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 the great rock instrumentalist Adrian Vandenberg of MoonKings and Whitesnake.
Whitesnake and MoonKings’ incredible Dutch guitarist, Adrian Vandenberg.
GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without?
AV: I can actually live without a pick, so I do play a lot with my fingernails too. I’m a lucky bastard with having thick strong nails. Girls envy them. Other than that I do like my triangular Dunlop picks .
GT: You have to give up all your pedals but three, so what are they?
AV: I’m bad with that too; I hardly use pedals. But I’d keep my Van Weelden Royal Overdrive and my Carl Martin Quattro pedals for sure.
GT: Do you play another musical instrument well enough to do so in a band?
AV: Well yeah, I played some blues-boogie piano before I even touched a guitar. Played keyboards on my early Vandenberg albums, my upcoming MoonKings album and in the 1987-88 Whitesnake tour I played keyboards on stage as well.
GT: If a music chart were put in front of you, could you read it?
AV: They might as well put a Chinese phone book upside down in front of me.
GT: Do guitar cables really make a difference? What make are yours?
AV: I think they do. I don’t really know the make I’m using but it’s a good quality, pretty long cable. I think it makes the sound just a little warmer. Plus they’d make a nice portion of spaghetti too.
GT: Is there anyone’s playing (past or present) of which you’re ever so slightly jealous?
AV: Jealousy is not in my character at all. I do have lots of admiration for players like Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Schenker, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian May just to name a few...
GT: Your house is burning down: which guitar do you salvage?
AV: My 1980 Les Paul Heritage, my mistress. I worked all through my school holidays in factories for two years to save money to buy it. She’s been with me through thick and thin, travelled around the world with me numerous times, aged by my own blood, sweat and tears. She screams, moans and sings when I squeeze her and she only gets better with age.
GT: What’s your favourite amp and how do you set it?
AV: My 100-watt Marshall plexi; everything on 10 except for the treble, that’s at 8-9. No pedals in between my guitar and the amps when I record.
GT: What kind of action do you have on your guitars?
AV: I’d say on the low side.
GT: What strings do you use?
AV: Ernie Ball .010s. I like them; they hardly ever break.
GT: Who was your first influence to play the guitar?
AV: Jimi Hendrix and Clapton in his Mayall and Cream days.
GT: What was the first guitar you really lusted after?
AV: A Gibson Les Paul. I even lusted after cheap-ass Japanese copies on display at my little local music shop. They didn’t have a real one there!
GT: What was the single best gig you ever did…?
AV: Hmm... that’s hard. From an emotional perspective it was the Whitesnake 1990 gig in a sold-out Galgenwaard stadium, Utrecht in the Netherlands on a beautiful summer night. All my family and friends were there and the chemistry with the emotional crowd was heartwarming.
GT: …and your worst playing nightmare?
AV: Playing a sold-out show in the legendary Madison Square Garden, New York. In the morning of the show day I got knocked out by the rear-view mirror of a truck in the morning, my face destroyed. I looked like Frankenstein’s brother. It took 30-plus stitches; I was stoned from the medication, but didn’t wanna miss that gig for the world, so I played.
GT: What’s the most important musical lesson you ever learnt?
AV: Don’t follow trends; trust your own instincts; play from the heart.
GT: Do you still practice?
AV: Yes I do. I want to be a good guitar player when I grow up. If I ever do!
GT: Do you have any kind of pre-gig warm-up routine?
AV: Not really: guitar in my lap, noodle a bit, have a laugh with the guys in the dressing room, occasionally a sip of wine before going on stage.
GT: If you could put together a fantasy band with you in it, who would the other players be?
AV: Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Co), John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), Andy Fraser (Free, Bad Co).
GT: Present company excepted who’s the greatest guitarist that’s ever lived?
AV: Django Reinhart.
GT: A solo by another guitarist that you really wish you’d played?
AV: Brian May’s solo in Killer Queen, among various ones by the players mentioned above.
GT: What’s the solo or song of your own of which you’re most proud?
AV: Songwise, probably Sailing Ships from Whitesnake’s Slip Of The Tongue album; the solo in a track from my upcoming album in If You Can’t Handle The Heat.
GT: What would you most like to be remembered for?
AV: As a down-to-earth guy who never took for granted that he had the fortune of having such a beautiful, unexpected career by just following his passion.
GT: What are you up to at the moment? (Gigs, tours, albums)?
AV: On 3rd November the second MoonKings album gets released. We start touring a week later and I can’t wait!
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