Another long Bumblefoot interview for Ultimate Guitar (some great stuff)

[Silent Jay]

Full interview here (On Abnormal, Normal, Hands, singles...):

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/hit_the_lights/ron_bumblefoot_thal_anybodys_normal_and_everyones_a_human_being_making_music.html

On No Trickery, Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy...

UG: It's hard to imagine back in the day that Guns N' Roses would be playing a residency in Las Vegas.

RT: I think years ago, the whole idea of a residency seemed not rock and roll but it's changed. Honestly looking at it from a practical point of view of what's good for everybody, it is the best thing. Let's just start with the crew - they don't have to break down and set up every night and they work harder than anybody. They're setting up at eight o'clock in the morning and the show finishes at four in the morning and they have to do it again the next night.

That's right. You really don't think how great this must be for the crew.

They don't have to do that and I'm so happy for them. The band? We walk downstairs and we play. We can perform better because we're not worn down from travel and lack of sleep. But the real main thing is if the fans wanna see five shows, they don't have to travel five times. They don't need five separate plane tickets and five different hotels to book. They go to one place and they camp out for as long as they want and see as many shows as they want.

This must be paradise for a Guns fan.

We're all there and we get to see them at the center bar. It's fantastic. So it's better for them and because there's less overhead, it's not like we have to 50,000 pounds of gear from point A to point B every night. It should in theory make ticket prices cheaper.

Are ticket prices less?

That's not for the band to decide what happens with that. If it was up to me the places would end up being a lot cheaper because there's just less expenses. So that should be better for everybody as well. The whole environment is more personal and it's not like people watching you on this two-dimensional movie screen and there's this big separation between you and the audience. Everybody is just right and I love that.

Have the level of the performances elevated since you began playing at the Hard Rock?

You can definitely tweak things better. It helps. It's not like you're in some room and not familiar with things. It's not like the front-of-house engineer or monitor engineers have to accommodate and change everything because this particular venue has more low end or bounces more or things like that. Here everything is very consistent and you know what you've got and you can work with that and fine tune it. You have a second, third and fourth chance to fine tune everything to make it even better.

How challenging is it for you as a guitarist to play the music of Guns N' Roses?

I don't think the Guns music is different from any music when it comes to that. Anything you're playing, your heart should be in it. That should always happen. You've just gotta be good enough to play whatever songs you're playing. Actually I need to be twice as good so this way you don't really have to think about it and if you're not at 100 percent, it's not gonna really ruin anything, hah hah hah. You're not gonna cause too much damage. You always have to be twice as good as whatever you're doing.

That's a unique way to look at it.

Definitely with GN'R because it's not my own music, there are a lot of things you have to consider. For one thing, you don't want to go reinterpreting a song that people came there to hear a certain way they've grown with and are attached to. They don't want to hear you improvising. They wanna hear the melodies they love and wanted to hear. So you can't go rewriting a song just to be self-indulgent.

Do you get a chance to rip once in a while?

There are moments for that where if there's a long outro solo where it just goes and goes and however long it's gonna go. You can take liberties and just do your thing. But you definitely don't want to rewrite the melodies to the songs that make the song what it is. So when it comes to those, it's just like any other melody whether you wrote it or not. You're playing it and when you're playing, you want to give everything you have to it. You want all your emotions and it's not just about technically playing it well. Sometimes that's the least of it.

It's not what you play but how you play it?

It's more the attitude, the personality and the spirit you give everything.

You keep pretty faithful to Slash's original solos?

Definitely, yeah. It's a respect thing and a respect for the music and the audience. You have to realize it's not all about you - it's about them and what they should be getting.

When you first joined Guns N'Roses, how aware were you of joining this iconic band and replacing Slash?

I looked at it not as pressure as in, "I need to be better than anyone" other than just being better than myself. For me my attitude was, "OK, I've been handed the torch and it's up to me to run with it as long as I can until it's time for me to hand over the torch or until the torch goes out or whatever's gonna happen. I've been handed the torch and now I need to run with it." That's how I look at it. You don't compete with the last person that had the torch. You just say, "Alright, we gotta keep this thing going and keep it alive and just make it as good as you can make it."

Has that approach worked?

Of course the fans don't look at it that way. They look at it like suddenly a new addition to the family was brought in without their consent. Or they look at it more like sports teams or superheroes - good versus evil and deciding,"Which is good? Which is evil?"

Were you the good guitar player or the bad one?

I think the fans forget we are all one family of musicians and people's times come and go in different things they do. It's almost like I guess you could say different sports that are also playing the same game and have the mutual respect for each other. It's just the fans are gonna root for one team or the other or favor one team over the other or maybe they like both. But it's a different perspective I think that fans have than the actual people have. They see the superheroes. They might see the guy with the doubleneck and the beard and the guy with the iconic tophat and the mane of curly hair. They see not the objects but just the personas.

Did Joe Satriani originally recommend you for the gig?

Yeah, ten years ago. Joe emailed me and said, "Hey, I just recommended you for the band. They're looking for somebody. Just so you know if someone reaches out that it's legit." A few hours later Chris Pitman [keyboards]reached out and then I started talking to the producer of "Chinese Democracy," Caram Costanzo and the manager at the time, Merck. We spoke for about two months just emailing and conversations. Then there was a long period of nothingness.

What happened?

There was a reason for that. I told 'em no.

Did you really?

After having some dealings with the management, I didn't like how they were doing things. It was something I didn't want in my life 'cause at that time my life was totally good. I didn't need it. I was putting out albums. I was touring the world and I was an adjunct professor at SUNY Purchase College teaching Music Production. I had my own studio and a whole entire second house I turned into a studio. I was producing a ton of bands and making music for TV shows, video games and indie films. I was doing so much and was so gratified doing it all, I knew if I joined Guns I would lose a lot of that and I wouldn't have the time.

It's understandable why you didn't immediately jump on the gig.

I didn't want to give all of that up. I wanted to just keep nurturing everything I was doing and let it keep growing. The way things were going with management at that time, I just didn't like the way they did things and the way they handled situations. And I told them, "No. I just don't want that in my life." I felt it would be toxic.

What was their response?

It ended up turning into a whole big thing with them and we didn't talk for a year-and-a-half. Then they reached out and said, "Can we work this out?" We got together in New York and we jammed. Did like three songs and got together and it was like, "Alright, cool. We'll get tomorrow night and do another three." We jammed seven times and hit the road and that was it.

When did that happen?

May 2006 was when it officially began.

How did those first jams feel to you musically?

I jammed with a lot of people at that time. I would jam with people. I always just did my own band and I would do other things on the side and random stuff. I think I had just played with Nancy Sinatra. She was so cool. So I was like, "Yeah, let's jam." I just got together and we jammed and it was fun.

You weren't look at it like a sort of audition for Guns N' Roses?

Without sounding belittling, I wasn't thinking of it like a huge deal. I was thinking, "Alright, these are just another bunch of guys. We're gonna jam and go out and do some stuff and have some fun." I figured we would be playing - I didn't know where we'd be playing - the House of Blues-type places. The next thing you know we go to Europe and festivals for 100,000 people where we're headlining. We're like, "What the hell? Alright, it is what it is." I didn't think it was at that level but obviously I was wrong. It was an experience.

What was it like meeting Axl the first time?

I had no preconceived ideas about the guy. You hear lots of things but I've learned the people with the strongest opinions are the ones that have the least experience and that's pretty much with anything. Even when traveling, people that had the harshest opinions about a place were the ones that have never been there as opposed to the ones that have and had a more realistic and not so scathing review. It's the same with people and I found that to be true with Axl as well.

He wasn't the way people described him?

The first time I met him, he came down to a rehearsal and we jammed to the song "Riad" and he was yelling in my ear, "This part of the song reminds me of 'Hey Bulldog' from the Beatles." I was like, "Yeah, you're right." Eating some burgers and it was just totally normal. That's the thing - anybody's normal and everyone's a human being making music.

Some are just more normal than others.

Everyone has their own personalities and own quirks and that's anywhere and anyone in life. I think people tend to build up others into these icons and idols and objects that aren't human. It's not a healthy thing to do but it can be a fun thing to do for a lot of people. But ultimately everyone is just an imperfect, normal, human being and that's fine. That's a good thing.

What was it like working on the "Chinese Democracy" record?

Those were definitely the most challenging I ever had in the studio. Usually I'd go in and bang something out and it would be great. But when we were doing the "Chinese..." stuff it was songs I never heard before. They wouldn't give me any listen ahead of times to get to know the songs and to think about them. To get to know the song and grow with it and learn everything else that's going on in it so that I could really find my own voice within it all.

That must have been unbelievably hard.

We would go to studios in LA or New York and it would be Caram and his assistant Eric [Tabala]. I'd be playing to the song I never heard before that is already completely full with drums, loops, bass and a multitude of guitar tracks from all different people over time. All different keyboards, strings, vocals and backing vocals. It's like, "How am I supposed to fit something in here without stepping on something else?"

How did you maneuver through the tracks?

I'm trying all different things and taking all different approaches. As I'm playing and doing it, I'll have one guy saying,"Yeah, that's perfect" while the other guy is yelling at me, "No, not that" at the same. This would go on for 14 hours a day. I would do things where I would play and just start with rhythm stuff. Maybe doing something sort of riffy or something more street or choppy. I'd grab the wah pedal or something where I'd do in on the fretless or more technical or spacious melodies. I tried all different stuff. I did a hundred things per song on some takes.

You just tried everything?

Caram would start going through them all and piecing things together. We'd be doing it in New York and Axl would be taking care of business in LA. We'd give him a call at two in the morning and play something over the phone. Then when it was time for the album to be done, they just went through it all and decided what fit best and what they thought was the best direction for the song guitar-wise with the different parts.

What did you think of the final tracks?

It was a surprise to me. I'm like, "Did I play that? That's right, I did." Some of the stuff came out really interesting.

"Shackler's Revenge" was a really great track.

That one's my favorite. I do wish I was given a chance to know the music better and developed a relationship with the songs before laying the tracks down. I think it would have been something even better. It would have connected even better and it would have had more of my personality to it.

Why didn't the producers allow you to live with the tracks beforehand?

Honestly, I think it was they were worried about leaks. They did not want to have any music out there. Even when I had to learn the songs to start touring in the very beginning when I was first joining the band, they wouldn't give me the music to learn. So I had to learn all the stuff on "Chinese Democracy" we were gonna play live, I learned it with a pen and paper and headphones on the road manager's laptop in a half-hour just writing while the band was taking a break from rehearsal in the next room.

That's pretty insane.

I was like, "Alright, let me just quickly in a half-hour take notes and make little cheat sheets and learn everything I need to learn." All that crazy stuff I had to get down in a half-hour with pen and paper and memory and that's it.

The title song "Chinese Democracy" was another cool track.

Yeah, I added the fretless riffs behind the verses and that was really the main contribution to the song.

There is also some great playing on "Better."

Yeah, I mean the trouble with that album is you don't really know who's doing what. In "Better" I actually did these background bluesy riffs in the second verse right before the second chorus. I did some fretless stuff about the big bridge before the last choruses. There's a lot going on. I'm trying to remember how many different guitars are on that album.

That is unfortunate that the liner notes don't more accurately indicate who is playing what on each song.

One thing I do like about playing it live is there is a very singular stream of sound coming from each individual, so it's very easy to pick out the people. It's not like trying to hear a certain viola player within an orchestra. You can hear each individual and that's important. For something to sound like a band, you need to hear the individual. You need to say, "Oh, that's this guy playing or that's that guy playing."

Why did Axl use so many different musicians to work on "Chinese Democracy?"

I think it was just the album had spanned such an amount of time where people came and went. He really felt their contributions were vital to the songs and didn't want to erase them just because the person wasn't there anymore. There's no album in the history of rock music that has had that kind of journey. This album had so many people coming and going and adding their contributions to it and technology changing and the whole life story of making that album is not like any other album.

Was that a positive or negative element?

People can look at it as a band thing or look at it as a good and unique thing and say, "Wow, there will never be another album that has these people doing these things in this way that took this amount of time and became this."

In a strange way, if this hadn't been a long-awaited Guns N' Roses record and was just a record from some new band, the reception would have been entirely different.

There was so much baggage attached, I think when it finally came out people were seeing the package along with listening to it. They're listening to saying, "Well, this took X amount of years and X amount of dollars" instead of just listening to it. And also saying, "Well, it doesn't have these guys but it still has this name."

It is very hard to separate the mythology from the music.

It's all of that instead of clearing their minds and saying, "Let me just listen to this with nothing added to it." And just say, "OK, this is music. How do I like it?" Not, "How do I compare it?" but "How do I like it?" I think it's the kind of thing where it's gonna take 20 years before people look back on that album and really accept it as it is without the baggage and whether they like it or not or are indifferent to it. However they feel about it, I think it would take 20 years after the album's release for people to truly judge it just on the music.

In truth you really are much more than a very talented guitar player.

I think people don't realize especially once you join a high-profile band, it takes everything else that previously defined you and you become redefined. So I went from being a singer/guitar player fronting a band called Bumblefoot to the new guy in the new version of Guns that plays guitar. And no one even knows I do anything else. So they think I'm just the silent guitar player that plays the "Sweet Child O' Mine" solo as best he can and hopes the audience likes it.

Certainly you want to do more than that musically?

Over the last year, I've been going out and doing a lot more solo shows and letting people get to know me for who I really am and not just the one side of me that you see with Guns. Definitely in Guns I don't get to really show all that I am. I'm just one-eighth of what's going on onstage and not even writing unless we're just making up some jam on the spot onstage. If I had to say who I am it's like, "Look at my solo music" and then say, "It's that guy playing guitar in Guns."

Edited July 3, 2014 by Silent Jay

[jekylhyde]

He seems to be a really likeable guy. Based on that article, I agree with his views towards music and people.

Nice interview, thanks for sharing!

[tomfriend]

He's outta here.

[magisme]

No one but us will be listening to or thinking about Chinese Democracy in 20 years. Sorry, Bumble.

[Towelie]

No one but us will be listening to or thinking about Chinese Democracy in 20 years. Sorry, Bumble.

Yes they will.

Considering most of the songs have been around for a decade already and fans are still discussing, analysing and debating about them in 2014, I see no reason why this will change in another ten years from now.

[Lio]

No one but us will be listening to or thinking about Chinese Democracy in 20 years. Sorry, Bumble.

Yes they will.

Considering most of the songs have been around for a decade already and fans are still discussing, analysing and debating about them in 2014, I see no reason why this will change in another ten years from now.

Yes, but that's us, Towelie. Unless you know a lot of other people discussing it.

[magisme]

Yeah, of course it'll be discussed here. That's what fanatics do. No one in the real world, though. Complete fantasy that this album will somehow gain greater appreciation in the future.

[RandallFlagg]

What was it like working on the "Chinese Democracy" record?

Those were definitely the most challenging I ever had in the studio. Usually I'd go in and bang something out and it would be great. But when we were doing the "Chinese..." stuff it was songs I never heard before. They wouldn't give me any listen ahead of times to get to know the songs and to think about them. To get to know the song and grow with it and learn everything else that's going on in it so that I could really find my own voice within it all.

That must have been unbelievably hard.

We would go to studios in LA or New York and it would be Caram and his assistant Eric [Tabala]. I'd be playing to the song I never heard before that is already completely full with drums, loops, bass and a multitude of guitar tracks from all different people over time. All different keyboards, strings, vocals and backing vocals. It's like, "How am I supposed to fit something in here without stepping on something else?"

How did you maneuver through the tracks?

I'm trying all different things and taking all different approaches. As I'm playing and doing it, I'll have one guy saying,"Yeah, that's perfect" while the other guy is yelling at me, "No, not that" at the same. This would go on for 14 hours a day. I would do things where I would play and just start with rhythm stuff. Maybe doing something sort of riffy or something more street or choppy. I'd grab the wah pedal or something where I'd do in on the fretless or more technical or spacious melodies. I tried all different stuff. I did a hundred things per song on some takes.

WTF the legend of Chinese Democracy continues, it's stunning that the album even sounds halfway competent...

Edited July 3, 2014 by RandallFlagg

[liers]

No one but us will be listening to or thinking about Chinese Democracy in 20 years. Sorry, Bumble.

Yes they will.

Considering most of the songs have been around for a decade already and fans are still discussing, analysing and debating about them in 2014, I see no reason why this will change in another ten years from now.

Yes, but that's us, Towelie. Unless you know a lot of other people discussing it.

I'm sure it'll bee discussed by normal people because of the baggage, cost, and antics that occurred over the CD years.

[Andrew07]

nice interview, looking forward to hearing more of his new solo stuff, i hope the guy keeps on rocking

[JAEBALL]

Mindboggling how they wouldn't let him hear the songs before he recorded his parts....

[SoulMonster]

Of course people will continue to discuss CD, both because it is a good record, but mostly because of the history surrounding this historic record and its release.

Just a few hits from the last 24 hours or so spanning both newspapers, blogs and non-GNR forums:

http://boards.420chan.org/b/res/3684381.php

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-chinese-democracy-pg-photogallery.html

http://therangeplace.forummotions.com/t2721-guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy

http://abloggymess.com/2014/07/01/bastard-children-3-guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy/

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/music-talk/541898-guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy-11-23-08-a-14.html

[magisme]

Go to a bar this weekend and try to have a conversation about CD. Or go anywhere really. I'll leave it at that for people who think google searches reveal the real world.

[JAEBALL]

when speaking about CD to a casual music fan the first question is always thats the album that doesn't have Slash...it will never not be that way

and theres nothing that the most die hard CD fan can do about it

Ron is a class act... I appreciate his words

[RandallFlagg]

I don't care what anyone says, CD is a phenomenal and quite ridiculous record in equal measure, that's why I let it slide when one person says it's an act of insanity and another says it's the best rock record of the 00's, it's all over the place but it works for me.

[BangoSkank]

Amazingly, a total stranger and I discussed CD at a bar last weekend in NJ. He couldn't see past the baggage.

[maynard]

Ron B. F. Thal is a cool guy. It's cool how he confirms that the only stuff he has written for nuGuns is the mindblowing masterpiece most performed song ever "Jam".

He's a nice guy, should definetly quit the band.

[magisme]

[Bruno P.]

[Thin White Duke]

if I am here in 20 years discussing if Shackler is a masterpiece or not, please someone virtually shoot me.

[magisme]

if I am here in 20 years discussing if Shackler is a masterpiece or not, please someone virtually shoot me.

You should be shot if that's a question for you right now.

[Lio]

if I am here in 20 years discussing if Shackler is a masterpiece or not, please someone virtually shoot me.

I was thinking the same. On the other hand, I'll be almost retired by then. That's what old people do, look back on their lives and talk about it ad nauseam. And who knows, maybe we'll even have a few more albums to discuss.

[Thin White Duke]

And who knows, maybe we'll even have a few more albums to discuss.

[Bruno P.]

Funny how you fetl the need to say "He lies more than Slash"

[dalsh327]

The question is more about what he didn't like about Merck at the time, or why they didn't talk for a year and a half. Where would this be on the ongoing "Chi Dem timeline"?