Jeff Beck: Guitar player interview Orchestral Maneuvers

What are the benefits and downsides of going into the studio without having the music fully prepared?
The benefit is that you are thrust in. In some ways it’s better to not be too prepared. The biggest pitfall there is that you are going to sound over rehearsed and too contrived. It’s a weird process to try and remember the chain of events that led up to how we did this, but my manager is very forceful, and he has a way of persuading me to go in unprepared. “Oh, it’ll be great,” he goes. And the first two weeks was miserable. Not that the other players weren’t good, but they were unsuited to the sort of thing I was looking for. It wasn’t until I came away that I realized I’d lost two really good players who just weren’t on the same wavelength with me. But you live and learn. It was folly to go in with a bassist and drummer that I’d never heard of. It was weird for me that Tal and Vinnie weren’t there—we should have gone in with a band situation. Of course, there was the stuff with just me and the orchestra, which didn’t require any bass or drums at all.

Why didn’t you want to use the bassist and drummer you’d been playing with for that last two years?
Well, to get them over to England for three or four tracks just didn’t make sense. So we ended up doing it without them. But then we had to fly Tal over to do the bass part. And to repair some of the drum parts that were not that great, we actually sent the producer over to the States to record Vinnie. So it kind of ended up costing more in the long run, but at least they’re on the album, and they did a great job on the tracks.
more

Comments