Magnus Olsson: the eg interview

News:
16-03-2008:
While essential guitar is off line, I've republished my interviews for essentialguitarist.com

Magnus Olsson interviewed by Laurie Monk May 2005

EG: Magnus Olsson is a very talented musician from Helsingborg in Sweden. He's got a great passion for life, guitars, skiing, mounting biking and sport fishing!! Magnus, you seem to be pretty focused on the things you like to do, like fishing for instance. Can you tell me how you got you “hooked” on guitar.

Magnus Olsson: My interest in playing music started when my big brother was playing bass in a punk band when I was around, 14-15 years old. I was really heavily into fishing at the time so I never got around to getting myself an instrument until I was 17-19 or something. But I never played it until I shared an apartment with a guy named Stefan Rosqvist, who already was a great player at the time (and still is). I learned by watching what he was doing with the instrument, which really gave me a kick to start to working it out for myself. So I used to go into his room and watch him, then go back to my room and try and do the same thing myself even if I didn't think I was very close.

EG: Wow that's amazing, I hadn't realised you started so late playing guitar.

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I was a late starter, it’s never to late to begin, so there is still hope for all you oldies out there. But what really got me inspired to get things going was when I got myself a four track recording studio and a drum machine and I had to make music out of it. That sort of got me going, actually working with the guitar properly and it was a great way to get feedback on how I was doing.

I was also getting into the first wave of Shrapnel players at the same time and that got me going on working on my technique. You know, Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore, MacAlpine, Greg Howe and all those guys that came out at the time.

I guess you could say that the short answer to your question on how I got hooked on the guitar, is that I learned to from Stefan.

EG: You have reached an incredibly high level of proficiency with guitar, particularly as you're a late starter! How did you stretch yourself for example playing over changes or devising new guitar techniques or have you now reached a place where your happy with your playing?

Magnus Olsson: Thanks! I don’t think anyone ever reaches a place where they are totally happy with their playing, then all the fun would be gone!

I try to work on something new all the time; it can be playing over changes, picking up a new technique or trying to get an insight into a new style that I never played before. I often get myself some books with something new and just look around in them until I find something interesting that grabs my attention, like Ted Greens chord books or something like that, and then work on that.

I have been spending a lot of time with my vibrato and intonation lately and as little time as possible with technique stuff.

I guess you can say that you hear different things you need to work on depending on the level you are at, and that process never ends.

If I knew what I know now ten years ago, then I would have saved a lot of time! What I mean is that when you get to level two, then you know all the unnecessary roads you took to reach level one, and all the roads that you should have taken instead. Like spending a year in front of a metronome with a chromatic picking exercise instead of thinking about the tone and intonation you have. Or spending all your time with crazy sweeps instead of figuring out what notes that sounds good over the chords you are playing over. I don’t mean that technique exercises are bad, we all have to go through them and I’m very glad I did, but I wish that I had spent more time on all the other elements of music (like vibrato, note choice and so on) too.

EG: Laughs...yes that's so true...Is there anything you would recommend a struggling guitar player to do to get them moving forward with their playing...(note this is not me trying to get a free lesson)

Magnus Olsson: I think that one of the more important things is to really look at yourself and decide what it is that you want to do and what you want to work on. And instead of just saying, I want to improve my technique, try to make it more specific. It is really hard to figure out what exercises to work on when someone says, improve my technique. But if you break it down to things that you want to improve like your tapping going down the neck on the E and B string, then it’s really easy to make up exercises for that. And then when you have done that for a while and you see that you might need to work on getting those taps on to the G and D string too, and then you make some exercises for that. Then you just continue to build it up like that, small steps at the time. It helps you to see faster improvements in your playing and that makes you want to work even harder.

But the absolutely most important thing is to work with your ears. Instead of looking at tab to learning a lick from a song, figure out the whole song by ear. So you get an idea of how music is put together and what it is that makes things sound the way they do. Music is all about your ears and very little about alternate picking.

One thing that I think is really important for the way you end up playing is what you do when you don’t play, all the other things in life that has nothing to do with music. A lot of young players are sitting at home playing all the time and neglect a lot of other things that makes life worth living. It is all the things you do and experience that give you the personality you get and your personality will always shine through in your playing.

So what I’m saying is, don’t just sit at home playing, go out and experience things, travel, meet people, try new things and really live your life. All the things you do will give you inspiration for music; it gives you feelings and emotions to dig from when you improvise. Not playing for a day or two won’t hurt you, as long as you’re not sitting in front of the TV. Nature is a great source of inspiration if you just open your eyes to take it all in.

EG: As you mentioned Stefan Rosqvist was a big influence on you in the early days. How did you come to meet him?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, he was and still is one of my biggest musical influences ever. He was a very good guitar player when I first learned of him and he has always been light years ahead of me, so I could always ask him about everything.

And just being around someone that is much better then you, is a very inspiring environment to be in. Stefan could always play the things I was struggling with so he was an endless source of information and inspiration.

EG: You also have a Duo called “2 for U” with a singer Evelina Andersson, what sort of music do you play and can you tell me a bit more about that?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, that’s my “pay the bills” job. It is a cover duo with pre-recorded backing tracks that I record in my studio and we play music like everything from Beatles to Abba to Rage against the Machine and everything in between. We have done around 150-200 gigs a year for the last 7 or 8 years. Evelina is the most amazing singer I have ever worked with, she is just extremely talented. She is a schooled opera singer that can sing everything from Celine Dion to opera to AC/DC.

I love doing this because it has forced me to learn songs from so many styles that I never would have learned otherwise. And all the routine you get from playing live so much is an irreplaceable experience that helps my own music a lot too. You learn more from playing in front of people for two hours then you do on a whole week sitting in your room!

EG: You recently had a bad ear infection. That sort of thing must be really be worrying for you as it must be very important for you to be able to play?

Magnus Olsson: Oh, don’t remind me about it. That was scary and I was really, really worried for a long time and I had no idea of what to do.

I woke up one morning and I noticed that I my hearing was bad and I had problems hearing what people were saying, sort of the way your ears get pressurized when you fly.

EG: Ouch...that sounds really painful!

Magnus Olsson: Yes, very. Then my hearing was getting worse during the course of the day, like someone closed a soundproof door around you, and I could not hear anything at all by the end of the day.

So I went to the doctor the day after and he said that it was a bad ear infection with fluid in the ear drums but that it should be gone in a week.

But it took a couple of months so I had to cancel all my gigs and I was really worried that I might never be able to play professionally again and that was a really scary feeling.

I have gotten most of my hearing back now but there are some high registers that are permanently gone. The scariest thing was that I will never know what it really was.

EG: It is good to “hear” that your hearing has returned.

Magnus Olsson: I also did get my left hand little finger smacked when I got hit by a car when I was out on my mountain bike a couple of years ago. It destroyed a nerve in my hand and I lost a little of the control over my little finger. And I sometimes wonder if it is some higher beings' way of telling me to stop playing guitar. It has all made me more grateful for the things I have, because it can all end so fast. I have always loved extreme sports like free-ride skiing and downhill mountain biking, but I have really slowed down lately, now I don’t jump the highest cliffs anymore.

EG: This is beginning to sound like a bit like a health clinic!..So moving on...I know, like me, I understand you're Paul Gilbert and Racer X fan, how did Paul influence your playing, did you ever put a fringe on your guitar for example?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I’m a great fan of Gilbert, he still has the coolest picking technique ever. And I have put a lot of stupid things on my guitars but never fringe, that is his idea and to know to be taken.

EG: Laughs...

Magnus Olsson: I have listened to him a lot but I can’t really say that he influenced me that much, except for giving me the idea of getting a metronome. I have always been more attracted to a more legato kind of style for my own playing. I have always tried to make my technique as transparent as possible, so you hear the notes but not really how they are played and alternate picking sounds too far away from the way I want to sound.

EG: As you've commented, you place special emphasis on the importance of vibrato. A lot of new players tend to spend time on learning to play sweep arpeggios at hyper speed but forget about the basics. How did you develop your own vibrato voice.

Magnus Olsson: Well, like I said before. I was there doing crazy sweeps too, but then I started to hear that there where something missing in my playing. All the fast parts sounded good, but it sounded like shit every time I stayed on a note for more then two seconds.

EG: Laughs...

Magnus Olsson: Well, so I really analysed my playing and found that what I didn’t like in my playing, and what I had not been thinking about, was intonation and a good vibrato. That’s what I mean with “if I knew what I know now when I started”, then I wouldn’t have had to go back and relearn the basics. So I made a bunch of exercises that would help me develop those things.

What I did for intonation was that I practiced holding a chord down with a sustain pedal on a keyboard and tried to figure out how to fret the notes to make them sound “in the pocket”. Then I expanded that to playing really slow melodies over simple chord progressions.

Playing intonated over simple chords is always harder then playing over complex chords. And playing over a keyboard is also harder the playing over another guitar, since the keyboard are more exactly tuned, while a guitar is “wider” and more forgiving in the way it is tuned. It is a lot harder to play a C note, and make it sound good, over a C chord than you might think.

For vibrato what I did was start with finding something that sounded good in time with a metronome, and practiced so I could go from slow to fast without losing the timing and the rhythmic feel of it. Then I tried to apply it to the intonation exercises I was doing. But the thing that had helped my vibrato the most is playing all sorts of styles of music live so much.

EG: As well as playing live, I guess attending GIT in 1996 has improved your playing too. What was the whole GIT experience like for you and did it help take your playing to another level?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I think it was 95 or 96 that I went there and I have to say that GIT was both good and bad. The best thing was all the inspiration you got from all the great teachers that where around. I was there while the whole grunge thing was happening, so playing guitar was really out. Most of the people there didn’t take it very seriously and most of the classes where standing still. Not because of the teachers but because most of the students didn’t care to do there homework, so the teacher had problems moving forward.

I think it helped my playing in many ways, I got plenty of time to practice and I got so much inspiration from being around all the great players there. And there is an endless source of information to get there if you just reach out your hand to take it. The curriculum is fantastic so you can learn as much as you want. And meeting and playing with guys like Brett Garsed and TJ Helmerich is very inspiring, to say the least. But I wish I'd have gone there when playing good guitar was in vogue a little more.

EG: That sounds really cool, you mention getting lessons for TJ Helmerich and Brett Garsed. That must have been pretty awesome and perhaps intimidating?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, they are cool guys and fantastic players. I did get Brett Garsed as my private instructor since the one I was supposed to have was sharing an apartment with him, Brett was not a teacher at the school so that really was a lucky coincidence. I became friend with Brett after a while and TJ was also living in the same apartment, so I sort of got to know him too at the same time. Playing with them really was awesome and I loved every minute of it.

It was never any lessons in a traditional way; you don’t ask guys like that about what scales they use, you just listen and learn. So we just played over backgrounds that one of us had done in a small Roland sequencer, called PMA-5, which we all had.

TJ had some really interesting concepts of rhythm that I learned a lot from talking to him about. I recorded everything we played and went through again at home. The thing I was interested in with Brett was his sense of melody so I just recorded, watched and learned. I never found it to be intimidating to play with them because they are both so relaxed and down to earth so you don’t feel intimidated. Music is not a competition and I would never compete in the same league as those two anyway, I was clearly there as the student.

EG: You have developed a really unusual mix of tapping and picking techniques, was this a result of lessons with Garsed and Helmerich or did you come up with your hybrid picking tapping technique?

Magnus Olsson: I was playing with the same sort of legato/tapping technique before I came to GIT or even heard of Brett and TJ. But seeing and hearing what they did got me inspired to work more on it and to not be afraid to really play that “legato” way. Everybody was trying to be alternate picking monsters at the time and legato/tapping was considered cheating. I was never really thinking that I was playing legato when I started; I just tried to play so it sounded better to my ears and that was mixing tapping and legato.

EG: Did you get the new Brett Garsed DVD, it has some great live stuff that really highlights his ultra unique picking style?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I have Garsed's first video and I love watching it. I never really studied anything from it but I have watched it as a music video a lot.

I have always, or at least since my GIT time, been aware that my technique and ideal sound is very similar to the one Brett has, so I have stayed away from analysing him too much. I have never really been interested in learning other people’s licks because I know I would use them if I did, they all do so much better licks then I do, so it would be to tempting to steal it. I just listen a lot and let myself be inspired instead of taking it note by note. I think you kill the magic by learning too much from your heroes.

But Brett really has influenced the way I play a lot, probably more then anyone else has. His sense of melody and note choice is amazing.

EG: I know that you also played with Scott Henderson at GIT, did you get lessons from Scott as well?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, Scott was a teacher at the school too. So I got to play with him a little. I never got any one on one lessons from him but he wasn’t really that popular while I was there, all the students wanted to be the next Curt Kobain, so there were very few people in Scott's room. That man is an amazing player; he is in total control of his instrument and plays with a breathtaking attitude, I love his playing.

EG: Yes, me to, he's a fantastic top draw player...After your time at GIT did that set you up to become a full time professional guitar player?

Magnus Olsson: I was making most of my money from playing already before I went to GIT, I was playing gigs and working full time as a guitar teacher. But I decided to really try to get by on playing only after finishing GIT, so I gave up teaching completely. But I had to take some jobs as a sound engineer in the beginning to make some extra cash.

What I did was that I took all the gigs I could get my hands on, no matter what sort of music it was and with whoever it was. It was a great learning experience and it took about a year to get it up to the level of where I could make a decent living from playing only.

I also did a lot of recordings for other people and made music for dance shows and weird things like that. This was a really cool experience, and the thing that made my mum realise that I was a musician, was that I made music for a horse dressage program and the guy I did it for turned out to be the best here in Sweden. I didn’t know that because I wasn’t really into horse dressage. So he ended up competing for Sweden at the Olympic Games in Sidney, to my music.

EG: Laughs... I didn't know that, she must have been proud. I guess that also explains the children's music that I read about as well.

Magnus Olsson: Yes, I have also done things like two records with child music and things like that. Some things are for money and some for fun and I don’t mind having it like that, as long as there is a bit of both.

EG: I know that you released a demo CD “Out Of My System” in 2001. There's some great music on that CD, is this still available?

Magnus Olsson: I don’t think I have any copies left of that anymore. I’m not even sure that I have all the songs from it still, I have never been much of a documenting guy so there are loads of recordings that I have done that I don’t have myself anymore. I also did another demo CD called “when the fat guy sings the blues” before that one.

If people are interested in getting the best from both of my demo CD’s, they can contact me through my web page if they want. But it will be a home burned copy.

EG: I'll get my order in quick then...I particularly liked “None Secret Hat Tower” on the “Out Of My System” album which you can hear on http://www.magnusolsson.com/music.htm. That track features the brilliant Lale Larson, how did you meet him?

Magnus Olsson: Thanks! Yeah, Lale, he is a monster. I got to know him when he was, maybe 13 or 14 years old, and he was playing keyboards in a band with some of my friends and my big brother (he doesn’t play anything anymore). We have been great friends since then and he is the most amazing guy I have ever meet. We also did a couple of songs together just before he went to American Institute Of Music in Vienna way back when; we recorded maybe five or six songs. But to be honest, he made the songs and I tried my best not to destroy them with my playing.

EG: Laughs...I met Lale some years back, yes he's just amazing. I was blown away by his shear musicality. Do you have any plans to record with Lale again?

Magnus Olsson: I don’t know, we never had any plans to record anything, it just happens. I just ask him to play if I have anything new that I think he would like to play on, when he is here at my place. I don’t mind having him playing on all my music, I wouldn’t even mind to take the guitar away to give him more space. But I don’t know if we will record again or not.

EG: I know Lale and Todd Duane go back along way when they played at AIM. Did you hear his new “Eccentricity” album and have you picked any guitar stuff from Todd?

Magnus Olsson: Lale gave me all of Todd’s demos from when he was down at AIM and played with him, and I was really into Todd because I had never heard anything like that before. I loved songs like “A Funkadiddle II”, “Slap, Crackle & Pop” and the stuff he did with Lale, “Schizoid”, “Double Delight” and so on.

He is an amazing player and the technique he has is unbelievable. I think I have gotten loads of things from Todd, ideas to crazy licks and stuff like that.

EG: I know that you keep yourself busy and I see you got to play all the solos on The Duskfall "Frailty" (2002) album. It is quite a heavy album and not your normal style, so how did that come about?

Magnus Olsson: Well, that is a funny, or maybe I should say sad, story. I sort of knew the lead guitar player in the band a little, from talking on the Internet, and he asked if I wanted to do a guest solo on the album. I recorded something fast over a backing track that they sent down, and did send it back to them as an mp3. Then they called and asked if I wanted to do one more solo, and I said OK. And then it became three songs, four songs, until I ended up doing the whole album.

They did send me ADAT tapes with the backing tracks and I recorded it in my own studio, then I drove to Dugout studio to give it to them. I recorded it all in one night and it was hard to come up with ideas since all of it was in the same key and around the same tempo.

EG: Laughs...

Magnus Olsson: Then they told me that they had fired the solo guitar player, or the official version was that “he had left the band”. So I got asked to join the band but I could never find the time for it, and it wasn’t really my kind of music.

It was fun for me to get a chance to play that sort of music, which I have never done before. But it was very sad that the guitar player, and my friend, got fired at the same time. So I was really thinking of having them remove all of my solos again but the damage was already done.

EG: As well as your mp3's you have some great video clips like “Poco Impetuoso” on your web site http://www.magnusolsson.com/music.htm Do have have any plans to create a DVD of your playing?

Magnus Olsson: I have loads of videos that people have given to me over the years, maybe a couple of hours of film, but making something out of that is something I never thought about. Have you seen the entire video where that “Poco Impetuoso” video comes from?

EG: No, no...I have only seen the clip on your web site...is there more?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, It was the first Ibanez clinic I ever did and it all got filmed with professional equipment, I think it is about 11 songs long and a very nervous me. Maybe I should do something with it?

EG: Wow that would be great to see that. I think that the future for instrumental guitar playing is live video format on DVD. The recent Brett Garsed DVD is a good example of this, or the Derryl Gable DVD which is filmed at home...I know I would buy it just see you play!

Moving on...I know, like me, your a big Allan Holdsworth fan. He's a really expressive player, for example the note shaping and vibrato on the solo from Secrets track “Endomorph” is just amazing. How has Allan influenced your playing?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, Allan is my biggest hero ever. That man is just from another planet. I love everything about him, his tone, note choice, sense of melody and most of all, his music. I don’t know how it has influenced me, but I think I would play exactly like him if I only could. I listen to him all the time but he really is too unique for anyone to actually take something from him, it would just be too obvious.

EG: Are there any specific albums you would recommend players and fans listen to to expand their musical ear?

Magnus Olsson: Wow, there are so many albums that all players should have that I don’t know where to start. All of Shawn Lane’s albums, especially Powers Of Ten, the second edition with real drums. Allan Holdsworth, Wardenclyffe Tower and Hard Hat Area or why not get all of his albums?

EG: LOL...I think I have...although Igginbottom's wrench is not so hot!

Magnus Olsson: You should also try Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop, Garsed & Helmerich Exempt album, Steve Morse High Tension Wires. Any of the Tribal Tech albums....The list could go on forever.

EG: You mention Shawn Lane, I guess like most of us you were pretty shocked by the passing of Shawn Lane. Did that affect you and did he have any musical influence on you?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, it was a massive loss for the world of music when he passed away. I have met him many times over the years and he has been one of my favorite players since I got the demos for Powers Of Ten in the beginning of the 90’s.

But it wasn’t a massive surprise for me when he passed away, because he had been in a really bad state for a long time. Shawn was one of the most gifted musicians who ever walked this planet, but his problem was that everybody knew about him and everybody liked his music, but no one bought his albums. He could never make any decent money from what he was doing, so I think that he could never really afford to take care of himself, but it is just what I think from talking to him about album sales.

I once asked on a big guitar forum if anybody was into Shawn Lane and if anybody had any of his albums, there where hundreds of answers from people who loved Shawn, and named songs they really liked, but still no one had any of his records. So I guess you could say that Shawn was the first real victim of downloading.

EG: I guess I must be the exception...I think I bought everything he released commercially..he even agreed to sign it all when I went to see him in the UK!

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I have them all too, and signed at various times. I even have some really old demo versions of songs that ended up on the powers of ten album, they sound like someone is playing music in the shower, but the playing is great.

I will truly really miss getting new music from that man; he was an amazing musician and not just a guitar player.

EG: I have to agree with you, he had so much to offer. The good news is that there are still some amazing players around now, like Derry Gabel and Guthrie Govan. Are there any other players that have impressed you lately?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, there are loads, but most of them are people that have been around for a while. We have Johan Randen here in Sweden, how is an amazing little guy that is worth checking out, especially his new album Version 2.

The French guy, Cyril Achard is great. The guy that works with Lale Larson, Richard Hallebeek, is a monster. Bumblefoot is amazing and really trying to do something new. I get impressed by almost anyone who can play so there are so many out there. I meet amazing players that blow my mind in every town where I do clinics, so the world is full of them.

EG: Yes I think I know what you mean. Checking out your web site it seems that you can be quite obsessive about your guitars, is this reason for your Ibanez deal?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I am a bit of a gear head and I have sort of figured out what I want and don’t want in my guitars. I have mainly played Ibanez all my life and I could not say no when they asked if I wanted to do clinics for them around Scandinavia. So it started with me just working for the Swedish distributor, and then it just grew from there after a few Ibanez people from Japan saw a couple of my clinics.

And after seeing me changing all the guitars they gave me, Ibanez asked if I wanted to have my own custom model that I wouldn’t have to change anything on. So they did two guitars that are set up exactly the way, the way I wanted them to be, neck shape, wood, pickups and so on.

The neck shape is the same as my favorite RG3120 and the wood is very light bits of mahogany with a thick flamed maple top. All the electronics and pickups are from DiMarzio (who I also work with) and it is BREED pickups in all three positions. I have various DiMarzio pickups in all the guitars I own, mainly BREED.

The guitars don’t really have a name, or even a serial number, but I call them MO1 and MO2. I string all my guitars with 10-46 with a really high action and I play with Clayton 1.26 or Dunlop U.S.A 1.14 picks.

EG: How did Matt Williams, chief of Liquid Note Records, pick you out to appear on the critically acclaimed “The Alchemists (2002)” CD?

Magnus Olsson: To be honest, I don’t really know how or why I ended up there. I have sort of known Matt for a long time and Lale has always sent him my demos, so I guess that is how it happened. I’m really happy with the song I made for that album and Lale plays a great solo on it. It was cool to be on the same album with all the great players he had on there.

EG: I understand you have been putting a new CD together, who can we expect to hear on the album with you?

Magnus Olsson: Yeah, I’m working on an album together with Stefan Rosqvist that hopefully will be done this summer, and released by Matt on Liquid Note Records. The problem with projects like that is finding a time that is good for both of us, especially since I’m away playing so much. We are trying to do it so that we make the songs together, to find a mix of or styles, instead of him bring in 5 songs and me 5, which would be kind of boring.

I also have material for a solo album lying around, and most of it is already recorded, but I have to find time to put it all together, to bring in a real drummer and so on. I will go on a two week Ibanez clinic tour the 10th of May and then I will try too slow things down to find time to finish it up. You can always check on my webpage for news and updates.

EG: Magnus, that was really interesting stuff. I look forward to your future releases and live work, which I am sure we'll cover at “Essential Guitarist”. Thanks so much for taking the time out to talk to us, it has been great talking to you.

Magnus Olsson: It was nice talking to you too.

EG: Good luck with the Ibanez tour in May.

Magnus Olsson: Thanks