Holdsworth Radio Interview (1990)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7W1Vvq_Pd0
https://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=614045
ChatGPT edited transcript, not complete
For Intima Records and Steinberger guitars, this is XXX with Allan Holdsworth in his home studio and beautiful Tustin, California on a sweltering hot day in the middle of July.
We're going to talk with him a little bit about his new internet album "Secrets," which will be coming out shortly, and discuss his playing, some of his techniques, and recording methods.
Q: Did you mix the album right in here?
AH: "Yeah, I mixed it right over there at that console that no one can see," Allan replied.
Q: Earlier, when we were talking, he said that this time you were able to do some things in terms of mixing that you hadn't been able to do on your earlier albums. Just exactly what did you do?
AH: "Well, usually it's a money problem. When you're going to the studio and you're mixing an album, you have a set amount of time to do it, and you usually try to do it as quickly as you can. Quite often I've made a lot of mistakes, so then we finished up having to remix a song. You run into many issues every week, okay, so you often don't get exactly what you want. But nobody ever does. This time, doing it at home, well, I don't have the same equipment as a lot of the really awesome studios. The thing is that I can make up for it by the amount of time that I can take on the mixing. For example, if I started mixing one song instead of just getting it ready to look, then putting it down onto the track, I'd spend more time listening to it. I'd get a rough mix or a pretty good mix and make adjustments for it. I'd make cassettes to play in the car, play it at my friend's house, and test it on a lot of different systems. Therefore, you know, being able to go back to the board and make the necessary changes is something they give me. It was a big thing for me in this work,
Q: and as a result, you probably must feel pretty good about it, having heard it both on the studio monitors and, as you said, in a variety of environments.
AH: I think it turned out good with regard to that. You can listen to it in a lot of different environments, and it sounds pretty good. I was quite pleased, as pleased as you can be with anything that you can feel.
Q: Speaking of that, I mean, with each successive album, it seems that critics and fans alike are always reaching for the dictionary for new adjectives to try and find one more superlative that they can use to describe your playing. How do you feel about the way you play?
AH: "Well, I'm never a hundred percent happy with anything that I do, but I think that's normal," Allan responded. "I just try to do the best I can at any point in time. You know, what keeps me going is that if I look back to an older album, I can..."
AH: Hearing some progress, which up till now, thankfully I can, and that's enough inspiration for me to keep going. If I listen to an album and always hear growth and improvement from the previous ones, that's about when I might consider taking up engineering full-time and putting the guitar away.
Q: But let's take a listen to the first track from your new album, "Secrets." It's called "Joshua."
Q: "I just heard a little bit of 'Joshua' from Allan Holdsworth's new album on Intimate Records called 'Secrets.' Let's talk a little bit about the actual guitars, the stuff that you're playing on that. As a musician, I'm kind of interested in how you go about getting the sound that you do, what kind of equipment you use, and your mental approach to achieving the sounds both on leads and during the rest of the music."
AH: "I think most people have a kind of sound in their head, you know? Like, that's what I like to think of it as. And for me, with the guitar or anything else, it's just like a quest to try and get closer to that. For this particular track, it was pretty straightforward in terms of equipment. I used a Steinberger guitar, which I use exclusively now; I don't use wood guitars anymore. I also used the 50 Caliber Boogie, and that was it. It's a pretty simple setup for this particular track. Sometimes, I record with processing if it's important to the sound, as it has been on some of the last recordings."
AH: "But with the lead guitar and solo sound, I usually like to try and get it as good as I can and then move on. As for the mental approach to going into a studio and recording, as opposed to playing live, how do you select..."
Q: How do you set yourself up to get that one perfect solo or get as close to it as possible, especially when you can't feed off the energy of the audience like you can when you're on a stage?
AH: That's always really hard. I mean, recording poses totally different problems for me, especially if it was done in an innovative situation. When you play things live, like some of the tracks we did in the past, they somehow always seem easier than when you start to go in and overdub something because it's really difficult to make it sound like it was part of the whole event. So, I really listen to the basic track a lot in an overdub situation until I actually know exactly what everybody else is doing. That way, I find it easier to stay on the same line and understand where all the little things are going to be, and I try to make it sound as natural as possible.
[Music]
Q: "We just heard a little bit of 'Spokes' from Allan Holdsworth's new album, 'Secrets.' This time you wrote about half of the compositions on the album. Before, you were the primary composer. Does that mean you're getting out of the composing business and more into the playing, or are these really two different sets of skills that are complementary?"
AH: , "For the first question, I think I just liked a few of the tunes that some of the guys had written, and I always like to experiment with those things. In the particular pieces of music that I did like, I felt that they would sound a lot different on the album just because of the personnel. I figured it would come out with a sort of uniformity, which it had..."
AH: It's basically because I liked the pieces that the other guys had written, and I wanted to give them an opportunity to write. It didn't start as a deliberate decision, like saying, "Well, this time I'm not going to write everything." It was just that Gary played me a tune that I really liked, and it fit nicely. Then Steve had two tunes, one of which made it, and we'd done it live in Joshua. We actually didn't do that tune live. I liked both of those tunes, and Chad had written a piece that I really liked too. So it was just more or less that I liked them, rather than saying, "Well, I couldn't be bothered to write any music." I felt that I didn't have enough music.
Q: And when it comes to playing, a little bit about playing the SynthAxe. I mean, how is it different from playing other guitars, and was it hard to learn?
AH: "Well, it's completely different, and that's one of the things I really like about it. I guess I've mentioned it a few times in magazines and things I've done before that I never really wanted to play the guitar in the first place; it just kind of happened. When I first started playing the SynthAxe, it was a real big emotional experience. It felt better to me than the guitar. It felt like I could develop a relationship with the instrument that allowed me to express myself more than I could with the guitar because I'd always wanted to play a wind instrument, and using the breath controller on the SynthAxe gave me that kind of ability. So I really love the thing. But as far as it being like a guitar, it's very much unlike a guitar. I guess that's why a lot of guitar players don't like it. So I guess now, in a sense, then..."
Q: "You're more of a multi-instrumentalist now than you were a few years ago?"
AH: "Well, only in the sense that it's only through the SynthAxe program. I'm definitely not a multi-instrumentalist. It's just that obviously, anything that you've learned on the guitar, being that it's a stringed instrument, the notes on particular frets or whatever, and I can, you know, I still understand that on the SynthAxe. That part doesn't change, which is great. But the way the instrument feels is completely different."
Q: "Let's go back and listen to a little bit more of the record. This track is called 'City Nights.' We're back in the Tustin studio of Allan Holdsworth with Helen Howe. 'Secrets' is going to be coming out this August."
Q: "We just heard a little bit of 'City Nights,' and you've been at this for quite some time now, haven't you?"
AH: , "Yes, it's the sixth album. Yeah, six and a little bit. I came first in 1979. I was recruited. 'I.O.U' was recorded, I think, in 1980, and I think it came out in 1981 or somewhere around there. Then we did the 'Road Games' album for another label that we won't mention – a hideous record. Then there was 'Metal Fatigue,' 'Sand,' 'I.O.U. Live,' 'Atavachron,' and 'Wardenclyffe Tower,' and then 'Secrets.'"
Q: Helen asked, "What do you see, other than, of course, the band and yourself, as being the sort of common thread? Or what is it that ties it all together if you were to take a day of your life and listen to it all chronologically? What would you say about the progression that you've made as a musician and as a composer?"
AH: , "I don't know, other than the fact that I think I made some progress. But other than that, I wouldn't know exactly specifically what it was because I think each individual is an individual, and sometimes they're not aware of what..." AH: "Sometimes they're not aware of what makes them themselves. So, all that I try to do is just kind of follow my heart through the whole thing. If I feel like I should do this, that's what I do, and if I feel like I should do that, that's what I feel. I guess I've always felt that way about music – I just try to the best of my ability to keep moving, you know, keep changing, moving from the concept of the individual to the group."
Q: Helen asked, "This last track that we're about to hear, '54 Duncan Terrace,' doesn't feature you as prominently as many of the other tunes on 'Secrets.' How come?"
AH: "Well, it's kind of unintentional because there was basically only one solo section in the piece, and I wrote the piece for a friend of mine who died a few years ago. He was a really great guitar player, his name was Pat Smythe, and all the pieces that he used to compose were always very pretty or very melodic, soft kind of pieces. So, I wrote this kind of in memory of him. He was, like I said, a piano player. After I started listening to the basic track when we did it in the studio, I thought that Alan Pasqua was tossing in piano flair, and I just asked him if he'd like to play on the track, and he did. He played the bulk of the solo, and then I played this very short solo section at the end."
The segment concluded with Helen saying, "From Allan Holdsworth's album 'Secrets,' '54 Duncan Terrace.'"
[Music]
Q: "We're back in the Tustin Studio with Allan Holdsworth, where we've just heard '54 Duncan Terrace' from his new album 'Secrets,' which is going to be out this August on Intimate Tapes and Records and compact discs. And gosh, probably at some point, we'll have a little computer disk that we can play it as well through..." "Your Mac a little ways off. We were talking during the break about guitars, and you said something really interesting about Steinberger. You mentioned they have something very special about them, and I'd like you to elaborate on that a bit."
AH: "Alright, the very first time I played a Steinberger, I got an incredible feeling from it. I just loved the thing, and it made me feel like I felt when I first picked up the very first guitar. You know, there's a kind of resurgence of energy. I felt really, oh, I wanted to play the guitar again, you know, after I got this Steinberger. It was an interesting thing to happen. I loved it because of the creative aspect too because almost everybody else for the last 20 years has just been a copy of some form of a Fender or a Gibson. I think that the Steinberger is the only truly significant development in electric guitars for the last 20 years. Not only that, but the thing just sounds great to me. I love it, and it's the only guitar I play."
Q: Helen continued, "If you don't mind me putting you on the spot a little bit, if you were going to give some advice to someone who is currently practicing and playing, and perhaps aspiring someday to become a professional musician, what advice would you give them?"
AH: "Well, actually, I was talking to Gary Husband about this a few weeks ago, and he made a very keen observation. He said that everybody starts out when they first start playing with something very special of their own, and what happens is they risk losing it. The key is to keep it, rather than being totally engrossed in what other people are doing, try to figure out what is unique about themselves and nurture that. I think it's really great to be inspired by people, and obviously, I'm still inspired by lots of musicians and what I hear. But I try not to let that kind of infiltrate what I really want to do myself. I try to absorb the quality aspect of it but not actually mimic it. I think that's the best possible advice I could give to anyone."
Q: Helen concluded, "Well, thank you very much for your time. On behalf of Steinberger Guitars and Intimate Records, I'm XXXSayin TyrannyXXX. We've been speaking with Allan Holdsworth, and his new album 'Secrets' will be out in stores this August. So, in addition to those you're carrying right now, if you'd like to hear the entire thing, we encourage you highly to find your way down there and get a copy for yourself."
[Music]
YouTube transcript
The following is the raw output from Youtube's auto-transcription function:
[Music]
for internal records in Steinberger
guitars
this is feign tyranny with allan
holdsworth in his home studio and
beautiful Tustin California on a
sweltering hot day in the middle of July
we're going to talk with him a little
bit about his new internet album secrets
which will be coming out here shortly
and talked about his playing and some of
his techniques and recording methods and
I guess you mix the album right in here
yeah I him right over there at that
console that no one can see yeah earlier
when we were talking he said that this
time you were able to do some things in
terms of mixing that you hadn't been
able to do on your earlier albums just
exactly what did you do well usually
it's a money problem if you're going to
the studio and you're mixing an album
you know you have a set amount of time
to do it and you usually try and do it
as quickly as you can and quite often
I've made a lot of mistakes so then we
finished up having to remix a song or
then you run out many or every week out
okay so you try often don't get exactly
what you want but nobody ever does but
this time doing it at home or well I
don't have the same equipment is a lot
of the you know like a really awesome
studio the thing is that I can make up
for it by the amount of time that I can
take on the mixing for example if I
started mixing one song instead of just
getting it ready to look so then putting
it down onto the to track I'd spend more
time listening to it I get a rough mix
up or a pretty good mix and make adapter
for it make cassettes play in the car
playing with my friends house play it
with a lot of different systems
therefore you know being able to go back
to the board in and make the necessary
changes
is that they give was a big thing for me
on this working as a result you probably
must feel pretty good about it having
heard it both on the studio monitors and
as you said in a variety of environments
I think it turned out good with regard
to that that you can listen to it all a
lot of different you know in a lot of
different environments in it sounds
pretty good I was quite pleased as
pleased as you can be with anything that
you can feel speaking of that I mean
with each successive album it seems that
critics and fans alike are always racing
to the dictionary for new adjectives try
and find one more superlative that they
can say about your playing how do you
feel about the way you play well I'll
ever I'll ever a hundred percent happy
with anything that I do but I think
that's normal
and I just try and do the best I can at
any point in time you know what the
thing that keeps me going is that if I
look back to an older album that I can
hear some progress which up till now
thankfully I can and that's enough
inspiration for me and keep going if I
listen to an album to always be going
for all boy and that's about how much
other improvement from them that I'd
maybe take up engineering full-time and
put the guitar away but let's take a
listen to the first track from your new
album secrets
it's called Joshua
I just heard a little bit of Joshua from
Allan Holdsworth new album on intimate
records called secrets let's talk a
little bit about the actual guitars
the stuff that you're playing on that
and as a musician I'm kind of interested
in how you go about getting the sound
that you do and what kind of equipment
and and just your mental approach in
order to get the kind of the kind of
sounds and what you do both on leads and
during the rest of the time I think most
people have a kind of like a sound in
their head you know like that's what I
like to think of is that as and for me
like with the guitar or anything else
it's just like a quest to try and get
closer to that and for this particular
track it was pretty straight forward in
terms of equipment I used a steinberger
guitar which I pretty well in fact I use
it exclusively now it's like you can
have a wood guitar anymore and I use the
50 caliber boogie and that was it that's
it it's pretty pretty simple setup for
this particular track I usually record
guitar like that that way sometimes I
record the processing if it was
important to the sounds like it has been
on some of the last recordings
but with the lead guitar thing or solo
sound usually that I like to try and get
as good as good as sad as I can and then
move on the mental approach to going
into a studio and recording as opposed
to playing live how do you select
yourself up to get that that one perfect
solo or get as close to that it's
because you can't feed off the energy of
the audience that you can when you're
when you're on a stage and that's true
always really hard I mean the recording
poses totally different problems for me
that like I especially if it was done in
inovative situation if you play a things
like live like some of the tracks that
we did and in the past between live and
somehow they're always easier than when
you start to go in and over them
something because it's really difficult
to make to make it sound like it was
part of the the thing you know the whole
event but I've really so I really listen
to the if it's an overdub situation I
really usually listen to them basic
track a lot until I actually know
exactly what everybody else is doing
that way I find it easier to place all
over the same line understand where all
the look where all the little things are
going to be and I try and make it sound
as natural as possible
[Music]
we just heard a little bit of spokes
from Allan Holdsworth no intima album
secrets this time you wrote about half
of the compositions on the album before
you were the primary composer that mean
you're getting out of the composing
business and more into the playing or
this is really calling sort of two
different sets of skills that are
complementary well one for the first
question I think I just liked a few some
of the tunes that some of the guys had
written and I always like to experiment
and with those things in the particular
pieces of music that I did like and felt
that they would be they would sound a
lot incorrect from the album just
because of the personnel you know I
figured out these come out with you know
like a uniformity which it had
[Music]
is basically because I I like the pieces
that the other guys had written in and I
wanted to give the guys an opportunity
to write things so it it didn't style as
a deliberate thing like saying well this
time I'm not going to write everything
it was just that Gary played me a tune
and I really liked that which was
sitting nice and then Steve had two
tunes one of which made Mary and we'd
done live in Joshua we actually didn't
do that tune in life and I liked both of
those tunes and then Chad would written
the piece which I really like that piece
too so it was just more or less that I
liked them rather than saying well I
couldn't be bothered to write any
musical I felt that I didn't have enough
music and when it comes to playing a
little bit about playing with synthetics
I mean how is it different than playing
other guitars for what what how it was a
hard to learn
well it's completely different and
that's one of the things I really like
about it because I guess I mentioned it
a few times in magazines and things I've
done before that I never really I never
really wanted to play guitar in the
first place it just kind of happened and
when I first started playing the syntax
it was a real big emotional experience
it felt better to me than the new
account it felt like that I could
develop a
a relationship with the instrument has
allowed me to express myself more than I
could with the guitar just because I'd
always wanted to play a wind instrument
and using the breath controller on the
syntax give me that kind of ability to
do that so I really love the thing but
as far as it being like a guitar it's
very much unlike a guitar and I guess
that's why a lot of guitar players don't
like it so I guess now in a sense then
you're you're more of a
multi-instrumentalist and you were a few
years ago well only in only in the only
through Sonics program I'm not I'm
definitely not a multi-instrumentalist
it's just that obviously anything that
you've learned on the guitar being is
that it's a stringed instrument in the
notes on particular frets or whatever
and I can you know I still understand
that on the syntax that part if it
doesn't change which is great but the
way the instrument feels is completely
different let's go back and listen to a
little bit more of the record
this track is called City nights we're
back in the Tustin studio of allan
holdsworth with Helen Howe who's into
muharram secrets is going to be coming
out this August we just heard a little
bit of City nights and you've been at
this for quite some time now haven't you
what sixth album yeah yes six and a
little bit cio you've came first in
nineteen I was recruited I owe you Alvin
was recorded I think in 1980 and I think
it came out in mistakes around 81 or
somewhere around there and then we did
the road games album for another label
that we won't mention hideous record and
then there did the metal fatigue
Saavik roll sound and then see Druz what
do you see
other than of course the band and
yourself as being the sort of common
thread or what is it that ties us all
together if you were to to take say a
day of your life and listen to it all
chronologically what would you say about
the progression that you've made as a
musician and as a composer I don't know
other than the fact that I think I made
some progress but other than that I
wouldn't know exactly specifically what
it was you know because I think each
each individual is an individual and
sometimes that they're not aware of what
makes them self so I think all all that
I try to do is just kind of follow my
heart through the whole thing you know
if I feel like I should do this that's
what I do and if I feel like I should do
that that's what I feel I guess I've
always felt that way about music I just
try to the best of my ability to keep
moving you know keep this changing
moving from the concept of the
individual to the group this last track
that we're about to hear 50 for Duncan
Terrace
doesn't feature you as prominently as
many of the other tunes on on secrets
yeah how come
well it's died out unintentional because
there was basically only one solo
section in the piece and I wrote the
piece for a friend of mine who died a
few years ago he was a really great gala
player his name was Pat's life and all
the pieces that he used to compose were
always very they were always very pretty
or very melodic soft kind of them
pieces so on I wrote this kind of in
memory of him and he was like I said a
piano player and after I started
listening to the basic track when we did
it the studio as I thought then Alan
pasqua was tossing piano Flair and I
just asked him if he'd like to and play
on the track and he did and I just loved
what he did so and he played the bulk of
the soul and then I played this very
short solo section at the end from Allan
Holdsworth album secrets 54 Duncan
terrorists
[Music]
we're back in the Tustin Studio Vallon
holdsworth where we've just heard 50 for
Duncan Terrace from his new album
secrets which is going to be out this
August on intimate tapes and records and
compact discs and gosh probably at some
point we'll have a little computer disk
that we can play play it as well through
your Mac a little ways off we were
talking during the break about guitars
and he said something real interesting
about steinberger so they they had
something very special about them and
I'd like to elaborate on that just a
little bit all right I was a very first
time I played when it was I just got an
incredible feeling from it I just loved
the thing and it made me feel like I
felt when I very first picked up the
very first guitar you know you there's a
kind of like I had a resurgence of
energy that I felt really oh I wanted to
play the guitar again you know after I
got this time barrier which is which was
an interesting thing to happen and also
I loved it because of the creative
aspect of it too because most everybody
else for the last 20 years it's just
being a copy of some form of offender or
a Gibson and I think that the
Steinberger is the only true only truly
significant development electric guitar
for the last 20 years and I think that
they're not only that but the thing just
sounds great to me I mean I love it and
it's the only food I play if you were
going to I I realized this putting you
on the spot a little bit but if you're
going to give some advice to someone who
is currently practicing and playing and
perhaps aspiring someday to gain
professional musician what is it the you
talent
well actually I was talking to Gary
husband about this a few weeks ago and
he made a very keen observation which
was that everybody starts out when they
first start playing with something very
special of their own and what happens is
they're losing and the key is to keep it
and rather than being totally engrossed
in what other people are doing to try
and figure out what it is is it unique
about themselves and nurture that you
know I think it's really great to be
inspired by people and obviously I'm
still inspired by lots of musicians and
what I hear but I try not to like din
from his kind of infiltrate what I
really want to do myself so I try to
absorb the quality aspect of it but not
actually what it is in terms of likely
mimicry and I think that's the best
possible advice I could give to anyone
well thank you very much for your time
on behalf of steinberger guitars and
intima records I'm sayin tyranny we've
been speaking with Allan Holdsworth
his new album secrets will be out of the
stores this August so in addition to
those you're carrying right now if you'd
like to do the entire thing we encourage
you highly to find your way down there
and get a copy for your own self
[Music]
you 376 00:17:29,880 --> 00:00:00,000 you
