REB TALKS ABOUT HIS ALBUM

Reb talks to Jason Sidwell about writing, two-hand tapping and gear for his recent instrumental album, A View From The Inside.

What processes did you take writing and recording A View From The Inside?

It started as just a hobby, so I would work on it here and there. As with all my music, it starts with a guitar riff or keyboard riff, and I build around that. You need a verse and a chorus and a solo section that is good to play over. I don’t like playing over someone just chugging an E chord. I like to have chords to play over. I recorded all the music in my garage using Nuendo. I prefer it to Pro Tools, where all you do is swear at it! Once it was all done I sent a mix without the bass to a real bass player (I sound like a guitar player playing the bass!) and we went to a proper studio to do the drums.

With an instrumental rock album, the focus and amount of guitar being featured is considerable. Did you have any processes for presenting what you do on the guitar?

Giving lessons I found out that people seem to like my guitar solos. I thought having a whole album of me soloing rather than just 10 seconds in a song was nice. Now that I’ve done that, I will concentrate on a follow-up to my 2003 record called Masquerade, with vocals. Anyway, I guess the idea was to feature my guitar playing in a way that didn’t get boring. I put keyboard solos throughout, so it wasn’t all guitar. I wanted some sax solos, but I didn’t know any sax players. Also, I wanted depth in the creation of the music, not just one genre for the entire thing. I often hear instrumental rock records where every song is a bunch of scales, like the guy is actually practising scales with the bass player, and the drummer is playing along for the fun of it. So for A View From The Inside, I recorded a couple of full-on rock songs, a few funk songs, a ballad, an Irish jig, and a jazz-fusion song. I wrote half the record on the keyboard.

Are you conscious of balancing technique and melody when writing and recording?

Absolutely! As with my writing with Winger and Whitesnake and Black Swan, It’s all about the hook, baby! That’s just what I have been taught and I have always preferred it that way. In the solos I try to be more of a Steve Lukather kind of guy with a good technique to melody ratio. It’s like you know the guy can burn it up insanely when he wants to, but he gives it to you in perfect doses after he sings to you with melody.

How do you keep inspired with your tapping technique?

I come up with cool new tapping stuff all the time and I forget it an hour later. I am always saying, “Oh man, what was that cool tapping thing I was doing?” and then crickets begin chirping in my brain. Sometimes I record it, but I forget that I recorded it, haha! It’s tough being me. I have only explored a fraction of my potential with it frankly, but there is SO much you can do with it that it’s always inspiring because I have a,“Wow that’s cool!” moment a few times a month.

A fan favourite over the years, there is a vibrant version of Cutting Loose included on the album. Did you want a fresh version of it and if so, what did you focus on?

The drum machine was so cheesy on the original, and I was dying to redo it with a real drummer. It’s a very cool open-string riff I wrote when I was a kid, and it has been the most asked about song of my career, believe it or not. I added a melody guitar in the second verse which I adore, but it turns out everyone hates the solo. People got married to the solo in the instructional video, which I thought was just noodling. Now I agree with them and like the noodling solo better, haha! I experimented with a Digitech Whammy epdal on the new solo, and it’s cool, but thin sounding and not as human.

You have a very rich and rounded distorted bridge humbucker tone. What do you favour from the gear used to how you engage with the guitar?

Guitar players are always asking about my sound, and I think the biggest component to it is the EMG 85 pickups. I play other pickups and I just sound like the ‘thin sound man’. When I got the Dokken gig, I switched out all my pickups to DiMarzios, because you can’t do George Lynch with active pickups. EMGs are just fatter in my opinion, but I wouldn’t use them for a Strat tone or chirpy, cutting, screaming, on-fire Lynch or Van Halen stuff.

Here Reb is plucking the third string with his third finger (a) to sound the fretting-hand first finger’s G note at the 12th fret. Plucking a new (often higher) string when playing fast tapping lines, rather than using a fretting hand ‘hammer-on from nowhere’ is somewhat unique and is a trademark technique of Reb’s. Once he has plucked the G note, his second finger (m) is ready to tap at the 19th fret.