America's best electric guitarist leaves music to become an airline pilot! When this story spread in '87, guitar fans mourned the passing of a champion. Displayed full-force with the Dixie Dregs, Dregs, and Steve Morse Band, Steve Morse's unprecedented fretboard wizardry had even won him five Guitar Player Readers Poll awards in the heaviest category of all, Best Overall Guitarist. But the rigors of the road, financial setbacks, and the very nature of the music business had conspired to make the idea of commercial flying seem mighty appealing to him. He cut his hair, donned a co-pilot's uniform, and slid behind the controls.

For a while, it worked. Morse spider-hopped the Southeast in a 35-seat turbo-prop, usually carrying a guitar along for the ride. He did sessions with Triumph, stayed active with Kansas, and brought former bandmates to his home near Atlanta to work on his first solo album. Then Gary Rossington invited him onstage to jam and record with Lynyrd Skynyrd. "That was a turning point," Morse says. "It was my first gig in five months, and it helped prove to me that it was still fun to play." Soon afterwards, he handed in his wings.

Today Steve's back full-time on the rock-and-fusion warpath, touring in support of his masterwork, High Tension Wires. The album contains all the hallmarks that have made him a players' choice-inspired compositions, brilliant performances, and a feast of guitar techniques ranging from classical counterpoint and Southern twang to extreme speed and edge-of-the-seat solos. "Leprechaun Promenade" reunites the final Dixie Dregs lineup: bassist Andy West, drummer Rod Morgenstein, keyboardist T Lavitz, and violinist Allen Sloan. Jerry Peek adds base on several cuts, while Steve soars alone on the layered jig "Highland Wedding" and Travis-picks "Modoc" direct-to-digital master.

Onstage with his new band-powerhouse bassist Dave LaRue and drummer extraordinaire Van Romaine-Steve Morse comes across as one of the most technically astounding musicians imaginable. In seminar, he's as amiable as Ward Cleaver. "I'll be playing a little bit, but it's not a concert," he tells a packed house at a two-hour Ernie Ball seminar in San Jose, California. "It's just a way for you to learn from my mistakes, and I've got over 20 years of them to benefit you and accelerate your decision-making process."

We caught up with Steve during the Northern California leg of the frantic journey he's named High Tension Tour '89.

Are you happy to be back on tour?

Things are going great, and the album is doing really good with the reviews. I don't ask about how it's selling, though, because I don't want to get bummed out and start thinking about another alternative career; it's probably going to do okay. It's a happy, happy tour. We did a Dregs reunion tour last summer that, unfortunately, Andy West couldn't be a part of because he was working a straight job as a computer tech, so Dave LaRue was the guy we got to fill in for him. Since Rod's in Winger now and they're going to be touring forever, I have Van Romaine on drums. He's a great drummer, and these guys can do it. Believe me, I wouldn't be on the road if they couldn't. T Lavitz, who's opening the shows and plays with us at the end, found these guys. T's just a great guy. He's hilarious, and he's the spiritual advisor of the tour. We've played a lot of miles. He travels in my plane with us, too.

Are you playing better now than you were with the Dregs?

I can honestly say that. I'm more relaxed, more conscious of phrasing. Technically, I'm better at jumping intervals, and I'm arpeggio-picking much better. This is probably due to the confidence of knowing that if you don't do it, it's not going to get done. And that goes for a solo, too: If you don't make it turn into something good, it's not going to by itself.

More than ever, it seems that people are devoting themselves to sounding like one of a few players-Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, or whomever.

That's due to one thing: the immense popularity of those few. It started from Di Meola to Yngwie to Vai and Satriani. They become role models. More than role models, they become music models. In fact, people virtually try to clone themselves: "This guy's successful. I want to be just like him." That's why it's always good to give people a lot of choices.

What would you have a would-be Morse clone take from you?

Let me answer by example. I'm influenced by all these guitarists that I just mentioned, but I'm more influenced by their accomplishment than their note selections. Pat Metheny was another a big influence on me. I never strive to get his tone exactly or his sense of composition, but I admire his individuality. Same with John McLaughlin: I very much admire his personality and individuality. I admire Jeff Watson's drive and energy level. Eric Johnson is incredible, too. Vinnie Moore is another great guy who has that same kind of Eric Johnson attitude-you know, real mellow but very, very able, which I like. It's like those Ninja guys: They're real polite and everything, but you know they could break your neck in a second. The things that motivate you should be your influences, rather than the end product. I would like people to be influenced by my attitude more than my note selection. My note selections are the result of everything.

Shoot, it doesn't matter to me. If somebody is influenced in any direction-if they transcribe something, that's great. It's a great compliment that somebody would like it enough to want to learn to play it. But the best thing would be for people to be influenced by the direction, the attitude, and the choices that someone has made.

It seems that many of today's hot-shot guitarists join an established band for a year or two, just to help make a name for, themselves. Do you ever regret not taking that tactic?

I don't know. With Kansas, nothing seemed to come of that. But that was a kind of corporate approach to music-you know, the record company tells you when they think you have a hit song, and stuff like that.

Are there things you would have done differently along the way?

All kinds of things-if I knew then what I know now. But with the ignorance at the moment, how could I have done it differently? I'd have done everything different.

Have you canned Kansas all together?

No, we're friends, and we live in the same town. If you're hanging out with your friends, you say, "Hey, let's come on over and do something." I'm sure I'll be doing something with them. But at the end of the last tour, I just said, "Look, I've got to be a free agent. I can't be just a guy who's always being scheduled by Kansas anymore." But I waited until we finished our last gig to say that. I think it's kind of important to keep finishing little projects that you've started.

Do you know of many guitarists who are terrifyingly good?

Yes, huge numbers of them. Guitar has attracted some very able personalities. They're starting young and getting serious young. As far as the guitar technique, it's a great, great step forward to have so many varieties. And of course with that come fads that seem kind of limited to me. But in the long run, it's beneficial to everyone to have the guitar be more and more viable as a solo instrument.

What fads are you referring to?

Well, for instance, the guitar being used as a single-note instrument for doing very fast runs, as opposed to being used in a very well-rounded, capable-of-anything kind of approach. I would prefer to see the next generation of guitarists be equal to keyboard players in terms of musical understanding and composition and polyphony. Obviously, it's impossible for a guitarist to be as polyphonic as a keyboardist, because at any given time you're dealing with six strings versus a possibility of ten notes on a keyboard. But I think it's healthy to have such a large number of guitarists eager to learn new techniques and to play proficiently at something-anything.

Are guitar schools a good thing?

Definitely. In fact, even if there were just a tree out in the middle of the field where people went every Thursday night just to get together and play and exchange licks, that would be beneficial. The fact that there are meeting places for musicians to have cultural exchange is significant, and it's grown so much since I've been playing. It just accelerates the process.

What are the advantages of doing guitar clinics?

It keeps me in touch with the people who pay for my breakfast, and that's very important for me. Instead of approaching my career as looking for that big shot, that one big break, I'm totally the other way around. Like I said before, I don't even care what the album sells. At one time I did, maybe in the first week it was coming out, and then I said, "Wait a second! What are you doing, Steve? Is there something you could do to change that, besides what you're already doing?" I said no, I forgot about it, and I started thinking about the music and the tour. And it's been a happy moment ever since I realized that. My business is in repeat business. I do my very best every time I tackle a project, and the people who are exposed to it reward me by coming back and buying the next one, if they like it. That's why these clinics are very special. It gives me a chance to give something back, because I can reach a lot more people than if I gave lessons.

I always touch on a little bit of my philosophy, too. There are some definite messages that I want to pass on. Things like, a guy shouldn't expect to be in one band and make it big and have enough money to live for the rest of his life. That happens to one out of literally ten-million people in the world. The fact is, you've got to be broad-based, very well-educated, and you've got to be good with people just to get by in the business. I'm not discouraging people from getting into the business, but I'm trying to make it a realistic evaluation. Because reading Guitar Player, these guys are saying, "Wow, man, if I could just get this, I'd be happy." Then they get it, and they realize it's not what they meant. The business is just different than anyone could possibly imagine it. And you have to experience it to know what I'm talking about.

More ruthless?

Business in general is ruthless, yes [laughs].

With the Dregs, you were famous for writing and orchestrating nearly every part of every song. Is that still your approach?

Yeah, we have to be very careful as a trio. I wouldn't say I actively try to change everybody; if the players intuitively do what I'm thinking, that's great. If they don't, I certainly will suggest a different way. Occasionally we have to repeat a part, and if I'm playing a melody and the bass player is doing a similar part, then I'll tell the drummer to do something different. We try to never have absolute repetition. Even with a trio, you have to pull every trick in the book to make it different. Like, I usually use the guitar synthesizer to create extra color-to add interest, not to distract-but it's always with a guitar tone. In fact, most people don't even know that it's happening, but there's a string pad or something underneath there that pops up now and then. That's a real challenge with a trio, but it's been going great.

How do you convey intense passages to your other soloists?

I believe musicians should be able to read and write music, and I have written it out, but it's so much extra work for me. It's like six hours of work for me to save 20 minutes for them, just to have them lose the paper later. So I started giving them tapes of the hard parts of tunes. I'd work on five tunes at once, and just give them tapes of difficult licks. They wouldn't know what it meant or why they were learning it, but they learned it. And then in rehearsal I'd say, "Here we go. We've got this chord progression, and all of a sudden there's this lick in there." And then they say, "Oh, that's where it goes. Huh. I wouldn't have thought of it."

See, one of the important things about working with a band is you want to keep the rehearsals moving. If you don't have something challenging for everybody in the band every time there's rehearsal, you're inviting things like, "Yeah, I'll be right there. I'm just going to drive through and get something to eat," or, "Yeah, I'll be over, but there's this movie on," or, "I don't know. Let's just wait until next week." That starts to creep in, and pretty soon the whole thing is just kind of bogging down and you're back to digging ditches. I've seen it happen to so many bands I was in.

I didn't really get smart until I was putting together the University of Miami rock ensemble that later became the Dregs. There were only two nights a week when we could rehearse, and we got more done in those two nights because we knew that's all the time we had. By having everybody do a little bit of homework, we could meet a lot more of our goals, instead of just getting together every night and saying, "What do you want to do?" Somebody's got to stand up and keep it moving. And by handing out the hard parts, you don't end up with a situation of everybody sitting around while you show the bass player this lick and then show the chords of the chorus to the keyboard player. I figure there's a time limit of about 15 minutes if you've got to show somebody something. If you can't show it in 15 minutes, then give them a tape. And in 15 minutes, I mean show it and have it ready to play. That's why I take it in sections. Take a little section, show it to everybody, and then everybody plays it together a bunch of different ways. It's new-except to you, of course-so they're real into it. Keeps the thing alive. And then go to a new section. Always keep it moving and challenging for the musicians; otherwise you're going to end up with a bunch of reasons why you shouldn't practice.

You're pictured on High Tension Wire playing a new guitar. Have you retired your Dregs-era Tele?

Yeah, it's pretty much retired, but actually I've been using the Music Man for close to three years now. While I was working for Kansas and doing solo gigs they made a prototype solidbody guitar with all my pickups on it. It also had that Roland GR-700 module, which at the time was state-of-the-art, and I didn't want to carve up my old guitar for that. We kept refining the guitar-I said, "Hey, can you do this, and can we change the neck shape a little bit"-and pretty soon we ended up trying to design a guitar that I would really like.

That became Music Man's Steve Morse model?

Yes. My motivation was for me to have a replacement guitar. Their motivation just to have something kind of eccentric on the product line, because it's a handmade guitar, and I'm sure there's hardly any profit in it for them. They literally have to cut everything out and do it by hand, and there's a lot of hardware on it, with the pickups and so forth. So it was kind of a neat project, since it wasn't going to be a huge, mass-produced thing. I was into it, it turned out great, and I use it because I like it. I certainly wouldn't use it if that wasn't the case, because it means nothing to me in the way of income or anything like that. In fact, the way it's worked out now is that they give me a few guitars.

Where's your mongrel Tele?

It's at home, out to pasture. The neck's worn out; the rosewood fretboard is down to the maple. I was told that if I had it refretted again; they'd have to level it, and it would start to splinter off because that neck is so worn down on the back. I just wanted to leave it. Plus, I've already had a guitar stolen on the road, and it's just too weird thinking about losing that guitar. The Music Man has the same pickup design, stays in tune better, and has better harmonics. The neck is attached better with six screws instead of four, the headstock is shorter, and the balance is better. It's easier to carry around. The wood is basically the same as a Tele; it's just got a horn on it. It has the same thickness, it looks like a Strat, but it's really a Tele body with a Strat horn put on it.

What's the touch-pad unit attached below your bridge?

A Shadow. It's an add-on synth pickup, just like the Roland. Because it's a German company and doesn't have the budget of the Japanese companies, Shadow doesn't advertise big over here. But it's a really good product. You can change program numbers and attenuation and MIDI volume-which affects all the synths that are on that MIDI line, by the way, so it's kind of a handy feature. Onstage, I bring it back from the synthesizers with the Ernie Ball stereo volume pedal, and then have it going into a keyboard rig with full-range speakers and everything. Actually, this is the least glitchy synthesizer I've ever had. I always keep the guitar going and just sneak it in for padding. Some people don't even know it's there.

Unlike some new models, yours has a tone control.

I actually spent a day at the factory working on it: What value of pot? What linear-taper pot? Which capacitor? Where do we hook it up? Do we include it before the [pickup selector] switch or after the switch? It makes a difference, believe me. A tone control is very useful, and after seeing guitars with none, I really started to wonder: "Why is this, and what does this say about today?" Use whatever you've got to make more tonal variety. And believe me, more tonal variety equates to: (A) harmony, and (B) more interesting sound.

What are your feelings about active pickups?

I've never liked any accentuation or any heavy EQ of anything except for, like, Beatles background vocals. The Music Man has DiMarzio pickups. The lead humbucking pickup has high end and some midrange to it. The bass humbucking pickup is warmer, with more bass; it's very even-sounding. With the two humbuckers together, you've got high end and low end, and it's pretty even across the middle. There's no real peaks or out-of-phase sound. The rhythm tone is very neutral-sounding. The single-coil, which is right next to the lead pickup, is thinner and more hollow. It's got a peaky sound in the midrange, but if you mix that with the humbucking right next to it, it adds a little bit more mid and lower end. It adds a gentle out-of-phase quality, but it's electronically in-phase. Then there's the Strat pickup, which is more of the same, only even more pronounced. Blend that with any pickup combination, and this comes closest to an out-of-phase sound. The Strat pickup is not used as much, so it's out of the way. Put it all together, and it's just a mish-mash that makes no sense, but it does to me.

Why does your guitar only have 23 frets?

The problem is if you have 24 frets, then the bass pickup gets moved closer to the bridge. And if you move the pickups too close, you don't have that difference between the warm sound and sharp sound, and they all start to sound alike. And then you put little plug-in battery boxes after it, and everything sounds the same. Pretty soon, you just find it hard to wake up in the morning because there's not really much use [laughs], so it helps me to have the pickups spread out. Seriously, there's more difference in spreading out the pickups' position than there is in winding them differently. You can take two of the exact same pickups and mount them in different places along the strings, and they sound totally different. A similar thing happens when you pick along different areas of the strings.

How does self-producing an album at home compare with past projects?

It feels about the same. I just did this album more in the middle of the night. I'd come back while I was doing the flying thing and go into the studio. It was eerie creating stuff by myself in the middle of the night, but I've been doing it for a long time, and I really enjoy the idea of just getting kind of lost. When you're by yourself late at night with absolutely nothing to remind you of the passage of time-like the phone ringing or people coming over or anything like that-you can really get a very creative mood. Sometimes I'll spend four or five hours straight without talking to a single person or without thinking about anything but the problem at hand. It's very creative, but it's real lonely. If you're not sure what you want and you like to ask, "Well, what do you think about that?" you're not going to get any help. But it's really neat to go in there and just get out in the ozone, so to speak-and I don't mean with drugs or anything, but just in terms of thinking of all the possibilities and just going way out on a limb without having anyone saying, "Morse, what are you talking about?" I do a lot of writing in there, but it can degenerate. For instance, if I hear a little noise somewhere, I can spend four hours underneath the console, soldering and taking stuff apart. So there is absolutely no discipline sometimes, when it comes to getting off the track. But then again, that's how you discover.

Do you usually have a guitar around, or are you working on a computer?

I do all the work inside my control room, and I have my old Tele right there. If I extend my right arm, there's the guitar neck. The guitar is in a stand, plugged into a [Scholz] Rockman going through a little hi-fi system. I have a practice studio in the control room, so I don't have to fire up the console and the tape machine every time I want to do something. It faces away from the console and has its own speakers and amplifier, so I can fire that up for a few seconds. Then I have my studio stuff, which I plug in and crank up when I want to record.

By the way, I unplug all my equipment when I'm not using it, because lightning has wrecked a lot of my equipment. Even with surge suppressors, you can't stop the lightning. Because the ground wire is connected to ground, if you get enough jolt in the ground, it comes through the ground wire, arcs across, and fries stuff. That's why I literally unplug everything and not just turn it off. I've had no problems since then.

Did new recording technology affect the way you made High Tension Wires?

Definitely. I put a note on the back of the album that said this is my first actual solo album, because I arranged and recorded it by myself, using an Apple Macintosh computer to drive everything. Artificial sounds were coming from everywhere, and then I played guitar to that, because it was perfectly in time and perfectly in tune, and I could easily tell when I was off. Then I put the real musicians on later. I gave them a tape of basically the finished tune and said, "Here, learn this, and while we're recording it, we'll add little changes.

What advantages do computers offer the average guitarist?

Well, it's very easy to manipulate the sequences. There are small, very inexpensive sequencers available that are just stand-alone boxes, and there are inexpensive sequencers built into keyboards. And the computer is graphic-you have a screen and can point at things and move them around. It makes it easy to change the form of a song and transpose. The Macintosh is set up to be intuitive anyway, which is great for musicians, because you use it creatively, rather than having to read the manual. I never read the manual. It's easy to use, and it gives you something to play if you want to practice.

I try to mix up my days between practicing with something that doesn't vary, like a computer or a metronome, and with just writing, creating, and doing things that aren't structured. The structured regimen reminds you of what it's like to play perfectly in time, and that's something that more musicians need to remember. I'm not putting down musicians. You know, there's a big revolution against computers and technology-there's been a revolution against technology ever since the steam engine, I guess-but those people should remember that the computer's just a useful tool. It's not to replace people.

What compensations do you have to make to play multi-layered tunes onstage with just a trio? For instance, do you pre-program parts that are triggered by the drummer?

No. I originally meant to do a lot of the tunes from the album with a sequencer, but I changed my mind after trying "Highland Wedding" as a trio. I was very pleased with the way it came out. I asked Dave to learn the melody and bass line at once, as a polyphonic part. He's good enough to do it, and he worked out his own fingering and arrangement. Dave's just one of these dream type of players-you tell him what to do, and he does it, memorizes it, and it's all done. No problem. That allows me to switch to melody, and then in the end of the tune, where the whole band's playing, I use the guitar synth to supplement the melody so it sounds like a horn and a guitar playing together.

Do you have a synth patch that gives you both sounds?

Yeah. I'm using two synthesizers-an Ensoniq SQ-80 and a little Yamaha TX7. The bagpipe-like sound at the end of that track on the record is a combination of electric guitars and an Akai S-900 sound of a saxophone. That sample of a saxophone actually sounded more like a bagpipe than the bagpipe sound! A lot of times you can take a sample of something and stretch it in a different key than it was sampled in, and it will sound different.

Where does your fascination with "Highland Wedding"-type music come from?

European folk music is the heart of bluegrass music, which is the heart of Western swing, which is related to jazz, which is very close to progressive rock. I think it all blends together. I just love the sound of the real soulful bluegrass, and that leads me directly to things like Irish folk music. The same way with rock that has those kind of progressions in it.

Is that in an open tuning?

No, just straight. The only thing that's in open tuning is the last tune on the album, "Modoc," which is in Eb major [Eb, Bb, Eb, G, Bb, Eb, low to high]. But it gets to be kind of a pain to do that. And when you change tunings on a nylon-string guitar, you're in for the ride of your life if you think you can tune it and then start plucking. You've got to tune it, stretch it, let it adjust, equalize the tension, and then you check it. Boy, you'll be surprised if you just tune and play-kind of a heart-throbbing experience.

"Modoc" was recorded direct-to-digital master Explain what that means.

It means instead of overdubbing or putting parts together to form the performance, I just plugged in and got a sound on the board with some of my Lexicons [digital signal processors] and a little bit of Harmonizer used as kind of a reverb program. I got a stereo sound that I liked, and then plugged it into an DAT recorder. The reason it's direct-to-digital is that it goes straight from the guitar into the board and then directly into the recorder that the rest of the album is mixed to. When you finish playing, you've got the finished product-if you're satisfied with the performance. I used an Ovation stereo classical and split it into two direct boxes.

How many times did you play it?

I spent about an hour-and-a-half on it. I thought I'd never get through it.

How did "Tumeni Notes" get its name?

I'd read a lot about guitarists playing classically influenced rock, but the music didn't exactly strike me that way. I had a different image in my mind of classically influenced rock, so that's why I wrote "Tumeni Notes." It was like somebody asked, "Wow, Steve, how would you describe a piece that was classically influenced rock," and that's what I wrote.

Are you involved with sweep picking?

No, the only sweeping I do is in the garage, and even then I use an air compressor for most of it. Sweep picking is a neat effect, though. We were just with Vinnie Moore, and he's got that down really good. A lot of players do it-it's a technique that jazz players have been doing 5 for years-and suddenly when you do it with distortion, it sounds a little bit more exciting because the distortion brings it alive. But me, personally, I haven't got that down. That's another thing I'd like to do-get all the tricks down-but I'm a slow learner.

How did you happen to play on Lynyrd Skynyrd's live album?

That was on "Gimme Back My Bullets," and it was my first gig in about five months. I was still flying for the airlines, and that gig helped prove to me that it was still fun to play. Gary Rossington was just a great guy. He had opened for the Kansas tour, and I got to be friends with him and his band. And I just loved playing with Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I was nervous when I got up to jam with them. I just plugged into an amp I never played through before-1, 2, 3, 4, and they started! And to tell you the truth, I didn't really remember the form of the song. But man, if you can't jam with that rhythm section, you're a dead man. Meaning, like, you have no life left [laughs].

During your Ernie Ball seminars, you offer creative suggestions for using volume pedals with delays.

At my recent seminars, I was feeding two delays, a Lexicon and a DigiTech, which were always on and came back to two Ernie Ball volume pedals. These pedals are very heavy-duty. They're simple, they hold up, and they work. Then the output of the volume pedals went to two amps. The basic idea of the equipment is: You plug in straight to an amp, and you always have that sound going. Then if you want to add some delay or something to it, you bring it in with the volume pedal. It's coming through a different amp, so it's not distorting your original signal by asking it to amplify your guitar plus a bunch of other repeating guitars that are fading out. By having the delay in a separate amp, you don't have intermodulation distortion and a generally bad sound. You can fade in the sound of your delay when you need it.

For instance, when you're mixing an album and adding delays for solos, you generally should be riding the delay, because the right amount of delay for a slow passage or a high note is going to be different than the amount of delay you want for a fast passage or a low note, because a fast passage with a lot of delay sounds just like garbage. That's my theory, anyway. By doing that with a volume pedal while you're playing live, you can custom tailor your sound. I'll fade it out when there are more notes and fade it in when there , are less notes, to keep a real smooth sound. With this setup, you shape your own sound and have control of your destiny, which is important to me. And by the way, the volume pedals are not master volumes; master volume comes from the guitar-there it is, easy to reach.

Playing with delays can be a neat exercise that allows you to be semi-spontaneous, within the limited framework set by the delay. You put something into it, it holds it in memory, and then you play along with it. It's a very easy concept.

Any advice for using the volume pedal during a soundcheck?

Yes. Say you're playing along in your gig, and the soundman is up front doing his thing. He's mixing about normal-snare drum, bass drum, vocal, and maybe even a little guitar going through it. You have this important part you really want to have heard, but you're not sure it's going to get heard, because you look back as you're playing it, and the soundman is off looking somewhere else. So to be sure, you can plan a little supplementary sound during the gig, thanks to the pedal. When you sneak it in there, the soundman is going to say, "Wait a minute I hear a guitar. Oh, it's gone now. Okay." [Laughs.] But you leave that pedal down, and pretty soon you're gone for good. So you've got to be sneaky. It's just a fact of life: You know your part better than any soundman does, and by having some control with your pedals, you can say when you want to bring the sound up or change the level.

What are the advantages of having the pedal before or after the delay?

With the footpedal before the delay, you have the advantage of feeding-in the send. That means if you're playing with a trio, you can send in a lick and have it keep repeating while you play chords. You can put in the delay just on the melody and have the chords be dry; that's a real neat way to do it. But it has the disadvantage of having some extra hiss and hum coming through. Because of that little price, and because I like to cut off the delay right on cue, I put it after the delay. The idea originally came from using an Echoplex. The hiss was so bad from the Echoplex that I ran it to another amp just so that I could turn down the high end a little bit just to get rid of some of the hiss. And if you did that with an Echoplex in line before the amp, you had turn down the high end of the guitar, and that's not what you want. Generally you can live with no high end on your echoes' repeats, and it will sound good. The idea of the echo is just to give it some air.

Onstage, do you keep your delay settings the same?

I keep them the same, because there too much going on. Sometimes I change it a little bit to make a wider short delay. If you're playing real clean, a certain amount of short delay can get annoying, so you might want to shorten or widen it. It just depends on if I have time. Between songs, sometimes we don't even stop to tune or anything. Speaking of tuners, the little Boss TU-12 is my all-time favorite. It has little red lights you can see in the dark-an important point, because between songs they always blacken the stage.

Are you impressed with any new amps?

Yeah I have a Marshall Jubilee amp going through some Peavey Black Widow speakers, which totally fries me-they sound good! I just wasn't expecting it to sound that good. I plugged in, and it was "Alright, so it sounds good now. Let's turn it up." I figured I'd blow the speakers, but they didn't blow, and that's pretty good, because that Marshall head will destroy speakers. By the way, Jubilee amps sound totally different than the 800 series. I tried the 800 series and just couldn't get anything recognizable out of my guitar. The Jubilee actually has some midrange to it, and it's a pretty neat amp. I have the mid all way up, the bass almost all the way up, and I have it set on the low-out position. The speakers shape the sound quite a bit. With the Celestions, I couldn't get it to happen, because when I was playing fast, it was going putt-putt-putt on every note; it was percussive, but it wasn't clean-sounding.

Do you prefer the Marshall to the Ampeg?

It's different than the Ampeg. In fact, I like to have both. I'd like to have MIDI-controllable switches so I can hit a switch an change the speaker output, the preamp output, and the input all at once. I had a rig that did that with big relays, and everything was working fine, except that the ground differential between the two at the volume created an extra hum that was intolerable, so I discontinued the practice. I Now I use the Ampeg V4 for an effects return. But in the studio, I use them interchangeably, depending on the part. Generally, in the studio environment the Ampeg does a much smoother job. But the Marshall has an extra preamp switch that adds a stage of gain, which is real handy. And that kind of makes up for the difference in tone.

Why do you turn your slant-front cabinet on its side?

Instead of having the slant-front focused at your head-with the result of totally ruining your hearing, which is already done in my case, and I didn't need that-I turn it sideways so the speakers are pointed out two different ways for a little bit more dispersement. This is one of my beefs about life in the music business: Why can't they make a cabinet with speakers pointed four different directions? Why just kill three people in the front row, while nobody else can hear? And what makes it worse is taking a cabinet that kills three people in the front row, and then adding four more exactly in line with that on top. That borders on incredible to me. You might as well just have a death ray.

Your guitar parts sometimes sound very unguitaristic. Do you compose on other instruments?

I write a lot of stuff on piano. If you have a melody you want to accompany, you can sit there and just figure it out. You can find something. Guitar-wise, creating something that doesn't sound like guitar usually involves something polyphonic. A lot of times, by taking the limitation of the guitar, you can come up with a more interesting part. Like, you can say, "Well, I want to play a C#m here, but how am I going to do it?" Well, break it up. Figure out what's more important: the bass notes, the melody, or just the chord. If it's just the chord, then play the chord. But if you want to fill it in, the notes are there somewhere. I don't care what you're playing, there are notes somewhere near that you can grab to enhance what you're doing.

Can you offer suggestions for enhancing the act of composing?

Ideas just kind of come from messing around with instruments, and they're almost a dime a dozen. Putting them together into a composition is the hard part. That's where the frustration comes in. You sit there and mess around with it, and you just can't come up with anything else. That's when you pull out your education. Whether your education is self-taught or from studying in a music school like GIT or just from listening, use what you know to give you other plans of attack: "Okay, I can go up a minor third; I can go to the relative minor. How about if I transpose to the fifth. I can use a diminished chord to go up to this key, or I could repeat it with variation." Just give yourself ideas, and one of those ideas might spring into an inspiration. You might apply a simple theoretical idea to the music that you already have, and come up with the way you need to bridge the gap.

Another approach is to just sit there and play what you've got-do it on the piano, the guitar, whatever-and when you get to the part where there's nothing left, just stop and let your mind go. Ask yourself, "What was that I just heard in my mind?" and then go look for it on the instrument. As silly as it sounds, that's the only way I can come up with parts that don't want to be come up with, the ones that are hiding.

Transcribed by John D. Smith