SIXTY SECONDS WITH...
A minute’s all it takes to find out what makes a great guitarist tick. Before he jumped into his limo for the airport we grabbed a quick chat with Canadian blues-rock, one-man-band extraordinaire Steve Hill.
...the amazing, straight-talking Canadian oneman-band, Steve Hill.
GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without?
SH: I haven’t used a pick in almost 15 years! I just prefer the sound and the possibilities I get by playing with my fingers. Especially with what I’ve been doing for the past six years as a one-man band. I have to play the bass, the chords and the leads all at the same time which is just not possible with a pick.
GT: You have to give up all your of pedals except three; what are they?
SH: The one I couldn’t play without is the Electro-Harmonix POG octaver. My guitars all have an added pickup, offset so it only captures the sound of the three big strings. For that, I use 60s Teisco pickups because they’re really thin, so I can easily fit them under the strings without having to dig a hole in the guitar. I use a stereo output on my guitars so that the offset Teisco pickup goes through the POG and then a bass amp. That’s how I get the bass sound. As far as the regular guitar signal, I use a Klon Centaur and an EP booster. The gain on the Klon is set to 0 as well as the knob on the EP Booster so they’re both used as clean boosts. The signal then goes to a Fulltone Tube-tape echo, which has a preamp that I use to boost the signal a bit - three stages of boosting before it hits two Fender amps.
GT: Do you play anything else well enough to do so in a band? .
SH: I guess I could play bass. I really enjoy playing bass at jam sessions, as I like how you hold the whole band together. I could play drums in a basic blues-rock band that doesn’t require any drum fills. I play harmonica too so I could play harp in a blues band but my skills are pretty limited.
GT: If a music chart were put in front of you, could you read it?
SH: I could read it but I’m not good at it. It takes me forever to figure out a chart. I couldn’t do a sight-reading gig as I haven’t really practised that in decades. It would require months of hard work to get to that point and I just don’t have any time for that.
GT: Do guitar cables really make a difference? What make are yours?
SH: I’ve done some tests a few months ago and I could hear a difference between different brands. Also, the more cable length you have, the more signal you lose which will affect your dynamics and tone. That’s the reason why I don’t use a lot of pedals - the less I have between guitar and the amp, the better it sounds. Lately I’ve been using Vovox cables. They sound better than what I’ve used before and they are really well made so they’re roadworthy. They truly are the best I’ve used so far.
GT: Anyone’s playing (past or present) you’re a bit jealous of?
SH: I love playing slide guitar and I have to admit that no one can touch Derek Trucks. The guy is in a class all his own. He pushes the instrument further and further and always plays with exquisite taste. A true master.
GT: Your studio is burning down: which guitar do you salvage?
SH: I own a lot of guitars, between 40 and 50 so that’s a tough question. I would probably try to save my 1959 Gibson Les Paul Jr TV model. It’s been my main guitar for a while now and although I have other 50s Juniors that are in much better condition and worth a lot more money, I’d really hate to lose this one.
GT: Favourite amp and settings?
SH: Fenders. Usually the older the better. 50s Tweeds are my favourites. I just love the dynamics that they have, how they distort and their tonal purity. Live I use a ’56 Pro and a ’68 Deluxe. I like the mix of a Tweed and a 60s Fender. In the studio I go between a ’57 Princeton a ’61 Champ and a ‘48 Deluxe. Lately the ’48 Deluxe has been my favourite. It sounds great with any guitar. It only has a volume control and a tone control and I set them at around 7.
GT: What kind of action do you have on your guitars?
SH: Not too low, and not too high. Except if I’m playing slide, in which case I like it as high as it can be without being impossible to play or too out of tune if I have to fret. I don’t want to fight with the instrument too much as I’m playing drums and singing at the same time.
GT: What strings do you use?
SH: For the past couple of albums I’ve been tuning down a whole step if I’m playing in standard tuning. I like to play in E and I like to sing in D so that makes perfect sense. For that tuning I use D’Addario’s 11-56 but depending on what guitar I’m using I might beef up some strings. I use the regular set on my ’59 Les Paul Junior TV but I put a 16 as a second string and a 20 as a third string on my Gibson ES-330 as it has less tension than the Junior. For slide, I use D’Addario’s 12-60 and depending on whether I’m in open D or open A I might change some of the strings as well. For my acoustics I like Martins Flex-core 12-54 or 13-56.
GT: Who was your first influence to play the guitar?
SH: Eric Clapton made me want to play the guitar. I heard Sunshine Of Your Love and that was it. It was the late 80s and I was not into the music of the times. The stuff from the 60s and 70s sounded way cooler to me. I first heard Hendrix around the same time. Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter and Jimmy Page too. I’d read interviews with these guys and they’d talk about the blues greats, the three Kings, Robert Johnson, Otis Rush, Muddy Waters etc, so I began buying blues records at an early age. Even today, those blues-rock guys and the blues masters are still my main influences.
GT: What was the first guitar you really lusted after?
SH: I remember looking at guitar magazines and really liking old beat-up Telecasters, SGs and Les Pauls. The first good one I got was an SG and it solidified my love for the guitar to the point where I knew I would be a professional guitar player. I’d play that guitar all day and all night. Nothing else really mattered.
GT: The best gig you ever did?
SH: I opened for BB King back in 2001 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, which is a mythic place because it’s home to the Montreal Canadians (the greatest hockey team in the history of hockey). I got to open for a lot of my heroes, including ZZ Top, Jimmie Vaughan, Ray Charles, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck and so many others but that night with BB was quite magical.
GT: And your worst playing nightmare?
SH: I always stress about technical problems. Being a one-man band, there’s a lot that can go wrong, so there’s always an added stress when it comes to gear, especially overseas as I have to rent amps. My gear stress also probably has to do with my first gig, back when I was 15. During the first song I broke a string and having only one guitar, I had to change it in front of 300 impatient teenagers and it took a while, being nervous and not having a lot of experience changing strings. When I was finally done, I tried to play again but no sound was coming out, and I soon realised I had also blown up my amp! That’s what you call humble beginnings…
GT: What’s the most important musical lesson you ever learn?
SH: Twenty years ago, Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar player came to Montreal and the promoter asked me and my band to back him up. Hubert was and still is one of my all-time favourite guitar players and I remember listening to Wolf’s records for years and wondering how he got that sound. It’s absolutely unique. I’d try to find pictures of Hubert and he’d always have a different guitar, so that didn’t help! His manager came to me at sound check and handed me Hubert’s guitar, asking me to tune it as, ‘’Hubert’s not really good with that’’. I opened the case and it was the cheapest Mexican Stratocaster on the market, something no professional guitar player would normally use. His manager also asked me to set up the amp as, ‘’Hubert doesn’t really know
I BROKE A STRING AND HAD TO CHANGE IT IN FRONT OF 300 IMPATIENT TEENAGERS. I THEN REALISED I’D ALSO BLOWN UP MY AMP
how that works!’’ It was a 70s master volume Fender Twin, an amp that I particularly dislike. I plugged in the guitar, and set the amp so it didn’t sound too horrible and handed the guitar to Hubert who just happened to show up. He started playing and it sounded exactly like the records! Same sound! It’s not the guitar, the amp, the pedals, the mic, the preamp, the board... it’s all in the hands, the mind, the heart, the SOUL.
GT: Do you still practise?
SH: I still do. Not as much as I’d like to, not every day, but I try to do it as often as I can and I still enjoy it a lot. It makes my whole day better. I’ll usually just play, improvise without thinking about it too much and I’ll come up with riffs, out of the blue that I record on my phone. The best ones will eventually become songs. The more I practise, the more riffs I get. I’ll solo on 12 bars for hours, practise scales, try to fit in Diminished lines, work on perfecting string bending, vibrato, whatever. Being good on your instrument is a matter of repetition. The more you repeat something, the better you get. Period.
GT: Any pre-gig warm-up routine?
SH: I’ll usually sing a little bit to warm up my voice. I might run some scales to loosen my fingers, noodle away for half an hour if I have that luxury. Do some stretching. Have a beer.
GT: If you could put together a fantasy band with you in it, who would the other players be?
Keith Moon or Bonzo on drums, Steve Marriott on rhythm guitar and vocals, Chris Squire on bass. That sounds interesting!
GT: Greatest guitarist ever?
SH: I always have a hard time picking up my favourite guitarist of all time. I could have a different answer every day. Jeff Beck certainly is up there, Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton, Jerry Garcia, SRV, Robert Johnson, and the list goes on. If I have to pick one, I’d say Hendrix. Not only did he completely revolutionise the instrument, he revolutionised music and the world. In his hands, the guitar became an instrument of science fiction. The world was not the same after him. He mastered the music of his heroes and took that, mixed it up and added something all his own to come up with a new way of expression for the instrument. It didn’t have to sound like six strings any more. It could be anything.
GT: Is there a solo you really wish you had played?
SH: David Gilmour’s solo on Comfortably Numb is just perfect. Anyone can sing it note for note. That says a lot. That’s what a great solo should be. A song within the song.
GT: What’s the solo or song of your own that you’re most proud of?
SH: I really like Dangerous from my new album. It took me a long time to be able to play that one. Not that the guitar part is hard to play, but the drumming is kind of tricky and it was a challenge to do everything at the same time. I had that riff for a couple of years. I’d play it at sound checks and I knew it had potential. It’s the song where I pushed my one-man band concept to the maximum.
GT: What would you most like to be remembered for?
SH: As a good artist, not just a guitar player or a one-man band. I’m a singer, a multi-instrumentalist, a songwriter and a producer. I ended up doing all of that because I’m interested in the finished product, and the potential that it has to move people. That’s the main thing. I want to make people feel something.
Steve Hill releases his new album, Solo Recordings: Volume 3, on October 6th. He tours the UK in October and November with Wishbone Ash. Further info: www. stevehillmusic.com