Handlebars

The Unreachable Star (Guitar World 1989)

There is one English guy I admire who never gets any mention - Steve Topping. There's a guy who's amazing. And it's typical of England that he can't get out or get a deal or anything, because, like Gary Husband, he suffers too much opposition to what he's doing. Steve plays really; really interesting harmonic lines - and definitely absolutely, not bop. His lines are so unusual that the bop guys would have a hard time figuring them out [laughs]. And he plays chords that I've never heard people play before. He's got ridiculous chops - I've seen him demonstrate both left- and right-hand facility; but he's got just outrageous right-hand chops. He's got it all covered. We had a band back in England called Handlebars: just him, Gary myself, and anybody we could get on bass. It was a really free thing where we'd just go, and some very interesting things happened, mostly because of him. He has this unbelievable control of space.