Pat Travers is wandering the aisles of Home Depot looking for bug spray. Not the truly lethal stuff that kills not only bugs but plants, dogs, cats and small human beings, but the non-lethal variety. "We’re doin’ alright except for these friggin’ caterpillars in our garden," he announces in a Canadian twang. "I found one the other day that was about three inches long and green."
Though he is pre-occupied with insect vermin at the moment,
Travers has spent the last year and more focused on
Fidelis, his recent solo album. It is his first studio album in some time. Produced by
Steve Thompson, a veteran studio rat who has worked with everyone from the
Red Hot Chili Peppers to
John Lennon, the album features
Travers on tracks ranging from the acoustic balladry of "
Stay" to the whammy bar violence of "
Tear Of Love." The guitarist has managed to invoke the great classic elements of his signature albums from the past - sweeping and majestic solos, throbbing rhythm parts, and passionate vocals – while creating a modern record that faces forward.
With a can of Caterpillar-Be-Gone in one hand and his cell phone in the other, Pat talked about what it takes to be an electric guitarslinger in this new era of digital downloads.
UG: When we did our last interview for Ultimate-Guitar you were talking about the Fidelis album which didn’t have a title when we spoke. You said, “I’m very, very optimistic today because I know I have an incredible album already in the can. Our producer, Steve Thompson, is going to start mixing it and I’m really hoping for a summer release. It’s got nothin’ but great, great classic songs on it and we’re really excited about this one.”
Pat Travers: That’s all true; I feel exactly the same way.
You had spoken about the classic Pat Travers songs but Steve Thompson really brings a forward-leaning feel to Fidelis as well.
I was trying to achieve that but not in any kind of a contrived way. And I think we did that. When I wrote the songs they were really just so stripped down. Just down to like acoustic guitar. I didn’t have to do hardly any overdubs or anything like that except the vocals and little bits here and there. But it’s pretty much as we recorded it.
How important was Steve Thompson to the process.
Very.
In our first interview you’d mentioned that Steve had worked with Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. Obviously he understood the two-guitar mentality and how to record them.
He’s a frustrated guitar player and he’d be the first one to admit it. He and I worked so well together because he’s pretty ballsy. He’s a New Yorker and he talks like this [Pat imitates hardcore New York-speak]: “Hey, numbnuts, get in here so we can sing this vocal.” Or he points at a drummer and he goes, “Hey, you, numbnuts, whatever the f--k your name is. I want you to do this again, OK?” But he’s very funny and he’s very talented and he’s a feel guy. He’s a great feel guy but he can tell you when you’ve got the performance or not. This one song that we did on there called “So Missing You” is live, completely live. The guitars were just recorded through these little boxes, these little speaker boxes; they have a mic built into them. I forgot what they’re called [probably talking about the Palmer Speaker Simulator]. And we were gonna replace ‘em; we were just basically goin’ for the drums and bass or whatever and we ended up keepin’ the whole track: the vocal and everything. That’s the vocal I sang as I laid it down while we were doing a rough take. And he just was jumping around the control room and you could see him through the glass. And then when we finished he goes, “Now that’s a record; to me that’s a record.” ‘Cause it wasn’t perfect; it’s kind of ploddin’; and the sounds aren’t the greatest guitar sounds we ever got but it’s got so much edge and feeling to it.
Were you trying to make that connection with your second guitarist, Kirk McKim, come across as more modern sounding?
You know it’s funny. I think really I just got somebody to get the guitar to sound the way I wanted it to and then Kirk added was so much like this embellishment with the clean Strat-sounding stuff. We weave a lot; there’s a of weaving going on between Kirk and I and that’s interesting that that just happens without even thinking about it.
You mentioned that there weren’t a lot of overdubs on the album so are a lot of these basic tracks featuring you and Kirk playing together?
Oh, yeah. When we put down a track it’s like playin’ in front of 20,000 people. The same thing with any kind of vocal track; that’s what I do. Anything that I can put down and not have to replace later is great. Depending on the situation you’re in, if the drums are taking up the entire big room it’s like where do you put your guitar cabinets so it won’t bleed into the drum mics. So we have these little boxes that got a little 10” speaker and a mic in ‘em and they sound pretty good.
But not as good as a real cabinet that’s moving air.
Nothing beats a really good 4x12 cabinet with a [Shure] 57 in the right place and a [AKG] 414. And havin’ it turned up in the room so it can breathe. It’s a squashed, compressed sound when you enclose the cabinet in a smaller space.
"Anything that I can put down and not have to replace later is great."
You can hear it but if I’d mixed it? You woulda heard it a lot more [laughs] ‘cause I just love it. I’ve got some rough mixes where we were doing “Stay” and I was doing the big power chords in “Stay” which is a big power ballad. It was [sings melody] “Why don’t you” and braggghhhh [imitates huge power chord]. Going into that I had the Leslie set to fast before I hit that chord so the Leslie’s going wahwahwahwahwahwahwah [imitates Leslie rotating quickly] and it’s makin’ this real cool racket. And as soon as I hit that chord, I clicked the motor switch on the Leslie with my foot so it slows down like wahwahwahwahwahhhhwahhhhhhhwahhhhh [mimics a Leslie decelerating]. It was in stereo with the cabinet and it was f--kin’ awesome.
Had you heard other guitar players using Leslies?
Ever since I heard the first Steppenwolf album and “Born to Be Wild.” Everybody is sick of “Born to Be Wild” but when it comes on the radio pan it all the way to the right. All you’ll hear is the keyboard and they had some kind of homemade Leslie so it doesn’t have a horn and a baffle. I think it’s just a baffle so the baffle of course when it speeds up and slows down weights a lot more so it takes a longer time to go from fast to slow. Do you know what I’m saying? I’ve always been intrigued with that f--kin’ sound; I love it.
What are some of the other songs on the album that use the Leslie?
You can really hear it on a song called “Save Me.” The rhythm guitar on that is fat and the same thing with the solo sound. It’s like a f--kin’ gorilla or something. It’s like it’s in a cage and wants to get out.
This is your first solo record for several years. Was there a sense that you really had to step up to the plate with this one? That you had to deliver on a big time level?
Yes; exactly. I had a challenge placed before me and I really had to deliver and I think we did. And the only frustrating part is if we could magically put ourselves back in time to the days when FM radio was king, I’m sure we would have a huge hit. Unfortunately there’s not a forum or a venue available like that anymore. So we have to do things differently and a lot of that is just gonna depend on luck. We’ll put ourselves in the right position where we’ll be noticed hopefully but as far as having a CD at Walmart or whatever, I don’t know how that’s gonna happen. Unless there’s some demand for it right away. That’s now another challenge and makin’ a CD is a lot of work and even when it’s easy, it’s hard. Plus the other thing is you put all your eggs in that one basket; that one CD. You spent all your time on it and if it doesn’t go then what do you do?
So I think now with the Internet and the more technology I see comin’, it’s gonna be more personal interaction with the artist and their fans via the Internet. I envision myself very soon [doing that] with my new website. We’re gonna go to them and farm our fanbase and give them something really great. We have some luck because I endorse Paul Reed Smith guitars so they have a huge database and I can attach my thing there. And I want to offer a great service for a great price which is my experience.
Like I worked the Facebook thing and this morning I wanted to post something and damn if I wasn’t 35 characters over the limit. So I go back and I’m editing, editing, editing, and I go, “Oh, this sucks. It takes longer to do this than it did to write the original thingie.”
Than to record the record.
Yeah, so I’m looking forward to expound more on some things that people want to ask me. I was thinking this morning about something and I’m going, “Boy, there’s no way I could put that thought with all its subject matter in that little box. I can’t do it.” So I’m lookin’ forward to bein’ able to do that on our new site which will be up and running hopefully this week. And it’s gonna look a lot like the old site for a while but we’re gonna be up and running and doing new things.
You touched on the PRS guitars; what were you playing back in the day?
Well my very first guitar was a ’68 Goldtop with P-90s.
You were a Les Paul guy?
Well, yeah, I was until that guitar got stolen less than a year after I first got it. I got it just after my 15th birthday and I don’t even think I was 16 yet because it was in the winter and I was born in April. It got stole and it upset me a lot and I had to get another guitar. So I got an SG because of Pete Townshend and I broke that; like really broke it. Like accidentally at first but then decided, “Well, hey, I can do a Townshend now since this thing is already f--kin’ in two pieces.” I was in a frenzy.
After you recovered from your Pete Townshend fantasy, what did you do?
The next day I’m like, “Shit, I got no guitars” and I had to buy another guitar and this guy offered me a SG. A real nice one with humbuckers; it probably was like an early ‘60s. It had no case you know what I’m saying? And the guy wanted like $200 which was even in those days a really low price. So I didn’t ask where this guy got the guitar; I just bought it. I had it for about two weeks and then one morning there’s a knock at the door and it was a detective. And he goes, “Do you know anything about a red SG Gibson guitar?” And I went, “Yeah, I got it.” And I just gave it to him. I was lucky I didn’t get charged with possession of stolen property.
You’ve had some tough luck with guitars.
My mom co-signed on the loan for the Les Paul and the second SG so I’m still making monthly payments on two guitars I don’t have and now a third guitar which I don’t have. So I had to go into the bargain basement then and I got this Hagstrom Swede which was kind of a Les Paul but all the switches and shit are just made of crap and it fell apart. But I made it work and that was that and I played that for along time. Then I joined Ronnie Hawkins’ band in Toronto and played this rockabilly music so I got a black’73 Telecaster Custom.
What were you using for the first Pat Travers band records?
That was it.
So you were a Telecaster guy on all those early records?
Well, yeah, but it was the Custom; the one like Keith Richards uses with one humbucker on it in the neck position and one regular Telly pickup in the bridge position. And I think I would switch back and forth. Of course the humbucker was a little more powerful but it was darker too so I think I played that in the middle position a lot. Yeah, that guitar was vicious and solidly built; you could use it in hand-to-hand combat.
How much different are the guitar sounds you’re creating on Fidelis with the PRS guitars as opposed to the sounds you made back in the day with the Fender?
The weird thing is I wrote and rehearsed most of the album on this so-called ’62 Stratocaster which upon closer examination we think is probably closer to ’54. But regardless it’s been resprayed so you couldn’t tell. When I went to cut the tracks it just didn’t sound any good so I used my PRS Modern Eagle 1 for just about everything.
You mentioned earlier about “Stay” being the big power ballad. You wrote every song on the record but that one.
Right; that one I didn’t write but I really connected with it and I just thought the chorus was really majestic. But the icing on the cake was the guitar solos; for me it’s the guitar solos. There’s two guitar solos; there’s one after the second chorus. I think Kirk has video of me playing that and I’ve seen it and I’m really just leaning over and my body is hardly moving at all but my f--kin’ vibrato is just like unnhhunnhunnh [mimics a rising/falling tone]. I mean I’m talkin’ about my finger vibrato; that ain’t a bar on that, it’s just f--kin’ finger vibrato. And then the second solo starts even higher and goes way more and I think the sound of the guitar is just f--kin’ wonderful.
"The sounds aren’t the greatest guitar sounds we ever got but it’s got so much edge and feeling to it."
Oh, yeah. No, I wasn’t in a hurry to lay that down; I wanted some air between notes. I wanted to do the guitar version of the chorus and the verses. They’re like words but you don’t know what the words are; but you know what the meaning is. Some kind of desperation …
What about a song like “Edge of Darkness?”
That was great; the “San Francisco Song.” That was called “San Francisco” the whole time we did it. The first line in the chorus is “I’ve been walkin’ on the edge of darkness” so I guess it should be called “Edge of Darkness” but it doesn’t seem to suit the song. So I should have put “S.F.O. Song” in it in brackets which is what I was gonna do because it just became the “San Francisco Song.” I only briefly mention that town as kind of a play on words.
Is there an undercurrent of Jimi Hendrix going on during the verses of that song?
Yeah, well that’s Kirk; Kirk is doing all of that stuff. Well, I’m doing some of it too but mine is way more structured and Kirk’s is more freeform.
There’s an Atlanta Rhythm Section song called “So Into You” with these real staccato-type rhythm parts. There is that same sort of real brittle-sounding syncopated rhythm track in the verses of “Edge of Darkness” that really plays off those rolling Hendrix-inspired riffs.
Oh, you hear it going chunk chunk chunk chunk. That part? Yeah, that’s Kirk; he just played the right flourish on top. If I tried to do that I’d sound like I was trying to imitate somebody but Kirk does it and it’s just Kirk. He’s more objective. I just like it better; I think it flows better that he’s answering my vocal and I just like it that way.
“Josephine”?
Same thing with “Josephine.” He plays all the cool stuff, all the little flourishes in the verses and I just play the main solo parts.
And you’re on acoustic guitar and keyboards on this one.
Yeah. Well, Kirk did the acoustics and I did do keyboards a little bit.
“Save Me”?
Kirk wrote the music to that; it was in Ab which is really weird. What’s cool is the chorus because you can have these open strings for some reason in Ab and it works. But he wrote the music and I just kinda immediately came up with that “Save Me” part. I don’t know why I was thinkin’ about being hungover and how alcoholics always blame their problems on somebody else. I’m pissed off at somebody for not savin’ me from myself. It’s like, “I coulda used somebody to save me from myself last night. Where the f--k were you?” He’s pissed off ‘cause he’s hungover; it’s not his fault ‘cause she wasn’t there to keep him sober.
“When I’m With You.”
That’s the story of me and my wife; plain out and out just told as simply as possible. Once again the guitar solo on that is really good. I’m playing the PRS Modern Eagle with a wah-wah. I’m using the wah in a little bit different way than other guys use it. It’s cocked but I just use it a slightly different way; more like a talkbox. Very sparingly; I don’t wah-wah too much through there. But when I do you go, “Oh, yeah, that’s cool, that’s a f--kin’ wah-wah pedal.”
Who were your songwriting influences on a ballad like this? The Beatles? Townshend?
It’s everybody; it really is. Just after doing something for so long, I think songwriting now for me finally, I’ve come up with this system that is honest and true. It just helps to keep me on track. I heard Tom Petty say this once: “Until you know what the song’s about, you really can’t write it.” Once you know what the song is about then it gets a lot easier because you just write down the ideas you want to express and you do like I did this morning on Facebook. You’ve got your idea and you’ve got too many words; you have to express your idea in fewer words and create some imagery with key words. But I don’t do that as a tactic. I write what the story is about at the top of the page and who’s who in what tense because sometimes you end up switching in and out of tenses. I do it on “Save Me” on the first chorus. The first two chorus lines are in one tense and then it goes to the second tense and remains that way for the rest of the song. Years ago somethin’ like that would have bugged the shit out of me but it doesn’t anymore. Or saying the same words three times in the first two sentences; that doesn’t bother me anymore either. I think what it is even though I’ve got rules now and a scheme, I don’t have as many rules in a way. I’m not hung up on whether I’m being clear or not because if I come up with a metaphor or something and I think it’s funny [I’ll use it.] The one thing I don’t wanna be is current at the time I’m writing it. Because if you’re relating to current events, by the time you get your music, it’s so far gone that it’s not relevant anymore. So I am aware of that; I don’t put an inside joke referring to something that’s happening at the moment. I try not to.
What you’re really describing is becoming a better songwriter.
I think so. I’m able now to hear more and more all of this stuff inside my head like fully formed. It’s better than Pro Tools; I can move and edit stuff so quick in my brain. I remember the first time it happened it was around ’98. We used to live around a lake so I used to run this three-and-a-half miles everyday. I got to a point where running was like nothing; I’d be detached from my body and my head would just be going around the lake. And I remember writing a song from when I started and I got back and I immediately after I dried off and picked up my guitar and it was done. And I went, “Wow, that was f--kin’ cool.” And so I’ve been doing that and it’s been just getting more and more elaborate ever since. So now I can hear four or five things going on at once and edit them. But the thing is they don’t stay in my head forever. So I’ve got to go over to Kirk’s every now and then and just play some stuff or go over to Sean’s [Shannon; drummer] just so I don’t forget.
I found a riff the other day that was so f--kin’ balls to the wall and we only had one little rehearsal on it and never got it right. Actually I found two things that would be killer songs.
You talked earlier about Facebook and having your own website. Have you embraced new technology in getting your music out to your fans?
Instead of waitin’ until I’ve got 11 more songs to release an album, why not just put ‘em out there and make ‘em available as singles just like we used to do? And then of course we’ll make the 16-bit wave files available along with artwork to anybody who wants it. But there’s gonna be no stores to get my CD; they’re only gonna have the top 10 or top 20. So that’s just a fact so we have to work at it. I think one of the ways to work with it is to get people interested in coming to my site because they’re gonna see and hear new things every month. I’m gonna have an opportunity for players or singers to sing on an mp3 audio of a backing track up there. And go, “Look, here you go; you fill in the vocals” or I’ll make up a nice little blues shuffle thing and leave a couple of turnarounds for guitar players to do some solos over and you can send it back.
That’s a wonderful idea.
I think it’s great; people f--kin’ love it. And then if it develops into some songs in some mystic organic way then what an experience for the people who that have watched it happen and for the individual that maybe came up with the great song. Why not do it? It certainly isn’t hard to do; if anything it’s fun because your expectation is low. You know what I mean? You don’t have a great expectation; you’re dependent on that happening. I’m gonna charge people to be able to be part of it every month but $10 or something. I don’t know. Because I still have to pay for my time and my studio and everything. But these are the kinds of interactions – I love that word, interactions because we don’t see each other now; we interact.
"When we put down a track it’s like playin’ in front of 20,000 people."
I plan to guide people; to be a musical coach. If you were a guitar player and you weren’t a beginner but you weren’t an expert. You like to play and you wanted my honest analysis of two or three things that you could change that would make you sound immediately better, you’d pay $500 for four sessions with me for that.
Definitely.
And I’m not just talking out my ass here because I’ve done it. I have a friend here in town who suits that demographic perfectly. He’s in his early 40s; he’s a defense attorney; doesn’t have any kids and has the Paul Reed Smith. So I hung out with him and watched what he was doing and what he wasn’t doing and so instead of announcing, “You need to correct these five things,” I just picked two things. One was a muting thing with his palm and the other was applying too much pressure with his fingers on his left hand and putting the guitar out of tune. So it was those two things and then a week later he sounded like a player. And so I thought, “Shit; that’s the sort of info that should be available for people without all the mumbo jumbo.” And they know the guy that’s giving it to ‘em is giving ‘em good advice” [laughs]. You know?
But it doesn’t even have to be that. I don’t really know; we’ll have to see where it leads. And then I can also expound on my stories. Maybe have a serial book going like a memoir that’ll eventually after a year be made available as a complete package but just one chapter a month or something. I’m brainstorming as we talk.
“Yeah, Yah” was a pretty trippy sort of quasi-instrumental track. Very funky.”
That was the very first day I got a custom shop Fender Nocaster that John Cruz [custom guitar designer at Fender] made for me himself and it’s the ultimate Telly. You play it and everything sounds like Jeff Beck and you go, “Oh, yeah.” So I was just playing it with my fingers.
It sounded like you did the track without a pick.
Yeah, and it sounds like Stanley Clarke.
Sly Stone.
Yeah, it’s just snappin’ away and I think I played the bass on that; I don’t think Rodney [O’Quinn; bassist] replaced it. I’m not sure. That was just something we did at Sean’s studio and he was the one who added the “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” I heard it a couple years ago he played and I just thought it was f--kin’ hilarious. So I said, “You’ve gotta put that on there.” So he did that and he put on the “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” He found all those too in Acid or some f--kin’ place. We just had this goofy little thing and everybody seemed to like it.
You’re on the road?
Yeah, I’ve got to go to Iowa tomorrow. F--k! Ah, my flight’s at 5:30 in the morning; I’ve got to get up at 3:00 o’clock, I’ve gotta have my wife take me to the airport at 3:30, and then same with the other guys. They’ll get there however they get there. We’ve got to get into Des Moines and then drive for two hours and we’ve got to play that day and then turn around and do the whole thing back over the next day.
Are you excited about playing the songs from Fidelis in concert?
Yeah, we were lucky enough to have a show in our own backyard here a couple of weeks ago. We had video cameras there so we played five of our new songs which was really great and they go down really well. It’s fun to play them live because we hear them complete now compared to when we were rehearsing.
Interview by Steven Rosen
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2010
