Larry DiMarzio: Great to see you Andy. Out of curiosity — all those amps on the wall behind you — is this your recording room?

Andy Timmons: Hi Larry! Essentially, yeah. So, most of the amp heads I use are here, and then I've got another room where the cabinets are. Otherwise, it would be a bit loud in here. But yeah, this is essentially my studio. And I did a lot of broadcasting from here during the pandemic, you know, just live stream gigs and whatnot.

LD: Yeah, I noticed all the amps in a couple of other videos that you've done from there. That’s an impressive collection. I was curious if that was your space or if you were using someone else's studio.

Andy: Well, we've been in this home 28 years now. So that's, you know, some considerable time and things tend to accumulate. And I'm a bit of a pack rat, but I'm actually having a “garage sale” soon. The Guitar Sanctuary is going to let me bring a pile of stuff over and just try to purge these things that aren’t staying. But there’s plenty of stuff strewn around if you were to see the mess here, you know.

Yeah, time to let go of some stuff. You know, there just comes a point where it's like, what am I doing? And it was starting to just kind of inhibit instead of encourage, you know? It's just too much crap. And again, it's a blessing. It's a total blessing for sure. But it's time to let it go. Let others enjoy it, whoever can use this stuff. It might mean something to them. And then I can just get on with the select things that I really need to use, you know, and just use them, using them more is the idea.

LD: Yeah, I'm pairing everything down too, what do I really need? I made a rule: I'm not buying anything new unless I sell off enough stuff to pay for it, and that's another driving force. I just bought the new Lynx Hilo II, and it’s wonderful.

Andy: I've used that excuse before, but I would still buy, and not get rid of anything I had. I had great intent, great intent, you know, but now’s the time, though. I'm feeling good about the purge coming up. It's gonna be good.

LD: I just went through a bunch of necks, bodies, and guitars in the attic that hadn't been seen for 30 years. I just built a bass from some of those parts and it’s good. We’re picking through stuff, and I’m asking myself what’s the reason I'm keeping these? And this might be a lot of fun for someone else to own.

Andy: Yeah, exactly.

LD: So no clutter allowed, and I don't want to trip over anything anymore. I sold off the four Mark Levinson ML 2 power amps (70 lb. mono blocks), I suddenly I got all this floor space back. It just made me feel better.

Andy: This was a big part of the purge that's happening 'cause this is a lot more organized than it had been just a few weeks ago. So, it has already enhanced my space. It feels better. And so, we’re both on the right path.

LD: You have a beautiful collection, and it will be even better if you thin the herd.

When I'm doing any work that's going to be for one of the recordings, I've got two Mesa Boogie 212 cabinets in the next room. They're always mic’d up, vintage 30 Celestion speakers. I may start with the Lone Stars, but I've got an array of things to try. As you can see, the Suhr SL68s are very nice amps. They're really doing a good job replicating the Marshall Plexi, which I have over my shoulder here. So, if I need that Marshall forward thing, I've got that to go to.

Andy: Well, for sure, for sure. I've just now ordered one of these clever amp and cabinet selectors where you can mix and match any combination of cabs and amp heads.

LD: Yeah, the wow factor! You've got that space pretty well tuned. When you record your guitar, what's the go to setup? Are you using a DI into the computer and fooling with it from there or are you going amp to mic to preamp?

Andy: Yeah, so, pretty much always just amp and speaker cabinets. In my office when I practice, I've got a couple of old Mesa Boogie Lone Star heads (discontinued) and a couple of Suhr speaker IRS, which sound pretty darn good into my computer.

But when I'm really, you know, doing any work that's going to be for one of the recordings, I've got two Mesa Boogie 212 cabinets in the next room. They're always mic’d up, vintage 30 Celestion speakers. I may start with the Lone Stars, but I've got an array of things to try. As you can see, the Suhr SL68s are very nice amps. They're really doing a good job replicating the Marshall Plexi, which I have over my shoulder here. So, if I need that Marshall forward thing, I've got that to go to.

But yeah, for mics, I start with an SM57. I might add a ribbon mic. I use a ribbon called a Mesanovic that I started using once I worked with Josh Smith a while back. But the 57 just tends to work. It's what my ears hear. That's how I'm kind of formulating my tone in the studio for so many years. I've got some nice Neve 1272 preamps too.

LD: The old ones, or the new ones?

Andy: The old ones, the early Brent Averill racked versions, from an old console.

LD: I really like BAE gear, and the people over there are great to work with. The reason that I asked is, I usually mic the guitar with an SM57 and a Beyer Dynamic M160 ribbon mic, (thank you Eddie Kramer) which is probably very similar to what you are doing.

Andy: Yeah, I've got another one of those. It's their 1273-ish thing. It's powered in its own housing, you know, as opposed to the old Brent Averill ones with a separate power supply.

The BAE stuff sounds really nice. And yeah, the ribbon can add a nice warmth that the 57 is not going to have. So, it's nice if you need a bit of that, you know, fullness or low end, and it gets rid of some of the harshness that the 57 might have. But Mic placement is the key to a lot of these things.

It's really fun when it’s dialed in that sweet spot.

LD: You'll love this. One of the things that we found in the attic in New York were three original G12M25 Celestion speakers with original cones. Boy, do I love that speaker.

Andy: Wow.

LD: Two original black back and one green back.

Andy: Wow, wow, wow, wow. Nice. So, what year do you reckon those are from, Larry?

LD: I bought them in the mid ’70s. I was playing full time, and I bought a bunch of them because anytime someone would bring me an amp to me to be hot-rodded, I'd replace their speakers with those Celestions. I just thought they sounded so much better for guitar.

Andy: You know, they have a track record. It's just one of those sounds.

LD: Exactly. Speaking of sounds, I’ve got to tell you, I thought you going to Abbey Road to do those two recordings was so cool.

Andy: Thank you, man. Well, talk about bucket list, especially for those of us of a certain age and generation. The Beatles were our soundtrack. The music continues to inspire and to be loved by each generation coming up. It was something I'd always wanted to do, and I had a couple of other friends that wanted to do a kind of Beatles pilgrimage.

And as much touring as I've done over the years in the UK, I'd never really gone to see the sights. I had been to Abbey Road once as a tourist, and I got to attend a lecture there by Brian Kehew, a great historian of all things gear, and he did a great book on The Beatles gear in the studio, specifically studio 2 at Abbey Road.

But this time, we tried to base the trip around getting a day of studio time in studio 2 at Abbey Road. Of course, it's a studio for hire and it is possible. It's not easy, and it's a little expensive, but you know, a couple guys pitching in. We were able to book the day and, fortunately I've got my dear friend Daniel Steinhardt over there in Swindon, not too far from London. He brought me some of the Mesa Boogie gear that I usually use, and he also brought his 61 Vox AC-30 top boost.

I also brought my old ’65 Strat, as you see in the Beatles track that I did, the Lennon song, "I'm In Love." I was wanting to go for a ’64, ’65 Beatles tone. And the "Nowhere Man" guitar sound to me is just one of my favorite guitar tones 'cause it's so bright and clear without being harsh.

So, I think John and George’s guitars were from ’63 or ’64. They had matching Sonic blue Stratocasters. The myth is that they played the guitar part in unison through the same Vox amplifier. Whether that's true or not, it's definitely double-tracked. It's two Strats playing that part. And as you know, the Vox AC-30 top boost is a bright amp, and they added as much treble as possible at the board. It was maxed out and very compressed, but what a beautiful tone. And I think I got pretty close to it.

I was so fortunate that the engineer who I was communicating with via text before the session asked me, you know what, what sounds are you going for? Modern vintage. I said, well, I've got this song that John Lennon wrote in ’63, but The Beatles didn't record it. Think Beatles ’64. And so, when we got there, he brought out all the original mics. I mean, these were mics The Beatles would have used. They still have one of the greatest mic collections.

LD: I’ve seen a few videos where they do a walk-through the mic locker.

Andy: Yeah, it's incredible. So, all the Neumann's, all the same mics on the drums. They had a set of Ludwigs there for me to play, which I play just enough, but Ringo's my hero, and Bobby Graham, but that's another story, another English drummer. But yeah, all the original mics, in that room. You know, the one solo piece that I did, which was one of my solo electric guitar compositions called ‘Truth’.

If you go to watch the video, that's my Mesa Boogie stereo rig with my Keeley Halo Echo. But you'll see that I'm not wearing headphones. Usually you get your sound and you want to hear what's going to be on the record, but it sounded so gorgeous in the room that I didn't. I just wanted to play, so the engineer put up a couple of U67s, but he also put some room mics up, and that's really the sound. We didn't have to add anything to it.

I'm playing with my echo, of course, but that’s the way that room sounds. Even when I hit the snare drum, I thought, you just hear it.

LD: It's got a personality, you know, I thought I heard the room, especially on your voice.

Andy: Oh yeah, that’s for sure. And there it was. I was singing into one of their mics, whatever that mic was. M50, M49, I forget what it is, but I'm standing right where they would have stood. And I was fortunate, I only did two takes of it, but luckily it was good enough that I was able to keep those tracks and not have to redo it once I got back to Texas. I didn't have time that day to do the bass. I did the bass back here in Texas, but pretty much got it done, top to bottom, while I was there.

LD: Yes, that's so cool. I mean, it's one thing to visit the studio but to record there … wow.

Andy: Exactly.

LD: I had a chance to record with Joe Satriani at East West Studio in L.A. (formerly Western Recorders) for a DiMarzio video about ten years ago.

Andy: Oh yeah, I've seen the video.

LD: We used Studio 3, the same room the Mamas and Papas recorded California Dreamin’. I loved the sound we got with Joe, and recording there was a blast … Top of the line everything.

Andy: Oh man.

LD: And I was like, I feel so cool just to be here.

Andy: California Dreamin’ is one of my favorite sounding records of all time. That is just such a haunting piece, isn't it? So beautifully arranged and recorded, and those voices … good, good gosh.

LD: It’s so funny to walk into some legendary studio and have a shot at your own slice of history. Did you have any preconceived ideas about recording at Abby Road? After being there, were there any things that were different than you thought they’d be?

Andy: I really just kind of recognized that when you first walk in it’s a bit awe inspiring, because it really does look nearly identical to the way it did when The Beatles would have done all those records there in the ’60s. They really kept it visually very similar. But it was the sound, and there is that awe inspiring moment. And the engineers are like, well, “that's where Paul sat when he played 'Blackbird'. And that's probably one of the chairs he sat in." They’ve still got the same red chairs, these old stackable chairs.

But you know, my other two buddies wanted to play and record a bit, they took the first hour or so for that. But after that, I'm like, “I got nine hours”. It was like, “I'm going to work”. And I wasn't intimidated, some people ask me, “Was it intimidating being in that room?”I felt like I walked into a movie I've been watching my whole life.

LD: Wow.

Andy: It just felt so … I'm getting chills thinking about it. It felt so at home. I've got plenty of recording experience in my life, but you would think knowing where you are and being aware of the history might be a little daunting.

But I gotta say, it just felt great. And I just wanted to use this time the best I could. I know how to run a session, so let's get done whatever we can get done, you know?

LD: Getting two songs done in nine hours, except for the bass, is impressive.

Andy: It was actually a couple other pieces too. I did a solo acoustic guitar vocal song that I'm going to track up eventually, and then another kind of a jam track I had all my buddies play on. So, there's still other stuff that we did that day. We packed a lot in ’cause it wasn't just about me. I had my other buddies that had invested in this time. So, I wanted to make sure everybody had their time to spend.

One of my buddies, it was the first time he'd ever recorded. He's a really fine guitar player. Buddy of mine, Dennis Poggenburg. So, his first recording session, in his ’60s, was in Abbey Road’s Studio 2, ha-ha.

LD: Wow!

Andy: That's like, where do you go from there? “My first session was …”, you know? So, he had a good time. He had a real good time.

LD: Yeah. Where did the J160 come from?

Andy: Oh, that wasn't from this project.

LD: Ok

Andy: That's another track I did a while back, where I mixed the record, at Valve Studios. I'd recorded an acoustic, my J160 from 1963. They had a Gibson acoustic at Abbey Road, and I used it, but it just wasn't the sound for a John Lennon 1963 composition. I'd played that J160 in that studio where I did the bass in Texas, at Casey Di Iorio’s place. He's the guy that mixed it and he did a really, really great job with it. The Abbey Road project is one of my proudest moments.

LD: I'll show you something funny. (shows guitar photo.) I built this a few years ago.

Andy: What??

LD: Yeah

Andy: Holy mackerel. Look at that gorgeous thing. What are those sides?

LD: Brazilian back and sides.

Andy: Wow, it's gorgeous.

LD: Adirondak spruce top, Brazilian bridge, Brazilian Fingerboard.

Andy: Nice.

LD: And it comes off the wall in tune.

Andy: Very nice.

LD: Now if I can only teach it to play itself. LOL

Andy: I was going to say some work required, but it's a beautiful job. Holy cow.

LD: I built it with one of my good friends, Kevin Kopp. I've always been a J45 fan, and that’s pretty much a 160. The originals were solid wood, then Gibson went to plywood to reduce feedback. I wanted to push my theories for what would make a J45 body size sound better. I had an original 1960 J45 at the time when I started the experiments. My first hand-built was so much better in every way that I sold the Gibson within a week.

I always felt that you could get more with the J45 body size. My most recent version evolved to a 25.5-inch scale, wider nut, scalloped braces and more of a ’30s cowboy pickguard. This is the fourth J45 type that I’ve built, and I keep making improvements each time. I never liked the sound of the bigger body Gibson acoustics, their J200 is a mess. Love the way they look, but Gibson never worked out the air volume correctly.

I didn’t understand what was bothering me until I started building ported speaker cabinets. The driver (speaker) has to match to the internal air volume of the cabinet. If you do that correctly, the efficiency goes up and the distortion goes down. Mistakes made in sizing the body to the sound hole, bridge weight, bracing setup, etc. killed the sound of the J200. (Larry Plays guitar.)

Andy: That is gorgeous man, nice.

LD: You know, geeking out is a big part of what I do.

Andy: Well, absolutely that, but that's geeking out on a very high level. That's mastery right there, you know.

LD: I’m a guitar repairman and it’s still at heart and my work … I want to make things sound better. Whether I re-fretted your guitar or hot-wired your pickups, whatever needed to be done to get it to sound better. Back to your Abby Road experience. LOL, I distracted us with my J160 twist.

Andy: I love it.

LD: So, the mic locker is amazing. Was there anything else there that kind of surprised you? You know, the mixing console, any other pieces of outboard gear?

Andy: Oh, well, two of the grail items were upstairs. Once I walked up the infamous stairway to where the control room is, where George Martin, Jeff Emerick, or Norman Smith would have been, and where you can look down on where the boys would have been. You can see me at the end of that instrumental solo piece I did. At the very end, you see me look up, ’cause you're looking up to see the engineer’s reaction. “Was that cool?”, “Was that good?” etc. So, we walk up the stairs, and I see the control room. The control room is very modernized.

They've got this huge modern Neve board, but then there's all the mounted rack gear, some rack gear that was just set on top of that rack, and I see these two big black boxes. I thought, Oh. My. God. Those … it was the Fairchild 660s, which were the wonderful compressor/limiters that were on all those records. And these were the genuine articles that you dream of having for those bass and drum sounds. You know, McCartney still uses those to this day. So, seeing those was, you know … that's another part of that whole historical sound that we love so much.

To use those microphones, in that room, and to process them with some of the original gear used by The Beatles was just incredible. At the end of the day, it's just a good song that John wrote, and all I had to do was try to give it the best performance I could. A couple of artists had recorded it back then. They gave it to a band called The Foremost, which was another Brian Epstein band. His group did an okay job. It just didn't … I didn't think it lived up to the song's potential. So, I personally consider it a lost Beatles track ’cause I really think they should have done it.

All that to say it was a labor of love. To be there in that studio, that was the first thing that came to mind when I realized, OK, I've got time in this studio. I'll get one of my songs done, and then I’ll see what I can do that’s Beatles related. That song just made the most sense because not many people know it. So, I thought it deserved a little spotlight

LD: Absolutely. One of the things I thought is that you really got it to sound extremely Beatles-esque.

John’s Song:

Truth:

Andy: Thank you.

LD: You know, it really channels them.

Andy: That's a huge compliment, a huge compliment. But it is my DNA. I was born in ’63 when all that started happening and I had an older brother that was 12 years my elder in ’63, and he bought all those records in real time. So, it's my earliest musical memory, you know, the guitar solo from "I saw her standing there." I vividly remember that reverberant guitar tone, and to this day, that's why I love a wet guitar sound. I'm just … I’m convinced.

But yeah, all that music was just with me. I don't know life without it. The way John sings, the way Ringo plays, and George's guitar, you know, it’s just a lifelong passion for that. So, I'm honored if anybody considers it as living up to some of that.

LD: As you said, it was on the bucket list. Next time you go, let me know, ha-ha.

Andy: Hey, come on! That's the thing, these things are doable. Obviously, it's not easy.

They want to weed out, I think, a certain amount of folks. But at the end of the day, they knew we were happy to pay for the studio time and we were serious about getting some work done. So, the only precursor was that they can only confirm like a month out because, well, Radiohead or somebody might come in and may want to book the week, and of course they need to prioritize that. So, totally understandable. Then again, we got the green light and we did it. That whole trip was incredible. We spent the first several days in London and went to Liverpool. With my pedal show friends, Dan and Mick, we had a gig at The Cavern.

LD: Funny.

Andy: I think we bookended a Beatles trip about as good as you could.

LD: Wow.

Andy: It was an amazing trip.

LD: Like I said, let me know next time you're going to do that.

Andy: I hope I get to do that again.

LD: I'll set up the mics.

Andy: Come on over. Engineer Larry.

LD: I might have to put on my lab coat, learn to make “a proper tea”, and get my English union card.

Andy: That's the way they did it back then. They all had the lab coats, and you weren't allowed to touch anything. The engineers had to do it. Eventually, by the time they got Jeff Emerick, things were starting to loosen up a bit.

LD: I got serious about recording when I started shooting videos. The first thing I read was George Martin’s book “All You Need is Ears”.

LD: I know you're working on a new Ibanez guitar, and we just sent off a couple of single coil pickup samples. Did you get a chance to plug them in yet?

Andy: The honest answer is no. There's been so much going on. I want to really dedicate the time. I’ve been finishing my record, and kind of, you know, bearing down on that. But I'm looking forward to the time to really spend on this, to do the proper back and forth that we're going to do, you know, to get it right. It's really going to be a special thing to try to get a more authentic vintage tone. Obviously, I've been using the Cruisers since 1994. In that first prototype, the other guitar behind me, the one I’ve been playing for the last 30 years, that's been my neck pickup tone.

Isn't that crazy to think that now this is considered very vintage? And you know, it's been refretted 8 times and it's still holding up. It's got the bridge Cruiser® in the neck position, and I don't even know why that was done. It was probably a Bill Cummisky suggestion to match with the original humbucker. But now, of course, we have the AT-1™ that you guys make for me.

LD: Yeah

Andy: They work so great. They are humbucking, but what turned out as a happy accident, was I purely tried the Cruiser® as a recommendation from a friend at Ibanez. But then from that moment it kind of became part of my sound. It's a bit signature. And it was kind of just the happy accident of getting on well with this pickup that was voiced like a single coil, but actually humbucking, and it just really fit the bill for me. And so, when people hear my songs like Electric Gypsy, I had just gotten this guitar. That's from 1994. That song is now just as old. Yeah, 30 years old.

LD: And millions of listens on Spotify.

Andy: Okay, there’s apparently somebody that likes it. It's probably just two people doing all the listening, but they really love it a lot. I mean, it's just incredible. You can never predict what's going to connect and mean something to folks. You can hope when you're writing something, and that particular tune got improvised at a jam session with a housemate when I was living in Queens, in my Danger, Danger years.

My housemate Carl Schmidt played some drums, and we were jamming.I had been reading this really great autobiography at the time about Jimi Hendrix, called Electric Gypsy. So, I literally just took the title from that, because it was clearly a Hendrix inspired riff. But yeah, I wrote that song, moved back to Texas, got this guitar made, and that's it.It's been my main guitar for 30 years. Pretty crazy.

LD: You fall into a category of guitar players that are not just brilliant players, but also a tone guy. Really, between your hands, your head, what you do with all that stuff.

Andy: Ha-ha, that’s a lot of stuff.

LD: People talk to me about what's different between this pickup and that pickup, or old Les Paul’s and new ones but they’re forgetting that it’s an entire package. It’s not simply the guitar pickup or the guitar, it’s the whole chain. The pickup is a big part the sound but it's the difference between me singing into a microphone and Adele. It’s just not going to sound the same.

Andy: Ha! There’re your bookends.

LD: Yeah, there's a lot in between?

Andy: Of course, I love how you speak about the hands and the ears, because everybody talks about the hands, and for good reason, but it really starts with the ears. Even beyond that, I would say it just starts in your imagination. It starts in that collective of ideas about what great tone is, ideas that are influenced by your heroes. I'm assuming that the people we grow up admiring and hearing, the one’s that make us think, “Oh my gosh, if I could get anywhere close to that tone...” And for a lot of us, we're kind of going for those things, but maybe not getting there, and somehow finding our own voice in that pursuit, you know what I mean?

You’ve got to have an idea of what you want to be able to instruct the hands to do, and to try to get it out of the gear that you have. Of course, all these things are massively helpful - to have the right amp, to have the right pickup, the right strings, the right pick, but it's all a matter of the time you put into trying to extract from what's up there in your mind. You know, what's in that musical memory? I call it the ‘auralect’, to coin a phrase.

It's that collection of tone and musical ideas that you wish to get out and figuring out how to do that with what you have.

And there is the adage about, well, you know, David Gilmour could plug into a Pignose and it's going to sound like him. I used to kind of feel that way about myself. You start to feel like, “Yeah, I could probably get my sound”, until our dear friend Larry Mitchell invited me to play … it was like a NAMM show, at a bar somewhere.

“Yeah, come out and play!” I've jammed with Larry a million times. New York buddy of mine, wonderful human being, and I get up there on some other guitar player's rig, and there was nothing I could do. It was just horrible, and it's like, okay, this adage is not true … It was a very humbling moment. I decided to say, “Thank you, thank you, goodnight.” Ha-ha.

LD: I understand completely because a lot of what we at DiMarzio is to fine tune. Putting on the finishing touches and getting all the bugs out. You should be able to pick up your guitar, plug it into some reasonable amp, and get your sound without 1,200 pull-down menus.

I got a new camera a year ago and the salesman took me through all the setup menus on the camera. After he was done, I thought to myself, “This is all really great, but I'm never going to use any of this.” I do all that in my head.

Andy: I know. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I'm a tactile guy. I like to see and touch things, be able to pull that fader, or turn that knob, and not have to scroll. But you know, there are options

LD: I worked with Tim Henson a while back and he’s the complete opposite. He’s an “in-the-box” guy.

Andy: Yes, yes, yes, yes. He lives like ten minutes from me.

LD: Oh, how funny.

Andy: A really, really, sweet guy, man.

LD: That's his thinking and Polyphia material reflects it.

Andy: So we're going to spend some time together. We're going to go to each other's studios. I think we both really want to understand how the other works and maybe we can learn from that. I need to embrace some of the modern technologies. I've been kind of keeping them at arm's length because I love the way that I currently do what I do. And I know technology is coming along, but I still haven't heard any profiles and impulse responses as good as the amps behind me.

LD: I'm a big fan of understand as much as I can about both worlds. I’ve transitioned from film to digital, and then video. I’ll admit, I wasn’t too happy to give up film. I knew how to get the look I wanted but digital is so much faster. On the guitar side, there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors on the plugins side but there’s some really cool stuff there too.

I’m sure working with Tim will be fun.

Andy: Trust me, for what tech I know how to use, it's because I've had people come over to help me, to get me to the point where I know, “OK, I can at least get this far.” My brain doesn't resonate in that way, which is, you know, that's just me. And that's okay, but that's where you find other folks that can help.

LD: New artists are always sending DiMarzio’s demos, and a problem I’ve been noticing recently is the guitars are starting to sound too fizzy. Between the multistage preamp distortion and the layers of plugins, the guitar can lose its impact. Your tone has always stood out to me as a great live sound as well as recorded. A lot of the in the box recorded plug-ins are like a collage of found art. Lots of preexisting layers piled on each other, or snippets pieced together. It can work wonderfully, but it needs someone with a “George Martin mentality” to make it work.

Andy: Of course.

LD: It's a question of what you want. You know?

Andy: Sure, absolutely.

LD: Having a real understanding of that just gives you more colors in your paint box. I'm going to call it “layering”, and Tim does it brilliantly.

Andy: Oh, no doubt. When we got together, I admitted to him I hadn't really checked out Polyphia's stuff, but I was really impressed and really enjoyed a lot of it. And dug, like you say, hearing the rap influences and some of the more modern things in his approach to recording and producing.

So, I think it's going to be a fun band to get to know, and to get to know Tim and Scott a little bit and hopefully just absorb what I can from them. It may influence me in a certain way, it may not, but again, I know it'll be enlightening in whatever way it proves to be.

LD: He’s digitally intuitive. LOL, I'm mechanical to the point that… I shave every brace on my acoustic guitars by hand until it sounds right, but I like new approaches.

Andy: Ha, exactly. I always think back to the old Phil Hartman character. “I'm a caveman, you know … ”

You know, we have our ways. It's all beautiful. It's just the way we grew up and the way we achieve what we're hearing, and how we get out what we want to get out. Embracing modern technology is not going to be the worst thing a caveman can learn.

LD: Look at what The Beatles were doing in the 60s. it was very cutting edge and experimental then. One day they were playing American Music in Hamburg bars, and within a few years they’re adding musique concrète, cutting pieces of tape up, running them backwards into POP songs. I feel it’s all the same thing.

Andy: Ha-ha, my favorite thing to point out is that "Love Me Do" was from 1962, and what you're talking about, "Tomorrow Never Knows," with those tape loops, was in 1966. That's in just four years! I mean, "Strawberry Fields" was written in ’66, and they recorded in late ’66, early ’67. Are you kidding me? Talk about explosive growth and expansion. They were just absorbing so much, you know?

LD: Absolutely.

Andy: Mind boggling.

LD: There were so many influences going on during that period as well, everything from fashion, to film, to music. I just watched the documentary Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg and it does a good job connecting a lot of the dots.

Andy: Sure, sure, sure

LD: There were no rules.

Andy: It's music. There should be no guidelines, you know?

LD: I think it was Quincy Jones who said, “There's only two kinds of music: good music and bad music.”

Andy: Ha-ha, and then that's all down to taste, you know?

LD: And he had the perspective. He went from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson and tons of other artists and hits.

That said, back to your guitar. How long have you been using the roasted Maple necks?

Andy: Well, the Ibanez company started with the AZ line. So, I'm not sure. This particular neck is not roasted, it's just naturally aged. It's just dirty and it was originally unfinished.

The guitar that this was based on was just parts, a Strat-style guitar that Kramer had made for me before they went out of business. It could have been Schecter, I'm not really sure what the parts were, but it's just an unfinished narrow shoulder, you know, vintage Fender neck. I did have an early prototype before they went to doing the roasted full time.

I had them build one for me just because I didn't like the look of a brand new Maple neck, it just looked so white compared to what I've been playing. It's like, can you just darken this up somehow? So, my timeline's not going to be accurate here. But when they went that direction, I embraced it because I thought it worked great in my vintage Fender style guitar that I love.

LD: We all were experimenting because neither Fender nor Gibson were building the guitars that we wanted, and guitar players started tinkering.

Andy: Right.

LD: When CBS got control of Fender, things headed in the wrong direction. It seemed that the corporate bean counters were calling all the shots and things only continued to get worse. I’ve worked a ton of good Fender and Gibson’s from the 50s but by 65, they were losing both the feel and the sound, and they weren’t doing anything new.

I compared everything, for example, a Strat bridge pickups to Les Paul Jr bridge pickups for solos. The P90 had warmth and sweetness, and it left the Strat bridge pickup in the dust. I started rebuilding my Strat pickups, thickening up the bottom end, rounded off the top and got about a third more output from the pickup as well. One of my goals was that it had to fit in the in the guitar so you could always return the guitar to factory stock if you wanted. Fender should have been listening to what guitar players wanted. I made different pickups for each position (bridge, middle, and neck) and although I liked the vintage Strat neck pickups for rhythms and R&B, the other pickups weren’t working for me.

Andy: Yeah, right.

LD: LOL, by the time you got to the bridge it was unusable, or you had to change all the settings on the amp and that didn’t make sense to me.

Andy: That is the struggle, isn't it?

LD: Exactly, so I fattened up the Strat bridge pickup, which gave me the tone I was looking for, and ultimately led to the Super Distortion®.

We know that the corporate takeovers of both Gibson and Fender led to changes being made, and that cheap was the driving force. They were casting Strat bridges, using thick polyurethane finishes, Gibson was gluing all the scrap wood together for bodies, and all of that was destroying the tone. I was buying and selling 50s Gibson’s and Fenders at the time, and they were inspirational, as opposed to working too hard to get the guitar to sound okay.

Andy: Ha, trying to beat the tone out of it.

LD: Exactly.

Andy: And having to work harder to get there.

LD: Yeah, who needs to fight the guitar when you’re there to play a show?

Looking at at the seventies in hindsight, the failure of Gibson and Fender created all the 70s guitar companies. It’s four schools of guitar thought. San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Each having a different approach to the guitar building, and they were players.

Starting with San Francisco, you had Alembic with built in electronics, and Stars Guitars brass parts … Then there were the hot rod Super Strat and completely modern body designs coming from Neil Moser at BC Rich out of the Los Angeles area. Dean and Hamer reinventing the V’s and Explorer’s, and New York had me, all about the pickups, the Guitar Lab, and a few other small builders … eventually Spector and Steinberger breaking in with new body shapes. Everyone was using DiMarzio pickups for a new sound.

The birthplace of the Super Strat was centered around Wayne Charvel’s shop and southern California. Wayne was making bodies, DiMarzio was supplying the pickups and by ’76, Floyd Rose launched his locking bridge. Everything was adaptable and made to fit Strat bodies.

Andy: Exactly.

LD: We were all thinking the same thing, Stratocaster body, trem, and a humbucker in the bridge position for solos. The Super Strat wasn’t invented by Fender. It was a creation of players and the access to the raw parts to build a better guitar. Phil Collen told me when he and Eddie Van Halen were talking guitars and Eddie told him that one of his tone secrets was to put a humbucker in the bridge position of a Strat.

Andy: Yeah, yeah. There you go.

LD: Look at your guitar.

Andy: So, is there a decidedly, like, “first guy” to do that? Who was the first guy to just rip out the bridge pickup and put a humbucker in?

LD: I asked Karl Sandoval (he worked at Wayne’s shop at the time), “Who built the first Super Strat”? He said he wasn’t sure but George Lynch, Eddie, Randy Rhodes, and the whole southern California guitar scene were all influencing each other. Personally, I feel that Eddie really made it popular because everyone wanted his sound.

Andy: You know, for sure. It's interesting you bring George Lynch's name up because of course I was familiar with Dokken, am a huge fan of his playing, and I've gotten to be around him a couple times. There was a camp that Paul Gilbert did several years ago, and George Lynch was one of the other featured teachers, along with me, Greg Howe, and just a really great a bunch of folks. I guess it was close enough for George, because he brought in his own rig. Just some old Marshall stuff and some pedals strewn around. It really struck me.

It's like he grew up in that Van Halen time frame. He wasn't playing like him, but you could tell they were driven by the same thing. His playing is just truly remarkable, and the tones that he was getting, it was so real, raw, and of that period. It was so authentic. You know, it was beautiful to hear him out of whatever normal context you might be used to hearing him in, just kind of jamming with some other players. It was really brilliant.

I was so glad I got to witness that because I felt like, “Ah, that's that California thing.” Exactly what you were just speaking of, the guys hanging out in that shop, experimenting with those things. He was one of the founders of that next sonic development.

LD: Yeah, that’s it, from spandex to strange guitars, DiMarzio and Charvel was in the middle of the guitar parts chain at the beginning. We were all looking for that bigger than life sound, you know. Being from New York, It was a bit different, I was influenced by Leslie West, but that was a few years earlier in the end of the 60s.

Andy: Oh, man. Yeah.

LD: I got to spend some time with Leslie in the ’80s.

Andy: Wow. Right on.

LD: Yeah.

Andy: What a sound, my gosh. That was a lot of P90s, right? Wasn't he mostly on those Les Paul Juniors with P90s?

LD: Yeah. The Junior was home base during his Mountain period but anything he picked up sounded like Leslie.

Andy: Oh, there you go.

LD: I pick up the Telecaster that he was playing, and it sounded like a Telecaster. LOL

Andy: Oh, man, there had to be a moment to see that.

LD: Yeah. A lot of people have a sound in their head and it's a question of getting that sound out.

Sometime in 85, I invited Leslie to come to the Frankfurt Musikmesse (European NAMM) and demo at the DiMarzio booth. We built a sound room and while Leslie was on a break in this little kitchen — he loved Diet Coke — I was out in front of the booth talking to people. I get a tap on the shoulder. I turn around and this guy with a Scottish accent says to me, “Is Leslie here?” Being in my security mode, I said “Who can I say is looking for him”?

“Tell him it's Jack Bruce.” LOL, I was suddenly hearing "Tales of Brave Ulysses" in my head.

Andy: Wow. Nice.

LD: And I was like, holy shit it’s Jack Bruce! … “Yeah, I’ll go get him right away”.

Andy: Oh, yeah, that's a moment.

LD: I later learned that Jack and Leslie had not seen each other since West, Bruce, and Lang broke up but it quickly turned into … hugs and smiles. (see photo)

Andy: Ok. Wow.

LD: Leslie introduces me to Jack and invites him to play a song or two with him in the DiMarzio sound room. It was a small room, maybe fitting about 60 people standing and I hadn’t planned for a bass player or singer.

I quickly borrowed an amplifier for Jack, and Leslie was in the other amplifier, but no mic.

Leslie says to Jack, “Let’s go through a song or two before the people come in.” So now it's just me, Jack, and Leslie in this little room, and they do "Theme from An Imaginary Western."

Andy: Oh! That’s my absolute favorite composition of his.

LD: With no microphone.

Andy: Oh, man. But it was unloved, that song.

LD: It was one of my favorites and I just about wept; they were so good.

Andy: Wow. That's a moment. Holy crap.

LD: Talk about guys that got a sound.

Andy: Yeah, of course, of course. I got to see him. He did that tour opening for Satriani and they came through Dallas, and he had Corky Lang on drums and some younger bass player, but I was happy I got to see him because that's the only time I got to see him.

LD: Leslie could have easily done standup, and you never knew what was going come out of his mouth. It was totally improv and he and Corky together … were like two high school kids on drugs playing hooky. Check out this video with me and Leslie when you get a chance. He gives me a hard time and you get to see his humor.

Andy: It was like the big Long Island schtick the whole set. It was great. It was so fun.

LD: Yeah. Very, very New York.

Andy: Totally. That’s exactly how it was. A joy to witness, man, no doubt about it.

LD: Working on your new guitar, I know we're going to be pushing your new Ibanez guitar towards a more vintage Strat tone ... but more. Hyper-caster!

Andy: Exactly. That's going to be the goal. Let's see how vintage of a tone we can get, with the playability and stability that I require, and I am blessed to have a few old Strats to reference. The sound is remarkable, but I couldn't do a whole show. I can't rely on them, and I can't do everything that I need. So, I'm wanting everything. Larry, can I have everything?

LD: An Everything-caster, LOL. With the new sound and your original on stage that should cover anything you need. I know you’ve done a lot of work with pedals too. How many pedals have you helped design?

Andy: There's two. Well, there's three with Keeley, two different echoes. There's the Halo, the most successful. Now we have a stripped-down version called the Halo Core that was released in November 2024, but then they have a drive that they make for me called the MK3.

LD: I remember the drive unit.

Andy: Yeah, it's a Blues Driver, highly modified circuit. This is like the third iteration that's doing really well.

JHS also has my lead tone in a box, which is just called the AT+ pedal or the “@”. It is the clever little @ logo there. So those are the main ones.

I had a compressor with the Carl Martin company for quite a while, but things weren't going well with quality, and then they had to redo some things. I wasn't on board anymore. Unfortunately, I had to cease that one.

Robert Keeley's been one of my favorite collaborators, and they are three hours from me, over in Oklahoma City. So, for the Halo Echo that we developed, which has really been a great thing, we spent about a year and a half going back and forth to each other’s studios and did quite a bit of tone chasing. It was wonderful ’cause once we finally got there, it was worth it.

Now it was a selfish thing. This is just what I was hearing and what I really wanted, not knowing if it would catch on with other people. But it was, you know, that year, was a big chunk of their business.

LD: I think that your reverb/echo/delay sound is really just perfect for guitar.

Andy: Thank you, thank you. Well, like I say, it was based on what I love about the EP3 tape echo, the Memory Man, the Electro Harmonix, all kind of chasing a similar thing. It was kind of an amalgamation of what we love about all these things, and to see if we can get it into this one sound, and they knocked it out of the park.

I was using the Strymon, which was doing a good job of kind of getting it.I called it 90 percent. It was really, really, good, but I knew it could be better, and I didn't need it to do all that. Like, the Strymon does 1000 things. It's wonderful, but I'm using one, or maybe two sounds. Let's just get that sound in the best iteration that we could, and it was so worth it. And they were so happy to go down the path.

It's one of those things where when we first started working, I think they thought, well, maybe, we've got this new unit called the ECCOS, and it was their new platform with a new chip they were using. They thought maybe we'll have to mod a couple of things. Once we got in a room together, we realized, okay, maybe we're a lot farther apart here, but once I saw that they were enjoying the process, it was easy to keep going.

Then it's like when you're in the studio, like how far is this engineer willing to go with me to get it to that point. When there's that room and that willingness, the sky's the limit, you know, and time's not an issue.

Really, we're all in a business. At some point we must figure out a way of paying the bills, but there was never that thought of like, oh, this is taking too much time and money. It just was what it was. That's why I mean, in my Danger Danger years to experience as many great things as I got to experience, because it was a certain level of success without being huge. But we did a lot of fun tours, you know, got into great debt like any band would do. But just seeing the corporate thing that the label industry was at that time just made me realize this has nothing to do with what I thought I wanted.

LD: Right

Andy: You think growing up being in this band and being on a major label, it really was the Holy Grail. But then you know, when I really got into the eye of that hurricane and saw the machinations, man, I realized that the artist and the art really aren't that important here, or aren’t important at all.

When it gets down to it, I thought, I just want to make the music that I want to make, to do what I love. And if I do well, great, and just try to become a better player. And from that time, that's how I've guided the rest of my career. Kind of anti, you know, what the normal thinking should be. Well, you've got to tour all the time and make this amount of money and sell, sell, sell.

Well, that's one way of doing it. And I have a lot of friends that that's what they do, but there's other ways, you know, and I'm still here and getting to make the music that I truly want to make and working with great people and great companies that care about the things that I care about. It's not always about the bottom line. It's not always about the bean counters, like you mentioned, Larry, there's some integrity left out there.

These are the people that I'm really blessed to be surrounded by, and I'm very honored by that, and you are part of that circle. You know, I don't take it lightly that you're willing to work with me, and Steve Blucher and the great team at DiMarzio to try to get to the bottom of what is this thing that you're after? You know, that thing I can't tell you with words. We're going to have to go through the process of finding these sounds, and doing these minute tweaks that we all know can make that extra little difference.

LD: I'm so glad that you want to put in the time and are looking to make further improvements on your new guitar and continue refining your sound. I’m happy to be a part of that journey and I’m proud that you want to work with me.

Andy: It's just beautiful. And what a valuable piece of the sonic quest that you are on at that moment, you know, and I've been blessed to have people locally here that are that guy for me. So, for your folks in New York to have you, especially in those days when this wasn't a usual thing. Somebody's ready to get in there and rewire that pickup and try new things on their guitar to try to improve it.

That continual quest to just get something just a bit better. You know?

LD: Yeah

Andy: It's such a wonderful thing. That is why we can sit here today, after all these years, and still be excited about it: because we know that the improvements are always possible. As a musician, as an artisan, as a technician, whatever it might be that drives your passion.

What a great thing to know that “Okay, I can try again tomorrow, today…” And it can be better. And I want to learn, I want to grow, you know?

LD: I like that, and it’s the same for me.

Andy: What was I going on about? One too many coffees.

LD: Love my coffee.

Andy: Yeah, there you go there you go. That’s a beauty.

LD: Why does Andy Timmons play guitar?

Andy: That’s a deep one because again, it's been my whole life. I just remember, at the very youngest age, just being fascinated with the sound, and being fascinated with the look of the guitar. You know, my brother's buying all the ’60s pop and rock records, all the British Invasion things. And they were just looking at the guitars that the Herman’s Hermits were holding and on the double sleeve greatest hits, or of course, all The Beatles stuff and the Dave Clark 5, those great covers, playing those Fender strats and basses.

So, with this entire life of loving and playing the guitar.It also became very much an emotional refuge for me. I was a shy kid growing up and my folks split when I was young. So, I had a lot of time alone. My mom was working. My record collection, which was all hand-me-downs from my brothers. Once I got my first job when I was 13, I bought my first electric guitar at Goldman's pawn shop for $12.99.

Even though I've been playing the government issue, Silvertone acoustics that most families seemed to have in their households in the ’60s. Guitar just really became my place to go, to get out whatever I wanted to express, because like I said, I was shy. I had plenty of friends or whatever, but just kind of kept to myself and just felt like that was my real place for emotional outlet and expression.

And of course, the more you do it, the more you find that, boy, this really is part of me. It's hard to imagine life without that level of connection with something. Starting with music in general.

LD: You know why that is?

Andy: I don't know, maybe because my older brothers were my kind of my male role model heroes and they were all into music, and all dabbled in guitar. So, I think my wanting to do it might have been partially driven by wanting to impress my brothers, or fitting in with what they thought was cool.

At this point in my life, now that I'm sixty-one, it's always just really been my way of expression, and a place to feel things, whatever it might be, the joys, the highs, the lows, everything in between. And in finding ways, through that time of expressing that with my instrument, and being drawn to those like we talk about. Jeff Beck – because of how he kept evolving and how he kept expressing more on a deeper level, continually throughout his trajectory. And, you know, I thought he had another 20 years to go. I really did. It's so sad we've lost him at a relatively young age, but it's like I can't imagine my life without that. I'm so blessed to have had the guitar and music in my life. It's certainly has saved me many times and continues to do so. 

So, if people resonate with my music on some of those levels, then that's the ultimate gratitude that I could possibly feel.It's just that I'm giving back what music has given to me. Whoever it may be for, that's a very humbling but very gratifying kind of thing.

LD: I came to music early and was a hippie college student. We thought music and the youth movement was going to change the world.

Andy: Yeah

LD: I was raised in a traditional Italian American household, so I was torn between the two cultures … and in rebellion against everything. The schools weren’t teaching music in a real way, the Vietnam war was raging … it was time for a rethink.

Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LD: Artists and musicians were my people, you know. I think we were all looking for a new America. I think you and I share a lot of that experience, and we’re totally blessed that we can do what we do. It got me from New York to Montana … And that's because of the music and guitars. When people support the company like you, that makes it even more important.

I’ve got another question.

Andy: Sure!

LD: What's your daily musical routine? How many hours a day do you practice?

Andy: Well, the crazy thing about that … It’s a common question to anybody wanting to learn more about a player and what their path has been. I was never a great practicer, but I always played. They are different in a way, but one kind of being a version of it.

So, I just grew up playing with my records and learning enough, getting shown a bar quarter two and learning how to shift that around.

And you've got rock'n'roll. So, I would figure things out along the way, but it was never like a discipline thing. But then as I started to grow and I started playing professionally at 13, 14, in different bands and it became clear that guitar was going to be my life.

When I was 16, I started taking lessons from a local teacher in Evansville, Indiana who was teaching me to read music, even though I was a solid rock player at that point, he was teaching me about jazz. And some of his favorite players were Barney Kessel and Joe Pass. I would just work hard enough to make sure I did well for each lesson. I was a classical major for two years at the University of Evansville, which is my hometown in Indiana. Again, got by just enough. Didn't really like to practice ’cause it wasn't rock'n'roll.

I got to Miami, and I was a jazz guitar major there for a couple years. That’s where I got a bit more into the practice thing, in that there was a lot of theoretical information, a lot of chord scales being thrown at me. So, I was getting more into that. But then I leave school, and life and a career happen. There was just never really a regular practice regimen.

Years go by, and I’ve told the story a couple times, but it's quite substantial. Pat Metheny was going to be doing a guitar camp. This goes back maybe 15 years ago or so. Of course, I'd studied a lot of jazz and played a good amount of jazz, and it really informs the way that I play music in general. Even when considering my rock stuff, I sound the way I sound, not because I've only listened to rock'n'roll, but because I've really taken in quite a bit of different music, but particularly jazz. And from jazz, you know, learning how to navigate chord changes. That's a big part, voice leading, how to get through this sometimes-complicated harmony.

So, Pat Metheny was going to do a camp. And I thought, well, I knew the guy that was going to be putting it on. It was expensive.

I thought, maybe I can barter and offer to do some master classes for this guy's event, and he said, “Yeah, sure. Just come.” So, I was instantly excited and terrified because I thought I'm going to play in front of Pat Metheny. Better not suck.

LD: Ha-ha.

Andy: He's likely not impressed with many other guitar players, and so I just thought, well, I better start practicing. So, I just started every morning. I'm going to get up first thing of the day, and I'm going to practice jazz standards for an hour. It was really difficult, Larry, because I was hearing myself really suck at something that maybe I'd been pretty good at one time.

LD: Right.

Andy: But jazz is one of those things … if you're not doing it on the regular, like exercising muscle groups. If you don't always do it, it's going to take a while to get back to where you were. So, I'm playing every day. I find a friend of mine that lives in town and we started getting together, you know, a couple times a week. We had the standard of the week club, and we're going to pick a jazz standard, and learn as many different versions as we could. I had like nine months before this camp, and after a few weeks, it was all right, a couple months go by, three months go by, and then I start to really recognize something happening.

LD: Right.

Andy: I was getting back into the mindset of when I was in school, when I was in Miami, and if I wasn't in class with some great faculty and curriculum, I was with my buddy. “Hey, I got, I got an hour, let's go sit and play,” or I was playing six nights a week in a Top 40 band where I'd be playing my Charlie Parker lines over Madonna songs.

I was three months into this, and I started to recognize, okay, I'm sorry. I was starting to see that improvement, but I also recognized what it was doing to my spirit. It's like this is what my life really is about, the pursuit of that improvement. I kept on doing that practice, and the funny thing was that the camp fell through. It didn't even happen. Something went squirrely. There was a bankruptcy, or … I don't know what happened, but I don't think the camp ever happened.

LD: Pat heard that you were practicing.

Andy: Ha-ha! No, he did not. He would have gone, “Yeah, good. Nice try, kid.” Yeah, so the camp did not end up happening, but I'd already benefited from the camp. Just that simple thought of, “What if I'm to play in front of one of my heroes?” 

So, I know that's a very long answer, but I like telling that story because it was something that didn't even happen. All I had to do was think about playing in front of my hero, and it's changed my life. What it did was it encouraged me to work harder than I was. I was still playing all the time, and I was recording my music and doing my thing. All fine, all just fine. But once I got back into the mentality of being the student, I became a happier person, because in that action, I was honoring whatever gift that I'd been given, whether there's any natural talent or not. It's truly a gift that I get to do this, and I don't take that lightly.

Somehow people think well enough of me that I get to do this by virtue of all the gigs that I do, or whatever gear that I'm involved with, or records that I'm making, or whatever it might be. You know, it truly is a blessing. If I'm honoring that on a higher level by trying to get better and trying to do well, so I can just be a better player, a better writer, a better musician. I was becoming lighter as a person. I was happier. So, there's a good lesson for me to hear myself tell. 

But the short answer could have been, “I practice at least an hour first thing every day.” I still do that every morning. I get my coffee, and there's a great app I have called iReal. I can play any standard and then improvise and just play for an hour. Within that time, I might transcribe a line or two as well.

That's another important pursuit, the ear training. So if I just pick an artist, like today it's been Wes Montgomery, I'll go through a few Wes Montgomery lines I've never played and see if I can dig it out with my ear. I can slow it down if I need to, so those simple things … just by regularly doing it, you know, what is the word for that?

Just being consistent is what I'm trying to say. Being consistent with the application of that effort. You can find the time to do it. So, then whatever the rest of the day is, it could be all day with a guitar in my hands, it could be no time, you know.

LD: Yeah

Andy: You've got all these other things that have to do with whatever it is that I'm doing. So that's my favorite Charlie Watts quote. Somebody asked Charlie Watts at some point in his later adult life. “So, what is it that you do all day?” He goes, “Well, I'm not sure what it is, but it takes me all day to do it.”

LD: Ha-ha.

Andy: It could be, you know, but I guarantee you, its music related. It's either with my career or whatever it might be because people have asked me many times, like what hobbies do you have? I'm like, I kind of just go to a concert. I collect records. It's just kind of music centric. I do like to go for walks, hiking, but anyway, that's me in a nutshell. And it's all guitar related at some point.

But if I get that hour in, man, I'm happy.

LD: I thought it would be a fun question to ask you because during COVID, I started practicing again.

Andy: Nice.

LD: I haven’t played a gig since 1975, you know. Without a band it’s not the same and I missed playing live. I haven’t thought about this in quite a while.

Andy: Never too late, brother. That's right. Get in there.

LD: Ha-ha.

Andy: Well, it's amazing what that time period afforded some folks, as horrible as it was, but there was a lot of recalibrations and there was a lot of stories of folks like yourself getting back into playing some music where they hadn't had the time or attention, you know, to focus on it.

So how did that go? Are you still playing?

LD: You know, I slowed down practicing because running DiMarzio in a post-COVID world gets takes a lot of my time. I’m trying to squeeze some back or I’ll lose my callouses. Sorry to say my playing gets squeezed to the side, but it's like right brain and left brain are in conflict.

Andy: Yeah, of course.

LD: Running a factory from Montana is like wrangling kittens.

Andy: Yay. Exactly. I know.

LD: So, you know, some of it works, some of it doesn't.

I want to get back into playing. When I was practicing, I found myself going back to old music. Maybe good, maybe bad, you know, like, “Gee, I really need to learn how to play 'Sunshine or Your Love' exactly the way Clapton did” (even though he never seemed to play it the same way twice) or to play "Wind Cries Mary" like Hendrix. 

Andy: This is the juice. I mean, I start with vintage, and I keep going further back. It's whatever inspires you. Like I said, I'm transcribing Wes this last week. I mean, yeah, there's a lot more modern players and what not, but that's what I love to hear. Let me just get some of that. You know, it just every little bit you get, it inspires all these other things.

LD: Wes Montgomery was the first person I ever heard play octaves. Then it was all over a lot of my favorite Jimi Hendrix songs. Everything was influencing everything, and the jazz influence can overlay onto anything.

Andy: Anything, it’s beautiful, man, but good. I'm glad. There will be a test next time I see you on "Sunshine of Your Love." We'll see how you've done.

LD: Exactly. I’ve got a few more questions.

Andy: Good, ’cause I’ve got to pack!

LD: Oh, God.

Andy: I'm off to Lima, Peru. Good Lord.

LD: By the way, you might find this funny. John Petrucci and John Myung used to challenge each other to practice five hours a day.

Andy: Oh my God. Yeah.

LD: If you didn't play five hours a day. They’d give each other a hard time. You weren't living up to your commitment, the Dream Theater, you know, potential.

Andy: The beautiful thing is that everybody's got their path, and you just have to find what works for you, you know? But again, I was never that.

Steve Vai famously had some kind of 10-hour workout kind of thing. With these players that we're mentioning, of course, the results are obvious, but I must find my own path. Everybody must find their own path. Of what works, you know, whatever lifestyle they choose to lead. That's the beauty. But I don't know, I don’t think I’ve ever practiced 10 hours in one day. That’s a lot.

LD: The last question is you're always very melodic, and it's almost like you'll play a lick, and then I would think it ended, and then you've got some more stuff to come at me.

Andy: Modus operandi. I really try to make a conscious effort to breathe when I play just so I don't do all these run-on sentences. Sometimes that's just the way it comes out. But yeah, I like a good melody.

You know, it's just basically guitar as a speed competition. It's not to say it is a competition, because the shreddy technique is wonderfully fun to do and to listen to, but after a while it's going to be a little bit too much. So, the music that I've always tended to listen to, be it instrumental or pop, you know, it's just going to have a nice melody.

I think that's why Satriani and Jeff Beck before him really did so well, because there were great songs. There was cool tunes and Joe just really understood how to write, and still does write, great songs that really appeal to guitar maniacs, but also have that great, you know, musical appeal.

So, it's still what I'm trying to do. I really enjoy the process of writing. Solos can be composed, or a lot of times they're improvised, just depending if I get lucky on the first couple of takes that are improvised. I might take the time to compose one if I'm not getting what I want naturally, you know, spontaneously.

It was a wonderful quote that I heard from the great jazz piano player Bill Evans, who was being interviewed. It's a short documentary film called The Universal Mind of Bill Evans, but it was hosted by Steve Allen, the comedian. Probably back from the ’50s and ’60s.

So, he hosts it and Bill Evans’ brother Harry, who was a jazz educator in Baton Rouge, is interviewing his brother Bill about the process of playing jazz, and he's talking about improvisation versus composition. He says that improvisation is a minute's music in a minute's time because it's fresh. It's in the moment, but a minute's music compositionally can be, you know, a minute's music can take a year to compose. To me, it really is the same thing. If you're improvising something, I think we're truly just trying to play what we really want to hear.

LD: Right

Andy: But be it a shreddy moment, being a melodic moment. I think we're just trying to get out what we love, what we really want to hear. It's initially very selfish. It's very much based on what is it that really turns me on in that moment What's going to be the right thing?

A song is the same thing. It's like, what can I do to express this in the strongest possible way? Now I might try it 100, 200 hundred different ways in that process compositionally, where in the improvised moment, you have just that moment.

And sometimes it all comes together and it's beautiful, but it really is the same thing. As I mentioned, the auralect, this idea of the collection of things we have in our musical memory that we draw upon for that improvisational moment or that compositional moment. To me, it's very much the same thing, at least the same desires there, just trying to get that beautiful thing out, whatever it is, whatever energy that's correct for that moment.

LD: There's this wonderful video of you and Paul Gilbert jamming together.

Andy: Was it the Sweetwater thing?

LD: Yeah, I think that's like what you've just talked about, right there in full, living color.

Andy: You know, I so greatly appreciate you bringing that up. I agree that's a really fun moment ’cause he and I are very similar in the things that we love. And of course, he's one of the greatest joys to be around as a human being.

The back story to that video: I just landed in Fort Wayne. I was doing some promo for Keeley. They call me in the car.

“Hey Andy, Paul's here ’cause they just recorded the new Mr. Big album. He's already set up and wants to jam. Are you ready?” We had like a 6:00 AM flight. We're just getting in. So, I get in there. He's all set up and I've got to put tubes in my amp. I'm doing all this, and I sit down, we start playing and it's incredible. We just flow. We have this moment.

They weren't recording. That moment is not what you're seeing. I sat down and it was truly a magical moment, and we get done playing and they go, “Ok, you guys about ready?” I'm like, “you weren't recording that?”, you know, so what you see is take two. I said to Paul after that, I said, “Paul, I can't believe that they didn't record.” And he goes, “Yeah, that's ok. We know how good we sounded.”

LD: So characteristically, Paul.

Andy: Yeah, it is.

LD: That's one of my things. I mean, you can always throw it away, but if you don't have it, you don't have it.

Andy: Of course. You know, the people in the room were so aware of what had just happened, and it wasn't recorded.

So that, you know, I very tactfully and politely at the end of the session underscored what you just said. It's always better just to record everything ’cause you don't know what's going to happen. And it's not like we're worried about tape. It's like, we got the storage here, folks. So, it was a good teachable moment. And it's still quite enjoyable ’cause we still had a good time. That's the back story to that one.

Good Lord.

LD: Well, you're going to have to pack.

In closing, we'll send you out some email stuff.

I think we got some solid stuff.

Andy: Thank you.