DailyMusicGuide recently conducted an interview with
GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist
Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.
DailyMusicGuide: First and foremost, how has the current GUNS N’ ROSES touring been going? You’ve been on quite a road trip in the past few months!
Thal: It’s been good, man. Good to be out there, and doin’ it better than before. We hit Asia, Canada, acoustic shows in New York City, all around South and Central America, now just getting back from northern Europe and Russia… Good stuff! And in between I’m just bustin’ ass in the studio, bangin’ out guitar tracks and taking care of biz that’s been on the “to-do” list for years now. It’s always a race against the clock in between legs of the tour, trying to catch up on everything and get as much done as possible before hittin’ the road again. I squeeze so much in off the road, by the time I get to the first hotel room on a tour I usually sleep for a good 20 hours.
DailyMusicGuide: So, no longer the “new boy” — that honor falls to D.J. Ashba. How has he been fitting into the group and what’s it like playing alongside him?
Thal: Holy fuck, I’m not the “NEW GUY” anymore! Yeah, it’s been great touring with D.J. — we’ve had some fun times. We had most of 2009 to coordinate our guitar parts, our gear, to get everything ready to go. Very different from my “new-guy” experience, which was to hop in at the last minute before touring with no time to work out gear, to get to know each other, to work together on anything, to learn the new songs… Shit, I had to learn the “Chinese Democracy” songs note-for-note by listening with headphones on a laptop for a half hour at a rehearsal studio while the band waited in the next room, without ever getting a copy of the songs to really learn them. I’m happy it didn’t happen like that for D.J. — he was welcomed in, we had time to work together, and he was given the opportunity to rise to the occasion, and he definitely did.
DailyMusicGuide: Are there any pre-show rituals you have before the start of a live performance?
Thal: I like to watch the opening acts from the side of the stage, then I’ll noodle around on an acoustic guitar for an hour, just walking around the venue. As it gets closer to show time, I’ll go onstage and do the same in the back, out of sight. At show time I’m usually up on the side of the stage by my guitars and amps, and I wait along with the audience for the show to start. Then the venue goes black, the audience cheers, my tech gives me the double-neck guitar and says “have fun.” It’s not so much a ritual, just how it usually goes. Not always like that — at Sweden Rock, a few of us flew from Moscow straight to Sweden at show time right to the venue. But usually that’s how it happens. I get there early, check out the venue, the other bands, have dinner, warm up the fingers, first guy on stage.
DailyMusicGuide: You have another re-release coming out, your debut album, with a 200-page transcription booklet attached. What’s this all about?
Thal: Yes, my first album, “The Adventures of Bumblefoot”, is being re-released by Shrapnel Records. It’s an instrumental album, originally released in 1995. We re-packaged it, added some bonus tracks from a videogame soundtrack I had made also in ‘95, and will have it available at my webstore in August. We’ll be selling signed copies and donating $5 from each album sold to M.S. research. Along with the CD, we’ll also have a transcription book that I wrote myself. Six months of writing out and typesetting 200 pages of the exact music notation, tab, fingers, picking — everything for every track in every song. This album was the turning point for me, when everything became legit. The album was on Roadrunner Records in Europe and Japan, and it was well received at the time; it had good press from magazines and readers’ polls. Happy to have it all available now to a whole new generation of guitarists.
DailyMusicGuide: Last year you released your first all-acoustic CD. Tell us a little about that and where the inspiration came from.
Thal: “Abnormal” was released in July 2008 and I knew “Chinese Democracy” was on the way. As it was getting closer I wanted to get some more music out before getting busy with GN’R. I had never put out any kind of collection of acoustic songs, even though most of the time I’m playing acoustic off stage. So I started taking songs from my previous albums and making acoustic versions of them, coming up with different ways to make the heavy instrumentation and parts work for acoustic guitars. It was the easiest time I ever had making an album, came together very easily and naturally. And so much more room to sing dynamically. I asked the members of my forum what songs they’d want to hear acoustic versions of, and then I recorded the most popular choice and made it the first song on the album. I released the album in December 2008, right before heading out to L.A. and getting back to work with GN’R the following month.
Read the entire interview from DailyMusicGuide.
