Tag: features

Thirty years into a stellar career, progressive-rock wizard Roine Stolt can be heard on the latest – and perhaps final – work from Transatlantic, a supergroup featuring past and present members of Marillion, Spock’s Beard, Dream Theater, Winery Dogs, the Steve Hackett Band, and his own Flower Kings. Titled The Final Flight: Live at L’Olympia, this three-hour live album captures a Paris date brimming with tone-packed solos from the Swede. But is this really the end of Transatlantic? Stolt gave VG the final scoop.

When the first Transatlantic album came out in 2000, it was seen as a side project from four established proggers. Yet here we are, decades later.
I personally thought it might be a one-off, just a fun collaboration for one album. Really, I’m always open to working with new people and knew [Spock’s Beard singer/keyboardist] Neal Morse already. I did not know much about Marillion – and had not heard Dream Theater. So as we got into recording, I at least thought we could get some attention because we were a so-called supergroup.

Transatlantic is known for playing long, complex suites. Are the live parts all worked out in advance?
I would say that 90 percent is worked out, but of course with very few days of rehearsals, some of the keyboard and guitar parts remain a bit loose. I was surprised in the beginning 20 years ago, when fans went online and said, “Roine doesn’t know his own solos.” I could not understand, but finally it dawned on me that these fans expected the exact same solo each time (laughs)! I grew up on Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix, Allan Holdsworth, and Frank Zappa, who all played solos differently each night.

On this tour, the band played more than three hours onstage. That’s a lot of music to remember.
It was quite a tall order and I had to rehearse a lot, but still you don’t know exactly what to play. We all live far away from each other, so we can’t regularly interact or suggest parts. In hindsight, I think guitar parts could have been mapped out better between me and [stage guitarist] Ted Leonard.

Do you ever make mistakes onstage?
Of course, I hear errors and out-of-tune things in our live recordings. To get a full band in-tune for a long show is not easy, as we have no background tapes – we play it all live. Fortunately, fans still have a wonderful night with their favorite band onstage. They enjoy the diverse sounds and sections, the lights, the smoke, the poses – but perhaps I’ll hear the bum notes, tuning stuff, variations, or wrong tempos. But again, you’ve got to remember you play for the audience. If they love it, it is good. The gig at L’Olympia wasn’t perfect, but the fans were outstanding – a lovely Paris audience.

Your tone keeps getting better and better. What’s in your gear toolbox?
For recording, it changes day to day depending on whatever I have set up in my studio. Most of it sounds good if you tweak it a bit. I usually have the Orange TH30 head or Mesa-Boogie Transatlantic head with a 2×12 Orange cab with vintage speakers or a small 1×12 closed Orange. For cleaner tones, sometimes a Fender Vibrolux.

For guitars I’d use mostly my Mexico-built Fender Telecaster Thinline with a 24-fret True Temperament fretboard, piezo, and Seymour Duncan mini-humbucker in the neck; I’ve had it for 20 years, and it’s perfect. Sometimes, I’ll grab an ES-335 or my ’53 Les Paul goldtop. Acoustics are Guild Jumbo or a Seagull 12-string that sounds great for recording.

Which pedals are essential to your Transatlantic rig?
For that tour I had a really small pedalboard because we were flying a lot. I had a Dunlop volume pedal, Cry Baby 95Q wah, Keeley distortion/compressor, TC Electronic Nova system for delay, phaser, overdrive, and tremolo, Tech 21 Acoustic DI line box, and Vovox cables. The amps I played live were mostly a pair of Orange TH100 heads with two 4×12 cabinets.

Does “The Final Flight” mean you are closing the book on Transatlantic?
Well, I’m not the right person to ask – and never say never – but in some strange way, Transatlantic has made its point. Not sure we can be productive as a unit without repeating ourselves too much. I personally look forward to other new collaborations; recently, I did a fabulous recording with drummer Doane Perry of Jethro Tull, keyboardist Vince DiCola, bassist Tony Levin, and some other great players. I’m waiting for that to get finished – it’s just one of the best recordings I’ve been on in my many years. So, if this is our last Transatlantic album, at least the Paris show will be a very fine goodbye. Transatlantic has been a wealth of ideas and very strong wills – we have great creativity. I will always treasure that.

This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Nickel Creek’s new album, Celebrants, is the trio’s first in nine years. Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins, and guitarist Sean Watkins crafted 18 songs that crack the boundaries of Americana, bluegrass, and rock. Watkins plays his vintage Gibson like a boss, creating visceral textures and vistas with a dizzying right hand. It’s Nickel Creek’s most-expansive record to date, and Sean told VG how they got there.

What brought Nickel Creek back together?
It was never a question of us breaking up or getting back together. It’s always been something to do, depending on what we were up to. In 2020, we did an interview about the 20th anniversary of our first album. The camaraderie was there, it was fun, nostalgic, and we thought, “Should we do something?” (laughs) It seemed right, but it was a big ball to get rolling. Getting together was tough.

Eighteen songs?
(laughs) We had a lot to say, musically and lyrically, and there was a lot of stuff we hadn’t done. When we get together, it’s fun and exciting. When we started writing, we stayed at a friend’s house in Santa Barbara, so there was nothing else to do (laughs). We put all our energy into it. It became this big project, almost like we were riding a train.

Was it easy working together again?
I wouldn’t call it easy. Chris and I work well together, especially as we’ve gotten older. We listen to and trust each other more. The process was joyful, but it was also a lot of work. The more we worked on it, the more we realized we were biting off a big something to chew on. We realized we gotta make this all we wanted it to be. That requires a lot of attention to detail and time. Because of the pandemic and lack of touring, we finally had the time we never had in the past. Our previous album took six days to write, and we recorded it in 12 days. This album was a very different situation.

Did you start from scratch or bring in songs?
Only a few songs were brought in. Chris had “To The Airport” and “Failure Isn’t Forever.” The rest started from a seed. I would say, “Let’s write a song with this feel.” Then I’d play a fingerpicking thing. Really basic stuff. “What if we did a song in 6/8 with an Irish feel?” Then I would play something that became “Celebrants.” We wanted to see what would happen when we created a song from scratch. That’s one of the defining processes that made this record what it is.

Your acoustic textures and arpeggiation add a soundtrack quality to the songs.
When you play in a bluegrass band, and there’s a banjo, a lot of dexterity is involved. In our situation, each of us plays more than one role. Rhythmically, I’m like the bass and the kick drum but filling in arpeggiated stuff. I’m playing rhythms with subdivisions. A lot of that came from Tony Rice and Nolan Blake, especially when they would play solo. When you listen to Tony Rice’s “Church Street Blues,” he’s doing so much. There’s a lot of inferred harmony and explicitly played harmonic information. He’s not just playing boom-chuck. He’s doing a lot of subdivisions and cool things in-between – and solos that are a mixture of chords and traditional bluegrass. It’s very transferable to other styles. I try to think about guitar less like traditional bluegrass guitar and more like other instruments like piano or banjo.

What was your main guitar?
The 1949 Gibson LG I got from Jackson Browne 11 years ago. He has an amazing guitar collection. He told me his pickup wouldn’t fit into it, so I should take it, which is unbelievable (laughs)! He has these amazing guitars and would rather see them out being played than in his storage space. I play others, but that one is my main squeeze. It plays well with Chris’ Loar mandolin. The combination became a special sound, and we didn’t want to mess with it. We used a baritone guitar and a Nashville high-strung guitar to layer, but the basis for each song was the LG. It’s a very special instrument.

Will there be a tour?
Yeah, we’re headed out soon, so now we’re at the point where we’re learning to play all the songs (laughs). We did some shows in the U.K. – kind of a practice swing. We have a new bass player, Jeff Picker, who is incredible. It’ll be a chance to get warmed up with him and learn how to sing and play these songs. Playing and singing them at the same time is very challenging.

This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

It’s been seven years since Texas blues rocker Chris Duarte issued a new album, but his 15th studio effort, Ain’t Giving Up, sees the singer/guitarist/songwriter reuniting with producer Dennis Herring, who worked with him on 1994’s Texas Sugar/Strat Magik. The results are refreshingly quirky at times, with Duarte refusing to stick with the expected blues licks.

What’s the story behind Ain’t Giving Up?
It started almost six years ago. Mascot had signed me and said, “We want you to do a Texas-blues album.” And for some reason, I wasn’t hearing that right. I was thinking, “I kind of want to stretch out and do something… let me think about it.” I got in the studio and we got to work with Dennis, and he’s my favorite producer since we did Texas Sugar. When he said he was on for the new album, I was ecstatic – that made me dig deeper.

Which tracks contain your best guitar work?
I do like “Can Opener” – that’s an old shuffle that I wrote years ago. It’s actually on the Chris Duarte and the Bad Boys album I recorded in ’86.

I also like “Big Fight” a lot, and “Come My Way.” I forgot how Dennis recorded albums and how he keeps everything. When I came back to do vocals, I’d grab my guitar thinking, “We’ll probably knock off these solos,” because during the session, I would just throw something in there. I walked in the studio and there’s no amps – just one vocal booth. I was like, “We’re going to do guitars, aren’t we?” And he goes, “No. Guitars are done.” He played it for me, and it sounded great.

The opener, “Nobody But You,” is a standout.

I went into the studio with a friend, and we played what started out like an Allman Brothers groove. But, Dennis was like, “This lick doesn’t have enough quirkiness to it. Go in that room and work on that lick – try to do something different with it. Throw a flat 5 or a major 7th in it, or a flat 9.” So, after working on it for 20 or 30 minutes and working on my vocal phrasing, we came up with the rough track.

What gear did you use on the album?
I used my gold Xotic XS-1 and a blond Bandmaster head that was there – it might be a ’63, with the matching 2×12 cab. I’ve always liked those amps. When I plugged in and turned it up, I was like, “Oh man, this sounds great.” It’s just got that tone to it – even when it was clean. It’s real easy to achieve those “Stevie reaches” if you want to reach for Stevie Ray’s tone. Then I just had two Pedal Diggers 819 [overdrive] pedals.

Is it true that you jammed with the Jimi Hendrix Experience rhythm section at a NAMM show in the ’90s?
Yes! Jimi had Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums [with the Jimi Hendrix Experience], then Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums [with Band of Gypsys]; I played with both rhythm sections. At NAMM, it wasn’t Mitch on drums – it was the Hellecasters’ drummer and Noel. With Mitch, we rehearsed to play at a Hendrix tribute festival in 1995, in Seattle. Unfortunately, Buddy got up and rambled on at the mic and pushed us off the program!

With Buddy and Billy, it was at a festival in Saint Paul, I believe. We played two songs. Noel was a soft-spoken English guy, and after we played one song, he motioned to me to come over and said, “Chris, do you suppose we can play ‘Manic Depression’?” I said, “I think we can do it.”

If somebody had told me when I was 15, “You’re going to play with these rhythm sections,” I would have never believed it.

Any advice on how to avoid clichés while playing blues rock?
I always say, “Get a metronome,” because that helps play with tempo and phrasing. Learn how the chords are built, so you can paint with their colors. And learn alternate chords. If you stay in the same idiom the whole night, it creates ear fatigue.
When it’s time to step onstage, apply yourself and create. A lot of cats get up there and “mow the lawn” because there’s nothing but tables and chairs out there – or people who are not responding. But, you’re there to create and try the best you can and apply yourself. That’s the only way you’re going to learn.

This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.