Any closet rockers out there?

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 15 Mar 2014 6:09 pm

I'll admit, I really dig playing in a rock style, I think the steel is amazing for it. I am of the heavy metal/hard rock riff ilk, and with the right tone on the right guitar with the right tuning, it is magical. I swear someday I'll show you what I mean, and I will prepare for negative feedback when I do, but nevermind that.

So, who else among us has a propensity to rock out, but is keeping it under wraps? I've gotten plenty of unfavorable emails from people who think it's a joke to play anything other than traditional music on steel. One guy told me "Tiny Tim made money playing Tiptoe Through The Tulips and you're almost there."

I also dig playing funk and soul, and the steel is such a great instrument for it. I really worked hard to find the perfect tunings to enable me to play all this and the traditional sounding stuff on the same guitar. With some of the gigs I've been doing the last few years, we mostly play original music, but we also will do an I Walk The Line/War Pigs/Breathe/If You've Got The Money/Livin' Lovin' Maid type medley.

When it comes to music, my ears and mind are open to everything. And why the hell not? When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

Jean-Sebastien Gauthier · Post by **Jean-Sebastien Gauthier** » 15 Mar 2014 6:43 pm

I really love playing some stoner rock with my fuzz pedal using my low A string, some octave and harmonic minor scale. Steel is a very expressive instrument and this is for any style of music. I would like to hear more heavy metal with steel but the problem is that most of the time when you hear steel in rock music is played by a guitarist using a steel just for effect not knowing how to really play it well.

Jean-Sebastien Gauthier · Post by **Jean-Sebastien Gauthier** » 15 Mar 2014 6:44 pm

It would be great to hear you Mike in a rock or better in a heavy metal context!

Stephen Abruzzo · Post by **Stephen Abruzzo** » 15 Mar 2014 7:38 pm

I'm kind of in a similar vein.......electric blues, R&B, soul, classic rock. It runs around in my head. Especially a song where there is no slide or steel...and then "imagine" where you could put a line in.

About a year ago, somebody posted a YouTube clip of some guy playing steel to an AC/DC tune....it was great.

Michael Butler · Post by **Michael Butler** » 15 Mar 2014 7:56 pm

mike: if more people had your openmindedness, we would probably be hearing more pedal and lap steel in modern recordings. it is a musical instrument!!!

while i love the more traditional lap and pedal, i love playing in a rock vein. not so metalish, but perhaps closer to jeff healey(r.i.p.), who to me was a monster guitarist who played in a lap fashion.

play music!

Dom Franco · Post by **Dom Franco** » 15 Mar 2014 8:17 pm

I love to rock out... But I tailor my music to my audience. Most of the week I play for older folks, so I end up playing Swing and Jazz standards.

At church on Sunday I crank it up a notch, Sometimes adding distortion/ chorus/ delay/ and leslie effects for our contemporary worship music services.

When I play concerts for younger audiences or club gigs, I pull out all the stops. Bigger amps, extra speakers, and of course my song selection and style changes.

I love all kinds of music, so it's all fun for me.
Dom

HowardR · Post by **HowardR** » 15 Mar 2014 8:20 pm

RAY?.......

David Knutson · Post by **David Knutson** » 15 Mar 2014 8:45 pm

Oooh! Cat's out of the bag now. We all honour your courage, Mike. My National Chicagoan just KILLS on rock and heavy, heavy blues and I love it. Straight steel should be everywhere. I also play quite a bit of National Tri-cone with a Celtic artist. Goes great with Irish pipes.

Ken Pippus · Post by **Ken Pippus** » 15 Mar 2014 8:56 pm

The "Dallas Picture" thread veered towards the "we're all old, bald, fat guys and soon we'll all be dead' post, and I believe that observation holds a grain of truth. I completely concur with the observation that "it's a musical instrument." We can play whatever music we like. It's pretty clear that spending the next 25 years playing "Way to Survive" is not, in fact, a way to survive, though it certainly has it's own intrinsic esthetic value.

Party on, Dude.

James Hartman · Post by **James Hartman** » 15 Mar 2014 9:02 pm

So steel players are an inherently conservative bunch? I ask that half in jest, but perhaps they are in some respects. Or maybe it's a generational thing. Wonder what the median age is, here on the forum?

I first started thinking about steel in a non-country context upon noticing some English rock guitarists like Steve Howe putting it to rather different use. And of course Lindley on those Jackson Brown albums. Funny thing, I'd already been doing it myself, playing in cover bands back then - started playing Dobro (badly, I'm sure) on country tunes and then began using it more and more on light rock or R&B tunes. I was, and remain, primarily a non-steel guitarist.

At this point, steel being mostly a recreational thing for me, I'm engaged in exploring more traditional (Hawaiian, Western Swing) repertoire on it. But I keep a bakelite Rick in simple E tuning for blues/rock playing, and man does that sound fine plugged into the sort of rig I'd normally use for a rock gig.

Frank James Pracher · Post by **Frank James Pracher** » 15 Mar 2014 9:12 pm

In a group I was in before I used to take the solo in "All Along the Watchtower" on lap steel (with Wah pedal). At the last practice I threw down a credible version of Link Wray's "Rumble" (old.....I know but still rock

)

Tom Pettingill · Post by **Tom Pettingill** » 15 Mar 2014 9:46 pm

Love all kinds of music played on steel and rock and blues are certainly on that list ... like some GE Smith & David Lindley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYepBEoyyos

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 15 Mar 2014 10:15 pm

This is the kind of steel I like...

http://youtu.be/legJ-kXh4XQ

... had some real fun jamming some ZZTop with these guys in the Little Walter room tonight.

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 16 Mar 2014 3:47 am

It's all music, man

--Charlie Parker

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 16 Mar 2014 4:54 am

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

The steel is relatively unexplored considering the vast array of existing music. Add in new music and it's a party overdue in getting started. Go for it, Mike! But no Sweet Child of Mine - okay?

Nate Hofer · Post by **Nate Hofer** » 16 Mar 2014 6:07 am

Ha, Andy! A while back I had worked up a right hand pick blocking exersice for myself that was the signature lick to that G n'R "rock standard" (if you will) for E9 pedals.

I guess personally I feel like I'm trying to get away from rock with steel guitar. Not that I don't love that music in anyway. I do I do. But indie rock is where me and my peers sort of came from 15 or so years ago as we started learning music and playing in bands. And today as I continue to learn to play music in a deeper way it's the jazz and swing stuff that inspires me.

I wonder too if rock isn't a guitar player thing. I myself was a bad guitar player when I was coming up and thus ending up focusing on the steel guitars because that's where the demand was in my peer groups.

In the end I agree it's all music.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 16 Mar 2014 6:46 am

But no Sweet Child of Mine - okay?

Ah, come on, Andy. Who could resist this? ----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO6sFdoklVU

Stephen Abruzzo · Post by **Stephen Abruzzo** » 16 Mar 2014 6:50 am

To look at things another way......if players weren't looking for new sounds, or tying to play the sounds in their heads......

Then the guitar playing world would just be classical guitars strung with cat-gut. Yes, an oversimplification but the general idea is probably true. Guitars evolved to meet certain needs or styles of playing.

Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 16 Mar 2014 7:10 am

It's a guitar to me- any genre, feel, or vibe is fair game. There are a lot of folks playing rock and other "not country" styles, just not always on the radar. I've enjoyed being in many bands that really mix it up, with rock, jazz, funk, country and more all just being part of the mix and not the definition of the band sound or direction.
I really enjoy festival gigs where I may be playing with a bluegrass band one set, then funk, then blues, then country flavored rock, and so on.

One of my favorite musical memories will always be getting to play with Warren Haynes and Govt. Mule on their New Year's Eve show in 99/2000, which was recently released as the 3 disc "Mulennium" set. We jammed on Skynyrd and Dylan tunes, among others, just great fun.

Mike, play the music you love and that moves you, and other people will feel the love. I'm sure I don't have to tell you to just ignore the negative nellies... almost all of that negativity comes from the fear people feel that other people might take "their" instrument down paths they don't understand or otherwise fear to tread.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 16 Mar 2014 7:22 am

I haven't really recorded anything yet in the styles I'm talking about, but I spent most of my playing time just coming up with ideas for my riff orphanage. Lately, I've been amusing myself by playing some old Hendrix tunes. This was an impromptu thing I played a few nights ago--it brought me much joy, as unpolished as it is.

The Wind Cries Mary

I added a little solo afterward, probably should have spent more time on it. Not a song I can ever recall singing before, but nonetheless my favorite lyric of all time. This was mostly about seeing what my tuning is capable of.

James Nottage · Post by **James Nottage** » 16 Mar 2014 7:29 am

Very nice, Mike. From all of you rockers out there, lets hear some more!

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 16 Mar 2014 7:31 am

I actually like that tune, Mike, much more than the rest of G&R's catalog. I had a new respect for it when I tried to play it on guitar a few years ago. The riff is actually a good melodic alternate picking/string skipping exercise. Having two teen aged boys gave me more appreciation for Metal but most of it doesn't do much for me. I suspect you can get most anything out of that Clinesmith that you can imagine. Personally, I don't think it plays to the steel guitar strengths but hey - If metal moves you, why not?

A good arrangement and a little imagination can save even the most overplayed song. Case in point: https://soundcloud.com/aev/spinning-wheel-george-barnes

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 16 Mar 2014 7:42 am

Andy Volk wrote:I suspect you can get most anything out of that Clinesmith that you can imagine. Personally, I don't think it plays to the steel guitar strengths but hey - If metal moves you, why not?

I could never be satisfied with playing in a musical box--I want to be able to draw from everything I've ever absorbed, and that includes hard rock. It's not that the music doesn't play to the strengths of the instrument--for me it's about creating music in those genres that does play to the strengths of the steel guitar. I think it is possible.

It probably wouldn't be wise to try to be a stone bebopper or hair metal or even classical musician on the steel (I know it's been done), but there are ways, especially if you are creating your own music, which is what is all about to me. One of my biggest influences for steel is the Minimoog players like Jan Hammer. That stuff is just sick!

James Hartman · Post by **James Hartman** » 16 Mar 2014 7:53 am

Perhaps it was a peculiar aspect of the era when I grew up, but guitars were everywhere and one of the things attracted me was the sheer variety. Folk, blues, jazz, rock, country, classical, flamenco... a place for the guitar in all of it, and a constant adventure of discovery for the young music enthusiast. Steel guitar had less visibility, but how much of a leap is it to imagine giving it the same scope?

Can't understand anyone wanting to impose limits.

Scott Swenson · Post by **Scott Swenson** » 16 Mar 2014 8:51 am

I'm a big fan of rock lap steel, especially David Lindley.
I saw him at a private party circa El Rayo X (late 80's). The legs on his steel had lime green fuzzy chaps! He was playing through that Dumble that he sold a few years back for one million dollars (JK) and his sound, tone & playing ripped the roof off the hotel that night!!!
It was an unforgettable, game changing, bar raising show, & it really opened my eyes & ears to what non-pedal steel was capable of.