International Musician
And
Recording World
May, 1980
A FACIAL WAY TO PLAY
By Steve Brennan
Robin who?
Saying that Robin Trower is JUST a rhythm and blues guitarist is like saying that the Grand Canyon is just a hole in the ground. Or that a diamond is just a hunk of polished stone.
Robin Trower is MORE than just an R&B guitarist. Lately he'd decided to prove that this is true, and has forsaken the jacuzzi lifestyle of Malibu to play live and record an album.
Trower's last record - CARAVAN TO MIDNIGHT was a moody affair, heavily produced and exotic. His latest recording, VICTIMS OF THE FURY, is by contrast a stark and raw album, under-produced.
"I've got a feeling that this new album is possibly even better than BRIDGE OF SIGHS," admits Trower.
Me and Robin are sitting backstage in London, where the Trower band are recording a television gig.
"I don't think I've recorded a definitive album," he says. "I just like bits and pieces of all the albums. With VICTIMS OF THE FURY, I was definitely feeling aggressive when I wrote it. This album has got the most direction of all the albums. I realized that I could mess about with all sorts of different styles and all kinds of music if I put my mind to it. But I asked myself what do I really want? What is it I really get off on myself? When it comes down to it, it's rhythm and blues with a blues base. Anything with that kind of feeling to it is my kind of music. When I sit at home and play records, it's always R&B AND blues. So I came up with a serious piece of work."
Robin thought that collaborating on song lyrics would be a good idea. He contacted Keith Reid, of the late Procol Harum, with a view to putting some words to his music: "Lyrics have a certain power to them, and I thought it would really add to what we were doing."
Putting Keith Reid's lyrics to the music adds a depth and feeling. Certainly, the new record strikes a fresh mood, though it still remains distinctive Trower. The rich, sensuous guitar sound is overwhelmingly evident on VICTIMS OF THE FURY, yet it's been pared back to it's bare bones. It's raw, it's vital, and it's urgent. It's hard to believe that it's been made by a musician who has been written off in the past as one of rock's dinosaurs, occupying that same niche as the likes of Led Zeppelin and Genesis.
VICTIMS OF THE FURY was cut in the studio in something like 25 days. "A lot of those tracks were very, very well rehearsed," explains Robin. "We set out to do a live kind of recording. We were rehearsing to go on the road as much as to go into the studio. It wasn't like making a record. It's a different concept."
In the studio, Trower uses the same Stratocaster as he does on stage. This is a '66 alternated live with another '66 Strat which has the bottom E tuned down a tone. Robin uses his pedal board in the studio, too.
"I can't play without my pedal board. That's where my sound comes from. It's complicated, don't ask ME how it works. I had the board built by my electronics guy. He invented the system so that I could use as many pedals as I like without losing signal. It uses a pre-amp down by the effects."
Among the effects on the board are a Univibe, a pair of Electric Mistresses, a Mutton flanger, plus a couple of one offs "knocked up by my guy". He goes through them all in a night, but prefers the spacey noise supplied by the Mistresses. All of the pedals have been doctored to some extent by his consultant: "I don't know what he's done to them, but one of them produces a very ADT sort of sound, and the other has a kind of flangey effect. The Univibe has the controls on the outside, but I never vary them. We spent a year talking about what sound we wanted before we actually invented the pedal board, and started to mess about with the amps.
"I use a combination of old and new Marshall tops on two stacks. The old one has been doctored, and the other amp is a new one with the preamp, and that's been altered, too. The old amp I use for the hardness of the sound, and the new one with the preamp I use for its distortion and sustain. I get my full sound out of both of them used together."
Trower is reluctant to divulge the exact settings on his amps, guitars and pedals for some of his best known sounds, and explains this reticence by saying that, "it wouldn't be relevant" because his amps aren't standard and neither are his effects pedals.
But his guitars certainly are, save for one. This later is a Strat he's fitted with Lawrence humbucking pickups, because "The Strat and Marshall amps are one of the best TV aerials in the world" and with so many local TV transmitters in the States, he's suffered from a great deal of interference in the past.
A quick listen is the only attention that Robin gives to the PA system, just to check that it's adequate. He likes to play loud. Some of the big sound he achieves from his equipment, he attributes to his strings. He uses Ernie Ball: .011, .015, .016, .024, .034, and .046 gauges, which are fairly heavy. Too heavy, by some opinion, to bend properly. But Robin maintains that constant practice is necessary before a player can become effective with heavy strings.
Robin owns six guitars - three Strats, two Gibsons, and a Martin acoustic. The '66 that he uses on stage predominately is his favorite.
This guitar is used at home when Trower sits down to write songs in front of hid Revox. He taps the microphone for a bass drum beat and uses a matchbox for maracas. Plenty of overdubbing goes onto the Revox before Robin is satisfied that he's got a song. Mostly he'll get an idea in his music room, sort out the medley and the backing, then get together with Jimmy Dewar to write the lyric, or put it on cassette and give it to Keith Reid to take home and work on.
There are certain chords that Robin feels happiest using when writing - Bm, C sharp, and E. He reckons these keys have the nicest and homeliest feel on the neck of his Strat. That's not to say that he can't write songs using other chords.
"The thing with playing guitar in a three piece," Robin explains, "is that where possible I like to have open strings in the part. That's why I like using keys such as C sharp, because it's got an open E, and you can even have an open B and E. Open strings sustain, and they have a more filling sound than a chorded string. I like to use open G and D. I'm always trying to get that open sound. I think that has a lot to do with why I write in those sort of keys.
With C sharp you can use the E chord shape a lot, which gives you a lot of open strings like 'Day Of The Eagle'. It's got the bottom E and it's also got the open strings on the top. I particularly like chords that are neither major nor minor, I'm very fond of those. I certainly don't like full majors, they're too stated, though I have used them."
How does Trower define his music?
"I don't think that anything we do fits into any categories," he says, after it's suggested that he treads a fine pathway between heavy metal guitar hero and blues player. "We cover quite a wide ground. There's no way you could fit BRIDGE OF SIGHS into any kind of category. It's in its own space. I think of it in terms of rhythm and blues. Fundamentally, it's music with a blues feeling that's rhythmic. There's a very spacey mood sometimes, which also comes out of the blues feeling."
All Trower solos are jammed: "I hate sticking to specifics. There is the occasional song where the solo has been worked out. I still leave a small amount of freedom in these cases. The solo becomes more a part of the song than an overdub because it's live. When you've got something like that, you have to make up for the backing as well as the lead you're doing. Then it's easier to have some idea fundamentally worked out. I never play it exactly the same each time, but the shape of the solo and the direction I'm going has to be worked out. Other than this, I don't really like repeating myself."
Trower maintains that BRIDGE OF SIGHS was the major turning point of his career. It was that album which shot him to superstar status on both sides of the Atlantic and made sure that he never need work again. But as a musician he looks back to the early sixties and B.B. King for the first major influence in his guitar playing. "I started seeing the guitar as something more than it had been in my mind up to then. It had always seemed to be just a rock and roll thing - Chuck Berry licks. But after hearing B.B. I began to see it as an expression, even a voice."
When Robin is playing live you can see him shaping each note with his mouth, as if he's singing the guitar part while he's playing. He admits that the other major influence was Hendrix. Up to leaving Procol Harum, Trower's playing displayed no evidence of his later, power. His playing altered dramatically when Hendrix was at his peak. Initial criticisms that Trower is merely a Hendrix clone have proved to be unjustified. Trower merely took a style, honed and refined it. There's no disputing that he's sole possessor of his technique.
Other influences have been Otis Rush, Albert King and Buddy Guy. Robin plays records such as James Brown LIVE AT THE APOLLO, Bobby Bland, Muddy Waters, Diana Washington, plus a bit of Duke Ellington, for light relief.
Trower doesn't rate ANYTHING that's happened in the seventies except for: Donny Hathaway, and he's dead now. The punk explosion didn't reverberate hard enough to reach Malibu Beach. As for Two Tone and Mod, Robin heard it all back in the sixties from the likes of Prince Buster.
And what of the next album? Robin admits that he hasn't been happy with all of his material the past few years. "I haven't been spending enough time on the material," he says honestly. This explains his collaboration with Keith Reid. "That's why I haven't been touring lately, because I wanted to get the material together. In future, the material will always be right, however long it takes. The record company won't like it, but I'm determined to make the best album that I can."
