Intervju - Steve Stevens, Billy Idol m fl. Steve Stevens är gitarristen som medverkat på stora artisters album både här och där, men som alltid ändå fört en relativt anonym tillvaro. Just nu är han aktuell med ett nytt soloalbum, det instrumentala "Memory crash" och dessutom ger han sig snart ut på en ny turné med sin gamle vapendragare Billy Idol. Vi tänkte att det kunde vara ganska kul att ta ett snack med denne svarthårige gitarrist och få ta del av lite historier om hans möten med bl a Michael Jackson och Peter Criss och hur det var att spela in soundtracklåten till en av 80-talets stora filmer. How are you? Steve Stevens: I´m good, man. Are you in LA? SS: Yeah. What´s the weather like? SS: It´s ok. Tell me about your latest album! When did you start working on it and how long did it take to put it together? SS: Let´s see... I think, all totalled it was about eight months, so it was quite a bit of time. I started in almost a year ago. The songs for the album, had they´ve been around for a long time or were they written just for this album? SS: Yeah, everything was written specifically for the record. I´ve just never been one of those writers that has like stockpile of songs laying around. I like to keep things as current as possible. I always found, going back to older material, that it doesn´t fit right with where your life is at that point. I was kind of wondering about the Robin Trower song "Day of the eagle"? I went to see Great White a couple of months ago and they did a version of it and after that I came across abunch of other bands doing that song. Is there something special, music wise, that attracts people to that song? Why did you choose that song? SS: It´d definitely a guitar player song. A lot of the influences that played a part in this record was things that I grew up with when I was a kid and obviously the "Bridge of sighs" record was really popular then and I´ve just always dug that song and when I got the opportunity to work with Dug Pinnick... you know, we were in the studio and I said "Hey, I´ve always wanted to do this Robin Trower song!" and it was something we literally did at the end of the day, just kind of live in the studio. It turned out great! SS: Thanks! Why an instrumental album and why not using Dug Pinnick (Kings X) on more songs? SS: After touring with Billy Idol on "Devil´s playground", we got to play in a lot of countries we´d never played before and then we were on the Warped tour here in the States and I really saw that there´s a real shift in young kids digging guitar music and we do like our usual... during our set I do like an extended guitar solo and I do all the silly stuff like play behind my back and play with my teeth and all these kids are like freaking out and I´m thinking "Damn, this is all Jimi Henrix shit!". They´ve never seen it before and the the real tipping thing for me was all these kids playing my "Top gun anthem" on YouTube, like young kids, fourteen year old! I just thought that this instrumental guitar stuff is cool again whereas in the 90´s when grunge happened, that was the last thing you wanted to do. I thought that while there´s certainly guitar players that do instrumental records, hopefully what I do is a little bit more musical and not just some guy all about the solos. It´s more about the compositions and the groove, because all the guitar players I grew up with idolizing, was not really shredders. We didn´t have that back then. Robert Fripp was certainly not a shredder, so I felt that all though it´s an instrumental it´s still very listenable. Absolutely! It´s got a great groove to it and I love the title track. It differs from a lot of those instrumental albums that are out there, because this one is basically more like songs without vocals. There´s a lot more melodies and grooves to it. SS: Thank you! I´m not putting those records down, but that´s just not my thing. A bit about your past. In what way did the School of performing arts help you out as a guitar player? SS: Well, it didn´t really help me as a guitar player because I auditioned for the school on guitar, but once I was accepted they told me that "the guitar is not a symphonic instrument and there´s no guitar in the orchestra so you have to pick up another instrument!". And that´s why I kind of dropped out of the school. (laughs) But what it did was get me into Manhattan. I grew up in Rockaway, which is a suburb to New York, so finally I was heading into Manhattan every day and there was other students that were hanging out in the clubs and my school was two blocks away from 48th Street where all the music stores are. Every luch hour I would split from school and go hang out in the music stores and never go back to school. (laughs) I befriended a bunch of the people that worked at the music stores and I quickly realised that Manhattan was where it was gonna be from there on. Where I would make my career. What about the band The Fine Malibus? You recorded an album but it was never released. Will that stuff ever come out and do you have it? SS: I don´t. It´s owned by Island Records. At one point they wanted to release it, after "Rebel yell" became popular. I was willing to do that but I wanted it remixed and they weren´t willing to put any money into it. It was one of these young baby bands. There were good ideas there, but we couldn´t quite our own thing. Great lessons to be learned. (laughs) But you recorded it at Compass Point in the Bahamas and that must´ve been just after AC/DC was there and recorded "Black in black"? SS: It was actually right after AC/DC. They had just finished and we were the next band in. The engineer actually played me the rough mixes of "Back in black" and I was thinking "Wow, we´re gonna sound like that?" (laughs) "We´re gonna be really good, man!". It wasn´t meant to be, but... That must´ve been an experience as a young musician, flying out to Bahamas to record an album? SS: Yeah, it was incredible! Robert Palmer lived across from the studio and we became friends then. You know, it was also heartbreaking because you think that this is finally your shot and then the record´s not gonna be released and the band breaks up. Like I said, those are valuable lessons to be learned. Of course. Then later on working with Billy Idol and Bill Aucoin of KISS fame. Did you ever happen to audition for KISS back then when the got rid of Ace Frehley? It just seems like a lot of young guitarists did. SS: No, actually as soon as I left the band it was only a matter of months before I met up with Billy Idol and one of the songs that was on the record that we recorded in the Bahamas, Peter Criss ended up recording on his solo record. So no, I couldn´t have seen how I would ever...KISS was certainly not my thing. The song that Peter Criss record, did you meet him when it was recorded? SS: Yeah, I did! That was actually the first job that I ever did that I got paid for. What was that like and was it only that song that you recorded? SS: Yeah, it was just that song. He had heard it on a demo, because we eventually became managed by Bill Aucoin and that´s how I met Billy Idol. Peter´s producer had heard the song and approached me about recording it and I said "You know what, it´s not being used for anything else so maybe somebody will get to hear this stuff?". So we went to thye studio and recorded it. It was cool. What was Peter Criss like back then? Was he all together, so to speak? SS: (laughs) Yeah, I mean I didn´t know him. Other than Robert Palmer I hadn´t really met working musicians and I was surprised that I worked mostly with the producer and not the artist. That was a surprise to me, but as I came to learn that was the case and it was certainly the case when I worked with Michael Jackson. I worked more closely with Quincy Jones, but it surprised me at that time. I was used to being in bands and sitting in tight little rooms with your bandmates, working on songs. Here I was working with someone that wasn´t in the band. Old times. Since you mentioned the "Top gun anthem" earlier my wife said to thank you because she gets goosebumps everytime she hears it. When they approached you about doing that, did they give you any guidelines or directions, saying "This is what we want it to sound like?" or were you given free hands? SS: It came about... I was recording "Whiplash smile" with Billy Idol and Harold Faltermyer came in to do keyboards, so I think it was maybe the third or fourth day he said "Look, I´m doing the score for this Top gun film and would you be interested in playing something on it?". He said "I´ll show you some footage!" and I took a look at it and "Yeah, sure!". We stayed in the studio late one night after a Billy Idol session and Harold put up the multitrack and the song was already written and he had an idea and obviously the melody was there. He said "Play the melody in these sections and in the middle section, do whatever you want! There´s a solo and some rhythm stuff!" and I know we worked with Keith Forsey on it, Billy Idol´s producer. It probably took me about three hours to do and then I didn´t think anything else about it until I got a Grammy nomination for it. Cool! How does that work? Do you recieve royalties for that to this day or were you paid a certain amount at the time? SS: No, I do recieve royalties for it. Later on you played with Vince Neil and there´s a song on that album that ended up on many mixed tapes for me around that time, "Living is a luxury". There´s a really cool guitar sound to it. Me and a friend kept playing that one over and over again. SS: Cool! (laughs) How did you end up with Vince? SS: After I left Billy Idol, I was signed to Warner Bros. And I had done my Atomic Playboy record, so when Vince was signed to Warner Bros. I got a call from Ted Templeman who was head of A&R and he mentioned that Vince was working on a record and would I be interested? So I flew out to LA and ended up hanging for a while and then I flew back to New York and then I relocated to Los Angeles to do that record. Was that more stuff recorded than what ended up on the record? SS: There was actually more stuff recorded. We cut demos and stuff like that, but by and large probably the better material ended up on the album. Right! And you toured with Van Halen and got to hang with Eddie Van Halen. Are you still in touch with him today? SS: Ehhmm, I haven´t spoken to him, but I did go to the last day of the rehearsals here in LA, but no, I haven´t talked to Ed in a number of years. Has he been an influence to you? SS: I´m sure any guitar player my age is gonna say (laughs) that. When that first album hit it was just like... it was huge, man. It was like everything changed over night. It was for me I would imagine, much like when Hendrix hit for guys a bit older than me. But what was kind of uncanny was that a lot of the same things that Eddie was doing with his amps and guitars, I was also doing on the east coast with my amp guys. It was funny when we finally met and got to hang a little bit and we talked guitars and amps and we both kind of travelled this very similar path. Ok. Then working with Michael jackson. Did you ever meet him or were you just working with Quincy Jones? SS: No, Michael was in the studio. Same thing there, when you come in doing something like that, do you get free hands or did they in any way tell you what it was supposed to be like. SS: Well, a lot of times when you come in they´ll already have a guide guitar track and this was like rock... it was just like doing a rhythm track and then... I know that the solo section was much longer when I played on it. It was probably six minutes long. So they gave me a couple of passes over that and then I´m sure they edited together what they thought was the best guitar bits. Would you work with him again, if he called you? SS: Oh, wow... I don´t imagine he would call me. I don´t know, it just seems kind of weird, you know. I´m not gonna say what we´re all thinking. (laughs) No! I was kind of wondering about guitars. Do you have like a favorite guitar that you treasure more than others? SS: Yeah, I have a late 70´s Ramirez Flamenco that was bought with my very first royalty check from "Rebel yell". That´s probably my most treasured guitar and it´s pretty rare. All my other guitars are pretty much replacable. I´m not like a collector. A guitar is just a tool. I slap some good pick ups and decent frets on them and it works for me. I´m not too precious about my guitars. (laughs) Ok, because there seems to be a lot of guitar players that have like hundred guitars and I remember when Yngwie Malmsteen started out, there was pictures from his home and there was guitars all over the place. SS: Yeah, but he´s a guy that really collects instruments. Those are very valuable. I´m more into collecting vintage amps than I an guitars. He´s more of a Strat player, so I would imagine having a vintage Strat is praobaly a really cool thing. Yeah! Are you playing Gibson Les Pauls these days? SS: Yeah, that´s kind of the guitar I started with back in the day when I was in a coverband. I think for a lot of the 80´s I started playing some goofy guitars (laughs) and when I started playing Les Pauls again I think my playing got better and my tone got better, so I was like "Why did I play all those weird guitars?" (laughs) Do you practise a lot? SS: Sure, I go through phases. Like right now, we´re preparing for a tour, so I´m starting to practise more so that I have my shit together. What´s in the future? What happens during the rest of the year? SS: We start rehearsing with Billy Idol in two weeks and then we head out on tour in mid June and I think we´re in Europé for about one month and then we return to the States and we´re touring with Def Leppard. Alright! Do you know if you´re playing in Sweden? SS: I´m not sure yet, but if you check the Billy Idol web page or my myspace, the tour dates are up there. Are you gonna tour with your solo album? SS: Not this year... well, maybe towards the end of the year. Billy´s tour will probably bring us up until October and then after that I´d love to do some dates to support my album. After that, are you gonna do another Billy idol album? SS: Yeah! Cool. Excellent talking to you Steve and I wish you all the best with the forthcoming tour and hope to hear more solo stuff from you! Thanks man! Bye!

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