#76 JEFF SCHROEDER | SMASHING PUMPKINS

Audio only version of my YouTube Livestream Podcast with Jeff Schroeder from Smashing Pumpkins.

Full video version can be viewed over on my YouTube channel youtube.com/c/rickhollis where you can subscribe and hit the notification bell to catch the show live and ask my guests questions via the live chat room.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
[Music]
uh hello lovely people we are live and i
have my coffee
it is just gone 10 30 a.m on the sunny
gold coast and who was at my front door
a ding dong no other than a mr jeff
schroeder hey jeff

(00:24):
hello and welcome to the show
yeah good morning to you
man um so you're in l.a yeah
oh yeah i'm
living living the dream out here living
the dream in l.a man i'm just saying
that the vast majority of my guests seem
to be la based it seems to be the place
to to be living are you originally from
l.a
i i am i am i'm from well the suburbs

(00:46):
you know i like
i mean on a good day i can get to where
i grew up in
35 40 minutes so not too far yeah so i
was within striking distance so
you know
you know the easy way to get around
everywhere you know all the back streets
and
oh yeah yeah yeah you know
um i had a small

(01:08):
window of time where i lived in chicago
about seven years you know you know and
and you know there's really only
really one main
highway that goes through
you know that goes through the city of
chicago like you know
out here we call them in california we
call them freeways because they used to
be free and most of them still kind of

(01:31):
are but
you know in other parts of the country
there's tolls and whatnot so they never
call it you know when you move somewhere
else you call it the freeway people like
what do you mean the freeway it's the
highway but yeah
but out here in california i mean
there's
it's in la there's
a crazy amount of
freeway of highways you know that you

(01:51):
know that you can take and so uh you
know the show in the us that you know
that you know is obviously a globally
popular saturday night live they used to
have a skit where there's just two like
l.a people hanging out all they do is
talk about how they got somewhere you
know i took the 10 freeways
to the 101 to the 172.

(02:12):
really i took
because i mean because it's so
ridiculously crazy man i've realized
recently that like if you use google
maps or um
apple maps or something on your phone
some of the crazy ways that it tries to
take you to places is
ridiculous there's a place um so i'm on
the gold coast which is about an hour

(02:33):
south of brisbane um and there's a oh
yeah there's a um a guitar store called
the pedal empire in in brisbane and i
swear every time i put that in there the
way it takes me i i have no idea where
it is it takes me to all these suburbs
and then i end up on this main road it's
just off this main road i think
why the hell did you take me that way

(02:53):
like i have no idea how i got here if
only you just took me that way
did we save 30 seconds i don't think so
yeah so jeff
you saved 30 seconds but you you know
maybe had all that stress instead of
just going down one straight shot right
yep absolutely yeah
jeff we're all guitar nerds here and

(03:16):
loving it what started the love affair
for the electric guitar for you mate
um
well i was born in 1974
so you can imagine um
and i have a brother who's eight years
older than me so in 1974 you know he was
he was um

(03:36):
you know he was born in 66 so by the
time i was like whatever
you know 80 or something was starting
like like four or five
you know able to kind of start
perceiving things you could imagine what
the musical climate was for rock and
roll at the time so i grew up in a house
where
i mean well number one i mean our house

(03:56):
was a shrine to kiss
so my brother was a massive massive kiss
fan so growing up posters on the wall
all the records
i mean i have pictures of me as a little
kid the makeup you know i didn't even
know
who they were i just you know my brother
would paint the makeup on me and all
that kind of stuff so i was very much
into kiss but it was also kiss zepplin

(04:17):
ufo
um
even more like you know i realized now
like stranger things like new wave of
british heavy metals of like the tigers
of pantang
so i grew up grew up
with with that sound and i was in ace
freely was always my
favorite member of kiss so just

(04:39):
that image of him with the les paul
you know
it just was ingrained in my mind so i i
i just always loved it and then by the
time i really started getting old enough
to really love music myself when you
know you're like 8 9 10 it's like 82 83
um music video started getting really

(04:59):
big and that was really the explosion of
of hard rock bands like quiet riot
you know rat um
and
who else i mean who else was a def
leppard was really you know exploding in
california you know at that time all
those videos right and so i just fell in
love with that sound cool
you still do yeah yeah i mean

(05:20):
like i still love that that
that to me
i just love the sound of guitar from
that era absolutely so like 78 78 to 83
84. that's like
that's just like a great
great era so we're a similar vintage i'm
a 73 myself

(05:40):
um
and yeah i totally relate to that era it
was
yeah i just grew up hearing so much good
music on the radio some of the bands you
listed there are stuff that i read about
um
in
uh in magazines but never actually heard
on the radio here
our
playlists i guess were a little bit
different but

(06:01):
you mentioned rat
i'd never heard rat before and it was
only recently i was driving down the
road
and i've had my phone just there and you
got shazam now you can go oh what's this
and there was this blistering guitar
solo there's so many guys that could
play a million miles an hour but this
was really clean and i was like
hello who's that and did a quick thing

(06:21):
it was rat so i'd heard about warren d
martini
and um
yeah so i only just heard him for the
first time although i did see him play
with white snake back in the early 90s
over here he was touring with white
snake
oh that's crazy he played with white
snake yeah yeah yeah it was
geez
early 90s i'd say

(06:43):
yeah i think i do remember that yeah
yeah yeah yeah no that was in in la i
mean they were an institution
yeah good um yeah and i've been lucky
enough you know in more recent years
while
they were still kind of playing i wasn't
finally able to see
that with kind of um obviously robin
crosby who was the original there were

(07:05):
two guitar players warren d martin
warren d martini robin crosby robin
crosby died
in the 90s probably
but carlos cavazo from quiet riot was
playing guitar and it was oh man it was
incredible so good they were so they
were so good like it was just guitar
heaven yeah yeah

(07:25):
so so going back to the um to the 70s
there
um
when did you actually pick up the guitar
and start
having a bit of a fiddle with it all
i think you know around 83 or something
i got an acoustic guitar a harmony a
little small you know
three-quarter-sized acoustic which i
still have you know and um

(07:47):
somewhere it's in my brother it's
actually in my brother's house but it's
still in the family we still have it and
um
yeah so i banged around that for a while
and i remember it you know as a harmony
and it came with
a little pamphlet inside and it showed
you how to play like maybe three chords
cool
g c and d and maybe like an e minor
chord you know you could kind of strum

(08:08):
and um one pick you know and save that
pick for
you whatever you had the one pick
do you remember the first song you liked
the play was
i don't even think you know i did so i
couldn't even play a song i just could
play those couple chords and i didn't
really understand how to

(08:28):
you know maybe play a song
until then i you know i graduated i got
an electric guitar and then i started
buying magazines with tabs you know and
i must have learned something else um
but my brother
had a friend
or somebody he worked with and they came
over to the house one day and you know i

(08:49):
was
you know he played guitar and he was
like oh let me see you playing so i was
trying to play some stuff and i'm going
to do these open chords he goes oh
let me show you something you know i got
to play
i'm going to show you a power chord
you know this is like 90 of heavy metal
just uses this once he showed me that i

(09:10):
was like of course then the light bulb
went off and then
went along with magazines and tab and
stuff i was able to start learning songs
and i remember the first thing that
impressed you know my brothers that was
he you know he left for work one day and
then when he came home and then i could
kind of hack my way through the intro of
crazy's right
cool

(09:31):
and so that was like but getting that
like he was like oh my god i can't
believe you can actually you know do
that so
um
yeah that was kind of how it was in the
early days nice you know you mentioned
magazines um
and that was such a great resource back
in the day there to um be able to learn

(09:52):
not just songs but
things that led up to the whole craft of
being a guitar player and understanding
um
signal flow recording etc
i have this little story that i quite
often tell people and it was when i was
in my final year of high school
i was doing film and television as a
subject and um

(10:12):
we had to i was really good at the
practical side of things i i recently
got diagnosed as having adhd
a few years ago and it all makes sense
now
so they were trying to um
teach us we had to watch some old movie
from the 50s and write a review on it
and i just wasn't interested so i had my
guitar magazines and i'm reading that i
can remember my teacher talking to class

(10:32):
walking past and grabbing my magazine
ripping it out of my hand
and then he set the task and he was over
and he's looking at at the magazine he
came over to me later and he opened up
the page and it was craig anderson's
home recording um section
which was in guitar player if i remember
correctly anyway he's come up to me and
he pointed at what i was reading he said

(10:53):
do you understand that and i said yes i
do and he just looked at me said you
keep reading that that's years ahead of
what i'm teaching here and i'm saying
thank you you get it
wow yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah i have a funny story too about
being in high school and i can't
remember i was you know kind of you know
you get to class you have a few minutes
before it starts it's kind of sitting

(11:14):
there and waiting and i was doing the
same sitting there flipping through
at a guitar you know at a guitar mate
looking through a guitar magazine and
and um
my teacher came up to me and he goes you
know jeff there's more to life than a
guitar magazine
how wrong
i know i know i know i know i know i was

(11:35):
like no there's really not
yeah yeah
especially at the time you know yeah
yeah yeah i can remember that having the
the high school guidance counselor which
we had to go and help us try and choose
a career and they said what are you
going to do i'm going to play music
and she's like well no you need a real
job what are you going to do for a real
job and i gotta say every job i've ever

(11:56):
had
that's lasted more than two weeks has
been somehow related to music so
they were wrong yeah yeah yeah no it's
funny you know in high school
you know you're supposed to be thinking
about going to college and whatnot and
um
i
wasn't the only catalog that i requested
was for a git you know musicians

(12:18):
institute i was like i'm going to go to
the guitar institute of technology up in
hollywood
but i you know i didn't end up going but
that was the only that was the only
catalog i requested yeah yeah i remember
seeing those ads and um
billy sheehan and it used to say you've
got to know the rules before you can
break them i remember that ad and just

(12:38):
going oh my god and then the first time
i saw somebody locally that had gone and
started at musicians institute i was a
chap named simon gardner and i was still
a teenager and i saw him do a clinic and
i was like he was doing all the three
note string kind of playing legato and
stuff and i'd never seen that up close
before i was like
i must go to this place but um

(12:59):
yeah there's other ways to learn isn't
there
no no yeah yeah and um but it's funny
you know because i at that time i
collected i had at one point i had a
subscription to guitar guitar for the
practicing musician guitar world
um there was guitar school if you
remember that too um
and i had to subscribe into all three of
those guitar player

(13:20):
i didn't subscribe because it was you
know it was actually more rounded and so
i'd be like
pat methini you know like what the [ __ ]
like i don't know
i don't know
who was like one of my favorites now you
know you know but i you know you'd see a
guitar for they have like mike stern on
the cover pat with you and be like i
don't want that i want the one with
warren d martini on the cover or george

(13:42):
lynch or whatever so yeah but i had
years and years of
of those magazines all the way up to the
early 90s which is you know when once
alternative brunch came kind of ruined
that culture anyway
you know a bit so and then i stopped and
i had them and i left them in my parents
garage
and then
you know but they were like prized

(14:02):
possessions of mine and you know at one
point my parents they threw them away
you know i was so bummed and so
over the last i don't know
you know five years so i started buying
a lot of those old as many of those old
issues that i could find on ebay so i've
got quite a collection of like 80s
vintage guitar magazines and it's
so amazing

(14:24):
i mean the articles and stuff it's so
funny to to go back in as an adult
to read the interviews
at the time which you know to me i mean
i would get those magazines and i would
read them i would just get home from
school and if there was a new magazine
in the mail i would read it from cover
to cover
and um
yeah and you know and i just soaked it

(14:45):
all in and then but to read them now as
you know how bad
you know the writing was and all that
kind of stuff as a kid he did it you
know you didn't really pay attention to
that stuff but yeah what's even more
fascinating are just all the ads
the ads
are incredible yeah different companies
that don't exist and you know and um

(15:07):
yeah
yeah i carried around milk crates full
of of magazines for many years and i
reckon i had those till probably around
2 000 ish i
don't remember what it did to them
whether i gave them away or threw them
out but in hindsight i wish i still had
them but they were a great resource
absolutely

(15:27):
yeah yeah yeah yeah so much cool stuff
and yeah so much cool stuff i mean and
so i love them they're like just an
interesting
you know like kind of cultural archive
of of what was taking place in guitar
and and not only the magazines but the
video culture to instructional videos
and um what were super

(15:49):
incredible too at the time do you
remember the sound pages in guitar
player magazine where it had like a
flexible record yeah i might still have
a couple of those laying around
somewhere
uh they were great
yeah i did have the one with vi they had
blue powder on it which you know later
was on passionate warfare but yeah i i
had that one because i did buy that
because he was on the cover i remember

(16:10):
you know it's been a little tiny mini
guitar
you know like a toy that's right i
remember yeah yeah
also i remember hearing one and i think
the back of it had an ad for carvin
featuring cacophony with jason becker
and marty friedman and um
i thought it was scratched i thought
there was something wrong with the
because it was just this

(16:33):
like oh no i've scratched it somehow
but no that was just their music it was
just so
far out there at the time yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah they're a fan no i i was a fan
of all that you know shrapnel records
and
um you know because that was really
just this explosion of not only guitar

(16:55):
players but technique sound gear
equipment it was really a
you know uh you know truly exciting
period yeah absolutely what was taking
place and so it was just so
what a great time to to start playing
and learning and i was lucky so i had
all was surrounded by that but also had
a teacher who was really cool
and um

(17:17):
you know i went in to a music store
local my local music store it was
must've been like 1987
you know and so i'm in there looking at
i remember
i could because you know this memory is
ingrained in my mind i was looking at a
fluorescent yellow like ivan is cool
here like yeah he's like fluorescent you
know fluorescent yellow and and um

(17:38):
and this guy comes up to me and he you
know he looked really weird like um i
don't know if you know there's this band
um from l.a called red cross and they
kind of had more of a psychedelic look
and so he kind of looked more like he
was in this band like that like that
kind of vibe and he goes
you know he asked me like oh who do you
like and i was just kind of nervous
whatever as a shy kid and

(18:00):
he's like you like van halen
and i'm like yeah i love band halen and
so this he's like hey can i see that
guitar he takes his guitar plugs it into
amp
turns up really loud and he just starts
playing like the intro to hop for
teacher and eruption and stuff nope for
no and i'd never seen anybody
you know two feet in front of my face

(18:21):
play all that kind of stuff and so um
i was like okay you know went home and i
was like i got to take lessons from this
guy and my parents were so cool you know
even though you know we were i came from
a very lower middle class and we didn't
have a lot of money they made sure that
my you know my dad always worked like an
extra job like delivering newspapers
you know on you know on the weekends and

(18:43):
stuff so there'd be extra money for
things like guitar lessons and stuff and
so they let me study with this guy and
it was cool because i'd come in there
and i would be
oh my god i want to learn um you know
dawkin burn i remember you know like
whatever something from the back for the
attack i mean he would show me that
stuff but he'd also be like hey you
should listen to stuff like the
yardbirds and he would show me like

(19:05):
yardbird songs and bands like mata
hoople and you know
like these and introduced me to these
players and jeff beck and and so it was
it and and i really started loving that
stuff too
and so it really expanded my mind in
terms of okay i really liked all this
you know all the metal guys because you
know they were very exciting but then i

(19:26):
was like you know we've i started
learning more of the history of of how
it got to that point yeah yeah and then
learning enough theory to know like okay
like i know
i can play you know he showed me modes
and chords and scales and like you know
the harmonized major scale you know to
go up in any you know to play like
whatever

(19:46):
major 7 d minor 7 you know whatever all
this kind of stuff
um
and had and how all that worked together
and so that was really nice to be able
to kind of have that you know that
foundational knowledge so
when
you know i graduated high school in 1992
which is right what you know
it was was basically right when the

(20:08):
alternative explosion kind of started
taking place and a lot of that type of
plane
went out the door
but so it was good i felt so i was when
i was planning on these alternative
bands i was always the one that knew
more than
anybody else you know about like oh this
scale you could play this over that you
know but you had to actually tone down

(20:28):
your playing
yeah right yeah it became
uncool to be educated in a way didn't it
yeah yeah and and i get it because it
because it was it seemed exciting and
you know when things kind of work become
reactions to certain things you know now
to me
in 2022
it seems kind of silly

(20:50):
you know to be like you know that
there's still people out there that
that
you know that are come from this old
like alternative garden like
like that's too
like muzo or something you know i i just
don't
i don't subscribe to that type of
thinking anymore i think you know i

(21:11):
really like
i feel like you know we're at a time
where there's so much more musical
freedom where you should really be able
to do what you want and and i totally
and don't get me wrong i i
love tons of post-punk and alternative
guitar players like i love it but
you know i what i find personally more
exciting now is you know i'm a friend i

(21:33):
would say
i guess we're kind of friends yeah i can
say we're friends you know reeves uh
gabrielle's who plays in the cure but
you know he's an attendee team with
bowie and stuff
and you know we played some festivals
together in 2019
uh the curing smashing pumpkins and so i
got to watch him from side stage and to
hear him

(21:54):
blow over like you know some of these
classic cure songs and play all these
outside licks and stuff
tastefully it's so cool it's so it's
it's so cool and i can see why someone
like robert smith is such a genius for
going like
i gotta evolve the sound of this band
and so i'm going to get someone who can
when the time is right

(22:15):
can really light it up in that way you
know and it's only it's very like you
know they play forever and they play two
and a half three hours
and you know there's only like maybe
three songs where he really goes off on
the guitar most time he's playing you
know playing the parts that are
appropriate but in those few moments
they really become show highlights
because you know he can do something and

(22:37):
brings
you know an element to the sound
that's um
that's really unique and so that's kind
of like how i approach things now too is
is
you know you should have the freedom to
do what you want i'm not going to
subscribe to some
musical etiquette you know from the 90s
yeah i want to learn as much as i can

(22:59):
about how the instrument works yeah you
know because it really unlocks
limitations it does personally yeah yeah
yeah you know i was stuck in um
pentatonic land for a long time i
learned to milk the crap out of it hey
we're playing in d minor watch me play
at the 10th fret because that's all the
only place i kind of know well
and i um

(23:20):
there's such an explosion
of information available to us via the
internet and i
i didn't really have a teacher when i
was learning to play i was self-taught
and didn't learn a lot of that stuff
until later
but it's really opened up the doors to
creativity and it's not in a way that
it sounds contrived i know there's

(23:41):
certain people who
um you can hear them thinking as they
play it's all mathematics and then
there's guys who are just
using that knowledge in such a way that
it's so natural and
liberating
um and it's very hard to do now you
mentioned reefs cabreles i've been
trying to get in touch with reeves to
come on to have a bit of a chat because
i
i see he's got his own signature

(24:02):
reverend guitar as does billy from your
band um yes yes yeah so reeves if you're
watching man get in touch i can i can i
can i can i can put you guys in touch oh
that'd be great i was i was going to get
ken from reverend to try and maybe put
me in touch with him but if we could
well is great ken is ken i'm good
friends with the reverend guys and yeah
he actually that's how i you know met uh

(24:25):
met reeves and and
um i started
by you know billy actually corgan played
reverend guitars
in the early 2000s he did a solo record
and he used these baritone guitars that
he got from reverend and then
you know he kind of forgot about them
and then at some point i started seeing

(24:46):
their stuff and i don't know and i
really wanted one so i started
getting reverend and became friends with
ken
and um
and uh
and
then i kind of re i you know told billy
i said you know you should
you should work with reverend to build
you know your signature and to do a

(25:07):
signature guitar for you because
um
you know billy had kind hadn't you know
was kind of looking to get away from
playing his vendors it was kind of
because he wanted to do
he wanted to explore new ideas in in you
know and building his guitar and fender
was just like kind of more interested in
building
like stuff he already had and he kind of

(25:27):
like i want to do i wanted i want to try
some different things and um so we
started working with rev but so yeah i'm
friend friendly with you know with all
those guys and they're just incredible
people and joe naylor the designer is
you know he's he's a genius and a sweet
human being too so nice nice
hey um
we're talking about you you learning to

(25:48):
play guitar earlier do you remember what
your first electric guitar was
yeah it was you know
a japanese strap copy is good like this
brand called montoya or something like
that and i've looked for i have it it's
in um my storage unit you know but and
i've looked for them you know every i
looked up sometimes to get another one
on
on reverb or ebay you know but um so i'm

(26:11):
always on the hunt but this is it was a
japanese strat copy three pickup you
know this is the classic thing yeah yeah
and then a few years later i bought an
actual strat
nice nice yeah
yeah i started out with the the um the
cheap strat coffee i'm looking over
there that i still have it uh it's in
pieces and it's one of those things that

(26:31):
i want to restore one day it's made out
of plywood but
you never know
i might put some nice pickups and things
in there and
it can come up good there's stranger
things have happened
some of the things i've done with that
you do i know oh yeah i have it all
still i have it all yeah i still yeah
yeah my first amp everything which is a

(26:52):
little fender sidekick 15. still have it
no ice nice and what did you stop
playing in bands
well i i guess you know i started
jamming like in the garage with people
um
you know when i was probably like 15.
well you know actually i started playing
with people even a little bit earlier

(27:13):
than that
because i remember my brother's friend
wanted to start a band and i was like
you're like i don't know how old he must
have been at the time you know i feel
like he must have been like
i guess he was only like 20 or something
i was like i'm like just a kid i'm like
14. why do you want to you know he's
like no you're good like you don't want
to eat so he would pick me up and i

(27:34):
would go jam with these adults you know
what i mean
but really i started playing with like
my peers
um like in high school hey let's start a
man like we're not as soon as i was 16.
yeah because i would i remember i would
drive and drive my mom's car to you know
the friend's house and we'd
try to butcher our way through like
things like i'm gonna try to play things
like ice nine by joe satriani i was like

(27:55):
really this is it it's a trio you know i
mean
like
way you know way over achieving you know
what i mean but uh
yeah
yeah that's how i mean that i was kind
of you know a real
like so and just so invested in into the
guitar and so

(28:15):
with those
uh bass play so so the bass player
you know
he
took lessons at the same music store as
i did and so we had our lesson at the
same time basically so i would see him
then at high school would be like hey
you take lessons and we're like okay
let's play together and so we were both
you know trying to learn how to play all
that stuff you know trying to as much as

(28:38):
we could so we'd go in there and
you know get this drummer who he i mean
he didn't care less about you know
surfing with the alien or anything like
that but he was just a gal jam with you
guys you know so he'd go with this
he'd go in his parents garage and and
try to bang it out
yeah but then but then but then i met
some like
like some other other guy and another

(29:00):
guy you know and then until i met
another kid in high school who was
he was like hey i heard you play guitar
and i was like yeah and so i went to his
and he could really he had you know he
had like actually a carbon you know blue
you know the carving and um
and so and he was really good so we
would go and just show each other licks
and then we're like okay we got to start
a band and that was much more okay we're

(29:20):
going to play
guns and roses cinderella
you know what warren you know things
like you know these kind of popular 80s
kind of hard rock you know and metal
bands and um so we're like because we
could play parties you know we thought
we could play party and i think we
played one party and it was great it was
but that you know that was really really
fun to to to learn that kind of stuff

(29:43):
and to play that stuff together and um
you know but then
you know what it was funny because so we
had that band we played all that stuff
but then alternative came and nirvana
came out and so there was just
massive division all of a sudden we're
like we need to change our style we need
to change our sound and god bless them
you know my friend who i played guitar

(30:04):
with he was like
like he understood he said that's
totally lame if we just totally
follow the trend and change ourselves
yeah yeah
you know we are telling people
i keep telling people
left it behind yeah
i've done a bit of production work over
the years and i can remember when scar

(30:25):
became the big thing and somebody came
up to me and said i'm going to start a
scar band i'm like dude you don't get it
those bands that are out there now have
been playing scarf for 10 years they
didn't decide to take on the new trend
if you start doing that now by the time
you've got it nailed it's gone it's gone
and the same with grunge you know there
was a lot of bands
that were

(30:45):
the hair metal and they tried to put out
grungish records
yeah it's one of those and i think for a
lot of those bands it's like let us
never speak of that again you know it's
totally yeah yeah well you would see
even like people like paul stanley and
gene simmons in the mid 90s with like a

(31:07):
flannel wrapped around their waist you
know because it just became part of the
fashion you know you're like
what are you guys doing dude yeah yeah
yep
fashion trends now jeff
you found yourself being the guitar
player in smashing pumpkins how many
years ago now when when did you join
15 years ago wow

(31:29):
so leading up to that
going from playing the the parties and
everything how did you feel your time
were you playing in numerous bands with
that whole vibe of we're going to make
it we're going to yeah
uh well what happened is um i'll give
i'll try to give like the
that i'll move it's a long story but
i'll move it along quickly that's okay
you can take as long as as long as you

(31:50):
want basically what happened is is
you know high school came
you know all like like i said when i
started in 1988
i remember this this this it was such a
great memory first day of high school
1988 i'd never seen so many guns and
roses t-shirts especially in southern
california growing up because they were
a local band

(32:10):
that just basically
exploded and um so that summer of 88
sweet child of mine was just a massive
massive hit on mtv and the radio and
i've never seen so many guns and roses
shirts the first day of school and i
probably was wearing one too because i
know i had one
it's an appetite for destruction on the
back and the whole thing
and um

(32:31):
but you know by the time i graduated in
june of 1992 you imagine it was a
completely different musical landscape
and so i stopped taking lessons and um
like i said you know i was trying to it
was good and i the the band that played
hard rock metal covers had kind of
morphed into
the

(32:51):
um the three of us left and went and
started another band and found this guy
that sang like eddie better and did the
whole like okay i started like an
alternative band
and so when i graduated
i started going there was an emerging
because you know is this a
pre-starbucks or anything like that
coffee shops or anything like you know
coffee houses
you know a friend of mine said oh

(33:13):
there's this cool
[Music]
coffee house in you know the next town
over that has like an open mic night and
it's cool all these musicians play we
should just go and check it out hang out
so i went
there and who do i see up there dude
playing this crazy
open tuned like jimmy page like
like like open tune like improv indian

(33:34):
raga thing as my old guitar teacher oh
cool so i started talking to him and and
he's like hey um and i said you know
what you know maybe i should start
taking some lessons again he said oh i
don't teach at the store anymore but you
can just come to my house just down the
street and take lessons then i said okay
great so i started taking lessons from
him again
and he lived with two other musicians

(33:56):
and so one you know did my lesson and
then um
one day his roommate
after i left you know went to him and
said hey who are you playing with and he
said oh that's my student jeff he said
you know my band um is looking for a
guitar player and so anyway so i joined
my teacher's roommates band and you know
like i said that i was 18 these guys
seemed much you know they were like 26 i

(34:16):
was like oh my god these guys are so
much older but they had already been
playing all all the clubs and everything
so
by like the fall of 92 when i just i was
i was so lucky that i got to start
playing every club in l.a all the
favorite whiskey troubadour roxy
all the way you know everything was
still on the sunset strip you know i
mean um
even though like i said

(34:38):
metal was gone but it was now you know
everything was altered alternative but
you know but the club scene was still
just
happening you know it was great and so i
really got that great experience and so
um
in that band you know i said you know
did fairly well and and we got some
label interest but never really quite

(34:59):
achieved what we wanted to do and then i
joined you know another band after that
but at some point i decided okay
maybe music's not going to work out for
me and so i went back to college
and really fell in love with um
literature and so i got my you know my
undergraduate degree and then i was so
into it that i
applied for graduate school and so i was

(35:19):
in a phd program at ucla studying
comparative literature and i was not
planning on doing music at all i was
actually
planning to become an academic i was
going to be a professor uh yeah and
so during the middle of that though uh
an old bandmate of mine
um
texted me one day

(35:41):
and said hey
a friend of mine works at this
management company that manages smashing
pumpkins they're reforming
james and darcy aren't coming back and
they're out here in l.a finishing their
record and they're looking for people i
really think you should
do audition for the band and um
like i said i wasn't even i wasn't even

(36:01):
really playing that much anymore but
yeah right i said you know maybe this i
should
why not
um because i really was a big fan of the
bin because
i remember you know i saw the first time
i became aware of smashing problem
because was from
a small article in guitar world
and there was a picture of billy and he

(36:22):
had you know and he had you know had
the strat that he just
got back actually fairly recently after
it got stolen he had a picture him
holding that guitar i remember reading
the article
and the reason i was like wow this man's
got to be cool because they mentioned
that piece of gear that's right behind i
guess your left shoulder that 88 mp1

(36:43):
that i can see right yeah and i was like
wow that's the same unit that
skid row and vitobrada from white lion
and all the you know what i mean paul
gilbert i'm like this wow this is
different than
you know the other alternative bands
that you just use like whatever who
knows what they're playing through you
know
and um

(37:04):
so i went and bought that record gish
and was like wow this is
great has
blis you know incredible musicianship
blistering guitars
cool solos you know what i mean like
and so i really identified with because
i really felt like wow this is um
music
that i can

(37:25):
i identify with because it had the
precision it had the heaviness but also
had that alternative thing that that
came from
it wasn't even called alternative you
know back then it was whatever new way
post punk you know because growing up in
socal i really always did like things
like the cure and echo and the bunny men
and you two um you know i mean i always

(37:46):
liked that kind of stuff as well
and so that made a lot of sense to me
and then you know we out out here we had
jane's addiction because they you know
they were basically la club man and so
that was kind of the first band that
kind of really did that
that heavy thing
with
you know the more weird new wavy kind of
post-punky kind of stuff and you know if

(38:07):
you remember dave navarro and that those
nothing shocking it was playing in
ibanez yep you know
and which was and so it didn't seem
strange though at the time you know it
was cool it was really cool that he you
know that he did that and i remember
even
if you look there's pictures of john
frusciante when he first joined the
chili peppers
like he was playing ibanez too like an

(38:28):
rg or something like that
yeah yeah because he went to git you
know he went to the you know he was like
you know becoming that player and then
obviously you know he went you know and
um
you know took a different trajectory but
you know he would he came from that era
too and um
yeah so like i said so i was
that's why i auditioned for the pumpkins

(38:50):
and you know long story short after
months of
playing and getting to know each other i
ended up you know
getting roped in cool crazy world cool
yeah so do you remember the audition
well like how does one audition for the
smashing pumpkins well it was many the
thing is it was many it wasn't just one

(39:10):
it just it wasn't it was um because
since they were out here finishing they
were like we're going to be here for a
few months so we can really take our
time and we're not just going to
play with you once and then tell you
you're in the band like and and but so
what it was really actually
you know it was tough because

(39:32):
i'm like well [ __ ] man like
like am i gonna give up i'm like you
know i'm in in a
like a serious phd program here at ucla
like
am i going to quit
this to you know i want to i need to
kind of mentally know where i'm where
i'm going
um
you know so at the time it seemed

(39:53):
stressful but now i look back on it and
it was just
wow how cool was it um
you know to
i think they you know they slowly opened
their world to me and you know they were
recording at the village recorder in in
los angeles with roy thomas baker wow so
and they were and they just said hey

(40:15):
which is right by it's actually right by
ucla too and so it was right i mean it
was five minutes from my apartment and
they said you can
come by come by and hang out as much as
you want we want you to
get acquainted with what it's
like
and so that i would just get to go and
sit in the room and watch them
record and roy thomas baker and hear the

(40:36):
stories and see the guy i mean you know
it was it was pretty intense you know it
was cool and that is the very first time
during that because i got the gig
and we're you know we're they're like
okay you're in the band and they're
finishing that record
and um
and they start saying so you got to
build a guitar rig

(40:56):
you know what do you want in your rig
i'm like i mean i had like a little you
know like a you know
a 66 fender band master yeah
you know and some pedals and a
telecaster and a jazz master you know
either like you know that rig wasn't
gonna cut it for the pumpkins you know
for when i was auditioning for the band
i actually had to call my old band mate

(41:18):
that guy that my teacher was roommates
with because i knew he had a marshall
and i always be like dude can i borrow
your marshall
from auditioning for the smashing
pumpkin so he was so
generous and let me have this marshall
for months because he was like dude i
want you to get the game like you know
you can use it and um
and uh
yeah so they you know they're like we're

(41:40):
going to have a rig builder come down
and you just tell him what you want and
he's going to build the ring so dave
friedman came down to the studio and i
remember
it
it didn't it
he ended up not building our rigs for
that tour for the zeitgeist story i
actually had to build a couple rigs for
me later down the road but at that time

(42:01):
but but he did come down to the studio
one day and um
um and he was super cool and and i and
and obviously he's um
you know a legend yeah
so what did you end up going with for
for building your first rig with with
pumpkins
well you know so
this is funny so what happened is um i

(42:22):
remember they they brought in this
one of billy's old guitar text this guy
mark newman who's
mark newman is kind of a legendary tech
i think he might be or he was for a lot
was do the most recently was doing tommy
thayer from kiss but he
started out because he's from the bay
area doing brad gillis you know from
night range a bit he did brad pillus for

(42:43):
um
um when he when he felt basically when
he joined ozzie
and so he was there for all that and
then he did prince and all so he and he
was
so cool to me because i didn't know
anything
i mean i knew gear i wasn't i knew but
i'd never known like
gear at like okay

(43:04):
like we're gonna build like
a rack with the switching system and
mini programmable you know i had i had
an ada mp1 and the quadriverb you know i
and it's a good combination
yeah yeah so i had that rig that you
have back there you know what i mean i
had that
yeah yeah i had you know so i understood
that but i never had like

(43:25):
you know like
you know some 28 space rack with all
this with this stuff and so
they were just like so i ordered they're
just like order whatever you want you
know so are all these pedals
you know and and but when i showed up to
rehearsal
the first day in chicago was april 2007
this kind of started in the fall of of

(43:46):
2006
because the first day
that i remember there was
for me
you know there's two
diesel
herberts
no
yeah
herbers no there was another it wasn't
the vh4 but there's another diesel amp

(44:06):
at the time and then to um bogner
what with the um
i can't remember but it's two bargainers
two diesels because i don't really
because i ended up not using them
because once we started and oh and like
les pauls sg's and i'd never even played
les paulser so it's like okay yeah let's

(44:27):
let's get up
and uh start playing and yeah
you know so i'm like trying to play les
paul custom which is the farthest thing
from my jazz master or my telly or my
you know i i had my strap still you know
and then through a high gain amp that
i've never played through and i was just
stumbling so long story short

(44:49):
we realized that when billy and i were
were playing um
it was the bogger ubersoft that was that
was yeah
great amp incredible
but we realized when we were when we
both played the same amp
it actually made it it didn't sound like
sure and so i started using um
after

(45:10):
a short trip through something else you
know i landed on using the randall
modular amps yep you know the rm series
um which i
used off and on actually until you know
fairly recently i'm finally gonna get
off of it you know but you know and and
and

(45:30):
throughout the billy and i he barely
started using it too and we got all
these custom modules from anthony at
salvation mods um
in prague but
yeah so i landed on that and you know
now i've gone through various phases of
of um you know i had some rack effects
and then i went to all pedals and then

(45:50):
the combination rack and pedals and now
i just um basically use
a
line six helix for all effects and kind
of signal routing and then um
you know whatever amp i'm using you know
which i'm switching now basically
dude we're almost [ __ ] twins when it
comes to gear you know
yeah yeah error right yeah yeah you use

(46:12):
like yep got the old ada my old
quadruper that was that was my rig in
the 90s
the only drawback on that was that i
couldn't just turn a knob
on the fly to make an adjustment for the
room or anything i can remember i did a
tour with a a very well-known um
australian pop band that had some hits
when i was

(46:32):
when i was still a kid but got to two of
them and i did one rehearsal we played
one song and they said man you obviously
know the stuff can you just back the
metal off a little and i sort of had to
go menu diving just to back off the gain
a little
that's what got me thinking i need
something like this that i can turn
knobs on and so i went down the whole
randle rm4 route as well oh okay yeah

(46:54):
yeah so i had that set up that was my
introduction to dave friedman uh way
before he had friedman amplification i
was getting my modules modified by by
dave
um and oh the sound you must have done
the brown eye mod to an sl plus module
that i had which
he told me was a prototype he'd done for
steve stevens and ah that opened my my

(47:15):
ears to a great open sounding amplifier
where the grain is almost 3d and sits
forward in the mix and just the clarity
you know it feels so good on the hands
too yeah yeah i i've tried to get back
into using the ada but
my tastes have evolved and now it just
sounds a little scratchy or something to
me

(47:36):
um you know i you know it's so funny
that you say that because
i just um
i hadn't i didn't even know what
happened to mine
you know after because you know i had
stuff here and then i moved to chicago
and you know i kind of lost track of
some things but i in one of the things i
couldn't find was my ada
and my

(47:57):
old band mate of mine from a different
band um
called me that he goes he goes oh i'm
cleaning out i gotta clean out my garage
and i got some gear of yours here and i
got this thing it's i don't know it's
ada and i'm like yeah and so he just
brought so i just got it back on on
literally on sunday so cool
i'm gonna i'm not even gonna turn it on

(48:18):
because um my last guitar tech uh trace
um he from trey's from voodoo amps trace
foster
yeah yeah yeah from voodoo yeah he tech
for me on this last couple shows we did
in september
he you know he used to mod mod those
things and stuff and he said don't turn
it on because if you haven't turned it
on in 20 years probably the filter caps

(48:40):
and stuff might
blow up so he's like send it to me
i'll open it up first and make sure it's
you know and
and i'll dial it in for you he's like
he's like i don't even i told i don't
work on those anymore he's like but you
know he's like i'll do it kind of i'll
do it for you nice nice i i had to drink
this one modified as well uh just uh not

(49:01):
modified maintained i had to get the
caps and everything replaced because it
was noisy and everything when it turned
out that's what he said he said it most
likely is like you'll it you'll damage
it if you just turn it on yeah yeah but
then you said you're using the helix at
the moment i've got one sitting right
over there and i can see that ben is in
the chat room thanks thanks ben for the
lend of it mate uh i have a show coming
up on um

(49:24):
so everyone knows all those guitar
players know that january 26th is eddie
van halen's birthday but it's actually
australia day what they call australia
day over here and i'm doing a big show
at the casino here um
in the the backing band for a whole
bunch of australian 80s artists
and i need versatility man i need
versatility and
um

(49:44):
so i've borrowed a helix of somebody i'm
running a little friedman double j jr
the small box is normally my my choice
but why didn't you get another one of
those but yeah using that to handle all
the effects and the routing and
everything and yeah oh i see actually
are using the like four cable method
then i am i am yeah yeah yeah yeah great
yeah yeah now jeff you you used axelfx

(50:06):
for a while too i don't know this
because i did i only know this because
you shared some patches with me online
on the forum many years ago i just got
an xfx 2
and i was trying to get it going and i
was on one of the forums and you were
kind enough to send me some some patches
oh great wonderful yeah yeah i got you

(50:26):
know i got on that
as soon as it came out
i was like i got to get one of these and
so i bought one from i think
i think was dave working free tone
merchants or yeah yeah yep yeah i think
i got it
you know i bought it through them
because it was like where are you i
don't even know where you where you got
those and so then he

(50:48):
built me a rack with the with the axe
effects and the rm4 and we had it for a
cable method and everything in loop so i
could
yeah i had like all these crazy
possibilities you know where i could use
the rm4 for for preamp sounds but i
could also use the axe effects for
preamp sounds too into my two power amp

(51:09):
and and but all r just use it just for
effects and yeah
so i was i was early yeah early user of
the accident yeah yeah i i struggled
with it man um i was doing a song for a
friend of mine that i produced and i
just wanted to put in some some guitars
and i found
they tell me that the the ax3 is a lot
better now uh and it's got the whole

(51:30):
dynamics thing down but i just couldn't
get the guitars to sit in the mix if if
i got it to where you could hear the
guitars where they should be you
couldn't make out what i was playing if
i turned it up to where you could hear
what i was playing it
it was too loud and and i ended up
ordering a little egnata tweaker which
is sitting right up there i got the
first one in australia they've just been

(51:52):
released i ordered one from overseas
plugged it in put a mic on it played
first go and there was the sound i was
looking for and just like yeah maybe
maybe this digital isn't for me yet
but i i'm not going to write off the axe
three i hear great things about that
but you know
yeah
yeah i mean i used it i was gonna say i

(52:12):
go ahead go ahead go ahead i was gonna
say talking about the old randall system
i just got an email from the fred
the folks at boutique amps distribution
i have two big boxes on their way to me
with the new synergy sim 2 and all of
their modules for me to demo and do some
some online demos for their website so i

(52:33):
think that's the ticket for me to get
that versatility again uh is having the
modulus set up
well i can they get that you got to get
the
you're gonna have i hope they send you
the buy one
yeah have you played the vi one
i haven't i haven't i haven't yeah i
haven't had a chance to to play it um
no i you know the last damn show i went

(52:56):
to and i stopped by there and i wanted
to play um i wanted to check it out but
it was just so chaotic in there and um i
just didn't you know
i couldn't i didn't get a chance to to
try the actual you know synergy stuff
but but now i'm actually i've moved you
know for amps i started using the the
rev generator 120 nice

(53:19):
yeah yeah um
it and it's and it's funny because um
i the reason i got into the using the
rev amp was because i started using the
the um the model in helix they had the
they had the red channel in in helix and
now they've added the purple channel too
there's you'll see there's rev red and

(53:40):
red rev purple and um
i started using those and it was like
wow like
the sam sounds incredible i love this
love the sound of this and so i had
our manager reach out to rev
and then i get a message back and it's
from uh an old friend of mine shawn
tubbs who's the artist rep in charlotte

(54:01):
yeah
sean was the guitar player in the band
that i replaced when i was 18 when my
teacher his roommate you know was it
sean's brother was the drummer
you know this band and so he quit
and so they needed a guitar player but
so you know and so i've known sean said

(54:21):
like literally since then nice
and yeah so and then he totally hooked
me you know hooked me up with them and
cool and that amp is
incredible
i don't know if you know about the the
and then i think this is version three
now um
it has a
two nodes torpedo

(54:43):
load box built into the head yeah yep
with with irs that are switchable on the
front of the amp so for re for home
recording
you can it has 2x all right it's like
you don't even have to hook it up to a
cabinet
you can go have like the full
tube
amp and it's it sounds incredible i love

(55:04):
that two note stuff man i got the the
captor x uh that they kind of sent me to
to do a demo of and um
yeah that's that's a a great
uh concept uh especially able to
adjust it all on the fly with your phone
and everything are you miking live or
are you running torpedo
with pumpkins um we still use cabinets

(55:27):
but in iso cabs but now that i have i'm
switching to the rev one of the reasons
but i i really don't like that sound of
the iso cap because it sounds like a
cabinet in a box and you're on in-ears
so you can really
it doesn't have that the airiness
there's you know there's something about
you know having a super loud cabinet in

(55:49):
a iso box with foam
that it
even though the mic is right on the
speaker it's
it does something to the sound that says
still a resonant frequency everything
every single speaker is built into has a
resonant frequency
uh yeah so this to me
sounds way better yeah i i i demo it

(56:11):
sounds sounds incredible
nice nice you know i did have a play of
the the rev stuff when i was in germany
i went to a uh an event called 42 gear
street uh and the guys from rev were
there and they had their amps
and
i remember talking to dan trudeau from
um
from rev and just saying

(56:31):
yeah yeah yeah
there was one standout channel i can't
remember which one it was and i i
cheekily was talking to him over dinner
one time and i was like
dan i had a play man yeah i
channel one or whatever pedal platform
don't know man you know channel channel
two that was better yeah but

(56:51):
but three ah or four i can't remember
which one i just went oh that just set
my world on fire man and uh he yeah i
really liked it
i mean yeah the one one is just like you
know it's like a
like a clean
you know i would say it was maybe more
in the american
style you know but still very versatile

(57:12):
and you know and it does take pedals
very well
you know that accident i've been using
it quite a bit in the studio and i just
like i don't want to see how like
running distortion pedals and stuff into
it and it does sound really well for it
well and it's and then channel two is
more like a
a vintage plexi-ish
type of thing but it doesn't really to
me that it's a it has its unique sound

(57:34):
on its own but three and four are are
what you're you know what you're paying
for with that amp you know and it and
it's just this really great
like for modern distortion sounds you
know i mean it and
it
it's
it's got a complexity to the harmonic
sound that is just really beautiful like

(57:57):
you know you sit there and play it and
you can
and
you know i sit there and just sometimes
and you're just hearing it really loud
through you know studio monitors you're
like wow this is just such a great
tone
you know and when you hear it in a loud
mix with
you know really good as you know really
good amps and stuff the way they sit

(58:18):
against other instruments is so
important the the musicality of it is
just
fantastic and then like i said i just
really appreciate that it's you know you
know for
for an age where digital stuff is
so much easier in some ways you know
that if you're gonna go and use

(58:40):
you know a very expensive two amp
it's got to be worth the price you know
like you're getting that thing that you
can only get from
you know using this type of technology
in an age when man the modeling stuff
because you know helix has those
channels and they sound i come home
sometimes
and i play and i play through the and

(59:01):
i'm like man it sounds
crazy close you know what i mean it's
not one or it sounds the same where it
but it's
when you really listen there's
it feels slightly different even though
if it sounds the same yep yeah um and
then you hear but
i actually recently did a recording um

(59:22):
you know billy's a huge wrestling that
oh really he owned yeah billy owns uh he
owns um the nwa which is a wrestling um
company out here in the states coop i
just did did a new i've done the last
two theme songs for them for the tv
series
and the first one i did actually with
michelangelo michelangelo i did it

(59:44):
together and yeah i just did this one
because we didn't have time you know to
get a guest and you know i used my rev
amp for all the rhythms
because i wanted to see how it recorded
for something really heavy like this and
it was incredible
and but then i was like i was kind of
bummed because i can't use it for
the leads because you know i mean it's
like i already had like four tracks of

(01:00:06):
rhythm guitar and stuff i was like and
so i used helix
you know the friedman
mod you know the friedman
model in there and i mean it just
and
you you can't really tell that
that it's i mean i can't tell like what
what's the tube and what's the model
like they don't sound really

(01:00:27):
yeah
cool yeah i've been doing a bit of
experimenting with with all the the
models in there um
i'm not a fan of the clean channel on
the on the little friedman i've got
there like i said i'm waiting to get a
small box again that's that's my amp so
i have experimented with some of the
models in there
i think it's a basement that i'm using
to get my clean-ish i i prefer not to

(01:00:50):
use compressors i'd rather have the
sound have a bit of a bit of hair around
it to soak up those transients rather
than a compressor and
yeah i'm leaning on some of those
um
you're going to wish we can compress i
got it let me i got it
right here
have you tried
i mean you probably have have you tried

(01:01:10):
this uh this that kelly 76 no i haven't
yet man i haven't um i know someone
that's got one um
76 style compressor over here so i'm
well familiar with an
1176 it's incredible i have to say for
clean i i i'm addicted
i might have to try that because after
this after i do this run of shows i've

(01:01:32):
got some more coming later in end of
march i'm gonna piece together a new
um
and i'm going to experiment with some
analog pedals and
that might just be the compressor of
choice
it's heavy though
it's heavy like physically yeah it is
actually it's like the weather it's like
the heaviest pedal i've ever

(01:01:54):
felt yeah i'm going to come back and ask
you about pedals and things that you
might be using live with the band okay
yeah but i'm going to jump back just a
little bit we're talking about sean
tubbs
i um
i produced a uh a record for a friend of
mine who's an amazing singer um
she was
a local girl she has been touring the

(01:02:15):
world as backing singer for sinead
o'connor she was touring with that
family group the cause and things like
that and she came back home to australia
and um it's like yep okay let's let's
throw together a little recording we did
it in my lounge room here
and she wanted to have a bit of a
countries flavor about it and i'm no
country player and i think you can

(01:02:35):
really
tell when people are faking
uh a style it's like well you're playing
the right notes but it's not you're not
coming from the right place
and she was talking about getting you
know
some guy who's played on a couple of
country records can play a little bit a
little bit country-ish and i remember
having coffee with her one time and i
said brooke
why aren't you thinking big he said what

(01:02:57):
do you mean i said well why would you
get some backyard guy to do this why
aren't you reaching out to like a
serious country player she's like well
who would i get i said well who's the
biggest female country artist right now
and she said uh
carrie underwood and i said well
why wouldn't you reach out to carrie's
guitar player and
get him to play some stuff and she said

(01:03:19):
hi
as if i could get you know somebody like
that on there i remember leaning into
and going
brooke
i've got gary's guitar player waiting to
play on your record and he only wants x
amount of dollars and she's like no way
and that was sean so we got sean to play
a few tracks
and it was just the perfect thing his

(01:03:40):
sound was
miked and eq i didn't have to do
anything to it to make it sit in the
track uh and it he gave us many options
and it was just a matter of having a
little mute party and playing all the
tracks and turning on different ones at
different times to get the the feel but
wow yeah absolutely no john sean's
incredible he always has been

(01:04:01):
yeah you know even
you know i mean when i
first saw him would see him play you
know
before i joined
you know took over for him in this band
you know he yeah i'd go see him play to
be like
he he worked at um i guess it was called
lab sounds
you know and it was a it was a

(01:04:21):
you know a place where you could get a
rack built and just like wait a place
where you go and you could the only
place that carried like mesa boogie
preamps and all that kind of stuff in
the 80s and so yeah you could it was
impressive you'd go see the band play
and he had the hugest rack
i mean it was incredible it was and he
was playing like valley arts guitars and
stuff at the time like the stuff that

(01:04:43):
he'd only that all those like like steve
lucas and all the studio guys had yeah i
i had a valley arts um for quite a while
actually um
they were all the rave they were all all
the rage and i was talking to
uh probably the best guitar builder in
australia over here charles sileo and i
was
i i knew somebody that had still had one

(01:05:04):
that was willing to sell it really cheap
and talking to charles about restoring
it and everything and he
and he just said to me guess have you
plugged it in and had a listen i'm like
god i've just been playing it no not
plugged in you guys do so because
they don't actually sound that good in
hindsight and i did plug it in and with
the old emgs and everything looks like
you're right you know i think styles

(01:05:25):
come and go and emgs were all the rage
back then yeah
yeah but um
i don't know whether i should dive too
much into gear just yet
what i would want to know about is
with
well okay so when you joined smashing
pumpkins james had left so
i guess you were taking over playing his

(01:05:46):
parts yeah
for the most part yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah at the time
i was gonna say we were it was for a new
album cycle zeitgeist and so we're
you know played a lot of the new
material as well though okay and yeah
so in on that first record we did were
you given free reign to come up with
your own parts or did billy have a an

(01:06:07):
idea in his head just like no no play
this
oh so on that they had the record once i
guess the wreck was already done so
i displayed what was on the record okay
so i didn't start recording with the
band like after um we did a
there was
gosh you know um
what happened is you know

(01:06:30):
jimmy ended up leaving the band again at
the end of 2008 and so then we had to
get and and jinger didn't end up wanting
to stick around either so it was just
billionaire actually after after the
zeitgeist tour was just the two of us
and so we had to get a new bass player
and a new drummer and so we kind of had
to basically reinvent the band um
which in in way was nice because then it

(01:06:51):
became like we had to find a different
voice which actually
allowed
all of us to have a little bit more
freedom and so then there was a project
called the the tier garden by
kaleidoscope
um
and so
by the you know by the end of that
that's where you start hearing like you
know the whole the whole band you know
on those um but i don't think any of the

(01:07:13):
none of those songs are up for streaming
or anything billy you know took them all
down and so um some people have them but
uh
um but but then the record after that
was oceania
and so um yeah that that was
like the parts that i play on that
record are my own parts you know and

(01:07:34):
yeah
cool cool now when it comes time to
learning
old parts
um what was your method for that mate i
know i find myself learning a lot of old
songs from the 80s to to play with some
of the artists and i i use a really cool
little program which
gives me a few tricks up my sleeve to
isolate parts
how did you go about learning the old
parts

(01:07:55):
there was
at the time
you know there
i mean
when i was learning these tracks which
was like you know when i was auditioning
for the band first i had started
learning all these songs
um tascam made this thing
called the tascam guitar trainer and it
was you had to put a cd in it

(01:08:16):
but you could loop and slow down
so you could ice and it actually works
better than a lot of these new or even
though there's
like um a lot of like digital ones now
yeah but this was great because if you
could loop a section there was no gap
nice and when it slowed down it changed
the pitch was always remain constant no
it's same the same pitch but yep but but

(01:08:38):
you know but like anything it would of
course get really warbly yeah it'd be
but it would retain the pitch
so at the time to have this thing where
you could do that and i
i went through like three of those
things you know because i would have you
know i just used them so much so i would
break them and it was plastic
like basically cd player it had so it
was it had that it had a little built-in

(01:09:01):
amp
sim you know so you could create you
know like you know it sounded terrible
but you could sit there and play along
and i would just um
play all the time you know and that's
how i would learn
learn learn the tunes because you know
and there you know there might have been
some tabs and stuff but you know they're
always wrong yeah i'm not even closing
so yeah i'd have to sit there and and

(01:09:22):
really learn it no for note
yeah yeah cool learning thing yeah yeah
and pick it out
um yeah you know i i've been aware of
some bands like say iron maiden where a
guitar player is left they get a
replacement
and then the guitar player comes back
and they keep the replacement and
whenever i see that i think you know
what that new guy

(01:09:43):
not that you're a new guy you've been
with the band how long now 17 years you
say
must be a good guy because they want to
they want to keep him around and i think
that's a testament to character and you
mentioned that when you audition there
was a lot of just hanging out and when i
was talking to pete thorne on one of
these podcasts pete brought up that a
lot of it is to do with um

(01:10:03):
just who you are and whether you're
somebody that
you would want to hang out with on tour
because let's face it when you're on
tour you're in each other's faces the
whole time and you're seeing each other
in the lobby at 5am to to catch a plane
and if somebody
is an [ __ ] you you you don't want to
be touring with them
no no i mean
i think

(01:10:24):
a lot of what it is i mean
the plane
the musical part of it
is
the longer something goes on is is
really
you know maybe only 30 of a gig
i mean
and you can find
a lot of people that can do that job you

(01:10:46):
know um
i think the pumpkins it was hard you
know billy toy you know i was it was
strange because i was the very first
guitar player to audition really and
and jimmy being jimmy which he's so
great about he was like great we found
our guy
he can do it you know because we
but i think they think well we better go

(01:11:08):
and
audition some more people so they you
know they auditioned
i don't know how many people because you
know they told me that maybe like seven
or eight other guitar players you know
and
and i guess what you know what they
would find is that it you know you get
someone who can come in and play
um
like the new wavy

(01:11:29):
spacey dreamy stuff really well but when
it came to playing heavy they couldn't
play
they couldn't play heavy yeah and then
you get guys that could come in and play
heavy stuff really well but when they
had to play
like the new wavy post punky they just
had no idea how to play that style of
guitar you know um
so i think that was just

(01:11:50):
you know in hindsight to find someone
that can really do
the gig in the pumpkins is you have to
have someone that really grew up with
both and it's invested in both styles
yeah um entirely and
and
and so i guess that was a bit tricky
yeah but
so that aside though but then as

(01:12:11):
especially as you go longer
and longer being in a in a band um it's
different and where pete is absolutely
right and i know p p said
i love pete he's he's he's a great guy
and a crazy planner where he's
absolutely correct is that
learning to
not even learn but like being able to to

(01:12:33):
hang out
and understand the vibe
is so crucial because
when you're coming in later
you're never going to be an original
member original members can do whatever
they want because they have a different
dynamic
you know because they were three or four
nobodies off the street

(01:12:55):
and so they can tell each other to f off
and you know what i mean yeah but you as
coming into something that you you're
you know most of the time not going to
have those privileges because
you know you didn't
create the monster but you're just kind
of living inside the monster
you know and so it is it is a different

(01:13:15):
skill and then as you go farther on
especially in a band like
like smashing pumpkins now is
you know um i don't have any children
but all the other members you know they
have kids and families and stuff and so
you know who they want around and how
they're going to act and be around their
kids and stuff that's all part of the
gig too yeah you know i mean you have
realized it so it is so it's uh

(01:13:37):
yeah it's a different situation when you
the the farther um something goes along
yeah yeah you know i i saw a documentary
on ginger baker from cream the drummer
and
um i know he's passed away now but
i walked away from that guy and that guy
isn't
he's not a nice guy yeah the documentary
starts with him breaking the nose of the

(01:13:59):
guy making the
documentary smashing him across the face
with it with his walking stick
and then the whole thing led up to why
that happened and everything and you
know such a brilliant drama but he
couldn't get a gig because he just was
not a nice human so yeah you've got to
be a good dude you know
well remember even you know someone like
jaco pastorius at the end of his life he

(01:14:20):
was basically on the street
and no one wanted to play with them
couldn't get a gig because he was just
you know it's too difficult to deal with
even though he was
you know the you know he literally
probably was the greatest bass player as
he would tell people on the greatest
bass player he really was you know what
i mean you couldn't get a gig yeah he
couldn't get a gig and that's so sad

(01:14:41):
yeah so prior to james returning to the
band
did you have it sitting in the back of
your head like
what if james comes back you know i'm
i'm going to get turfed because that
happens i know that happened to the
chili peppers recently and
um
yes and no but you know the the the

(01:15:03):
greatest thing
you know one of
one of billy's very great traits is that
he's very transparent
in that way and so he would often talk
about it like well
if the stars align he's like you know i
would definitely entertain the thought
of
of getting the band back together again

(01:15:23):
you know um but when it actually started
to become
[Music]
uh just an inkling of an idea
of becoming a reality you know whenever
it was 2017 or whatever 20 you know
he told me from the second he had that
he goes but if james comes back he's
like you're staying in the van so there
was no threat

(01:15:44):
so you know there was never a threat to
me and he was like you know hopefully if
you know if it all works out it'll just
make the band bigger be better for
everybody awesome you know uh yeah yeah
so it was it wasn't you know it wasn't a
threatening situation and then um
and to hit in and to james's credit you
know

(01:16:05):
when we started rehearsing in 2018 for
this shine you know so right there i
mean like the first day he came up to me
and he was like
i don't have any ego about this
i'm
not here to step on your toes
you know i just want this
to work out as best it can so you know

(01:16:25):
like like i'm here basically i'm here to
be
a team player and and if i'm stepping
all over you just let me know that's
great yeah that's great yeah
and um and he was out here in l.a so
james and i are actually both out here
in l.a and
and
you know
like we go out to dinner and you know we
wanted you know we were because omicron

(01:16:46):
kind of got out of control we're good
but we're going to go to you know some
hockey games and so i mean i really just
i i love
i love him you know i mean it's like i
feel like i've been in a band with him
for the whole time you know there's
really nothing
threatening and and in fact you know
what you know what is so strange
about the whole thing is you would think

(01:17:08):
that having
another you know there's only so much
you know any band
there's only so much guitar real estate
yeah you know and and you know and billy
is a an incredible guitar player
you know and he's you know is the the
songwriter of the band you know it's his
and you know his crea you know a lot of
the smashing pumpkins is his creation so

(01:17:31):
you know
so i'm not delusional about like what it
is
and um so you but you would think like
okay wow now there's
three guitar players so on on the one
hand you can think like well
those especially those records like
siamese and and melancholy infinites and
this are
extremely layered records so

(01:17:55):
it's great that we can really
reproduce
like those recordings
like
incredibly well live it's it's so cool
and with because you know james actually
uses billy uses the uh helix hxfx the
line 6 hx effects i use helix and james
uses um he has xfx

(01:18:15):
2 i believe
i don't think he's upgraded to three uh
yet um
but maybe he has actually um but ada and
then we're all using amps but with all
you know but with all those things like
all those vintage phasers and delays and
you know the even tied even types of
effects pitch shifting effects that are

(01:18:36):
like we can actually do all that stuff
you know and so it's it's really
wonderful so so on that end it's you
know it's great you know we can do that
but you would think but of course
there's
material like new material and then
like kind of later period pumpkins like
say from a door even or
or a machine and where we kind of are

(01:18:58):
more interpretive with them you know you
would think like oh my god now there's
like a you know three guitar players but
what is great is i don't actually have
to worry i don't have to cover
what james used to do
even on the old material which is you
know i was never a gibson player i was
never a les paul
type of player yeah when i joined event

(01:19:19):
i had to become one and now i mean of
course having
i have
quite a few gibsons in the arsenal which
you know for recording and stuff like of
course you have you know
you know i i love them but
you know now live i don't play those
style guitars because james does yeah
and so it actually allows me to

(01:19:42):
i got to actually just get to be me and
i get to kind of float in between the
two of them and just and do what i want
to do um when the person
and i really appreciate you know i
didn't and that's a
that's an insight
that i wouldn't have
thought about you know because of course
ego
when you go like okay great i'm going to

(01:20:03):
have my i'm not losing my job but what
the hell am i going to do you know yeah
yeah and and you would think like wow
that another person up here how how
could that give you actually more
freedom but it actually
gives me
allows me to be more myself and i really
appreciate that's been something that's
been really wonderful so i'm very
thankful actually to the situation cool

(01:20:24):
do you ever find yourself um
where there's parts where james might
say
man i always struggled playing that part
you seem to play that uh better than me
how about you take that that one no does
that has that ever popped up um yeah
well you know the funny thing is is now
i think
we know each other's playing so well
that we don't even

(01:20:44):
really talk about who's going to play
what like it's just
everybody knows like
like
that's your thing
that's the other thing yeah yeah yeah
i'm going to do this you know can you
cover you know like it it kind of just
pretty quickly falls into place you know
yeah it's really yeah yeah it's not um
too much fighting over stuff

(01:21:06):
cool cool um yeah
talk me through you your signal path
that you're using live now like so
you've mentioned the helix and the amps
and stuff but let's get specific like
what what guitars are you you're taking
out the road with you
um yeah let me i'll just i'll just let's
grab let me see um
well this is maybe the most

(01:21:27):
um these are
my
i got
these these are
yamaha
this is pacifica beautiful which they
don't really make anything quite like
this yeah
and it's actually taken the body
inspiration was from something that
they've kind of made in late 80s early
90s you know i think someone was similar

(01:21:48):
to what maybe michael lee firkins you
know those guys yeah he had i think he
had a signature at the time so they went
through the archive and implemented
he's jackson's custom shop
builder but he was at yamaha you know he
did some new contours on this and you

(01:22:11):
know there's like things like they
didn't have this type of
heel on the back you know at the time
and um
so
i have four of these and you can kind of
see they're all you know in different
colors that the fluorescent one um and
that has a sustaniac in it
and there's um kind of like a dark green

(01:22:32):
one in there too and so i have four of
these and um
do they all have floyd roses
yeah i'll have floyd rose floating floyd
rose drones with um efu tone upgrades
adam
uton's a very close friend of mine and
um just been such a
man he's he's been such a great
supporter of me and you know just a

(01:22:54):
short little you know he's introduced
basic because of him got to
meet eddie van halen go to 5150 and the
last year like he's you know and to this
day he's um so he's he still
really helps me out so it has like these
titanium
screws that have been replaced these
inserts um are upgraded it has the big

(01:23:15):
brass block noiseless trim springs um
and only two springs yeah
yeah yeah because these are kind of the
red his red sinus rings are kind of a
little bit stiffer okay so um and
according to him
you know if you have a floating tremolo
especially yeah um
that whether you have two or three

(01:23:36):
springs tension mathematically is the
same
to get it wherever it is like the
fulcrum point right
so
whether you have two sprigs three
springs i i feel i still argue it feels
different but he said the tension
mathematically is the same okay yeah
because it's for it to be with these

(01:23:56):
strings at that tension you know at this
kind of floating angle or whatever you
know but so and what about neck profiles
on those are they a standard neck
profile
no no no no no they're super thin
super thin i mean yeah i don't know you
can see they're like very thin
modern flat i'm not going to say that
modern but you know because they started
making things you know very similar to

(01:24:18):
like you know something like an ibanez
or something like the very okay
i've actually have uh
pacifica right there i'm just gonna grab
it
[Music]
it's not mine and i haven't actually
played it much but maybe i should give
it a bit of a
a

(01:24:38):
yeah
yeah
yeah so this is you know it's got a flat
24 frets
oh what does that let me see what kind
of does that that is a locking one
it's got locking tuners
um funnily enough this belongs to my my
best friend and she doesn't play guitar
she bought it it was on special at a

(01:24:58):
store
and um
i really like that it's got this push
but she which one is it one of them's
got a push pull there it is push push on
the tone which splits the um
the humbucker there in it
it actually gets quite a convincing tone
some humbuckers just completely fall
apart when you split them what pickups
you got in yours

(01:25:19):
these are uh this is a seymour duncan
hunter you know the george lynch you
know pickup yeah and this is the simran
ssl5 single coil and then they did a
custom neckline of the hunter for me
that's not they don't usually don't make
it but they kind of did a matching okay
for this it's pretty really hot yeah you
know and uh because

(01:25:39):
um but i always loved like that under
lock and key
tone you know so for this kind of guitar
it works really well i didn't i didn't
put any uh coil tapping and stuff on
this because
i i've done it so much in the past and
then live i never i never use it much
you know i mean and so since i knew i

(01:26:01):
was these were going to be like my
like main live guitars i just was like
i wanted it to be
like the pulling those things are at the
dips which i it just ends up kind of
never working out for me you know so
but it's got you know 24 uh jumbo
stainless steel frets
you know
do you find there's a difference in tone

(01:26:21):
with state with stainless steel
i mean
definitely
unplugged you can hear it you know what
i mean it's definitely kind of a
brighter poppier sound i don't know
for me
i'm playing you know especially
distorted
like really high gain jacked up sound i

(01:26:42):
i don't know if i can hear the
difference definitely um
feels great
though i i mean you can i i mean it they
just
they feel fantastic i've become totally
addicted
totally addicted to them yeah so nice
okay so this is you know these have
become kind of my main guitars
i actually have two they're at the shop

(01:27:03):
right now of the yamaha customers i also
have two
refinished just um production pacificas
that we did in different colors and we
put mega trends on them i don't know if
you're familiar with those um
what are they yeah
it's a
replacement
uh non-locking tremolo but you can rip

(01:27:24):
but it feels like a locking tremble and
you have kind of the travel
of it and they stay in tune actually um
really quite well so i have those and i
put um
but i have noiseless single coils in it
yeah and i went originally with 250k
pots but it's too dark you know so i i
have another putting some 500k pots in

(01:27:44):
it for
but
those and this are kind of like my main
and i also use some rev stars as well
which were more of like a humbucker
you know um
less polish sg kind of sound i do
because i still do want to use this but
like i said like 85 percent of the time
now i'm using these because these are i

(01:28:04):
kind of wanted
um
and the only and i said
i i have four because i have you know
two and e and two and e flat oh yeah
yeah because i have to have a back up
for each tuning because obviously if you
break a string on this you gotta switch
immediately because it's you know i i
use the floating trims um but i for each

(01:28:25):
tuning that i just stick i try to stay
on one guitar now i used to really like
switching guitars all the time because
you know i would i was like oh my god i
have all these guitars i have a guitar
attack
and then you realize
you know you know you look at the really
great players
most of them you know
there's always exceptions but you know a
lot of the players i really love like

(01:28:46):
they just kind of live on one guitar as
much as possible all night and i get
that because once you it's like a feel
thing you know like switching neck
profiles and pickup combinations and
scale legs can be
um
confusing to the to the hands yeah and i
guess once you find your thing you stick
to it yeah

(01:29:07):
yeah so these four guitars have
they're exactly the same cool like same
body cut same neck profile same fret
same fret size the only one is the the
um
the uh the fluorescent
orange one red one has a maple
uh neck all full maple neck yeah but um

(01:29:29):
other than that they're exactly the same
they feel the same and um they sound
phenomenal i mean they're just they're
they're exquisite guitars they play so
well i feel very very very lucky and um
what are you stringing them up with
i use on e natural i use um
ernie ball slinky nines

(01:29:50):
went ahead you know um for a long time i
used tens and then i i
decided to go back to nines and
it really makes it dif especially with
with this kind of guitar it just it just
it's the right feel
because you want to be able to kind of
even if you play like like even like a d
chord

(01:30:11):
you want a little bit of a shake
yeah you know
yeah so it's uh
having that slinkiness to it is really
nice
and uh so and then on on e flats i use
tens cool cool yeah i did the same like
everybody tuned down back in the
nineties uh it was the thing to do and i
was like you got the stevie ryan effect

(01:30:32):
right yeah yeah and i call [ __ ] on
all that because i um
i went to tens used that for forever
and a few years back now i got really
bad tendinitis um
i had a
i had a situation where um
somebody tried to pull the hole you'll
never work in this town again thing so i

(01:30:53):
said
rather than retaliate i just went i'm
just going to say yes to everybody and i
just overplayed overplayed it was anna
gave herself a midas
and um i stepped down to eights for a
while and i thought my tone would be
terrible no
no
i just had to watch my vibrato i started
turning into invade molesting for a bit

(01:31:14):
yeah yeah yeah no i know and you know
paul gilbert uses aids right yeah yep
yep and it's it is it's i mean i know
and you know and then rick biano they
did that big
like string gauge test you know and yeah
and and it's funny because
i think that

(01:31:34):
even a lot of those like players like
jimmy page and stuff probably in the 70s
were using eights and stuff even on the
high e right it's pretty thin
you can tell because he always like his
sound is a lot of vibrato and shake to
what definitely was that you know they
wasn't using thick strings yep yep yeah
i've heard that um tony iami was using

(01:31:57):
eights tune down a whole step
and that's a little bit yeah and that's
quite a brutal tone so you know
yes
um you know
billy in the pumpkins he told me because
you know we you know total obvious you
know geek out on guitar stuff all the
time and you know he produced a track
one time for tony naomi wow and um and

(01:32:18):
he said that really the heaviness
comes from
you know he he almost vibratos every
note like he has that shake and i think
that a lot of that has to do with using
the light strings yeah right you know
because you can't get that type of vibra
i mean with you know with the fingers
his fingers and stuff if he was using
thick strings

(01:32:38):
yeah i think the light strings is
is kind of uh they're coming back
i think i think there's a movement back
to lighter strings
thank god for that my uh my aging
fingers are appreciating that hey are
you using wireless
no wireless no wireless you use a cable
yeah yeah either divine noise or um

(01:33:00):
whatever my tech makes me like you know
some type of like because you know
custom my text usually will make a
custom length and cable yeah do you use
it like a super long cable for life with
the pumpkins
not super long i mean but i can walk
across to james's side of the stage yeah
so it's probably like 30 feet 30 yeah so
i go in yeah so i go and then so i go in

(01:33:23):
for my guitar and then i actually go
into a um dunlop joe bonamassa
or i actually uh recently i adam from
effie tone got me a morally bad horsey
wah
and so on the last couple shows i use
that and i really like that so maybe you
know i think that might live on there
for a while uh cool

(01:33:44):
i go into wah
and then i have a jhs buffer i was about
to ask with that with such a long cable
if you're using a buffer yeah so then i
go to the buffer then then that you know
which is you know that's a pretty long
run probably 30 feet too that goes to my
rig which is always off stage
and um yeah and then

(01:34:05):
i go into
uh helix first
and then uh
so you keep helix off stage
yes yes i have to use the relax the rack
one here okay
yeah with two
dunlop um expression pedals nice you

(01:34:25):
know for volume and pitch shifting stuff
mostly just for volume i used to use it
for volume
of helix i have when in one loop i have
the the randall the rm4 but which is now
will be the
rev generator 120 you know the preamp
and then i have uh

(01:34:47):
a couple pedals
um i have
my old uh tech drew floppy he should
actually be great on so he's actually
but he's
um shine down is overtaken you know has
has taken him so uh playing more shows
but he he's an amazing um one of the
best techs i've ever had the privilege
of of where he's just

(01:35:09):
an extremely talented person can
do everything from build guitar pedals
amps you know um he built uh
like a boost pedal
called the royal preamp and so i have
that in my one loop i have a even tight
h9
in a loop and then i also have a um
electro harmonix um synth pedal too that

(01:35:32):
i use
uh to play the string parts on tonight
tonight uh cool
nice yeah what do you use the h9 for
uh just different reverbs and delays
that i just i love
love
um
like the event has this very specific
sound and tone to their algorithms yeah
and

(01:35:52):
i love it just i just love it i mean i i
wish
you know
i think about going and maybe hunting
down an ace 3000 just because i want the
the whole thing but yeah
i should have got it because there was a
time when the price really went down on
them now they're like you know a lot of
people with home studios are are buying
rat gear

(01:36:14):
like one or two pieces you know to have
a few you know non-plug-in type of
things and i really think that there's
um
you know because i have all the event
plug-ins on my daw but
the h3000 plug-ins still doesn't do all
the things at the actual unit that's
when i talk to the people that you've
been tying this is just
the amount of

(01:36:35):
of processing and
computation they can't
do it in a plug-in yet you know
the algorithms you know in the in the
a2000s were even back then were so
powerful that they just can't quite
replicate the sounds yet and so but
that's so i i i use the h9 to get like
those kind of classic even tight sounds

(01:36:55):
even though helix does quite a bit of
them you know similar things
even tide has like a certain tonal
quality to it that i just love nice nice
so
and then that goes
you know so after that you know then the
helix goes into my power amp
um

(01:37:15):
which is which was the mesa boogie uh
simo class 290 but now i go back and you
know it'll be the rev just the gen the
head you know so but it's basic i just
have it's a four cable method type of
signal yeah and do you run that in
stereo
mono just mono because with three guitar
players i mean there's no no point in

(01:37:37):
being stereo how about when it was when
it was just the two of you were your
stereo then
i have i there was one there was i have
had stereo rigs in the past one time
when we in 2015
we did a tour and i used 278
marshall jmps
you know and i just ran paddles and

(01:37:59):
effects just straight in
you know into the front you know set the
amp kind of like ac dc
type of you know and i would just roll
down for cleans and then had some drive
pedals to get into the high gain and
that was really fun that was a really
fun rick but
when um we did when we
were going to do the shiny no so bright

(01:38:20):
or we decided okay we really wanted to
replicate
like the classic material as it was
recording so i needed a more pristine
clean so i went back to the rm4
reagan's because i needed to have some
that could be really you know like
really clean
but yeah but that rig that the two
marshals i ran in stereo

(01:38:42):
nice one yeah it's one of those things
um
when i had the the ada and quadruped rig
back in the 90s i'd run that in in
stereo and
once you go stereo it's hard to go back
especially
most of the bands i've played in i've
been the only guitar player so i do have
that sonic space
yeah i know when i sit here at home i

(01:39:03):
always play stereo it's addicting you
know i mean it is funny because um i'm
just i'm just don't mind me i'm just
adjusting my camera it's gone dark here
outside
sorry
yeah would i uh
you know because
you know
effect trends as as certain things come

(01:39:24):
and go
and you know for a while
you know using chorus was
like super taboo and now choruses
especially on clean guitars has totally
come
like it's that you know people don't
artists are not offended by it at all
anymore you know and uh
so using things like in helix like the

(01:39:45):
you know the tri chorus
and things like that is empty i just sit
here in my because i actually can't see
it because this is my studio in you know
in front of me here and so i just sit
here playing
[Music]
ping pong delays and stereo chords i
love it
yeah yeah you know it's one thing though
that um

(01:40:06):
whenever i compare and i've got one just
here
no matter what processor i get
i'll give this thing a spin the old
arion chorus

(01:40:28):
i really want to go
just
helix or something and you know just
hearing you talk i'm thinking maybe rack
mount helix same thing with carbon copy
delay one of the artists that i play for
his signature tune
is
very much like u2 where the guitar is
playing off um off the delay
and i just cannot get a digital unit

(01:40:51):
to get that same sound
um
i've got a carbon copy delay there the
mxr it's just like there's something
about the way that it goes
that i just can't get yeah
yeah are you finding that are you like
swapping convenience
of having a sound that's 90 there

(01:41:13):
um to have everything at your disposal
rather than having you know that
one killer pedal that just
yeah for sure for sure
yeah i had you know at one point i just
had these ridiculously huge pedal boards
and you'd have all these pedals and you

(01:41:34):
know the sounds are great but
you know and
you know especially
like even if they're digital or analog
but especially like analog pedals but
you have like one setting
you know i i can't in the middle of a
show go in like okay i gotta brighten
this or darken this and then change this
setting and you know i mean it's like

(01:41:55):
it's kind of like one you know i would
have
midi switchers and i could
you know make presets with different
combinations of pedals but you couldn't
unless it was a pedal that was fully
digital like some of the event like the
time factor and the pitch factor i had
all of those when they first came out
and then or something like the h9 um

(01:42:17):
you know and now there's quite a few
digital pedals you know you know that
that are all midi as well so there is
programmability but um
what is great about helix is that
you have complete flexibility of every
single parameter on not just on every
preset but within snapshots within the

(01:42:38):
preset
you know because you could have like one
preset right say a
high gain distortion sound with some
pedals and delay and reverb
but you can um i think have up to eight
different snapshots absolutely
where where the settings are different
and so that's just so
useful that's the way i'm setting up

(01:43:00):
this helix at the moment i've just got
one
second
yeah one preset with all the um
effects that i could i could need um and
just snapshots of them so that i can
have
a little stab of
of a sound uh with big
tailed reverb and then cut to the dry

(01:43:20):
funk straight away and have that
ambience
carry over and it just fades away and
you know trails and it it's really
wonderful and um
you know
it's where it every single one of these
modeling devices is like this is
is that even if they do like a really

(01:43:42):
great job of emulating
like the sound of of of a pedal
it's still running through the same
analog to digital converters and kind of
going through the same stuff so it kind
of homogenizes the tone whereas each
individual pedal is slight will sound
you know if you have the actual pedal

(01:44:02):
does sound slightly different you know
because you're essentially when you have
like a one digital device it's running
through the same thing
you know so you lose a little bit of the
distinctness right of of having but and
if that really
tweaks with you
i i get it you know and there's some
things that just don't

(01:44:24):
um
they just don't
like sound so you have to like okay i
gotta have this in the loop you know i
gotta actually put that like you know
like i just missed that even tied sound
so i'm going to put that
h9 in the loop so i can really just like
the reverse delays on that just have us
the way they they fade and and and and

(01:44:44):
uh
fade into each other and like kind of
the clipping of them and stuff is very
unique to the even type thing and you
know
many different delay units have reverse
light but the way that eventide does is
is is
what i just love and so like i can't get
that anywhere else
so yeah you just but that's what's great
about something like helix or access

(01:45:06):
they they put the loops on there so you
can you know can have up to like four
different
you know plug it plug whatever you can
plug the ada mp1 in there yeah and i've
done that
yeah you know when helix i actually got
a helix rack when it first came out and
i did that i put the ada into the loop
and did a bit of comparison and i liked

(01:45:28):
the ada so much better than the built-in
modeling but he looks onto version three
now and it's come a long way i really
gotta say
yeah yeah yeah
yeah for sure the pedals that you've got
are they sitting in a rack so you've got
a small rack yeah in my rack like that
yeah i have them on a tray and they're
all just in a rack nice nice power

(01:45:48):
supply for them is there you got a
preference in power supply uh the
they're the voodoo labs yep yeah
yeah pedal power twos and then yeah yeah
now there's
you know for a long time that was all
that there really was you know now
there's
so many different
options for
you know pedal pedal power yeah but i

(01:46:10):
just kind of yeah i have so many of
those voodoo loud ones from over the
years so i just i never need to buy them
cool
yeah yeah yeah so i want to ask you
about the the new album that you guys
have just completed are you are you
going to talk about that before i do
that if anyone's watching and you have
any questions for jeff please drop the
uh the questions in the um the comments

(01:46:30):
section i try and
give the guests my full attention uh
uh without being distracted someone did
make a nice comment you know they said
like luckily the band mix no one really
hears the difference it's actually true
you know sometimes when i hear us all
playing
like i just don't i think it's like i
said are you gonna really hear like is
that really a korg delay is that just

(01:46:51):
the emulation yeah
yeah exactly right yeah yeah yeah yeah
uh brooke that asked that question he's
actually quite a gun country guitar
player i've heard the name around town
here so um
good to see you brooke um yeah i guess

(01:47:11):
as i said folks if you've got any
questions start dropping them now but
jeff uh the new album
uh
spill the beans mate is it uh
still working on it
you know we're kind of we're on you know
it's kind of on the tail end you know i
mean you can see if you follow our
instagram you know or somewhere but you

(01:47:33):
know um it's kind of more like and i
think it's kind of final vocal
like background vocals so just like that
we're in the put it the last layer of
okay last layer of stuff so um yeah so
it's something that we've been working
on
i would say
at least about a year
you know um and

(01:47:55):
and doing it for the most part i mean i
guess
basically remotely you know um james and
i've been working out here in la and
then you know sending files and and
doing it that way we haven't ever really
been in the same room working on it
together so that's
that um
it's fine you know i mean it would all

(01:48:16):
of course would be better to
be in the room and be able to have
real-time discussions
you know obviously we're not usually in
the room playing together because you
know the way records are done
everybody's doing stuff separately but
you do miss having those discussions or
happening to someone go like yeah i
really like what you're playing but
can you change those last three notes

(01:48:37):
sure yeah
yeah you do it remote like you send it
and they're like yeah it's great but can
you you have to change the end and then
it's like okay well that's
okay and a whole nother day and like you
know i mean like it it slows things down
considerably and are you going to
another studio to to track you your
parts
i have i have been only because it's

(01:48:58):
such a big project that i just felt like
i needed to um
have i i wanted to be able to have
someone else engineer
um i could certainly engineer myself but
um
for i felt like you know it's a 33 song
record at some point i just wanted to
just
like i wanted to be able to sit there
and play and not have to worry about

(01:49:19):
running the computer and the final
management and
like what version am i dealing with and
you know that kind of stuff
33 songs is this going to be a double
record
triple triple
triple
nice i don't know how it's going to be
released if it's going to be i don't you

(01:49:39):
know
individual or not um i think it'll be
prop most likely i would think you know
but i mean it's all this stuff is still
totally up in the air you know so
yeah yeah yeah any any cover songs
thrown in there or anything is all no no
no no 33 originals
wow wow

(01:50:00):
um you know speaking of cover songs um
i was driving along one one day
and i heard this really alice cooper
played one of his cooper covers i think
he calls it on his on his radio show i'm
listening to this song going
this is cool
it almost sounds like smashing pumpkins
and of course i did the shazam thing and
it was the pumpkins doing clones by

(01:50:22):
alice cooper oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah i love it do you guys ever pull out
anything like that live
oh we always play covers we love to play
covers live so yeah every tour we end up
doing you know we end up doing a cover
or two
yeah sure sure yeah we haven't played
that one recently but um what are some
of the last covers we did i mean um

(01:50:44):
we did was it fire and rain you know
james taylor really you know like in a
heavier style
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um like
i think we're tuned down to
maybe c
you know super heavy yeah we did yeah
uh we did friday i'm in love um by the
cure that james sang we

(01:51:07):
we actually did stairway to heaven the
whole thing from beginning to end
wow
and it's crazy because
it was such a controversial
move
you know when we were rehearsing for the
tour or it was like
so you know billy sent out like you know
when we did
anytime that we put together
you know to get before a tour starts you

(01:51:29):
know like set let's go around and like
hey what do you think these you know and
it's always like a crazy long list and
then he's got to be shortened down into
a more
realistic list and
and but stairway to heaven was on this
i'm like okay so
we'll probably do some crazy
heavy deconstructed version of stairway
to heaven

(01:51:49):
so we show up the first day
to rehearsal and i'm like so how are we
going to play this and he's like
what do you mean you're going to play it
like the record
who finds that one
you know jimmy chamberlain's like oh my
god i don't think i played this song

(01:52:09):
since i was in seventh grade yeah yeah
but you know
because we were playing like a very very
long set at the time like three and a
half three hours 20 minutes set whoa
and so that kind of came like right in
the middle
and
i had to say to you know
again to billy's credit where he has

(01:52:30):
such good insight into these things
it was one of the biggest songs of the
night like the crowd you know
you know you're is
it was like that arena
arena rock moment that you want to have
like you know
crowd just loved hearing stairway to
heaven you know every night and i'd say
because it's great because billy just
sang and so i got to be jimmy page and

(01:52:50):
play the solo and stuff oh nice
so being in madison square garden
and being able to play be you know on
that stage and get to play the solo the
stairway to heaven was was was you know
was pretty pretty uh you know it was
pretty awesome
i bet i bet you must
pinch yourself and just go

(01:53:11):
no way you know like does that still
happen like you were saying
i mean
back in the 90s you know the whole
alternative thing came along and
pumpkins were at the forefront of that
do you sometimes pinch yourself when you
have moments like that like i'm playing
madison square garden and i'm in the
[ __ ] smashing pumpkins is it do you
still get that that feeling oh yeah yeah

(01:53:32):
yeah there have been a few times um i
you know there was one era of the band
when we did uh the money mints for
knowledge monuments for an elegy album
and um we didn't really have a band it's
just billy and i you know we mike and
nicole who are playing with us we're in
the band it was just just the two of us
and so
uh we're in the studio just demoing out

(01:53:53):
all the songs and
through a you know a discussion you know
that we're you know kind of like
wouldn't it be cool if someone you know
who you know who who's going to play
drums and blah blah blah
we came up at the end of like we got to
get tommy lee to play on this record and
so you know tommy lee ended up playing
on the record

(01:54:13):
but he couldn't do shows with us and
um
through friend and one that we actually
had the band um was mark sturmer from
the killers was our bass player and then
brad wilke from rage against the machine
was a drummer and actually we did quite
a few we did all the sound wave
festivals in um australia yeah yep that

(01:54:35):
was actually i think the last time we
were there which was 24
2015.
um
and i remember i would walk on stage
you know one of those houses and i said
you know what really take this in
because like like wow i'm in a band with
you know basically billy corgan
brad mark you know like how i get to

(01:54:57):
play with these guys and that was that
was
i don't know if it was smashing pumpkins
you know the reason we did it really you
know there's a lot of personalities
there and you know a lot of
um
it was it was i mean we ended up playing
probably 30 40 shows together which was
it was it was really nice you know and
it was
i think it was best left as a short-term

(01:55:19):
thing you know kind of like did you see
it and um
but i remember looking and going like
wow this is
incredible like what a lucky opportunity
to be able to do this and it was such a
pleasure playing with those guys um it
was fun
and then um another one being in

(01:55:39):
i guess we're trying to remember when it
was
i guess it was
after it was must have been early 2018
and we were doing the um what became the
shiny no so bright kind of ep lp it's
eight songs kind of short for us you
know but we did it with rick rubin
and so we're at his studio in malibu at
shangri-la and i'm looking there and

(01:56:01):
i'm in the you know the tracking room
because he rick likes to have the whole
band tracking um
and
um
so i'm sitting there and i'm like wow
there's you know and i was playing bass
for the tracking sessions because we
didn't or we didn't have our bass player
there
and so i'm looking billy was on
piano for this song so i'm playing bass

(01:56:22):
but he's on piano and jimmy's there and
then james i'm like i'm like wow like
i'm in the studio with smashing you know
i mean like this is the bad idea what i
mean and then which is at shangri-la
like wow this is a green one then you
look through the control room window and
you see rick rubin there you're like
wow this is this is really cool um and
that was just a

(01:56:44):
what a wonderful experience to to be
able to make that record with him and
and to see to learn and see how he works
and
and
you know be part of that process with
him you know which is like everybody
asks what's it like working with yeah
well i was about to ask the same thing
because i
mean i hear that he pulls great
performances
out of people and definitely the records

(01:57:05):
that he does uh incredible you have a
vibe yeah he's got his way of of doing
things and he's you know what what is so
great about him you know is he he's not
a
a technical
producer you know where he's like are
you playing you know like are you
playing a major seven over that chord
you know i mean he doesn't he doesn't he
doesn't get into it like that to him

(01:57:25):
it's all feel
like how how he emotionally reacts to
things and
you know his gauge of
over
you know over his musical history has
shown that he's when the light or when
that when he gets that feeling inside of
him you know he has a pretty successful
track record so he's trying to push you

(01:57:46):
in whatever directions to where he feels
that thing on the inside and
and what you absolutely get from him is
he's just a huge music lover yeah right
he really loves it knows music really
well so
when you go in and work with him like i
said it's more he's like you it's very
artistic and musical

(01:58:07):
wow and do you ever feel intimidated
working with him or is he one of those
guys that immediately yeah like when
you're yeah when you're sitting there
and he's like you know you're coming up
for like overdubs and parts and you
gotta like you know he's got he's got
the final approval and he's gotta you're
like okay jeff what ideas do you have
for this song you know and he's just
like
nah that down like that not into that

(01:58:28):
you know i mean yeah you feel
that's very intimidating very you know
very intimidating but he like i said
he's very much like he
creates
a situation from the second you walk
through the door at the studio
shangri-la to where is very
artist-centric
and he wants to put you in the mental

(01:58:50):
space to where you feel like you're
going to do the best job that you can
yeah so it has a very you know peaceful
minimalist vibe
yeah you know
just talking about being intimidated i
said to my flatmate because i've been
learning a whole bunch of songs for this
big show coming up at least 80s artists
and i said to a man i have to have this
down so cold because

(01:59:12):
you don't understand if you get spooked
at all
you can just completely fall apart and
um
yeah
to get intimidated have you ever had a
situation where we're live you know
something's gone wrong or you've just
been around someone and then all of a
sudden you just go
i can't play the guitar has that ever

(01:59:34):
happened to you oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i
mean
um
i mean
i remember
um a few times where i was like
is must have been 2012 we're playing
here in l.a and uh eddie manhalen came
to our show

(01:59:54):
and so he came to our dressing room you
know and and he was so
so gracious with his time i mean he hung
out with family for like
90 minutes or something just talked to
us and we let us ask us all the stupid
questions that we had yeah yeah
you know i mean like you know like just
just
you know um but when he walked in i was

(02:00:15):
you know because before the show i was
sitting there playing a guitar and so i
realized that after a second i'm like oh
he's watching me play and i feel like
why am i even like oh yeah
yeah but you know he was he was so like

(02:00:37):
i said he was he was
like most those people
super gracious and kind
you know
and and like i said he let us
ask all the questions like did you ever
see jimmy page live and he was like yeah
of course i went i saw zaplin we're like
oh my god what'd you think he was like
i didn't think it was that great you

(02:00:58):
know
you know but then you have to remember
you're like
he was eddie van halen he was like
i'm gonna
i'm doing these things that i'm going to
break all these rules and i'm going to
kind of reinvent rock guitar for what it
was in you know the late 70s yeah
yeah it was it was it was you know you

(02:01:18):
realize like he was a special
being in that way cool
but you know when we've got to play like
we've invited
george lynch has played with us and he
was
incredible you know incredible um he was
great um
who else uh john roth we've played with
numerous times you know and um

(02:01:40):
you know recently um you know i've
become
in because from
chicago and but we're still friends you
know i became friendly with michelangelo
um you know because i i hit him up
actually
um
through instagram or something just
about
taking some guitar lessons from him
because i was you know was working on a
lot of that kind of picking you know

(02:02:01):
alternate picking faster making stuff
and i kind of hit some
like roadblocks you know i'm like you
know like i can get the metric you know
i can't really maybe this is something
i'm not holding my pick correctly is it
something about my technique that's
keeping me from you know really getting
the keys to the lamborghini you know
yeah

(02:02:24):
and so then he said yeah sure like you
know just come up you know you can come
up to my house and we'll play and so i
took a couple lessons from him and so we
just become friends over time and he's
again for someone like his talent as he
has what he does he's
super humble super gracious super

(02:02:44):
um giving of his knowledge yep you know
he you know and so he showed me he's
like oh he's like you're fine he just
needs to just he gave me a couple
pointers tips you know and it really did
it kind of helped me and um but so then
he was actually out here in la doing
something and he does a live stream on

(02:03:05):
his facebook and stuff and he asked me
to come and hang out with him and he
said let's play together and i'm like i
don't wanna i was like okay because you
know he said and so i was really nervous
playing you know because he's just like
it's like
you know he's like
with two hands yeah
yeah i'm just gonna play just one note

(02:03:27):
you're just trying to just not mess up
in front of me you know but like he's
not judgmental in that way at all he
he's
he's really sweet you know but of course
when you play in front of really great
players um
you always you know if you i know i i
still get intimidated of course yeah
yeah
yeah it's funny um a friend of mine

(02:03:48):
opened for van halen on the for unlawful
kennel knowledge tour uh back in the
early 90s and spent quite a bit of time
hanging out with eddie and he brought up
that
he would always be backstage actually
just after eddie passed on there was a
video getting around of him playing uh
an old strat uh backstage somewhere and

(02:04:08):
um it has he can pull up on it right
yeah yeah you've so you've seen it
i've played that guitar man that's my
friend's guitar i've played that guitar
yeah yeah he's like he's like wow like i
never have a guitar i can pull up on
yeah
yeah yeah and it's funny because uh that
band the lead singer was married to nuno

(02:04:30):
bettencourt for about 15 years
and i got to hang out with nuno when on
my 21st birthday of all the things i got
drunk with no no burden caught on my
21st and i didn't get to play guitar
with him or anything like that but
i um
i remember him saying to me so who who
are you who are your influences man

(02:04:50):
and i just looked at him and just went
um
[Laughter]
he's incredible yeah i mean yeah
i know when we had a night off
um in dallas one night and generation x
was in town so oh no i swear the
generation x

(02:05:10):
and it was incredible
um
there was a couple of questions
yeah they asked
so me what my
a good kind of segue you know into
answering that question so of course i
wanted to go big time because
by the big influence you know um
uh in bay you know even though i can't i

(02:05:33):
only more recently can actually learn
how to do some of those techniques and
play some of the kind of
the the picking stuff that inkbe does
you know but
um when i was a kid
it was through his eclipse um as was
just coming out he was doing it in store
you know near my house in the suburbs

(02:05:54):
out here in la and so i went
and um waited in line for like three
hours and got him base autograph and you
know that was like the closest you know
back then like you just didn't see these
people so it's just to be like in front
of them you know
but so yeah so he's he's you know a big
influence and i just been gone down such

(02:06:15):
the the rabbit hole you know i got him
up there just kind of i saw yeah yep
leaning over my guitars and um
um
yeah
his stuff from steeler alcatraz those
early solo records i mean it's just
just incredible
so ahead of his time yeah like um

(02:06:36):
and you know one of the yeah one of the
few players
that to come out of the early 80s that i
you know and i could in in you know
you know
it's the internet age people disagree
with anything you say you know but i do
kind of feel like
with him
he probably would have come out as angry

(02:06:56):
monsoon regardless of eddie van halen
yeah you know where i think
most other players whether there's bai
or sachariani or i think really
had
were
impacted you know very heavily by like
what eddie did and i think it kind of
opened up
a whole new paradigm for a guitar that
those guys

(02:07:17):
very quickly started developing their
own thing but i think it kind of
i think eddie broke
the wall in that dimension for a lot of
those people where i think invade was
kind of on his trajectory which was this
kind of european black more uh roth you
know but then taking the classical
influence and the way he played the
types of scales that kind of runs you
know where

(02:07:38):
you know he didn't need the tapping or
he wasn't doing hot blues or anything
like that at all you know i mean yeah so
i think he kind of was doing something
and the sound was different
you know um
so yeah he's he's phenomenal but i love
like i said so guys i can buy sanchriati
um i was really into eric johnson i said

(02:07:58):
eric johnson many times you know in the
in the late 80s early 90s um
but then there was guys you know like um
will sergeant from echo and the bunny
men was a big
big influence uh thurston moore lee
ronaldo from sonic youth was really big
for me
still to this day
um

(02:08:19):
who like kevin shields you know my
bloody valentine was a big dinosaur
junior fan as well jay mascus you know
um
i really like i said i really was
invested in that style of guitar too you
know as much even though
my personal leanings these days i really
um
i probably like more like the heavy the

(02:08:40):
heavy guys yeah that's a very broad
range of influences man like yeah but
then i spent like three years in chicago
you know i i took
i studied with a jazz teacher because i
wanted to kind of learn more about that
kind of playing and harmony and so then
i got really into guys like kurt
rosenwinkel and
and um
you know

(02:09:01):
uh
pat metheny and all the like wes
montgomery and joe pass and and uh
bill frazelle you know is a big i love
bill frazelle's plane so much that name
keeps popping up but i have to check out
some of bill
oh he's he's incredible and he just
actually
more recently um

(02:09:22):
he's done these kind of duo albums with
a bass player um
thomas morgan and those records are
incredible i saw him play live in
chicago at a small club with just the
two of them and it was one of the best
musical experiences of my life yeah
there's another guy uh jonathan
kreisberg who's an incredible

(02:09:44):
jazz flare and you know
these kind of players like someone like
kreisberg because i was
i took lessons at this through this
school in chicago called the old town
school of folk and they did a lot of um
seminars and so jonathan kreisberg came
and did quite a few um
seminars so i got to you know talk to
him and and and

(02:10:06):
you know he's like there's these guys
where he's roughly the same age as us
and so he grew up loving
he got into jazz because he loved van
halen
and then he read that eddie van gaal was
into allen holdsworth
you know and so then he was like well
then alan holder said he was into john
coltrane and so then he got in and then

(02:10:27):
started playing this so even though he
plays like he plays a you know a vintage
175
the way he plays guitar is only if you
kind of came up through rock even though
he's not a rock player at all but he's
incredibly fast alternate picker and can
play these incredibly clean lines
yeah just just a fantastic fantastic

(02:10:49):
player
he's got this solo guitar record that
he's done
where he plays my favorite things you
know and
um
just solo guitar and it's just
incredible it's just one of the most
beautiful things you've ever heard um so
i got you know a lot of stuff like that
you know really got into um
those that type of playing too so i

(02:11:11):
really try to put
no limits on on what i like you know
because i feel like you know it's funny
i had this this um
this question um
or this when i
took lessons from michelangelo he was
like why do you want to learn how to
like you know he's asking what my desire
was into learning to play like faster

(02:11:32):
stuff i said well to me
these are just they're just
textures you know that kind of fast
alternate picking is a sound
just like running
you know a chorused out
fuzz a fuzz chorused out through a
modulated reverb to create this big amp
is a texture too
and so depending on

(02:11:54):
what feeling or emotion you're trying to
convey through the music
you know i want to have these different
color palettes available to me i don't
want to have you know in it so it's just
really about
especially as i get older it's not like
i want to play
one style it's like i want to play like
what i hear in my head
and to what to be able as you we all

(02:12:16):
know we're all players to to
play what we hear in our head is
sometimes you need technique sometimes
you need an effect pedal sometimes you
need to learn how to really get into the
you know page three that delay to get
the kind of the modulations on the
repeats that you really want you know so
it's it's but it also may be like hey i

(02:12:37):
really need to work on my
legato plane you know so i spent like
the last few years working a lot on
alternate picking and playing fast
have you ever checked out troy grady's
cracking the code seriously
yeah man that was an eye opener for me
that changed my playing because i was
stumbling it was the things that he was

(02:12:57):
saying you know you go to chain string
and it would just
fall apart yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
incredible and so then you know um
you know morrison i've been working
because i never was like really like uh
like a serious like legato player so i'm
like okay i spent like the last five
years on altar to pick ndt to work on
some things like
legato and then you know even and when i

(02:13:20):
was taking jazz because my teacher
um studied with joe diorio who wrote
that book intervallic designs which is
so we worked a lot out of that book um
jody you know which is a such a great
book you know but one of
joe diorio's students was jennifer
batten
you know and so she does a lot of stuff
so i'm actually i got it right here on

(02:13:41):
music that i've been working on i just
got i don't know if her book oh nice um
no it's jennifer ben's ultra interval
guitar licks which is basically kind of
her
taking
you know the concepts that she learned
from jodi oreo's intervallic designs you
know um and applying them to her so it's
a little more rock fusiony kind of stuff
so
i mean yeah because yeah so i'm just

(02:14:03):
always looking for ways to how can i
expand my vocabulary you know in that
way yeah right and so in studying jazz
really helped in that
because i had i really
even though i i i've been i've been
playing guitar for so long
i really didn't understand what

(02:14:23):
improvisation
was you know i thought
like many people like oh when you
improvise you're just making up new [ __ ]
all the time right yeah but
but that's not really
jazz players don't really do that they
have
um like they have what you know they
call it vocabulary
and so

(02:14:44):
what i guess they're licks
yep you know yep
and like we're having this conversation
we're improvising this conversation
we're not scripted out right but i'm not
making up words
making up sentence structures yeah and
that's more like what it is they have
all this thing
all this vocabulary under their
fingertips and can kind of yeah so now

(02:15:05):
i'm like oh so when i learned and my
jazz scenes are taught me like this like
so if you learn a lick
you know from joe dior's intervallic
designs that works over a major chord
how can you reframe that to work over a
minor chord how can you work over a half
diminished chord because
that the intervals create the pattern

(02:15:27):
the shape you can now transpose those
intervals to different chords and
whatnot so so now when i learn things
like this i know how to apply them in a
way that like oh
even though i learn a lick i can
learn the lick in three or four
different ways you know what i'm saying
like
and that's something that's been very
eye-opening too and and going like oh

(02:15:49):
it's okay to use
a lick more than once you know and then
you start really studying something like
eddie van halen there's like certain
phrases and patterns that are all over
the first oh yeah records yeah yeah yeah
and you realize like oh that's what
people do i you know i it's just
gonna be another thought that like wow
this guy's just making up new [ __ ] all
the time you know and

(02:16:10):
you know when you start breaking down
something like invader like oh he plays
that lick
to this day he's still playing some of
those same patterns and stuff because
it's just it's the vocabulary that they
have in
and that's in whatever it's charlie
parker to john coltrane to eddie to you
all you know alan holdsworth this is
what people do so kind of learning that

(02:16:31):
and kind of then going like okay now i
want to
um expand what my vocabulary is is has
been
um
part of like kind of the guitar journey
now yes and now even in my rock playing
like my chord voicings and
and structures is totally different

(02:16:52):
because
understanding
like learning so many standards you
realize like oh like you can modulate
all the time
you know you can
you can totally you don't have to stay
in one key and so um
it just like i said it kind of just like
broke down a lot of barriers and maybe

(02:17:12):
you know it's like you're not so
precious with these things and
and i think
you know another thing that i learned
about especially through
kind of studying jazz is it's a playful
music even though it comes off as being
so serious in it and it's so
dense and it really is but it's
it's
it was really you know people over time

(02:17:34):
like going like how can we take this
thing and just keep on messing with it
and messing with it and um
and so there's a certain playfulness to
um up you know to the way that that
improvise you know the improvising takes
place very poetic you know yeah yeah so
really
i said that was you know i was a

(02:17:54):
terrible but you know in in a
in in the real sense i i was a terrible
jazz player
it's really hard it's really hard you
know even though i got a lot from
learning and you know i got a lot from
studying it and i still like have dreams
of like oh my god like i really want to
to um

(02:18:16):
work on it more but it it's it i you
know there's that period for a thrift
for it it's all i did i carried you on
pumpkins on the bus i always had a you
know a big arch top guitar backstage you
know um to still only be a very
mediocre
like barely be able to make my way
through those changes um because it's

(02:18:37):
really a you know a style of music to
like for me like
like you know i'm not that
gifted i have to work really hard to to
get stuff like i'm like oh my gosh i
have to practice eight hours a day seven
days a week just to be mediocre
so you start going like well

(02:18:57):
i i've gotten so much from this but now
i should probably focus more on my rock
playing which i actually can use like on
stage yeah yeah but it's amazing how you
can grab things from different styles
like that and then you incorporate it
into
interlock and you make it your own thing
really don't you
yeah yeah absolutely absolutely

(02:19:17):
absolutely
so um when it comes to playing on on the
pumpkins record you you're taking
quite a few solos as well yourself
uh sometimes i mean it's on this record
it's hard to say yet because a lot of
things haven't been finalized but you
know live you know billy and i switch
off quite a bit yeah yeah and are you
finding that you're incorporating some

(02:19:38):
of these new ideas that you're learning
from jazz oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah for sure for sure you know um
but for pumpkins it's more of a rock
thing you know what i mean but it's just
like i think
what i learned more than you know um
in anything
you know when with

(02:19:59):
with the jazz mentality is thinking
intervals more than scales
you know where you become really going
like what intervals in this line am i
highlighting over this chord yeah which
is rock you know we just kind of hey e
minor blow you know what i mean yeah
yeah
but but players that are really good

(02:20:20):
always know
what note they're playing against the
chords absolutely you know when you hear
um
other you know say like not advanced
players that you know and some people
learn that intuitively yeah but i mean
yeah it doesn't you don't need to know
it theoretically intuitively it's fine
too but yeah for me i was one of those
players where like

(02:20:41):
like
i'm just playing in this key and if i
land on a good note that's rad and if i
don't i don't understand why i'm not man
it became yeah much more of a thing
where i had to be like okay like
this run is gonna go from the flat seven
to the five and that's gonna make this
line feel a certain way so that's
something that i've become much more

(02:21:02):
cognizant of of um over the last like
five years of my life you know i i think
i mentioned before that i consider
myself a bit of a pentatonic hack
uh for many years where hey we're
playing an a minor hey
watch me milk this shape down at the
fifth fret or whatever oh it's major
let's move that down three frets but
then
i started

(02:21:23):
really
trying to play the chord tones uh and
that's what yes
guys like david gilmour and mark
knopfler and stuff i didn't really
realize
that's what they're doing there you
could take away the backing and they're
you could hear what they're implying
what the chord is and that is my
understanding of what jazz is a lot of
right
yes yes yes yes in the most rudimentary

(02:21:46):
sense yes but then people start doing
substitutions and stuff and so yeah it
gets like you know taken taken from
there but yes in the most general senses
you in you know you're supposed to
always be playing the changes
yeah yeah and i went to a guitar clinic
recently um held by um the guitar player
on the voice in australia here

(02:22:07):
and he was talking about trying to teach
how to play around
the chords in a rock kind of way
and um
yeah it's
such a big thing all the greats are
doing it and it's something i've been
working on in my own playing you you've
said a lot of things that you've been
working on in your own playing there uh

(02:22:27):
with the ultimate picking and the jazz
and everything
is there anything that you really don't
like about your own playing that you
just go oh man i'm terrible at blah blah
blah
everything yeah everything yeah i mean
yeah everything you know i mean i'm
going like i'm like i can hear like the
you know the i'm rushing there i'm i'm

(02:22:47):
i'm lazy there or you know me like you
know i i don't it sounds too methodical
it's not you know fluid of course i'm
always
so always trying to um
to work on those things you know i mean
it's just and you know and it's

(02:23:08):
it i mean i don't think as a player
it's really even worth it to feel like
hey i've arrived i think we're always in
a um in a process of becoming you know
at least for me like to me i just feel
like
you know um
you know
what what we can do on this instrument
is really
limitless i know i'm gonna i'm gonna die

(02:23:30):
before i run out of things to work on
yeah you know on this instrument and i
like that i really feel like that's
that's such a beautiful thing about it
and yeah
maybe i should get into some jazz
playing man because it seems to be
something that as people get older like
good friend of mine is one of the most
recorded guitarists in history
um
la session musician from back in the 60s

(02:23:50):
70s 80s but lives out here now
and he finds himself playing a lot of
jazz and
it's i think i could learn a lot from
that
you can no it is like i said it's it's
it's
it's a rabbit hole that you can get hard
to get out of and it's in but
um
it's limitless it's just so many great

(02:24:12):
players and now you know it you just see
like you're like oh my god there's all
these kids out there that um
you know that are so young that can just
like so
can blow over these super sophisticated
changes and i'm like you know i think as
as an older person it's always harder
for your mind to train your mind to work

(02:24:32):
a different way
it is isn't it trying to
learn new things yeah yeah it's hard
it's like you know i've been playing
guitar for so many years now doing it
you know so you can only make very small
you know like little
changes is is even tough
so there was a great question that just
came up there um i'll let you go soon

(02:24:54):
because it time is getting away honestly
i heard i heard the dog barking before
the dog is going dad food time um yeah
yeah yeah it is the idea yeah
what is your fall back on lick if you're
jamming and you want to do a flashy
thing everyone has a has that lick have
you got a couple of i need to impress
people here's this thing yeah

(02:25:16):
i do like this kind of it's like a from
a paul gilbert
you know
uh
intense rock you know it's just
basically like it's a
you know uh six note kind of phrase you
know so it'd be like if you're starting
you know in e minor if you're starting
like
here on the g string you just go
[Music]

(02:25:37):
you know
you can just you know another one it's
like
yeah that's like one of my i'd like to
use that a lot if i want to do something
like
you know i can play really fast and
stuff because i started working a lot so
that's one of my go-to yeah
and it again but it's it's just like a
pattern that you can move to like you
know like okay like i can go from that

(02:26:00):
note to that note there yeah you know
yeah yeah yeah you can play whatever it
is as a sex top blitz or as um 16th
notes yep yep my thing is i can do the
eddie van halen tremolo picking thing
and it's all about holding it in your
middle finger so if i in a situation
it's like oh okay i need to pull

(02:26:20):
something out now no i'm not warmed up
at all but i gotta and this isn't my
choice of guitar but
i don't know if you can hear that you
can do it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
when i had uh troy grady on uh from
cracking the code i i did a bit of that
and he just he actually mapped out
i had a metronome there and he worked
out what tempo it was that i was playing

(02:26:41):
it and was saying man if you could learn
to do this and gave me some tips on
incorporating that into just straight
out speed playing but i haven't had the
time to dedicate that plus i'd have to
go back and watch the interview to find
it and i don't watch myself that that
would absolutely no it's funny because
you know where he probably learned that
from
is michelangelo because yeah
because he showed me how fast can you

(02:27:02):
tremble pick yep and he was like okay
he's like then you can play super fast
yep
he's just got to get the left hand he's
like you know i mean yeah i think he
must have learned that from michael i
think so i think so man mike's somebody
that i've been trying to get on here for
a while i keep dropping messages on his
facebook just when he puts posts like
hey if ever you want to come on
but he never gets back to me um

(02:27:23):
there was one more question yeah there
was one more question there that uh
i i wanted to ask and that was from
taylor315 and you just want to know if
um
any of your signature your signature
yamahas are going to be available to the
public
um
if i was maybe

(02:27:43):
contact yamaha and said i want a jeff
schroeder uh yeah
no i think that it's you know obviously
less me and i think that there um
is a
i think part of the reason
that we've gone down this road you know
they don't yamaha is it they're you know
i think that when they at their custom

(02:28:04):
shop when they decide to make things you
know they're not going to make me a
a crazy explorer flying v kind of crazy
you know because they don't make
anything like that i think when they
make something like this the idea is to
see
like let's put some rnd into this type
of guitar
and let's put it out there in the world
and see what the reaction has been and

(02:28:24):
always people when they see this there's
like a certain demographic that's like
yes we would love to have
a pacifica like that so i think that
there there is interest um but what's
great about yamaha is they're not a um
they're a very
um
like they really think things through
they don't jump on things in in a way

(02:28:46):
and i and i appreciate that because if
they do something they always do it
right and they really make sure that the
design is good so even if they're making
like a pacifica
you know like say like the top end
pacifica which is maybe in the us like
it you know 700 800 guitar
they play phenomenal yeah you know i
mean like i've had i'm like just shocked

(02:29:08):
like
you know because but they that's because
they put the rn years and years of r d
before that guitar comes out cool you
know
so um
i
like i feel like i would be totally
happy if they wanted to not not not not
because i i i don't care about you know

(02:29:28):
i don't even think about things like a
signature guitar or anything like it
just doesn't mean anything to me you
know i mean i just think that like i'm
part of this community
of guitar players that likes these types
of things and so if i can help
bring that to the yamaha family again
because they haven't made anything like
this in a while um i think that would be

(02:29:49):
great that's that's more how i see it
and um
and so you know we'll see awesome jeff
it's been great talking to you man i've
got to say out of all the guests that
i've had on here and i've had 80 80 odd
episodes or something now you're
probably the most uh like-minded guest
i've had and
parallels in career paths and stuff so

(02:30:10):
it's been great to talk to you i can
talk to you for hours more but um i know
yeah well let's do it again we can
always do it again we'd love
you're of the the right vintage to
understand why layman attempted a joke
that i'm about to do but if we ever

(02:30:30):
started a band together we could call it
ricky schroeder
exactly i was such a huge fan of
celery's burdens right all right was it
someone smells right it was yeah but
even as a kid i remember being a little
kid and going to the movies and when he
was a child actor
and um
yeah he was the only famous person i
knew that was a ricky you know i'm a
ricky and uh

(02:30:51):
yeah it really really stuck so um yeah
thank you so much for your time jeff
i've got my magic button that i'm gonna
grab over here to hit the end screen and
it goes something like this oh hang on
hang on i'll get my studio audience
thank you to jeff
you didn't know there's all people out
there
yeah
all right

(02:31:12):
thanks for tuning in folks
like subscribe all that kind of thing i
never say any of that stuff and you know
nobody watches my stuff nobody watches
my stuff um but i've i'm amassing a
ripper back catalog of guests i reckon
i've got some of these

(02:31:35):
and that's what it's been it's been a
thing of
um just approaching people and showing
them the back catalog and
occasionally managers are like well how
many views you're getting and stuff and
i'm just like well this isn't going to
work is it you're talking figures
actually watch it and see how relaxed
and that the guests are and
it's a matter of time before the right
person shares it or um and and it's it's

(02:31:58):
about and it's about being part of a
community and and community is what this
is all about it's about you know just
sharing this information and finding
like-minded people and
you you know then one thing is you never
know
it doesn't it's not about the numbers
it's about the right people yeah yeah
you know sometimes the right person will
come across something and then you know

(02:32:20):
something will be born out of it who
knows or someone gets the right piece of
information like oh my gosh
that's where i needed to take my plane
or whatever my gear choice somewhere so
yeah it's all good yeah you know i was
lucky enough
not quality
that's really is important to me
i was lucky enough to go to a a youtube
event in germany a couple of years ago

(02:32:41):
42 gear street i hung out with 15 of the
world's top guitar youtubers and they
all had a similar story where they were
saying that they were doing it and
thinking nobody cares i'm making these
videos and they pretty much got to the
point where they gave up and they all
said an old video of mine somebody
picked up on shared it went viral and
holy hell it all happened all of a
sudden so it's one of those things just

(02:33:02):
keep doing this and making those
connections and you never know so once
again
like i said i just enjoyed the talk so
even if it just was just talking the
fact that there's an audience you know
is just a bonus yeah you know that's why
i use this particular software is you
can't see anything i i can see that
you're watching the the chat room uh
yeah i can see youtube open there but um

(02:33:25):
i set this up particularly
so that the guests can't see
all this thing is me and that way we're
just having a chat you're not seeing
what's being broadcast
yeah yeah i have been a guest on other
people's podcasts where i can see
what's being broadcast and when they cut
the screen to just me i'll be talking
and then i'm presented with this big

(02:33:46):
picture of myself talking about ah oh ah
ah oh look at that sit on my nose or and
so yeah
i specifically i was a beta beta tester
on
on this particular software when they
incorporated their own chat to and i
said you need to have this you need to
have this so that the guests can't see
and i think it works

(02:34:07):
but
i'm i'm rambling on now i've got to hit
that end screen button which is right
here and it goes something like this
thanks again jeff
okay bye