First the potted resume for those interested in that kind of thing. Chris Spedding shot to obscurity in the sixties as a session man, on call for any kind of backup guitar work. He briefly torned to the bass guitar for the likes of Dusty Springfield and Alan Price playing "Motown style" but he returned to the guitar when his own style became more fashionable. Late sixties and early seventies the bulk of his work was in the studio providing rhythm and lead for an endless and diverse selection of performers - Lesley Duncan, Elton John, Dick Heckstall-Smith, David Essex, Roy Harper, John Cale, the Wombles and more permanently, Nucleus and Jack Bruce. He is even reputed to have played on the Sex Pistols' first single!
When Mick Taylor left the Stones Chris was tentatively offered the job. It fell through as he felt the image wouldn't fit and that the lifestyle wasn't for him. (Ronnie Wood, on loan from the Faces, became permanent and to this day hasn't had problems with either image or lifestyle).
Chris' first proper band was Sharks, a potentially excellent out fit with Andy Fraser and Snips. They turned out two albums but split because of several internal difficulties. One good thing to emerge from the Sharks period was that Chris registered with the public for the first time and moved up from "obscure session man" to "rated guitarist".
A few years and sessions later he decided to go it alone, aiming to play straight rock and roll (his forte despite all the session brainrot) and if possible pick up some commercial success as well. He signed with Mickie Most and had a hit single with Motorbikin'. The accompanying album, released in early '76 and called simply Chris Spedding, didn't do so well, although the critics rated it as a collector's item - a guitar album despite the commercial flavour. He split with Most for the subsequent and current album Hurt, produced by Chris Thomas.
One pickup band changed for another - more session men - and a third entirely different band went on the road with him to promote it. An interesting face in the road band was bass player Steve Curry from T.Rextasy days.
That's Spedding to date, a man whose best work id thinly scattered throughout the numerous albums he's worked on, and who has still reach his paek on a solo record. However, despite the absence of one definitive album, he remains an important and accomplished guitarist. He spoke just after the tour about his development as a guitarist and some of his old associations.
You've just finished a big tour - how do you feel now that it's over?
It's the first time I've led my own band on the road - it was something I had to do to get past the old session problem where people saw my name on a Roy Harper album or whatever and therefore thought I necessarily endrosed the music.
Having played material from Hurt on the road, would you re-assess the album?
It could have been a bit rougher, I suppose. There's a fashion now for very rough music and when I first started making records seven or eight years ago they were recorded 'rough and ready' too. Over the years I've developed a technique in the studio of getting things pretty well worked out beforehand so that I don't have to spend too much time ironing out the kinks. As it happens the idea now is for people who haven't been in a studio before to go in and record their stuff warts and all, with all the energy and excitement, but it would be silly for me to do that - go in and pretend I can't play to sound that way.
How would you compare it to Chris Spedding, the first album?
The thing that both albums suffered from was that they weren't made by a band that was a going concern. I just wrote out charts or explained what I wanted to the musicians. They aren't worn in. You always get the sort of thing with new material, even in groups that have been going for years.
I had that same problem going on the road as well. I had to bring in a rhythm guitarists as I had put down the rhythm tracks in the studio myself and overdubbed the lead. I also calculated that I would play more solos live than there were on the record. Over the years I've observed that guitar solos work live where they tend to get boring on record.
The sort of things that I personally like on the records from the guitar are little licks and rhythm guitar sections - and the shorter they are the better. People tend to misunderstand that - they think 'this guy's a guitar player, where are all the guitar solos?' Both the records are swamped with guitar. There's no keyboards. There's guitar where keyboards should be, there's guitar where horns should be, where strings and backing vocals should be. They still want to know where the guitar is because they don't hear something they expect to hear.
Presumably the Guitar Jamboree track indicates your thinking on solos....
That was a blatant attempt on my part to get loads and loads of flash guitar on a track without it sounding boring, to include all the classic licks in an entertaining format. (The track, from the first and part of his live show, runs through the licks and style of all the 'flash' guitarists from Albert King through Hendrix to townshend, Clapton, Harrison, Page, Beck etc.)
You're not a fan of effects at all. Did you use anything to achieve that sounds of, for example, Hendrix or Dave Gilmour?
No (immediate and defiant). I only use the volume control, one pickup. I don't use a tone control. In fact my other Flying V has only got one volume knob and one pickup. It's just a straight lead into a Deluxe Reverb amp, miked up. It's the same amp I use in the studio.
Before we go onto gear, one last question about the album. Why did you change producers from Mickie Most to Chris Thomas between Chris Spedding and Hurt?
I started off with Mickie Most as I felt he could do the best job with Motorbikin'. It was a commercial single, and in the ensuing album we tried to do a follow-up Motorbikin' which didn't happen. Instead of worring about it, wht we weren't getting hits, and making paranoid, self-conscious records, I thought 'let's just forget it and I'll get another producer'. Well, I still haven't had a hit with Chris Thomas.
If the chemistry's not working you just say 'that's that' and move on. When I was making the records with Mickie it was fun, you see, but when we stopped hetting hits it wasn't fun any more. I mean, I enjoyed what I did with Mickie and what I did with Chris but obviously the public didn't agree and that's the main thing. That first album with Mickie was given a great press, the second one wasn't and yet it's sold more. And the first album had a chart single on it.
How aware are you of the commercial possibilities when you write and record?
The first album to me is more blatant bubblegum. Iwas trying to make each track sound as if it could be a hit single. Hurt was more of an album.
Were you surprised by the audience you were getting on the tour?
I'm not surprised by anything any more. There's usually about half a dozen people stuck around the front of the stage watching every movement I make, obviously guitar players, darling me to put a finger wrong.
Does that bother you?
No, I'm watching them to see if I can catch them out. If i start a solo exactly the same as the record and I put a different note in I llok down to see if they have noticed.
Have they usually?
Yes.
Can we return to guitars and your tecnique. Not many people know that you starrted out on the bass.
I wouldn't say I started out on bass. It's just that I got fed up with playing the guitar because everbody seemed to be playing really duff stuff in the early sixties. The beat boom was fun but there was a lot of junk. The only way I could get work was playing this scratchy, horrible sound which wasn't my style at all, so I went onto bass.
At this time what was your style and what influences were you drawing from?
It was jazz, I suppose. Jim Hall, people like that, and sax players like Sonny Rollins. Later on Junior Walker and Albert King. I didn't try and crib their lines but I would find myself unconsciously playing passages from the albums, and I'd realise later where I'd got it from.
And what guitars were you using?
I had a Gibson and a Gretsch Country model for a long time but when I started making records I found it didn't sound right. I got a telecaster and used the characteristic spiky sound. I had the Telecaster during the Nucleus phase, and I used it on Songs For A Tailor and all that. I added a Storatocaster later. But I was basing my sound on, let me think ... Steve Cropper ... i like Robbie Robertson's sound.
It wasn't until I changed to Gibson that I incorporated sustain into my playing. First of all I bought a brand new black Les Paul because I liked the richness of the low notes and I was playing a lot of rhythm on the bottom two notes.
One feature of your playing is that you often stick to using two or three notes at a time and avoid the big chords.
Oh yes. Get a third in a big chord and it sounds terrible. It's always roots and fifths. you can use any notes you like, but if you've got any interval besides fourths and fifths coming through the speakers it sounds wrong - and can't distort properly.
Why is this?
Physics, innit. Pythagoras would be able to tell you. I won't let my rhythm guiatrist play a third at all. Most guitarists, if you give them a chord sequence they use barre chords with all the notes in it, and if you wind the amp up to a reasonable distortion level it sounds like a complete mess. I had to tutor him on all the voicings to use so that we could get the right sound at that distorted level.
Your guitars at the moment are the Flying Vs, one with just the one pickup, and the SG Junior, also with one pickup.
Yes, the rhythm guitarist was using the SG - it's a ling time since I played it. I got used to the Flying V, but I don't really prefer either one. Both have their points - that old pickup on the SG gives a nice hum. I put a Di Marzio pickup on the Flying V for the tour, but in the end I don't think it was any louder.
What strings do you prefer?
The blue Ernie Ball packet with the exception of the top string which is an .009 instead of an .008. I changed it because I used to go through three top strings to a set; they'd either break or go out of tune and develop overtones.Although it's more difficult to bend the .009, I really only want to bend it a semitone.
What sort of action do you favour?
Very high. That's to stop me playing too fast, for a start. I don't think people actually like it if the notes are so fast that they are indistinguishable. You've got to take people from one note to another. It takes discipline, but if you've got a guitar that runs away with itself - any guitar with a low action and slack strings - you can fall into temptation of being too flash. I used to play with very heavy strings to stop myself playing too fast, but I found that I couldn't bend the notes without cutting my fingers up and resorted to a higher action instead. It is very high. People are usually amazed that I can play it at all.
What right hand techniques do you use to help achieve the sound you're after?
I use a pick all the time and I usually damp with thumb holding the pick to get harmonics. If I've get a feedback note going on a string I put my right hand fingers on all the strings that are not feeding back. You can arrange your hand to cover the strings you don't want. It's usually the third string I'm sustaining on.
How much more important than equipment is the actual technique of the player - you or anybody else?
Technique is much more important. I found when I was auditioning guitarists I would play them the intro to wild In The street and get them to play it afterwards. I was surprised that none of them did it. It's C to A minor, so for a start they all put thirds in. Inthe C they had an E, and in the A minor they had a C. You should have just a G and a C in the C and an A and an E in the A minor; (try it) and it will sound like an A minor. They never got it. They had Fenders, all the gear. I thought 'maybe it's my equipmemt', so I pick up their guitars and played it through their amps, and it still sounded the same.
And how about the left hand?
Onr thing I've noticed about solos is that most guiatrists learn the chord sequences and their hands will go to the chord shapes and choose the notes under their fingers to make up a solo based around that chord. I tend to start off with a note, nothing to do with a chord, and work out a melody going from one note to another, reacting as I go alon to the chords.
It's like playing by ear as opposed to knowing what the chord chart is. All these classic rock lines are very easy - they just fall under the fingers. My solos follow the melodic development that I have in my head; they go from there to my fingers and the guitar, not straight from the fingers. It's probably the jazz influence. Many jazz players tend to compose on the spot, that's what I mean by improvise - reacting to a musical situation and not just trotting out your personalised cliches.
When you improvise, anything goes. You've got to know your shit. The drummer might do something totally off the wall, and unless you know where you are you'll get lost. I like that, I like to play things in different chords myself.
How has the ability to sightreadhelped?
I can't really sightread, I can bluff my way through a chart or something. I can usually fit in with a rhythm section without a chart - that's what I did with Nucleus, I didn't know what they were doing. I just fitted in, playing them Steve Cropper licks which they thought were amazing because they'd never heard them before.
The Nucleus material is very different to what you're doing now ...
My style doesn't change for these different kinks of music; the mood and style is always created by the rhythm section. I used to sometimes get a bit frustrated with the rhythm section for tootling about instead of laying it down. I used to find John Marshall a very exciting drummer to play with, but that sort of music, however well it's played, is boring for me to listen to if nobody's tying it down.
Whenever the band really used to get off you'd find John Marchall just laying down a heavy offbeat. I'd often say to him after the gig 'why did it take you 45 minute of a 60 minute gig to arrive at an offbeat? You know it's happening when you do that, so why don't you go on stage and start doing it? Then see where we go.'
And?
Oh, he didn't really get what I was on about. It's all flannel until you really get down there.
In that case I imagine you find a lot of bass players too busy as well?
Terrible.
How did you find playing with Jack Bruce, then? Would you agree that he's one of the few bass players able to produce both melody and rhythm?
Well, Andy Fraser does it more satisfactorily for me. Jack always wanted to stretch himself musically ... and physically. It was musical athletics which might be very good for the musician's spirit, but I always have this nagging feeling that people are paying to see you do this and that it should therefore be entertaining. That was the the cause of the friction between me and Jack.
You mentioned Andy. Did you form Sharks with his bass playing style verymuch in mind?
Yes. It was a totally idealistic decision - which was quite unrealistic becasue I was navie enough to think that if you played music with somebody you admired there'd be no problem The trouble in the band wasn't directly between me and Andy - I tend to cop out of those sort of things. But Snips was a strong writer and Andy was a strong writer; I think there was a mutual rivalry. The way that Andy did things was a bit childish, but we all saw through him and tried to talk to him about it.
He's one of these guys who puts up barriers and he just retreated into his own world. As far as I know he's still in there. You see, he wanted his music to be a certain way and he got it across to the band by being very moody when it wasn't played that way, and coming across with a lot of false bonhomie when it was right. But you can't make music in a vacuum, you need other people.
Did either one attempt to draft you in as an ally?
Well, I sided with Snips because he was a more reasonable individual although And was probably more talented, definitely more experienced at the time. My admiration for his talent - both me and Snips - remains undiminished to this day. The same problems that me and Snips had with him, you'd find that Paul rogers, Simon Kirk and Paul kossoff has with him. He hasn't done anything since.
He subsequently headed his own band.
Yeah, but that created even less waves than Sharks did.
How do you regard Sharks'musical output now?
They sound like demos to me. There were a lot of moodies in the studio, and the one redeeming feature was that some of the tension got onto the records.
However, you did initially state that you expected the band to have a two year life span.
Yeah i thought that would be a fair time - two years is quite long. It would have been impossible to get the band back on itsfeet after that. we had management problems - Island Recordsrejected our third album, tapes of which I've still got. It's better than the other two albums. They were so fed up with the sound of our names, they didn't believe in the band. We were there because of Andy Fraser. When Andy Fraser left they expected us to break up - he was the only one they knew, he was their blue eyed boy.
We found another bass player, did another album, kept coimg back and refused to lie down. We became a totalembarrassment to them. They were rather relieved when it ground to a halt. They rejected the album ... they didn't even pay the studio costs. Those were the sort of problems we had to contend with. But I learnt my lesson - I did it properly the next time with RAK and EG (the management company).
Could we jump back to equipment again - you mentioned guitars but we didn't get on to amps apart from your delux Reverb.
When I was doing live stuff with Jack Bruce it was a 200 watt Marshall, and I was never able to get a sound out of it that I liked, ie. the one I got from the Fender in the studio. I finally ended up with an Ampeg combination amp, 100 watts. Actually, I remeber in the States we used to support Mountain, and Leslie west used to come on and play with us during our last number.
He had three 200 watt Strampslinked up and he asked me to turn my Ampeg down because he couldn't hear himself. He was playing lead, I was playing rhythm. This was because the sound of the Stramps dissipated over an area about the size of that wall (pointing to EG's delightfully decorated but average size example) while you could hear my little thing much better on stage. You could go up to it and listen to it. The Stramps were just blasts of wind. I mean you could probably hear them halfway down the hall, but there's no point in that when you've got a PA. All you need on stage is the source of the sound.
on the Bryan Ferry tour I just took my studio amp and put a mic in fromt of it - well, you've got your mics in front of the dinosaur cabs the same way - and then you can go to the monitors to hear the source loud enough. This was the guy who's balancing it can do it properly. All the sound guys I've worked with have been relieved to find I'm only using 30 to 50 watts on the stage.
Also, it's off the ground - there's a reason for that as well, to cut out ambience and boom from the floor boards. Otherwise that boom goes throughto the bass drum, wherever ... it'll all go back through the microphones. Plus the fact that it's more like ear level.
Do you practise at all?
No. It gets you into bad habits. You end up doing your exercises on stage.
You touched on effects earlier on - is it purism that steers you clear of them?
No, not really, I just go on effectiveness, and you lose that if you're looking down wondering what to press next. I hate phasing, especially on a bass. If you want a clear sound, put you volume on two, if you want to sustain whack it up to seven, ten for distortion. I hate effects. A well used volume knob controls your tone.
Well, that looks like it - any plans for the next year?
I'll make another album. We recorded a few of gigs, might put a bit of that on.
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