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Date last modified 03/11 /2002

10 question interview

Dixie thanks for the cd, not as bad as i remembered, though there are some magic moments like the beginning of revelation where i had a total blank! but overall much better than i remembered. Few special notes on the guitar solo too: oh well. Though if i ever meet that soundman again........

Hi Bernie. Thanks for agreeing to do this. I hope I'm asking anything too personal or irrating.

1. What / Who made you want to play guitar in the beginning?

i wanted to impress the local girls. by the time i realised that wasn't going to work and i was never going to have quite the same impact as George Harrison, I had got really into the Yardbirds and jeff beck (who I saw the other night at the royal festival hall in london, and he still does things that are just totally incredible). i was really into the yardbirds, Beck had this great sound, and i got an album they did around 65 or so (roger the engineer), and it just blew me away. i really wanted to be able to play like that. This was before Hendrix surfaced, or before Clapton was known outside of the UK blues scene.

2. Why did you chose a Fender Strat over other models (or brands)?

68 ish I had a little two pick up hofner, shaped a bit like a fatter SG, I still don't know what it was called. I wanted a les paul like Beck and Clapton had in those days, but les pauls were very expensive things, and quite rare at that time this side of the atlantic. Strats were a bit more common in Ireland, guys in irish showbands quite often had them. Hendrix and Rory Gallagher both played strats, so when i saw one in the back of the dublin evening paper small ads, i blagged my dad to lend me the £55 to buy it (that was about two or even three weeks wages in 68 or 69, quite a lot of money!), I thought it would be a good stop gap till I got a Les paul.
So really it chose me; i love strats now, I didn't when i got it. i like strats more now because they pass on much more information about how you hit the note and voice it; they can be very unkind, but they show much more how much "muscle" you put in to it. thats really affected how i play, and when I play a gibson or jackson or charvel the guitar sounds good, but it sounds a lot less like me. When i play a les paul i just sound like clapton in the bluesbreakers.

3. How would you sum up your days playing in Gillan?

I wouldn't have missed it, and i wouldn't repeat it. It was a great education, great people to play with and learn from, and the highs and lows tho not always a barrel of laughs were very self revealing and revealing of others. Its a great pity that the band was not allowed to have the organisational and management backing that it was worthy of. it was a really great experience working with such really good musicians.

4. What's your favorite album (CD) that you've played on? (And why?)

Anything live (gillan bbc, scorched earth, live, live bootleg, on the rocks) and Mister Universe. The live ones because I grew up in the land of 10,000 overdubs, and i really don't like that at all now. Less really is more. Mr universe because it was raw, took very little time, and it worked. Some of it may sound a bit horrible, but for me the spirit really shines through. Those are really the only albums i can listen to. i don't like hearing what i do generally, all it sounds like to me is that it didn't work like I wanted it to.
I'm glad you didn't ask me my least favourite ones, that would have been longer. Maybe next time.......

5. Is there a possiblility of you playing in America again?

I'd love to, unfortunately what I do at present seems to be about as popular as giving money away.
Guitar players generally are not big draws, and i'm pretty unknown in the US, so you're looking for a promoter or whoever to take a giant leap of faith, and in my case it would be a really huge leap of faith cause they would probably lose money. People don't do that anymore without a committed major record co and US management etc, and since i don't have those things and with the state of the music business at the moment, I'd say not too much chance just now. If only i could find a promoter stupid enough!
But things change, and everything is possible.

6. How do you feel about the current state of rock music?

bored. Major rant: I'd love to be really surprised by the playing and the songs. I'd like to hear something new outside of the formula, something that corporations don't see as an investment. But then I probably wouldn't get to hear it: so much for the internet.
Of course I do like a lot of new music, it sounds great, but to me largely it seems to lack content; and that applies even more so in rock than other areas, where all you have to have now is a sound. i like the sound too, but a "sound" is not really about "playing", and what happened to the playing, the personal touch and the rebellion? I thought thats what it was about. For that you now have to go people like Steve Earle, and thats not really rock, or even neil young. Its all much too safe.
And I also don't think there is much of a standard of player anymore, definitely not over here. You do not see young bands with much of a command of their instruments: that sounds pompous, its just that you can get away with murder as a musician now with recording techniques, I know, i do it to people at my studios. They can't sing in tune, put 'em in tune, they can't play in time, cut it up and put it in time. Thats progress, and its just led largely to average to bad players; over here anyway. course it helps me on my recordings too...ha!
i don't want to sound like an old git with a chip on my shoulder, cause 95% or more of popular music has always been sheer dross, its just been a sound track to a mating ritual (hey I'm not knocking that..): but rock was more than that, like jazz, or lots of other forms. What you get now is something that sounds like but really isn't: rock and jazz without the edge they both had in different areas. Sounds like it, but doesn't have the same point. Or punk. And I like some of it too, but I don't know what the point of it all is, apart from being slightly preferable (to me at anyrate) than corporate product like jennifer lopez or the pop idols rubbish we have over here.
I liked teenage dirtbag, nickleback, a lot of stuff, but no astounding players in any of that, its all basically quite safe and nice and much the same: i suppose what i get off on is a lost age.

7. Is there a new Bernie Torm'e release in the near future?

yes. I've had a bit of writers cramp (or some sort of cramp anyway....) for a long while, probably because i wanted to do some different things, a blues album, some acoustic stuff, and another gypsies rocker, and I kind of vanished up my own ass and got a few tracks done of each. which didn't hang together at all.
So i'm back to the blues concept, not like Gary moore, thats much too glossy and glass coffee table for me, much as i love Gary. I can't do blues covers, its just too plastic sounding, so I'm starting again and doing it how I like it, which is a cross between 60's brit rnb (like mr Beck again), and staxy/bbking stuff too, vaguely funky even (did I say that), I suppose reminiscent of Shoorah. Got a lot of ideas now, and a few tracks down.
I'm sure saying "blues" will put a lot of people off, but its not really like that, its the seed, and its the type of group music I grew up with, not really twelve bar stuff, more sixties soul and rnb progressions, riffy. Really what rock grew from. "blues derived" is closer.
I'm hoping to use some other players on it, and keep it very raw. its sounding very good at the moment, hopefully we'll be looking at early next year. And then i do the other ones (gypsies rocker, acoustic etc)

8. Besides music, what else keeps you busy (hobbies, etc.)?

I used to be a crazy amateur astronomer, but with three kids i just get too tired to do that now.
read a lot (not novels), I get really into stuff and read all I can about it, I got very into american indian stuff a couple of years ago, even got a sioux tepee....thats an oddity in kent.
Like poetry, well I'm irish....
hate television: the simpsons are ok, wish they had reruns of the jackie gleason show over here, love that, but thats not on in England. (grew up on the honeymooners as a kid in Ireland) watch Phil Silvers if thats on too. Really nothing else on tv.
New age hippy sh*t I'm into (saad!), but mainly music. Do a lot of recording now, I have a studio, and i love engineering and all that end of it, always been a bit of a tech head. But i get paid for that so its not really a hobby I suppose. Very into vintage recording stuff, wish i could afford more of it, next on my list are some neve mic preamps.
love the open air, do anything outside, run, kick football, even do the garden (rock'n'roll!), don't care about the weather, rather be out than in anytime: wish i could record outside.
Into computers, I got quite a bit into programming years ago on an amiga, also atari: before i realised life was too short. had a bash with linux last year, but life is much too short.
My wife is a photographer, uses macs, as i do in the studio, so i know enough to keep the wheels greased and running. Thats a full time job sometimes. Ahem, not being sexist when i say this, but hers need a lot more attention than mine......I'm fairly much of a an obsessive recluse really. basically lazy.

9. If given the oppourtunity, who would you like to play with?

everyone. i love playing with different people: purple, plant, gary moore, limp bizkit, terry bozio, rap stuff, everything i can think of! I love playing. i get off on drummers a lot, ginger, mitch mitchell, zak starkey, tommy aldridge (again), paice (again), lots of others. But i suppose I'm talking jamming, not dragging the fairly dead horse of endless back catalogue around the halls. I get off on bass players too and have been lucky enough to have had the great Phil Spalding (from my punk days, more recently with jagger) on some new tracks. and of course the great mr mccoy (again). And anyone else who would kick my musical ass!

10. Does playing live still give you the thrill it did 20 years ago?

yes, the same thrill but it is different. I'm not as scared as i used to be, so its not so much of a challenge in that area. I get off much more on the playing now.
But its much more difficult and long winded to organise now (lack of sensible agents and managers, so its self organised), and its difficult to get the time to do that, so it doesn't happen as often as I'd like.

i hope thats ok dixie,
bernie