Yeah, this is the guy who laid down all that blazing guitar on the BILLY IDOL records. He has also put his stamp on hits from ROBERT PALMER and MICHAEL JACKSON to name just a few and did I mention that he won a GRAMMY for his soundtrack work on the motion picture soundtrack TOP GUN? As if this wasn't enough of a contribution to the world of music 1997 sees Mr. Stevens involved in what for many is the penultimate progressive rock/jazz fusion project going, BLACK LIGHT SYNDROME. Steve gave us a call a while back to talk about all this and more.
MUSIC AMERICA I have something here
that took me by surprise, BLACK LIGHT SYNDROME. It is an amazing piece of work
how did it all come about?
STEVE STEVENS Since Terry(Bozzio) left JEFF BECK he has been doing these drum
clinics, solo drum projects, and his manager said "look it would be great
if you could find some other musicians to work with."
So, Terry seemed to
be into it and they (Magna Carta) got a list of guitar players and put it in
front of Terry and it was all the usual guitar players that you would expect on
there. The one guy who was on there that shouldn't have been was me! (laughs)
Because I'm not primarily known as an instrumental guitarist.
I've worked with
rock bands and singers and I wasn't the first choice. From what I understand the
first person that they were going to approach was EDDIE VAN HALEN. Good luck
getting him to do it!(laughs)
Terry wasn't receptive to that anyway and he said
"Look one guy I would like to meet with is Steve Stevens" and as it
turns out he was going to be in L.A. doing a solo drum thing at THE HOUSE OF
BLUES. So, I went down and met with him. I anticipated being kinda board by a
solo drum thing but ended up being very entertained by it.
We have both worked
with high profile people and had both come to the realization that you really
have to make yourself happy and you have to challenge yourself as a musician.
There are some projects that you do because it is important to you as a
musician, and this is one of those projects. Once we decided to give it a shot
we said "OK, so who else do we need?" I said "Hey wouldn't it be
great if we could get somebody like Tony Levin." And it was like "Oh
Yeah! But we'll never get him." As it turns out we were able to get him.
MA You did minimal preparation for
this.
SS Like none!
MA Did You just go into it with the
germ of an idea?
SS Yeah, pretty much so. I had gone out to Terry's place in Austin for about
four days and for two days I was in bed with the flu but, when we did finally
get to play we just kinda mapped out a couple of vague ideas. Nothing really
concrete. What you hear on this record pretty much is the spontaneous thing that
happened between the three of us.
MA The three of you are all known
as virtuosos.
SS I'm certainly the least known for that!(laughs)
MA Was there ever any tension
between any of the three of you and how did you keep the music from going in
three different directions?
SS I knew from the get go after five minutes of playing with these two other
guys that Terry wasn't the kind of drummer that I was used to playing with. In
most of the musical situations that I have played in I've played with drummers
with a real back-beat and Terry has kinda developed an orchestral way of playing
and at that point it was either make that work or get frustrated with it. I just
think that out of respect to him and if we had any other bass player than Tony
Levin it really could have ended up a real cacophony of noise. Tony has this
unique sense of just grounding the music and although he is a virtuoso he is the
one virtuoso bass player that never loses sight of what the basic function of
his instrument is. Which is to support the bottom end rhythmically and
melodically. I have a real problem with a lot of virtuoso bass players. Some of
those virtuoso bass players were suggested for this project and I was animate
that none of them be considered.
MA Nobody takes a back seat in this
project. Was this by design?
SS I think that just came out of respect. A number of pieces like "Black
Light Syndrome" for instance which was a piece that I kinda brought in and
said "These are the changes" and the other two said "OK so where
is the guitar solo?" And I said "No this shouldn't have a guitar solo.
I am playing the melody so why don't you guys solo during it?" That just
comes out of respect and I think a maturity of the musicians.
MA Is that something that has been
a problem before?
SS With MICHAEL (JACKSON) it was fine because I was hired for a very specific
thing which was to play fiery solos. With BILLY (IDOL) that certainly was the
reason that I left in 1988. I felt that I had developed something stylistically
on "Rebel Yell" and I think Billy became more uncomfortable with my
role in it. We had a manager at the time who kinda finessed that situation and
once Billy lost that manager and people began to see it as BILLY IDOL and didn't
acknowledge me, I wasn't interested any more.
MA If you looked back over your
career what would be your most enjoyable accomplishment?
SS When you make a record its no mystery when you have made a winner, you know
it. People can say "oh well it should have been promoted better or should
have been this or that or should have been mixed better." You know from the
get go when you are sitting down to write songs. There is a real magic. The
expression I have heard used is "Jah shines down." You know, God looks
down and says "Here you are. This is the one." And "Rebel
Yell" was that kind of record from beginning to end. To this day I can't
really remember how I wrote those songs. They just kinda happened. I was living
in the basement of my parents house when I wrote the music for that record. I
don't know how I came about "Eyes Without A Face" or "Flesh For
Fantasy." They just happened. You know, that doesn't happen too often in a
persons career that you make those kinds of records. I've had very few
unenjoyable situations. From going to Italy to record with ROBERT PALMER or
France to work with the THOMPSON TWINS. They have all been great situations. I
will say that this record, "Black Light Syndrome" is very enjoyable
for me and it's one of the few records that I can listen to and enjoy. Number
one, because it was recorded spontaneously so there ain't fuck I can do about
it!(laughs) It's just basically a picture, a snapshot of where three guys were
at that point in their lives. I think it also captures an element of my guitar
playing.
MA One last question, Where do you
keep your Grammy?
SS (Laughing) It's next to my tea pot in the kitchen!