Black Light Syndrome

- Steve Stevens - 2000

Interviewer:

Yeah, this is the guy who laid down all that blazing guitar on the BILLY IDOL records. He has also put his stamp on hits from ROBERT PALMER and MICHAEL JACKSON to name just a few and did I mention that he won a GRAMMY for his soundtrack work on the motion picture soundtrack TOP GUN? As if this wasn't enough of a contribution to the world of music 1997 sees Mr. Stevens involved in what for many is the penultimate progressive rock/jazz fusion project going, BLACK LIGHT SYNDROME. Steve gave us a call a while back to talk about all this and more.

MUSIC AMERICA I have something here that took me by surprise, BLACK LIGHT SYNDROME. It is an amazing piece of work how did it all come about?

STEVE STEVENS Since Terry(Bozzio) left JEFF BECK he has been doing these drum clinics, solo drum projects, and his manager said "look it would be great if you could find some other musicians to work with."
So, Terry seemed to be into it and they (Magna Carta) got a list of guitar players and put it in front of Terry and it was all the usual guitar players that you would expect on there. The one guy who was on there that shouldn't have been was me! (laughs) Because I'm not primarily known as an instrumental guitarist.
I've worked with rock bands and singers and I wasn't the first choice. From what I understand the first person that they were going to approach was EDDIE VAN HALEN. Good luck getting him to do it!(laughs)
Terry wasn't receptive to that anyway and he said "Look one guy I would like to meet with is Steve Stevens" and as it turns out he was going to be in L.A. doing a solo drum thing at THE HOUSE OF BLUES. So, I went down and met with him. I anticipated being kinda board by a solo drum thing but ended up being very entertained by it.
We have both worked with high profile people and had both come to the realization that you really have to make yourself happy and you have to challenge yourself as a musician. There are some projects that you do because it is important to you as a musician, and this is one of those projects. Once we decided to give it a shot we said "OK, so who else do we need?" I said "Hey wouldn't it be great if we could get somebody like Tony Levin." And it was like "Oh Yeah! But we'll never get him." As it turns out we were able to get him.

MA You did minimal preparation for this.
SS Like none!

MA Did You just go into it with the germ of an idea?
SS Yeah, pretty much so. I had gone out to Terry's place in Austin for about four days and for two days I was in bed with the flu but, when we did finally get to play we just kinda mapped out a couple of vague ideas. Nothing really concrete. What you hear on this record pretty much is the spontaneous thing that happened between the three of us.

MA The three of you are all known as virtuosos.
SS I'm certainly the least known for that!(laughs)

MA Was there ever any tension between any of the three of you and how did you keep the music from going in three different directions?
SS I knew from the get go after five minutes of playing with these two other guys that Terry wasn't the kind of drummer that I was used to playing with. In most of the musical situations that I have played in I've played with drummers with a real back-beat and Terry has kinda developed an orchestral way of playing and at that point it was either make that work or get frustrated with it. I just think that out of respect to him and if we had any other bass player than Tony Levin it really could have ended up a real cacophony of noise. Tony has this unique sense of just grounding the music and although he is a virtuoso he is the one virtuoso bass player that never loses sight of what the basic function of his instrument is. Which is to support the bottom end rhythmically and melodically. I have a real problem with a lot of virtuoso bass players. Some of those virtuoso bass players were suggested for this project and I was animate that none of them be considered.

MA Nobody takes a back seat in this project. Was this by design?
SS I think that just came out of respect. A number of pieces like "Black Light Syndrome" for instance which was a piece that I kinda brought in and said "These are the changes" and the other two said "OK so where is the guitar solo?" And I said "No this shouldn't have a guitar solo. I am playing the melody so why don't you guys solo during it?" That just comes out of respect and I think a maturity of the musicians.

MA Is that something that has been a problem before?
SS With MICHAEL (JACKSON) it was fine because I was hired for a very specific thing which was to play fiery solos. With BILLY (IDOL) that certainly was the reason that I left in 1988. I felt that I had developed something stylistically on "Rebel Yell" and I think Billy became more uncomfortable with my role in it. We had a manager at the time who kinda finessed that situation and once Billy lost that manager and people began to see it as BILLY IDOL and didn't acknowledge me, I wasn't interested any more.

MA If you looked back over your career what would be your most enjoyable accomplishment?
SS When you make a record its no mystery when you have made a winner, you know it. People can say "oh well it should have been promoted better or should have been this or that or should have been mixed better." You know from the get go when you are sitting down to write songs. There is a real magic. The expression I have heard used is "Jah shines down." You know, God looks down and says "Here you are. This is the one." And "Rebel Yell" was that kind of record from beginning to end. To this day I can't really remember how I wrote those songs. They just kinda happened. I was living in the basement of my parents house when I wrote the music for that record. I don't know how I came about "Eyes Without A Face" or "Flesh For Fantasy." They just happened. You know, that doesn't happen too often in a persons career that you make those kinds of records. I've had very few unenjoyable situations. From going to Italy to record with ROBERT PALMER or France to work with the THOMPSON TWINS. They have all been great situations. I will say that this record, "Black Light Syndrome" is very enjoyable for me and it's one of the few records that I can listen to and enjoy. Number one, because it was recorded spontaneously so there ain't fuck I can do about it!(laughs) It's just basically a picture, a snapshot of where three guys were at that point in their lives. I think it also captures an element of my guitar playing.

MA One last question, Where do you keep your Grammy?
SS (Laughing) It's next to my tea pot in the kitchen!