Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Updates
Coming soon: Concrete Blonde, Bill Stevenson (Descendents), The Doctor (Frenzal Rhomb), Joey Cape (Me First And The Gimme Gimmes), Subtruck, Serj Tankian (maybe). Probably some more that I have squirreled away on my dictaphone. I'm not gonna post anything that hasn't been released through formal channels yet, so you might be waiting a while.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Nate from Anberlin
How’s the record been received?
It’s been amazing so far, I think across the board it’s been the best response we’ve ever gotten from a new album. You can tell from the last couple of days it’s been out that people have been really digging it and it’s going really well.
In terms of best response you’ve ever had, New Surrender didn’t do too badly so you must be pretty happy with how Dark Is The Way, Light Is The Path is going.
Yeah for sure, I think that with every record we want to progress and we want people to like it more than the last one. New Surrender definitely did well and we knew we needed to follow that up by going to another level with every aspect of the new record.
You’ve said in other interviews that you feel this record is a bit darker, how so?
I think a lot of it had to do with really knowing what we wanted to do with the album, having a clear vision for it. With the last album a lot of things were different, it was the first record on a new label, in a new city with a new producer so I think we really psyched ourselves out and we ended up being not really ourselves. I don’t want to bash that record but it didn’t turn out the way we expected and it wasn’t really what we were going for. So with this record we wanted to write more mature, darker, heavier stuff. Having that vision and knowing what you want to do with a record is pretty important, or it is for us, and we think we got that across.
In that way would you say it’s probably a more honest album?
Oh for sure. I think it’s the most honest album we’ve done and I think it’s the closest album to who we are, as a band, as people. This is the closest we’ve come to sounding like Anberlin and who who we really are. It shows all of our musical tastes and everything we’re into, it shows us in every aspect.
You last Australian tour was for Soundwave in ’09 and that was the sixth time you’ve been over here, what sort of attraction does Australia hold for you?
Well our fanbase in Australia is the best anywhere. If you ask any of us we’d all say that. They’ve accepted us more than any place. We went there when our first album was out and we had an unbelievable response, people were stoked on us and it was just really cool, it’s definitely our favourite place to tour.
In terms of that how has the transition been, going from Tooth And Nail to a major label.
Uhm, it’s been really natural and smooth. A lot of times you hear stories about it being really rough and a stressful thing, but it was smooth and Universal are a great label, they’re really good people and it’s very personal, which we didn’t expect it would be, but yeah it’s really smooth.
In Australia, when a band comes off what is essentially a punk rock/indie label to a major there’s a fan backlash, have you noticed that?
Yeah we have a little bit, but I think you’re going to get that anywhere. Fans kind of make up in their mind how they feel about something, and we had people saying “Oh you guys sold out you went to a major” but that’s not the case at all. What does that even mean, sold out. I think that majors have a bad stigma and people automatically assume there’s someone controlling the band and deciding what they sound like, which is kinda stupid so there were some fans that were bummed on it, but with the new record we’ve showed that we are Amberlin and we write what we want to write and do what we want to do.
The first single is really great, the video is kind of bizarre though, was it fun to film?
Yeah it definitely was, we’ve never done a video like that. Every other video we’ve ever done we’ve been performing in it the whole time, playing our instrument so to throw up bb’s the whole time was kind of awesome.
Did you guys come up with the concept?
Yeah we came up with it along with the guys who shot it, they’ve done our last two videos, so we’re really close with them and we talked it out, decided the feel with them and went from there, just throwing ideas back and forth. We wanted to shoot it in super-high speed slow motion and we had a rough idea of what to do, and kind of went for it.
In your mind what’s the concept behind that?
Uhm, you know what? It’s not as deep as some people might hope (laughs). I could make something up if you want, but the main concept is you don’t really know what’s going on, and just show that the bb’s are what these people are made out of, that’s it. It’s not high art. We’ve had a concept for every other video so we just wanted to go from more of a visual aspect, something that will look cool, and let people decided for themselves what it is. Some people go looking for those super-deep meanings and that’s cool, we want that, but on our end it’s not as deep.
Well you guys have got a history of making stuff up don’t you.
Yeah we definitely do, we make up stuff about our name, about each other all the time, but it’s fun and it makes life interesting.
I shows you’ve got a sense of humour as well, because a lot of bands take themselves too seriously.
Yeah that’s the thing, I mean we take what we do seriously in a lot of ways, but in a lot of way we don’t. What we do is so much fun, and we do what we do because we love it, and if you have an underlining goal and a concept of what your band is about then that should be it, do what you love and have fun, and don’t try and control it too much. I see bands that are so careful, “Oh this is not cool we can’t do this” or whatever, and they’re taking the fun out of it. Just do what you want to do.
Yeah, and a lot of interviews with you tend to focus on the Christian aspect of the band, but it seems to me that they kind of forget about the music, like that Christian aspect is the be all and end all of what you do, but talking to you know that doesn’t come across.
Man, that’s what we’ve always been about. Our music is the most important thing and people love to get caught up that other side. I mean I will sit down and talk with someone if they want to ask me about my personal life, I’m fine with that but when it comes down to it, it is all about the music and how it makes you feel when you listen to it and if you love it or connect with it. People get hung up on so much of that other side like it determines if they’re going to listen to it or give it a shot. Like “ oh they’re this or whatever”, and that attitude is so dumb. Who cares, it doesn’t matter. If you like the music then listen to it, who cares what their personal life is. It definitely gets tiring when people are more caught up with that then they are about a record or anything else.
It’s funny that the people who would consider themselves really open minded are the quickest to block out a band because of their personal beliefs, even if that’s not really represented in the music at all.
Oh man it’s so true and that’s so funny, because people really do that, they’ll claim they’re open minded and then if they find out you’re Christian they will totally shut you out. At the same time though, people are going to brand you however they want, without letting the music decide. It just seems to backwards to me, you know what I mean? It has nothing to do with the music but people are really quick to put the focus on it before they’ve even heard you.
Looking forward to Soundwave this year, after doing it a couple of years ago?
Yeah, it’s one of our favourite tours.
Anyone you’re really stoked to be playing with?
Yeah we’re not sure we’d be able to hang out with them but really looking forward to seeing Queens Of The Stone Age.
Ha, why couldn’t you hang out with them?
Oh dude, they’d probably have security guards, wouldn’t they? I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s cool to be able to hang out backstage with so many bands you look up to, and we’ll see. Maybe we’ll hang out with Slayer, that would work.
It’s been amazing so far, I think across the board it’s been the best response we’ve ever gotten from a new album. You can tell from the last couple of days it’s been out that people have been really digging it and it’s going really well.
In terms of best response you’ve ever had, New Surrender didn’t do too badly so you must be pretty happy with how Dark Is The Way, Light Is The Path is going.
Yeah for sure, I think that with every record we want to progress and we want people to like it more than the last one. New Surrender definitely did well and we knew we needed to follow that up by going to another level with every aspect of the new record.
You’ve said in other interviews that you feel this record is a bit darker, how so?
I think a lot of it had to do with really knowing what we wanted to do with the album, having a clear vision for it. With the last album a lot of things were different, it was the first record on a new label, in a new city with a new producer so I think we really psyched ourselves out and we ended up being not really ourselves. I don’t want to bash that record but it didn’t turn out the way we expected and it wasn’t really what we were going for. So with this record we wanted to write more mature, darker, heavier stuff. Having that vision and knowing what you want to do with a record is pretty important, or it is for us, and we think we got that across.
In that way would you say it’s probably a more honest album?
Oh for sure. I think it’s the most honest album we’ve done and I think it’s the closest album to who we are, as a band, as people. This is the closest we’ve come to sounding like Anberlin and who who we really are. It shows all of our musical tastes and everything we’re into, it shows us in every aspect.
You last Australian tour was for Soundwave in ’09 and that was the sixth time you’ve been over here, what sort of attraction does Australia hold for you?
Well our fanbase in Australia is the best anywhere. If you ask any of us we’d all say that. They’ve accepted us more than any place. We went there when our first album was out and we had an unbelievable response, people were stoked on us and it was just really cool, it’s definitely our favourite place to tour.
In terms of that how has the transition been, going from Tooth And Nail to a major label.
Uhm, it’s been really natural and smooth. A lot of times you hear stories about it being really rough and a stressful thing, but it was smooth and Universal are a great label, they’re really good people and it’s very personal, which we didn’t expect it would be, but yeah it’s really smooth.
In Australia, when a band comes off what is essentially a punk rock/indie label to a major there’s a fan backlash, have you noticed that?
Yeah we have a little bit, but I think you’re going to get that anywhere. Fans kind of make up in their mind how they feel about something, and we had people saying “Oh you guys sold out you went to a major” but that’s not the case at all. What does that even mean, sold out. I think that majors have a bad stigma and people automatically assume there’s someone controlling the band and deciding what they sound like, which is kinda stupid so there were some fans that were bummed on it, but with the new record we’ve showed that we are Amberlin and we write what we want to write and do what we want to do.
The first single is really great, the video is kind of bizarre though, was it fun to film?
Yeah it definitely was, we’ve never done a video like that. Every other video we’ve ever done we’ve been performing in it the whole time, playing our instrument so to throw up bb’s the whole time was kind of awesome.
Did you guys come up with the concept?
Yeah we came up with it along with the guys who shot it, they’ve done our last two videos, so we’re really close with them and we talked it out, decided the feel with them and went from there, just throwing ideas back and forth. We wanted to shoot it in super-high speed slow motion and we had a rough idea of what to do, and kind of went for it.
In your mind what’s the concept behind that?
Uhm, you know what? It’s not as deep as some people might hope (laughs). I could make something up if you want, but the main concept is you don’t really know what’s going on, and just show that the bb’s are what these people are made out of, that’s it. It’s not high art. We’ve had a concept for every other video so we just wanted to go from more of a visual aspect, something that will look cool, and let people decided for themselves what it is. Some people go looking for those super-deep meanings and that’s cool, we want that, but on our end it’s not as deep.
Well you guys have got a history of making stuff up don’t you.
Yeah we definitely do, we make up stuff about our name, about each other all the time, but it’s fun and it makes life interesting.
I shows you’ve got a sense of humour as well, because a lot of bands take themselves too seriously.
Yeah that’s the thing, I mean we take what we do seriously in a lot of ways, but in a lot of way we don’t. What we do is so much fun, and we do what we do because we love it, and if you have an underlining goal and a concept of what your band is about then that should be it, do what you love and have fun, and don’t try and control it too much. I see bands that are so careful, “Oh this is not cool we can’t do this” or whatever, and they’re taking the fun out of it. Just do what you want to do.
Yeah, and a lot of interviews with you tend to focus on the Christian aspect of the band, but it seems to me that they kind of forget about the music, like that Christian aspect is the be all and end all of what you do, but talking to you know that doesn’t come across.
Man, that’s what we’ve always been about. Our music is the most important thing and people love to get caught up that other side. I mean I will sit down and talk with someone if they want to ask me about my personal life, I’m fine with that but when it comes down to it, it is all about the music and how it makes you feel when you listen to it and if you love it or connect with it. People get hung up on so much of that other side like it determines if they’re going to listen to it or give it a shot. Like “ oh they’re this or whatever”, and that attitude is so dumb. Who cares, it doesn’t matter. If you like the music then listen to it, who cares what their personal life is. It definitely gets tiring when people are more caught up with that then they are about a record or anything else.
It’s funny that the people who would consider themselves really open minded are the quickest to block out a band because of their personal beliefs, even if that’s not really represented in the music at all.
Oh man it’s so true and that’s so funny, because people really do that, they’ll claim they’re open minded and then if they find out you’re Christian they will totally shut you out. At the same time though, people are going to brand you however they want, without letting the music decide. It just seems to backwards to me, you know what I mean? It has nothing to do with the music but people are really quick to put the focus on it before they’ve even heard you.
Looking forward to Soundwave this year, after doing it a couple of years ago?
Yeah, it’s one of our favourite tours.
Anyone you’re really stoked to be playing with?
Yeah we’re not sure we’d be able to hang out with them but really looking forward to seeing Queens Of The Stone Age.
Ha, why couldn’t you hang out with them?
Oh dude, they’d probably have security guards, wouldn’t they? I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s cool to be able to hang out backstage with so many bands you look up to, and we’ll see. Maybe we’ll hang out with Slayer, that would work.
Joe Satriani
How how are you mate?
I’m doing good how about yourself?
Yeah I’m good, where are you at the moment?
I’m just in San Francisco at the moment.
We had a bit of trouble connecting yesterday
Yeah I’m not sure what that was. Somebody called yesterday instead of today, then today they started 15 minutes late but hey, I’m here now.
Well hey it all works out in the end. What have you been up to lately?
Well today was a very interesting day. I had a couple of water heaters put in my house, I had a guy come over to fix the washing machine, and then I did some testing on some Marshall Amplifiers, and in between all that I’ve been doing interviews since this morning as well so it has been one of those days where I can’t believe how much I’ve done, and I can’t wait to have a beer and just kick back.
So how were the amps?
The sound great, they were a lot of fun and there’s a new engineer at Marshall named Santiago Alvarez and he works out of Hong Kong of all places, but he’s been sending me some great amplifiers and I’ve been having a great time with them.
What sort of mods/specs are we talking about?
Well, we’ve been primarily working on the J and 4-10, and I’ve been trying to get each channel to be a little bit more SOMETHING. I want each channel to be a little bit more effective with pedals, I want the clutch channel to have a little bit more edge, and we’re making some other modifications but I can’t tell you everything that we’re doing, because it’s gotta be a surprise. We are, I guess, trying to get more and more of my sound to come out of that amp so I can use each channel during a show.
Outstanding. Sounds like the man knows what he’s doing.
Yeah he’s really great, he’s doing great things.
You’ve just released Black Swans And Wormhole Wizards. I guess a criticism that can be levelled at a lot of primarly instrumental artists is that sometimes things are a little clinical, and there’s not a lot of soul in the music. You’ve defined this as your most soulful album yet, is it a conscious decision to bring that out and how do you do that in the instrumental realm?
Well, when you start out making a record, you should have lots of goals. You’ve got songwriting, performance, sounds, personell, style and things like that, and you really need to keep control of all those things. There have been albums where I wanted to go and make a very bluesy-sounding record live in the studio, so that would be the eponymous release in ’95. There were records like Flying In A Blue Dream where I wanted to try to blend some of the elements of what was the very early days of stream-of-consciousness techno with really aggressive rock guitar, and we came up with a lot of that stuff. I also introduced the vocal thing which was a really crazy idea, but it gained me a larger audience that stuck with me and sort of got used to the idea that I would be doing lots of different things, not just Surfing With The Alien or the earlier record, Not Of This Earth, which was very unusual. Lots of unusual songs on there.
So with this one, I really wanted to bring the power of the melody and my phrasing, and the performance of not only myself but of everybody, I really wanted it to jump off the record and I don’t mean just turning things up loud, it was really about the feeling behind the music, and making it accessible to everybody so they can really feel it. I put that question to my co-producer, basically in the same breath, to Mike Fraser. I said I didn’t really know how to put it into words, but I’d like you to help me, or how can we – we’ve done lots of records together since ’96 – how can we have these songs create more of an impact on someone’s heart when they listen to the music. The technique is transitory. As soon as you do something unique that no one has done before that’s totally technical, every guitar player in the planet learns it and puts themselves on Youtube playing it and suddenly it’s not special anymore. So to make a record based solely on technique is just stupid. I’ve never done that before but I would certainly never get talked into doing something like that, instrumental music is really hard to do without that and instrumental rock guitar is probably even harder, but that’s what I do – at least when I’m not in Chickenfoot.
I find it interesting that you touched on Youtube, in terms of technical guitar players. You can see some really amazing stuff on Youtube, from a technical perspective, from all over the world. How much attention, as one of the most widely recognised, I guess masters out there, do you pay to stuff you see on there?
Well I love it, I think it’s great, for two reasons. Number one it’s great that people from all over the world can show themselves off . That part of the internet revolution is great and it really does bring us closer together. To know that kids in Perth, or Bombay or New York City are all plugged into the same thing and are all shredding is really cool. The other thing it does, though, is that it reminds you that it’s not really what makes things special, and it never was. Before the internet when people when people used to ask me about technique I’d try to explain to them that it wasn’t important, and they would always force it on my persona, like they had decided that was the guy I am and damnit that’s how they’re going to interview me. I’d always say that I’m not that guy, I’m the guy that writes songs and works hard on melodies and tries to play rockin’ solos. Now I would hope that any interviewer could go on the internet and see there are a million shredders out there, and so there is a difference between the guy who can play more songs than anyone else and the guy that’s making his own albums, the albums he wants to make.
The point you make is that it’s all fine being a virtuoso, but it’s not worth a damn if you can’t write a song.
Or if you can’t perform, you know. The definition of virtuoso needs to be broadened, it has to be understood that it doesn’t mean just running some scales. A guy like Keith Richards writes amazing songs that reach people and the songs stand the test of time, that’s a virtuoso.
The passing of your Mother – you have my condolences – how much impact did that have on the album?
Yeah, well that was devastating for my whole family. She was diagnosed with embryonic cancer and she passed away within three weeks, the diagnosis was extremely sudden, and, uh, we’ve all been struggling to deal with that. That whole year has so many ups and then finally, some really good times we shared with my mum but her passing focused all of us on the importance of family and how it is really important to not only to write about those connections but also to follow your dreams and not to hold back. SO when I went in to record the album I certainly wasn’t going to hold back, I was going to make the kind of record I needed to make, and to make sure that my performance really came from the heart.
It’s an obvious statement but no doubt your mother was extremely supportive throughout your career, especially in the early days.
Oh she really was. I was the youngest of five kids. When I came along and showed an interest in being an electric guitarist they’d probably given up a little bit in trying to get their kids to do the right thing or whatever (laughs), to become doctors or lawyers, then I come along and I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix they probably though ‘Oh, okay we give up’ but infact they used to let my highschool band play in the basement, both my parents, and they would argue with the police when they used to show up to try and shut us up. They’d buy guitar strings if I needed them and really anything, they were very supportive and they really had a lot to do with the guy I am today.
You know you’ve got good parents when they’re arguing with the police on your behalf.
Ha, yeah absolutely, that is absolutely true.
How much involvement do you have with the development of your Ibanez guitar range.
Well everything really. The designs start with me, nothing goes out until we’re both happy, that’s myself and the engineering team. I started working with them in the middle of ’87, after I recorded Surfing With The Alien, I was getting ready to tour and they agreed to make a guitar to my specs, so I took one of their existing models and made some drastic changes to it. We’ve essentially been evolving that JS guitar for 20 years now, and we just put out the 2400 last year and I’ve used that almost exclusively on the new album, along with my 1200. I’m looking at a new prototype right now, that’s like a three single-coil version of the guitar and it really sounds great, I used it on the Experience Hendrix tour and it obviously functions like a Stratocaster but it’s much more, I guess it just has more is all I can really say. There’s so much more to it. It’s really great, it’s got these pickups on it that just make it sing.
‘More’ seems to be a running theme through the amps and the guitars.
Yes, you know because my experience being a live player is there’s always an occasion during a song or a set where you need more of something, and that’s where your ear will let you down unless there’s something on there, if you can go to that extra number or there’s an extra pickup position or even if the guitar itself is very dynamic. It’s easy to put that into a pedal, it’s a little bit trickier to put it into a guitar.
Ha, do the amps go to 12? That’s one more than 11.
No, I’ve decided just to make 10 louder (laughs).
What about the VOX pedals – you said the guitar is constantly evolving, is it the same with the pedals?
Well we just released two this year. The Ice9 Overdrive Pedal is one of the coolest pedals ever. It’s literally like having four classic overdrive pedals under one foot, and of course it has a ‘more’ button, and we put some innovations in that that nobody else is doing with those pedals so that’s going to be a very hot pedal, and of course we’re just coming out with the JS amp-plug, they’re the coolest little things, they’re smaller than your hand and you plug it right into your guitar and you put your headphones on and it’s the coolest little amp, it sounds like you’re playing, y’know, through a saturator and a time machine and a new Marshall, it’s just really amazing.
Brilliant. We’ve got time for one more quick one apparently. 20 years, 15 Grammy nominations, no wins. Do you think you’ll break that?
I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think I want to. Like you said it’s been that long and I’ve had an amazing career, and I’m a little worried that if I win my luck will change. So I don’t really care about it that much.
I’m doing good how about yourself?
Yeah I’m good, where are you at the moment?
I’m just in San Francisco at the moment.
We had a bit of trouble connecting yesterday
Yeah I’m not sure what that was. Somebody called yesterday instead of today, then today they started 15 minutes late but hey, I’m here now.
Well hey it all works out in the end. What have you been up to lately?
Well today was a very interesting day. I had a couple of water heaters put in my house, I had a guy come over to fix the washing machine, and then I did some testing on some Marshall Amplifiers, and in between all that I’ve been doing interviews since this morning as well so it has been one of those days where I can’t believe how much I’ve done, and I can’t wait to have a beer and just kick back.
So how were the amps?
The sound great, they were a lot of fun and there’s a new engineer at Marshall named Santiago Alvarez and he works out of Hong Kong of all places, but he’s been sending me some great amplifiers and I’ve been having a great time with them.
What sort of mods/specs are we talking about?
Well, we’ve been primarily working on the J and 4-10, and I’ve been trying to get each channel to be a little bit more SOMETHING. I want each channel to be a little bit more effective with pedals, I want the clutch channel to have a little bit more edge, and we’re making some other modifications but I can’t tell you everything that we’re doing, because it’s gotta be a surprise. We are, I guess, trying to get more and more of my sound to come out of that amp so I can use each channel during a show.
Outstanding. Sounds like the man knows what he’s doing.
Yeah he’s really great, he’s doing great things.
You’ve just released Black Swans And Wormhole Wizards. I guess a criticism that can be levelled at a lot of primarly instrumental artists is that sometimes things are a little clinical, and there’s not a lot of soul in the music. You’ve defined this as your most soulful album yet, is it a conscious decision to bring that out and how do you do that in the instrumental realm?
Well, when you start out making a record, you should have lots of goals. You’ve got songwriting, performance, sounds, personell, style and things like that, and you really need to keep control of all those things. There have been albums where I wanted to go and make a very bluesy-sounding record live in the studio, so that would be the eponymous release in ’95. There were records like Flying In A Blue Dream where I wanted to try to blend some of the elements of what was the very early days of stream-of-consciousness techno with really aggressive rock guitar, and we came up with a lot of that stuff. I also introduced the vocal thing which was a really crazy idea, but it gained me a larger audience that stuck with me and sort of got used to the idea that I would be doing lots of different things, not just Surfing With The Alien or the earlier record, Not Of This Earth, which was very unusual. Lots of unusual songs on there.
So with this one, I really wanted to bring the power of the melody and my phrasing, and the performance of not only myself but of everybody, I really wanted it to jump off the record and I don’t mean just turning things up loud, it was really about the feeling behind the music, and making it accessible to everybody so they can really feel it. I put that question to my co-producer, basically in the same breath, to Mike Fraser. I said I didn’t really know how to put it into words, but I’d like you to help me, or how can we – we’ve done lots of records together since ’96 – how can we have these songs create more of an impact on someone’s heart when they listen to the music. The technique is transitory. As soon as you do something unique that no one has done before that’s totally technical, every guitar player in the planet learns it and puts themselves on Youtube playing it and suddenly it’s not special anymore. So to make a record based solely on technique is just stupid. I’ve never done that before but I would certainly never get talked into doing something like that, instrumental music is really hard to do without that and instrumental rock guitar is probably even harder, but that’s what I do – at least when I’m not in Chickenfoot.
I find it interesting that you touched on Youtube, in terms of technical guitar players. You can see some really amazing stuff on Youtube, from a technical perspective, from all over the world. How much attention, as one of the most widely recognised, I guess masters out there, do you pay to stuff you see on there?
Well I love it, I think it’s great, for two reasons. Number one it’s great that people from all over the world can show themselves off . That part of the internet revolution is great and it really does bring us closer together. To know that kids in Perth, or Bombay or New York City are all plugged into the same thing and are all shredding is really cool. The other thing it does, though, is that it reminds you that it’s not really what makes things special, and it never was. Before the internet when people when people used to ask me about technique I’d try to explain to them that it wasn’t important, and they would always force it on my persona, like they had decided that was the guy I am and damnit that’s how they’re going to interview me. I’d always say that I’m not that guy, I’m the guy that writes songs and works hard on melodies and tries to play rockin’ solos. Now I would hope that any interviewer could go on the internet and see there are a million shredders out there, and so there is a difference between the guy who can play more songs than anyone else and the guy that’s making his own albums, the albums he wants to make.
The point you make is that it’s all fine being a virtuoso, but it’s not worth a damn if you can’t write a song.
Or if you can’t perform, you know. The definition of virtuoso needs to be broadened, it has to be understood that it doesn’t mean just running some scales. A guy like Keith Richards writes amazing songs that reach people and the songs stand the test of time, that’s a virtuoso.
The passing of your Mother – you have my condolences – how much impact did that have on the album?
Yeah, well that was devastating for my whole family. She was diagnosed with embryonic cancer and she passed away within three weeks, the diagnosis was extremely sudden, and, uh, we’ve all been struggling to deal with that. That whole year has so many ups and then finally, some really good times we shared with my mum but her passing focused all of us on the importance of family and how it is really important to not only to write about those connections but also to follow your dreams and not to hold back. SO when I went in to record the album I certainly wasn’t going to hold back, I was going to make the kind of record I needed to make, and to make sure that my performance really came from the heart.
It’s an obvious statement but no doubt your mother was extremely supportive throughout your career, especially in the early days.
Oh she really was. I was the youngest of five kids. When I came along and showed an interest in being an electric guitarist they’d probably given up a little bit in trying to get their kids to do the right thing or whatever (laughs), to become doctors or lawyers, then I come along and I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix they probably though ‘Oh, okay we give up’ but infact they used to let my highschool band play in the basement, both my parents, and they would argue with the police when they used to show up to try and shut us up. They’d buy guitar strings if I needed them and really anything, they were very supportive and they really had a lot to do with the guy I am today.
You know you’ve got good parents when they’re arguing with the police on your behalf.
Ha, yeah absolutely, that is absolutely true.
How much involvement do you have with the development of your Ibanez guitar range.
Well everything really. The designs start with me, nothing goes out until we’re both happy, that’s myself and the engineering team. I started working with them in the middle of ’87, after I recorded Surfing With The Alien, I was getting ready to tour and they agreed to make a guitar to my specs, so I took one of their existing models and made some drastic changes to it. We’ve essentially been evolving that JS guitar for 20 years now, and we just put out the 2400 last year and I’ve used that almost exclusively on the new album, along with my 1200. I’m looking at a new prototype right now, that’s like a three single-coil version of the guitar and it really sounds great, I used it on the Experience Hendrix tour and it obviously functions like a Stratocaster but it’s much more, I guess it just has more is all I can really say. There’s so much more to it. It’s really great, it’s got these pickups on it that just make it sing.
‘More’ seems to be a running theme through the amps and the guitars.
Yes, you know because my experience being a live player is there’s always an occasion during a song or a set where you need more of something, and that’s where your ear will let you down unless there’s something on there, if you can go to that extra number or there’s an extra pickup position or even if the guitar itself is very dynamic. It’s easy to put that into a pedal, it’s a little bit trickier to put it into a guitar.
Ha, do the amps go to 12? That’s one more than 11.
No, I’ve decided just to make 10 louder (laughs).
What about the VOX pedals – you said the guitar is constantly evolving, is it the same with the pedals?
Well we just released two this year. The Ice9 Overdrive Pedal is one of the coolest pedals ever. It’s literally like having four classic overdrive pedals under one foot, and of course it has a ‘more’ button, and we put some innovations in that that nobody else is doing with those pedals so that’s going to be a very hot pedal, and of course we’re just coming out with the JS amp-plug, they’re the coolest little things, they’re smaller than your hand and you plug it right into your guitar and you put your headphones on and it’s the coolest little amp, it sounds like you’re playing, y’know, through a saturator and a time machine and a new Marshall, it’s just really amazing.
Brilliant. We’ve got time for one more quick one apparently. 20 years, 15 Grammy nominations, no wins. Do you think you’ll break that?
I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think I want to. Like you said it’s been that long and I’ve had an amazing career, and I’m a little worried that if I win my luck will change. So I don’t really care about it that much.
Phil Anselmo
Interview with Phil Anselmo, Cowboys From Hell 20th Anniversary reissue.
How’s the knee?
Good man good, I rehabbed the fuck out of it.
Outstanding. You hear a lot about bands not having a whole lot to do with reissues. 20 years down the line from Cowboys From Hell, was it a hands-on process for you?
Well, uh, we all did our part that was asked you know. There were hundreds of photos to go through, and we all wrote liner notes and whatnot so we were involved, for sure.
Was it a whole band deal though?
Well, three of us y’know, do our part so it was, and it was mediated between all of us by a lady named Kim who has worked with the band for a long, long time and she knows us all very well, so it would be her job to say ‘hey, is this picture good, is this picture not good’, or ask us what our opinions were and collectively we made decisions.
Reading a bit into that it doesn’t sound like you’ve exactly patched things up with Vinnie.
Well, y’know, no I have not patched things up with Vince, but once again I gotta respect his decisions (sigh), no matter what they are. There’s not one of us that can judge what Vince is going through and I’m definitely not going to do that. I’m very sympathetic to where life has taken him but truth be told, my door is always open. If that day comes, my door is open. We’ll see.
When you joined the band in ’87, it was a very different band to the one most fans commonly remember, is it safe to say Cowboys From Hell was the first glimpse, on record at least, of the real Pantera?
Uh, I think it was a known thing all along, when I first joined the band, that we wanted to move in a more aggressive direction. With that comes a lot of growth and a lot of time to do, to really find ourselves. We didn’t just want to be imitators, we were better than that, but not afraid to be diverse. We knew we could do several different things within heavy metal, and I think y’know, taking our influences to heart and smashing them all together and coming up with our songs. Like any band you grow and you grow, and it was a growing process. It felt natural after a few months, it took a while but everyone was headed in the right direction. It just had to pan itself out.
When you were recording it, did you have any inkling you were on to something special, because it turned out to be a ground-breaking album.
Oh man to answer your question did I think it was going to be a ground breaking album, fuck no. I had no clue it would be revered the way it was today. I took nothing for granted. I knew we were a very good band. Once we recorded that album, there was no more just being popular regionally. We were a small fish in a big ocean again, and touring was strenuous but very, very rewarding.
So many bands pinpoint Cowboys as a reference point, does it spin you out the number of bands you’ve influenced?
...what’s the question?
Well, are there any bands that have come up to you, bands that you like, that have pinpointed Cowboys as a massive influence on them?
Well you know I get it from so many side but that was funny you know, when we did cowboys from hell, it seemed amazing how many bands and how many bands from different genres of music caught on and really dug the sound. I think it all goes back to Dimebag’s guitar sound. We really worked hard, between Terry Date our producer, Vince and Dime, those guys in particular – all of us actually – knew we were a great live band but thinking back, which is you know a little bit before your time, but production for heavy metal was hit and miss a whole lot of times back then, in the late eighties. It was important to try and capture that live sound, and once again I bring up Dime’s guitar sound because the guy always had a ripping, ripping motherfucking sound, and capturing that guitar sound was very, very important. I’m not sure Cowboys From Hell was the perfect demonstration of that true Pantera sound at its fullest, which I think came around Vulgar Display Of Power and Far Beyond Driven, it’s still, from a production soundpoint, I think it still stood out from a lot of other bands because it was machine gun tight, you know like a fucking machine, so tight but it was real. I’ve never played with an entire band in my life that strove for that so much, that strove for perfection like that. Sometimes I’d think they were killing the vibe, just killing it but little did I know they weren’t killing anything, they were creating. Of course I hear it in today’s bands, but that happens. In my mind we upped the ante as far as production goes.
There’s a diversity there, that you mentioned before, the ability to pull things back like on Cemetary Gates, and it doesn’t seem like there was a lot of that in metal in the late eighties.
We knew our capabilities as far as being diverse goes. I think at some point, in some early interview I did when I was a kid, definitely during the Cowboys From Hell time, someone was trying to pinpoint us and basically I said ‘look, we’re not Skid Row but we’re not Slayer either’. So in that analogy, the word diverse comes to mind and we weren’t afraid to show it. We weren’t really interested in what other people were saying at the time, I know I was very hard headed back then. I think we did our best man, at the time, we knew what was going on around us, I just think there were certain guys in the band who think that certain things are tasteful, in music, and then there was the borderline between taste and all-out aggression. Anyway my point is we were aware and we weren’t afraid of that.
That aggressive, fuck ‘em all Pantera attitude has always shone through on everything you’ve done.
Of course, absolutely of course and that’s kind of going with the chip on our shoulder. Once we realised we had to re-prove ourselves after we’d done Cowboys From Hell, to America and eventually the world, it became a whole different ballgame. We thought we would come out and play live which in my book was our biggest strength apart from great song-writing, playing live was a major major reason for our success. We killed that image in terms of the heavy metal singer with long hair and whatnot. Back in the day if a dude was bald in a band he was probably standing in the background somewhere and he was the drummer. I was sick of that whole fucking thing, and I took the hardcore influence that was my life at the time and I bought it to heavy metal, so that was a big fuck you. Another thing was how we interacted with our audience. Instead of the regular old ‘Hey, how are you all feeling tonight, are you ready to rock?’ type bullshit, we were very gut level with the audience, we were one of them and we invited them up on stage and we made them feel like they were one of us because in all reality they were.
No separation, one and the same.
Absolutely.
Thanks for the chat Phil.
Hey, no problem man. Sorry it was so short, I don’t make the rules.
How’s the knee?
Good man good, I rehabbed the fuck out of it.
Outstanding. You hear a lot about bands not having a whole lot to do with reissues. 20 years down the line from Cowboys From Hell, was it a hands-on process for you?
Well, uh, we all did our part that was asked you know. There were hundreds of photos to go through, and we all wrote liner notes and whatnot so we were involved, for sure.
Was it a whole band deal though?
Well, three of us y’know, do our part so it was, and it was mediated between all of us by a lady named Kim who has worked with the band for a long, long time and she knows us all very well, so it would be her job to say ‘hey, is this picture good, is this picture not good’, or ask us what our opinions were and collectively we made decisions.
Reading a bit into that it doesn’t sound like you’ve exactly patched things up with Vinnie.
Well, y’know, no I have not patched things up with Vince, but once again I gotta respect his decisions (sigh), no matter what they are. There’s not one of us that can judge what Vince is going through and I’m definitely not going to do that. I’m very sympathetic to where life has taken him but truth be told, my door is always open. If that day comes, my door is open. We’ll see.
When you joined the band in ’87, it was a very different band to the one most fans commonly remember, is it safe to say Cowboys From Hell was the first glimpse, on record at least, of the real Pantera?
Uh, I think it was a known thing all along, when I first joined the band, that we wanted to move in a more aggressive direction. With that comes a lot of growth and a lot of time to do, to really find ourselves. We didn’t just want to be imitators, we were better than that, but not afraid to be diverse. We knew we could do several different things within heavy metal, and I think y’know, taking our influences to heart and smashing them all together and coming up with our songs. Like any band you grow and you grow, and it was a growing process. It felt natural after a few months, it took a while but everyone was headed in the right direction. It just had to pan itself out.
When you were recording it, did you have any inkling you were on to something special, because it turned out to be a ground-breaking album.
Oh man to answer your question did I think it was going to be a ground breaking album, fuck no. I had no clue it would be revered the way it was today. I took nothing for granted. I knew we were a very good band. Once we recorded that album, there was no more just being popular regionally. We were a small fish in a big ocean again, and touring was strenuous but very, very rewarding.
So many bands pinpoint Cowboys as a reference point, does it spin you out the number of bands you’ve influenced?
...what’s the question?
Well, are there any bands that have come up to you, bands that you like, that have pinpointed Cowboys as a massive influence on them?
Well you know I get it from so many side but that was funny you know, when we did cowboys from hell, it seemed amazing how many bands and how many bands from different genres of music caught on and really dug the sound. I think it all goes back to Dimebag’s guitar sound. We really worked hard, between Terry Date our producer, Vince and Dime, those guys in particular – all of us actually – knew we were a great live band but thinking back, which is you know a little bit before your time, but production for heavy metal was hit and miss a whole lot of times back then, in the late eighties. It was important to try and capture that live sound, and once again I bring up Dime’s guitar sound because the guy always had a ripping, ripping motherfucking sound, and capturing that guitar sound was very, very important. I’m not sure Cowboys From Hell was the perfect demonstration of that true Pantera sound at its fullest, which I think came around Vulgar Display Of Power and Far Beyond Driven, it’s still, from a production soundpoint, I think it still stood out from a lot of other bands because it was machine gun tight, you know like a fucking machine, so tight but it was real. I’ve never played with an entire band in my life that strove for that so much, that strove for perfection like that. Sometimes I’d think they were killing the vibe, just killing it but little did I know they weren’t killing anything, they were creating. Of course I hear it in today’s bands, but that happens. In my mind we upped the ante as far as production goes.
There’s a diversity there, that you mentioned before, the ability to pull things back like on Cemetary Gates, and it doesn’t seem like there was a lot of that in metal in the late eighties.
We knew our capabilities as far as being diverse goes. I think at some point, in some early interview I did when I was a kid, definitely during the Cowboys From Hell time, someone was trying to pinpoint us and basically I said ‘look, we’re not Skid Row but we’re not Slayer either’. So in that analogy, the word diverse comes to mind and we weren’t afraid to show it. We weren’t really interested in what other people were saying at the time, I know I was very hard headed back then. I think we did our best man, at the time, we knew what was going on around us, I just think there were certain guys in the band who think that certain things are tasteful, in music, and then there was the borderline between taste and all-out aggression. Anyway my point is we were aware and we weren’t afraid of that.
That aggressive, fuck ‘em all Pantera attitude has always shone through on everything you’ve done.
Of course, absolutely of course and that’s kind of going with the chip on our shoulder. Once we realised we had to re-prove ourselves after we’d done Cowboys From Hell, to America and eventually the world, it became a whole different ballgame. We thought we would come out and play live which in my book was our biggest strength apart from great song-writing, playing live was a major major reason for our success. We killed that image in terms of the heavy metal singer with long hair and whatnot. Back in the day if a dude was bald in a band he was probably standing in the background somewhere and he was the drummer. I was sick of that whole fucking thing, and I took the hardcore influence that was my life at the time and I bought it to heavy metal, so that was a big fuck you. Another thing was how we interacted with our audience. Instead of the regular old ‘Hey, how are you all feeling tonight, are you ready to rock?’ type bullshit, we were very gut level with the audience, we were one of them and we invited them up on stage and we made them feel like they were one of us because in all reality they were.
No separation, one and the same.
Absolutely.
Thanks for the chat Phil.
Hey, no problem man. Sorry it was so short, I don’t make the rules.
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