Tag: features

Veteran guitarist/songwriter/vocalist/keyboard player/producer Jim Peterik’s career has taken yet another intriguing turn in its long and ever-active history. The Chicago-area musician first sprang to prominence over three decades ago as the vocalist/guitarist for one-hit-wonder combo the Ides of March (“Vehicle”), and went on to further success in the ’80s with the original lineup of Survivor.

Peterik’s also a prolific songwriter; his solo tunes, as well as ones he co-wrote, have been hits for numerous other artists. He also has a commendable vintage guitar collection. The ever-enthusiastic Peterik was interviewed in VG‘s August and September ’92 issues, and since has added more instruments to his collection, wrote and recorded with many noted artists, and departed Survivor.

Peterik is now oriented toward a unique semi-solo effort called World Stage, and was eager to bring us up to date on his labors.

Vintage Guitar: When we first talked with you in the early ’90s, you were still active with Survivor, and you were busy getting the Ides cranked up again. Turns out you’ve left Survivor, so we need to ask for an update.
Jim Peterik: I left Survivor in July ’96 and The Ides have been active since we re-formed with the original members in 1990. I didn’t do many Ides dates from about ’93 to ’96 because I was busy with Survivor, but when I left Survivor I notched up the Ides of March activity, and that’s when I also started putting the World Stage project together.

I really wanted to get back into lead singing and guitar-playing. In Survivor, I had a different role as the keyboard guy and background singer, which contributed to our sound. And it’s a very valid sound, but I missed being the frontman and the lead singer. I also missed the guitar; I lean a little more toward R&B-type chord changes. With Survivor, we definitely pitched the sound toward the mainstream melodic side of rock.

A song written by you and (Survivor guitarist) Frankie Sullivan, “Across the Miles,” was recorded by Uriah Heep. When did you find out about that effort?
After they’d recorded it. That song has always been one of my favorites, and I’ve always thought it got overlooked. It got a second chance, and it was a heartfelt performance by the singer.

As for this fairly new World Stage project, were you thinking about such a concept before you left Survivor?
No. I really didn’t know what I was going to do and it kind of hatched after I left the band. The Ides are basically like a great hobby; it’s better than a bowling team (laughs)! Not that we don’t take it seriously – we do – we put on a great show, but it’s “recreation” that’s very Midwest-oriented and very Chicago-oriented, and that’s just fine with us.

World Stage may or may not do well, but its concept is very strong. It was almost a type of synchronicity – I was writing with Don Barnes for the new .38 Special record; we did a demo for a song called “Change My Love,” and it had a great vibe. They put it on their Resolution album in a different form. I got that crummy ADAT demo of the song from the studio to see what I could do with it. Around that time Don came back to Chicago to write with me, and I thought it would be cool to do a duet with him.

I’ve written with a lot of great bands with great lead singers, so the next guy I called was Johnny Van Zandt from Lynyrd Skynyrd; I’d been writing with him for the current Lynyrd Skynyrd album, Edge of Forever – I co-wrote the title cut and another song called “Through It All.” Johnny, Robert White Johnson, and I wrote a song called “Can’t Say It Loud Enough,” a very anthemic thing they did for their Van Zandt record, and I asked if I could put it on the World Stage record. So that became the second piece of the puzzle, and it went on from there.

[Styx keyboard player/vocalist] Dennis DeYoung and I go way back, and he did a song with me called “To Miss Somebody;” he was also the executive producer.

Is World Stage a band, or more of a project?
World Stage is kind of a loose aggregation, but I do have a “core” band with a pretty solid lineup – Clef Hayes on bass, Ed Breckensele on drums – he was in a band called the Insiders Christian Cullen on keys, Mike Aquino on one guitar and Joel Hoekestra on another, and me on lead vocals and guitar. We usually add the Ides of March brass to a show. And I need to give credit where due – Mike and Joel are tremendous. You hear a lot of good lead work on the album; I do some of it, but most of it fell to Mike and Joel, not only because they’re great players, but it’s also hard to produce yourself. I would translate a lot of the lines I’d hear in my head, and they executed them flawlessly. They brought a lot of their own ideas to the table, too.

We’ve done some shows, like at the Norris Center in St. Charles, Illinois, and the Holiday Star Plaza in Merrillville, Indiana – Chicago-area venues. Participants have included Kevin Cronin from REO, Don Barnes, Henry Paul from the Outlaws and Blackhawk, and Cathy Richardson, a local singer/songwriter who’s just about to break out. Of course, they’re all on the record, too.

Of all the songs you recorded, which was the most tedious, and why?
(pauses) I guess “To Miss Somebody” was the hardest. The basic track went down really good, and we had so many options with the overdubs. We added more guitars, but it’s still not “heavy” by any means; it’s a fun, melodic tune. It’s way different from the way it started, though.

I bet you won’t tell me which song was the most fun.
(chuckles) Yeah, I will! It had to be “Vehicle” with Buddy Guy. That was a dream come true. I wondering how to reinvent the song for 2000, and I still wanted to use the Ides of March brass. The first version I cut…forgive me…was a salsa version! I had just heard “La Vida Loca.” The salsa version worked, but when I put my vocal on it at the end, it sounded like a bad lounge version of the original. Go into a Holiday Inn, and the band would be playing it like that (laughs).

Then I said to myself, “Y’know, what this really wants to be is an R&B/blues tune.” So I started thinking about a real bump-n-grind groove, and asked my co-producer, Larry Millas, who we could get to sing this with me if we did the blues version. Larry said, “You’ll never get him, but how about Buddy Guy?”

I called his manager, who I’ve known for years but hadn’t talked to in a long time. He told me to send the track over, and Buddy loved it. I was invited to a gig at the Ravinia that Buddy was doing with Susan Tedeschi, and met him for the first time. Two days later, he was at my house to do the recording.

And Buddy came to play! We sat on two Fender tweed amps, warming up for about a half hour, trading licks, and I’m saying to myself, “I don’t believe this – here I am, a kid from Berwyn, trading riffs with Buddy Guy!” It was almost surreal!

The track was already laid down, so we started doing takes. He did three takes, and after the third I told him I thought he’d gotten it. But he said, “No, man, I can do it better!” The fourth take is the one you hear on the record – he nailed it. Then we did the vocals. I like it when you can go back and forth in the same room; the chemistry’s going to be a lot better.

Cathy Richardson was in a play called Love, Janis, about Janis Joplin.
I’ve been working with her since ’91; I discovered her and co-produced her first album. Her father owned a gas station and I used to fill up my car there. One day he said those legendary words, “Y’know, my daughter sings” (chuckles), and I thought “Oh, ****, here we go again…” He handed me a tape, and when I heard it, I flipped! She and I have written songs throughout the ’90s, and in my opinion, she’s on the verge of a big breakthrough. She got some amazing reviews for Love, Janis.

I had a tune ready for the World Stage album called “Diamonds for Stones,” and originally, I had Richard Marx singing the duet with me. He did a great job, but one day he called me and asked “Why am I singing a love duet with you? You need a female.” So I called up Cathy, and she did a great job, too, and everybody agreed that the duet with her was the way to go. She also appears with me on the last song, “From Here to Hereafter.” It’s about the concept of a love that doesn’t die, even if the person dies; it keeps going, into hereafter.
Other people I’ve produced, like Anthony Gomes, are also on the album. Anthony’s album, Blues in Technicolor, is one of the most recent things I’ve done.

Let’s talk about some of your more recent guitar acquisitions, both utility and for your collection.
I got a great new Gibson ES-135; it looks like an ES-125, but it has a center block, like a 335. Mine is in a sort of Gretsch orange finish, which I think they only made for one year. And I use a great light green Mexican Strat, of all things. They’re making some great guitars down there – I’d put this guitar up with any of the vintage reissues, and I paid next to nothing for it; it’s the best value on the market. I thought I might have to replace the pickups, but the stock ones sound real good.

I picked up a white ’78 Gibson SG doubleneck about a year ago and played it on some dates I did with Brian Wilson. I would switch from the 12-string on songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” to the six-string for songs like “Surfin’ U.S.A.” I did the Letterman show and Farm Aid with him, and some other performances, and we co-wrote two songs, which was a real thrill.

I’ve gotten into Epiphone Rivieras; I bought a ’66 in sunburst and a Cherry Red ’67. I like that cool Frequensator tailpiece on those. To me, it’s a better value than a 335, and it’s rarer. I also bought a ’67 Rickenbacker six-string I used on “Til It Shines,” a song on the new record. You can tell the guitar figure is being played on a Rick – the way the strings fail to resonate (laughs)! It’s almost Jazzmaster-like! I also picked up a [Gibson] Lonnie Mack Flying V awhile back, and a very clean ’56 Les Paul Jr. that had been under somebody’s bed for decades.

I used to change amps often, but now I’ve settled into using a Matchless Brave. It’s 1×12″. No frills, but it sounds great.

And I need to mention the Hamer Korina Explorer I have; it’s serial number 40 out of 100, but I used to own number 32, and traded it away. Unfortunately, we have this disease about owning guitars, and one of the symptoms is that as soon as you trade away or sell a great guitar, you immediately go on a search to find it. I’m sorry that I traded that Hamer away, but the good news is that number 40 is a cooler guitar, so I came out alright.

One unusual public service project for you was the “designated driver” version of, “Vehicle” that was heard on radio stations.
A guy called me from an ad agency representing Budweiser and wanted to know if I’d be willing to sing a new version that went “I’m your vehicle, baby, I’m your designated driver.” There was almost no money in it, but I went to Nashville to do it, because there have been too many people who’ve been victims. I really pitched for the Ides of March to do the track, but because it was a “jingle thing,” they had their own guys lined up, and those musicians did a pretty good job on it.

Was there any thought of using the original song with different vocals? The ad almost sounds like it was done that way.
Yeah, but it didn’t fit the format of one minute or whatever. Jingle guys are a totally different breed.

As I recall, I heard it on a modern rock station, probably sandwiched between Creed and Kid Rock. How does that make you feel?
(chuckles) Hey, whatever helps the cause! That song does not die; you’ll see it and hear it any given year on TV shows. I’ve even seen it performed karaoke-style! There’s something about that song that’s timeless.

I was recently looking at a photo you sent of a very early band of yours called the Shon-Dels; presumably, that’s you on the left with what you termed in your first interview to be a Davoli/Wandre “nightmare” guitar.
It is, and I still have that guitar. That was the first picture ever taken of one of my bands, which actually morphed into the Ides of March, except the drummer, who left because he felt there was too much bass in our sound.

But those are all guitars being held by you and two other guys in the photo…
There’s actually a Danelectro six-string bass in the middle.

Do you agree the Silvertone Twin-Twelve amps in the photo had what might have endearingly been called “the world’s worst reverb?”
The world’s worst everything (laughs)! I had no love for that particular variant of the Silvertone amp. They sounded dull, they had no sparkle to their sound, and the reverb was heinous. We got rid of those soon after that picture was taken.

Do you still think Gibson RDs are butt ugly?
I stand by that. And by the way, Rick Nielsen will never forgive me for predicting the resurgence of the Gibson V2 as a collectible guitar (laughs)!

Looking back at your experiences, including what you’ve done with the all-star effort with World Stage, you continue to have a very nice career, and presumably a nice income, as well as just a songwriter. Why do you feel the need to continue to play, even if it’s in a unique format like World Stage and the regional efforts of the Ides of March?
Because I love the stage. When I went onstage at a talent search in Berwyn, Illinois, at age 11, and sang “Kansas City,” and heard my voice coming through that PA, and heard the applause, I was hooked for good. I’m most comfortable when I’m onstage, and it helps my songwriting tremendously – I don’t know how people manage to write songs in a “laboratory.” I put my songs on the street, to see what the people are digging, and if they’re not digging it, I’ll write a better song. So to me, performing and songwriting go hand in hand.

Well-stated, as are the bulk of Jim Peterik’s songs. He’s a consummate musician, who is continuously attempting to hone his craft after over three decades in the public eye, and he’s still got an appreciation for classic instruments (and his collection confirms such). By the way, among the artists we didn’t discuss appearing on the World Stage album are Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick), Tom Keifer (Cinderella), and Kelly Keaggy (Night Ranger). The notable participants in Peterik’s project avers the respect the Chicago musician has among his peers. Peterik also wanted to be sure the Ides of March horns received their due; the members of that aggregation include Chuck Souman (trumpet), Bob Bergland (sax), John Larsen (trumpet), and Dave Stahlberg (trombone).

Peterik’s onstage arsenal with the Ides of March includes a vintage Telecaster and a vintage Gibson Les Paul.

For up-to-date info on Jim Peterik, go to www.jimpeterik.com

You can receive more great articles like this in our twice-monthly e-mail newsletter, Vintage Guitar Overdrive, FREE from your friends at Vintage Guitar magazine. VG Overdrive also keeps you up-to-date on VG’s exclusive product giveaways! CLICK HERE to receive the FREE Vintage Guitar Overdrive.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s March ’01 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Carl Verheyen is a member of that elite (and shrinking) group of musicians known as “session guitarists.” Super-qualified pickers, they’re the hired guns brought in for the most demanding and important recording dates.

They command triple-scale fees, but work in a pressure cooker where time is money, where skillsets call for expertise in blues, jazz, pop, country, rock, and orchestral situations, where producers and composers presume tone, touch, and technique on tap, and where players are routinely expected to one moment sight-read pages with more black than white, and in next deliver an authentic metal-shred vibe.

For more than 25 years, first-call guitarist Verheyen has made his mark as one of L.A.’s most successful studio players. In that time, he has crossed enumerable musical boundaries and amassed an impressive array of credits. His playing graces albums by everyone from the Bee Gees to Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton to Glenn Frey, Cher to Dave Grusin, and Tiffany to Victor Feldman. Moreover, he is heard on the soundtracks of prominent films including The Milagro Beanfield Wars, The Crow, Moscow on the Hudson, Ratatouille, Blow, and Stand and Deliver, as well as iconic TV shows such as “Laverne and Shirley” and “Cheers.”

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Verheyen does not toil in anonymity. Instead, he has chosen the path less traveled but more rewarded – the one pursued by predecessors like Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Howard Roberts, and Steve Lukather. For more than a decade, Carl has maintained a strong global presence as a solo artist, composer, virtuoso guitar player and bandleader, touring internationally with his own group and as a member of Supertramp, which he joined in 1985.

Despite his heavy client load, Verheyen regularly enters the studio to record his own music. Since 1988, he has released a string of solo albums filled with ear-catching guitar moments and memorable compositions. The latest is Trading 8s, a sonic cavalcade that finds him stretching out on his instrument and sharing the limelight with guitar-wielding colleagues like Joe Bonamassa, Steve Morse, Robben Ford, Albert Lee, Rick Vito, and Scott Henderson.

Poised for a European tour, the indefatigable Verheyen recently sat with VG to discuss vintage guitars, his perspectives on tone, and the new album.

What are some of the highlights of your guitar collection?

My heart and soul is in the Fender Stratocaster. My number one live guitar is a ’61 Strat in Sea Foam Green, made of light swamp ash with a rosewood fretboard. I believe it was repainted at the Fender factory in the pre-CBS days; it has a different patina than my other vintage Strats, which are also checking differently. I have a ’58 Strat with a maple board I bought about 15 years ago. I love that one; it’s a fine rock guitar and weighs 7.3 pounds. Seymour Duncan advised me to buy that one. He said it has the best continuous three-pickup sound he ever heard; the pickups are very even and each is a logical progression in tone. I’m very into that; when I go to the rear pickup, I don’t want it to sound like a different guitar. The middle pickup has to have that glassy tone, and the neck pickup has to have that big, fat, warm, woody tone. I also have a ’65 Strat, pre-CBS L-series; it’s a great rhythm guitar with huge low-end reminiscent of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s tone. I used it a lot on the new record for dirty rhythm and clean picking, and it distorts well, too. I tend to use it in the studio more than the others.

I have a newer Fender Strat I take on the road, and a guitar made by John Suhr with the exact neck of my ’61 Strat, except it’s all maple. It has a set of his noiseless pickups, which give a more modern tone. It’s a great rhythm guitar. I also have a number of offset double-cuts built by Tommy Metz, who has made a new guitar for every European tour I’ve done for the past 10 years, all necks duplicated from my ’58 and ’61 Strats. I keep most of them in Germany to use when I play in Europe.

What made the Strat your main guitar?

I started out playing Gibsons; I had an SG in high school, then a Les Paul, then a 335. I got into the Strat in the late ’70s, when I was playing jazz with Victor Feldman’s band, then with Max Roach a little, and a lot of jazz gigs. I remember driving home from a gig when I heard a Joe Walsh solo on the Eagles’ “Those Shoes.” It was so powerful I had to pull over. After that, I had to reassess rock guitar, because I’d left it in the early Aerosmith days, when I got into jazz – Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, and all those guys. But when I heard that Walsh solo, I said “Man, this is the music of my people” (laughs)!

Then I started learning everything I dug, like Chet Atkins. I learned to play classical guitar, country guitar… everything. In the process, the Strat started to appeal for its tonal colors, like the high-end sparkle, which was a new thing to me.

Then I really got into the Strat’s nuances. I was exploring the sounds of all the different combinations; I change pickups about three times per note (laughs)! I’m all over that. Another thing I do is set up my Strat with a floating vibrato so when I pull up on the bar the G string goes up a minor third, my B goes up a whole step, and my high E goes up a half step. It gives me intervals I can depend on, so I can use the bar for melodies, like Jeff Beck. I balance the tension with the claw angle and springs, and put more tension on the bass strings. I dial it in to find that spot where the spring tension gives me the minor third on the G string, and go from there. I don’t care as much about the intervals on the lower three.

Do you experience any tuning issues?

No, it stays in tune really well, even with fairly fresh strings; I use a .009-.046 set, light top, heavier bottom; Thomastik-Infeld makes a Verheyen set. And I put a little Archer lube in the bridge, the nut, even the string trees.

Is there something inherently special about Strat tone?

In my opinion, guitar players who get saturated distortion tones using single-coil pickups always have more character, a more personal sound, like David Gilmour, Eric Johnson, or Stevie Ray Vaughan. They’ve had to jump through more hoops, try harder, and experiment with effects; they’re generally more the “tone guys,” to my ears. But there are plenty of exceptions – Duane Allman, Van Halen, Eric Clapton in the Cream era – but so many the humbucker players sound exactly the same because they’re hitting the front of their amps with a really big signal, making sort of a square wave. Whereas if you have a single-coil, it’s a weaker signal and you have to do something to it – find the right pedal or something.

And how does your amp play into the sound?

I tend to use amps without a master volume, and crank them. I’ll use an attenuator or a Variac and go for that big power-tube distortion, then add a pedal or two – distortion or gain pedal.

Do you use stock Fender pickups in your Strats?

I use everything. In my old Strats, they’re all stock; I buy them for that. But I’ll use my ’97 Strat for pickup experiments. I’ve tried everything – Lindy Fralins, Seymour Duncans, Joe Bardens, and a bunch of others.

What were you playing just before the Strat?

My ’65 ES-335, for the most part.

Was it a difficult transition?

At first, the Strat was harder to chord when I had to stretch because of the difference in fretboard scale. My first custom guitar was made with a Gibson 24¾” scale by Dale Fortune. It was cool, but didn’t sound like the longer 25½” scale. I like to play a Strat through Vox AC30s, and I really need those harmonics and that sparkle.

In the ’80s, I had a few hotrodded Strats with humbuckers, some stunt guitars with Floyd Rose vibratos built by Norik Renson. I used one on The Crow. But since the mid ’80s it’s mostly been a true Strat. In the late ’80s, I abandoned the rack because my ’61 Strat through a blackface Fender Princeton Reverb sounded better than $60,000 worth of rack gear. It’s that marriage of wood – this guitar and that amp. I broke away from the L.A. studio guys at that point, though I still use some of that stuff for movie scores. There are some orchestrators in town who write parts for me to play along with strings for that sound. Then I’ll use a volume pedal and rackmounted delays for the echo and swelling effects; the rack thing does that very well.

How about other Fender guitars?

I have a 1960 Telecaster Custom – sunburst with the bound body. It has a slab-board neck and is a beautiful-sounding guitar. I don’t use it for country; I like it better for “swampy” things… claw-picking, a la Jerry Reed. That and my Tele Thinline are my two best guitars for the semi-crunch sound with slight distortion – maybe paired with a tweed Fender amp, a THD, or even a Marshall.

The Thinline is a 1970 model that weighs nothing – I love lightweight guitars. It has a rosewood fretboard and is a great jazz guitar when it’s got heavier strings. It’s liberating to play; you can fly on the fingerboard. And I love the feel of that body vibrating against my ribs (laughs)!

Do you have any favorite Gibsons?

I’ve got a ’54 Les Paul goldtop with the wrap-around bridge. That’s a secret-weapon guitar. It has a very powerful neck pickup. I use it for solos a lot because it has a sonic girth and cuts through a wall of guitar sounds. On Slang Justice, I played it on the title track and the cover of “Two Trains Running.”

I also have a sunburst ’72 Les Paul Deluxe I bought because it was so light. Someone replaced the mini-humbuckers and routed the body for [humbuckers], so I installed real PAFs from a ES-175. It’s a great little guitar; I use it all the time.

Speaking of the ES-175, you’ve played semi-hollow guitars for decades, right?

Yes, I still have – and love – my sunburst ’58 175. It’s my main jazz guitar, the one I played in the mid ’70s. A lot of my favorite players used them – Pat Metheny, Joe Pass, and Jim Hall. In the early ’70s I got a ’65 ES-335 with a skinny neck. The original trapeze tail had been converted to a stop-tail early on. But what a tone; I can get that exact Clapton “Crossroads” sound out of it!

One of the guitars on the new album is your Gibson korina Flying V.

It’ a ’92 Heritage reissue – very light, with a big baseball-bat neck. I used it a lot on my Take One Step record, like the solos on “Lighthouse” and “Georgia’s Reel.”

And your cherry SG Standard is very cool…

I bought that – it’s a ’66 – from a friend who removed the stock Vibrola and replaced it with a stop tailpiece. It’s lightweight and has great access to the upper register.

Does it have a specific purpose in your arsenal?

I like it for doubling with a Les Paul, playing both on the bridge pickup. For example, on the title track on Take One Step, I wanted a huge lead sound with two guitars. To beef up the chorus, I used tiny amps with them – a Gibson Falcon with the SG in one channel, the Les Paul in the other channel with a tweed Deluxe.

I think about combinations like that. For example, for chordal things my Tele Thinline with a little distortion sounds great mixed with a Rickenbacker 12-string set perfectly clean. I think layering and orchestrating guitars is what’s happening in guitar records these days. Everybody can shred, but now we want to hear combinations of tones.

What other notable electrics do you have?

I have a ’59 Gretsch 6120 with Filter-Trons. That was the perfect year. According to Brian Setzer (VG, September ’05), the 1958 is braced wrong and the 1960 has the wrong pickups… or something like that. When I looked up the serial number and date, I said “Score!” (Supertramp producer) Jack Douglas got me started on a quest for the Gretsch as an alternate or quirky sound in the studio. It took a long time to find the right one; most didn’t feel right or sound right.

My blond ’67 Rickenbacker 360/12 is the Byrds model, with the rounded body. The Byrds’ guitar sound still jumps out of the radio at me; they inspired me as a kid, so I had to have a Rick 12; mine has a skinny neck, but I can get around pretty well on it. I use it for arpeggio parts, mostly worked out on the bottom four strings.

I also have a ’56 Supro Dual-Tone set up for slide. I use heavy-gauge flatwound strings on it, and play with distortion or clean tone for notes and chords. I use mostly open tunings – A and G, E and D  – that’s about my extent of it. If I have to sight-read music, I’ll keep it in standard tuning.

What about amps?

The blackface Princeton is the ground-zero amp for me – a perfect reference point. I have three – 1965, ’66 and ’67; I keep two in my studio room where I do my practicing, listening, playing and teaching. Those are the amps I use to tweak guitars, adjust pickup heights, and to listen to my hands. The Princetons are true to what God has intended electric guitar to sound like. They’re not hyped; they have the perfect frequency with 17 golden watts and the old Oxford and Jensen speakers. I have used them for playing live and recording.

My ’63 Fender Tremolux is an interesting amp. It sounds great at any volume – you can turn it up to 10 and it sounds like Keith Richards, or you can play it at 3, where it’s nice and clean. I’ve matched it to a blackface Band Master 2×12 cabinet modified so it has an open back; the sound bangs around the room better and it’s more efficient. I love those old Oxford speakers.

I also use a 1963 Gibson Falcon. It’s a little 1×12 amp, the Gibson equivalent of the Fender Deluxe. I contend the reverb sounds better on that amp than a Fender. I use it all the time; it’s a honey tone with the 175. You can get a beautiful jazz tone but when you crank it breaks up well. The more you turn it up, the quieter the reverb. I bought it years ago when I was on the road in Toronto for 70 bucks.

Currently I get my definitive clean sound with either two Vox AC30s or two Fender Twin-Reverbs, in stereo. I have many ways of getting right and left clean tone, but the ’63 Vox and ’64 Twin are my favorite. The Twin gives the great, fat low-mid and bottom-end, not a lot of high-end sparkle, and the Vox gives everything else. I go into the Normal channel of the Twin and the Normal channel, not the Top Boost, of the Vox most of the time; it’s a perfect blend and a nice stereo image. For smaller gigs, I’ll use two blackface Princetons, or I could do it with the Tremolux and a Jim Kelly.

What about the Kelly amp?

I was an early Jim Kelly customer; at one point with Supertramp, I took three out on the road. The Kelly FACS is coming from a Fender direction with four 6V6s, very sweet tube sound. It has two channels, one voiced a little grittier than the other; one is like a clean Fender and the other one has a dirt factor. Jim had an attenuator to control power tubes for power-amp distortion. The Kelly was a big part of my early sound with Strats; I used them a lot in the late ’70s. They were one of the first boutique amps.

What’s your preference for distorted amp sounds?

My go-to Verheyen sound is usually the ’61 Strat with a Marshall plexi head or the Dr Z SRZ-65, and various cabinets. And I use pedals for distortion; these days it’s the Landgraff, the Fuchs, and an Italian box called Il Distasore. I’m using the Dr. Z for my main distortion amp; I have two of them. They have a master volume, but turned all the way up it’s out of the circuit, and that’s the way I use them. The template for me is the ’68 Marshall JMP 50-watt plexi. Turning the amp up to 6 gives me just enough distortion to where using a pedal throws it over the top. So it’s a nice power-chord sound without a pedal and, with it, a perfect lead tone. Most pedals these days are so sophisticated that the guitar volume cleans them up nicely. I also have a 1966 JTM-45 with a script logo; that’s a beautiful blues amp. I like to play it with my Gibson guitars; turn it up to 6 or 7 and you’re dialed for that Blues Breaker tone.

I also have a 1969 100-watt Marshall metalface I modified to go through the power amp only; I take a speaker-out into a Hot Plate, then direct out of the Hot Plate into a cabinet. That’s a dry straight-through sound that can be attenuated. Then I can go from the line-out into a Lexicon PCM-41 at line level. From there I go into the power amp of my modified 100-watt Marshall. With a flick of a little switch I’m into the power amp, and that’s my delay side. So I’ve got wet and dry. If on the next song I don’t need as much wet sound, I just walk over and turn down the Marshall a little bit. I don’t have to mess with delay parameters.

Are there certain guitars that work best with the Marshall?

Any Strat through the 50-watt plexi is amazing, with or without a pedal, though I usually use some distortion pedal. If I want to sound like Hendrix, I’ll use the ’65 Strat and the 100-watt. The Les Paul, 335, and Flying V all sound great out of the JTM-45.

Do you have any notable acoustics?

I like Gibson acoustics. John Fogerty turned me on to them. He said, “Martins are nice and sweet for the bluegrass thing, country sounds, and folk strumming. But Gibsons rock!” And he’s right. So I found a ’59 J-50, and I love it. Then I found a ’51 J-50 that was even better. You can really dig on it, and I love the way it sits in a track. I use the J-50 a lot for strummed parts.

I also have a ’36 Gibson L-00, a Robert-Johnson-style guitar with a little body. When I have a lot of acoustics on a track and they want me to play a melody on top of them, that’s the guitar I use. It has its own character and fills a sonic space the others don’t, and it’s great for slide.

But you have more than just Gibson acoustics?

Yes. I use my ’59 Martin D-18 for country stuff and fingerpicking. My ’75 Guild F-50 feels like an L-5; it has a bound neck and an ebony board. It’s a maple guitar – jumbo beyond jumbo – but it isn’t very loud! It has a softer sound.

I also have a couple of Mark Angus steel-strings, made at the Laguna Beach Guitar Shop. Mark makes my signature acoustic guitar, the CV model. He makes four or five of them a year. It’s modeled after a 1920s/’30s Martin with a slotted headstock; it has a small body with a cutaway. The Mark Angus CV has a sound like nothing else, completely unique. I did a solo acoustic record a few years ago, Solo Guitar Improvisations – Eddie Kramer produced a bit of it – and we tried 14 guitars, all my acoustics, borrowed guitars… you name it. In the end, the winning tone was the Angus CV. It’s killer.

A nylon-string I’ve used on countless recordings, movies scores, and the like is a 1980 Ramirez 1A I got in their Madrid showroom. The ’55 Maccaferri G-40 I have is supposed to look like a Django guitar, and it has the Django quality and a primitive, bluesy vibe. It’s good for slide, as well. My other nylon-strings are hand-made Avalons. The Lowden people make them in Ireland, they’re a little thinner and won’t feed back. They’re fantastic guitars. I also have an Avalon D-32; it’s like a Martin D-28. I use it in the studio a lot; it’s a workhorse.

What’s in your live setup?

The clean side of my live rig uses a couple reverbs; a T-Rex Room-Mate pedal and a rack-mount spring reverb by Robert Stamps, a chorus pedal by TC Electronics, and a Lexicon MPX-100, stereo-in/stereo out, which ties the two clean amps together. The distortion side uses a Dr. Z SRZ-65 slaved through my ’69 100-watt Marshall using a THD Hotplate and a Lexicon PCM-41.

I keep five or six amps in Europe; a Dr. Z, two Fender Twins, two Vibro-Kings, and two THDs. When I travel, I take only a pedalboard. I’ve duplicated my L.A. rig for use over there.

What’s in your pedalboard?

It’s an A/B system running stereo clean, mono dirty. I’ve got three distortion pedals on B – the dirty side – a new Landgraff Perfect Distortion, the Il Distasore, and a Voodoo Labs Pro Octavia. I have one distortion box, a Zen Drive, for A (the clean side) in case I want to dirty it up a bit. I also use a new one, the Fuchs Cream pedal.

I’ve got five pedalboards – one for the studio, one for my live A/B switching rig, a little one, one that has specific strange sounds with vintage pedals – all “wiggle” effects like the old CE-1, Phase 90 and Mutron Bi-Phase – and one for the acoustic.

Are you into vintage effects?

I have a ’68 Fender Vibratone that’s definitely guitar-oriented and works different than a Leslie. You don’t mic the front; you mic the sides and the top – that’s where the sound comes out. Once we figured that out, it was a usable tool – a secret weapon, perfect for an alternate sound.

I also have a couple old Fender Reverb units – a ’63 and a ’64. I’m a reverb fanatic, and I initially used them in my live rig, but now I pull them out only for surf parts when they want the real thing.

What’s the story behind the new record.

Well, I wrote a handful of tunes, then thought about guests to play on it. For the country-oriented tune “Country Girl” I picked Albert Lee, and for the slow blues “New Year’s Day” I picked Robben Ford. I thought maybe I’d get Steve Morse for the ballad “On Our Way” with his real lyrical side; I got the lyrical side and the burning side, too. Joe Bonamassa played on the instrumental “Highway 27.” I ran into Rick Vito at my clinic in California Vintage Guitar; I’ve always been a fan of his, so I got him to play slide on “Higher Ground,” which has an extended ending. He played brilliantly. And then I have a version of “Taxman” I’ve done live for the last five or six years; Scott Henderson is on that track. We traded eights, and Joe Bonamassa and I also traded eights. That’s where the title came from. Albert and I traded fours and then eights later. Robben and I traded 12-bar blues solos, and Rick and I traded 12s, too.

Was it recorded in L.A.?

Mostly. Steve Morse did it in his studio in Florida, and Rick Vito played his parts in his studio in Maui. The rest of guys and I recorded together. It was really interesting to hear everybody’s sounds and to find out how they produced them, because I’m meticulous about my sound.

I did my guitar parts at Sunset Sound, to my ears the best-sounding guitar recording studio on the planet – you know, Led Zeppelin IV, Van Halen I and II, The Doors, The Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Richard Thompson… I booked it for a week and did my guitar parts there, a tune or two a day. The basics were done at the Firehouse in Pasadena, which gave a real fat, clean drum sound. Then I went to different studios to get the guest tracks.

Do you pursue specific recording strategies for guitar albums?

When I make a record, I orchestrate the guitars on a given track with the intention of determining who’s going to be the “Frank Sinatra.” What I mean is how Frank’s voice cut through the glorious big-band arrangements on those classic Capitol sessions. As glorious as those big bands and orchestras were, Frank’s voice was even more glorious, above it all. If I put a clean stereo Strat out of two AC30s on a track, and maybe a 12-string acoustic in the middle, and then beef it up with one of my Teles with a little crunch – that’s a wall of sound. What will cut through? You can do it mic’ing techniques – distance mics and close mics – or maybe, if I have Fenders for the basics and there’s a lot of highs and upper mids, I’ll use a humbucker guitar like a 335, Flying V, Les Paul, or an SG to cover the center frequencies.

You must’ve experienced some special musical moments making the album…

Sure! When Joe Bonamassa recorded with me in Studio 1 at Sunset Sound, he walked in with his signature Les Paul and said, “Do you have any Marshalls?” I’d had maybe 30 amps delivered and 10 or 15 cabinets – a candy store (laughs)! So I offered him my favorite Marshall – the ’68 50-watt plexi – but he wanted a 100-watt amp. So he played my ’69 Marshall head and cabinet with a Tube Screamer. I used the Strat, the Fuchs pedal and the Dr Z into another cabinet. When I’m going for a specific sound, I don’t always use a pedalboard; I’ll use just a single pedal like a Fuzz Face. So Joe used a pedal and I used a pedal, and we put a baffle between our two 4×12 cabinets and played. I wanted the bleed of my solo in his mics and visa versa. We did four takes and the last was the one – no fixes. We had jammed a bunch of times before, so there was a friendly competition. We were in and out of the studio in an hour and 15 minutes, including selecting amps and getting sounds.

How about the cover of the Beatles’ “Taxman” with Scott Henderson?

I took the basic tracks to Scott’s home studio. He has an interesting strategy; he records dry with some plug-ins so it sounds good while recording, then re-amps it with a tube Echoplex. That way, he has the option of using as much echo as he wants with a fader. Instead of having a delay plug-in, it adds one more analog tube stage.

And what did you use on the track?

I used a lot of things – the Fender Vibratone set clean, Phase 90s, and other stuff. For my solo it was the Strat, Dr Z, and the Landgraff pedal. Scott played his Suhr, a 100-watt Marshall, and an 808 Tube Screamer. Our sounds are completely different; it was great – his has more saturation and heavier gain. And there was a section where he played electric sitar and we traded.

What did you think of Scott’s playing?

He played so brilliantly! He’s got a more reckless spirit than I do, and he played some insane stuff with that wammy-bar Jeff Beck approach. He warned me to stop him when I thought it was good, and I tried, but he wouldn’t stop (laughs)! He always felt he could do it better.

“On Our Way” with Steve Morse is a pretty ballad.

Yes. On that track, I played my ’65 Strat through my favorite clean-amp combination – a ’64 Twin-Reverb and a ’64 AC30 Top Boost, with a little delay.

But the solo sounds very different…

Well, for the solo, I searched for something interesting, and used the korina V through a blackface Princeton – which is unusual for me. I think of those as clean amps, but when pushed with a humbucker, they break up in a unique way. I started the solo clean, then added an Xotic BB Booster halfway through, to give little bump.

Do you know what Steve used?

I don’t, but I’d guess his Music Man guitar and an Engl amp. I asked him to play a solo and maybe a lower harmony part to my choruses.

And how did he do?

He surprised me; I was expecting his clean sound on a ballad, but he came in with the heaviest distorted crunch early in the tune. At first I didn’t know what he was doing, but after a couple of listenings I said, “Genius!”

What did you use on “Constant As The Wind”?

I cut that with my Suhr Classic and an old English Arbiter Fuzz Face with a Marshall for that real saturated sound. The Suhr noiseless pickups are great with a Fuzz Face because they’re so noiseful (laughs)! That old Fuzz Face is a quirky pedal; it sounds good after about an hour. It needs to be plugged in for a while.

And “Higher Ground” has the Rick Vito slide solo…

Yes. Coincidentally, we both use Supro Dual Tone guitars for slide. They’re great for that – big baseball-bat necks setup with a high nut. He used a Supro amp, too, and I played my ’72 Les Paul, somewhat clean.

And on “New Year’s Day” we hear a Strat, correct?

Yes, my ’58. I love the sound it gets with my ’66 JTM-45 and my ’68 plexi – not distorted, but clean, in stereo. It’s a really warm Strat tone, almost like a hollowbody jazz guitar. I also used just a little delay, like the Lexicon MP-100, to image. I like darker analog delay sounds with less sizzle for distortion, and a brighter pinging digital sound for clean tone. It adds sparkle to the high-end. “New Year’s Day” is a blues in B minor and I did the solo with my ’61 Strat, a pedal and the Dr Z, my fat Strat tone.

Robben Ford guested on the track.

He played a ’68 ES-335 through his Dumble, no pedal, with just a close mic. Those amps have a Master Volume. I’m not a master-volume guy, so the two sounds are quite different. I took my tracks to a studio near Robben’s place, and what was so cool is how he reacted to my parts – the trading and the hand-off between phrases are so musical. I love his touch and the subtlety of the tail-end of his bends. I play a couple of choruses, he plays a couple, then a vocal verse, then we trade eights on the I-chord at the end.

Did you record it in one take?

He listened once, played one for pacing, then took it from the top – recorded the whole thing, didn’t punch a note. It’s an amazing tribute to his ability to play the blues.

How about the acoustic piece, “Henry’s Farm”?

I expanded that piece for the band at the suggestion of (bassist) Dave Marotta. I orchestrated it for bass and percussion, played the acoustic part, then played a clean Mark-Knopfler-sound Strat part on top of it. It’s one of my favorite things on the album. I decided to write a second part that features Jim Cox, one of my favorite keyboard players. We recorded it at the Firehouse, where they have a great big Bosendorfer grand piano. I asked Jim to be a cross between Keith Jarrett and Bruce Hornsby; I played a Strat and traded guitar/piano with him. He did a bunch of takes and each was better than the last, absolutely brilliant.

It’s a really nice track.

I love it, thanks. And it’s funny, because at first I thought it was going to be filler.

Albert Lee helped on “Country Girl.”

We did that in Studio 3 at Sunset Sound, which is a glorious guitar room with great old analog gear. Albert had just come back from Europe and brought a Music Man 1×12 combo from the ’70s. He likes to play his Music Man Albert Lee model through a rack-mount Korg A-1, which has a very subtle flange effect. That’s his thing. Albert has a B-bender, so he did some neat chordal bends. I used my ’60 Tele Custom with a THD Flexi-50 head, which gives a nasty, growling Tele sound, just slightly overdriven. I did it intentionally, thinking a contrast would be cool because Albert never uses overdrive or distortion, yet I found it hard to make the two sounds work together. At first they sounded too much like they were recorded in different studios, which they were. So we had to re-amp and put them in the same room.

Any interesting memories about the last song, “Eastern Steppes”?

It was written while I was between cues at the Star Trek movie date. I was plugged into some rack gear I have for film scores and hooked up headphones so I could practice. So I wrote it while getting paid for the movie date (laughs)! The next day, I layered it with some backward guitar. I wrote it to give the band somewhere to go live, a real open improvisational area in the set that can be different every night. It can be a shuffle, or it can go into ⁶/8, straight eights, anything…

So what did you take away from the process of making the album?

In retrospect, it was a great learning experience – an opportunity to peer into the methodology of some of my favorite players and watch how they put it together.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2009 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Quiz time, guitarheads. What was the second video played on MTV? If you guessed “You Better Run” by Pat Benatar, you win.

And, since there was no guitarist in the Buggles’ video for the prophetic track “Video Killed the Radio Star” (the first video aired) that makes Benatar’s longtime bandleader/producer/husband Neil Giraldo the first guitarist to appear on MTV!

Giraldo, a Cleveland native born to Sicilian parents, took up guitar at the age of six, and by his early teens was gigging. By his late teens, he’d worked in bands that earned some popularity in the Midwest.

In 1977, he moved to New York and eventually hooked up with Rick Derringer. He toured with Derringer in support of the 1978 album, If I Weren’t So Romantic I’d Shoot You, and played keyboards on 1979’s Guitars and Women. Later that year, Rick Newman, proprietor of the Catch A Rising Star comedy club, offered Giraldo the chance to assemble a band to back a new vocalist he was pitching to major labels.

Being somewhat dissatisfied with his role in Derringer’s group, and relishing the opportunity to write and record his own material, Giraldo jumped at the opportunity. It was a fortuitous decision.

Giraldo and the singer, Benatar, immediately bonded as vocalist and songwriter/bandleader. And although Benatar’s first album, 1979’s In The Heat of The Night, was released amidst an onslaught of “female rocker” records, she would immediately prove herself the frontrunner, and ultimately the endurance champion.

Just a couple months after being paired professionally, Giraldo and Benatar became partners on a personal level. And today, that bond remains as strong as ever. They recently founded their own record label, Belchiasso Records, and this summer will release a new album, titled Go, then tour to support it. And when they’re done with the outing, they’ll take respite in their brand new home in Hawaii.

Vintage Guitar: From your childhood, what do you remember about how music became part of your life?
Neil Giraldo: A couple of things come to mind. One was dime stores like Woolworth and Kresky’s, where I used to buy these 45s that they packaged 10 of for 99 cents. You only knew whose records were on the front and back of the bundles, but you’d take ’em home, and stuck in the middle were records by John Lee Hooker and Albert King and Chuck Berry. I didn’t have any idea who these guys were, and didn’t know anything about their music – I was seven years old – but I remember thinking, “Hey, this is kinda cool!”

And later, my uncle, who was only five years older than I was, introduced me to the Yardbirds, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and all that.

Was your dad anywhere near as hip as your uncle?
No, no. Pop was a Sicilian carpenter – and tone deaf, too! My mother sang really well, so some of that musical stuff comes from her.

My parents wanted me to play an instrument, and when the school said I couldn’t play flute because there were no more positions – and they were kind of rude about it – my mother and I said, “Okay,” and left.

See, my sister played the accordion, and they wanted us to do duets…

So you got a guitar… Did you take lessons?
I took lessons – and hated it! To tell you the truth, I didn’t like playing guitar at all. It was frustrating. I liked playing football with my friends, so I’d be out in yard and mother would call out, “C’mon, you gotta practice!” and I’d growl and go in.

But I just hated it. But there came a point where I started to really love it.

How long did it take?
I don’t know exactly, but my uncle took me to see The Who in about ’67, on their first tour of America, and when I saw that and realized that you could turn an amp up and it’d sound a certain way and all this other stuff went on, I went “Ooo, I’m lovin’ this!” Because my guitar teacher would always tell me, “Don’t turn it up past this, because it won’t sound good,” and I’d say, “Oh, alright.”

He was so misguided…
Yeah, but he was great. He used to fart and burp during the lesson, as he was telling me, “Play it again!”

So did you start playing along with some of that rock and roll?
I did. In ’64 the Beatles did “I Saw Her Standing There,” and I was playing along and digging all these records by Chuck Berry and Bull Moose Jackson, and I didn’t care if my amp was distorting or not. I was just digging it… until my uncle heard it and said, “Oh, that doesn’t sound anything like what they’re doing.” Then either he or my father got me a fuzztone. The next thing ya’ know, I was feeling really good! Actually, turning up the amp was the most important thing. The fuzz was just a thing that let me play “Shapes of Things” by the Yardbirds.

Did learning those rock songs come easy for you?
Yeah, the ear part of it… See, I struggled with the reading part. I mean, I could figure stuff out, but I didn’t enjoy it at all because it was all single-line stuff. But as soon as I quit lessons and my cousin Skeeter pulled out his red Strat and told me about playing by ear, I went great guns.

Did Skeeter mention that just about everything you’ll ever need to play has the D, G, A, and E chords?
No, but I wish he would’ve told me that! But he was cool. He had the red Strat, greaser points, the whole thing going on. It was workin’.

Ah hah! Was it that influence that showed up in the early Pat videos, where you looked fairly “greaser-ish”?
Well, I always was pretty greasy, but my hairstyle in those early videos is more from bad hair products!

What was the first song you could play, beginning to end?
Probably one of the duet songs I played with my sister – “Santa Lucia.” But I could play a bunch of single-line stuff, like “Old Man River,” “Red River Valley…”

How about the first rock song?
I think it was “Saw Her Standing There,” because I remember spinning the record, trying to figure it out.
What was the first solo you learned by playing along with a rock record?
Mmmm… (pauses). Something about “Communication Breakdown” is ringing a bell, or it could’ve been “Shapes of Things.” I was into a lot of the Yardbirds’ stuff…

If your parents wanted you to play guitar, did they start you off with a decent instrument?
It was a Kay, and it was horrible… so hard to play!

What was your first good electric?
I had the Kay for a long time. I didn’t get a bunch of guitars, because we just didn’t spend money like that! But in ’68 we traded it for a Les Paul with the mini-humbuckers. I was 12 or 13 years old, but at that point I was jamming with 18-year-olds – the “big” guys – and my uncle was taking me to concerts. I caught on quick and was playing teen clubs, YMCAs, and crazy places when I was 14… sneaking in through back doors.

Were you mostly playing songs of the day – current stuff, etc.?
Right. Anything that would go over in the clubs and at dances.

And that reminds me… There was a guy on our street – Phil Meglarino – who played a Guild Starfire, and he and his band used to rehearse in his basement, and I’d watch him whenever I heard them playing. He was probably the most inspirational player to me as a kid. Being able to watch him was great. Today, kids have videos and all this stuff to learn how to play. Back then, we didn’t. But I was lucky enough to have Phil.

Talk about you first real band.
There was one called Poison Ivy. It was two guitars. And there was another one called Neil, which was really stupid. But that was my uncle’s idea! And I don’t remember which one was first…

Your uncle was also named Neil?
No, Tim. But he just named the band Neil…

Kind of took the pressure off of him (laughs)…
I don’t know what it was, but it was stupid. But again, I don’t really remember which was first, and I may even be missing another band.

What were these bands about? School dances, other things…
Yeah, except maybe for Poison Ivy, because we were pretty extreme. We’d do crazy stuff, and we did alot of swearing. We lost a lot of gigs that way…

But I was never in a band that did commercial stuff. We always picked the most obscure songs by a certain band. We did Hendrix, but always something obscure. We’d have people staring at us like, “What the hell was that?”

At some point, you must’ve been in bands that were trying to get record deals.
Yep. There was one called Lover’s Lane that was probably the strongest local band I was in. And we used to get teased… I played piano and guitar; I was “Buddy Love” and the singer was “A.J. Lane” and he was totally nuts. We were a good, hard-rockin’ little band.

How long was it around?
A couple years… from when I was 16 to 18 years old. We used to play a couple places with the Dead Boys and Frankenstein, and Rocket From the Grave. And we’d hang with them all the time. They were a punk band, and we were a rock band, but we were really close to punk. The only difference was that we tried to play more. It was less image control, and more trying to play on the edge. People loved us and we packed places, but we never got out of Ohio.

After that, I left and went to California…

…where you got a tip that Edgar Winter was looking for a bass player…
No, it was Dan Hartmann, who was the bass player with Edgar’s band. Dan had a band, and Rick [Derringer] had a band, and they were all in the White Trash band.

At the time, I was playing in a great band, musician-wise, but playing horrible songs. It was on the verge of being a lounge band… sort of a “musician for hire” sort of thing. The idea was for us to make enough money so we could make a record.

I played bass and guitar. Well, one night some guy saw me playing bass and told me that Dan was looking for a bass player. I said, “Well, I’m not a bass player, I’m just kind of doing it for fun.”

He said, “Well, give me your number and let me hook it up for you. It’s in New York.”

He set it up, then asked me if I knew any guitar players, because by then Rick was auditioning.

I said, “Wait! I’m a guitar player. Let me do Rick’s first and then I’ll do Dan’s if that doesn’t work out.” But I never made it to Dan’s…

So you were offered the spot with Derringer…
I think he auditioned something like 300 guitar players, and he made me the guy not because I was a better guitar player than any of those guys, but I could do more things. I could sing background, play keyboards… all those things weighed in.

When Rick called me to tell me I was in, he had me go to his studio and said, “Come on, let’s go play some,” and he handed me his Explorer. That totally freaked me out; here I was, 21 years old and standing there playing Rick Derringer’s Explorer!

How long did it take to make the Guitars and Women record?
Well, we first went on tour behind If I Weren’t So Romantic, I’d Shoot You, and there were keyboards on it, so I played those parts. And I think Rick saw that and then considered me more of a side guy.

So you being relegated primarily to piano had nothing to do with your guitar playing intimidating him?
No, of course not. He was amazing… but he never did give me any kind of good guitar stuff to play on the record!

But his tone is great, and he’s a natural burner… great, great player. He taught me all kinds of stuff.

Did you see yourself in his band long-term?
Well, I did and I didn’t. I did up until the record was about done, with the exception of two songs he did with the Cheap Trick guys. And that was when Rick said to me, “You know, I don’t think you’re needed here. How ’bout a free trip home, and we’ll call you if we’re going to tour?”

I felt kinda bad, thinking, “I was brought here to do this record, now I’m being sent out…” But hey, it was his record and the things he was doing made sense.
So he told me I was leaving the next day, and it just so happened that another offer came along…

That being in the form of producer Mike Chapman, who wanted you to put together a band to back up a singer he was working with…
Mike produced the Guitars and Women record, and he did see that band play live, and saw what was happening. So, when he was called to do the first record for my wife – before there was anything really going – he told them, “You need a musical director, a guy who knows how to arrange; a player – multi-instrumentalist, strong on guitar, and aggressive. Because what you’re doing now isn’t happening.”

And it wasn’t because what they were trying to do with Pat was weird, but that it was basically a lounge act trying to make a rock record.

So I got the call, but only because I was sittin’ in Woodstock, waiting to go home! But I said, “Sure, on my way to New York, I’ll go and meet this girl and see what it’s about.” And I didn’t even have a guitar! I went down thinking, “How am I going to play?” But I borrowed one of the band’s guitars and sat down, saying, “Okay, let me listen to this song. Okay, good. Now let’s figure this out.” And the next thing we knew, we were on our way.

So whose idea was it to convert the band to rock?
Pat wanted to have an aggressive rock band, but she didn’t understand what that was, because she’d never done it. She’d done cabaret and other stuff that was nowhere near rock and roll – though she thought she was doing rock and roll… And when Chapman heard it, he thought it was ridiculous. He said, “Man, the girl sings great, but what the hell is going on here?”

So I jumped in and we carved away. And our styles fed each other – her voice started to change when I started playing, and her singing made me play harder because it was the first time I’d played with a real singer.

It was the perfect place, the perfect situation, because I was leaving a situation where I was just the side guy, the hired hand, and going into a situation where I was going to develop something from the very beginning. It was a band that we put together from scratch.

And everyone gelled pretty quickly?
Oh, yeah. We hit it quick, and away we went.

How did you and Pat write songs? Did Pat do lyrics and you do music and arrangements?
Mostly, yes. I’d write the melodies and stuff, and she’d pop in the words. Plus, Chapman had some cover tunes and some stuff he’d written.

And your being the music director explains why the early music was so guitar-driven…
Well, Crimes of Passion reflected what it was like to be on the road with the songs from the first record, then going straight into the studio with the band.

On the third record, Precious Time, I didn’t want to play as much, but Pat kept saying, “You gotta play more!” She loves it. But I kept saying, “Well, can’t there be piano?”

For example, “Promises in the Dark” was written on piano – it was a piano song… Until we went to rehearsal and I thought, “Maybe it does need a little riff in there or something to glue it together.”

Some of the most memorable leads in rock songs of the era came from those early Pat songs. How did you go about constructing leads?
Well, when we did the Heat of the Night record, me and Pete Coleman, the engineer, were in the studio all the time. And I sat through [mixing] all that vocal stuff. And I knew that Pat’s vocals were really strong, but I thought they could be stronger still.

So after being on the road, by Crimes of Passion, her vocals were even more powerful. So I knew that when we went into an instrumental break, it had better match her vocal. So as soon as she stopped singing, I’d have to carry the song until she came back in. And if I didn’t do it right, it’d sound bad.

So that’s why on some songs, you’ll notice that the last note of her vocal is the first note of the solo.

You did that to great effect. So you were basically just keeping up with the vocals…
Right. We’d put the song together in the studio, and leave, say, 21 measures in the middle for me to fill, and I’d have to do justice to the vocals.

The “Precious Time” solo is a fine example. There are elements there that fans of mainstream rock radio may not have heard otherwise – tapping, pick harmonics, the use of certain effects…
One thing I can’t do is “dweedle” real heavy like a lot of those guys do, like Steve Vai and Rick [Derringer]. And I don’t particularly like to do it myself, so if I do it, I like to use it as a melodic gesture, an element.

“Precious Time” is one of my favorite solos, and the funny thing is that the night before we recorded it, I was out late and drank too much. So I came in all hung over and told them, “Listen, guys. I can only do this a couple times, then I gotta get outta here.”

So I only did, like, three passes, then I put the guitar down and said, “That’s it, I’m outta here.” And I left (laughs)!

I figured I’d have to re-do it another day. Little did I know that I nailed it (laughs)!

Who came up with the concept for the video for that song?
I don’t remember, but it was horrible!

…you had that thing on your head…
Yeah, the “harem scarem” thing! [The video] was supposed to be a Salvador Dali-type of thing when the solo happened. I’d be by an hourglass in the desert and all… but I was supposed to have belly dancers! The whole idea was that belly dancers would be all around me, so it became this mythical desert scene.

So what happened to the belly dancers?
Well, the record company didn’t think it was a good idea…

Has your playing ever drawn comparisons to other players? Especially early in your career?
The closest thing, just from a tone factor and the aggressiveness and the attack factor, was Jeff Beck. Not the notes, and not the bending so much or the beautiful stuff he plays, but just from the mental approach.

Do you think you sound like Beck?
No. But I do think we attack the notes similarly. When he hits notes, you definitely hear the note. It’s not soft. And Jimmie Vaughan has a similar approach. He sounds the same no matter what he plays through, no matter what guitar he’s on. Stevie sounded like Stevie, no matter he did. He had more of that Hendrix solo tone, and he developed his own thing sort of based on Albert King’s playing.

And the same goes for me; my tone is what it is, and my hands play a certain way.

Have you been pretty consistent in regard to amp setup through the years?
Sure. It’s always been Marshall 2×12 combos. Mine were made in ’78, I think, and they were a model that Jim Marshall didn’t like and they were going to stop making. But before they did, I told them I needed about eight of them. So they sent me eight of them – and they laughed!

It’s a master volume amp, but it never really distorts. I used EV speakers in them, and I like to play clean… a little distorted, but with good note definition.

I used those amps on every record except our blues record, True Love, where I was trying for a different thing.

Have you ever collected guitars?
Never. It was about the tools I needed. As we’d travel to different parts of the country, people who had large supplies of guitars would call and ask if I was interested in Strats, for example. And they’d bring eight of them to the gig, and I’d look ’em over and say, “These two are great. I’ll take ’em.”

Next time through, it might be Teles. So I have a total of 80 or 90 guitars. But when I’m recording, I don’t consciously decide that I need a particular sound or tone from a guitar. I’m more likely to grab whatever’s around and make it work for me.

For the most part, you were known as a Strat or BC Rich player. How did that affinity develop?
From my days with Rick. Up to then, I didn’t have any money, and all I had was an SG – which I used when I auditioned for Rick. But as soon as I joined, he said, “You gotta get into this BC Rich thing.” And he called them, and they gave me the brown one that I used on most everything back then. It’s a great guitar, and they made it exactly the way I wanted.

On the first tour with Pat, all I had was a couple of BC Riches. Later, I might take a Strat and a BC Rich or a Tele and a BC Rich. The Riches were always hanging around. They had a special thing to them.

What did you play on the “Heartbreaker” solo, one of the most heard on classic rock radio?
Well (laughs), that was a Strat! And that was a case of just playing what was around.

I do remember that when I did it, Suzie Quattro was in the other studio with some of her people, and they came over to listen to our stuff. I was getting set to do that solo and they asked, “Can we hear it when it’s done?” I said, “You can hear it when I’m doing it if you want to.”

I used a Strat quite a bit on that record. The BC Rich did the rhythm parts, because I played those live with the drums.

I had one ’64 sunburst Strat that had a strange pickup in it. It was a DiMarzio or hand-wound Seymour Duncan. I ran it through the Marshall.

When you play it live, do you keep it pretty true to the record?
Yes, I do it exactly like the record, except at the end, where I bust loose. I think people get used to hearing it a certain way, and I think it makes the song more complete. It’s like a two-note chord by Pete Townshend that you’re just so used to hearing.

You’ve co-produced or produced all of Pat’s records, right?
Yes. On Heat of the Night, I was really more watching Pete Coleman, and he taught me an awful lot. But by Crimes of Passion, I was really thrown to the lions. Keith Olson was co-producer, and he has a tremendous ear, but there were times when I’d have the tape operator punch me in here or there, do the vocal comp, or whatever.

But that album was more like crash-course learning.

As you became more and more the producer, did your guitar parts become less important because your focus changed?
Yeah. I started arranging more material without a guitar in my hands. Like “We Belong,” where I was doing loops, and I got back into keyboards. Kind of mixed it up. Guitar became less important, at times.

And Pat is a good example of singer who had evolved tremendously. As producer, did you push her that way?
I definitely did. Totally. That was my mission. When I knew that [the label wasn’t] going to change the name and call us a band, I thought, “Let’s try to make it as diverse as possible, so every record is a different-sounding thing and we don’t make Crimes of Passion and Precious Time over and over.” It’s about different textures.

Your connection with Keith Olson helped you put your mark on some other notable pop records in the early ’80s. One was Rick Springfield’s Working Class Dog record, with the hit “Jessie’s Girl.” What’d you play on that one?
I played guitar and bass.

Did you play the lead?
Yeah.

Well, Rick sure did a good job of faking it for the video…
Oh, I know (laughs)! He lives near me, and he came by the other day, saying, “Neil, man, I’m sorry! You should’ve done that video.” But I told him, “What are you talkin’ about? I don’t care…” (laughs). He felt bad. But I told him it was cool. I never thought twice about it.

But I approached that recording the same way I did all of ours. We laid down the drums and rhythm guitar together, then I did the bass, and we left a break in the middle. I went back later and figured out what I wanted to do with the solo. And it’s the only number one song that I’ve ever played on.

I also did the guitar/bass parts on his other hit from that album, “I’ve Done Everything For You.”

And then later in the ’80s you hooked up with the Del Lords…
Yeah, they asked me to check them out while I was in New Jersey once. And I liked them. They had a lot of energy. I did two records for them.

And now, me and [Del Lords vocalist/guitarist] Scott Kempner are putting something together.

What’s the status of the new Pat album?
Well, I’m about four songs away, mixing, from being done. And it’s a very guitar-driven record, by the way.

It is?
Yes, I started listening to my wife when she’d tell me to play more! So I strapped on, and there’s some pretty hard-poppin’ stuff on there. I think people will enjoy it. And it’s not so much solo stuff, but really aggressive rhythm stuff.

Then you’ve got a tour to do…
Right, and the record will be done before we go. It started June 12 and goes until September 1.

CATCH UP with Neil in the interview from the September 2012 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s Sep. ’03 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.