is that? Hookers and Champagne, of course [laughs]! Just joking! Tai Chi and green tea. I’m looking for a mama to rub my feet [laughs].

If you could play a song with three other blues greats, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

Jimi Hendrix because he was God! Freddie King because he was the second coming, and Hubert Sumlin, just to do it one more time. I miss you, Hubert.

What do you want to say with this album?

The message of this album is hope. Don't give up. Let the blues flow through you and give you solace in a broken-down, broke-ass universe.

What's your writing process like?

Live, suffer, inspire, catalog, hammer out, demo and record. Usually a lyric first.

Here's a reader question from George Longhurst, who asks, "What do you do to keep the blues fresh and new?"

You can only play the blues in the moment. If you rely on yesterday or think of tomorrow, you miss the point.

You've said, "Rock and roll and the blues should be dangerous." How do you mix the "poetry," as you have put it, with the danger in your music?

I'm a Cadillac with a power pack. I'm the man of steel with killer feel. I'm your Kundalini — be my Lil Queenie. Who uses Kundalini in a blues song besides me? I'm the danger man! I'm glorious, laborious, calculated, elevated, updated, majestic and domestic.

Are there any new artists out there that you really dig?

Brand new? Alabama Shakes. I'm in love with that girl, Brittany Howard. The Black Keys. I wish Jack White would cut the crap and just sing the blues. Lots of good stuff out there.

Here's a reader question from Alexander Caraballo: "I'm a huge believer that learning to play the blues is essential for all guitar players. Do you agree, and if so, why?"

Alexander, you must feel the blues. Like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars! Feel the force! You can learn all the technique, but you must feel what you play. May the blues be with you!

What would you like to say to your fans out there reading this?

If nobody told you they love you today, Popa Chubby loves you!

For more about Popa Chubby, check out his official website.

Dave Reffett is a Berklee College of Music graduate and has worked with some of the best players in rock and metal. He is an instructor at (and the head of) the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal department at The Real School of Music in the metro Boston area. He also is a master clinician and a highly-in-demand private guitar teacher. He teaches lessons in person and worldwide via Skype. As an artist and performer, he is working on some soon-to-be revealed high-profile projects with A-list players in rock and metal. In 2009, he formed the musical project Shredding The Envelope and released the critically acclaimed album The Call Of The Flames. Dave also is an official artist endorsee for companies like Seymour Duncan, Gibson, Eminence and Esoterik Guitars, which in 2011 released a Dave Reffett signature model guitar, the DR-1. Dave has worked in the past at Sanctuary Records and Virgin Records, where he promoting acts like The Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Korn and Meat Loaf.

'Right Now': Jazz Guitarist Fabrizio Sotti’s New Album Pays Homage to Classic Hits

James Wood — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:16:02 +0000

Whether it’s writing, producing or recording straight ahead jazz records for himself or for other artists, Fabrizzio Sotti has done it all.

But when it comes to his latest album, Right Now, Sotti does something completely different from anything he’s ever done before. Included among six brand-new, original tracks are songs that have inspired the guitarist since his youth.

They are classic songs that have been re-worked into mesmerizing jazz-pop gems, including Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary,” Bob Marley’s “Waitin’ In Vain" and U2’s “One."

Sotti is joined on Right Now by R&B powerhouse Melanie Fiona, reggae superstar Shaggy and hip-hop icons Ice T and M-1 of Dead Prez. The album’s cohesive sound stems from the band, which is made up of Sotti on electric, acoustic and classical guitars, Tony Grey on bass and Mino Cinélu on drums and percussion.

I spoke with Sotti about the new album and more in this exclusive interview.

GUITAR WORLD: What sparked the idea to do a project like this one?

When I first came to the States as a child, my goal was originally to be a jazz guitarist and to make records and go on tour. Eventually, I started getting involved in producing and writing for other artists in different styles, but I always kept those things separate from my own playing. Because jazz guitar playing is totally different than the more pop style of music. I’ve been lucky to have a great career and be able to work with a lot great artists.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, I’ve noticed that some of the artists I’ve looked up to, like Herbie Hancock, would sometimes put together a trio or quartet and then record with a bunch of singers and create different arrangements; and it didn’t necessarily have anything to do with jazz. That gave me the strength to do my own take and do a project that would relate to everyone. It was an experiment, something different from what I've done before.

What made you choose which songs to do?

There’s a reason I chose these songs. Each of them takes me back to my childhood and the years when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I was exposed to everything. The songs from these artists interested me when I was growing up.

What was it like collaborating with the guest artists on Right Now?

I’ve worked with many of them in the past, but this was the first time where I wasn’t the producer or writer. This time, I was actually the artist in the studio, and they came in to sing with me. I took them out of their element and they really trusted me. When I started recording the album, I had no idea just how cohesive it would be; it had elements of hip-hop, R&B and jazz. I think with my trio of Tony Grey (bass) and Mino Cinélu (drums), it really added to the cohesiveness. If you listen to the album from start to finish, it makes sense. Even though the artists come from much different places.

Let’s talk about your musical background.

I actually started out playing piano when I was really young. In the beginning, I was playing mostly classical because that was the only thing that was available. When I was 9, we moved to a new home and the place we moved to didn’t have a piano. So my mother gave me a guitar, and that’s when I started playing and my influences began to change. I started listening to Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis and John Coltraine. From there, I evolved into what I am today. Before I came to the US at 16, I already had a mini-career in Italy working in a trio and with some pop artists. So I think the duality of me having my own career as an artist and also having interest in doing other things was there right from the beginning.

How did you practice?

I didn’t have a set structure as if I had gone to a school. I had private teachers that showed me proper theory: harmonizing, major/minor scales and all of the modes. I studied Hendrix and the blues masters like B.B. King and Robben Ford.

What advice would give to someone who is just starting out?

In music, everyone has big dreams of what they want to become. Patience is important. Don’t be discouraged and always listen to your own voice. Believe in yourself. Most importantly, you really have to love the craft and work hard. It doesn’t matter what instrument you play; the results won’t come unless you put in the work. Dedication and passion for what you do is the key to success at the end of the day.

Keep up with Fabrizio Sotti on Facebook.

Photo: Marco Glaviano

Yngwie Malmsteen Discusses his Roots, His Rep and his Latest Album in this 1986 Guitar World Interview

Joe Lalaina — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:53:57 +0000

Here's our interview with Yngwie Malmsteen from the January 1986 issue of Guitar World. The original story ran with the headline "Like Him or Not, He Demands Your Attention" and started on page 24.

You can see the full Yngwie Malmsteen cover -- and all the Guitar World covers from 1986 -- right here.

Either you love him or hate him -– that’s the way it is with Yngwie Malmsteen. Either way, it doesn’t phase him.

“I’d rather have people dislike my style than change it,” he says. “If someone says, ‘Hey, Yngwie, you play too damn much’ –- I don’t care. They way I play is the way I like to play. If people like it – great. If they don’t, it’s still fine with me.”

“I want to say something very clearly. I understand that I’m a self-confident person who might come off with the wrong attitude sometimes, but I don’t mean to. I just believe in certain things and I know exactly what I want. I’ve always sacrificed things in order to become the best musician I could be. My will power has always been very strong. If I want something, I’ll get it. I’ve had no trouble keeping my head on my shoulders,” and, he adds angrily, “nor do I have any chips on there.”

That last comment is a reference to the story contributing editor Steven Rosen did in Guitar World in the July 1984 issue. The title was “The God With The Chip On His Shoulder,” and Malmsteen is upset about it. “That’s not the way I am,” he says.

“That story described me as being a big-headed guy who sucks up attention, which is totally wrong. The biggest mistake people make about me is that they see me as some sort of God-like figure with a big ego. If I see a button a T-shirt that says ‘Yngwie is God,’ I just look at it as a complimentary way of people telling me they like me. Although it’s very flattering, it doesn’t change the way I look at myself. I’m just a normal person completely devoted to my art as a guitarist and musician.”

That confidence and singularity of vision are precisely why he has become so musically accomplished today. Since emigrating from his native Sweden in February 1983, Malmsteen has become the fastest rising -– and most controversial –- guitarist of the eighties. Much of the bad press he’s received can be attributed more to a lack of understanding his intentions than to his so-called ego.

It’s not the ego, folks, it’s rock and roll careerism. Malmsteen’s sole objective has always been the advancement of Yngwie Malmsteen. He used the two previous bands he was in, Steeler and Alcatrazz, merely as stepping stones to return to the Rising Force project he initiated in Sweden seven years ago.

"I wanted to leave Alcatrazz a lot sooner than I actually left," says Malmsteen, who stayed in the band for nearly a year and a half and in Steeler for just four months. "There was always a subliminal disliking between me and the rest of the guys in the band. We couldn't agree upon things and my influences and beliefs were totally different from theirs. We tried to be as nice as we could to one another, but it was an uncomfortable atmosphere. They probably feel the same way about me."

Maybe so, but you can be sure Malmsteen's former band members are not knocking his staggeringly unconventional playing style or his rapid ascension toward the top of the guitar world. What made Malmsteen so successful so fast? A total obsession with the instrument and a craving to develop a style quite unlike his contemporaries-that's what. " If guitar players just listen to other guitar players it's almost impossible to avoid sounding like them," says Malmsteen, who acknowledges only Jimi Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore as guitar influences. "I try to achieve a style that is a lot different from what other guitarists sound like. If you listen to other instruments like violin, flutes or keyboards you will break away from the clichés of guitar playing."

Malmsteen, as you know, is most influenced by classical music, especially the unorthodox work of violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini and the more sedate compositions of J.S. Bach. "Classical is the peak of the development of music," says the guitarist, "and Bach is the most influential classical composer of all. Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt all took from Bach. Mozart even took from Bach; he was a little kid when Bach died. Classical is the source of music; it's like a religion, almost.

"Paganini is probably my biggest classical influence. I got turned on to him through a tv show in Sweden. This guy was playing Paganini and I freaked, so I went out and bought Paganini's "Twenty-Four Caprices," which is my all-time favorite thing to listen to. Paganini did with his instrument what few people have ever come close to doing. He was a rock and roller -- very wild and very extreme."

Extreme is one of the many words used to describe Malmsteen's guitar style-an ear-searing combination of heavy metal bombast and classical beauty. Although this approach is readily apparent on most of his recorded work, it was the Rising Force album which gave Malmsteen's career a quick boost right after leaving Alcatrazz. Originally released only in Japan on Polygram, the album sold so many copies as an import that U.S. Polygram went on to release it ... a good move. At its peak the album went as high as number 60 on the Billboard chart-an uncommon achievement for a predominantly instrumental album with no airplay.

Malmsteen also played bass on the album - a Fender Telecaster bass with a tremolo. "The bass parts are pretty straightforward," he says, "so after a while I got bored. I could have played very technical and complex if I wanted to, but I didn't think fancy bass playing would have sounded good. I did a few cool–sounding runs, though."

Malmsteen turned the bass chores over to Marcel Jacob on the recently released Marching Out, where the emphasis is more on songs than flash. Apart from a couple of guitar arias ("Overture 1383" and the title track), the album is comprised of hard-hitting rock and roll-material which may come as a bit of a shock to those fans familiar only with Malmsteen's more adventurous Rising Force album. Marching Out is heavy enough to satisfy metal fans, but Malmsteen's presence makes the album more than just a typical slugfest. The first thing you notice about his solos, aside from their pronounced classical influence, is Malmsteen's unusually fast technique his trademark.

What is it about playing fast that appeals to Malmsteen?

"lt's not playing fast in itself that appeals to me," he says. "Speed can be very dramatic if you do it together with playing slow-it's a great contrast. It's also important to me that what I play fast will also sound good if the same notes are played at a slower speed. The reason I concentrate mostly on fast licks is because that's what my audience wants to hear, to a certain extent.

"I don't consider myself to be a very fast player. I'm sure there are other guitarists who can play faster: What I do that a lot of other guitarists don't do is I don't play things that are rubbish. If you would slow down the fast licks that a Iot of other guitarists do, people would puke. I play classical runs, arpeggios and broken chords that if played at a slower speed would sound very nice as well. But if you do it very fast and very clean, but not necessarily as fast as someone else, you will appear much faster because what you're playing actually makes more sense.

"I developed a fast technique simply because I didn't want to be limited. I was obsessed with the fact of always improving. Just because I would play a certain thing in a particular way one day, it doesn't mean I couldn't improvise and play it better the very next day. I approached the guitar that way for a real long time."

Here's how Malmsteen developed his technique: "I had two cassette decks that I used to tape my music on-one at the rehearsal studio and one at home. The one at the rehearsal studio was slower than the one at home. So when I went home and listened back to the tape I recorded at rehearsals, my guitar sounded so much faster than I actually played it. I said 'Wow -- I can't believe how fast I sound.' And since my goal was to improve on everything I would play the day before, I developed a lot of speed and I began playing faster and faster and faster. It's a weird story, but it's the truth.”

Anyone who's witnessed Malmsteen on stage knows he is an intensely exciting performer. Most guitarists with mind-boggling technique are actually quite boring in concert, but Malmsteen manages to impress as well as entertain. He is always in constant motion, whether playing his Strat with his teeth or effortlessly twirling it around his body.

"When I play a song at rehearsals I often get bored with it," he says. "As soon as I get in front of an audience I get excited and everything comes alive. This is because I'm not just playing for myself. I live for my audience-they're everything. It's the best feeling in the world to go on stage and have the crowd love you. As long as there's an audience, I'll never lose a desire to play."

Malmsteen and his band Rising Force continue to be lumped into the metal genre. Does it bother him? "I don't care if people call our music heavy shit or heavy metal," he says. "Onstage we're definitely metal because we're just as heavy as the headbangers could ever want it. But what we play is a lot more sophisticated than what those run-of-the-mill metal bands are doing. Besides, I don't think my guitar playing sounds like anyone else."

Much hard work, of course, has gone into honing his style. "I 've been playing constantly since the age of eight," says the twenty-two-year-old guitarist, who first picked up the instrument after seeing Jimi Hendrix on TV the day he died, September 18, 1970. "Hendrix inspired me to play, but I'm actually not that musically influenced by him. I loved his image more than anything. He looked really cool onstage and was a fantastic performer."

Malmsteen started playing on a cheap acoustic from Poland that his mom had given him: "I taught myself how to play it. I bought a pickup for sixty cents in a mail order catalog. I put it on the acoustic and played through an old tube radio. I cranked it up and. it sounded real heavy."

He acquired his first electric guitar, a Clear Sound, at the age of nine from his brother. "It looked like a left-handed Strat," says Malmsteen, "and it had a great neck. I even put an extra fret on it. As soon as I started sounding decent, I played to what was on the radio. But I never practiced in a traditional sense-not at all. I never sat down and played the same licks over and over. From the very beginning, from the very first day I picked up a guitar, I was improvising and just creating music. I have perfect pitch, so I figured everything out just by listening. I played a real lot - up to nine hours a day - only because I wanted to keep getting better and better.

"My family was very musical," he adds. "My sister played flute and piano and my brother played many instruments - guitar, drums, piano, violin and accordion. My father even played guitar, but I didn't grow up with him; he and my mother got divorced when I was a baby."

It was Malmsteen's mother, the only non-musician of the family, who decided to name her son Yngwie: "She once had a crush on this guy in her class named Yngwie and she named me after him. It's a very old name; it means young Viking chief."

Malmsteen was a young warrior during his school years, too. "I was a bad boy," he says. "When I was fourteen I drove my motorbike inside the school. I used to fight a lot and I rarely did my homework - I played guitar instead. I'm a lot less wild now. In school I got easily frustrated, especially with people who didn't show a lot of intelligence. Fights would start whenever I told someone how stupid they were.

"The only reason I didn't do my homework was because I didn't want to. I had the highest grades in the subjects I was interested in-art, woodwork and English-the other subjects I just didn't care about. I would never let anyone tell me what to do."

He quit school at the age of fifteen and got a job repairing guitars at a music shop in Stockholm. While working there Malmsteen got the idea to scallop guitar necks. "A lute came in from the 1600s," he recalls. "Instead of having frets, the wood was carved out on the neck, so the top of the wood was the fret. It looked really cool, so I thought it would be an interesting idea to do on a guitar neck. I took an old neck and scalloped it out just like the lute neck. It felt a lot better to play on and you could grip the strings a lot better, too.

"I do my own scalloping on all my guitars. But I wouldn't recommend anyone to do their own scalloping unless they're good at woodwork or good at working on guitars. It requires a lot of skill to do it properly and it's quite painstaking. I've been working on guitars for a long time, so I have the experience to do precision work. Besides, ever since I was very young, I've always been handy with wood: I used to build wooden airplanes. I would never let anyone but me scallop my guitars. I have some vintage Strats that aren't scalloped, but I don't play them on stage."

Malmsteen played guitar so much, in fact, that he based his life around it. "I had to go to the army when I was eighteen," he explains, "but I only stayed for two days. They made me take all kinds of tests. When they realized I had a high I.Q. they wanted me to be an officer, but I didn't want to. They didn't want to let me go, but I acted very insane to them. I told them I could never get along with my mother, I never worked a day in my life and I never used to go to school. All I did was play guitar all day long. There were plenty of guns there, so I made a threat. I told them I would shoot myself if they didn't let me go, and they fell for it."

Malmsteen was getting frustrated with the music scene in Sweden at this time. He wanted to make it desperately, but, since the music he was playing wasn't very commercial, the record companies didn't want to deal with it. Fortunately, Malmsteen wrote three singles that eventually attracted the attention of Swedish CBS. "They were all set to release them but never did," he says. "It really pissed me off."

For some strange reason, however, a demo of the songs made it to the San Francisco area. "I don't know how it got there," says Malmsteen. "It was being played on college radio stations before I ever came to the States." Mike Varney, noted heavy metal connoisseur and head of Shrapnel Records in California, heard it and was immediately impressed with the young Swede's unusual style. "Mike got in touch with me and asked me to come to the States to do an album for his label," says Malmsteen, who made his American debut on the Steeler album. "He believed in me and helped me out, especially when I first went to California. But I still would have come to the States anyway -- I was so dissatisfied with the music scene in Sweden I knew I had to leave.

"I considered working with Phil Mogg of UFO, but it was all talk, really. Then I met Alcatrazz' manager Andy Trueman and he was right on the money. He said, 'You want a job, you got it.' It was definitely the right move. He's my manager now; we get along well and we're a good team."

Malmsteen appears on two Alcatrazz albums -- No Parole From Rock 'N' Roll and Live Sentence. What does he think of their latest release, Disturbing The Peace? "It's an interesting change," he says. "It sounds so different than when I was in the band, so you shouldn't compare them. The music they're playing now doesn't even have a hint of classical music; it has a lot of strange Frank Zappa funk-jazz melodies."

The Zappa influence, of course, comes mainly from Steve Vai, who was a guitarist in Frank Zappa's band before joining Alcatrazz. "He plays the kind of music he plays very well," says Malmsteen, "but I'm not particularly fond of the melody lines he writes. I've always extremely disliked anything that resembles jazz. I'm a purist for classical music."

Unlike a classically-influenced rock guitarist like Michael Schenker, Malmsteen has applied a classical approach in a more radical manner. "Schenker often injects his playing with classical sounds," says Malmsteen, "but in between he's playing all this pentatonic stuff. I'm going all the way with it and I'm trying to put the classical parts in very aggressive and unusual contexts. That's what I tried to do on Marching Out."

Malmsteen produced both the Marching Out and Rising Force albums. "I've always been aware of recording techniques," he says, "and I've always felt I could do a better job than an outside producer because they obviously don't know the song as well as I do. I mean, I don't think a painter would do the background and let someone else finish the rest of the painting. I want to write the songs, produce them and control it until the record is in the stores and 'on the turntable."

But doesn't Malmsteen find it difficult to be objective of his own material? "No," he says bluntly. "Rising Force was meant to be a guitar album, so I purposely wanted the guitar parts to be more prominent. Marching Out is more song-oriented; it doesn't sound as if a guitar player did the production. It sounds very even. You can hear all the instruments very clearly and my solos aren't too loud or too long. I will always produce my records from now on. It's a more controlled atmosphere than playing live, but it's very challenging."

Malmsteen's desire to do it all obviously puts a lot of weight on his shoulders. Will he keep a clean head and progress? Or will he get caught up in the rabid attention he's been getting and stagnate? The answers to these questions will prove if Malmsteen becomes the legendary guitarist he is so capable of becoming.

Yngwie Malmsteen has come a long way in the short time he's been in America, but his most important years will be his next.

Additional Content

Interview: Guitarist Gina Stile Talks JSRG, Vixen, Thunderbox and Her Twisted Sister Connection

James Wood — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:22:55 +0000

Gina Stile has been involved in several successful projects over the years, including the '80s bands Poison Dollys and Envy.

She's opened for Aerosmith on a string of dates, and one of her albums was produced by Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. Her current all-female project, Thunderbox, is generating a lot of buzz in the New York area. And it doesn't hurt that she’s one hell of a guitar player.

In the mid-'90s, after the break-up of Vixen, Stile began working on a new project with Vixen drummer Roxy Petrucci and singer Janet Gardner. Although the music they made was never intended to be labeled "Vixen" because of its heavier edge, it was released as a Vixen album called Tangerine in 1998.

In 2012, Stile was already busy with Thunderbox when she was again approached by Gardner, Petrucci and now former Vixen bassist Share Ross about forming a new project, JSRG. With the lineup intact, Stile is performing with Petrucci and Gardner for the first time in 14 years.

I recently spoke with her about the new project as well as her playing and her other heavier edged group, Thunderbox.

GUITAR WORLD: How did JSRG begin?

Janet, Share and Roxy had been talking about doing a classic Vixen reunion for quite a while. They approached Jan [Kuehnemund, guitarist for Vixen], but she declined the opportunity. So rather than just not do anything, they decided to try something different. They asked me to come in, and we came up with JSRG. I'm excited to be a part of it.

Tell me about your involvement with Vixen and the Tangerine album.

After Vixen disbanded in the early '90s, Roxy contacted me about working on a new project. Although nothing became of it, she eventually introduced me to Janet, and the two of us started writing together. A lot of people may not realize this, but the music that we were working on was never intended to be Vixen. Janet and I began working with our own band here in New York with Mike Pisculli on bass along with another guy drummer. It was around that time when Roxy called asking about doing a Vixen tour.

Was doing the project as Vixen and recording Tangerine something you wanted to do at the time?

I wasn't really keen on it; mostly because the songs we were writing were much heavier than Vixen. They contacted Jan about doing the tour, but she turned it down. By that time, Janet and I had already been working together for a few years and were starting to get offers to do a record. Since Roxy and Janet owned the name (along with Jan), we decided to do it as Vixen. We did the Tangerine record, went on tour for a few months and then it ended.

Let's talk about your other current band, Thunderbox.

The Thunderbox girls have so much energy. When we play, it's shocking to people sometimes because we'll whip out Metallica or Iron Maiden [laughs]. But once people become a fan of the band, it then becomes normal. We're also working on an album. We've recorded four songs so far and made a video for the song “Cherries N’ Cream."

Tell me about your relationship with Kramer guitars.

I endorsed Kramer from 1985 to 1988. In 1986, I was asked to help develop a 3/4-size guitar geared toward women and kids. I remember they would pick me up on Long Island and bring me down to New Jersey to help them with the style of guitar. Everyone at Kramer was fantastic! I actually still have the first one ever made with my Envy design. I’m not sure why they never released the series, but it was a great experience!

What's your current setup like?

I use Mesa Boogie amps — a Dual and Triple Rectifier through a Marshall cab with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers. For guitars, I have my Les Paul and my Snake Guitar and Custom Kelly, which were crafted from my custom Kramer guitar style. For effects, I use a Boss pedalboard (Octaver-Chorus-Delay-Flanger) along with MXR Fullbore Metal.

When did you get started playing?

When I was 9, my Uncle Phil bought me a four-stringed guitar I started dabbling on. When I was 11, he found me a Japanese guitar, and that's when it really started. I got into a band with my sister when I was 13. At that time, a studio really liked us and made a recording and played it for Dee Snider. Dee played it for Twisted Sister's management, and they signed us to a contract. I remember my first big gig was opening up for Leslie West and Mountain when I was 14. We even had Mark Mendoza and Jay Jay French come down and do our sound when we played bars [laughs].

Eventually, we had some family issues and my sister had to withdraw. That's when I joined the Poison Dollys, which was my first experience with an all-girl band.

What's one of your best memories of that band?

I remember I was 19 when we opened up for Aerosmith. We did a nine-show string of dates with them in front of 15,000 people. It was amazing.

Tell me more about your Twisted Sister connection.

When I was 21, I got back together with my sister in Envy, and we were signed to Atlantic Records. Dee Snider produced our record and it generated a lot of buzz.

Is there a good piece of advice you can give about practicing?

Back when I was doing the Envy record, I really wanted to become more technical. Joe Franco did the drumming on the project and one of the things he encouraged me to do was to start practicing along with a metronome. If you can practice for a few hours a day using a metronome, you're going to get really good. One of the other things I emphasize is working modes in a three-note pattern (and not the typical "box" pattern). It's a bit more classical, but you'll quickly see your chops start getting better.

Guitar playing is your emotion. It's who you are. Once you get your technique down, it then becomes a matter of your influences. If you can get to the point to where your chops are good, your own voice is going to come out in your playing.

For more about Gina Stile and her current projects, check out the JSRG Facebook page and Thunderbox's official website.

Guitar Girl'd: Interview with Serena Ryder on Her New Album, 'Harmony'

Laura B. Whitmore — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:58:06 +0000

You may not realize it, but if you watch any TV at all, you’ve heard Serena Ryder’s “Stompa.” I know I have! I’ve rocked to her infectious beat during airings of Hawaii Five-0, Grey’s Anatomy and a commercial or two as well. Yes, it’s that ubiquitous!

With the imminent US release of her album, Harmony, Ryder explores new musical directions that bring her to worthwhile places. She rocks. She delivers smokin’ jazz. She dishes out the blues. She shares a beautiful ballad or two. It’s all good! If you take a listen, you might agree that Ryder’s voice is more kickass version of Adele. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

“Harmony is my journey, my past, my present, my future and all the ugly and beautiful things that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing so far in my short life here," she says. "I’ve chosen with this record to experiment more freely with the different musical parts of me that make up the whole.”

Ryder, a native of Canada, has earned three Juno Awards and two gold albums. Harmony, which already has been released in her home country, brought her the 2013 Juno for the Best Adult Alternative Album of the Year. The album went became platinum earlier in 2013.

I caught up with Ryder in the midst of a tour in anticipation of Harmony's June release in the US. Here’s what she had to say.

GUITAR WORLD: Where are you heading today?

We’re driving right now from Indianapolis to Ann Arbor. And then we’re going to Detroit and then New York.

I’ve heard your song “Stompa” all over the place. I was watching Hawaii Five-0 the other night with my son, and there it was.

it’s so surreal, too, right? It feels like it’s totally not reality at all, and the actual reality is that you wrote a song and now it’s everywhere. Total mindfuck. It’s really cool.

What about that song resonates with people?

It’s a song that’s really about how amazing music is and how I understand that it’s hard to be alive sometimes. When it comes down to it, it’s about the power of music and how it can take you out of any reality that you’re in and put you into a better place. And I just think that’s really sweet, that the power of music goes way beyond anything any words can describe. And I wanted to write a song with that message.

You’ve always been a singer, but what made you want to pick up the guitar and go in that direction?

I wanted to be able to create music 100 percent on my own. And I wanted to be able to do it in a way that I could travel around as well. I remember I was inspired to pick up the guitar by Neil Young. I would listen to his records over and over when I was like 13. Harvest is one my favorites. People like Neil Young, Tom Petty, Ben Harper, stuff like that. The music I loved growing up is all based around guitar playing. So I wanted to do that, I wanted to be able to play music and with the piano it’s more difficult. You can’t just put a piano on your back.

Did you take lessons or were you self-taught?

My dad got me my first guitar when I was 13, and it was a big-ass classical guitar with a gigantic, gigantic neck on it. It just had a really wide neck board, which I think is amazing. I’m so happy that I actually learned guitar on that, because now any other guitar that I pick up is so much easier to play. But I brought it into my room and taught myself how to play. My parents bought me a chord book of where to put my fingers. I swear, I haven’t really learned anything else since then. I can’t even name half the chords I play!

You just feel it, right?

Yeah. It just takes me 10 months longer to learn songs!

Tell me about writing your new album, Harmony. You changed up your process, right?

I started with the guitar riffs, and then I would record those. Then I would put the guitar down. I wouldn’t sing and play the guitar at the same time.

It’s something I’ve been doing for such a long time. Because I learned how to play guitar by listening to certain influences like Neil Young and Tracy Chapman, and all those people. If I wrote with a guitar in my hand, all of the stuff tended to be a little more folky. I wanted to explore my original interests, from before I had learned to play guitar. They were all from AM radio ‘cause I would listen with my father driving around in the car. So a lot of my influences came from the early ‘40s and ‘50s, you know, jazz stuff that had really big vocal, you know, showpieces. Like Etta James and big voices like that, which always comes out when I put down my guitar.

Tell me about the guitars you play.

Right now, I travel with five different guitars. Three of them are electric and two are acoustic. The three electric ones — there’s a Silvertone - it’s a 1950-something, like 1956. It’s a black and white one. It’s sparkly and black. You could get it in the catalog in the ‘50s for like 30 bucks. And then there’s another Silvertone solidbody, same time, same year, but it’s red and white. I leave it in open tuning.

But those two guitars are really, really, really, really precious to me because they used to belong to a friend of mine who passed away, and his parents gave out his instruments to all of his friends. He was an amazing, amazing musician. His name was Jay Reatard. A phenomenal, phenomenal songwriter and phenomenal singer and musician. He was really supportive and he really taught me a lot when I was just starting out. Those are my two Silvertones, and I have my Gibson Flying V. And I love that one. I actually was inspired to go out and buy a Flying V from watching this documentary on Jay. Have you ever heard of him?

No, can’t say I have.

There’s this amazing documentary on him. I always wanted a Flying V, but I was almost a little scared to get it. I was judging myself. I was like, “I don’t know what other people are going to think.” And then I was like, “Oh, my god. Just do it.” And so, I watched the documentary. If you haven’t seen it, go look at it. It’s called Better Than Something. That guitar is so much fun to play, it’s so light.

Yes, I wanted to ask you about that, because a Flying V is usually associated with heavier music.

Yeah, totally. And also, you know, the single off my record, “Stompa.” It’s super-heavily influenced by my playing that Flying V. I just kept wanting to play it for everything.

Right, that’s awesome.

Yeah, it gets me excited. I love playing it. I’m like, “Oh, my god. Everything is just better with a Flying V.”

I was watching some of the videos on YouTube of your record release and I love that you were wearing this beautiful white outfit and you’re playing this metal guitar. It was cool, a nice juxtaposition going on.

That’s so funny. It’s true, right? A flowy, feminine outfit.

I noticed you were playing a small-body acoustic. Can you tell me about it?

These acoustics are my favorite ever. They’re from Australia and they’re mini-Matons. They’re actually even smaller than a parlor guitar. They are made in Australia. They just sound so amazing. They make their own pickups, too, in-house. They make a big impression. They’re so tiny and so easy to play. They have this gigantic sound, too. I’ve never had a guitar sound that amazing ever, ever from a tiny guitar.

What are you plugging into?

I love older Orange amps. I don’t really know the models I use right now. This is the very first record I’ve done electric, so it’s all brand new to me, too, which is exciting. It’s so fun. I can’t believe it took me this long. It feels more free.

You’ve been playing songs live from the album> Are there any in particular that you just really love to play live?

Yeah, totally. I love, “Stompa.” It’s awesome, it’s just fun to play and people get into it. I love singing “For You,” which is kind of a jazzy song. And my favorite is “Baby Come Back.”

Have you had any challenges being a female musician?

I don’t know any different, you know what I mean? I don’t know what it’s like to be a man. I feel pretty good, so, no. No one’s tried to pull any shit on me.

Do you have any advice for other musicians out there?

Yeah, sure. I think the greatest advice that I can give, and that I’ve been given, is that instead of trying to find what makes you different from everybody else, find what makes you the same. Because in this industry and in this business, when you’re an artist, you’re supposed to be special. What does that mean? And should it not be more important that you have a community of people that you can relate to. And then you can feel happy and not alone. Because loneliness is probably one of the hardest things to deal with in this industry. There’s lots of traveling, lots of not knowing where you’re going or not knowing anybody around you. I think the important thing is to find what’s similar with the people that are around you.

And the other thing, advice given to me by Melissa Etheridge, who’s a really good friend of mine now, we did a tour with each other a couple of years ago. And she said that you gotta love what you do. If you don’t love what you do, do something else, you know? It doesn’t need to be a struggle.

Find out what’s next for Serena Ryder at serenaryder.com.

Rolling Stones: Keith Richards on the Making of 'Exile on Main St.'

Alan Di Perna — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:19:45 +0000

Critics snubbed it upon its release in 1972, but Exile on Main St. has become one of rock’s greatest landmarks. Keith Richards recalls the making of the Rolling Stones' masterpiece and how the album’s new reissue project became a walk down memory lane.

"To me, Exile on Main St. was probably the best Rolling Stones album as far as the connection between the band members,” Keith Richards says. “We were coming up with song ideas like crazy. And the ideas were catching on. Everybody was going flat-out.”

The anniversary reissue of the Rolling Stones’ landmark double album this May will provide a heavy blast of nostalgia to those who were around when Exile was first released, in 1972. The newly remastered tracks, as well as the session outtakes, will also be a revelation even to those who know the album inside and out.

But perhaps no one feels the nostalgia, or the revelations, as profoundly as Keith Richards. There’s no denying that the album is quintessentially Keef in its swagger and the cocky sprawling grandeur of its musical scope. Hedged all about by rough edges, Exile’s elegantly wasted, slightly messy nonchalance is what imparts a frisson of raw truth to the overall beauty of the thing. Perhaps it’s not coincidence that Exile was recorded, amid scenes of legendary rock star decadence, in the vast, dank cellars beneath Richards’ home at the time, a palatial villa called Nellcôte, on the sunny French Riviera.

“I’m listening to these tracks, and suddenly I’m back in that old basement in the south of France,” marvels Richards, phoning in from another tropical paradise, a small island in the West Indies. “It’s amazing, especially for me, that ability to transport myself back in time.”

The Stones in 1972 (Photo Credit: Dan Volonnino)

The Stones guitarist played a key role in preparing the Exile reissue, which will be released in three formats. The basic package is a CD containing newly remastered versions of the 18 tracks from the original album. The Deluxe version includes a bonus disc with 10 previously unreleased tracks from the album’s era, while the Super Deluxe release adds on two 30-gram vinyl albums containing the original album and bonus tracks, a DVD on the making of Exile and a 50-page collector’s book with photos.

The Exile reissue project reunited Richards and his lifelong Glimmer Twin Mick Jagger with Jimmy Miller, the Rolling Stones’ late-Sixties/early Seventies producer who recorded and mixed the original album and many other great Stones records. A rock-solid drummer in his own right, Miller has always had some kind of primordial connection with the Stones’ profoundly rhythmic essence. Richards says, “I look back on it all, and I’ve got to say Jimmy Miller was the perfect producer for the Rolling Stones.”

Also onboard for the reissue project was the band’s present-day producer, Don Was, who sorted through hours of tapes to resurrect the bonus tracks. These include alternate takes of “Loving Cup” and “Soul Survivor,” plus an early version of “Tumbling Dice” titled “Good Time Women.” There’s also a cache of previously unreleased tracks, including “Dancing in the Light,” “Plundered My Soul,” “Following the River,” “Aladdin’s Story” and “Pass the Wine,” which has appeared on bootlegs under the working title “Sophia Loren.” For the Exile reissue, every effort was made to unearth fresh material from the vaults. In some cases, Jagger wrote and recorded brand-new vocals for what had previously been instrumental tracks. Richards overdubbed some guitar on a few tracks, but he stresses that he did as little as possible to the original recordings.

“I brushed a little acoustic guitar,” he says. “I can’t even remember on which song now. The original guitar track sort of stuttered and fell apart halfway through, so Don said, ‘Well, we better replace that.’ But that’s all I did really. As I said to Don, these tracks already are Exile, because they come out of that dusty basement. You can’t really screw around with them that much. Just tack them on. They are what they are, right from the same place.”

For Richards, the project triggered fond memories of those who have since departed the Stones, including original bassist Bill Wyman, and those who have since departed this life, such as session piano great Nicky Hopkins. “To hear Nicky Hopkins’ piano on ‘Sophia Loren’ was a treasure,” he says quietly. “And Bill’s solid as a rock, man. What a bass player! I’m actually more and more impressed with him, listening to this. You can get used to a guy, but listening back, going over this stuff to make this record, I’d say, ‘Jesus Christ, he’s better than I thought!’ ”

Richards also speaks fondly of his former Stones co-guitarist Mick Taylor, who joined in 1969 as a replacement for founding member Brian Jones. But Richards denies murmurings that Taylor, who left the band in late 1974, contributed overdubs to the reissue package. “That’s a rumor, babe,” he says. “If he was on there, I would know. We’ve had no contact with Mick for a long time.”

Keith Richards, circa 1972 (Photo Credit: Dina Regine)

Hearsay seems to be dogging Richards’ footsteps these days. There’s another story going around that he has completely forsworn alcohol and all other intoxicants. “That’ll be the day, honey,” he says. The remark is punctuated by one of those long, slow Keef laughs, a groundswell that starts as a faint rumble in the nicotine-coated larynx and terminates in a rheumy expulsion of breath. “Let me put it this way: the rumors of my sobriety are greatly exaggerated. Hey, I cut down a little.”

Perhaps these suspicions of temperance are fueled by the disciplined rigor of the guitarist’s schedule these days. Along with preparations for the Exile reissue and DVD, Richards has been the subject of a new film biography directed by his longtime friend—and most dead-on impersonator—Johnny Depp. Keef is also completing a book-length autobiography, due out in October, with co-writer James Fox. “It’s the story so far, so to speak,” he says. “James has really put me down memory lane. It’s weird, man, trying to remember everything, and then reliving it as the memory comes back. Like, ‘Oh God, I gotta go through this thing twice!’ ”

But one life experience that Richards doesn’t seem to mind reliving is the making of Exile on Main St. It would be difficult to overstate the album’s importance in the great scheme of rock music. It is the climax of the Stones’ four-album winning streak that began with 1968’s Beggars Banquet and continued to gain momentum through the superb Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, as the Sixties gave way to the Seventies. On Exile, the Stones attained a perfect balance between the American roots genres that had inspired them all along: blues, country, R&B, early rock and roll, and gospel. In this regard, Exile is almost like an Olympian athletic feat, one of those rare moments when nature, human effort and sheer random happenstance all come into graceful cosmic alignment.

“All those musical styles were part of what we’d been picking up while touring America,” Richards explains. “To us English boys, hanging out watching guys in America play music was like a dream come true, man. We were soaking stuff up like sponges wherever we could find it—south side of Chicago, those downtown juke joints…anywhere. New Orleans… Shit, man.”

Exile on Main St. is also one of rock and roll’s archetypal double albums. Although it was released a few years after the Beatles’ White Album, the Who’s Tommy and Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, Exile nonetheless had an immense role in establishing the double-vinyl album as a distinctive and unique art form. It’s an eloquent lesson in how open-ended jams like “I Just Wanna See His Face,” can slot in amid well-wrought rockers like “Rocks Off” and calypso-tinged acoustic ballads like “Black Angel.” Like all of rock’s great double albums, Exile takes the listener on an epic journey, one that commences with a sheer blast of energy on side one, moves into acoustic mode on side two and glides languidly to a stirring gospel conclusion over the course of sides three and four. In this regard, Exile represents the apotheosis of album rock—the move away from hit singles and into longer formats that had begun circa 1966.

“I think this is the first album where we didn’t have a 45 [rpm single] hit on it,” says Richards. “We picked some singles off it, but it was made for what it was. It was an album album. Of course, when it first came out, sales were not up to par to start with. But after six or nine months, they started to pick up as people got into it.”

Created with sublime indifference to the pop market, Exile on Main St. is one of the first DIY rock albums, recorded at the guitar player’s house at a time when that sort of thing simply wasn’t done. While Exile is not exactly lo-fi, there’s a delicious murkiness to the sound, a sense of mystery shrouded in messiness. It’s a sure bet that the New York Dolls were listening to Exile when they were getting started in the early Seventies. The roots of punk are right there in the snarling, brittle mesh of Keith Richards and Mick Taylor’s guitars. You can’t quite tell who’s doing what. It’s not too far a leap from that to the intertwined double-guitar approach of Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, which in turn gave rise to thousands of latter-day punk bands. And, of course, Exile also set the pattern for the dual-guitar dynamic that Richards and Ronnie Wood have pursued ever since Mick Taylor’s departure, a guitar style that Richards often describes as “an ancient form of weaving.”

So, many roads lead back to Exile on Main St. “The thing about recording Exile was it was the first time we weren’t in a studio to make a record,” Richards says. “It all sort of happened by circumstance, really. We all decided we were going to move out of England, due to great pressure from H.M. Government. So we said, ‘Let’s keep going. We’ll do it somewhere else.’ And we figured, Oh, the south of France sounds good. I mean what’s wrong with that?”

The “great pressure” he refers to came from Britain’s graduated tax laws, which required big earners like the Stones to pay some 90 percent of their income. That, combined with the band’s frequent drug busts and harassment from the police, forced them out of England. But the early Seventies were a time of heavy change for the Stones in many regards. They’d moved away from their manager, the notoriously belligerent Allen Klein, and launched their own label, Rolling Stones Records. Mick Jagger married Nicaraguan beauty Bianca Pérez Morena de Macias and settled down to a life of quiet domesticity in France, with the other Stones living nearby.

Richards had been together with Anita Pallenberg since 1969, after he’d won the striking blonde German/Italian fashion model away from Brian Jones. But, unlike Mick and Bianca, Keith and Anita had never felt the need to sanctify their union via anything as bourgeois as marriage. Their son, Marlon, was about a year and a half when they settled into Villa Nellcôte, a grand maison with stately neoclassical columns, capacious salons and a killer view of the Bay of Villefranche. Built in 1899, Nellcôte had been inhabited by a succession of financiers and diplomats before it became the domicile of Keith Richards and his bizarre ménage. “Anita and I went looking at a couple of places, but Nellcôte kind of chose us immediately,” he says. “It was just an incredible joint. It was like a mini Versailles, and it didn’t cost a lot.”

While the other Stones lived fairly quiet lives at home, Nellcôte quickly became Party Central, with an endless stream of friends, friends of friends, drug dealers, celebrities and gangsters passing through the villa’s grand portals. Guitars, amps, records, stereo gear, empty bottles, books, discarded foodstuffs and assorted pets were soon all over the floor and furnishings beneath Nellcôte’s magnificent crystal chandeliers. Richards says that Marlon, now in his early Forties, has no memories of the place. “He was too young, probably around two years old,” the guitarist says. “He was running around bare-assed. Although he probably remembers the smell.”

Nellcôte’s basement became the Stones’ recording studio by default. The original plan was to find a commercial facility nearby. “We figured there’s gotta be some decent studios in Cannes or Nice or somewhere around there, even if it was Marseilles,” Richards says. “But we checked them all out, and it was pathetic. This was 1971. No doubt they’ve got great joints there now, but then, no. It was, like, forget about it. So then it became, ‘Let’s rent a house and see if we can do it there.’ Which is where the idea of bringing our mobile truck came in.”

The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio

That would be the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Though mobile recording facilities are now commonplace, they were in their infancy in the early Seventies. The innovative Stones had put their own recording truck together, income source than for their own use. The unit had been loaned out to Led Zeppelin for their third and fourth albums, and the Stones had used it when recording tracks for Sticky Fingers at Jagger’s home, Stargroves. It had also been used for “location recordings for TV and the BBC, and stuff like that,” Richards explains. “But suddenly we realized, We got a truck, man—a mobile control room. But then we couldn’t find a house to record in. So we ended up using my basement.”

Below Nellcôte’s ground floor lay three levels of basement, subdivided into chambers of various sizes and shapes. Together with pianist/road manager/de facto sixth Stone Ian Stewart, Richards set about hanging microphones and carpets to control acoustic reflections. Home recording was virtually unheard of in 1971. The equipment was bulky and expensive and, thus, strictly the province of rock royalty like the Beatles and Stones. People didn’t really know much about recording in spaces that weren’t acoustically designed for that purpose. The Stones were moving into uncharted territory when they ventured below stairs at Nellcôte.

“There were all these little subdivisions in the basement, almost like booths,” Richards recalls. “So what would happen was that, for a certain sound, we’d schlep an amp from one space to another until we found one that had the right sound. Sometimes the guitar cord wasn’t long enough! That was in the beginning, anyway. But once we started to work there, my little cubicle became my cubicle, and we didn’t change places much.

“But at first, it was just a matter of exploring this enormous basement, saying, ‘What other sound is hiding ’round the corner?’ ’Cause you’d have weird echoes going on. Sometimes we wouldn’t be able to see each other even, which is very rare for us. We usually like to eyeball one another when we’re recording.”

Summer came to the French Riviera as sessions got underway. The basement was very hot and humid, and keeping guitars in tune was sometimes a challenge. The environment no doubt inspired the album’s working title: “Tropical Disease.” But it’s the dust that Keef recalls most vividly.

“It was a dirt floor,” he says. “You could see somebody had walked by, even after they disappeared ’round the corner, because there’d be a residue of dust in the air. It was a pretty thick atmosphere. But maybe that had something to do with the sound—a thick layer of dust over the microphones.”

Despite the challenging environment, the songs came fairly quickly. Before leaving England, the Stones had started some tracks at Olympic Studios in London and at Stargroves. Down in France, they picked up these threads. Keith remembers the acoustic-driven country number “Sweet Virginia” as one of the first they worked on. “I can’t remember if that was the actual first,” he says. “That would be beyond even my phenomenal memory. But I recall that Mick had ‘Sweet Virginia’ prepared and ready to go. I have a feeling that we’d been playing around with that one on the last sessions. Maybe on Sticky Fingers, or whatever. So it was a work in progress.”

Another work in progress was the aforementioned “Good Time Women” which soon became Exile’s one big single, “Tumbling Dice.” “I know we did that one fairly early on in France because I remember the weather,” Richards says. “The basic idea, as you can hear from ‘Good Time Women,’ was already there. But it took a while for it to turn into ‘Tumbling Dice.’ We were stuck for a good lyrical hook to go with this really great riff, so we left it in abeyance for a bit. And then I think Mick came up with the title ‘Tumbling Dice,’ although he may have got it from someone else. Ha!”

The evolution from “Good Time Women” to “Tumbling Dice” is a classic example of the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership at work. It also exemplifies the way the Stones will often allow a track to develop over time, re-recording it repeatedly and often in many different locales. “If you chase a song far enough, you’re gonna corner it—like a rat!” Richards says with a laugh.

But the pace was generally brisk. “Sometimes we’d get two tracks in a night down there,” he says. “And then there’d be other times when we’d be three days on one song.”
The work schedule was fairly regular, the guitarist recalls. “Charlie Watts was living a long way away, a six- or seven-hour drive, for some reason. But then drummers are quirky, you know. So we’d generally work for four days a week, five at a push. But the weekends would be off.”

Various Stones would sleep over at Nellcôte from time to time, but occasionally inspiration struck when some of the members were away. Such was the case when Richards’ signature track, “Happy,” came into being.

“It was pretty early in the afternoon,” he recalls. “Jimmy Miller was there checking on the previous night’s session tapes. I said, ‘Oh shit, I’ve got an idea, Jimmy.’ He said, ‘Well, just lay it down with the guitar.’ So I start laying it down, and suddenly Jimmy’s behind me playing the drums. He’d come down from the truck, and I hadn’t even noticed. I’m just hammering away, figuring this thing out. Suddenly I hear these great drums behind me, and now it’s starting to rock. It’s one of these ‘three feet off the ground’ feelings. And then, suddenly, I hear this baritone sax, and there’s Bobby Keys honking away. Suddenly it’s becoming very happy.”

Even the song’s lyrics sprang from that initial inspiration. “Most of ’em anyway, in some garbled form,” Richards says. “The whole idea was there. ‘I never kept a dollar past sunset…’ That was all there.”

The preeminence of “Happy,” at the top of the album’s third side, coupled with the preponderance of great Keef guitar hooks on Exile, has led some observers to describe the disc as “Keith’s album.” But the guitarist is having none of that. “I don’t really get that,” he says. “Mick was incredibly involved. Look how many songs there are. And he wrote the bulk of the lyrics. He was very involved. I don’t think I was putting in more than anybody else. Charlie was amazing. Everybody was in great form.”

Exile does contain some of the most sympathetic guitar teamwork that Richards and Mick Taylor ever committed to disc. They mesh seamlessly, almost telepathically, on track after track. With the exception of “Happy” and possibly “Ventilator Blues,” Richards left the bulk of the slide guitar work to Taylor. But where Taylor’s leads can stand out a little too assertively on some earlier Stones recordings—particularly the live Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out album—here he’s dug in deep, roiling along with Keef and fully integrated into the guitar juggernaut. Perhaps this is in part due to the album’s ad hoc recording circumstances, combined with the fact that Taylor had been a Stone for about two years at this point and was well settled in. And maybe by living close by and actually sleeping over at Nellcôte on many occasions Taylor had fallen into sync with Richards on some elemental level.
“I also think it was because we were writing songs on the spot,” Richards says. “So I automatically fell into doing the chording and figuring out the whole thing, which gave Mick Taylor a freedom. He just came up with line after beautiful line. What a player, man.”

Exile is also awash in great guitar hooks based around Richards’ signature five-string open G tuning (omitting the low E string and tuned, low to high, G D G B D). He’d first used this tuning on “Honky Tonk Women” in 1969 and had integrated it into his approach more and more thoroughly on Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. But it really explodes on Exile and is the secret behind riff-mad classics like “Rocks Off,” “Tumbling Dice” and “Happy.”

“I was really bathing in that stuff at the time, finding out more and more about the tuning as I was going along,” Richards acknowledges. “In a way, with a lot of the five-string stuff on Exile, I’d just found that space. You’re listening to me in school!”

For a few magic months at Nellcôte, everything seemed to fall into place. With sax player Bobby Keys and trumpeter Jim Price right on the premises, the horn charts on Exile are a deeply organic part of the music, rather than an overdubbed afterthought, as horn parts all too often tend to be.

“I think that’s another one of the beauties of the album,” Richards says. “The fact that the horns are actually playing with the band. There is something to be said for having it all in one room. Bobby and Jim were amazing, ’cause they had to make up their parts virtually on the spot. The songs were coming out two or three a night. Sometimes I’d lay an idea for a song on them at the end of a session, early in the morning, so they’d have it in their heads by the time they got back the next day. There were only two of them, a sax and a trumpet, but Jimmy played great trombone as well, so we’d double them up until they became a section.”

Many extraordinary musicians passed through Nellcôte during the Exile sessions. The list of those who were there but didn’t play on the album is as impressive as the roster of gifted players who did. John Lennon stopped by at one point, drank a bottle of red wine and vomited. Country rock pioneer Gram Parsons and his girlfriend Gretchen were long-term houseguests. The American musician and tunesmith was a major factor behind the Stones’ pronounced country influence in the early Seventies; he was also a close friend and drug buddy of Keith’s. There has been much speculation about Parsons’ uncredited, behind-the-scenes role in writing many of the Stones’ country-tinged classics. But if he was hanging around Nellcôte for so long, how come he didn’t end up playing on Exile? Or did he?

“No, he didn’t,” Richards replies. “But why he didn’t play is a good question. Gram and I would play around a lot upstairs in the living area, and he would play with Mick [Taylor] a lot up there. So I don’t know… Gram was a little shy, and we were too busy to say, ‘Hey, Gram, come down here. We need another guitar.’ He would distance himself from us when we were working. He’d come and listen a bit, but that was it. But you know, if I have a friend—and Gram was my friend—Mick sometimes gives off a vibe like, ‘You can’t be my friend if you’re his.’ It could be a bit to do with why Gram’s not playing on the record.”

The basement sessions were a separate world from the ’round-the-clock party taking place upstairs and in a small adjacent guesthouse, where the roadies were residing. “Upstairs was a continual ball, if you know what I mean,” Richards says. “Unfortunately the Stones were rarely involved, ’cause we were busy working.”

But every party has its price and painful morning-after hangover. And on October 1, 1971, burglars got into Nellcôte and made off with somewhere between 11 and 17 guitars (accounts vary), purportedly in retribution for money not paid to dope dealers who had been supplying guests at the villa. For Richards, the memory is especially unpleasant.
“When they put the documentary ogether for Exile, they showed me some footage, and there I am, holding my favorite stolen guitar, a 1964 Telecaster. It was like, ‘Oh baby, don’t rub it in.’ There she was. Had a lovely sound. I just got used to that one, you know? I can play almost any Telecaster, but the more you play just the one, the more it becomes attached to you. I almost went into a blank after the guitars were stolen. I didn’t want to think about it. But I slowly started to build up a new collection since then. I haven’t lost one since. I learned my lesson: don’t leave them hanging around on a Saturday night!”

Just about every notable rock and roll junkie has a tale of guitars going missing, and Richards is no exception. It’s well known that he and Pallenberg were heavily into heroin during their tenure at Nellcôte. In one famous incident, the couple were so out of it that they accidentally set fire to their bed. Observers have marveled at Richards’ ability to be as creative and prolific as he was during the making of Exile while seriously strung out on dope.

“Well, I’m not going to get into those questions.” He laughs and then assumes a thick Northern English accent. “ ‘Did Charlie Parker play better because he was on the stuff?’ I found that [heroin] didn’t inhibit whatever it was I wanted to do. If I thought it was diminishing me or that I wasn’t putting my fair share into the music, then I’d have been off the stuff right away. And that’s a fact. I’m a funny kind of guy. I’ve got a metabolism you wouldn’t believe.”

Still, as the glorious Mediterranean summer gave way to winter’s chill, the idyll at Nellcôte was clearly drawing to a close. The local police were starting to get ugly, and the Stones’ phenomenal creative streak was wending toward a natural conclusion. Richards remembers “Casino Boogie,” as one of the last Exile songs to fall into place.

“I think when we got to ‘Casino Boogie,’ Mick and I looked at each other and just couldn’t think of another lyrical concept or idea for the song.” At that point Richards recalled another great junkie artist, the novelist William Burroughs. “I said to Mick, ‘You know how Bill Burroughs did that cut-up thing—where he would randomly chop words out of a book or newspaper and then try to sort them up?’ That’s how we did the lyrics for ‘Casino Boogie,’ and that was Bill Burroughs’ biggest influence on the Rolling Stones.”

At the end of November, barely one step ahead of the police, the Stones decamped for Los Angeles. Working at the historic Sunset Sound studio, they began laying overdubs onto the tracks they’d cut at Nellcôte. Billy Preston, who just a couple of years before had worked with the Beatles on Let It Be, lent his formidable piano and organ talents to “Shine a Light.” Pedal steel ace Al Perkins imparted a tearful country lilt to “Torn and Frayed,” and upright bass player Bill Plummer left his mark on no fewer than four tracks: “Rip This Joint,” “Turd on the Run,” “I Just Wanna See His Face” and “All Down the Line.” A phalanx of backing vocalists added loads of soul and gospel grandeur. Among their ranks, on “Let It Loose,” was none other than Mac Rebennack, better know as the celebrated New Orleans pianist and singer Dr. John. “He just walked in,” Richards recalls. “Mac Rebennack’s like that. If there’s music going on, in one way or another, he’s gonna get his ass in there. I love the guy.”

By the time overdubs were completed, there were too many tracks in the can to do a single album. And so the Rolling Stones joined the Beatles, the Who, Jimi Hendrix and other classic rockers who have left the world with a monumental double-album statement.

“The fact that the Beatles had done it probably gave us a sense of, ‘Oh, there is a precedent,’ ” Richards says. “But our point was that we’d put down this body of work and when it came to chopping it down to one album, nobody could agree on which songs to cut. After a while, Mick and I looked at each other and said, ‘This is impossible. How about a double? This is all one piece. It’s gonna be unique just because of where it was recorded and the way it was recorded.’ We sort of nodded at one another and said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ Which gave us hell from the record company: ‘Aw, the public hates double albums,’ and all of that. But we insisted.”

Richards adds that mixing the album was daunting, “only from the point of view that there was so much of it. Mixing a double album was different than mixing a single album. So we were going into uncharted territory. Mick and I would look at one another and say, ‘How many more songs to go?’ mopping our brow, so to speak. But I can’t remember it being that difficult. I think we were so intimate with the tracks by then that, listening to the overdubs and mixing, it just put the icing on the cake. I remember it as being a very joyous couple of weeks. We were all on top of it. Jimmy Miller, all of us—we all knew what we were doing. It was just a matter of watching it fall into place. It was one of those rare things: a perfect mixing session.”

Sequencing the album, however, was more of a chore. As mentioned previously, much of Exile’s magic lies in the way the songs flow from one to the next. But that magic didn’t just happen spontaneously.

“Trying to get the track order down was murder, actually,” Richards says, laughing. “I’d be sending cassettes to Mick in the middle of the night—putting my version of what the order should be under his door. I’d come back to my room and there’d already be a cassette under my door with his version of what it should be. ‘Hey, Mick, that’s pretty good, but you’ve got four songs in a row in the same key. We can’t do that!’ You’d come across all these weird little problems that you never thought of. It was like making a jigsaw puzzle. By the time I got the final version, I didn’t give a shit anymore!”

While the music on Exile is a product of that summer in the south of France, the album’s packaging and conceptual framework were largely inspired by L.A.’s late-Seventies aura of faded Hollywood decadence. The “Main Street” referenced in the title was a seedy thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles, which harbored a Chinese restaurant that the Stones liked to frequent at the time. The black-and-white cover images—a bizarre and vaguely disquieting assortment of showbiz freaks and geeks from days gone by—were snapped from the walls of an L.A. tattoo parlor by photographer Robert Frank. All these elements contributed to a wistful fin-de-siècle mood that permeates the album packaging and perfectly reflects the mood at the time of the album’s creation. It was indeed the end of an era. The Sixties were dead and long gone by the time Exile was released on May 12, 1972; so were Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, as well as the Beatles, a band with which the Rolling Stones had long been associated. The hippie dream had failed to materialize.

And so on Exile, the Stones seemed to be enshrining themselves among the yellowing photos of yesteryear’s forgotten entertainers. A series of 12 postcards included with the original album—and faithfully reproduced in the Deluxe reissue—offered a comedic depiction, also in blurry black and white, like an old movie, of the Stones arrival “in exile.” The caption for the final card reads:

“Taylor realizes the fall is complete, ‘they’ll be Forever Exiles on Main Street.’ He suggests early retirement. ‘No better not, it’s getting quite late and we’ll be fogged in forever quite soon.’ ”

The reference to “early retirement” is especially rich 40 years on. But what was it that enabled the Stones to not only endure but also triumph when so many of their Sixties contemporaries had either dropped dead, split up or become woefully irrelevant?

“I’m probably the worst person in the world to answer that question,” Richards replies. “I suppose at that particular period, the early Seventies, everything else had run out of steam—the Beatles and whatever. And I think maybe it’s just the fact that we kept going that did it. At the same time, what was picking up then was stuff like Zeppelin. A whole new energy came in from another generation. There was a lot going on. As I think about it, we didn’t see any reason to stop, and we were on a roll. So we just followed it. And suddenly, you find you’re 66 years old.”

As for the possibility of the Rolling Stones or some younger band making a modern-day equivalent of Exile on Main St. today, Richards demurs. “I’m not saying it’s impossible,” he says. “But, hey, it’s probably highly unlikely.”

Additional Content

Exclusive Video: Joe Satriani Discusses His New Album, 'Unstoppable Momentum'

Guitar World Staff — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:02:55 +0000

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of the official electronic press kit video for Joe Satriani's new album, Unstoppable Momentum, which will be released Tuesday, May 7, through Epic Records.

In this video, which was filmed at Skywalker Sound in California's Bay Area, Satriani discusses his inspiration behind the writing and recording of the new album. You'll also see exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage of the sessions and hear samples of tracks from the album.

The album — Satriani's 14th — was recorded at Skywalker Sound and produced by Satriani and Mike Fraser (AC/DC). It features Vinnie Colauita (Sting, Jeff Beck) on drums, Chris Chaney (Janes Addiction) on bass and Mike Keneally (Dethklok) on keyboards.

Unstoppable Momentum's 11 songs are “heading in different directions and touching on a variety of musical influences,” Satriani says. “The idea was to crank up the energy level of the sessions and allow for more individual expression of the material from each player. The chemistry with Mike, Chris and Vinnie was fantastic and we blazed through all of the tracks with everyone laying down amazing performances.”

For more information, exclusive bundles, tour dates and VIP packages, visit satriani.com.

Video directed by Jon Luini and Arthur Rosato (a Chime Interactive Production).

Additional Content

Standing Strong: John Oates Discusses New Single and Project, 'Good Road to Follow'

James Wood — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:14:34 +0000

Since the formation of their partnership in the early 1970s, Daryl Hall and John Oates have gone on to become the most successful duo in rock history. Together, they've sold more than 80 million albums, scored 10 No. 1 records and amassed more than 20 top 40 hits — and they've toured the world for decades.

Oates' latest solo project, Good Road To Follow, gives the guitarist the opportunity to branch out and work with musicians from several different genres. Oates plans to release a new song every month for the foreseeable future — and not be bound by the demands and restrictions of making a traditional album.

The project’s first single, "Stand Strong," is already receiving attention, having introduced the Nationwide Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway in March.

I spoke with Oates about his new single and Good Road to Follow project as well as his playing, songwriting and future plans with Hall and Oates.

GUITAR WORLD: Tell me about your new single, "Stand Strong."

"Stand Strong" is the first song I recorded as part of a new project called Good Road to Follow, and I'm really proud of it. I'll be releasing a song a month for the whole year and who knows, I may never stop [laughs].

I worked with Teddy Morgan, who I've known for quite a while. He's in Kevin Costner’s band and worked a lot on Kevin's Hatfields & McCoys mini-series. On this track, Teddy played most of the electric guitars and I played acoustic. Luke Bulla played fiddle and Bekka Bramlett did background vocals. We also had Chad Cromwell on drums and Michael Rhodes on bass. It was a great rhythm section.

What makes Good Road to Follow so special?

Every song on this project has a different sound. The next song I’m releasing is one I wrote and produced with pop band Hot Chelle Rae. I also did a blues song with Vince Gill, another with Ryan Tedder of One Republic and another song with Tommy Simms.

Why singles as opposed to an album?

I think the industry has become more of a singles world again. Instead of putting all of your effort and energy into creating an album that only has its day in the sun for a little while I thought, why not just put out several different songs? I'll also be able to work with some really creative people and do different things and not have to think of an album as a whole.

What was the collaborative process like for the songs that you and Daryl wrote together?

We’re not really story teller songwriters. With us, all of the songs were rooted in some sort of reality or truth. We'd take some truthful element, whether physical or emotional, and then craft it into something that has a universal meaning. For instance, there's a song on the Voices album called "Diddy Doo Wop." Daryl and I got the idea for it from reading a headline in the New York Post. There was a guy going around on the subway chopping people up with a machete, and we wondered what would make someone want to do something like that. So we invented the idea that maybe he had a doo wop song stuck in his head and it drove him so crazy that he just went nuts [laughs].

What was it like when Daryl came in with a song like "Kiss On My List"?

That song was a complete aberration. It was actually written by Jana Allen. She came up with the idea and Daryl finished it with her. Then as a favor after a recording session, Daryl sat down at the piano with a drum machine and made a quick demo of the song for her. But when our manager and everyone else at the record company heard it they said, "That sounds like a hit record. Why don't you guys record it?" I remember that in order to save money and tape, we recorded it at 15 ips instead of the 30 we'd normally record at. So the song was actually recorded at a slower speed, which is why it sounds so cool. [laughs]

How did you get started playing?

I started out by teaching myself and taking lessons from a small music school in the next town from where I grew up. I learned early country music, then started playing in a band in sixth grade and never looked back. I also played folk music as well as a lot of traditional delta blues and bluegrass. I'm no different now than I was when I first started. My guitar playing is a synthesis of traditional American acoustic style and Urban Pop and R&B.

What does the future hold for you and Daryl?

I've dedicated this year to working with Daryl and we'll be doing a lot of Hall and Oates shows. We have such a legacy of music that we can barely play anything but our hits, which is a good problem to have. It's all about enjoying and appreciating the music we've made together over a forty-year period of time. I personally feel that the future of Hall and Oates is in its past. Our creative energies right now are in our individual projects.

Is there any one particular highlight of what you've achieved over the course of your career that stands out?

There are so many. Everything from getting our first record contract to going on tour for the first time. From playing Madison Square Garden to having our first No. 1 record. They're all defining moments. We did "We Are The World", headlined Live Aid and played the Apollo Theater. I think there will be another defining moment in May when Daryl and I headline Jazz Fest in New Orleans on May 5. We've never done it before and it's something that I've always wanted to do. And another highlight will be the day after, because I'm going to be recording a few songs with George Porter Jr. that will have some New Orleans flavor.

Any advice you can offer to up-and-comers?

Do exactly what I've done and what every musician has done since the beginning of time. Learn from the people you respect. Listen and try to copy them and eventually an original style will emerge. If you have enough creativity, you'll be able to make something that's uniquely your own.

For more on John Oates, check out his official website and Facebook page.

Photo: Mick Rock

Just Feels Good: Keifer Thompson Discusses Thompson Square's New Album and More

James Wood — Mon, 06 May 2013 18:12:42 +0000

Since the release of their debut album and No. 1 breakout smash, "Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not," the husband-and-wife team of Thompson Square (Keifer and Shawna Thompson) has been setting the music world on fire.

In addition to a run of sold-out shows in tour support of Jason Aldean and Lady Antebellum, Thompson Square have earned more than 25 major award nominations in the last two years. They've won back-to-back ACM Vocal Duo of the Year awards and have been recognized by the Grammy Awards and the American Music and CMA Awards.

The duo is out on the road supporting their new album, Just Feels Good.

I sat down with guitarist Keifer Thompson to discuss the ACM award, the new Thompson Square album and what he believes makes country music so special.

GUITAR WORLD: You and Shawna [Thompson] recently won your second consecutive ACM Award for Vocal Duo of the Year. What was that experience like?

It was just amazing and complete euphoria. Many of the artists we've looked up to all of our lives were out in the crowd watching. The first year I think they were probably thinking, "Who the heck is this?" because they didn't know who we were. This year, it seems like we've become more solidified in our country music family. It was cool; especially now that everyone knows who we are and that we're not a "fly by night" thing.

What inspiration went into making the new album, Just Feels Good?

We didn't set out on a course where we were going to make a certain kind of record. We just let it happen organically. The first album explained more of what the sound of Thompson Square was all about. For this one, we opened our lives up to the fans a little bit more. The songs just kind of fell into place and made sense. We could have named this album Just Feels Good even if we didn't have a song named that. We're very proud of it.

Where does a song like "If I Didn't Have You" begin?

It was shortly after Shawna's dad had passed away. Our co-writer, Paul Jenkins' grandpa had also recently passed, and we were all on the bus and started thinking about who’s left over after someone's gone. The definition for that song can mean something different for everybody. It can be whatever it needs to be. Everyone's got a "you" in their life.

Tell me how Thompson Square came together.

It came out of the need for us to be together; that's how Thompson Square was born. Shawna and I are one of those weird couples that don't like to be apart. Things work better when we're together. I was touring with other artists playing guitar and she was at home doing her thing, and we were both just miserable. We started thinking about how we wanted to put our marriage at the forefront and wrap that up in music. The only option was to become a duo. Once we started singing together everything made sense. That's when things started really happening.

What kind of gear are you using on tour?

Right now, I've got a 4x12 V20 Budda rig with a Gibson 335, and that's kind of it. Just getting back to guitar, amp and cord. Then cranking it up and letting it rip! [laughs]

Did you know right away that you had something special with the song "Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not"?

We heard it as a hit right away. There's just something about that song that makes you want to listen to it over and over. I remember the first time we heard it, we thought, "Oh my gosh, this is a monster!" And turned out, we were right! [laughs].

You and Shawna also have a book coming out as well.

It's called Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not, and it's coming out June 4. We collaborated with Travis Thrasher on the project. It's a fictional piece loosely based on the song. It's about two young people with music as their common thread. But it's not autobiographical or our life story or anything like that.

When did you first start getting into playing guitar?

I started playing when I was 12 after my Mom and Dad bought me a Squire Bullet from a pawn shop. I remember taking lessons from this elderly woman (believe it or not) and I couldn't crawl at the pace we were going. I've always done everything by ear and eventually taught myself how to play. Once I got into Nashville in 1996, I started hunkering down learning the craft and the number system. From a singer/songwriter standpoint, the acoustic part of guitar is what I gravitated to more than anything.

What was your practice routine like?

I was never one of those kids who practiced for hours every day growing up. My practice was/is (and it drives my wife crazy), whenever I'm sitting down watching TV or doing anything else, I'm playing. I also like the fact that I'm not as well versed a guitar player as some others. From a songwriting stand point, some of the things I discover on guitar no one taught me. So when I find a new thing, it usually triggers an idea for a song or a lick. I brought a lot of that into both albums.

Who were some of your influences?

[Merle] Haggard and [Bruce] Springsteen are my two biggest influences. Haggard made me want to start writing songs. And once I discovered Bruce, that started my passion for becoming a singer-songwriter. There's something so cool about the simplicity of what they do.

What makes country music and its fans so much different from your typical music fan?

I think it's because a lot of what we talk about is the story of the common man. The small town, working man or the person that's struggling. We tell stories that people can relate to. They're songs that basically tell everybody's story. Country music today encompasses a lot of different elements, and that's what makes it so special.

Keep up with Thompson Square at their official website and Facebook page.

Photo (top): Getty Images Courtesy of the Academy of Country Music

Let the Good Times Grohl: Dave Grohl Talks 'Sound City: Real to Reel'

Alan di Perna — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:19:56 +0000

This is an excerpt from the June 2013 issue of Guitar World magazine. For the rest of this story, and more, check out the issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Dave Grohl’s Sound City: Real to Reel is many things: a feature-length documentary that was the buzz of this year’s Sundance festival, a star-studded CD packed with great tunes and a series of historic concerts.

The monumental project brought together legendary artists like Paul McCartney, Trent Reznor, Tom Petty, Rick Nielsen, John Fogerty, Stevie Nicks and many others to pay homage to a now-bygone era: a time when rock music reigned supreme, record companies were solvent, analog multitrack technology was at its peak, and the gods of rock made world-changing albums in professional recording studios that were equal parts living room, playpen, sonic lab and artist’s atelier.

What nearly all of these artists have in common is a great recording studio: Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. Albums as diverse and influential as Nirvana’s Nevermind, Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes and Metallica’s Death Magnetic were recorded there, as were groundbreaking discs from Fleetwood Mac, Rancid, Rage Against the Machine, Tool and Queens of the Stone Age.

A funky joint tucked away in a nondescript industrial building in a dicey part of the San Fernando Valley, Sound City was off the beaten track, over the hill from the big Hollywood recording studios and not even in one of the Valley’s trendier neighborhoods.

But it was blessed with a killer Neve 8028 console and a magic-sounding live room that was once used for assembling Vox amps. With the closing of Sound City in 2011, Grohl felt impelled to pay tribute not only to the studio but also to a whole way of life that is rapidly disappearing now that the world gets its musical entertainment from Disney and Pro Tools.

“I grew up in Virginia, right outside of Washington D.C.,” he says. “And every two blocks there’s a fucking plaque on the wall where there was some Civil War battle, or a statue to some politician or army general. So why we don’t get that for our monuments and museums—our recording studios? And because I’m connected with Sound City, I made this movie. But there are lots of other legendary studios that have gone under or are now facing extinction.”

Grohl has never forgotten the place where he made Nevermind, the record that changed his life and the course of rock music. But the Sound City story isn’t only his, which is why he had no problem recruiting revered artists from across the musical spectrum—from the aforementioned musicians to pop icon Rick Springfield, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Lee Ving of veteran L.A. punk band Fear, and members of Slipknot and Rage Against the Machine. All of them had worked at Sound City and had stories to tell.

“I reached out to each artist individually,” Grohl recounts. “I said, ‘Hi, my name is Dave and I’m making a movie about something you and I have in common: Sound City. I’d like to talk to you about your time there, but also about music and technology.’ And every single person agreed to get involved.”

The thing that had set the whole project in motion was Sound City’s legendary Neve 8028 console. A few years ago, Grohl heard it might be for sale. But when he contacted the studio manager, the initial response he received was “I’d sell my grandmother before I’d sell that board.” He backed off. But a few months later, he got another call from Sound City. The studio was indeed closing its doors and had to face economic reality.

FOR THE REST OF THIS DAVE GROHL STORY and more, including features on Epiphone's coolest/craziest guitars and Megadeth, Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Heavy Metal, Alice In Chains' Jerry Cantrell, Adam Jones of Tool and more, check out the June 2013 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Photo: Sam Ansari

Additional Content

Slayer: Grave New World

Brad Angle — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:19:35 +0000

Originally published in Guitar World, November 2009; photos by Travis Shinn

Slayer continue their quest for global domination with World Painted Blood, their annihilating new album. Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King talk about working hard, playing fast and living life on the dark side.

"Have you ever seen someone and the thought comes in your head that you just want to... kill 'em?”

Coming from most any other human, this line of questioning might be surprising. But when the human in question is Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman, it’s par for the course. He is, after all, the dark-spirited counterpart to Kerry King, his co-guitarist in Slayer. “But why would you do it? Why would I do it?” Hanneman continues, as he cracks open a second Corona. “I think about that more than I should.”

Hanneman is airing his most sinister thoughts as we settle into our booth at a Mexican restaurant in Chino, California. Paradoxically, he happens to be very happy, and with good reason. Slayer have just put the finishing touches on their 10th full-length album, World Painted Blood, and by all accounts the record is a thrashing tour de force that continues in the vein (no pun intended) of Christ Illusion, the group’s 2006 return to form.

“Christ Illusion was the first album of pure attitude we did since [1990’s] Seasons in the Abyss,” says King, who credits Christ Illusion’s success to the return of original drummer Dave Lombardo following a decade-plus break. “We messed around and kept our bit of fame, but when Dave came back was when we really started getting big again.” More than 25 years into their career, at a time when most bands their age are simply reheating the hits on nostalgia tours, Slayer are bigger and more vital than ever. Christ Illusion debuted at Number 5 on the Billboard charts, and fans worldwide came out in droves to see the original lineup—which includes vocalist/bassist Tom Araya—tear it up on multiple headlining tours, big-ticket gigs with Marilyn Manson and the mega-metal Unholy Alliance Tour.

It was on the wave of this success that Slayer entered the studio in October 2008 with producer Greg Fidelman (Metallica, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson) to begin tracking World Painted Blood. “Dave was in a real ‘Slayer’ mood,” Hanneman says. “He was on fire and loving what he was doing. Plus the band was getting along better than in previous years. Not that it’s been bad, but because Dave was in a good mood we’d go into practice with an idea, jam it out and have fun.”

Those initial sessions resulted in three Hanneman-penned tracks, including the break-neck single “Psychopathy Red,” which was released as a limited seven-inch vinyl disc in conjunction with national Record Store Day on April 18. Afterward, the band took a break for the holiday. When Slayer met back up with Fidelman in March 2009 at L.A.’s Pass Studios, they hammered out the rest of World Painted Blood, taking a more spontaneous approach than they had for Christ Illusion. King says, “With Christ Illusion, we were ready for so fucking long before [the record company] even allowed us to record. This time, we weren’t prepared at all. At the beginning of the week, Jeff would come in with a new song to record, and we hadn’t even played it yet.”

For years, King and Hanneman have been Slayer’s primary songwriters, and they remain so. While they used to collaborate closely, the songwriting process has become an increasingly solitary one for the guitarists since 2001’s God Hates Us All. It has less to do with artistic friction than it does with simple logistics. “It’s not because there’s something bad between us,” King explains. “It’s because we’re maturing and growing. We also live further apart, and by the time we go into the studio the shit’s already done.”

Hanneman adds, “In the old days Dave was hard to get a hold of, too. We’d say, ‘Come to practice at five,’ and he’d show up at seven. So Kerry and me would sit there and work stuff out together. But nowadays everybody’s more professional, so we tend to write on our own.”

The guitarists’ songwriting process may have changed, but the good-natured competitiveness that fueled some of metal’s most memorable riffs is still alive and well. “In the early years there was a lot of competition,” Hanneman says, with a laugh. “Now I don’t really feel that I should be playing to beat Kerry, but I definitely want to impress him. It’s not about winning or losing, because we’re on the same team.It’s healthy form of competition.”

Slayer may be entering their most productive, responsible and affable period, but one listen to World Painted Blood reveals that the guys haven’t lost their signature hardcore metal edge. It’s more like they’ve honed it. Written against a backdrop of economic collapse, the swine flu epidemic, foreign nuclear threats, protracted war and a general sense of increased global unrest, World Painted Blood’s tormented sounds, pit-inducing riffage, logic-defying solos and demented lyrics are as relevant, and vicious, as ever. From the determined marching-beat of the midtempo “Americon” to the ripping thrash punk of “Hate Worldwide” and “Psychopathy Red,” the album is a terrifying collection of squealing and distorted classic thrash. In other words, it’s Slayer just the way we like them.

When Guitar World arrives at Slayer’s rehearsal studio in Chino, King and Hanneman are geared up and raring to go. The band has finished all tracking and punch-ins, and Fidelman is completing final mixes for World Painted Blood. The guys have just wrapped up two weeks of intensive rehearsals and are about to kick off a short tour, dubbed Canadian Carnage, with coheadliners Megadeth before jumping on this summer’s mammoth Rockstar Mayhem Fest with Marilyn Manson, Killswitch Engage, Bullet for My Valentine, Trivium, Cannibal Corpse, Job for a Cowboy, Behemoth and others.

In the following interview, Hanneman and King dig deep into their pasts to reveal the at times dark details that ultimately led them to their latest, bloodiest creation.

GUITAR WORLD To kick things off, I’ve always wondered about your first guitars and amps. Do you remember the first instruments you picked up?

JEFF HANNEMAN I think it was a Fender Reverb amp, because that’s all I could afford. It wasn’t very big and it didn’t even sound that great. I mean, it wasn’t a Marshall. My first guitar was a Les Paul that I bought off a friend for 500 bucks. I worked a long time to save up enough money for it. I did telephone solicitations for the marshals—you know, the police. I would call old ladies and say, “Can you give us money?” [laughs] And I was actually good at it! I was selling that shit, because I wanted that Les Paul. Then when I had enough money to buy it, I immediately quit.

GW Kerry, what were your first instruments?

KERRY KING Man, I think my dad lived vicariously through me. He would get the [local classified paper] Recycler all the time to see who was selling what. I played whatever caught his eye in the paper, because back then I didn’t know what I wanted to play.

My dad had a Gibson ES-175 lying around the house, and I learned to play on that for a while. He also had a Fender 1963 L Series Strat with a tobacco sunburst finish, which is probably worth a ton of money right now [roughly $30,000]. But we traded it for the B.C. Rich Mockingbird that I eventually used on our first album, so it served its purpose well. Thank you, Mr. L Series Strat.

When I started doing shows, I had a Fender Super Showman, but it didn’t take me long to get the Marshall thing going. My practice amp back then, which I still have today, is a Fender Super Champ. Those things are awesome.

GW Did you take lessons?

KING I took lessons for the first 18 months. My teacher was this doctor of music theory, which to this day is a topic I know nothing about. But he taught me how to structure leads with whatever rhythms are behind you. I went back to the same teacher before Seasons in the Abyss. If you listen to the leads on South of Heaven and compare them to Seasons, it sounds like a different guy. South of Heaven is a guy who didn’t care and just made up some horseshit leads. But I started seeing my name in guitar polls and I thought, If I’m in these polls, I’d better at least know what I’m doing. So I started paying more attention and putting respect into what I was doing with my instrument. I’m sure I still don’t do it “right,” but it makes sense to me.

HANNEMAN I took a few lessons, but I really sucked at it because I didn’t want to be taught by anybody. Kerry and I actually met at that place where I was doing the phone solicitation job. He was in the building trying out for a band. Because I was always working there I knew the musicians and I would hang out and play guitar with them once in a while. So Kerry was there and he looks over at me and goes, “You wanna start a band?” And I’m like, “Yeah, why not.” Kerry had been playing a lot longer than I had; I was still learning. I knew right then and there that I had to learn how to play guitar really quickly or I wouldn’t be able to be in the band. As Tom likes to say, “The next thing you know, Jeff’s writing all the songs.” [laughs]

GW Jeff, were your parents influential in helping you get into music?

HANNEMAN Kerry had the supportive dad and got all the money and stuff from him. My dad was one of those hardcore guys that would say, “You’re never gonna make it.” [laughs] But there’s no bitterness there. [laughs] Fuck it, I don’t care. Kerry was just brought up differently than I was. Plus, it’s irrelevant now, isn’t it? But I just loved music: from Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, all the way to Sex Pistols and punk. Then one day, I can’t tell you at what exact age, I just realized that I wanted to play guitar because it was cool.

GW So you were listening to lighter stuff like Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Can you point to a moment in your own past that led you down the path of extreme metal?

HANNEMAN I guess Zeppelin is some happy stuff compared to us. It’s pretty hippy, too. The only thing I can put my finger on is, back when I was listening to Zeppelin and Aerosmith and whoever, I remember always liking the heavier songs. I knew that if I were ever in a band it would be all about being heavy and dark. At this point it’s an unwritten rule for us to always sing about the dark side. We just do it. But I do know that in the beginning I always hated the love songs, and the happy, hippy ones, too.

KING Sure it’s a nice, sunny day here, but the world is not all flowers. And there’s five billion bands singing about the flowers. I just like to put things in perspective…hardcore style. [laughs] And I’m not into the flowers, anyway. [laughs] I don’t know the exact thing that made me so aggro. That’s something for the psychoanalysts to figure out.

GW Were you rebellious as kids?

KING Not really, because I was always worried about ramifications from my dad. My dad is 40 years older than me, and both my parents are old-fashioned. I stayed in line or I’d get hit. My dad would make me go out and pick the tree branch that I wanted to get hit with. I’d be like, “How about that little one over there.” [laughs] Or he’d cut off a piece of the garden hose. That’s true fear, man. Now if you hit your kids it’s, “Oh, that’s wrong.” Fuck you. I got hit and I’m fine. Or maybe that’s exactly my problem. [laughs]

HANNEMAN Wow. I’ve never heard that story. My dad was very into discipline, too. But I still rebelled. Me and my dad were so much alike that we would just butt heads. I pretty much hated him from the age of 16 to 24 for no real reason. My mentality was that I’d never let him win. I remember every once in a while he’d grab me by the throat and I would be like, [assuming a defiant stance] “Come on!” But after the age of 24 he became my hero. I loved the guy to death.

GW So, Kerry, you walked a pretty straight path when you were younger. Were you good in school, too?

KING Yeah, up until my senior year when I found chicks. [laughs] Then it was all over. In junior high I got the math award for the whole school, and by 12th grade I was in math analysis. But when I found girls, numbers just didn’t make sense anymore. I didn’t get it. And I used to own that shit. It’s weird how quickly it fell apart: A’s, A’s, A’s, D’s. [laughs]

GW Let’s talk a bit about the writing for World Painted Blood. Since 2001’s God Hates Us All you guys have been mostly writing independently and bringing in tracks for the rest of the band. What are your home-demoing processes like?

HANNEMAN I have a drum machine at home that I use to work out my stuff. Then I come to practice with a CD and say, “Here’s the song idea, what do you think?”

KING I basically map out the song at home so I have a method to my madness when I come into the studio. I have this old cassette player that I got from Radio Shack. It’s the same thing I’ve been using since Slayer’s beginnings. I just never graduated to the drum machine and the four-track like Jeff. I don’t know how he has the patience to do it, because Jeff is not a patient man. [laughs] I’d rather play guitar and keep my ideas happening than have to stop and play around with the drum machine. I know in my head what I want the drums to be like, so when I go in I just convey that to Dave. It’s funny because we were rehearsing for this album and I’d be bringing in cassettes like, “Well, here’s the new song.” And they had to look around to find something to play it on. [laughs]

GW Since you’re writing guitar parts without drums, were there any instances on World Painted Blood where the riffs that you brought in didn’t work with Dave’s drums?

KING Sure. For this recording cycle, I brought in a couple of riffs that didn’t work when the beats were added. The one riff on “Snuff” is like a nine count, which was interesting to work out. It wasn’t until I showed Dave that I realized we needed to have an industrial-sounding snare that he would hit nine times, following me.

GW You and Jeff also play some crazy dual-lead sections on that song.

KING Yeah, we’ve been talking about doing more of that. Double leads are always an afterthought. I don’t know why, because isn’t that the point of having two guitarists? So this time I was keeping that more in mind, and “Snuff” is one that actually blossomed into having two big double-lead sections in it.

GW When it comes to actually sitting down at home and writing riffs, do you have certain rituals you follow?

HANNEMAN A lot of times I’ll be playing while I’m drinking beer and watching hockey or football with friends. But then I’ll get an idea and be like, “See ya!” I’ll take off down to my music room and record it real quick before I forget it. Because when I forget it, it’s usually gone. But most of the stuff that I come up with is something I’ll hear first in my head. Then it’s the process of trying to match that thought on the guitar. That’s what happened with “World Painted Blood.”

KING The best thing for me is to be in a quiet room where nothing’s happening. If I’m watching TV, I’ll be paying too much attention to that, or I’ll make up a riff and not even know that it’s good. I definitely want to have silence so I can concentrate on what I’m doing. Then I’ll just noodle around, and if something catches my ear, I’ll put that on tape.

GW What’s your preferred environment for writing lyrics?

HANNEMAN Lyrics are a different thing. For lyrics I like to get in a dark mood. I like to be alone, and I usually don’t drink. I like drinking when I come up with guitar riffs, but not when I’m working on lyrics. I’ve found that you can really reach the darker side when you’re sober. [laughs] I just sit there by myself and think about things and write down a bunch of ideas and dark thoughts. Then I put them into verse form.

KING I definitely need to concentrate, too, because you gotta think about rhyming and being poetic and that sort of thing. When I sit down to write I have my dictionary and synonym finder. I’d rather write without those things, but if I can’t think of the right word then I’ll use them. You need ideas that make sense, not just mindless, drug-infused cock-eyed shit. [laughs]

GW Do you keep a journal with all these ideas?

HANNEMAN I have a notepad that I write all my ideas in. You should see it. It’s got all kinds of crazy stuff on it that you’d recognize from the last few albums.

KING I probably use one notebook binder per record. If some ideas don’t get used, I yank them and put them in a folder for later. Sometimes I have all the lyrics before we start recording, but for World Painted Blood we were recording the entire time while I was writing lyrics. This was a very weird process for us.

GW Slayer are known for their taboo subject matter. Is there any topic that is off limits for you guys?

HANNEMAN I think the only thing we wouldn’t hit on is rape. I don’t know if you’ve ever met anyone like this, but there’s this certain type of man that just hates women. I’ve met a few of them and it’s like, “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you hate women?” We have wives, mothers and sisters, so rape is the one thing we haven’t touched on. Except for necrophilia, which is the dead, so who cares. [laughs]

KING Huh. I don’t think there are any areas I wouldn’t explore. I mean, Jesus Christ, Jeff can write about the Holocaust but he can’t write about rape? That’s bizarre. I’m not saying it to one-up Jeff, but the topic of rape is not tootaboo for me.

GW Jeff, on “Unit 731” you dig deeper into Word War II subject matter, this time dealing with atrocities that Japan committed [Unit 731 was a covert Japanese unit that experimented on human subjects during WWII]. How did you first get interested in WWI and Nazi history?

HANNEMAN My dad. He was a military guy. He got drafted and went to Germany to fight in World War II . When he came home he had a lot of German medals that he took off dead Nazis. Years later he was cleaning out his drawers and he gave them to me. I was like, “These are kinda cool.” That’s when I started getting into medals and the World War II thing. Plus, I had two older brothers that were in Vietnam.

GW So coming from a military family, how did you manage to stay out of the service?

HANNEMAN I escaped it! [laughs] Nah, I was just too late. Both my older brothers were drafted. I probably would have gone, too, but I was born too late.

GW Have you added any new medals to your collection?

HANNEMAN I got a real nice German Knights Cross, but I’m not collecting anymore. I was really into it in the late Eighties. I still have them set up in my music room where I write, though.

GW “World Painted Blood” has a lot of Biblical imagery, like “Angels fall wings on fire crucified” and “Gomorrah’s dream to live in sin.” Do you read the Bible to look for these kinds of descriptions?

HANNEMAN I’m just a regular atheist. The whole Bible thing is interesting, but I don’t believe it. But I do go back and read it a little bit to refresh my memory. I think Kerry does that too. And Tom, well, I think Tom’s a Catholic, so he’s actually religious. I really like that aspect: Tom has to sing all the bad shit that me and Kerry write. [laughs]

GW You guys also dip into political subject matter with “Americon.” What’s the inspiration behind that track?

KING I’m not the most political dude on the planet, so it’s odd that “Americon” came out of me. My inspiration behind that song comes from the idea that Europeans think all of America’s wars are about oil. So I wrote about it from their perspective. And I was even thinking, Well, maybe we are actually like this. But I don’t care what anyone thinks of my government. This is one of the best places to live.

GW How do you feel about President Obama and the change in leadership?

KING I think it’s a good thing, because the Republicans fucked up a lot of shit. For a long time I thought I was a Republican, but now I think there’s things in both factions for me. If I had to tell somebody what I was, I’d say Independent. Once this election started to come around, I was telling people that our next president would be either a black man or a woman. I’m not the fairest dude on the planet, but it’s good because it gives black kids an incentive to be president. I think that’s what a president should do.

GW Can you guys talk about what you think is the difference between your styles and how that makes up the balance and tension in Slayer?

HANNEMAN I just think my style is a little darker. We both write stuff that’s fast, but I think I write the darker, more evil stuff.

KING A buddy of mine has a wife who’s a big Slayer fan, and he played her “Psychopathy Red.” And she said, “That’s not Kerry’s song.” I was like, “How the fuck did she know that!” Because it really sounds like it should be my song. Like Jeff said, people tend to think my songs are more aggro and Jeff’s are moodier. But that’s not to say I won’t write a moody song and he won’t write a fast one like “Psychopathy Red.” We are individuals whose styles are very different, but we can each do what the other guy is doing, too.

GW Guitar players often say that Slayer’s solos don’t “make sense.” What governs your approach to soloing?

HANNEMAN Nothing. [laughs] Kerry took lessons; I learned from scratch. I just picked up a guitar and started to play. I don’t know anything about scales or notes or stuff like that. When it comes to solos, I just go off. I don’t know where the proper note should be, and I don’t care. [laughs] But I think it works real well with our music. It’s just so off the wall and crazy. It’s like, “What the hell are they doing!” [laughs]

KING Like I said earlier, around Seasons I went back to my original teacher and did some brush-up shit. So for Seasons, I probably had like 80 to 90 percent of my solos mapped out. Then I was talking to Dime [Dimebag Darrell] one day and I said, “Dude, I got all these leads mapped out and they sound badass!” And he’s like, [in a gravelly southern accent] “King, don’t forget to do what you do best: line them up and just make some noise!” And I’ve done that ever since. Now I make up 75 to 80 percent of them and I wing the rest of it.

GW Do you ever write stuff that’s not right for Slayer?

KING No. Because even if I played with anybody else, what I contributed would be very much Slayer. The one time I almost played with Dime, I called him up and I’m like, “Dime, I got this idea for a song that you gotta do with me.” I told him how we should cover “Snortin’ Whisky” by Pat Travers. He learned it, and we were planning to do it, but Damageplan were doing press for New Found Power and he didn’t have time. I didn’t want to rush it, because I figured we could do it anytime we wanted. But of course, that never happened.

HANNEMAN I write tons of stuff. I’ll just get up one day and throw some drums down on the drum machine and start writing. Every once in awhile a riff comes along that’s worthy of Slayer. In fact, that’s where some of my best riffs come from: when I’m not thinking about Slayer. I’ll be jamming on some bluesy stuff, having fun, and then I arrive at something heavy. I hate sitting down and going, “I’m going to write a Slayer song.” It’s not gonna work that way.

GW Do you save those, and if so, would you ever considering putting them out as a solo project?

HANNEMAN I listen to them all the time. I’ll probably listen to those going home tonight. But I wouldn’t consider putting them out until Slayer is done. I wouldn’t mind doing something else, but I don’t know what that would be yet. Because, in case you didn’t notice, Slayer is pretty fucking cool. [laughs]

GW Let’s talk about working with producer Greg Fidelman. What did he bring to the process?

HANNEMAN He is an excellent producer and great to work with. The last producer we had, Josh Abraham, was sitting there on his laptop the whole time while we were recording. Every once in a while he’d look up and say, “Yeah, that sounds good.” Then he’d go write back to tapping the computer keys. That guy was an idiot. But Fidelman is excellent because he really gets into it. World Painted Blood was recorded so well that it captured exactly how we sound at rehearsal.

GW Did Greg’s engineering work on Metallica’s Death Magnetic influence your decision to go with him? To my ears, the production on World Painted Blood—specifically how everything is situated in the mix—has some of the same flavor as Death Magnetic.

HANNEMAN I haven’t listened to Metallica in a long time. Maybe Kerry or Tom did.

KING Yeah I listened to it, but it had nothing to do with choosing him.

GW Did you like the Metallica record?

KING It’s better than the last one… Now, that’s a very safe comment. [laughs]

GW Did you use any new gear on World Painted Blood?

HANNEMAN My gear is all the same. I got my ESP with the EMG-81/85 pickup combo and the EMG-SPC [Strat Presence Control]. I like more chunk when I get to the slow stuff, so I’ve been using a gate, which works great. For this recording, I used a Dunlop Zakk Wylde wah, a Boss RG E-10 [graphic equalizer], and two Marshall JCM800s that ran to two Marshall MF400B cabs and Greg’s Orange cab.

KING My seven-string is new. It’s a B.C. Rich Warlock with a Kahler bridge. It has a Trans-Black finish with my tribal graphic over it. It came out really cool and spooky looking. I have EMGs in it, too. My main guitar for tracking was my B.C. Rich V with an EMG-81 in the bridge and an EMG-85 in the neck, along with an EMG PA2 [preamp booster switch] and a Fernandes Sustainer. Last album I used my prototype head, but this time I played through the Marshall KFK 2203 head that anyone can go out and buy. I used that with my Marshall JCM800 “Beast” and Greg’s Marshall and Orange heads, and we mixed all the sounds together to create my main tone. For leads, I added a Boss RG E-10 EQ to the JCM800 “Beast” and used either a Zakk Wylde wah or a classic Dunlop Cry Baby wah.

GW I heard that [Dimebag Darrell’s commonlaw wife] Rita brought Dime’s original Dean from Hell down to the sessions. Did you end up using it?

KING Rita’s a good friend, and Dime was a good friend, so Rita decided to bring my boy’s Dean from Hell down to the studio for inspiration. But I didn’t end up using it, because the guitar is set up very differently than my guitars. We had everything set up to support my EMG pickups and the Kahler.

GW In the past, Kerry, you’ve tracked all the rhythm guitar parts. Why is that, and did you do that on World Painted Blood?

KING I did track Jeff’s rhythm parts, and I used his rig and guitars. The only reason is that I usually track my stuff first, so I’m already dialed in to what the track is all about.

HANNEMAN Plus we both have different styles. We play well together, but we play a little differently. I learned a long time ago that if one guy plays both guitar parts it sounds much better. I just chose to let him do it because he’s usually quicker than I am. He’s not quicker in speed; he’ll just get it recorded faster. I fuck around too much. [laughs]

GW Kerry, do you ever track Tom’s bass parts to keep things moving in the studio?

KING If Tom wants me to. [When we were tracking] this album, he didn’t even know half my songs, because we made them up so quickly. He only came in a week before we went in the studio. I already knew them, but if he wanted to play them I was like, “Sure.” My idea of a perfect bass player is [Judas Priest’s] Ian Hill, who stands back there and plays his root note. I’m a guitar player—what do you expect me to say! [laughs] But sometimes after I get the two guitars down, I’ll sit down and write a third harmony for the bass. I did that on the intro to “Atrocity Vendor,” which came out really cool.

GW I also want to talk a little about Dave’s signature style. What about Dave’s playing makes him the perfect drummer for Slayer?

KING The oddness of Dave is that he’s a left-handed drummer playing a right-handed kit. Maybe that’s responsible for some of the bizarre stuff he pulls off. Other than that, even today when we play live he’ll make up stuff on the fly, and hopefully we’ll all land on the same spot. But it’s that recklessness that keeps us focused. The only thing you hear coming out of the monitors on my side of the stage is me and Dave. No vocals, Hanneman or anything. I need to hear myself and I need to follow Dave. Any more is just extra noise.

GW You guys are obviously in full-throttle Slayer mode right now. What you like to do when you’re off the clock?

KING I’m a football fanatic, and I also raise snakes. I got my first one after our first U.S. tour, when we used to stay at fans’ houses because we didn’t have any money. We stayed with a group of people, I think it was in Houston, who called themselves the Doom Society. They had a boa constrictor and they named it Slayer. So when I went home I got one and named it Venom, because I was way into that band back then. I stopped raising snakes in the late Nineties, because it was becoming more time consuming than my band. Then years later, when I met my wife, she wanted to get a snake, and I got back into it.

GW Jeff, you have pets too, right?

HANNEMAN I’ve got two Rottweilers. They’re the coolest. They love you to death. One is called Guderian Von Himmel, after the German General [Heinz] Guderian from World War II. The other one is named Slezia, after a German territory that used to be in Poland. My wife and I do serious commands in German, because if you say “No!” they aren’t going to listen. But when you say, “Nein!” they pay attention.

GW Before you join up with Manson for this summer’s Mayhem Fest, you’re heading out on a short Canadian run with Megadeth. Kerry, I know in the past you’ve been pretty outspoken about your less-than-positive feelings toward Dave Mustaine. Have things cleared up between you two?

KING I just don’t have any respect for Dave. As far as playing goes, I can’t take anything away from him. He’s awesome. But I know things. That’s not like, “Ooh, I know things.” I just know he’s a hypocrite, and I have no respect for that kind of person. But when I see him I’ll say, “What’s up Dave?” If he’s not an asshole to me, I won’t be one to him.

HANNEMAN Oh, it’s gonna be good. [laughs] I’m looking forward to it. If nothing happens between them I’m probably gonna have to instigate a little bit. [laughs] I like Dave, and obviously Kerry, but I also like to watch a good fight.

GW It seems like you guys have refined the Slayer sound to its most powerful state on the past two albums. At this point, do you feel you’ve perfected the formula?

KING If there is such a thing as perfection, I’d say we’ve got it. I think we’ve added every aspect we want to add. When AC/DC puts out an album, I want it to sound like fucking AC/DC. We’re the thrash version of AC/DC. It’s what our fans want to hear.

GW This record is the last in your commitment with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings. Tom has stated that the band would sit down and discuss whether it was right to continue playing music. What are your thoughts on this?

KING If you asked me 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have said that I’d still be playing today. But then I go out and watch someone like Dio, who still sounds just like his records—and he’s 60 something! But I can’t imagine, even if I find the fountain of youth tomorrow, that I’ll be playing at 60. Slayer is an event. It’s not just listening or watching—it’s everything. And when it’s not able to be that anymore, I don’t want to do it. That said, I still feel young right now and I still enjoy playing. There’s gonna be a time that maybe Tom pulls the plug and says, “I don’t wanna headbang anymore. My throat hurts. I’m tired of this.” But that’s something we’ll all have to decide ourselves. But I’ll tell ya one thing: it ain’t gonna be me.

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