Rudolf Schenker – Guitar World – March 1986

RUDOLF SCHENKER ON THE AESTHETICS OF HEAVY METAL GUITAR
By Bruce Nixon

The below article in italics appeared in the Guitar World March 1986 issue. I have re-typed here and added my bits and pieces to it.

The aesthetics of heavy metal guitar? Well, think about it. Rudolf Schenker was intrigued. He was sitting in a backstage dressing room, a litter of soda cans, ashtrays and half filled beer bottles on the low table in front of him, quietly noodling on his trusty black-and-gold Flying V. He balanced the guitar on his knees and spread his arms out wide, smiling broadly, his eyes sparkling. Already, conversation had drifted over Vs and V players, and the Scorpions’ well-known axeman had displayed a deep and interested passion for the guitar life.

That is the iconic look, Rudolf Schenker with a trusted flying V. This issue is from March 1986. Rudolf had been in the game for over 26 years by now. Rock You Like A Hurricane from 1984’s Love At First Sting album was a monster hit for the Scorpions. Winners never quit. They persist. They persevere. Sure, the Scorpions had an audience in Europe and Asia, but it wasn’t until 1984 that they broke through in the US.

“The aesthetics of heavy metal guitar…” His accent was middling thick with a slightly skewered command of idiom, but it didn’t set in the way of his enthusiasm. The idea had captured his attention, in any case.

“I know of several different kinds of players,” he said. “There is Van Halen, very technical and very creative. Him I like very much, because he has put new things into guitar playing. He is very good rhythm-wise. And the other I like very much is my brother Michael.”

This, of course, referring to Michael Schenker, the Scorpions’ original lead guitarist, now fronting his own band.

“He can play melodically—but he puts the three parts of the guitar together, the melodic, the technique and the feel. Some have more technical skill, but in my brother, all three parts are equal. He has feel, but he keeps the melody inside and the exact rhythm inside.”

The impact of Edward Van Halen to rock music is immense. Back in 1986, it was still at a level of what he brought to the guitar playing circles and how an expectation was made that any band with desires to make it, had to have a guitar hero. Of course afterwards, EVH would branch out into guitars, amps and gear.

I am the youngest of three boys, so to hear Rudolf talk about his younger brother in such high regard, is cool. His words ring true. Michael Schenker was a monster player. UFO couldn’t contain him. Their best works happened when Michael Schenker was in the band. (We will forget about the crappy 90’s reunion album and the bad Vinnie Moore reincarnation, even though i am a fan of Vinnie Moore as well). His solo work in the eighties as part of MSG and McAuley Schenker Group was a stand out as well.

Going back to March 1986, Rudolf’s summation of his brothers ability made me curious to find out more about Michael Schenker. This is artists promoting other artists. I don’t believe that form of promotion happens these days anymore? Growing up in Australia, the nineties brought a certain elitism ideal to certain local scenes, where each band only looked out for themselves as they where worried that another band might take their fans. What artists failed to realise is that fans of music always like more than one band. That is how fan bases are made, a common love of music across different bands.

“You see, metal is a new style. Heavy rock is based on guitar and drums together. If you want aesthetics, when you go looking for a good guitar player, you will find them in heavy rock. This is a place where the guitar player has the most openings. Look at Rick Springfield—his guitar player is good, but the music is based on the singer. In heavy rock, the guitar player has more parts than the singer has. In heavy metal, the players are young and fresh, too, open to new styles and new sounds, new everything! Whole roads are open to them. We all used to copy Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but bands don’t do that anymore.”

Bands started to copy their peers.

Motley Crue hit the LA scene in 1980 with a mix of Seventies Punk, Americana Rock / Pop and British Classic Rock. Bands like Poison, Warrant, Bullet Boys and Tuff came out influenced by bands like Motley Crue and Ratt.

Bon Jovi came out influenced by Seventies Classic Rock, Bruce Springsteen and the New Jersey keyboard driven pop scene. Then you had every band writing songs in a pop metal vein.

Van Halen came out influenced by the English Blues Rock and Americana Rock/Pop. Name me one band in the eighties that didn’t try to sound like them.

Def Leppard wanted to record an album that mixed Queen style pop harmonies with the NWOBM sound they were involved in. They achieved that with Pyromania and perfected it on Hysteria, spawning thousands of imitators.

Guitar players became the ones that got the attention as well. The band dynamic had evolved. It started in the Seventies and continued with the Hard Rock / Glam Rock movement in the Eighties.

“I like to listen to heavy rock very much,” he added. “Jimmy Page, in his good days, was so good. Now, Jeff Beck has always been good, and I like his solo album very much. I hear Malmsteen—he s very fast, very technical, much into classical. Take Ritchie Blackmore—of course, he is from the older generation of players, but he doesn’t get older in his sound. Beck is more for older people these days. Ritchie is one of those guys who has old and young kids in his audience. He has that fresh energy.”

Ritchie Blackmore from Deep Purple and Rainbow is one guitarist that appealed to both old and young guitarist. The older crowd that is into the blues rock style loved what Blackmore did with it, the middle-aged got the best of both worlds and the younger crowds maybe didn’t appreciate the blues rock vibe of Blackmore however they related to his classical technicality that fit perfectly with the rise of the Eighties shred. That is where Michael Schenker also comes into the picture. He also accommodated both audiences.

He suggested that the greatest heavy rock players were European-except for Jimi Hendrix and Leslie West. America has not been highly nourishing soil for metal guitarists. In metal, at least. Europeans maintain more of a purists approach to the genre.

“I think European guitarists have been more original.” he remarked matter-of-factly. Page—Beck—Clapton- Ritchie—my brother. In heavy rock. English players, especially, have had a more original feel. In coming from Germany, when I watch television over here, I see everything is made for posing—the advertisements and stuff. In Europe, people are more natural, they are relaxed. They don’t pay as much attention to those things. Maybe the guitar players are like that, too.”

There is that name again Jimi Hendrix and who the hell is Leslie West. It was years later that i heard Mississippi Queen, if you know what I mean.

By 1986, America had a decent amount of heavy rock players. Going back to the Seventies, you had players like Ted Nugent, Ace Frehley, Steve Lukather, Neal Schon and Eddie Van Halen. By the Eighties you had players like Randy Rhoads, Warren DeMartini and George Lynch join the ranks.

It was hard to come up with any more American guitarists who fit the bill. At the mention of Randy Rhoads, Schenker nodded enthusiastically, and then shook his head sadly.

If it wasn’t for Randy Rhoads, I wouldn’t have been able to play the way I play. His dedication and precision on the two Ozzy albums will be forever remembered.

“Blues is the basis of all good guitar playing in this style of music,” Schenker concluded. The Americans are not as bluesy as the English are. Clapton, Beck, Page—they’re all influenced by the blues. English players found the right combination for bringing blues and modern rock together.”

Artists speaking their minds. If you agree with Rudolf’s point of view or not, one thing is clear, he is not afraid to get it out there. Maybe it is that famed German arrogance, or maybe it is truth.

I honestly believe that music captured in its purest form is magical. The purest form is when music is written without the thoughts of profits in minds. In the late sixties and early seventies, this is what music was. It was pure. It wasn’t tainted by Wall Street, by profit margins and balance sheets.

According to his guitar technician, Vince Flaxington, Rudolf Schenker keeps it simple. The Scorpions’ veteran rhythm player carries six Flying Vs on the road, his favorite of the bunch being a black and white 1964 model that his brother gave him about a year or so ago; he also likes the black and gold model, an ’82 reissue, while the remaining four are strictly backups.

Schenker is a Flying V fanatic, having forty-odd variations of the instrument at home, about a third of which are original issue models. Indeed, he doesn’t own anything else. He saw his first V in the hands of Johnny Winter and became an instant convert to its sleek good looks. The best one he ever had, he said, went with his brother when Michael Schenker left the Scorps. His guitar tech says every one is stock, Rudolf uses only Gibson pickups and refuses to let anyone alter his beloved Vs. Not even with Strap-Loks.

Onstage, the guitarist uses three 50-watt Marshall heads that drive six 4 x 12 cabinets. The Marshalls are “quite old”—a ’67, a 1970, and a 1980, all stock. The volume is set at 9; the EQ knobs are all full-tilt. His sole effect is a Vox wah-wah, one of the first made, although Schenker only uses it for about five numbers in the current set. The cabinets also are stock. He uses a Nady wireless system.

“His tone is like broken glass,” Flaxington grinned. “That’s the way he wants it—sharp, clear and raunchy.”

Simply and effective set up. He is a purest. He didn’t go searching for that sound the way others did. He just plugged in and let it rip.

Danny Stag – Guitar World – September 1989

The interview below (in italics) appeared in the September 1989 issue of Guitar World. It was written by Brad Tolinski.

Kingdom Come lead guitarist Danny Stag speaks with the humility of a man who knows he’s been blessed. ‘”It was a mind blower” he says, describing last summers’ Monsters Of Rock tour. “Our U.S. debut was in front of 40,000 people. Some bands only get to do that a couple of times in their whole careers, and many never get that chance at all. We did a whole tour to those numbers.”

We got short changed in Australia. We never got these mega bills of super star bands. I remember buying Circus, Metal Edge and Hit Parader and reading about the Monsters of Rock tour. It had Kingdom Come opening, followed by Metallica, then Dokken, then Scorpions and the mighty Van Halen headlining. Kingdom Come formed in 1987, taking musicians from various other rock groups that were paying their dues on the club circuit. By 1988 they had gone multi-platinum with their debut and are playing to 40,000 people. It was this kind of ride to the top, that a lot of kids expected to happen to them once they formed bands. When it didn’t happen within one to two years, they would call it quits.

On the tour with Stag were some of rock s most lauded guitarists, including the legendary Edward Van Halen. When asked whether he found such fast company intimidating, Stag launches into an illuminating examination of his roots. “I realized that I was the only a blues based player,” he says. “Rather than competing, I was playing in my own ball game. My tastes run more towards Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimi Hendrix. People don’t usually think of Hendrix as a blues traditionalist, but I feel he was one of the masters, maybe the ultimate.”

As an aspiring guitarist, this is what I wanted to read. Who influenced the people that are influencing me? Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Willie Dixon. Back in 1989, I had never heard of those players. There is that name again Jimi Hendrix. His name just kept on popping up in interviews from the Eighties.

Although one wouldn’t immediately detect the Mississippi Delta in the arena rock anthems of Kingdom Come, interludes like the funky acoustic intro to “Highway 6,” off their latest, In Your Face, suggest a refreshing depth and sense of history. Stag is pleasantly forthright and even passionate about his music and his influences. However, he makes only brief mention of the band Kingdom Come is most often compared to Led Zeppelin. How valid does Stag see those comparisons to be?

“I must admit, I used to scratch my head in disbelief when people compared me to Page. He was an influence, but not a big one. I really liked Zeppelin’s first two albums, but I didn’t care that much for what followed. I think younger people are missing the Hendrix part of my playing because they aren’t as familiar with him as they are with Page.”

“This Led Zeppelin/Kingdom Come comparison has been blown way out of proportion. Some of it comes from the way Lenny (Wolf, Kingdom Come’s vocalist) sings, but if you listen to Lenny and Robert Plant back-to-back you’ll find they don’t sound anything a like. Plant’s voice has completely different tonal qualities. Maybe we come out sounding like Zeppelin when everything is mixed with our drummer, who plays a monster back beat. It’s hard to escape the fact that Zeppelin created certain hard-rock conventions that every band uses.”

“But you could accuse Hendrix of ripping off Muddy Waters,” says Stag with increasing irritation. “Voodoo Chile is a lot like Water’s (I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man. The Beatles were influenced by Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. The difference is, the Beatles and Hendrix did variations on the music they loved and their influences were more like tributes. Paying respect to your musical forefathers is part of a long tradition. Ex-Zepsters Page, Plant and John Paul Jones, who’ve been openly hostile to bands like Kingdom Come and Whitesnake, should perhaps re-examine the condition of their glass houses. It’s fairly common knowledge that Led Zeppelin brazenly borrowed, almost note-for-note, several Chess-label classics.”

“Whole Lotta Love, one of their biggest hits, was proven in a court of law to have been taken directly—without permission or subsequent knowledge—from a Willie Dixon tune. After I read an interview with Page where he accused me of stealing from him, I wanted to do a solo album and call it Houses of The Bitter. I’d record Whole Lotta Love, I Can’t Quit You and You Shook Me and write in huge letters who really wrote those tunes. To be influenced like we’ve been is one thing, but to steal songs without acknowledgement is another.”

“I don’t know. Maybe some of the bad blood started when a journalist misquoted me. This guy told Page that I claimed to never having heard Led Zeppelin. That’s obviously absurd and Jimmy would have a right to feel ticked off.”

Back in September 1989, this was a shock to read. Led Zeppelin borrowing songs from other artists and passing it off as their own. These days, I am older and wiser, but back then I was green. They even stole the intro riff to Stairway To Heaven and failed to acknowledge it. I have said it many times, musicians are the sum of their influences. No music is created in a vacuum. Kingdom Come is very similar to the hard rock version of Led Zeppelin and they hit pay dirt with that similarity. The audience wanted Led Zeppelin to be around. Since Led Zep was not around, other bands stepped up like Whitesnake and Kingdom Come to fill the void. The audience lapped it up, sending these bands to the top of the charts.

Stag sounds defensive but he doesn’t need to be. His manic, hormonally charged soloing, aggressive pick attack and tightly would vibrato remain distinctive whether filtered through a single coil Strat pick up, a fat sounding Les Paul or a plain old acoustic Martin.

“I never work out solos,” says Stag. “I just wait til I’m inspired. Then I have the engineers crank the music real loud in the control room and I go for it. I just shut my eyes and improvise. It’s like a short burst of emotion. When you want to comment on something, you use the words available to you in your vocabulary. Soloing is like that with me. I’m commenting on what’s happening musically by reaching into my built up musical vocabulary of licks and scales and use whatever is relevant. I don’t worry about how it’s going to work, it’s just a feel thing.”

I used to read the comments from guitarists who said they never worked their solos out with a grain of salt. My idol Randy Rhoads worked his solo’s out and he created masterpieces, Vito Bratta the same. Solos are meant to add to the song. This is what guitarists forgot towards the late eighties. In saying that, Stag’s leads where good on the ear. By having a musical vocabulary, he had that knowledge to work out the solos on the fly.

To translate that feeling in the studio, Stag uses a 1962 Stratocaster with a bridge-position humbucker, in tandem with a 50-watt Marshall head. All of Stag’s Stage effects are by T.C. Electronics. “My system is pretty simple. The 2290 has five effects loops, and they’re completely programmable. Most of the time I just use a little delay panned so that two of my cabinets are dry and two are wet. I keep the dry cabinets so I never lose punch. I have some parametric eq’s, but I only use them on one song and a couple of solos. They help emphasize my single-coil sound.”

How minimal the set up? That is what Rock N Roll is all about. Plug the guitar into the amp, turn it up and bash away. These days, the guitar rigs are a plethora of schematics.

Now that Kingdom Come has comfortably settled into star status, what does the future hold for Stag?
“I’d like to experiment more with sound, like the weird stuff Hendrix was doing on Axis: Bold As Love. I don’t really think you lose your identity when you change tone or pickups; it’s what ‘s under the fingers. You could tell it was Hendrix whether he was playing clean or whether his sound was balls-to-the wall. Having sound is everything, but having a sound is not. Kingdom Come is close to taking its place alongside the great bands. We’re like a Deep Purple, a Rainbow or a Led Zeppelin. We might not be as original as those guys were in their time, but we have that kind of musicianship. We’ve got the depth.”

The interview appeared in the September 1989 Guitar World issue. It was obviously done around April / May 1989 when the In Your Face album was released. Kingdom Come called it quits in August 1989. So by the time the magazine hit the newsstands, Kingdom Come was no more. They left us with two magical albums. In Your Face is a very under rated album and it deserves more attention than what it got. However that is for another day.

A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

C.C. DeVille Guitar World – September 1989 and Persistence (Quitters Never Win and Winners Never Quit)

GW – What was the best piece of advice ever given to you as a guitar player?
“Be your own man,” which carries into every aspect of life. Listen to other people, but realize your opinion counts as well. There’s always someone to tell you how bad you are, but not always someone to tell you how good you are. So you have to depend on yourself not to quit. In the words of Body By Jake Steinfeld, “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” Remember, rock n roll was invented for people who can’t play regular music.

Learn from others, but never forget who you are. Don’t let the haters win. As pointed out by C.C. there will always be someone there to tell you how bad you are. C.C. is a perfect example. The Shrapnel Guitarist Elite dished him. Why? It’s because he made to multi platinum status and they didn’t. Rock N Roll was always meant for the outcasts, the ones that where not professional and did not practice 15 hours a day.

GW – What would you like your epitaph to read?
My epitaph would read: “Here lies the music worlds best kept secret.” When I go to bed at night I’m very hurt that people consider us a joke band. We concentrate on writing good pop songs, so I have to be careful not to overplay. I guess one of these days I’ll have to sink to the level of playing a “jack off” solo featuring hammer on pyrotechnics and flying whammy bars. Ain’t Nothing But A Good Time is a brilliant summer song with a good solo. It fits the song very well. That’s what I’m preoccupied with, rather than showing off.

It’s okay to show emotion, to feel hurt when people dish on you. That is expected behaviour. Pretending to be fine is fake behaviour. The gospel is above, CONCENTRATE on writing good songs, play for the song, not for the hype.

GW – Pick the C.C. DeVille “Dead or Alive Dream Band” excluding members of Poison?
John Bonham on drums, obviously. Paul McCartney on bass, because he’d help me write some great songs. I’d live to hear Paul Rogers on vocals and Max Middleton from the old Jeff Beck Group on keys. Jeez, what a weird combination of people. You probably couldn’t even get a jam going, but somehow mentally it works for me. To tell you the truth, I quit thinking about ultimate bands because synergy in rock is a strange thing. Superhero bands like Blind Faith and Asia never seem to work out. On the other hand you can put together several average musicians and create something special. Hell we did our first album in 12 days! It was raw, but there was a chemistry that people seemed to like, and that’s all that matters.

David Coverdale has played with a lot of musicians, but when John Sykes came into the picture, they created hard rock, blues rock / metal history with the Whitesnake 1987 album. Coverdale then wrote Slip of The Tongue with Adrian Vanderberg and got Steve Vai to play it, however he never got the same magic, and within 18 months Whitesnake was no more. That synergy is like lightning in a bottle. The Beatles where four average musicians that created something special, Sabbath was the same, Deep Purple and the list goes on. Ritchie Blackmore found that synergy again with Rainbow, however once Dio left it was all downhill from there. You never know with whom you will have chemistry with.

Music, My Stories

C.C. DeVille – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 1

The below article (which I have re-typed in italics) was written by Brad Tolinski and it appeared in the Guitar World issue of September 1989.

When Poison colleague Bret Michaels was asked to suggest an appropriate alternative career for the flamboyant C.C. DeVille, he immediately replied: “C.C. is obnoxious, so he’d be a great game show host.”

C.C. DeVille, I remember was the winner of the Worst Guitarist Polls in the Guitar mags back in the late eighties and early nineties. When guitar playing got exposure via Shrapnell Records, a new audience niche was born. I called that niche, the Guitarist Elite. This new niche hated guitarists like Mick Mars, C.C. DeVille, Scotti Hill, and many others from successful hard rock bands, as they where too sloppy and too safe (always referring to the Pentatonic scale). The funny thing here is that this same elite revered Ace Frehley, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and other players that also had strong roots with the Pentatonic scale.

GW – Who are your favorite guitar players?
Jimmy Page. Not because he’s trendy at the moment, but because when I was eighteen I thought he sucked. I had to mature as a player to really appreciate him. Youth never understands nuance or phrasing. I initially hated all the great guitarists. The local players would say, “Dude, listen to this.” They’d play some Page or Hendrix, but I wasn’t able to comprehend it. I wanted to hear speed. When you’re young you approach things from a different perspective. There’s peer pressure to always burn and your emotional thing isn’t very developed.

I will admit that when i was starting off, I couldn’t get into Hendrix and Page. Growing up in the Eighties, I loved the hard rock / glam scene. At that time it was all about Warren DeMartini, Randy Rhoads, George Lynch, Eddie Van Halen, Mick Mars, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Sykes and David Mustaine (I actually like Megadeth first before i liked Metallica, and that was courtesy of Mega). I didn’t get into Page and Hendrix until 1993. That was when the Labels abandoned the eighties scene in favour of grunge. I took that as a cue to delve deeper into the Seventies.

My next major influence would have to be Jeff Beck. “Because We Ended As Lovers” off Blow By Blow is the pinnacle of confidence on a guitar. It’s a brilliant example of the guitar as an emotional medium.

To be honest, C.C. is spot on here. Jeff Beck’s Blow By Blow album was another album that I explored in the nineties. I remember reading a lot of interviews from Slash, where he talks the world of Jeff Beck. Then he appears on Blaze Of Glory from Jon Bon Jovi. Then he was set to appear with Guns N Roses on the song Locomotive, but didn’t because of a cymbal crash sending him partially deaf for a while. I was interested and i wasn’t disappointed. Try telling a current Metalcore guitarist that can sweep over eight strings and play a million tapped notes a minute to go and give Jeff Beck a listen.

Jimi Hendrix was amazing because he destroyed all conventional knowledge of what it meant to play guitar. We all tend to play it safe. If someone says a song is in A, we immediately jump to a familiar scale in that key. Hendrix didn’t think that way, he just followed his own vision. My favorite cut by him is Little Wing.

Again, my nineties “Seventies Boot Camp” began with Jimmy Page. Hendrix was next. Clapton was third. Beck was fourth. Tommy Bolin was fifth. Paul Kossoff was sixth. I was already aware of Richie Blackmore, Tony Iommi and Ace Frehley. They where the big three for me originally. Now it involves so many other great guitarists/songwriters like Steve Lukather from Toto, Ted Nugent, Neal Schon, Carlos Santana, Larry Carlton, Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin and so many other’s.

I first heard Little Wing when Skid Row covered it. Then I heard Stevie Ray Vaughan’s version. I liked the little differences between each. Nothing can compare to Hendrix’s version. Even the vocal line is sorrowful. You can feel the sadness and the hope all rolled into one.

If guitar playing has turned into an athletic event, then Eddie Van Halen is the Olympic champion – he lit the flame. Speed is a great thing to have when you need it and something I’m always trying hard to develop, but Edward is the master at using it properly. You’d have to be a fool to deny his influence on every rock player in this decade. Eddie saved Rock N Roll. In 1979 music was starting to head towards synthesizers and skinny ties, and Van Halen came out and made it very chic to play guitar. He’s still the greatest. You hear kids saying he’s not good anymore, but they can’t appreciate what a good songwriter he’s turned into.

This is true. Rock N Roll was always in the scene, buried with the coming of disco and ignored with the movement into new wave. Van Halen made it cool again to be a rock band. They had the stiff middle finger raised and we all wanted to be part of that attitude. They paved the way for the eighties destruction that was too come.

Another major influence was a guy named Lee Pickens who played with a band called Bloodrock in the early Seventies. He was way ahead of his time. It was lucky for me that my brother bought their record or I would have never known about him. My favorite track was something called Cheater. One of the greatest solos of all time.

This is what we want as fans. Musicians telling us their influences. Cheater was on the second Bloodrock album. From the 5.10 mark, Lee lets it burn. Its melodic and its brilliant. The cowboy style yeahs, just add to the climax. Its the like the end of the world. Apocalypse will happen when the song is over. Check it out. Just click on Cheater.

As I get older I understand that the guitar is not about showing off, it’s a conduit for emotion. I’m a stylist, not a size of your penis type player. Playing guitar is about music, it’s not a contest.

The Nineties made me re-evaluate what it is to be a guitar player. When i started playing in the mid 80’s my main focus was rhythm. Then when i picked up the Randy Rhoads Tribute album, my focus initially was on the wonderful RR riffs. Then i started to delve into the leads. The Nineties was a time with no bass player. Due to that I had to adapt the way i write riffs so that i always had a bass note running, so that when we jammed a song, it sounded complete. So the solo breaks ended up turning into riff driven breakdowns.

A to Z of Making It, Music

Persistence Part 2

There is a recent Dear Guitar Hero article with Tommy Thayer in the Guitar World, May 2013 issue. The interview was conducted by Brad Angle.

QUESTION: Is it true that you did manual labor tasks at Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley’s houses before becoming a member of Kiss? (Tony Ratoni)

ANSWER: Those are kind of urban myths. Sure, I started working for those guys part time in the late Eighties, an my credo was that I’d do whatever needed to be done. And a lot of times when you’re in those situations you do all kinds of things. I think, somehow, through all the speculation on the internet, people started saying that i did all these strange jobs. But nothing was strange. I was just a go-getter that would do whatever task was at hand, which is normal if you wanna get somewhere in your life. I’m proof that persistence works.

So all you wannabe artists, are you prepared to persevere. If you want to be rich, take up banking or get involved technology. Hell, tech heads are the new rock stars. They are the cool ones, the ones that people want to hang with as they are rolling in the cash. If you want to be somebody in music, you need to persevere. Tommy Thayer was a go-getter for Kiss. Gene Simmons signed his band Black and Blue and produced two mediocre albums. He even took one of the Black N Blue songs he co-wrote and called it Domino on Revenge with only himself as the writer. Tommy Thayer then played the tribute circuit in a Kiss cover band. This is a period now that is spanning from 84 to 2000. In 2002 he made his debut as the new Spaceman for Kiss. He didn’t quit. He kept on making connections. He kept at it.

There is a comment on the Persistence and the Meaning of making it post, where Robakers mentioned the persistence of Lars Ulrich in getting Metallica off the ground. This is so true. Everyone seems to forget that part of Lars. He was once a kid, that built connections around the NWOBM music that he was interested in. He surrounded himself with like minded people. Eventually one of those people started a label. Then they where doing a compilation album. The rest is history.

These days, everyone remembers Lars as the guy that sued his own fans when Napster came on the scene. That is because, Lars wanted to be part of the corporate elite. Lars wanted to hang with the rich because he thought it was cool and the rich wanted to hang with Lars as they thought it was cool to hang with a rock star. Instead of Lars being the stiff middle finger hero to his fans against the corporations, he became one of them.

A to Z of Making It, Music

Nuno Bettencourt – Guitar World, September 1989

The article was written by Andrew Hearst, and it appeared on page 17 of the September 1989, Guitar World Issue.

“Be sincere. Whatever you do. If its Lawrence Welk you’re into or if its Eddie Van Halen, just be honest about it and love what you’re doing.” Words of wisdom from Nuno Bettencourt, guitarist for Extreme, a Boston – based hard rock band whose self titled debut album was recently released on A&M Records.

A guitarist speaking his mind. How many people speak their minds these days? Not a lot, and if they do, they are scared of the haters. Well guess what, if you seek the limelight, there will always be haters. Remember, not everyone will love you, but your audience will. If you love what you are doing, the audience will be able to feel it, they will be able to relate. Your fans are not stupid, they will know if you are faking it. Like when Def Leppard delivered Slang, or Motley Crue delivered Generation Swine, or Bon Jovi delivered What About Now or Metallica with Load and ReLoad. We know that these albums are about chasing some fools gold, chasing an idea implanted in the musicians head by a manager, an agent or a producer. That is why the people didn’t respond.

Extreme’s first album was produced by the super experienced Reinhold Mack, aka Mack. His resume is a list of who’s who of classic albums. Some of my all time favorite albums like Scorpions – Fly to the Rainbow, Deep Purple – Stormbringer, Deep Purple – Come Taste the Band, David Coverdale – White Snake and most of the ELO and Queen albums from 1975 to the mid 80’s had Mack involved, either as sound engineer or as a producer.

Born in Portugal 22 years ago, Bettencourt moved to Boston with his family when he was four. As a freshman in high school he heard Edward Van Halen and was inspired to pick up the instrument. Soon he was playing covers and originals in a succession of casual local groups; he calls Extreme his “first really serious band”.

Back in the eighties, bands normally were formed, they would chop and change musicians until within a few months a stable line up was confirmed. It was expected that once you had a stable line up, you would start to play shows, build an audience and write killer songs. By doing that, you are creating a buzz, and with that buzz, the good old Mr Record Man Gatekeeper, would come along and make you famous. What no one told these poor suckers, is that the good old Mr Record Man Gatekeeper will also make them sign contracts that where far from fair for the band. To put this into context, Extreme, were formed in 1985, signed in 1987, assigned to work with a master producer in Mack so that they develop their songs and sound and their first album hit the streets in 1989. That is what bands expected in those days.

It doesn’t happen like this anymore. Labels in the old sense do not exist. They do not spend money on artist development anymore. Why? Wall Street. Labels need to answer to a board of directors and shareholders. Their memo is to make money, not waste money on artist and development. Remember Warner Music is going into business with Kickstarter.

“The biggest lack in eighties’ guitar playing is rhythm,” he says. “There’s a whole other three minutes of a song to be enjoyed. I love playing solos, but there’s a time and place for that. There’s a whole other world out there to play with and people are missing it.”

Such balls. Here is a new up and comer hot-shot guitarist and he is blasting 80’s guitar playing. To be honest, he is not wrong. I cannot list the amount of albums i purchased where the songs are lame as, however the guitar solo spot is a song within a song. Keel is one band that comes to mind. Yeah they had a few good songs on each album, however the rest of the songs where shite with good solo spots. MacAlpine is another. This was Tony’s attempt at having a vocal oriented band around his guitar playing. The only problem is, you need to have the songs to make it work, not just the guitar solos. He did it well with Project Driver (the supergroup featuring Rob Rock, Tommy Aldridge and Rudy Sarzo), however that was with more accomplished musicians. Not a lot of people show balls these days. We all want to be loved, even by the people who only like to hate.

Extreme headlined a scheduled 15 city club tour in April and May. The group now hopes to land the opening spot on an arena tour. “We just want a fair shake,” says Bettencourt.

That is what every band wanted back in the day. Their careers where in the hands of the people who controlled them behind the scenes. The label, the manager, the booking agent and so on. They had to rely on all of the above to get a fair shake. Seriously how fair was that shake to begin with. All of the above mentioned people, take a generous cut from what the band makes.

These days, the fair shake is up to you. You determine how high or how low your career goes. You determine your definition of success. Adam Duce got fired from Machine Head, because his heart wasn’t in it anymore. His definition of success was different to what Robb Flynn’s was. He felt like he toiled for over 25 years and still hadn’t made. He wanted to be like Metallica. But there is only one Metallica. And since he wasn’t as famous as them, he didn’t see the point in continuing.

Music

VITO BRATTA – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 2

VITO BRATTA – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 2

GW Brad Tolinski: One of the things that distinguishes your approach to soloing is your thoughtful use of pock dynamics like on Don’t Give Up and Little Fighter.

Bratta: I like to balance out the creamy hammer on passages with staccato lines. The pick suggests real aggression and I really enjoy hearing players like Gary Moore who use the pick well. However it’s not one of those things I analyse closely – it comes naturally. I just try to play the things I wish I heard in other players.

If anything my playing tends to be too smooth, but I was never into that Ted Nugent sound. Ted’s sound is great, but it’s too harsh. I’ve always understood Van Halen’s description of getting a brown sound, and that warm round tone is what I’ve looked for. When I went on tour with AC/DC I was running 2,700 watts of power and you still stand in front of my amp. Angus was using the same kind of amp I was using, running pretty close to the same power, but you couldn’t even get close to his system because it was so biting.

All musician’s are fans. We are a sum of our inflluences. Any musician that tells you that the create music in a vacuum, that they are so original and free from the influences of life is full of shit. We develop our own styles as a result of studying what other musicians do. I own a 5150 combo, so I can relate to the smooth sound that Vito is after. You can study another person’s style and be influenced as to how you play. Here Vito is studying the person’s style for how it sounds. Angus and Ted have aggressive pick attacks which result in harsh – bitter sounds. There is so much thought going into Vito’s art.

GW Brad Tolinski: You seem to be using a little more midrange.

Bratta: That happened at the mixing board. For years I played in a band that didn’t have a bass player, so I created a sound that would appear as a “V” shape on a graphic eq. In other words, lots of bass and lots of treble. But when I went into the studio Michael our producer, said “Listen to your sound.” I asked, “Where is it?” You could barely hear the guitar. He explained that the cymbals were eating up all my high end and the bass guitar was masking the low end. Because my set up lacked midrange frequencies, my sound was being swallowed up. I started to realize that it was the midrange that cut through. I was forced into creating a new sound – one that more mids, yet remained creamy, round tone. The real trick was to avoid that “hinky” midrange. Some people like that weird “wah-wah pedal that’s halfway down” sound. George Lynch uses that a lot, but I never really liked it.

I owe a lot to my Steinberger as well. When I used to play Strats, I’d play one note and get a bunch of bizarre overtones. I’m not quite sure what it is, maybe it’s the graphite neck, but when you hit a single note on a Steinberger you hear just one note very cleanly – even when it turns into feedback. It’s just a great guitar and it helps me get the smooth tone that I look for. Everything is still evolving. I don’t think I’ve really developed a distinctive sound, tone wise. If I sound unique, it’s more in my fingers. When we did Big Game there was no attempt at duplicating the sound of Pride.

I have been in bands that don’t have a bass player for a long time. So you develop a certain style to suit, exactly as described by Vito. All of the rhythm tracks I write these days incorporate a root note with a revolving melody line played in unison. It’s very rare that I just chug away on a power chord or on a pedal tone.

One thing that a lot of guitarist don’t get recognised for, is that all the music comes from the guitar and because of that, they are the main songwriters. They are the main contributors sound wise. So apart from knowing how to play your instrument, the guitarist needs to know their equipment and their sound.

At a recent recording I did, I normally use the 5150 live, however the engineer at the studio had a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head going through a Marshall Quad that gave me the dirty harsh sound I wanted for the recording, and then for the clean, I used a Hughes and Kettner Head through the same Marshall Quad. I had to go that way as the 5150 sound was getting lost in the harsh drum sound and the 5 string bass. We need to compromise and we need to do it quickly.

Music

White Lion – Big Game + killer Vito Bratta moments

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The music to Big Game was written by Vito in dressing rooms during the Pride tour. It was important for the label Atlantic Records to get a new album out so that they could capitalise on the success of the Pride album.

It was released in August 1989 and it was produced by Michael Wagener who also did the successful Pride album. The album turns 24 years this year.

Coming into this album – the White Lion story was as follows; play as many club gigs as you can with the hope to get signed. They got signed by a major (Elektra Records) and then got dumped by that same label.

They released Fight To Survive independently, which then led them to another major label (Atlantic) and the multi platinum Pride album with the hit single Wait that was on MTV rotation every six minutes.

They where promoted as pretty boys in tight leathers however amid all the catchy hooks and technical riffs, where some serious themes. El Salvador appeared on Fight To Survive, the anti war ballad When The Children Cry appeared on Pride and now on Big Game, you have the band talking about apartheid (Cry For Freedom), religion (If My Mind Is Evil), Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior (Little Fighter) and violence in the family (Broken Home).

Stand Outs

Goin Home Tonight – The first thing that you hear is that wonderful 12 sting A major arpeggiated intro moving from A to E to D like Randy Rhoad’s Crazy Train. As an artist I really appreciate it when other artists bring in the major key to rock and metal music. It’s easy to remain in the dark sad, minor key.

I’ve been in this hell forever
I don’t even know how long
And there were times I thought I never
Would hold you in my arms again

Life on the road is like hell. You are living with four to five guys that you may or may not like. It’s hard enough holding a relationship without having any issues. Eventually you just want to be home, with your missus and your family.

And you will keep me warm at night
And you will make me live again
Yes I’m going home tonight and
You’ll be waiting

The history of music is littered with songs about the road. The most famous ones are Turn The Page, Home Sweet Home and Wanted Dead Or Alive. The solo is breathtaking to say the least. Solo’s when done right, enhance the song. I compare this solo to what Randy Rhoads did in Crazy Train. Again its over similar chord progressions and it has the tapping/legato feel that Randy Rhoads achieved.

Little Fighter

In this track Vito Bratta used the Steinberger TransTrem so the song is in the key of F# instead of E. This is a great song. The issue that a lot of people could have had with the band is that they where not sure if they where a party band or a serious band. Musically the White Lion music is serious and in a way technical, however Mike Tramp’s lyrics can really let the song down. On this track it is all spot on. Even though the song is about the Rainbow Warrior Greenpeace ship, anyone can relate to it. Any person that has been down trodden, abused and down and out for the count can relate to it.

You were one of a kind
One who’d never give it up

Any musician out there trying to make it you need to be the one that never gives up.

Rise again little fighter and let the world know the reason why

That’s all we are in life, fighters. We fight from the day we are born to breathe, to grow, to learn and to be somebody. Andy Warhol said that every person will experience 15 minutes of fame in their life and that is what so many strive for these days. Fame.

Broken Home – Broken Home is a song about violence in the family. It’s another serious topic Tramp is tackling.

The acoustic guitar playing from Bratta is brilliant and smooth and you don’t even hear his fingers shifting like you do on more amateur guitarists like me. I hate recording acoustic guitars.

Lyrically the first 4 songs deal with life on the road, sex, Greenpeace and violence in the family. I like that variation in a band.

Cry For Freedom is like Little Fighter, another political song, this time about apartheid in South Africa. The below is from the September 1989 Guitar World interview.

GW Brad Tolinski: The strains of folk music in Cry For Freedom are suprising.

Bratta: It wasn’t really calculated, but what I wanted to create was something like a compilation record where every song sounded like a different band.

GW Brad Tolinski: Because of the dramatic nature of Cry For Freedom it would have been easy to play a corny clichéd solo in the upper register. You show a lot of maturity and restraint by inserting that bruising low end riff instead.

Bratta: If I wrote an entire record and didn’t hear a solo in my head, there wouldn’t be one. In Cry For Freedom I wanted to lull the listener into a daydream then shake them up and punch them in the nose. It’s hard to create the tension found on Cry For Freedom.

Cliched Songs with Great Bratta Moments

Dirty Woman – again the major key intro, this time in the Key of F, moving from F to G, then the minor key sexual boogie in the key of Dm and back to the majors for the Jazz influenced verses. So many different styles fused so effortlessly.

The Jimi Hendrix E7#9 bridge/solo/bridge/solo progression references the good old 12 bar blues vocal and response. In the second solo, where it’s got the six notes per quarter, John Petrucci used the same style of lick for Caught In A Web.

Living On The Edge follows a similar theme to Goin Home Tonight, but in this case, it’s the start of the journey. It looks Mike Tramp was referencing his life, by packing his bags and heading over the US to start his RNR dream. I see it as just hitting the road and playing show after show. As is the case with Bratta, he delivers a super melodic solo section for a mediocre song.

Don’t Say It’s Over has a killer solo section from Bratta, however its hard to get into this song. The album is all over with its mixed messages to everyone, Goin Home Tonight is about returning home to a loved one, Dirty Woman is about getting down and dirty, this one is about a break up and Baby Be Mine is about keeping the romance together. If you want to listen to break up songs, listen to Phil Collins – Face Value album.

If My Mind Is Evil has a killer heavy riff and is one of the heaviest songs White Lion has recorded. It just doesn’t do anything lyrically for me. It sounds ridiculous to be honest. Then the solo comes in, all classical and smooth for 10 seconds and then all sinister and evil. What contrasts.

Album Filler Songs

Baby Be Mine, Radar Love and Let’s Get Crazy

Final Word

Its always hard to follow up an album that goes gangbusters. White Lion delivered a more mature album in Big Game, however the fans that got into White Lion via the Pride album didn’t really resonate with this album. They wanted the sugar pop hits like Wait however the band didn’t even come close to writing a song like Wait on this album.

Music

VITO BRATTA – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 1

VITO BRATTA – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 1

It’s a different experience when you open a Guitar World issue from September 1989 and re-read it in 2013.

It’s a who’s who of where are they now. Marty Friedman and Jason Becker are hot off the press with their Cacophony releases and are endorsing ADA Amps, Jeff LeBar from Cinderella is endorsing Ernie Ball Strings, Richie Kotzen is endorsing Ibanez, Kip Winger is endorsing Peavey and Brian Forsythe is promoting Kix’s fourth album Blow My Fuse, before it exploded with the song Don’t Close Your Eyes. Johnny Diesel is well known in Australian circles and he is in there promoting Johnny Diesel and the Injectors that went on to make a big splash on the Australian scene during this period. To a kid starting out playing guitar it just looked like one big hard rock, metal party was going on in the U.S. I wanted to be part of it.

Marty Friedman went on to join Megadeth and found success. Then he left to follow his muse writing Japanese pop music.

Jason Becker’s story is a sad one. He went on to replace Steve Vai in David Lee Roth’s band only to be struck down with a rare disease at the age of 20 called Lou Gehrig’s Disease. From recording the A Little Ain’t Enough album in 1989 to being given three to five years to live. He is still alive now and communicates via eye movements.

Richie Kotzen has had a varied career. Apart from being a solo artist, he went on to replace CC Deville in Poison. The album Native Tongue was a brilliant album funk, blues rock album and it is a shame it didn’t get the recognition it did. He also replaced Paul Gilbert in Mr Big between 1998 and 2004.

However, the reason for this story is Vito Bratta. He is on the cover. The hot shot guitarist and songwriter from White Lion, promoting their latest release. Big Game was the follow up album to the mega successful breakthrough album Pride that spawned the hits Wait and When the Children Cry.

Since then White Lion went on to release Mane Attraction in May 1991 and by September that same year they called it a day. Vito Bratta hasn’t released anything musical since Mane Attraction in 1991. Brad Tolinski interviewed Vito.

“Guitarist Vito Bratta’s work is immediately distinctive for its strong sense of melody, thoughtful use of dynamics and pick attack, as well as a graceful near-metronomic sense of time that sounds neither forced nor rigid. Although he’s definitely not from the Malmsteen School of high baroque, Bratta’s liquid phrasing is in spirit reminiscent of certain passages from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. The elegant trills over the A chord in the ninth measure of the solo in “Wait” and the call and response of the alternating legato/dettache phrasing in “Don’t Give Up” suggest a player who understands music in a classic, rather than classical sense.”

To add to that, Vito’s grasp of melody and modes to me was at a very high level. Songs written by Vito cover a lot of different musical styles. His choice of notes, different chord voices and harmonies was a pleasure on the ear palette.

“I’ve been developing a more personalized approach to chord voicings and inversions. The problem is these voicings don’t always sound good through a distorted amp. So instead of using more conventional inversions, I’ll arpeggiate the chord. This allows me to mute certain notes within the chord, eliminating some of the ugly overtones you get when you play close harmonies with distortion. Al DiMeola once said his muting technique was a result of not wanting to wake anyone when he was practicing late at night! Sometimes good things come out of compromise and determination.”

Apart from being a guitarist in a successful rock band, he was also an artist. To Vito it was all about the music.

The mention of Al DiMeola and how he came to have an unbelievable muting technique shows that he knows his stuff, he has listened widely, he has studied what others have offered before him and incorporated it all into what he does.

Vito also talks about the limitations of playing through a distorted amp and how he circumvented those limitations, by changing the way he plays. Instead of standard power chords, he is arpeggiating inversions of that chord and muting the strings at the same time.

GW Brad Tolinski: Another unusual aspect of your rhythm technique is the extensive use of fingerpicking, particularly on the new record. How did that evolve?

Bratta: That was another outgrowth of my song writing. I usually write songs by myself, then play then for Mike so that he can write lyrics. Because I want to give Mike the most accurate picture, I’m forced into creating a fairly complete sketch with my guitar alone. I know an easier way would be to use multi-track tape machines, but I’m not into that. So when I start thinking of the basic feel, I’ll come up with a bass part and play it on the low strings with my thumb. Next, I’ll try and create a chord progression and try to coordinate the chordal movement so that I can play the bass line simultaneously. Finally I’ll add a suggested melody line on the top. The only way to have all three things happening at once is through some form of fingerpicking.

Since this approach really excites me, I didn’t want to drop it when we went into the studio. That’s why my rhythm guitar parts have a lot of movement. If I was going to use the typical heavy metal approach on something like Little Fighter, I would just chunk away on the low E and A strings.

These days, artists would multi track everything in the demo stages. Hell, I do, it’s easy. Vito developed a fingerpicking style that combined what classical, blues, country and bluegrass players do however he applied it in a pop sense. Imagine being the singer and you get given a demo that has the bass parts, the chords and the melody lines all on one track as an acoustic guitar piece. To me this is what made Vito different to the other players. He was a guitar nerd and I mean that in a good way. He knew his shit, but he wasn’t textbook. I know that the 90’s served up the argument against players with technical ability not playing with feel. Bullshit I say. Just because a technical player can step on the gas when they want to and drive at 200km per hour, it doesn’t mean they have no feel. I was doing something similar like Vito, however as soon as I got my multi track recorder, I stopped doing it and took up the technological alternative. Looking back, I do regret it, as it is a skill now that has been relegated to beginner’s level again, instead of remaining at an advanced level. Technology has made us lazy, and it has made us cover up how bad we really are. If we can’t sing, we auto tune, if we make mistakes, we fix up the note/s.

GW Brad Tolinski: Many of these concepts were evident on Pride, but the execution was more rigid.

Bratta: The reason for that is kind of complicated. I wrote the whole Pride record on acoustic guitar. Then I went into the studio and started playing all these wonderful chord inversions through a Marshall, and it came out sounding like shit. So instead of rewriting the whole album I kept the voicings, but did a whole lot of muting. Big Game on the other hand was written on my Steinberger in dressing rooms across the U.S., so I had a chance to audition all my ideas on an amp way ahead of time. As a result, I was able to create sympathetic voicings so I didn’t have to mute the strings as much. The overall sound is more legato and less staccato, and the pre-production made me more at ease in general.

I can totally relate to that. I write every song on acoustic guitar and when it comes time to electrify it, I end up changing it a lot of it and it loses its soul. Just by replacing an arpeggiated part with a power chord, it is enough to lose the feel you are trying to convey. I then try and fix this problem by adding multi guitar lines which could either muddle the song even more or bring clarity. It’s a hit and miss game, and previously when I have been in studios where time is money, it’s being more miss than hit.

One thing that Vito shows is that he is a persistent artist. He is prepared to persevere for his art. Not many artists these days, have those attributes. To use an analogy, a lot of artists will dig away in the mines for years on end, only to stop a few centimetres dirt short from the gold or diamonds waiting on the other side. And then you have one artist that just keeps on digging and they reach it. Never give up on your dreams and walk away. If there is a lesson to be learned here, persevere and keep on getting better.

GW Brad Tolinski: Your latest work doesn’t sound as heavy as it did in the past, yet it does sound more aggressive.

Bratta: After touring with AC/DC and Aerosmith for a year, I felt a little more aggressive. Some nights I would come up with something pretty, but after seeing Angus bash it out, I would say “Fuck pretty”.

Again the fan in Vito comes to the fore. He is letting the bands that White Lion is playing shows with influence him. He is watching what they do, he is seeing what songs and riffs work in a concert atmosphere, because in the end, bands sink or swim based on the live show they deliver. He is letting their sound, their aggression influence him. Song writing isn’t just about musical notes and words. It is about attitude and feeling. What sound is needed to convey love or hate? Minor key songs are sadder, major key songs are happier. Crazy Train from Randy Rhoads is a perfect example, where major and minor combine in a glorious display. The intro is F#m, the verses are A major and trippy, the chorus is back to F#m as the root. The song is both pretty and aggressive. Vito was a master of both. Like Randy Rhoad’s he was bigger than the band he was in.

Part 2 will be a review of Big Game, plus more from the interview where Vito also talks about Big Game.

Music

White Lion – Mane Attraction

Vito Bratta – White Lion – Mane Attraction Review

Back Story

After the success of Pride and Big Game, Bratta and Tramp took time out to demo songs for Mane Attraction. All up the writing and recording process took two years. To me this is the most mature White Lion album. Mane Attraction was more thought out compared to Big Game, which was an album that was recorded and released in a very quick fashion as the label wanted to cash in on the band.

1991 – The Year of Change

1991 was a funny year. It has been written that all the labels and radio stations jumped on the grunge explosion and totally ignored the rock audiences during this time. That may be true; however other factors also played a part in the fall of hard rock, glam rock, glam metal, etc. The Metal Evolution series and its episodes on glam more cover this area in depth. Even Mike Tramp summed it up in an interview during one of his solo tours.

“Grunge didn’t kill commercial metal. Rather, commercial metal committed harakiri by copying itself so much that there was nothing original left. The eighties killed the eighties. In the end, every band cloned each other and copied each other so many times and there was no originality left at the end of the eighties and people just wanted an alternative. “

It happens with every scene. It starts off as a niche scene, one artist breaks out to the masses and then the labels are all chasing similar artists so that they can cash in. The market then becomes over saturated. Seriously how many bands started with the term White. Whitesnake was the original and then you had the rest. White Lion, White Tiger, White Cross, White Heart, White Diamond, White Eagle, White Russian, White Sister, White Trash, White Vision, White Widow and Whitefoxx.

The Competition

Mane Attraction was released in April 1991 as well as Temple Of The Dog’s tribute album to the Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood who died of a heroin overdose. In March Mr Big released Lean into It with the number 1 hit To Be with You. Skid Row released Slave To The Grind in June and Lollapalooza is launched in July. Metallica releases the Black Album and Pearl Jam releases Ten in August. Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion I and II and Nirvana’s Nevermind are released in September.

You can see that the album was already up against some stiff competition in the rock circles with Skid Row, Metallica (the biggest selling album of the SoundScan era), Mr Big and the GNR circus releasing big career defining albums and the rise of the Alternative Seattle Scene.

The Album

I remember borrowing the CD from a school mate as I was short on cash. Back in those days, people in my area where not sharing their music as the people that purchased the music felt cheated as to why they forked out $30 for a CD (yes that is how much we paid for CD’s in Australia) and the copier would fork out $3 for a blank cassette and dub it.

Regardless after much persuasion and promises that my mate could copy my Motley Crue collection, he coughed up the CD and I took it home. I remember putting it on my Sony CD Player, plugging in the headphones and just laying back.

Stand Outs

Lights and Thunder – It kicked things off. This was written as a fuck you to the label that was pushing the band to write hit songs. Coming in at 8 minutes long it’s far from a charting song. The album is produced by Richie Zito who is a guitarist himself, and in my view is the reason why Lights and Thunder sounds so heavy.

Let me take you to a place
Where everybody knows your face
There¹s no King and there¹s no Queen
And everything is like a dream
You can live in harmony
With those who were your enemy
You can do just what you want to
No one here will ever hurt you

No one bothered telling the above to all war mongers that kicked off the Gulf War and the Balkan War.

War Song – Again this is the band writing for the band and not listening to their label about writing ‘hit songs’. This song has many different styles into one 6 minute plus song.

What are we fighting for?
When the price we pay is endless war
What are we fighting for?
When all we need is peace

As Axl Rose sang in Civil War, “I don’t need your Civil War; it feeds the rich while it buries the poor”.

It’s Over – It blasts out all sleazy and bluesy from the speakers with its 12/8 feel. Fans of Ready N Willing and Saints n Sinners era Whitesnake would be happy with this song. To me it shows Bratta at his blues pop best if there can be such a term.

Blue Monday – gives Vito a chance to show off his Jeff Beck/Eric Clapton/Gary Moore blues muscles by paying tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan who died in a helicopter crash while the writing process was happening.

Clichéd Songs with Great Bratta Moments

Broken Heart – Maybe they saw how Whitesnake got traction by reinventing Here I Go Again, Fool For Your Loving and Crying In The Rain, maybe they thought the same thing would happen with this song. Maybe the record company thought the band handed in a weak record and wanted a single for it. Either way, the song is catchy, I just wish that Mike Tramp re did the lyrics.

Leave Me Alone – One thing that captures you is the Rocket Queen meets ZZ Top meets Van Halen groove. The whole intro goes for 1min and 10 seconds. The label would have been pulling their hair out with that whole minute intro. It’s a shame that Tramp had to ruin the song with crap lyrics and crap melodies. Like many White Lion songs the lead breaks from Vito are songs within a song, and this is no different. The 7#9 chords also work well.

In a Guitar World issue for September 1989 after Big Game came out, Vito was giving a lesson and had the following to say;

‘In my early years as a guitarist, another thing I found helpful was making up a chord book. I wrote down every chord, from triads to thirteenth chords. Then I sat down and worked out every possible fingering and inversion. It took me a year and a half to do – there must have been about six to seven thousand handwritten chords. Then I played through each one of them and removed the chords that sounded like shit. It would have been easier to buy a Mel Bay Chord Book or something similar, but I didn’t believe in that because I was really learning a lot in the process.’

Originality is summed up there. He could have just purchased a Mel Bay book, and learnt from that, but he did it his own way and that is how an artist can find their true voice. Books could give you the guide or the tools; however you need to take what is out there and apply it in your own unique way. I especially like the part where he played through each chord and crossed out the ones he didn’t like, keeping the ones he liked until those chords became a part of his style.

Love Don’t Come Easy – The song is a good progression from Wait. The chord inversions sum up Vito’s style. He starts off with a D5 power chord, then that moves to the 2nd inversion which is D5/F#, then D5/G and finishing it off with an Asus4 chord. In the second verse he plays an arpeggiated part.

And did anyone pick up the Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’ vibe in the intro where Schon does pull offs, Vito does tapping with hammer – ons and pull offs. That idea would have to have come from Zito as he was working with Bad English and Neal Schon in 1989.

‘Do you want it, do you need it, because love don’t come easy’.

You’re All I Need – This is Love Don’t Come Easy part 2 as the chords are identical except in a ballad format. It could have been left off the album in my view and then that magical classical trill a thon lead break appears from Vito.

She’s Got Everything – The song itself is pretty weak, until the Peter Gunn blues boogie kicks in to close the song, and then it goes into an Air on G String style guitar solo unaccompanied.

Till Death Do Us Part – the Phil Collins I Wish It Would Rain Down for pop metal. They did a good job with it. This is the full blown wedding waltz song.

Out with the Boys – ‘Out with the boys, to make some noise’. The song is average, again killer Bratta lead break. I like the bass and drum groove after the lead break.

Farewell To You – closes the album and the lyrics tell me that Vito and Mike knew that Mane Attraction was going to be their last album together.

Vito Bratta is easily the most overlooked songwriter/guitarist of the 80’s. Brad Tolinski in a Guitar World issue from September 1989, described Vito as a guitar player who understands music in a classic, rather than classical sense after commenting on his leads in Wait and Don’t Give Up.

Since White Lion called it a day, Vito has stayed away from the music business and as a fan of his style, I wish that he will be back to create music the way he likes it.

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