Somewhere after the second British invasion and shortly before the advent of disco and punk, five guys from 1325 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston began finding their niche to take over the world.
They bucked the system at every opportunity, while at the same time set a precedent for a generation of bands that would follow.
Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's story has been full of ups and downs. Finally, it’s a story worth telling. Perry’s new memoir, Rocks: My Life In And Out of Aerosmith, is an honest reflection of the life and career of one of rock’s all-time greats.
Throughout its pages, Perry pulls no punches in detailing the rise, fall and second coming of one of the greatest American rock bands. He speaks candidly about his early love of the wilderness, his conflicts with authority (including his refusal to cut his hair in school), drug abuse, dealing with controlling managers and his stormy relationship with Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler.
In addition to a plethora of amazing photographs, Rocks contains a detailed appendix featuring the guitars and gear Perry has used throughout his career. It's a treasure trove of information for guitar players and gear enthusiasts.
Perry’s life journey is encouraging, inspiring and at times heartbreaking. But where Rocks really shines is in its ability to showcase a different side of human nature and just what it takes to get along.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Perry about his new memoir; I also got updates on Aerosmith — and Perry's next solo album.
GUITAR WORLD: What made you decide to write a book at this stage of your career?
Not too long ago, there was a vibe. It was the 40th anniversary of the band and our last Sony record. There were also a lot of other things going on in our personal lives that made it seem like it was the end of one era and the beginning of another. That’s when my wife Billie asked me, “What do you think about writing a book?" There was something inside me that just clicked and it felt like it was the right time.
How big of a role has Billie played in your life?
As low as it had gotten at some points, if she wasn't around, I wouldn’t be here. We met at a time when I was far enough away from Aerosmith that the band wasn’t an issue. In fact, she didn’t even know who Aerosmith was. As far as she was concerned, I was just another struggling musician who played in a local band. She gave me a new lease on life — beyond the partying and all of that other stuff.
We’ve been together 30 years now and raised three kids. It’s been tough at times but that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write the book: to talk about how difficult it can be to keep a family together but still keep the band together as well. And it’s not just me. The four other guys in the band also had to live their lives and make it work.
At one point, you fell on hard times and had to sell your prized 1959 Les Paul. How much did you sell it for?
I don’t remember what I paid for it, but I think I got $3,500 for it at the time when I sold it. Then Eric Johnson called me after he had heard that the guitar he bought was once mine and offered it to me for what he paid for it [which was $8,500]. I didn’t have the money at that time and had to pass. Eventually, Slash wound up with it and just gave it to me as a gift. Whatever inspired him to do that is just an indication of what a great heart the guy has. I really consider him a close friend.
What made you decide to include a section on the guitars and gear you’ve used over the years?
Fans would always come up and ask me what guitars I used on certain albums or what gear I used when I played live or in the studio. I decided that if I was really going to get into guitars and equipment, it couldn’t just be a part of the story. So I started brainstorming and decided to put in an appendix that just deals with the gear. It was fun for me to go back and look at pictures of the guitars and me standing with my old guitar techs. It’s there for the guitar players and doesn’t get in the way of the main story, which deals more about human nature and not transistors.
In the book you discuss a lot of the conflicts with ex-girlfriends, drugs and management, but perhaps nothing hurt you more deeply on a personal level than when Steven auditioned for Led Zeppelin and took on a judge role on American Idol without first informing the band. How hurt were you by those decisions?
On the short list of emotions, I was puzzled and hurt. Obviously it was bullshit. But I’ve become so used to that over the years, and we know all how to deal with that with each other. Whatever it was we were going through, we always learned how to leave it behind and work together because we always respected each other’s talent. But we’ve never gotten into a fistfight, and anyone who tells you that is full of shit. If you ever see two silver-backed gorillas going at it — they wreck the cage but they don’t touch each other [laughs]. That’s kind of the paradigm it used to be.
On another level, it was like how could someone look you in the eye and say one thing and then the next day come to find out that not only is he doing the exact opposite, but he also knows full well how what he’s doing is going to affect me> To this day, I still can’t figure it out.
Can you give me an update on your next solo album?
Normally, it would be done by now, but so much time has been taken up working on the book, touring and getting the last Aerosmith album out. It’s definitely on the top of my “A” list. I do have six songs that have great potential. I also have a bunch of material I need to listen to. I’m really looking forward to getting back into it sometime this fall or at the very latest, the beginning of the new year.
Has there been talk about a new Aerosmith album or maybe something to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Toys In The Attic?
There are so many options on the table, but right now everyone needs some time to breathe. We’ve talked about doing some gigs next year and possibly doing some recording. Once we have some time to kick back we’ll figure out what’s next for the band.
Do you have any regrets?
Yeah, I can probably give you a few dozen [laughs]. Certainly if I could go back I would do things differently. But looking back, I think everything happens for a reason, and for as hard as some of the things were it was something that I had to live through.
If you were deep in the heart of the Vermont wilderness during the peak of fall season and only had one album to listen to, what album would that be?
If you want to know the truth, I wouldn’t listen to any album because I love the sound of the woods better. But I have to say that one of my favorite records to listen to now is Night In The Ruts [1979]. It doesn’t get much call for us to play songs off of, but it’s some of the best playing the band ever did. It got overlooked because it was the one where I left and we never got a chance to play it live and really push it the way we should have. I thought there were some really good songs on that one. It’s one of the ones I miss hearing more.
At one point in the book you talk about standing on the street corner looking up at 1325 Commonwealth and wondering what the 20-year-old Joe Perry would think about the Joe Perry of today. I’d like to ask you the opposite. What bit of advice would the Joe Perry of today give to that young kid about to take on the world with Aerosmith?
I probably would tell him to put his foot down a little bit harder when it came to dealing with lawyers and managers. Everything else as far as our creativity, the way we got along and all of that other stuff was something we all had to go through.
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.
Ernie Ball has teamed up with McKee to find the next great acoustic guitar player! The company is asking players to submit a 15-second to two-minute video of their best original acoustic performance for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to Hollywood to record an EP at NRG Studios with McKee at the producing helm.
The Grand Prize winner also will receive an opening performance slot at one of McKee’s 2015 tour dates (nearest city to the winner), a Taylor 414CE acoustic guitar, a feature with Acoustic Guitar Magazine on AcousticGuitar.com and an Ernie Ball string endorsement.
Entrants can also earn a bonus entry for a chance to win a Taylor GS-Mini by showing their Aluminum Bronze packaging in their entry video!
To enter to win, submit your best original acoustic performance to ernieball.com/theprodigy or via Instagram, Twitter or Facebook with #AluminumBronze. Once your entry is submitted, share your video to gain votes! The top 50 fan-voted videos will go to final voting by a panel of Ernie Ball judges including McKee, NRG Studio employees and Ernie Ball.
Rules 'n' Such:
• Must be a resident of the United States (open to U.S. only) • Must be at least 13 or older • Song must be original but does not need to include singing. • Must be acoustic guitar • No purchase necessary.
This is an excerpt from the December 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the rest of this Slipknot story, plus features on Slash, Joe Bonamassa, Lenny Kravitz, Paul Gilbert, Motionless In White, Electric Wizard and more, including lessons, tabs and reviews of new gear from D'Angelico, Washburn, Boss, Morley, Lace Music and Carr Amps, check out the December 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.
Shades of Gray: Between the death and departure of various band members, Slipknot have had a rough few years. With .5: The Gray Chapter, they channel the energy of deceased bassist Paul Gray and return with a brutal but multifaceted album.
“The future of Slipknot is always in doubt,” guitarist Jim Root says. “I always prepare for each album as if it’s gonna be the last.”
It’s a minor miracle that Slipknot have lasted as long as they have. They have nine members in their lineup, each of whom lives up to the band’s aggro metal image in one way or another, and thereby contributes to the potential for volatility.
Yet, they have endured since the group formed in Des Moines, Iowa, 19 years ago, becoming one of the heaviest and scariest bands in a genre crowded with heavy, scary acts. Some 13 years have elapsed since the band’s self-titled 2001 debut album placed them at the forefront of the then-burgeoning nu-metal scene.
“With all the different guys in the band and all the different ideas of what’s what, it’s hard to get everybody on the same page sometimes,” Root says. “We are a very tight brotherhood, but we never know what we’re going to do.”
However, nothing in Slipknot’s turbulent history has been as daunting as the death of their longtime bass player, Paul Gray, from a morphine overdose in 2010. The tragedy was compounded by the recent departure—somewhat acrimonious, apparently—of longtime drummer Joey Jordison. Because both Gray and Jordison were key songwriters for the band, Slipknot’s future has hung in the balance these past few years.
But Mick Thomson, Gray’s coguitarist, says he never really considered packing it in.
“Any devastating moment throws you into shock,” he says. “I was just hoping that no one in the band was going to get caught up in the raw emotion of the moment and make any kind of grand statement, like, ‘I will not go on without Paul.’ You say something in the heat of emotion, and sometimes later when you settle down, you think, Maybe I should take that back. Once you can think straight again, what do you do? Obviously, you gotta get on with your life. We all grieve differently. I mean, we still are grieving, every time we think about it. It’s not something you get over. You just find a way to deal with it.”
With Gray and Jordison out of the picture, the bulk of songwriting duties fell to Root on Slipknot’s new album .5: The Gray Chapter. The title pays homage to the deceased bassist, and the music remains true to Slipknot’s disturbing legacy.
Somber, sound-collage intros—generally assembled by Slipknot’s turntablist Sid Wilson, sampling maven Craig Jones and provocateur-in-chief Shawn “Clown” Crahan—lull the listener into a false sense of security. Then all hell breaks loose in a cacophony of car-bomb percussion as Root and Thomson’s down-tuned guitars chug and grind like some diabolic machine and lead singer Corey Taylor does his level best to projectile-vomit his tonsils out over his front teeth.
“Once we get in the studio, it sounds like us,” Thomson says of The Gray Chapter. “Some of it is very classic us. Some of it is slightly more experimental us.”
“We’re still evolving as a band,” Root adds. “I think that’s really important for a band to do, especially after being around for so many years. Paul, before he passed away, really wanted the band to experiment a lot more, musically, with the direction of where we’re going. We’d done Slipknot. We’d done Iowa. I think the closest thing we’ve done to a record that Paul was very excited about was probably The Subliminal Verses. It’s very diverse. It had a little bit of everything in it. And we’re still trying to find our way. For me, and for Paul’s legacy, it’s important that we continue to evolve.”
In Gray’s absence, Root and Thomson handled the majority of bass duties on the new album, although the band did some early work with Slipknot’s touring bassist Donnie Steele. “Donnie’s a great guy,” Root says. “We brought him in to help us out in the studio for a while. But it wasn’t really jivin’. He wanted to go home and get married and do all that stuff. It’s just better off for us to kinda move on from Donnie.”
The identity of the drummer on The Gray Chapter, as well as that of the bassist who will take Gray’s place once Slipknot hit the road, was still a closely guarded secret at press time.
“We’re not saying who the new drummer is,” Root confirms. “Even if people find out beyond a shadow of a doubt who the new drummer is, I think we’re always going to deny who it is. He might not last. He might tour with us a year and figure out we’re all insane and he can’t handle being around us. Or we might shut him out. Who knows? For Slipknot, I’d say drumming is only 50 or 60 percent of the job. The rest of it is who you are and what your personality is. Will you clash with guys like me, Mick, Clown, Corey, Craig and Chris? We all have these strong alpha-male personalities.”
Photo: Sean Murphy
This is an excerpt from the December 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the rest of this Slipknot story, plus features on Slash, Joe Bonamassa, Lenny Kravitz, Paul Gilbert, Motionless In White, Electric Wizard and more, including lessons, tabs and reviews of new gear from D'Angelico, Washburn, Boss, Morley, Lace Music and Carr Amps, check out the December 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.
Charvel has released its new Pro Mod Series Super Stock SD1 FR Special Edition.
From the company:
Built for center stage, the spotlight and your favorite solo, Charvel’s limited-run Super Stock So-Cal Silver Sparkle is a dazzling high-performance instrument. Its sleek So-Cal body is clad in a scintillating silver-sparkle finish that looks stunning beneath the stage lights, elegantly complemented by a matching headstock and black pickguard.
Other premium features include a quartersawn maple neck with an oil finish and comfortable Pro Mod profile, fast and smooth compound-radius rosewood fingerboard (12”-16”) with 22 jumbo frets, Seymour Duncan ’59 (neck) and JB (bridge) humbucking pickups, three-position chrome-tip toggle pickup switch and single knurled control knob (master volume), Floyd Rose Original tremolo bridge and locking nut, and non-locking Charvel tuners.
In honor of what would have been his 74th birthday, here’s a rare clip of John Lennon performing “Imagine” live.
The performance was filmed at New York City's Apollo Theater December 17, 1971.
Rather than playing the piano, which the song was composed on, Lennon plays an acoustic guitar and is accompanied by a group of acoustic players.
Several poems from Yoko Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit are said to have influenced Lennon's lyrics for "Imagine."
The song can be found on Lennon's 1971 LP of the same name. The album features a more heavily produced sound when compared to the simple arrangements of his previous album, Plastic Ono Band.
"Imagine" is the best-selling single of Lennon’s solo career; it peaked at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Since its release, it has been performed by a number of artists, including Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Cee Lo Green and Train.
Enjoy the performance below and take a second to remember the brilliance of John Lennon! You can find out more at johnlennon.com.
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of "Arizona," a new song by Stephen Doster.
It's title track from Doster's new album, which will be released November 4 via Atticus Records.
"My name’s on the back of many more records than on the front,” says Doster, an Austin-based producer, songwriter and guitarist. “This new record will only be my fourth as an artist. And it’s the record I always hoped I would make.”
Doster’s musical story starts in 1982, when he was recording his debut album with Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott producing.
“During the sessions, Jimmy was called back to London to cut a new Pretenders single,” Doster says. “He was coming right back to Texas as soon as he was done.” The rest of the story is a public and sad event in music history. For Doster, it was personal.
“A friend entered my room about 48 hours after Jimmy left,” Doster says. “Jimmy’s wife Peggy Sue sent him over to tell me that Jimmy had died, because she didn’t want me to hear about it on the radio first. He was a great mentor to me, and it was a horrific loss for the music world.”
Doster put the recordings on hold and headed to Nashville with Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett to play guitar on Griffith’s Once in a Very Blue Moon. It was there that Doster decided to put what he had learned from Honeyman-Scott to use, embarking on a career as a producer.
Since then, Doster has helmed more than 70 albums by mostly Texas-based acts while continuing to make a living by writing songs for others and performing. His credits include Willie Nelson, Dr. John, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Cocker, Squeeze, Jonny Lang, Charlie Sexton, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Gatemouth Brown and Little Feat.
Well, it's finally happened. The late Stevie Ray Vaughan has actually been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
Vaughan, whose first album, Texas Flood, was released in 1983 (31 years ago), who put blues and vintage Strats on the charts in the era of skinny ties and ridiculous hairstyles, who revitalized an entire musical genre, has never been nominated — until now.
This current crop of nominees also includes the late Lou Reed, plus the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (which featured guitarist Michael Bloomfield), Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Sting, War and Bill Withers.
The list also includes a few more new candidates — Nine Inch Nails and Green Day — who were eligible for the first time this year, since artists’ first recordings must be at least 25 years old before they can be considered (Again, Texas Flood is 31 years old ...). Rounding out this year’s list of nominees are Chic, Kraftwerk, the Marvelettes, rap legends N.W.A, the Smiths and the Spinners.
Reed and Sting are already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — for their work with the Velvet Underground (class of 1996) and the Police (class of 2003), respectively. This is Sting’s first nomination as a solo artist; Reed was nominated in 2000 and 2001.
A panel will vote on these nominees soon, and the five artists with the most votes will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in April 2015. Once again, fans can vote this year. The winner will get one vote among the 700 ballots cast. The ballot is live at RollingStone.com now. You can vote until December 9.
Last year's Rock Hall class included Nirvana, Kiss, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Cat Stevens and Linda Ronstadt. The E Street Band received the Award for Musical Excellence and Beatles manager Brian Epstein and original Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham earned the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers.
With more than 150-plus minutes of instruction, Talkin' Blues, Part 2 provides you with 10 new in-depth video lessons on essential blues musical elements and guitar-playing techniques. Keith Wyatt's Talkin' Blues, Part 2 DVD will teach you:
• "Street Jazz" chord extensions and alterations • Soloing over chord substitutions • How to play like Blink Blake and Charlie Christian • How to match the solo to the song • "Dead thumb (or pick)" technique • Conversational phrasing • Sixth and ninth chords • The New Orleans sound
... and much more! Get this deeper dive into the blues today!
Your instructor: For more than 35 years, Keith Wyatt has been active as a guitarist and educator specializing in American music. He is a prolific author of books, instructional videos and columns on subjects ranging from theory and ear training to beginning guitar methods and blues and "roots" styles. Since 1978, Keith has been an instructor at the world-famous Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, where he also serves as Director of Curriculum. Since 1996, he has been touring internationally and recording with LA's legendary Blasters.
These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the December 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.
Last month I showed you how I play the Steel Panther song “If I Was the King,” from our latest album, All You Can Eat.
I described that song as a “heavy metal shuffle,” because of its triplet-based rhythmic feel, and this month’s tune, “10 Strikes You’re Out,” falls into the same category.
A shuffle, by the way, is sometimes notated in 12/8 meter, which is based on four beats of eighth-note triplets per bar, but a shuffle can also be written in 4/4, using triplet brackets where needed and indicating that the eighth notes are to be “swung,” which is what I’ve done for this month’s column.
These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the December 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.
The market for archtop hollowbody guitars with a street price under $2,000 is not particularly crowded, consisting mostly of instruments made by companies whose names start with the letter G (and a few Es and an I).
Fortunately, over the past few years the selection has expanded considerably, thanks to the resurrection of the legendary D’Angelico name. While the guitars are no longer made by an old Italian man in a tiny workshop in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the D’Angelico guitars made today are true to the original models’ classy sense of style and sophisticated appeal.
Three new D’Angelico electric archtop hollowbody models—the EX-175, EX-Style B and EX-59—combine the upscale appearance of an original D’Angelico with expanded features and versatility that today’s players prefer. Best of all, they are affordable, and available without waiting months or years for delivery.
A song from Pink Floyd's upcoming album, The Endless River, is now streaming in its entirety online. You can check out "Louder Than Words" below.
Note that it's the only song on the album to feature lead vocals.
In other Pink Floyd news, David Gilmour has made it official that The Endless River, which will be released November 10, will be Pink Floyd's swansong.
"Well, Rick [Wright] is gone. This is the last thing that'll be out from us," he told the BBC earlier today. "I'm pretty certain there will not be any follow up to this. And Polly [Samson], my wife, thought that would be a very good lyrical idea to go out on. A way of describing the symbiosis that we have. Or had.
"I didn't necessarily always give [Wright] his proper due," Gilmour added. "People have very different attitudes to the way they work and we can become very judgmental and think someone is not quite pulling his weight enough, without realizing that theirs is a different weight to pull."
A new trailer for Sonic Highways— the upcoming HBO documentary that follows the making of Foo Fighters' new album of the same name — has hit the online universe.
It features a snippet of a new song by the band, "The Feast & the Famine." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments or on Facebook.
The album will be released November 10; the TV series will premiere October 17.
Bleachers and GuitarWorld.com have gotten together to present the Bleachers "Rollercoaster" Covers Project!
Bleachers want to see — and hear, of course — your covers of their hit song, "Rollercoaster," which can be found on their debut album, 2014's Strange Desire.
Bleachers' Jack Antonoff is asking fans to film their own unique versions of the song and submit the videos here.
Entries will be posted on Bleachers' official YouTube channel. Antonoff will pick submissions at random to join him to play “Rollercoaster” at a sound check or radio lounge during the Strange Desire Tour. The dates for the tour are listed below.
Bleachers will be giving away new pieces of content to help with your covers over the next few weeks, starting with the chords for "Rollercoaster," which are included at the bottom of this story.
For more information about the contest, watch the video below, which features a message from Antonoff. Be sure to follow Bleachers on Facebook. For more about Bleachers, visit BleachersMusic.com.
BLEACHERS 2014 TOUR DATES:
October 10 - Austin, TX @ ACL Music Festival
October 25 - Tampa @ Coral Skies Music Festival
October 26 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ Coral Skies Music Festival
October 28 - Atlanta, GA @ Center Stage
October 29 - Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom
October 31 - New Orleans, LA @ Voodoo Music & Arts Experience
November 1 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald's
November 2 - Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
November 5 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
November 6 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
November 7 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
November 8 - Vancouver, BC @ The Rio Theatre
November 9 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox at The Market
November 12 - Denver, CO @ The Bluebird Theater
November 14 - Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall
November 15 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
November 16 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater
November 22 - Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage
November 23 - Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
November 25 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
Bass Player LIVE! returns to Los Angeles for a seventh year November 8 and 9, 2014.
System Of A Down’s Shavo Odadjian, Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake, Blue Oyster Cult) and Rhonda Smith (Prince, Jeff Beck) are the latest additions to the roster!
The event will include two full days of clinics and exhibitions at S.I.R. Studios, plus a special Saturday-evening session featuring the presentation of Bass Player’s Young Gun Award to Henrik Linder of Dirty Loops and the Lifetime Achievement Award to session legend Abraham Laboriel.
During the evening, Henrik will perform with Tribal Tech’s bassist Gary Willis, keyboardist Scott Kinsey and drummer Kirk Covington. In addition, Abraham will perform with his group Open Hands, also featuring keyboardist Greg Mathieson, saxophonist Justo Almario and drummer Bill Maxwell. Additional performances and jams will be announced in the coming weeks.
The wide-ranging clinics for bassists of all styles and skill levels also include the Bass Player LIVE! debuts of Gary Willis and Chuck Rainey, TV’s “Face of Bass” Rickey Minor, prog/metal hero dUg Pinnick, a bass education roundtable led by Steve Bailey, a bass setup panel clinic that includes master luthiers Roger Sadowsky, plus Mike Tobias and more.
The Bass Player LIVE! schedule of daytime clinics is as follows (subject to change):
Saturday, November 8
10:30-11:30 AM
Room A: Rhonda Smith (sponsored by PRS)
Room B: Wojtek Pilichowski
12:30-1:30 PM
Room A: Steve Bailey Education Panel with Alphonso Johnson, Jerry Watts, Norm Stockton, Janek Gwizdala and Roy Vogt
Room B: Oskar Cartaya Latin Bass Roundtable with Carlitos DelPuerto and John Pena
2:30-3:30 PM
Room A: Abraham Laboriel, Bakithi Kumalo and Hutch Hutchinson (sponsored by Kala)
Room B: Legends of New York Bass: Chuck Rainey and Jerry Jemmott
4:30-5:30 PM
Room A: Henrik Linder
Room B: TV Bass Roundtable with Mike Merritt, Jimmy Earl and John B. Williams
5:30-6:30 PM
Room B: Shavo Odadjian (sponsored by Ashdown)
Sunday, November 9
11:00 AM-Noon
Room A: dUg Pinnick
Room B: Bass Set-Up Panel with Roger Sadowsky and Mike Tobias
12:45-1:45 PM
Room A: Rickey Minor
Room B: Rudy Sarzo and Brian Bromberg
2:15-3:15 PM
Room A: Gary Willis (sponsored by Ibanez)
Room B: Multi-String Metal Mash-Up with Jeff Hughell and Nick Schendzielos
4:00-5:00 PM
Room A: Tim Lefebvre
Room B: Nik West
Tickets are on sale now at bassplayerlive2014.eventbrite.com. Single-day and weekend packages for the Bass Player LIVE! clinics and exhibits are available and priced as follows:
• S.I.R. Studios day pass for Saturday OR Sunday – $37.50 plus fees • S.I.R. Studios weekend pass – $52.50 plus fees Note: Each day pass purchase includes a complimentary subscription to Bass Player magazine. All Saturday and weekend passes include access to all award presentations and performances during the special Saturday evening session.
The Bass Player LIVE! clinics and exhibitors will be located at S.I.R. Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood Saturday, November 8, from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 9, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bass players of all ages, levels and styles are invited to attend.
The special Saturday-evening session at S.I.R. runs from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. November 8, featuring performances and award presentations including:
• The presentation of Henrik Linder’s Bass Player Young Gun Award, followed by a trio performance with Henrik, Gary Willis and drummer Kirk Covington
• The presentation of Abraham Laboriel’s Bass Player Lifetime Achievement Award, followed by a performance by Open Hands, with Abraham, keyboardist Greg Mathieson, saxophonist Justo Almario and drummer Bill Maxwell
• An All-Star Jam in Clinic Room B featuring artists from the event
• Additional special performances to be announced
Bass Player LIVE! daytime clinics on Saturday and Sunday include:
• A live clinic interview with super-hot Swedish fuze/pop trio Dirty Loops’ bass sensation Henrik Linder
• A VSOP clinic performance by Abraham Laboriel, Bakitihi Kumalo (Paul Simon) and Hutch Hutchinson (Bonnie Raitt), presented by Kala
• The Bass Player LIVE! clinic debut of iconic fretless bassist, solo artist and Tribal Tech co-founder Gary Willis
• Bass Education, led by Berklee College of Music Bass Department Chairman and renowned solo artist Steve Bailey, and featuring BP Lifetime Award Recipient and Cal Arts bass instructor Alphonso Johnson, LAMA Bass Dept. Chair and low-end specialist Jerry Watts, Nashville session bassist and Belmont University instructor Roy Vogt, and noted web teachers Janek Gwizdala (solo artist, Mike Stern) and Norm Stockton (solo artist, Bobby Kimball)
• TV Bass Roundtable with Mike Merritt of Conan, Jimmy Earl of Jimmy Kimmel Live and John B. Williams of Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show band and the Arsenio Hall Show’s Posse
• A clinic performance and discussion with TV’s “Face of Bass,” award-winning producer and American Idol and Tonight Show with Jay Leno bandleader Rickey Minor
• A solo clinic by master rock bassist/vocalist dUg Pinnick of King’s X and Pinnick/Gales/Pridgen
• Legends of New York Bass: A historic clinic featuring past BP Lifetime Achievement Award Winners Chuck Rainey and Jerry Jemmott, who collectively have played on seminal Gotham recordings by Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, B.B. King, Roberta Flack, the Rascals and more
• Latin Bass Roundtable clinic led by Oskar Cartaya (Spyro Gyra, Herb Alpert, J-Lo), with Carlitos Del Puerto (Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Chick Corea), Jon Pena (Larry Cartlon, Tania Maria, Steve Vai) and others
• A multi-string metal mashup clinic featuring Jeff Hughell (Six Feet Under, Reciprocal) and Nick Schendzielos (Cephalic Carnage, Job for a Cowboy)
• Our annual International Bassist clinic with Wojtek Pilichowski (Polish solo artist and vituoso web sensation)
Also slated to appear are: Lee Sklar (BP Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, session legend, Phil Collins), Brian Bromberg (solo artist, Bass on the Broadband), Hadrien Feraud (Chick Corea, Zawinul Legacy Band, John McLaughlin), “Ready” Freddie Washington (session legend, Steely Dan), Tal Wilkenfeld (2014 BP Young Gun recipient, solo artist, Jeff Beck), Sean Hurley (L.A. session star, John Mayer), Bob Glaub (session legend, Jackson Browne), Miles Mosley (solo artist, Chris Cornell), Nik West (solo artist, Dave Stewart), Bobby Vega (Sly & the Family Stone, Mickey Hart), Robert “Bubby” Lewis (solo artist, Lupe Fisaco, Snoop Dog) and Phil Chen (Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck)
Among the participating manufacturers at Bass Player LIVE! 2014 are Warwick, Aguilar, Sadowsky Guitars, Tech 21, Kala, Ashdown, D’Addario, Ampeg, Paul Reed Smith, Dunlop, Eden, GHS, Ibanez, Lakin Basses, N.S Design, Spector, TC Electronic, EBS, Carvin, and Mayones Basses.
Previous Bass Player LIVE! honorees and attendees include Chris Squire, Larry Graham, Geezer Butler, Verdine White, Bootsy Collins, Jack Casady, Aston “Family Man” Barrett, Charlie Haden, Rocco Prestia, Mike Watt, Billy Sheehan, Victor Wooten, Robert Trujillo, Marcus Miller, Lee Rocker, Darryl Jones, Don Was, Tal Wilkenfeld, Nathan East, and more.
Visit bassplayerlive.com for the latest information on tickets and participating artists and manufacturers.
A new trailer for Queen's upcoming album, Queen Forever features previews of three previously unreleased songs from the compilation.
It also includes an interview with Freddie Mercury, who discusses "There Must Be More To Life Than This," a previously unreleased duet that Queen recorded with Michael Jackson.
"When I was spending some time in LA with friends, Michael said, 'Why don’t we try something?'" Mercury said. "One day it will probably be finished." Correct!
The trailer, which you can see below, also includes clips of "Let Me In Your Heart Again," which Queen guitarist Brian May wrote for 1984's The Works, plus a full-band version of "Love Kills," which Mercury recorded for the 1984 soundtrack to Metropolis, a 1927 silent science-fiction film.
“Somebody called me the granddaddy of prog-rock,” Steve Howe says with a laugh.
“I’m not ashamed to be called that. But the thing that matters most to me is musicality. I don’t think prog is all about technical playing. Much more important are your musical ideas. What choices and decisions are you making in the music? If that’s still an intelligent force within the music, then I like being considered a part of prog.”
More than just a part of progressive rock, Howe is one of the music’s great originators.
From the moment he joined Yes in 1970, he staked out a bold and vast territorial range for the guitar in a musical form often dominated by keyboard virtuosos like Keith Emerson and his former Yes bandmate Rick Wakeman. What those guys needed banks of pianos, organs and synthesizers to achieve Howe could often attain with just six strings and a boundless imagination.
His contribution, moreover, transcends prog-rock or any single musical genre. Steve Howe is one of the most distinctive and original guitarists in all of rock, a brilliant musical colorist whose evocative volume pedal swells and echoey textures possess all the subtle and complex expressiveness of the human voice itself. Howe’s palette has always been incredibly broad, drafting everything from classical and flamenco fire to psychedelic expansiveness to jazzy archtop electric abstraction into the rock guitar vocabulary.
At age 67, he’s still in top form, as can be clearly heard on the brand new Yes album, Heaven & Earth. On the disc, Howe is joined by longtime Yes members bassist Chris Squire, drummer Alan White and keyboardist Geoff Downs, who has been an on-and-off Yes-man since 1980.
On vocals is the group’s newest member, Jon Davison, who joined in 2012 and does a superb job of channeling the dulcet melodicism of original Yes vocalist Jon Anderson. Davison even shares Anderson’s spiritual perspective on lyric writing and fondness of Indian guru Paramahansa Yogananda.
While some tracks on Heaven & Earth evoke the prog symphonic majesty of Yes’ Seventies heyday, others skew in a lighter pop direction more in keeping with radio-friendly Eighties Yes recordings, such as their 90125 album. But in working with legendary producer Roy Thomas Baker (Queen, the Cars, Smashing Pumpkins), on Heaven & Earth, Howe had one supreme mandate.
“I told Roy, ‘It’s gotta be Yes.’ ”
The prominent presence of Howe’s guitar work on the album is a sterling guarantee that the disc does indeed sound like Yes. Howe’s inventive melody lines and otherworldly textures are woven deep into the polychromatic musical fabric. Never an overtly flash player, Howe will nonetheless sometimes conclude a tuneful guitar passage with a brief burst of sheer incandescent brilliance. The effortlessness with which he executes these dazzling little interludes offers understated testimony to his mastery of his instrument.
“I don’t think guitarists should concentrate on being guitarists,” he says. “They should concentrate on being musicians. Being a guitarist can be a dangerous thing if you just want to race off and steal the show all the time on bended knees with your tiddly tiddly tiddly. I think that’s pretty dead in the water. I daresay most people agree.”
Once famed for bringing a vast arsenal of guitars with him onstage and in the studio, Howe has taken a more streamlined approach in recent years. His rig is based largely around his Line 6 Variax guitar and Line 6 HD500/Bogner DT50 digital modeling amp and pedal board, which allow him to cover a wide range of traditional guitar and amp tones.
“I think the Variax is one of the most overlooked instruments in the guitar universe,” he says. “The first time I saw it, I knew it was made for me. I like affordable guitars that can make lots of sounds and textures. I’ve got to tell you, the Strat, ’58 Les Paul and [Gibson] ES-175 models, in particular, are sensational on the Variax. Okay, it doesn’t feel like a Les Paul. But when you plug it in and it sounds like one, what’s the problem?”
Howe does augment this digital setup with several “real” guitars in his live rig, however, all of which made it into the studio for the Heaven & Earth sessions. These include his mid-Eighties red Fender Stratocaster; a 1955 Fender Telecaster which he has modified with a humbucker in the neck position, six-saddle bridge and Gibson-style toggle switch; a Martin MC-38 Steve Howe signature model acoustic; a Fender dual-neck steel guitar; and a Gibson Steve Howe signature model ES-175 electric archtop.
“That one is actually Number One—the first-ever Steve Howe production model 175,” he says. “And I added a third pickup to it, because at the time I was using it cover the sound of the [Gibson] ES-5 Switchmaster that I used on Yes’ Fragile album.”
This signature model 175 is based on Howe’s 1964 ES-175D, his first serious electric guitar, purchased new when he was just 17 and an instrument with which he has been closely associated ever since. These days he uses the guitar only in the U.K. where he lives, “because the airlines have been such an effing pain in the butt over the years,” he says. “But I have actually got a ’63 175 as well, which a friend of mine in Fort Wayne [Indiana] found for me. That was there with me in the studio as well.”
Another key instrument for Howe onstage and in the studio is his guitarra portuguesa, or Portuguese guitar. Heard on the track “To Ascend” from Heaven & Earth, it is also featured prominently on classic Yes tracks like “Your Move/All Good People” and “The Preacher The Teacher” and “Wonderous Stories.” Strung in six double-string courses, the instrument is tuned unconventionally by Howe: [low to high] E B E B E Ab.
“That one came from Spain,” he says, “My sister bought it for me when I was a kid. It has a slightly ringy, sitarish kind of sound that I really like. It has become a real identity thing with me.”
To this array of instruments from his live rig, Howe added a few more items during sessions for Heaven & Earth. “The only extra guitar was a Steinberger GMT that I really like,” he says. “And the studio had some really nice Marshall and Vox amps that I used. I also rented a Fender Deluxe that was customized by a good friend of mine, Rick Coberly.”
So while Howe wasn’t exactly lacking for guitars and amps while making the album, the setup was minimal compared with the days of Seventies prog-rock opulence. “Usually I would do a whole setup for an album, which could be anything from 15 to 30 guitars—a bit extravagant,” Howe says, with a laugh. “Plus various amps—things I liked and had tried out. The whole fiddly process. But this time, we really didn’t have time for that. Nobody did in their own departments. Basically, we wanted to streamline the whole process.”
Howe’s relatively compact live rig will also serve him in good stead on the current Yes tour, which will feature live performances by the band of two classic Yes albums, Fragile and Close to the Edge, in their entirety. Released in 1971, Fragile was Yes’ breakthrough record. It featured what for many is the classic Yes lineup: Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman and drummer extraordinaire Bill Bruford. But what really put the album across at the time was its lead track and hit single “Roundabout,” a perfect amalgam of melodic accessibility, driving rock, deft arrangement and superior musicianship.
“We’ve been playing ‘Roundabout’ and ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ from Fragile for years,” Howe says. “But in performing the entire album live, I really wanted to revisit the way we actually did those songs on the record—to capture the understatement, the subtleties and the playing down. Because playing onstage is often—too often for my liking—all about playing up. But I really like the subtleties and less expected moments of tranquility and gentleness. I think people sometimes forget that that’s the key to Yes. There’s no bash and crash about Yes.”
“Roundabout” is one of many classic Yes songs that Howe wrote in collaboration with Jon Anderson. “Jon and I were in a hotel room up in Scotland when we started writing that song,” Howe recalls. “We seemed to find a lot of time to do that in the Seventies. We had a private plane. We got to places. People sat by the pool. And Jon and I were in this hotel room, kind of going, ‘Well, what have you got that’s a bit like this?’ We used to quiz one another like that. We did those exchanges in our music, and lyrically as well. This was the era of cassettes, and I’ve still got all of them—Jon and me fooling around in hotel rooms.
"And with ‘Roundabout,’ we had all these bits of music, tentative moments. I was big on intros back then, and the classical guitar intro I came up with for ‘Roundabout’ was really one of the most signature things. And I believe I thought of the backward piano [also in the intro], but I won’t lay 100 percent claim to that, in case I’m wrong. But basically the song just kept developing. Jon and I presented as much as we had to the band, and the band did a fair amount of input and arrangement. What Yes were brilliant at, even before I joined, was arranging skills.”
Another key feature of Fragile were its solo tracks, written and performed by each of the five band members. Howe’s contribution was “Mood for a Day,” a solo piece he performed on a Conde classical guitar and which toggles neatly between baroque decorum and flamenco passion.
“It was Bill Bruford who thought of the concept of doing individual tracks, not to mention the album title Fragile,” Howe recalls. “But his original idea wasn’t that each guy should do a completely solo track, the way I did mine and Rick Wakeman did his. Bill’s concept was more like he did with his own track, ‘Five Per Cent for Nothing,’ where the group were utilized at his command—like, ‘You play this and you play that.’ I think we could make up our own notes, but we had to play his beats, which was a marvelous way of doing it. I was really excited about doing that live, but other people in the group were like, ‘Are we really gonna do this?’ I think the guitar part is one of the easiest parts in it. But there was a fair amount of struggling with some of the other parts, because they have to mix together. Bill wasn’t the kind of drummer you could just busk along to.”
Howe’s main electric guitar for Fragile was the aforementioned Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster, which he recalls playing through a Dual Showman amp. “In 1969, I toured with Delaney & Bonnie as guitarist for the opening act, P.P. Arnold,” Howe narrates. “On that tour, both Eric Clapton and George Harrison were playing with Delaney & Bonnie, and they both had Dual Showmen. So when I joined Yes a year later, I was hell-bent to buy a Dual Showman. And I did.”
Yes’ 1972 masterpiece, Close to the Edge, was the triumphant follow-up to Fragile. While capitalizing on all the strengths of Fragile, Close to the Edge also took Yes into a new compositional dimension. Occupying all of side one on the original vinyl release, the album’s title track is a tour de force of brilliant, recurring melodic and lyrical themes that overlap in myriad permutations—transposed, superimposed, reharmonized, contrapuctualized and melded into one of progressive rock’s proudest and finest moments. “Close to the Edge” is another outstanding compositional collaboration between Anderson and Howe.
“Jon was more competent than me lyrically,” Howe says. “But I wound up writing lyrics for ‘Close to the Edge,’ and our next album Tales from Topographic Oceans. My stuff was more lateral, more earthbound, as opposed to his skybound stuff. The lyrical phrase ‘Close to the edge, down by the river’ was originally about the River Thames! But Jon converted that into the river of life, which was a wonderful thing.” As with “Roundabout,” Howe and Anderson began by amassing the musical fragments that would eventually go to making up “Close to the Edge.”
“Jon and I put together a lot of the shape of that song. We’d been working live with the Mahavishnu Orchestra at the time, and it might have been Jon who said to me, ‘Why don’t we start this with improvisation? That would be really scary.’ Normally you start off with something you can grasp—an intro or a hook. But we inspired Yes to go into this improvisation. All I had on guitar was that octave jumping two-note phrase you hear on the record. But that was enough to kick off an improvisation. After that it was purely freeform. Although we did have those stops arranged. [i.e., climactic moments that give way to a single a cappella chord in vocal harmony.] I can only look back in amazement that we were able to do some of that. But we did. We didn’t always count everything out. It was almost like we could remember things that were quite complicated. So that intro then spawned the whole idea of a thematic approach—the musical themes that come in and out of the track.
“Jon and I really had a certain magic going on at that time,” Howe continues. “That level of collaboration ended after we wrote ‘Awaken’ [from 1977’s Going for the One], which is another really epic piece. We did some good work after that, like “Bring Me to the Power” on Keys to Ascension 2 [1997], some songs on The Ladder [1999] and a few on Magnification [2001]. But I think that greatest time was ‘Roundabout’ through ‘Awaken.’ ”
Howe’s main electric guitar for Close to the Edge was a Gibson ES-345 stereo model. He is one of the few rock guitarists to fully exploit the atmospheric potential of stereo guitar. Each of the 345’s two pickups would be routed to a separate amp with a separate delay line and volume pedal for each. “A lot of the panning I did live with my feet between the two pickups,” he explains. “I had a volume pedal for each pickup and panned them in opposite ways. When one went down, the other one went up. I had a lot of fun! You can hear it if you listen with headphones.”
The volume pedal has always been a key element to Howe’s guitar approach. He’s used a variety of pedals down through the years, including Fender, Sho-Bud and Ernie Ball units. Since 2006, he’s employed the volume pedal on the Line 6 HD500 pedal board. “As soon as I got an electric guitar I also got a volume pedal,” he says. “And that really started my relationship with phrasing, effects and being able to alter the way a guitar sounds. And of course delays are also very important. The way you can play into a delay with a volume pedal is also a very exciting thing I developed. And then of course the fuzz box, wah and all kinds of guitar processing.”
Close to the Edge was also Bill Bruford’s last album with Yes. He departed the band to join King Crimson not long after Close to the Edge was completed. “I see him as a quintessential Yes member,” Howe says. “And when he ran off from us to join Crimson, that was a really painful experience for me. Because I didn’t want him to go, not one bit. Yet what he proved to me is that a musician always has to follow his music. And I tend to do that. That’s why I left Asia a year or so back. Because I listened to myself and said, ‘I can’t do this now.’ And I’ve done that often in my career when I’ve made decisions. It’s good to remember that, no matter who the paymaster is, or what you’re going to lose, if you don’t follow the direction your music takes you in, then you’ll fall. You’ll lose much more than a few bucks.”
In the years since Yes’ early Seventies classic run, Howe has kept up with old band mates like Bruford and Anderson through projects like Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford and Howe in the late Eighties/early Nineties. He’s currently planning to record a few of Bruford’s compositions on the next release by his side group, the Steve Howe Trio. Meanwhile, he still keeps an ear out for exciting new guitarists.
“I really love Martin Taylor as a jazz guitarist,” he says. “He does everything I love. Wonderful guitarist. Wonderful technique. And yet he isn’t stifled by technique. By the time you’re a virtuoso, you don’t think along the lines of technique. Your technique is solid enough to enable you to do anything you want. Another guitarist I really admire is Flavio Sala, a young guitarist from Italy. He’s just over 30 now.
"And he’s got all the classical repertoire under his belt, which is a huge goal to be at by your 30th birthday. But now he’s looking at music in a more general way, and not shy about it. I met him a few years ago. We recorded a track together, which we haven’t released yet. But whenever I see a guitarist, I can’t help but want to understand more about, Where’s this guy at? What’s his repertoire? With a guy like Flavio I think, That’s a true international guitarist. And I think that’s the goal for all of us as players—to become an international guitarist.”
While not as well known as Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Museum, located in downtown Los Angeles, is a must-see for music fanatics visiting the West Coast.
From last year’s Golden Gods: The History of Heavy Metal to recent shows celebrating the musical legacies of Bob Marley and Ringo Starr, it has been consistently impressive in its scope and range.
The museum has again shown its excellent taste by presenting a tip-of-the-hat to modern blues great Stevie Ray Vaughan. Among the artifacts presented is one of the holiest of all blues guitars, SRV’s “Number One” 1962 Fender Stratocaster.
The museum is also presenting a rare glimpse at Stevie’s 1984 Hamiltone guitar, featured with Vaughan on Guitar World’s November 1985 cover, which you can see below. He regularly used the guitar, a gift from ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, onstage for “Couldn’t Stand the Weather,” “Cold Shot” and others.
Among other items on display are handwritten song lyrics, a collection of SRV’s guitar straps, his Cry Baby and Uni-Vibe pedals, an assortment of stage outfits and his four Grammy awards. The exhibit, Pride & Joy: The Texas Blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan, was guest-curated by Stevie’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, and will run through July 2015 on the Grammy Museum’s fourth floor.
“I’m excited to partner with the Grammy Museum to honor my brother and his music,” Jimmie said. “I know Stevie’s many fans will enjoy this exhibit, as many of his personal, never-before-seen items will be on display. I hope by doing this, it will remind people of the incredible musician he was and all the music and love he gave to the world. I miss him every day.”
For more about the Grammy Museum, visit grammymuseum.org. To help get Vaughan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, vote here.
“It all starts when you get your first guitar for Christmas or your birthday,” John 5 explains. “You never know what that guitar is going to bring you. Is it going to bring you happiness or sadness, fortune or poverty?”
In John’s case, that first guitar, acquired at the tender age of seven, has led to a stellar career as one of recent rock’s most admired and sought-after guitarslingers. He’s enjoyed high-profile stints with everyone from Marilyn Manson to David Lee Roth to k.d. lang to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Since 2005, he’s been guitarist-in-chief for Rob Zombie and is currently working on the score for Zombie’s newest horror flick, 31. In the past decade, the man born John William Lowery has also emerged as a solo artist and all-around virtuoso guitar hero in his own right. He pioneered the now-popular, if unlikely, hybrid of shred guitar and wild country pickin’, and serves it up with his own twisted sense of campy goth panache.
John’s newest solo album, his eighth to date, is called Careful with That Axe and features bassist Matt Bissonette (Joe Satriani, David Lee Roth, Elton John) and drummer Rodger Carter (Lita Ford, Gene Simmons, Glen Campbell). The album is packed with all the speed-demon riffology and feats of fretboard acrobatics that his fans have come to expect. “I wanted to make this record so intense,” he says. “You know, it’s a guitar record. It’s not like anything else. So I just wanted to make it absolutely insane. Really crazy playing.”
The album’s title is a nod to Pink Floyd’s 1968 tour de force psychedelic jam “Careful with that Axe, Eugene.” But given the macabre side of John’s persona, he feels that the name has a special resonance in his case. “An axe is a guitar, obviously,” he says. “But the phrase ‘careful with that axe’ could also be about ax murders, and some of the song titles revolve around ax murders.”
While his over-the-top playing style is always reckless and daring, John has indeed been careful with his ax, steering it from triumph to triumph amid the meltdown vicissitudes of the music business. And he’s especially careful with the axes in his legendary collection of mint-condition vintage Telecasters.
“I’m a Telecaster connoisseur, and I love my Teles,” he says. “I have one from almost every year since the very beginning, in 1950. I’m so obsessed with them. I just really enjoy the history of Fender—the story of Fender and how it all came about. I have a collector’s soul.”
For Careful with That Axe, John mainly stuck with his favorite contemporary Fender, a gold John 5 signature model Tele. “I’ve had that guitar for about six years now, and it’s just worn in beautifully,” he says. “I play it all the time. I didn’t use a lot of other guitars on the album just because we were playing everything live in the studio and just this one guitar gave me pretty much everything I needed.
"I only used one Marshall JVM combo amp with a Boss Super Overdrive, Boss Noise Supressor and Boss Chorus. That’s pretty much what I use live too, when I’m playing with Zombie, and I wanted to have that vibe in the studio. I didn’t use a lot of gear this time because I just wanted to do everything with my hands. I went into this kind of like a boxer. I trained and trained, and I rehearsed quite a bit with Rodger and Matt. I think they both did a phenomenal job with this, just sounding out of control at times, but then pulling back on the songs that called for that.”
The album reflects on John’s formative years as a guitar monster in training, starting with the opening track, “We Need to Have a Talk About John.” A chaotic collage of wild sounds and spoken-voice snippets, it sets the mood for what’s to come. “When my parents gave me that first guitar, I became totally obsessed,” John says. “I would stay in my room all the time with it, and my parents were concerned. That’s why the track is called ‘We Need to Have a Talk About John.’ It’s just this weird intro—all this crazy stuff. That’s kind of what was going on in my mind at that time.”
Other tracks pay homage to some of John’s earliest musical influences. The frenzied first single, “This Is My Rifle,” he says, “is a kind of tribute to Al Di Meola. And there are two covers of songs by [country guitarist/singer/songwriter] Jerry Reed—‘Jerry’s Breakdown’ and ‘Jiffy Jam’—’cause my dad used to listen to Jerry Reed a lot, and that’s what I heard growing up. And the song ‘El ‘Cucuy,’ which means ‘The Boogieman,’ is a tribute to Spanish flamenco guitar, which I really love.”
For “El Cucuy,” John played a Martin nylon-string and a D-45 steel-string, while for the two Jerry Reed tunes, he busted out one of the rarest items from his vintage Tele collection: his 1950 Broadcaster.
“For those songs, I wanted that traditional sound of the old Fifties and Sixties type of playing,” he says. “And of my vintage Teles, I would have to say this Broadcaster is my favorite. It’s got a small neck and I’ve got small hands. It’s just a great player. Fender only made about 150 of these guitars. Leo Fender loved TV and radio, so he named the guitar the Broadcaster. But Gretsch already made a drum set named the Broadkaster, so they sued Fender and Fender had to stop making Broadcasters immediately. So they’re very rare. The one I have is all original, and it’s in perfect condition. It’s the cleanest Broadcaster I’ve ever seen. I got this from Norm’s Rare Guitars, and even they said it’s the cleanest Broadcaster they’ve ever seen. It was the priciest of any of my guitars. I paid about $135,000 for it, but it’s worth it.”
John’s vintage guitar collection is lodged in massive wooden storage crates inside a warehouse at a top-secret location. “The crates are kept off the ground in case of, God forbid, a flood or an earthquake,” John explains. “Because they’re all really expensive guitars. The best of the best of the best. I have tons of Telecasters but also about 50 Les Pauls, six or seven SGs and a bunch of Gretsches. I have pretty much everything, and I keep it all in this storage place. I’ll break one out every once in a while and play it.”
Always a collecting maniac, John had previously amassed a horde of Kiss posters that he sold for $75,000 a few years back. He used that money to start his vintage guitar collection. Asked to name his top five Fender faves from the collection, apart from the 1950 Broadcaster, he’s quick to cite his 1961 Telecaster Custom with a rare sienna sunburst finish. The instrument is so pristine, it still has the original hangtag dangling from the headstock.
“This is another one I got from Norm’s Rare Guitars,” he says. “This guitar had just one previous owner, who purchased it from Ernie Ball’s music store on Ventura Boulevard in 1961 for $200. [The shop, at 19501 Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana, was the first music store in America to sell guitars exclusively.] The guitar came with the original purchase sheet. It’s just a beautiful piece of wood. Fender only did the sienna sunburst—with the red sides rather than the dark, almost black sides—until about 1962. So it’s rare to get one of these. It’s one of my most prized possessions.”
Next up on John’s Top Tele list is a 1959 Telecaster in absolutely mint condition that he tracked down at Dave’s Guitar Shop in Wisconsin while passing through the state on tour. “I hunt all the time,” he says. “I do love the hunt. Sometimes I find a great deal. Sometimes I find a guitar that’s not such a great deal. But you gotta do what you gotta do, ’cause you’ll never find it again.”
Like most lovers of early Telecasters, John has a special fondness for “blackguard” Telecasters/Broadcasters and Esquires—those produced between 1950 and 1954, which are recognizable by their black pickguards. His 1954 blackguard Telecaster boasts a particularly vivid and gorgeous blond finish. “The reason why the color is so light is that the guitar has not been out of the case so much,” he says. “So it’s kept its original color really well. They’re usually darker in color ’cause they’ve been out in the light. But this one is really bright.”
Then there’s John’s 1952 Esquire. The Telecaster’s single-pickup cousin, the Esquire was actually Fender’s first foray into the solidbody Spanish guitar market, preceding the Broadcaster by a few months in 1950. Like everything in his astounding collection, John’s 1952 Esquire is in frighteningly mint condition.
“I got a really good deal on this one,” he says, beaming. “I paid around $30,000 for it, but it’s worth a lot more today, especially in this condition.”
Not at all hung-up on the past, John also has a penchant for designing brand-new custom Teles based on bizarre concepts. These include such curios as his famed Lava Lamp Tele. Its clear, hollow acrylic body is filled with green antifreeze, which produces trippy visual effects. He calls his latest creation Tele-Vision.
“I had this Fender Esquire body laying around,” he explains. “I routed it out and put an iPad Mini in it. So when I’m playing this guitar onstage, I’ll have a movie playing on it. I just thought it made a lot of sense, since the Broadcaster and Telecaster were named for TV, and everything is so visual these days. Everybody’s watching downloads of TV shows, videos and movies. I think Leo Fender would be proud of this guitar.”
Slipknot have premiered a crushing new song, “Custer,” off their highly anticipated fifth album, .5: The Gray Chapter, which is due for release October 21 in the U.S.
The song follows the lead single “The Devil in I,” which was the second track released from the record. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.
“The future of Slipknot is always in doubt,” says Slipknot guitarist Jim Root in the all-new December 2014 issue of Guitar World. “I always prepare for each album as if it’s gonna be the last.”
It’s a minor miracle that Slipknot have lasted as long as they have. They have nine members in their lineup, each of whom lives up to the band’s aggro metal image in one way or another, and thereby contributes to the potential for volatility.
Yet, they have endured since the group formed in Des Moines, Iowa, 19 years ago, becoming one of the heaviest and scariest bands in a genre crowded with heavy, scary acts. Some 13 years have elapsed since the band’s self-titled 2001 debut album placed them at the forefront of the then-burgeoning nu-metal scene.
“With all the different guys in the band and all the different ideas of what’s what, it’s hard to get everybody on the same page sometimes,” Root says. “We are a very tight brotherhood, but we never know what we’re going to do.”
For an extended excerpt of our interview with Root and Mick Thomson, head here.
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