One of jazz-rock fusion's ultimate ensembles is back together - at least for the moment. The Dixie Dregs, featuring guitarist Steve Morse, bassist Andy West, violinist Allen Sloan, and drummer Rod Morgenstein, helped redefine contemporary instrumental music, bringing it closer to mainstream rock and away from its abstract past. In fact, the Dregs did it so convincingly that six of their eight albums garnered Grammy nominations. Of course, the band parted ways in 1982. Morse recorded a couple of solo albums before joining Kansas from 1986 to 1988 and Deep Purple in 1996. But earlier this year, the classic 1979 Dregs line-up reunited for a tour and an album.

The record, California Screamin', was recorded last August, when the band and ex-Mahavishnu Orchestra violinist Jerry Goodman hooked up for a three-night stint at the Roxy in Los Angeles. On it, the Dregs chronicle their 25-year history, revisiting epic fusion like "What If," "Freefall," and "Aftershock." For newcomers, it's a dazzling entree into the instrumental universe of unparalleled rock musicianship. For old fans it's simply a stroll down memory lane, with the wind blowing at your back at 90 miles-per-hour. Morse put on the brakes for a few minutes to talk to Guitar.com about the reunion, songwriting, and a bunch of stuff about technology.

Guitar.com: Why have the Dixie Dregs reunited?

Steve Morse: It's always been a family reunion. We get together periodically. If there's a music business a few years from now, we'll do it then, too

Guitar.com: Your audience has been really loyal to you over the years.

Morse: At the moment, our audience is so intent day to day that they seek out unusual music, especially live music. Those people are responsible for what I do. Now, if we could get to a wider audience, just to give people a chance to hear us do this new stuff, we'd be even happier.

Guitar.com: What's new with you outside the Dregs reunion?

Morse: I'm finishing my first concept album. Every song is in the style of someone or some group that's been influential in my life: George Harrison, Zeppelin, Clapton, Beck, Hendrix, Leslie West. It makes it challenging for me because I've got to write and solo in a certain style. It's one of the most fun projects I've ever done.

Guitar.com: Can you write pop music, Steve?

Morse: People have said to me, "I wanna song that I can sing to," so I tell them, "Okay, I'll give you my version of that." I do a lot of custom orders, including background music for commercials. I pride myself on coming up with ideas on the spot for basically anything. I write melodies according to what gets me get excited. It's as easy as fallin' off a log getting into it. It takes me over.

Guitar.com: Then why has commercial success eluded you?

Morse: The music industry has more to do with image, business, horsepower and luck -- things that are beyond my control. All I can do is write and play the song.

Guitar.com: How do you feel about radio?

Morse: I think it's a good avenue for talk shows and traffic reports. I go between the talk shows and all the low end of the dial stuff.

Guitar.com: How do ideas come to you?

Morse: Thankfully, I hear it in my head, or I am just discovering it in the guitar. It's taken a long time to get to that point, to hear an idea and just play it. A more fun way is to experiment and have every run through be different.

Guitar.com: How do you use theory and harmony in your writing?

Morse: Theory does have a finite knowledge. Once you see the pattern it's pretty much something you're not going to forget. But you have to learn it and then just have it as a basic language. It is part of everything I do. It is now just a natural evaluation process that I use without having to think about it.

Guitar.com: What kind of effects spark interesting ideas?

Morse: Reverse algorithms that I was using and also situations where I use the tone knob of the guitar as an envelope controller. I just found a sound where you have nothing 'til you have everything. I love the way that shapes and leads to simpler, long notes.

Guitar.com: Tell us about your pedal board?

Morse: I go directly into a tube amp. I overdrive the amp for distortion, reduce the gain with a footswitch to another channel to a cleaner sound; sometimes in the middle of a difficult passage I'll make the guitar cleaner by turning the volume of the guitar down, or selecting a pickup that has less gain and turning the volume down. My guitar has a lot of possibility in that way. The tube amp varies between a 5150 and a Marshall head. That signal goes to a Scorpion speaker in a Peavey cabinet. I like them because they react quicker than the Celestion type. It's because of the kind of picking that I do.

Guitar.com: Are you using outboard gear?

Morse: From the preamp out it goes to several digital delays, depending on which rig it is. I can't keep enough of them because they don't make them any more, and they're always breaking. The ones that I have had been out for 15 or 20 years. I've got a short delay, or chorus that has sine wave and triangle wave modulation going through an Ernie Ball volume pedal and that's all wet, all modified signal to a second amplifier. But that goes to the power amp in on the back of the second amplifier. The front end of the amp is in no way involved. This way I don't modulate my original signal through the speakers with this -- by having it process two things at once. So, when I play a single note my dry signal plays exactly the same, but when I press down the pedal I get a delayed or chorus sound. The second delay is a long slap delay also with some modulation.

Guitar.com: Really?

Morse: It's very subtle but it makes a difference to me, especially one to one. It adds a kind of natural air. I am liable to bring it in except when I play fast notes. Then I am definitely more likely to turn it off or way down. You don't hear me changing the level because the change is gradual. When there is a slow passage there is a bunch of delay, but it disappears during fast passages.

Guitar.com: How did you find this?

Morse: With the Echoplex. I had it in line and the tape hiss was too much. I ran it through a separate amp and would knock the high end off. This way I could get the effect of echo without having the hiss. And then, by adding a volume pedal, I can also drastically change the feeling and energy by taking the echo in and out.

Gear Through Time

Steve Morse Reveals his Greatest Discoveries

As athletic, versatile and fluent as anyone on the scene today, Steve Morse has set the standard for technical guitar accomplishment. His groundbreaking, finger-flexing work with the recently reunited and brilliantly accomplished Dixie Dregs remains the high-water mark for rock-fusion, his work in Deep Purple has kept that band afloat for years, while his solo material follows all sorts of eclectic paths.

In an attempt to get some perspective on the way the evolution of technology has effected Morse's playing, we asked the guitarist to trace the development of his rig through time.

Guitar.com: What technological developments have been most important to your music?

Morse: One of the most important developments early on for me was the idea of overdrive. My first overdrive was a tape recorder. That broke, but I was able to find the input and output wires. Now the impedance was all mismatched and I had a hum problem. But it was fascinating to me, the richness of tone that I could suddenly have. The next thing I did was plug a little Fender Princeton amp into my Super Beatle Vox amp. And I actually used the speaker output of the little Princeton. Talk about overdrive!

That whole idea of chaining things really gave me a lot to work with. The fuzztones of the '60s were so bad that chaining was a much better choice for me. Then I heard about people using tape echo, so I got a reel-to-reel tape recorder with three heads and hooked that up as a parallel input to the guitar, so I could use a single repeat echo mixed in parallel with the guitar. Then I figured out how to feed that back to get multiple repeats just by using an external volume pedal. Then I realized the volume pedal was something that was really going to be important to me because it allowed control while you were playing without leaving the instrument.

It got weirder from there as I got into the Echoplex and things like the digital delay when it came out. I loved its ability to modulate predictably, and its chorus-like sounds. I have always preferred to generate chorus sounds rather than use a chorus pedal.

Guitar.com: Did the change in amplifiers change your playing?

Morse: It made it easier. When the Powersoak came out, I suddenly didn't have to bring a big old heavy blanket which I used to attenuate -- to cover up one, two, or three speakers to control my volume when I played with a band in a club. To get that sound you had to really overdrive the amp. But I always appreciated preamp out. That was something I always had to pay someone to put in: effects loops.

Guitar.com: In the '80s there were advancements in guitar production. Did those revolutions effect your playing?

Morse: In Deep Purple I have a whammy bar which is actually usable because of the high tech developments from the locking nut down to the geometry of the swinging bridge. In the old days, I had a Strat that went out of tune all the time due to the friction of the system and how it laid across the nut. The pressures were not equalized, so I never got into tremolo or floating bridges. But when Ernie Ball handed me one that actually was usable it was a nice surprise.

Guitar.com: What advancements in recording technology have changed your work?

Morse: The performer sequencer changed a lot of the possibilities for me. It made it easy to write stuff by myself and present a demo with very little effort. Then recently finally I made the step to hard drive recording and the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.