.Great guy
This is an interview with bernie from a magazine. Enjoy!
Bernie Interview/Magazine
Moderators: Randy Perry, The Flying Dutchman, Stiltzkin, skezza, Trigger
Bernie Interview/Magazine
Big thank you to Guitaridol here for scanning all this in, he really takes his time out to do it .
Great guy
This is an interview with bernie from a magazine. Enjoy!
.Great guy
This is an interview with bernie from a magazine. Enjoy!
Last edited by skezza on Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
GUITARIDOL5682
- Mass Poster
- Posts: 4757
- Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:42 pm
“I’M NOT really into guitar technology at all. In fact I reckon a lot of it is a load of rubbish. And I certainly don’t feel any special reverence towards a guitar simply because it’s old and rare. As far as I’m concerned they’re all pretty much the same – just a piece of wood with a pick-up and metal strings.
“I do have preferences for old Fender Stratocasters, buts that’s only because I’ve always played them and they make the noises I expect them to make. Not because they have a special aura to them or because Jimi Hendrix played them for anything like that.
“In actual fact, when I first started playing seriously, I really wanted a Gibson Les Paul. This was back in about 1969 when I was a kid back home in Ireland. All I had then was a Hofner Galaxy which was truly awful. Then somebody offered me a 1962 Strat for fifty quid, and of course I jumped at it. I haven’t changed since.
“The thing is, that once you start out on a Fender, It’s very hard to change over to Gibsons. They have a different feel to them, they’re heavier and the controls don’t seem to be in the right place.
“But then I suppose something like a Les Paul is more of a guitarist’s guitar, whereas a Strat is more of a singer’s guitar, if you see what I mean. The volume control being right next to the bridge means you can put your hands on it without looking which is important if you’re also supposed to be facing the microphone and fixing the audience with your eye…
“I also think the Stratocaster is the prettiest guitar of the lot, I have three of them. My original white one is a bit beaten up now. There are cracks in the body and I had to glue the head back together after I rammed it into a speaker cabinet once by accident. I have a replacement which is a couple of years younger, but otherwise it’s virtually identical – even down to the skuff marks.
“But my favourate one, is a metallic blue job which Ozzy Osbourne gave me when I was with him in the States after Randy Rhoads died. Like the other two it’s an L registered strat, which means it was built between 1961 and 1964. Continues over.
Continued below.
“I do have preferences for old Fender Stratocasters, buts that’s only because I’ve always played them and they make the noises I expect them to make. Not because they have a special aura to them or because Jimi Hendrix played them for anything like that.
“In actual fact, when I first started playing seriously, I really wanted a Gibson Les Paul. This was back in about 1969 when I was a kid back home in Ireland. All I had then was a Hofner Galaxy which was truly awful. Then somebody offered me a 1962 Strat for fifty quid, and of course I jumped at it. I haven’t changed since.
“The thing is, that once you start out on a Fender, It’s very hard to change over to Gibsons. They have a different feel to them, they’re heavier and the controls don’t seem to be in the right place.
“But then I suppose something like a Les Paul is more of a guitarist’s guitar, whereas a Strat is more of a singer’s guitar, if you see what I mean. The volume control being right next to the bridge means you can put your hands on it without looking which is important if you’re also supposed to be facing the microphone and fixing the audience with your eye…
“I also think the Stratocaster is the prettiest guitar of the lot, I have three of them. My original white one is a bit beaten up now. There are cracks in the body and I had to glue the head back together after I rammed it into a speaker cabinet once by accident. I have a replacement which is a couple of years younger, but otherwise it’s virtually identical – even down to the skuff marks.
“But my favourate one, is a metallic blue job which Ozzy Osbourne gave me when I was with him in the States after Randy Rhoads died. Like the other two it’s an L registered strat, which means it was built between 1961 and 1964. Continues over.
Continued below.
Last edited by Ell on Wed Jul 26, 2006 6:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
-
GUITARIDOL5682
- Mass Poster
- Posts: 4757
- Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:42 pm
Continued from above
“You can tell the age of a Strat by checking the serial number on the metal plate where the neck screws onto the body. Before 1961, when they first redesigned the neck, they all had five figures in the number, I think. Then they added the L and afterwards. From 1964 until the time Fenders were taken over by CBS, all their guitars carried a six figure number. After that the popular belief is that the standard of workmanship went downhill, and I think it was probably so for a period. But just recently I’ve played some new instruments which have been really very good. They’re not the same, mind you…The necks are a lot smaller and the way they’re built with the tress rod laid into the back, means it’s not so easy to shave a quarter inch or so off them, which is what I always do, to make them easier to play.
“I was in the Fender Sound house in the West End the other week and they showed me one of the new range replicas which Fenders are bring out in the States. They’re not the same as those Squier copies from Fender in Japan. For these they’ve managed to get together all the old craftsmen who were making classic Stratocasters in the early sixties, and they’re turning them out exactly the way they use to back then. They’re quite incredible. But very expensive…
“All my guitars are completely standard, right down to the pickups. I know you can beef up the electrics and fit new bridges that are supposed to give you extra sustain and everything, but as I said. I’m not into technology and I feel that once you start modifying you can very easily lose as much as you gain.
“I’m a firm believer that the original, straightforward design, even if it’s pretty primitive, is invariably the best. It’s a bit like motor cars, isn’t it? If you’re doing a lot of driving then the best car isn’t necessarily the fastest one, it’s the most reliable one. The same is true of amplifiers.
“I had to give up using Marshall gear because it simply wasn’t dependable any more. Especially in the United States. I had nightmares with my sound when I was playing with Ozzy. I flew my own gear across and had the voltage regulators changed to suit their 110 volt system and nothing sounded remotely like it did at home. So the band bought me some new American Marshall gear but it wasn’t a lot better.
“My style of playing involves a lot of controlled feedback – and I just couldn’t get it! Either the sound would break up and begin to howl before I could do anything with it or else the amp would simply blow up. At one stage it seemed like I was getting through one every gig! I don’t know for certain, but I think it had something to do with the power surges you get on a 110 volt system and the valves in the amp couldn’t handle it. It’s probably the reason why most American players use Gibson rather than Fenders. It seems that much easier to work up a manageably heavy sound through their amps if you play a Gibson. But I don’t know for sure.
“Now I’ve got a Hiwatt rig – just one 100 watt amp and two 4x12 cabinets and I’m very impressed with it. Tonewiser it’s possibly a little cruder than the Marshall but it gives me a better response over the whole range and I haven’t had one blow up on me yet. It’s a good system to record with too.
“Believe it or not I’ve never been fully satisfied with my sound in the studio. Somehow or other my solo album “Turn Out The Lights” ended up far too tinny and harsh for my liking while one of the reasons I left Gillan was because my guitar never ended up sounding like me on record. The “Universe” album was okay up to a point because at least the production was crude and raw, so they didn’t try to refine my sound at the mix. And ‘Trouble’, the single, was alright too.
“But it’s only been in the last month or so, as I’ve been doing more recording with the Electric Gypsies, that I think I’ve managed to crack it. It’s all down to the way I’ve miked up in the studio itself. Up until now the engineer has always wanted to put lots of microphones all round the room to pick up on the ambience and the echoes. And they’ve always insisted upon using vocal mikes like Neumann or even Shures. But I’ve discovered a special AKG which you can put in really close to the cab and it catches all the presence as well as the low bottoms and high tops.
“I don’t know very many other guys who play the way I do. I utilise a lot of feedback, which many people find hard to master, although it comes easy to me. That’s probably because I’ve always played that way. It’s all down to experience really. If you play very loud often enough then the technique sort of comes naturally. I’ve reached a stage now where I can walk around a stage and I can hear all the different places where individual notes and harmonics will resonate.
“But there is a lot of luck involved. You can play one night and the sound will be amazing and your guitar will literally sing for you. But you go onto the next gig and you’ll have to sweat to get anything at all.
“Of course, when you’re playing with feedback you’re essentially approaching the guitar from the other end. Rather than it only making a noise when you hit it, you have to think of it making any amount of noise all the time unless you deaden it. So your job is to allow it to make only the noise you want it to.
“I play most of my leads on the G string, although the B and D strings can be okay too, but which ever, I lay the heel of my hand across the bridge to damped the others, tuck the tremelo arm into my palm and hook my little finger round the volume pot. That way I have optimum control over the sound, leaving my left hand free to fret the notes.
“Jimi Hendrix was the past master of all of that, although personally I was greatly influenced by Jeff Beck and Harvey Mandel. But I always remember Brian Eno saying that Hendrix was his favourite guitarist because he treated the guitar solely as a noise making machine rather than a musical instrument. And I suppose I’ve always tried to do that.
“But the thing is you can’t do it with any preconceived notion of what sound you want. All you can do is find the sound that your amp, your guitar and the acoustics of the place produce by themselves and then you try to harmonise it and get it to work for you. But you can’t dictate the sound.
“Of course, if you do it often enough, you begin to get a shrewd idea of what it’ll be like to certain circumstances. But there’s no way you can aim for a specific sound and then get it. It’s all basically trial and error.
“It’s like Picasso throwing pots of paint at a wall. He knew what colours he’d use before he started and he’d know how hard he’d throw them. But he didn’t have the faintest idea how they’d look when he’d finished.”
CHAS DE WHALLEY
“You can tell the age of a Strat by checking the serial number on the metal plate where the neck screws onto the body. Before 1961, when they first redesigned the neck, they all had five figures in the number, I think. Then they added the L and afterwards. From 1964 until the time Fenders were taken over by CBS, all their guitars carried a six figure number. After that the popular belief is that the standard of workmanship went downhill, and I think it was probably so for a period. But just recently I’ve played some new instruments which have been really very good. They’re not the same, mind you…The necks are a lot smaller and the way they’re built with the tress rod laid into the back, means it’s not so easy to shave a quarter inch or so off them, which is what I always do, to make them easier to play.
“I was in the Fender Sound house in the West End the other week and they showed me one of the new range replicas which Fenders are bring out in the States. They’re not the same as those Squier copies from Fender in Japan. For these they’ve managed to get together all the old craftsmen who were making classic Stratocasters in the early sixties, and they’re turning them out exactly the way they use to back then. They’re quite incredible. But very expensive…
“All my guitars are completely standard, right down to the pickups. I know you can beef up the electrics and fit new bridges that are supposed to give you extra sustain and everything, but as I said. I’m not into technology and I feel that once you start modifying you can very easily lose as much as you gain.
“I’m a firm believer that the original, straightforward design, even if it’s pretty primitive, is invariably the best. It’s a bit like motor cars, isn’t it? If you’re doing a lot of driving then the best car isn’t necessarily the fastest one, it’s the most reliable one. The same is true of amplifiers.
“I had to give up using Marshall gear because it simply wasn’t dependable any more. Especially in the United States. I had nightmares with my sound when I was playing with Ozzy. I flew my own gear across and had the voltage regulators changed to suit their 110 volt system and nothing sounded remotely like it did at home. So the band bought me some new American Marshall gear but it wasn’t a lot better.
“My style of playing involves a lot of controlled feedback – and I just couldn’t get it! Either the sound would break up and begin to howl before I could do anything with it or else the amp would simply blow up. At one stage it seemed like I was getting through one every gig! I don’t know for certain, but I think it had something to do with the power surges you get on a 110 volt system and the valves in the amp couldn’t handle it. It’s probably the reason why most American players use Gibson rather than Fenders. It seems that much easier to work up a manageably heavy sound through their amps if you play a Gibson. But I don’t know for sure.
“Now I’ve got a Hiwatt rig – just one 100 watt amp and two 4x12 cabinets and I’m very impressed with it. Tonewiser it’s possibly a little cruder than the Marshall but it gives me a better response over the whole range and I haven’t had one blow up on me yet. It’s a good system to record with too.
“Believe it or not I’ve never been fully satisfied with my sound in the studio. Somehow or other my solo album “Turn Out The Lights” ended up far too tinny and harsh for my liking while one of the reasons I left Gillan was because my guitar never ended up sounding like me on record. The “Universe” album was okay up to a point because at least the production was crude and raw, so they didn’t try to refine my sound at the mix. And ‘Trouble’, the single, was alright too.
“But it’s only been in the last month or so, as I’ve been doing more recording with the Electric Gypsies, that I think I’ve managed to crack it. It’s all down to the way I’ve miked up in the studio itself. Up until now the engineer has always wanted to put lots of microphones all round the room to pick up on the ambience and the echoes. And they’ve always insisted upon using vocal mikes like Neumann or even Shures. But I’ve discovered a special AKG which you can put in really close to the cab and it catches all the presence as well as the low bottoms and high tops.
“I don’t know very many other guys who play the way I do. I utilise a lot of feedback, which many people find hard to master, although it comes easy to me. That’s probably because I’ve always played that way. It’s all down to experience really. If you play very loud often enough then the technique sort of comes naturally. I’ve reached a stage now where I can walk around a stage and I can hear all the different places where individual notes and harmonics will resonate.
“But there is a lot of luck involved. You can play one night and the sound will be amazing and your guitar will literally sing for you. But you go onto the next gig and you’ll have to sweat to get anything at all.
“Of course, when you’re playing with feedback you’re essentially approaching the guitar from the other end. Rather than it only making a noise when you hit it, you have to think of it making any amount of noise all the time unless you deaden it. So your job is to allow it to make only the noise you want it to.
“I play most of my leads on the G string, although the B and D strings can be okay too, but which ever, I lay the heel of my hand across the bridge to damped the others, tuck the tremelo arm into my palm and hook my little finger round the volume pot. That way I have optimum control over the sound, leaving my left hand free to fret the notes.
“Jimi Hendrix was the past master of all of that, although personally I was greatly influenced by Jeff Beck and Harvey Mandel. But I always remember Brian Eno saying that Hendrix was his favourite guitarist because he treated the guitar solely as a noise making machine rather than a musical instrument. And I suppose I’ve always tried to do that.
“But the thing is you can’t do it with any preconceived notion of what sound you want. All you can do is find the sound that your amp, your guitar and the acoustics of the place produce by themselves and then you try to harmonise it and get it to work for you. But you can’t dictate the sound.
“Of course, if you do it often enough, you begin to get a shrewd idea of what it’ll be like to certain circumstances. But there’s no way you can aim for a specific sound and then get it. It’s all basically trial and error.
“It’s like Picasso throwing pots of paint at a wall. He knew what colours he’d use before he started and he’d know how hard he’d throw them. But he didn’t have the faintest idea how they’d look when he’d finished.”
CHAS DE WHALLEY
Last edited by Ell on Wed Jul 26, 2006 6:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
-
GUITARIDOL5682
- Mass Poster
- Posts: 4757
- Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:42 pm
I'll let you know about the spelling mistake and see me after school -
GUITARIDOL5682
- Mass Poster
- Posts: 4757
- Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:42 pm
Ell you done wonders copying that out my lamp oil isn't as good as yours.You only need to correct a couple of things.The first highlighted piece that should be 1969 not 1963...
The next piece (microphone and fixing the audience with your eye....thats correct so you just need to edit the orange.
Beaten up now.....Thats correct as well.
The last page has only one correction Bottoms and high taps...thats TOPS ok...Cheers again Ell
I noticed you spelt cabinets wrong cabinats but i cannot find it now..10/10 this pupil will go far
The next piece (microphone and fixing the audience with your eye....thats correct so you just need to edit the orange.
Beaten up now.....Thats correct as well.
The last page has only one correction Bottoms and high taps...thats TOPS ok...Cheers again Ell
I noticed you spelt cabinets wrong cabinats but i cannot find it now..10/10 this pupil will go far