guitars

An interview with Martin Gateau

On her debut double album(!) Unravel Melbourne multi instrumentalist and songwriter Amarevois displays a diverse range of guitar styles, from raunchy blues and ripping solos, to contemporary classical twangs and sweeping lyric melodies. Her playing is both syrupy sweet and tautly visceral. Although by her own admission the guitar takes a back seat to the piano on this album, amarevois spoke to me earlier this month about her guitar history.

MG: You say that the guitar takes a backseat on Unravel, why is that?

A: Well, part of the reason that I took so long to release debut was that I had too many songs and they were in too many styles, I just didn’t know how to group them together and I tried everything. So, after many years, and with the benefit of hindsight, I realised that most of the earlier pieces came out of my love affair with my 1970’s Yamaha electric touring piano, which has a very ethereal, bell like quality. So I just decided that the first release should be more piano based, and the guitar plays whatever supporting role that each song calls for.

MG: There aren’t too many female guitarists around that demonstrate the versatility that you do in your playing, who have you been compared to?

A; Well to be honest, I’m not really aware of being compared to anyone in particular - female or otherwise, but I’m sure that anyone with a cultivated ear would hear the many influences in my playing.

MG: Did you have any female guitar heroes growing up?

A; There weren’t too many female guitarists around when I was growing up. There was Nancy Wilson from Heart, I mean, Magic Man and Barracuda were just monster tracks! And Lita Ford, who was heavy metal, Rickie Lee and Janis Ian, and the rest were just strummers and a bit ‘girly’ if I may say so. There wasn’t much to choose from. I liked Wendy from Prince’s band and Chrissie Hynde. They weren’t just strummers, they had attitude, without having to resort to being ‘mannish’. Ph, I should mention Bonnie Rait, because she is superb, she was a big influence, even though I didn’t like country music at the time.

MG: What about now? Anyone you like?

A; Gosh! I really don’t know many of the people around now, I guess. The Letterman chick is a really fine player. Um, other than that, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t noticed anyone, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there! There are a lot more female guitarists around now and I’d like to see it balance up so that its no longer about the novelty factor that you’re a woman and you’re playing guitar, its just about the playing and the music. I also forgot to mention Mary _____, the jazz guitarist – she was phenomenal, but I didn’t come across her until much later.

MG: When did you start playing guitar and why?

A: I was about 16, I think, There was a nylon string in one of the houses I grew up in, and although there was an upright piano there, I wasn’t really allowed to play it, so I thought I could at least still have music in my life by learning the guitar. It was right handed and I’m a natural lefty, but I stuck with it all the same. It wasn’t my guitars, so I couldn’t just go and change it around. I just used to love to ‘zone out’ in my room and noodle on it along to records and stuff…music was, at seventeen, becoming my whole world, so I was totally absorbed by it, but I didn’t have a teacher which made it harder to progress at times.

MG: How did you teach yourself to play?

A: Mainly by two means. Firstly, I made up a series of exercises for both hands based on what I thought my hands would need to be doing, picking and dampening etc. I’d watched a lot of concerts and videos were coming in and I watched the way they would put their hands, you know. And secondly, by copying licks off records. I couldn’t read music, but I could play by ear and I trained my hands to find the notes I was ‘hearing’ in my mind and learned to do bending and tapping and a pit of finger picking, whatever.

MG: What were some of the records you played along with at that time?

A: Prince, I had every one of his records and Paul Simon, and Pink Floyd – all the “P’s!” and George Benson, Barclay James Harvest, Santana and Fleetwood Mac, I didn’t have much else I don’t think then. I used to listen to a fair bit of community radio, and they featured a huge amount of styles and eras that I hadn’t known existed. It was a time of expansion for me, musically. I just lapped it all up. I didn’t really have a sound of my own.

MG: How did you come by your first ‘very own’ guitar?

A: When I was in high school, we all had to do what’s called ‘work experience’, where you go out into the ‘real world’ and sample ‘the working life’, and I wasn’t interested in anything much except music and I didn’t know a soul except a guy at my local music shop. So somehow I wrangled my way into working at this local guitar shop for a couple of weeks and it really gave me a massive infusion of information and experience regarding the music ‘industry’, which I hadn’t really even been aware of up until then, and about musicianship and the musician’s life. And just the life of ‘grown ups’ in general I suppose. It totally changed my perspective and made me want to practise and learn and write and be a part of it.

MG: So they paid you with a guitar? (laughs)

A: No, hardly! It was almost slave labour at 5 dollars a day! It was just an honorary to buy your lunch with… I was a little confused about which guitar to buy, because whilst they did have left handed guitars in the shop, they were more expensive and there was only a few styles to choose from, so I had to make a decision about whether I would play right handed or not, as that’s what I had done up until then. My friend at the guitar shop had a Profile Strat copy with a Hotrail in the back pickup position and a Kahler tremolo. It had a really nice non-lacquered neck and for me, it just felt just perfect. The rosewood board felt really different too to what I was used to, it was so much easier than the nylon string had been and far more rewarding and versatile. So I bought that for about $500 I think. That was 1987. Gosh! Well, it was light metallic purple and I didn’t hesitate. I still use it, although I had to replace the body and now it’s my ‘mongrel Strat’ (laughs).

MG: And your first acoustic?

A: My first acoustic was from the same guy, an 1974 Ibanez Concord, you remember the ones that were a copy of the Gibson Jumbo’s? Sunburnt finish and nice fake mother of pearl inlays, it was beautiful! The main reason I bought it was because Prince had posed with one on the cover artwork of his very first album ‘For You’ which I had bought when I was about eight, and had really inspired me -although his was probably a real Gibson! (laughs). I thought if its good enough for him, it would be good enough for me! I thought that it put me firmly on the right path! I still use it today, though I’ve had the top replaced twice! No set up will ever rectify it, but I’ll never part with it. It’s name is Icarus.

MG: What was your first professional or ‘deluxe’ guitar purchase?

A: My first ‘soul fire’ guitar was a Musicman stingray circa ‘77. It was when Leo Fender was working with Musicman and it was a rare beast. It was really heavy swamp ash body with that Musicman style massive row of magnets, um, active humbuckers and its got a beautiful natural finish. It’s still one of my favourite guitars. There are not too many of them around, I believe.

MG: Who were your biggest guitar influences and why?

A: Wow…well, as I said before, I was listening to so much different music and every time I discovered a new genre or style of music, I discovered a new set of heroes to learn from. I think the two all-rounders for me were David Gilmour and Bryan May, because the were very relaxed yet they could still do anything they wanted to, whether it was pretty or…or crunchy. They were amazingly clean in their solos as well and used so many subtle ornamentations. It was emotive and not overly flashy. I didn’t get into a lot of the guitar players that everybody else got into. I mean, with the two Jimi’s Hendrix and Page, I could appreciate their abilities, but I couldn’t listen to their music because it was just so rough and out of tune! I will however, admit to going through a fairly serious stage of inquiry into heavy metal, including bands like Whitehouse, Celtic Frost, King Diamond, Bathory, Anthrax and a host of others. Ultimately, they weren’t very relaxing though!

MG: How did you find ‘your sound’?

A: I’m not sure that I’ve really arrived at a sound that I think can be definable as ‘my sound’ in terms of being a guitarist, but I do have favourite tones that I like to use. I don’t mind channelling other guitarists or their producers to make it sound more or less like what’s in my heart or head though. But then, tone colours have a lot to do with the gear that you have. I remember learning this when putting a $100 no-name pickup in the front of my very average - but purple! (laughs) Profile Strat, and then trying it out the sound at the repair shop through a Fender Vibra King and almost falling off my chair, because suddenly my crappy guitar with a cracked body and almost no sustain sounded better than half the $5000 guitars I’d ever heard! Those amps are absolute monsters for divine tones. Of course, when I got it home and plugged it back into whatever I had at the time, it sounded terrible! It was a great lesson for me…

MG: What is the most rewarding guitar moment that you can recall?

A: Well actually, it’s a Chapman (Chapman Stick™) story, because a dear friend of mine who got me started in the studio business lent me his stick for a few months and it really twisted my mind, because of course it’s a lot about tapping on the fingerboard and it’s a bit like playing keyboard and guitar at the same time – it’s wild. Well I’d been struggling with the damn thing for months when suddenly a riff came to me and a song came out right then and there and my fingers had it figured out all on their own! My brain was quite confused, but my hands just went off and did their own thing, it was a magic moment, for sure! It was very sad when I had to give it back to him!

MG: What guitars/gear do you mainly use for recording or live?

A: I use all the guitars I mentioned before, the Profile Strat, which has really fast neck and a good tremolo system. The Stingray, which is like a Tele kind of sound with a little bit of Les Paul in it. I use the Ibanez acoustic if it’s a background sound, otherwise I borrow a decent one from a friend if I can! I also have one of those Japanese Ibanez Les Paul copies, which has some of the most menacing and yet sweet sounds in it. With recording, I’ll use whatever gives me the sound I think suits best, or the one which makes the phrase sit better under the hands. The heavier guitars are harder to use live, you can see the osteo bill mounting with every song! Changing guitars during a set can be a bit nervy from a levels and tuning perspective - I don’t have a guitar tech! - but it gives everyone time to change patches etc. and gives you a breather and brings you to the audience, so I tend to chop and change a fair bit.

MG: What guitars would be on your wish list if you had ‘carte blanche’?

A: Oh…wow..ok…that’s a hard one…I think if I had carte blanche I’d start with the basics and get a couple of quality Strats, perhaps ‘custom shop’ jobs…and I’d get a couple of Les Paul’s, I’ve always wanted a white falcon, for some reason, and a 325? Then I’d get greedy (laughs) and go a couple of PRS’s, at least one of them a custom 24, and a Parker Fly™, because they make you play and think differently…If no one was looking, I’d buy a flying V! Other than that, I’d have trouble buying any more than that! Oh, I forgot basses, but that’s for another list, right?!

MG: Absolutely! What about acoustics?

A: For acoustics, I’d get at least four Taylors! Plus a Big Baby Taylor! I’d get a Gibson version of my Jumbo and maybe a Godin. One really nice hand made nylon string for those bossa summer moments, perhaps a Dobro for a totally different tone colour and that’s about it. What more could you ask for? Oh, I know – a 12-string, at least one or two of those (laughs).

MG: What about amplification and outboard?

A: Well, I’d certainly get Fender Vibra King, that’s for sure! And probably a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier…and an old Marshal Plexi head and a quad box with the 25W Greenbacks in it. They rip! And a Vox; that should cover most things, surely?

MG: And outboard?

A: Well, I love my original Coloursound wah pedal, but I don’t use a lot of pedals, I tend to use a mutli FX processor which is controlled via a Roland FC200 foot controller, but if I did, I’d have an MX90 phaser, and an original Ibanez Tube screamer….and maybe a blues driver…I don’t know if I have the feet for any more of them! I think if I had cart blanche, I’d get some awesome genius to customise an ‘über’ guitar rig for me, where it all works together instead of having to do abstract dance moves to change patches, actually!

MC: What are your guitar goals for the future?

A: I’m always trying to play beyond what I call ‘the rut’, which is where you play your signatures again and again, though re-hashed, they are essentially the same. So I’d like to just continue to explore more styles, and keep pushing my melodic and harmonic concepts in the way I play and keep up my strength and stamina. Is that too much to ask for? (laughs).

MC: From what I heard of your beautiful playing on the demos you gave me from Unravel, I’d say not! Thanks very much for the interview.

A: My pleasure, thank you.