When: Early 1978
Where: Another sketchy one. A hotel somewhere in Los Angeles.
What: David was the epitome of Englishness - quiet, reserved, polite. Very sweet guy. We had a terrific chat. His eponymous solo album had been released and there was reason to talk.
David Gilmour has been playing guitar with Pink Floyd for 11 years now-about one-third of his life. And for more than a decade, his style has been undergoing a constant refining process that parallels the band’s evolution from a spearhead of the psychedelic movement of the 1960s to a mainstay of the outer-space rock of the 1970s.
Joining Pink Floyd in February 1968 (after the band’s original guitarist and founder,
Syd Barrett, began to show wear and tear from drugs and the band’s almost constant touring),
Gilmour was relegated to rhythm guitar. In early April of the same year Barrett left, and Gilmour, then 21 years old, became the group’s only guitarist. He proceeded to carry on with the chores of upholding the band’s tradition of psychedelia that had made them standouts on the British music scene-along with groups like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine, and Tomorrow.
With Barrett at the helm, Pink Floyd had released one album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and had achieved fame in England for their innovative use of light shows. They had also released two, singles in 1967: “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play” (the latter reached the #6 position on the British charts). The band had already established momentum when Gilmour joined, and in only a few months they were again performing concerts. At the end of June 1968, their second album, A Saucerful Of Secrets, was released. Since that album, the personnel of Pink Floyd has remained static, with Gilmour, keyboardist Rick Wright, bassist Roger Waters, and drummer Nick Mason. As a unit they expanded their musical abilities and consistently drew critical praise for their use of quadraphonic sound and visual special effects.
Pink Floyd also composed and performed the soundtracks of several movies, including More; Tonight Let’s All Make Love In London; The Committee, and in 1969 Michaelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point. Also released in 1969 was the band’s third album, Ummagumma. This was a double-record with two sides devoted to live performances of earlier works, and the remaining two sides divided in half, giving each member of the group space to experiment.
In October 1970 Pink Floyd’s next album, Atom Heart Mother, was released. Propelling the LP was the addition of a horn section and male and female choruses. This fourth album reached #1 on the British charts; it was followed in 1971 by the less well-received Meddle. In 1972 the band was featured on yet another soundtrack, Obscured By Clouds. It was their only offering that year, but they weren’t just sitting around-they spent the majority of 1972 recording what was to be their mammoth tour de force-Dark Side Of The Moon.
This 1973 release became Pink Floyd’s first #1 album in the United States and was a mainstay on the British charts for two years. The band toured throughout 1973 and then went into a period of semi-retirement that lasted until the release of the next album, Wish You Were Here, in 1975. Its popularity hardly measured up to that of Dark Side Of The Moon, but in 1977 the Animals LP reached the Top 5 on both the U.S. and British charts.
In 1978 David Gilmour was the first member of Pink Floyd to release a solo album, simply entitled David Gilmour. (Syd Barrett had released two solo albums Barrett and The Madcap Laughs) although he did so after permanently leaving the band. While there are obvious parallels between Gilmour’s solo work and his efforts with Pink Floyd, the album stands on its own and shows that David has long passed the stage of being a replacement for another musician- he is an identifiable guitarist with his own distinct style that lends instant recognition to anything he does.
Let’s start with your background. How and when did you get into playing guitar?
David Gilmour: Let’s see. Well, I first started playing about 14. So 18 years ago, I suppose. I started playing on a guitar leant to me by my next door neighbor, whose mother had given him one - and I never gave it back to him.
What kind of guitar was it?
It was a Spanish, nylon-string guitar that I still have around somewhere. It’s a very cheap one, a $20 guitar.
Did you get books or records to learn how to play?
I just started trying to learn to play along with records originally. My parents got me the Pete Seeger guitar tutor record, which was a great help. At least it had all the tuning things on the first part of the record, all the notes to tune to, which was very useful.
What kind of records were you listening to?
Absolutely everything. It was a very wide field of stuff from Bill Hailey to Pete Seegerrecords, and all the regular rock and roll. I had a wide range of tastes.
Did you get involved with bands or just play on your own for a while?
I played on my own for a couple of years. I first started getting into bands when I was about 16, 17. I changed to a couple of guitars. I got some terrible acoustic guitar with f-shaped holes on it and an electric pickup on it. It was the first electric I had. I changed onto a Burns Sonic. I’m guessing you didn’t have too many of those. They’re pretty dreadful. Then I had a Hofner Club 60, which is quite a nice guitar really. Well, it was in those days and I liked it a lot. That was the one I stuck with for quite a long time till I got my first Telecaster, which was my parent’s 21st birthday present.
Were you playing rhythm primarily?
No, I was a lead guitarist in the bands that I was in. The first band that I belonged in was a local band called Joker’s Wild. I was the lead guitar player.
What kind of stuff were you playing?
Well, you know what it’s like with bands in local towns. You know, you’ve got to please the people at dances, everything.
So there was no original stuff yet?
No, no original stuff at all. We did everything that everyone did: The Four Seasons. We were quite into free harmony like the ones in Four Seasons things. That was a very big trend, I think.
So you were singing already?
Yeah. Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, an extraordinary mixture you wouldn’t really find these days. But lots of bands did that in those days.
Do you find any difficulty in coordinating your singing and your playing?
Not too much, no. I mean, one doesn’t really play lead at the same time as singing too much. It would just be a kind of rhythm thing when you’re singing, and lead in the gaps.
So at 21 you got a Telecaster?
Yeah.
Was that something you specifically wanted?
Yes. I had asked for it. I’d said that was what I wanted most of all. Well, I was into Fender guitars and I knew a Stratocaster was too expensive for my parents. So I thought I’d start off with it. I mean, I didn’t expect to get it anyway, but they were living in America at the time and those things were a lot cheaper than they were in Europe.
So they bought it and sent it back to you?
Yeah, which I had for about a year or so until I took my first flight to America and TWA lost it. It never came up on the plane at the other end. I think they gave me $150.
Do you think your playing really started to grow at that point?
I don’t know. The guitar I had before was quite nice in its way. It had a much better sound to it.
What were you doing immediately prior to Pink Floyd playing-wise?
Well, the first band that I was in, I had an offer to go to Spain to do a club, to be a resident there in the club there for the summer. And they said it was for me, to me personally, that offer, as opposed to the band that I was in. So I had enough of the band anyway. I took Willy and Ricky and then the keyboard player with me and we rushed off down there. We stayed there for a couple months, and the keyboard player didn’t work out. The he split and we became a threesome. We moved to France and stayed there for about a year doing that. And then that got out of hand. We decided to go back to England. Ricky really wanted to go to Cambridge. I thought that if I went back to Cambridge I’d just fall back into the old trap and I wanted to get somewhere different from there. So we parted company and I stayed in London, got a temping job. A couple months later, I got this job.
There was a point where you and Syd were both playing guitars?
Yeah. It was about a couple months, about two months, I don’t know. I was playing rhythm guitar and Syd wasn’t really playing anything.
Had you listened to Syd’s records before you joined?
Yes, I did listen to them.
Do you think he influenced or shaped your playing in any way?
No, I don’t really think so. I wouldn’t say so. I mean, I didn’t really start playing lead guitar for a long time. I didn’t know what to do. I was a little lost for quite awhile. So I just started playing the chords on the records and singing the words on the records, which is what they wanted at the time to fulfill their contractual obligations with the gigs that we had to do. And it took me quite a while to start feeling my way around becoming a part of it.
What records are you talking about specifically?
I was talking really more about gigs. The records that were at that time was A Saucerful of Secrets.
Was that the first record that you were on?
Yes. I didn’t know what to do. I was really feeling around in the dark.
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| "The first band that I belonged in was a local band called Joker's Wild." |
Was their music somewhat different than what you had been used to?
Yeah, it’s very, very different.
What kind of equipment were you using on those first records?
I was using a Selmer 50-watt head with a 4 x 12 cabinet of some sort. And then a small Binson echo unit.
What kind of guitar?
Telecaster.
How many albums did you use the Telecaster on?
Well, that Telecaster got stolen shortly after that. So I got a Stratocaster, I think, next - and another Telecaster. I can’t really remember if I had the Strat or a Tele, which really stuck with, one or the other. I changed in between them through the years. The equipment changed through the years, too. We got rid of the Selmas and we changed to Hi-Watt Amplifiers around that same time. Gradually the effects pedals, things started creeping in. At that time, I didn’t really have any. All I had was the Binson echo. And then I got a fuzz box at some point. I can’t remember exactly when. I mean, I had a fuzz box before, but they were Syd’s. But I couldn’t really get on with it. I changed that and I gradually added a volume pedal as well. Fuzz boxes are terribly hard to control without a volume pedal. And wah-wah. I worked up to where I had a huge line of them all sitting onstage with wires everywhere; batteries kept running out and everything kept breaking. Eventually I just had to consolidate them.”
Can you talk about the specific types of pedals that you use?
In 1972, all the pedals were built into a special cabinet, although since then I’ve gone through several different setups. My current stage board consists of an MXR Phase-90; an ElectroHarmonix Electric Mistress flanger; an Orange treble and bass booster, a Big Muff fuzz, an Arbiter Fuzz Face, and a custom-built tone pedal. I’ve gone through a couple of completely different pedal boards since then. I had a Univox for a while, but that went out to make room for something else rather recently. There’s a Unitone pedal. Everything is on switches that bypass it completely, including the volume and tone pedals.
This is all built into a pedal board for you?
Yeah. At various points in the circuitry I have outlets going external to the pedal board, with two sockets with short circuit connections on. So that you can plug in two short wires on the head, an external thing into the circuitry at the point you want to put it into the circuitry. If you pull the plugs out, the circuitry still works because you’ve got it on those short circuits.
So that’s the board that you use now onstage?
Yeah.
Is that the same board that you used for your album?
Yes. It’s got three switched outputs to route to different amps.
What guitar are you using now?
I’m using several. On the record, I’m using loads of them. I’m using about two or three Stratocasters, a couple of Telecasters, an Ovation acoustic, and a black Les Paul. There’s not much acoustic on there actually (solo album).
What do you feel is your main guitar?
Well, I guess the one I’m most comfortable with is the 1979 black Strat. It has a DiMarzio replacement pickup and a 1962 Strat neck. The fingerboard is rosewood, although I generally prefer maple; I like the sound of maple necks better and they feel more comfortable playing on them. The Stratocaster has also been fitted with an extra switch that allows me to add the neck pickup in any combination with the other pickups. This guitar was my main choice on my solo album (David Gilmour).
Have you had any other work done to it?
I’ve put an extra switch in, as I mentioned, so I can get any combination of pickups. And all the switch does is allow me to add the neck pickup so that I can add that into any other combination. It gives it a great combination of everything.
Any other guitars in your arsenal?
I have a 1955 Esquire converted to a Telecaster by the addition of a front pickup. The modifications were performed by Seymour Duncan.When I got it, it had already been changed into a Telecaster by the addition of a bridge pickup, which had looked like it had been on there, perhaps since the guitar was made. ’55. It was pretty ancient. I got it off Seymour Duncan.
Wasn’t he the one who did work on Jeff Beck’s guitars?
I don’t know. He used to work for Fender. Basically the neck pickup on it was terrible.
Is there a reason why you’ve never played Gibsons?
I’ve never really got on with them. I mean, I think people tend to stick with what they started off with. What I always wanted when I was a lad was a Fender because most of the people I dug who played guitar played Fenders. So I started with that and I stopped with that.
I think Strats and Teles are probably more difficult to play.
I find them easier than Les Pauls. I mean, I’ve lived with them all my life, so.
What kind of amps are you using?
Hi-Watt mostly.
100 Watts?
Yeah. I’ve got some Yamaha Leslie amps and Roland speakers.
So you just use those?
On the last tour, I had two of the Yamahas, which are like 200 watts each supposedly. But they don’t and you have to keep them down. In the studio I use a Fender Twin and Mesa/Boogie.
Didn’t Pink Floyd use WEM amps as well?
The PA was WEM for quite a long while. The cabinets, the 4 x 12’s, which I’m using, are made by WEM, not for any particular reason. They just happen to be.
So it’s a Hi-Watt head?
Yes. We did try out some WEM amps at one point for a very short period. But it’s always looked like WEM because the 4 x 12’s have always had WEM. But the amps have always been Hi-Watt.
What kind of speakers are in the cabinets?
I’m not too sure actually. Celestions, I think. I’m not too sure.
Do you play much acoustic guitar?
Yeah.
What kinds of acoustic guitars? Are they Ovations?
That’s what I’ve been using lately. I’ve got Martins as well, an (D)18 and (D)45.
Do you use a pick when you play acoustic?
It depends. I do some fingerpicking, too. I used to do some on some records in the earlier days.
What kind of picks and strings do you use for your electrics?
Years ago I used to use Gibson Sonomatics… I tried Ernie Balls for a while. At the moment I’m using the Gibson (Sonomatics): .044; .034; .024; .016; .012; and .010.
That’s still kind of heavy, isn’t it?
That’s pretty light for me. On stage actually, I use heavier gauges; I still use .010, .012, and .016 on the lighter strings. But then I use like .028, .038, and .050 on the heavy, bottom strings.
What kind of picks do you use?
Mostly Herco heavy gauge.
You like those?
For electrics. I like them for that. I don’t like them for acoustic. I don’t use them for acoustic guitar. That’s a bit hard or brittle.
Are you really heavy-handed when you play?
I’ve never managed to become a very light-fingered guitarist. I’m not that sort of player. That’s just the way I am. I don’t really mind that, though. I’d like to have the technique there, but I think a lot of other people abuse it.
Even your lead stuff is like that.
Yeah. I mean, that’s the way I am. I can’t avoid it. I’m not very fast.
So you’ve never sat down and tried to concentrate on that?
I’ve practiced scales and things, but my fingers and coordination really aren’t in the same league as other people that I can think of. For me, what counts is what comes out in the end.
You seem to be a more economical, melodic type of player in your approach to soloing.
I do like solos that have the melody to it in some form. A lot of the solos I hear that are very fast, I can’t understand. I’m not attracted to it, so I wouldn’t want to play like that even if I could.
At what point in your work with Pink Floyd do you think your playing really came together?
Well, I mean it was really only the first album I was very uncomfortable with. That was the first one, and after that I started fitting my way in. And they started moving towards a style that I could accommodate more as well. So we moved together and it did become a lot easier from that point. I would like to describe a point where I really felt like I was getting on top of it completely.
Is it something like “The Narrow Way”(Ummagumma)?
I felt quite uncomfortable on that record. I can’t really remember much about doing that actually to tell you the truth.
What about your solos on Dark Side of the Moon?
I think they’re okay, pretty good.
That album really put Pink Floyd on the map.
I think I did some quite good ones on that. And on the one before that, I think I did quite good there.
Which one was that?
Meddle. And the soundtrack, Obscured By Clouds that we did, I quite like some of the guitar work on there.
Are your solos usually done on the first take in the studio?
I tend to first get out there and just hammer away without thinking about it. I don’t look at the frets and I don’t think about the key. I just try and feel my away around it completely in the dark so that maybe something slightly unusual crops up. I gradually kind of work that into some sort of shape. Not so I’ve got the whole thing together, but I usually make it into some sort of shape. If I have one or two little bits then I know what I’m gonna do. And then when I think I’m about ready, I try to a take it when I’ve got the shape of it about right.
When you’re soloing, are there certain scales that you usually work from?
Basically, I’m a person who’s stuck within certain limitations, and I have to work within them. I’m sure there are, yes. There’s all sorts of little tricks that one does use. It’s like little hammering tricks and things like that, which I use at times to try and sound faster than I am. Because for just a few seconds, just a little bit, sheer speed is very effective if it’s put into a proper context. And that’s why I miss not having it. Basically, I’m a person who’s stuck within certain limitations, and I have to work within them.
What do you think of people like Jeff Beck?
Oh, I like Jeff Beck.
Do you like his Blow By Blow album?
I love his Blow By Blow album.
He’s a guy who’s faster than a lot of people think.
But he doesn’t abuse it like a lot of people. And that’s one of my favorite albums.
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| "I do like solos that have the melody to it in some form." |
He really takes his Strat and makes it not sound like a Strat, which is something you do. You explore the boundaries of not making a guitar sound like a guitar.
There’s a track on here (solo album) called “It’s Deafinitely.” It’s influenced by that sort of thing.
Would you like to move more into that area of pure guitar instrumentals?
Yes, I would like to move into that for myself. I don’t ever think I could, but I like what he’s doing. I can’t play like that. And when you try to be a virtuoso guitarist, the type that Jeff Beck is, you’ll be a failure. It wouldn’t work out right.
Do you think what you’re playing on your album is different than what you played in Pink Floyd?
I wouldn’t say it’s particularly different. The solos are done faster though. A little fresher at times, more off the cuff. I’m very pleased with some of the guitar work on it.
Anything specifically?
“Raise My Rent.”
That’s the instrumental, right?
Yeah. I really like what was there.
What’s the effect that you use that gives you a real, grating sound? Is that a fuzz?
It probably is. I use a fuzz quite a lot to dirty up a smoother sound on the record. I use very fine adjustments on the fuzz boxes. There’s things like I pull the volume control up a fraction off of full volume on the guitar and that makes the fuzz box work completely differently. I take the fuzz control a fraction off the top as well and you can hear it click when you take it off, when it’s gone from absolute maximum to just less. And I find a lot of things like it.
You phase your guitar a lot, too?
Yeah.
Are there any special miking techniques you use in the studio?
I have a close mic on there. And if I wanted a distant mic, too, I’d get a bigger sound.
Would you lay down rhythm tracks and then overdub vocals and leads?
Yeah.
Are you doing the harmony parts, too?
Yeah.
Do you sing many songs with Pink Floyd?
Yeah, quite a few. Well, I did less on this last Pink Floyd record than I usually do. But I usually end up doing more than anybody else.
You play keyboards also?
I did on this, yeah. That was a struggle, though. It’s very functional stuff. At times, I couldn’t change the chords fast enough. So I’d play a chord, then I’d take my hands off and leave it blank for a second. Then I’d record another track on there and fill in the blanks. There are little tricks like that you can get when you do it on the recording.
Was this just material that Pink Floyd didn’t have time to record?
No, this was all written after the end of the last Pink Floyd tour. I started putting down some ideas. I’ve got one of these exactly the same as that, that I carry around with me everywhere. When an idea comes to mind, I stick in on there and I forget about it again. I’ll go back later and listen to it and think of if it’s worth it. But all the stuff on there is written after the last Pink Floyd record.
Most of the stuff you do is very melody-oriented.
Yeah. I’m a rock and roll fanatic in a way, but it’s always got to have some melody to it. Some of it that I hear these days hasn’t got any really. But all the original rock and roll records had melody to them that I know. They all had something going that was melodic to me.
Are there certain settings that you use on the Strat or the Hi-Watt that give you the sound or tone?
That is a permanent struggle trying to get the right sound. I tend to like sound on a guitar when it’s all flat-out.
Do you like to use a lot of treble?
Yes. I use quite a bright sound. I like a fairly bright sound. I mean, I like a lot of bottom to it as well, but I do like a bright sound. I like what I’m doing now on guitar solos, where it seems ripping everywhere. I mean, I really want it go right through people’s heads.
You don’t play a lot of acoustic on stage, do you?
Sometimes I do, yes. I used to quite a bit. On this last tour, I would have done it, but we had an extra guy in and he was doing it instead. So I could stay on regular guitar and not go changing it.
Do you practice?
Not what you’d call practicing really. I mean, I play guitar everyday, but there’s no great discipline that I’m aware of. There have been period of my life where I have practiced fairly. I’ve been through periods to try and find out whether my technique were to improve because I’m lazy about practicing. But it’s really something that I’m built with. I did do it for a long time, but it still doesn’t really make a dramatic effect on what I do.
Do you compose on guitar?
Yeah, usually.
Are there certain keys that you like playing in?
Well, there’s a lot of keys that I don’t like playing in. I mean all the easy ones down the bottom of the neck, the E, A, D, G. All those kinds. I don’t like much in Bb.
Because of Pink Floyd’s reputation of being a band that works a lot with sounds, did you consciously think that you’d need to come in and make the guitar sound like that?
I guess I must have done that, yes. I did start working on the guitar and trying to find strange sounds that I could get out of it, which you can find an awful lot of with a Strat in the tremelo unit. Playing the strings at the other end of the head. Plucking the springs in the back.
You did all that?
Yeah.
You still do?
I don’t now. I haven’t really done much of that lately. But when you get it all done through a heavy delay echo unit and you start plucking the springs inside, you can get an extraordinary sounds come out of it. I used to do this thing where I played a Fender through a wah-wah pedal, a one-way. You’ve got it right down, right open, so it will be like in the off position or the in the base position on the wah-wah. You turn your volume control up, you can get an oscillator sort of tone. You can make all these high, screaming, whispering sounds and change the notes just like playing with your volume control. I discovered it accidentally one day when I was on a stage somewhere doing a gig. I plugged the wah-wah in the wrong way and I was in the middle of something. I thrashed into it, pressed my foot down on the pedal, went to frantically wah-wah away, and all that came out was this fantastic screaming. I later put that through a volume pedal, through the echo unit, and played it and actually used to use it on stage. In fact, my foot pedal has got a reverse switch on it, so I can reverse to it. That’s used in the middle of “Echoes,” all the way through that middle bit. It’s that sort of screaming, bird-like noise.
Do you find other pedals give you buzzes and screeches?
Yes. Lots of the pedals have quality lost to them and screeches and all that sort of stuff. That’s why I had my pedal board built the way I did. The circuitry is on all the time. What you have is not an on-off switch. When you go to the switch, it’s a bypass switch that the main line is running right through. There are lots of switches and that’s all you’re actually connected to. So your signal goes in and comes out to that much length of wire. You only go through the circuitry when you’re actually using the thing. So there are only one or two things circuited at a time. So you don’t suffer that quality loss. I used to have a terrible time when it was done the other way.
So you really don’t need the boosters to keep the signal strong?
No. I cut the volume control out when I’m not using it. I’ve got a switch to switch the volume pedal out and the tone pedal I’ve switched out. I can switch out absolutely anything. When I’ve got a master bypass, I can kind of preset a combination of things on the board before I cut them all in. And I can cut them all in at once with just pressing on the button. The whole lot comes together.
You don’t ever get lost?
Sometimes. You would need an extra circuit for the lights, the little LEDs that come up. Before when they were connected onto the same pins, I used to get clicks and buzzes from the lighting circuits. So I didn’t even used to have those. On the pedal board before, it didn’t have that and I’d get completely lost because you didn’t know whether something was on or off. At least they’ve got these switches out in the last few years that you can have a completely separate circuit running the lights.
Have you had the Strat’s inside shielded at all?
Not really, no. I always wire the earth through on my Fenders, so I don’t have to rely on that bit of silver people underneath that the earth maybe runs through on.
What exactly do you do?
Well, I just connect the main volume and turn the controls to the outside of the jack plug socket so that my earth is going though. You often get Fenders cracking up or making noise because if the tone control or volume control is slightly loose, it stops making such a good connection. The earth is actually running through that bit of silver paper that is stuck on to the side. So I always get rid of that. I mean, I don’t take the silver paper out, but I always have another way.
Do you use the vibrato bar much?
I do. I’ve always used it since when I first had a Strat.
Was that one of the main reasons for getting it?
One of the reasons, yeah. It also had three pickups and I like that. The Strat was always the guitar I wanted to have. My favorite guitar group when I was young was The Shadows. They were my idols as far as any guitar players England when I was young. They never made it over here, but I always listened to them. They were superb.
Do you find that you always keep your guitar in tune?
Yeah.
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| "I'm a person who's stuck within certain limitations, and I have to work within them." |
Is there anything that you’ve gone through to ensure that?
There are several things about Strats that I’ve discovered over the years that makes them go out of tune. The most common thing I think for a Stratocaster has something to do with the tremelo unit that’s screwed into the body from above, where it cuts down at an angle. The screws are going through it at the top of the body. Well, if those screws aren’t adjusted exactly right, they’re a tiny bit loose, the back main piece can jump up and down a fraction of an inch. That’s what always used to do it to me. Before I put strings on, and that plate is lying actually flat on the body, I undo them a bit with a turn and take each of those six screws down. So they actually come down and touch dead-on to the surface of the plate. So they don’t put any pressure on it. There’s no gap, not even a fraction of an inch gap on there, all the way down that line. That’s what does it, I think. That’s what certainly what always seemed to screw up my guitar. Since I started doing that and checking on them, I never had too many problems.
The other thing that you can get going is when the string gets caught on the nut at the end of the neck. It sometimes happens when you use the tremelo. You push it down and the string moves along top of it and the nut. It doesn’t come quite back again. But that shouldn’t really happen if the nut’s right. If you got your nut changed and you did the other thing I said, you shouldn’t have problems with the Strat.
Did you replace your nut?
I have in fact. That’s what had been causing it.
Did you put a brass nut on there?
No, just another one. That doesn’t usually happen on Strats. It’s more common with the vibrato. It shouldn’t happen on the vibrato either. It’s has something to do with it not being 100 percent adjusted.
How many springs do you use in the back?
On stage, I usually use four of the heavier gauged springs. And then I use three of the lighter gauge strings. I usually have three and then I adjust it some more by how far you screw in the thing that holds the spring. So you get it a small amount off the body.
Do you use maple or redwood necks?
In the black Strat I use is a redwood, but the Esquire is a maple. The best necks on the Strats have the maple. I like those. But I like ones specifically made by one guy. All the ones I’ve got or the ones that I can get a hold of if I can have got T.G. written on them. I suppose that’s a guy who used to make early Fender necks.
Do you find they’re easier to play on?
I don’t know about the sound, but they feel comfortable.
How often will you change strings?
On the road, I usually change mine every three gigs are so.
You don’t find they get rather lifeless?
Not really. In the studio, I can leave them on for weeks.
Do you think your playing is any different live than in the studio? Do you have more freedom?
No. In fact, I feel very free in the studio sometimes because it doesn’t matter at all what happens. Sometimes , like the places I was telling you doing a solo in the studio, you go completely dark and thrash the thing about. It is something that I couldn’t really do on stage. It’s too silly for words, but I do it anyway. Some little things sometimes come out that I can maybe use again. At first, it’s totally undisciplined, the way I work. Later on, I put some discipline to it as well. They’re both very lovely things, I guess. The experience of playing live and the experience of playing in the studio are two completely different kinds of discipline. They’re like different art forms and I really dig both ways.
Do you listen to any rhythm guitar players?
Not really, no.
Pete Townshend, Steve Marriott or Keith Richard?
I like Townshend. His is a kind of rhythm guitarist who also does lead playing. I think when he really breaks out on his own as a real lead guitarist, he’s no great shakes really. He is just terribly heavy on his strings. I don’t know how he could manage to play lead with strings on like that.
Do you think that your playing will improve or is improving?
I think it’s as strong as it’s ever been. There have been periods when I was very in practice-when we’d been working on the road for a longtime. Generally speaking, I feel I’m playing as well as I can, but I still think I can improve.
2007 © Steven Rosen
/ my profile 
