Ed DeGenaro playing his trademark fretless guitar.
The world is full of great guitarists. Spend just half an hour on Youtube and you will be convinced that every bedroom in the world now houses an unknown prodigy. Standing apart from this crowd has become no small feat, but Seattle based guitarist Ed DeGenaro has managed to do it by blending an unusual approach to the guitar with a bottomless musical imagination. The result is tasty jazz-fusion, seasoned with Latin, country, and rock, and topped with a dollop of humor. It is a musical flavor that is uniquely his own. Recently I got a chance to chat with Ed about his guitars, his music, and his new CD “Less is Seldom More”.
AC: Congratulations on the new album. “Less is Seldom More” is a great record - a great progression from “Doghouse”.
ED: (Laughs.) That’s because it cost me about five times as much as “Doghouse”. It also has some great musicians on it.
AC: Yes, lots of great playing! I have to say that the bass part on Ave. D is just smoking.
ED: That was Ric Fierabracci. He really hit that shit out of the ballpark.
AC: I’m curious about your writing process.
ED: Well on “Less is Seldom More” I did such a small part of the writing. Much of it was done by other people for me. Like Ave. D was written by Chris Taylor. And the way that started was Chris sent me a loop - you know - a drum loop and a bass line, and I just improvised over it. And he would cut it up and go “Oh, this sounds like a great melody,” and then I would record it.
AC: I was curious about that….it sounded like there were loops….
ED: No, no, no, no…they started out as loops. There are no loops in the final product.
AC: Are there samples? I cracked up the first time I heard Yes Man. I noticed that the vocals aren’t credited. Are they samples you found somewhere, or what?
ED: The munchkin vocals?
AC: Ya. Did you do that?
ED: No, those are actually samples. Same with the voice on Ave. D. The only samples are the spoken voices.
AC: Tell me about your recording process. Digital? Analog?
ED: The first part of question, yes, the second part no. I use something called Sequoia. It is German software that’s total high-end…it’s used for classical orchestra usually. And what happens is we just transfer, bounce.
AC: You have a lot of different guitar tones. You must use quite a range of amps and guitars.
ED: (laughs) Actually, after I was done recording I sold about 16 amps, because I realized out of all the amps I used about 3 on the album, out of the 20 set-ups I had.
AC: Which ones?
ED: The majority of the album is the Axe-FX direct into the recorder. I’d say about 75% Axe-FX, a couple of little bits are an old Marshall or an old Fender, and the majority of the gain tones are the Axe-FX into the VHT Deliverance.
AC: You are really known for your fretless guitar playing. How much of your playing on “Less is Seldom More” is your fretless guitars, versus standard fretted guitars?
ED: You know what – “Less is Seldom More” really doesn’t have all that much fretless on there. I think there’s a little bit of fretless on Ave. D, and then there’s some on Monkey Bawls, Matt’s Bible Camp is all fretless on the distorted guitar, Yes Man has some fretless in it. Confirm Walk Forward has some fretless in it. Id say about 1/3 is fretless.
Tune in next week for the second half of my interview with Ed DeGenaro. In the meantime, go buy “Less is Seldom More”! If you are a fan of fusion or just love great guitar you won’t regret it.
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12/4/2009
12:23 pm
Closesector
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