Here is an interview I did with Steve Stevens right after the release of his last album, Memory Crash in 2008. While this has been on my Popjunkie site for some time, I wanted to share it here.
Steve Stevens: Inside the
“Theater of the Mind”
Steve Stevens is the rare
guitarist, and even more rare rock
guitarist, who can display more versatility in his day job than most will in
their entire career! And that’s not
counting the dozens of outside projects in which he has been involved in. Don’t let the still-wild hair or black nail
polish fool you; Steve Stevens is anything but a one-trick pony.
Stevens is, of course, world
renown for his work as guitarist and co-writer for Billy Idol. In Stevens, Idol found his musical soul mate;
one who could not only rock but rock with taste, flash and more importantly, originality. The duo, which produced a stream of hits during
the 80’s, is still going strong as 2005’s Devil’s
Playground easily attests.
Instead of using his status to
garner a few high profile and higher paying gigs, Stevens chose projects to
reflect different sides of his musical personality from the fiery fretwork he
displayed with Robert Palmer, Michael Jackson and the Thompson Twins (check out
his six-string anarchy on Roll Over,
or the ‘better than it should be’ cover of The Beatles Revolution) to his “we’re not worthy!” performance on 1986’s,
Grammy-winning “Top Gun Anthem”.
He formed Steve Stevens’ Atomic
Playboys and released their first (and only) album in 1989 which, while not a
chart-toping hit, further cemented his status as one of rock’s flashiest and
most versatile axe-slingers. With Billy Idol, he had tremendous creative
freedom but, ultimately, was bound to serve the song at all costs. Here, his guitar was allowed to roam over
whatever sonic terrain it felt like. The
album had it all: funk, soul and Middle Eastern acoustic flourishes all
intertwined with sheets of pounding hard rock.
And if he felt like taking a one minute and 45 second guitar solo, as he
does on the hellacious title cut, so be it!
Just when global sales of Aqua
Net could get no higher, the 90’s came. Guitar
solos, spandex and long hair were out and many of the 80’s guitar heroes either
went into seclusion or were forced to cut their hair and grew goatees as an
attempt to stay relevant. Stevens did
neither. Instead, he joined the Vince
Neil Band for a one album stint. While
the album may have been a creative misstep, it did feature boatloads of his
scorching lead work and gargantuan guitar tones. Even then, his acoustic flamenco playing was
being flaunted in the most unexpected of places. Stevens soon rebounded by rejoining Idol to
record the thoroughly rockin’ theme song to Keanu Reeves 1994’s hit film Speed.
Stevens’s next project was the
perfect showcase for both his prog-rock sensibilities and flamenco playing:
Bozzio Levin Stevens. The trio, which
featured innovative bassist Tony Levin and drum legend Terry Bozzio, allowed
for plenty of musical interplay within their lengthy, abstract
improvisations. Here, Stevens playing
was completely ‘in the moment’ without the limitations of pop song
structure. After two albums with BLS,
Stevens love for Flamenco guitar came to the forefront with the masterful, Flamenco A Go Go.
The all-acoustic affair was the
work of an artist who after 20 years in the industry could still dazzle with
his musical restlessness. Leaving his
day-glow painted Les Pauls at home, Stevens was every bit as impressive
wielding nothing more than his nylon-strung flamenco guitar. Perhaps the most illuminating aspect of Flamenco A Go Go is how it not only
displays the growth and sophistication in Stevens’ compositional sense but how
strong those talents had been all along!
All of this leads us to the
recently released, and very electric, new album, Memory Crash. Recorded
mostly at his home studio, The Purple Room, Memory
Crash is a Steve Stevens tour de force featuring the hard rock riffs,
impassioned acoustic playing, fascinating tones and yes, even those ray gun
sounds that we’ve come to expect from Stevens. But that’s not too say that you’ve heard it
all before, there are still a few tricks up his black leather sleeve!
Popjunkie recently entered
Steve Stevens’ “theater of the mind” to talk about his new album, the future
and of course, guitars.
Let’s
talk about the genesis of this record. Instrumental guitar albums are such a
niche thing nowadays: what inspired this album?
I’ve really avoided doing an instrumental
electric guitar record my whole career; although I did my Flamenco A Go Go record. What
really changed my mind was when we went out on the road after the last Billy
Idol record and did a stint on the Warped Tour. That convinced me that there’s a new
generation of kids who are really into guitars.
And that wasn’t the case through the 90’s you know? It was almost like being a virtuoso guitarist
was more like a hindrance than a help (laughs)! So, I thought the time was right. That combined with seeing kids as young as 14
years old on You Tube playing my Top Gun
Anthem, I thought there was an audience out there. I thought, “I might as well show ‘em what I
can do!” So, that’s what gave me the
confidence to do my own instrumental record.
Did
you have anything that you set out to achieve with this album?
I think that my record is
different from other guitar instrumental records that may be focused more on
the ‘shred thing.’ Mine I think focuses
more on imagination and composition and it just so happens that the guitar is
the instrument I express myself on. You know
the stuff that I grew up listening to and the guitarists that I dug so much
when I was like 13/14, were all the English prog-players like Steve Howe and
Robert Fripp. I wanted to keep the
spirit of that style of guitar playing alive on this record.
A
lot of times, when people have a home studio they tend to make everything sound
perfect but with Memory Crash, the music feels alive; it’s raw and energized and doesn’t feel overdone.
I think that’s largely due to
using a lot of vintage guitar amps and old-style recording techniques. I use Pro Tools but I don’t like records that
sound like they’re what we call, “in the box”, which is that whole, ‘everything’s
done within Pro Tools’ sound. I recorded
all my guitars and stuff with tube pre amps and ribbons mics. We mixed the record on an analog console as well;
we didn’t mix it in Pro Tools so it kept the warmth and the character.
You
did a large majority of the record by yourself.
The other main musician on the
record is (Billy Idol drummer) Brian Tichy and he’s kind of coming from the
same school as me. His favorite drummers
are all those 70’s guys, John Bonham and so on, and that helped to keep the
record “human”.
Did
you track the album with live drums or were they added later?
I don’t have the capability to
record drums at my studio so the album was actually completed with me using a
drum program called BFD. I programmed
all the drums, tracked my guitar to the programmed drums and then brought all
of my tracks over to Black Sound Studio in Pasadena and replaced all the
electronic drums with Brian. In a couple
of cases, my guitars didn’t fit with the live drums so we re-recorded them.
For Josephine
has a very cool odd-time breakdown in it.
Very Prog.
Yeah, that’s my homage to Steve
Howe of Yes! Someone recently told me it
sounded like something off of Relayer
which I took as a compliment! I figured
I’d put that at the end of the record and that’s my little thank you to Steve
Howe.
Is
that your vocal on the song For Josephine?
Yeah, it is yeah.
That’s
the first one since “Woman Of 1,000 Years” on the Atomic Playboys!
(Laughs) Yeah, right! You know, I’m not a singer but it’s written
for my fiancé and I couldn’t imagine anyone else singing that song, so it is
what it is (laughs)!
Are
you using a pick or fingers for the fast acoustic passages on Small Arms Fire & Prime Mover?
That’s with a pick. I have a nylon-string, flamenco guitar that’s
made by Pedro de Miguel. I got that
guitar because I was listening to Gerardo Nunez who’s an unbelievable flamenco player and I found out what guitar he used. He’s got the best recorded flamenco tone of
all! I eventually just got the same
guitar!
There
is a large variety of textures in your guitar parts.
Yeah, I love putting ear candy
in my music. I listen to music a lot
with headphones, my nightly ritual is falling asleep to playlists that I make
on my iPod! And records like, Close To The Edge by Yes or Selling England By The Pound by Genesis,
all have such cool little ear candy for you, “theater of the mind” kind of
stuff. I guess I’ve just been brought up
on that music, it’s in my blood.
What
kind of effect were you using to get that Uni Vibe tone?
The Uni Vibe I use is made by
KR, and Kevin, who owns that company, has become a buddy of mine; we’re
internet pals, and he and I would send each other vintage Hendrix footage. An example would be Cherry Vanilla on this
record. I was really going for the later,
Roomful of Mirrors-era Hendrix and even
the stuff he did after Electric Ladyland,
like War Heroes. So, I’d kind of tell him a sound and he’d
whip something up and send it off to me (laughs) and I did that with a number
of companies that I work with.
We
have a mutual acquaintance in John Suhr – did you use his new Badger amp on
this record at all?
I sure did yeah; the Badger is
on a lot of this record. All of the
Strat-style playing is a Suhr white Strat that was actually built for Scott
Henderson. I called John and said, “I
need a Strat, I’m starting this record and I don’t have a good Strat. I’d been out to his shop and he showed me
that noise-canceling technology that he’s got and I fell in love with it
because I’ve always loved the sound of Strats but they always were too buzzy
for me! And he solved that, it doesn’t
alter the sound of the pickups or anything. I think that’s why there’s a Hendrix-y vibe on
this record which I’ve never been known for that simply came about by having a
great instrument.
Was
this guitar used on The Day of the Eagle?
Exactly, same guitar.
So
what’s next for you? Will you going to
tour for this record?
Well, I’m back in the studio
with Billy Idol, we have a greatest hits record coming out that will have 3 or
4 new tracks on it so we’re starting to record those and then we go out on the
road starting in June. Since Brian is in
Billy’s band, hopefully I can squeeze in some solo dates on my off days.
I
always ask this to whom ever I chat with - what is something that you are
finding inspiring right now? It does not
have to be musical either.
I’m inspired by, and I know it
sounds cliché but I’m inspired by life itself really. I’m in a different place in my life, I’ve
finally found my real partner, my fiancé and she’s part of my life and my music. She coordinated the photos for the record,
got me the photographer to do it and all that.
And it’s great to have somebody that understands you; I don’t have to
explain myself. We’re gonna get married
this year and I’m real excited about that. You know, I think I’ve finally… for many years
I was very restless (chuckles) in my personal life; always looking for
something to fill a hole. There’s the
old adage that, “healthy mind, healthy body, healthy creativity” so I’m really
in a great place to make music right now.
Popjunkie must thank Jeremy
Bonaventura and Peter Morticelli at Magna Carta Records for making this
interview happen.
A huge thank you to Steve
Stevens for not only, taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk to us but
for all these years of great guitar sounds!
