CREEM SHOWCASE

STEVE STEVENS: BR�ER IDOL�S GUITAR BABY

CREEM SHOWCASE

Dan Hedges

�I always had this thing about the �struggling musician,�� Steve Stevens says, taking five during a photo session in New York. �I was always terrified of that. Still am. I didn�t want to fail. I never minded the thought of being poor at doing something, but I didn�t want to fail at it.�

Mind you, there�s no unemployment line in Our Steve�s immediate future. No way. We�re talking guitar hero here; a man in demand, with a swell wardrobe to match. Even his hair looks successful. Working with everyone from the Thompson Twins to Ron Wood while continuing to man the frets for Billy Idol (most conspicuously on the latter�s new album, Whiplash Smile), Stevens has been working flat out these past 12 months. The Jewish kid from Queens turned Whirling Dervish. ��His Royal Hairness,� as his equipment man likes to say. Playing guitar that sounds exactly the way he looks: fast, flash, and flapping in a hot wired wind tunnel at 600 miles an hour.

He even gets more than his two cents in when it comes to the creation of the instruments he plays. On Whiplash Smile, much of the fretwork is done on the new Hamer ��Steve Stevens� model, which the guitarist co-designed with company co-founder Jol Dantzig. The link with Hamer actually goes back seven years, when Stevens was in a band called the Fine Malibus and caught the ear of Paul Stanley of Kiss. Stanley was using Hamers, put the then-unknown guitarist in touch with the firm, and though the Malibus (along with tracks laid down with Stones producer Jimmy Miller at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas) have vanished into the mists of time, the brand remains Stevens�s guitars-of-choice.

In planning the SS model, he remembers wanting a small, Les Paul Junior-style body �because I�m a small person. I don�t look good with a Stratocaster. I wanted a guitar with a tremolo system that would stay in tune, and that would enable me to get different sounds, rather than have to switch to a Telecaster for a clean sound and to a Les Paul for something dirty. The back portion of the guitar is like a Les Paul. It has a Humbucker pickup. The front portion is like a Stratocaster, with two single-coil pickups. I took all the existing �right� things I like about guitars and put them into one.�

In addition to several production-line instruments, Stevens owns several variations on the theme. The original SS prototype (dubbed the PacMan and sporting a �Barney Rubble� paint job, so-called because the jagged graphic resembles the hem of the Flintstone character�s shirt) is fitted with an old non-fine-tuning Floyd Rose tremolo. Then there�s the AsSeen-At-Live Aid �Raygun,� a black metal-flake item that incorporates one of the toy ray guns Stevens has collected on his travels. The pickups on both one-ofa-kind guitars are two Seymour Duncan APs-1s in the middle and neck positions and a JB/Holdsworth at the bridge. Strings on all his electrics are nickel Fender 150 XLs. For picks, he prefers medium gauge Ernie Balls or D�Andrea 351s.

Amp-wise, Stevens sticks with Marshalls for gigging—either two new JCM 800s, a venerable late �60s EL34, or a Mark II. All are beefed up with a Vari-ac, which boosts the voltage from a pristine 80 volts to a threshold-of-pain 140. A selfconfessed gadget freak, he carted two pedalboards on stage during the Rebel Yell tour. The first contained switches for his digital delay gear (a rack comprised of two Lexicon PCM41s) and for kicking in repeat/hold functions, enabling him to hit a note, hold it, and pile additional fretwork on top. The second board was equipped with mostly Boss effects: CE-2 chorus, OC-2 octaver, CS-2 compressor, PV-1 Rocker volume pedal, and a Pro-Co Rat distortion unit. Also on tap was a Cry Baby wah, Roland SDE-3000 delay, a Roland SRE-555 echo/reverb/chorus (for use with his Roland GR-700 synth), Roland Dimension D chorus, and an Eventide H999 harmonizer. Rounding things out was a Boss GE-10 graphic equalizer.

With all the pricey paraphernalia on the market, there�s the question of where the musicianship stops and the electronics take over. As Stevens points out, �The trick is to make your use of the effects really deliberate, and design the part you want to play around the effect. You don�t just say, �I�ve found this great sound, and I�m just going to stick it anywhere. Doesn�t matter what the singer is singing. Doesn�t matter what�s happening lyrically.� You have to find the right part for that sound. You use the sound to enhance what�s being said lyrically.�

Working in the studio, however, he initially plugs straight into a single 100-watt Marshall head and 4x12 cabinet. Once he�s laid down the rhythm and feel he�s after, he�ll overtrack appropriate segments using his arsenal of effects. �I have all this stuff mainly because of the changes that happen during the live show,� he explains. �And fortunately, I can afford to have it. But all you really need is an echo machine or one digital delay, which have gotten relatively inexpensive. Rather than buy a whole slew of effects, get yourself a good digital delay, which can do a lot of different things.�

Growing up an hour from Manhattan in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, Stevens was originally drawn to music simply because it was �something to occupy my brain.� An uncle down the street had a piano, and since Stevens recalled seeing Jerry Lee Lewis putting one through its paces on TV, �the first thing I did on his piano was bang my forehead against the keys.� He laughs. �They had to put three stitches in my head. So I knew the piano wasn�t for me.�

His dad, however, brought home a cheap nylon-string acoustic—which fit in perfectly with the local musical climate. Stevens recalls that he was never into sports, �but music was a really important part of the local community. My neighbor around the corner was Phil Ochs, and his sister Sunny gave guitar lessons. All Phil�s relatives lived around there, so folk music was a big thing. I had an older brother who was into the �60s thing—fuck war and all—and the guitar appealed to me because you could take it out to the schoolyard at night. In the Boy Scouts, we used to do Phil Ochs songs around the campfire. With piano, what are you going to do? Get your friends to come over and stand around while you do Cole Porter?�

The influence of the local folkies, coupled with the nylon string guitar, meant that classical music made an early entrance. �My dad liked classical music,� Stevens says. �He also liked Dave Brubeck and all those bossa nova things. Stan Getz and �Girl From Ipanema.� I learned how to play that real early.�

A local piano teacher taught him basic theory, enough to let him pretend to sightread Bach when auditioning for New York�s High School of Music and Art. Even for a future rocker, though, the classical phase had its value. �You get a real sense of accomplishment with classical guitar,� he says. �It�s a whole orchestra in itself, because the treble and bass parts are written independently. You can sound like Segovia if you learn the piece properly, whereas with a George Benson thing, playing on your own without a drummer and bass player doesn�t sound right. Classical guitar gives you a sense of arrangement, of independent melodies against chord patterns because you can play five different strings at once. Playing with a pick, you can only strum or play one-note lines. I use a pick now, of course, but a lot of stuff I do is fingerpicking as well—like the beginning of �Rebel Yell� and �Flesh For Fantasy.��

�I think the challenge of having Billy looking over my shoulder is a healthy one.�

High school for Stevens was shortlived. Getting his first electric guitar at age 13, he was restless to cut loose. Kissing school goodbye barely a year before graduation, he vanished into the Lower Manhattan music scene of the early �70s, where people like the Dolls, Television, and the pre-Blondie Deborah Harry and Chris Stein were turning the seedy Mercer Arts Center into a stronghold of anti-mainstream rock.

�A lot of those people really couldn�t play very well,� Stevens says. ��But in New York, you either played down there or had a massive PA system and played in a cover band. I didn�t have a massive PA, and didn�t really want to play Beatles or Hot Tuna songs, so....�

He sat out the era in a band called Elixir, whose musical forte could best be described at Split Enz-meets-Genesis. ��There were a lot of progressive bands who were part of that scene,� he remembers. ��But they never got any recognition because they weren�t punk. I never played in a punk group, but I saw it as an outlet for live music, where you weren�t dependent on having the best gear around. You didn�t have to be rich or have a manager. I came from a family where I was well-protected. Mom went off to work, and I had nice clothes. Didn�t have to struggle too much. I knew that in order to prepare myself to be serious about what I wanted to do, I had to move out of the house and live a bit rougher than I was used to.�

If every guitarist needs a mentor, Stevens had found his in Steve Howe, who was then playing with Yes. ��Howe was the best I�d ever heard. Still is. He�s the only guitarist who�s consistently incorporated different styles. He played ragtime. Played jazz. He was the first to use all these influences I heard as a kid. I heard Dave Brubeck in him. I heard Bartok. And he still sounded like himself. I think that if a guitarist doesn�t have influences deeper than what he�s doing, there�s no longevity.�

When Stevens first crossed paths with Billy Idol during the early �80s, both were late-night denizens of the New York club scene. Idol (having split from native Britain discouraged by lack of support for his old band Generation X) was scouting for musicians. Stevens agreed to help in the search. In the process, both found a certain common musical ground in their love for Lou Reed, inevitably joined forces, and in the years since have collaborated on one EP and three albums: Billy Idol, Rebel Yell, and now Whiplash Smile.

From Howe to Idol is a fair jump, a point Stevens agrees with. ��Billy opened me up to groups like Suicide, which was two people—and that�s basically what it is with us. He and I. We listened to Suicide�s keyboard player, Marty Rev, and that�s how I found those staccato rhythms that I use a lot. That �Rebel Yell,� �White Wedding� sort of thing, which is kind of a Bo Diddley derivative-gone-Suicide.�

It�s Idol who keeps Stevens�s more grandiose axe hero pretensions in check. �If I�m putting a solo down and Billy�s going to come in and listen, I�m forced to put down something memorable,� he says. �Something that after he listens to it once, he�ll go, �Yeah, I know what that is.� When I was with other groups, I didn�t really have to impress anybody. There was no challenge there, so I think the challenge of having Billy looking over my shoulder is a healthy one.�

But in the end, Stevens reckons it�s songs—not the guitar—that occupy his interest nowadays. ��I don�t really dedicate much time to being �the guitarist� because I�m more of a songwriter now,� he says. ��I spend more time listening to great songs, things like Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes. Even Burt Bacharach. I don�t really listen much to guitarists anymore. Haven�t been excited about a guitarist in a long time, but I still get excited about music. There�s more to music than guitars and riffs. I mean, Hendrix wrote great songs, he wasn�t just a great guitarist. And that�s what I�m trying to do.� a

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUITARS

Store-bought guitars never satisfied Jol Dantzig or Steve Stevens. ��I ended up building my own guitar to suit my needs as a musician,� Dantzig says. Eventually he became cofounder of Chicago-based Hamer Guitars, a leading manufacturer in custom-built instruments in the U.S. Dantzig is also responsible for the designing, building and repair work on all of Steve Stevens�s guitars: the �trademark� sounds you hear from Stevens are the result of a collaboration between the two.

Initially, Stevens wanted to combine sounds of the Les Paul and Stratocaster guitars. Since then, Stevens has explored an arsenal of technology...and those guitars keep on changing.

�Steve is constantly searching for new sounds and new ways of doing things to a guitar,� Dantzig says. "And he doesn�t get attached to any one particular guitar, either. He will always move on to something different with no problem if it sounds better and more of what he wants.� When Stevens first started playing Hamer, he used a stock model, and wanted various colors, particularly pink. Now audiences see him play flourescent, striped and even a sea-foam green axe that glows blue in the dark (on the Ray Gun model). The stock model was continuously being redesigned and updated to meet Stevens�s specifications, that it eventually became known as the �Steve Stevens Model.�

And while Stevens doesn�t rely on special effects— prefering the sound of a straight guitar—-it�s obvious that he utilizes them. His equipment includes a 1960�s Clyde McCoy wah-wah pedal, made in Italy (and used by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton) which he uses on Whiplash Smile. It provides a sound different than anything available on the market today.

He also uses Roland Digital Delays, an Echo Reverb, Dimension D Chorus, a harmonizer and three or four program delays in his rack. In addition to all that, Stevens splits his signal—to a Rock-Man for a clean chorus sound and to the P.A. system. �When Steve speaks in sound and musical terms, I am able to translate that into mechanical terms,� says Dantzig of Stevens�s more complicated techniques.

Stevens uses a maple neck (originally mahogany), in the 1 5/8"-1 11/16" area, giving him a much brighter sound. The neck is flat and fairly small, a sort of disc shape—something like a half moon. He uses a 24 3/4" scale length which provides a big bottom roar, something you can�t get from a Strat, because of its longer scale. The action on the guitar is set at nine, with medium gauge strings. He uses a straight Marshall amp set-up, with 4x12 cabinets. Like the wah-wah pedal, his Marshall amps are from the �60s, similar in style to Eddie Van Halen�s. Stevens is always stepping the voltage up and down on his amps running it hotter...which can be dangerous and risks popping the transformer, but, �in search of that great sound, Steve will do anything.

�It is really a challenge working with Steve. He�s just never satisfied, which is good. Some people would be put off by not satisfying an artist, but we�re miles ahead of the game if this guy is always looking towards the next step,� says Dantzig.

Joanne Carnegie