Count Zero : Articles : Rock Bottom (Guitar World, September 1991)

BY BILL MILKOWSKY

After backing guitar gods Steve Vai and Joe Satriani intermittently for a decade (with Vai since 1982 in The Classified, a six-piece band and 777, a power trio; and with Satch since 1987’s Surfing With The Alien tour), bassist Stu Hamm is finally stepping into the spotlight. His rocking new Relativity album The Urge, veers away from the fusion leanings of his first two solo-albums. 1988’s Radio Free Albemuth and 1989’s Kings Of Sleep, in favor of straight rock intensity. By simplifying the form, featuring his vocals on tunes like “Who Do You Want Me To Be Today” and “Our Dreams” and enlisting axe slingers from Texas hero Eric Johnson to Shotgun Messiah’s Harry K. Cody, Hamm seeks to tap into the lucrative Satch-Vai market.

But the bass doesn’t get lost in the new Hamm formula. He’s still showcasing thunderous chops on his Kubicki Factors, applying awesome two-handed tapping and flamenco-raking techniques on rockers like “The Hammer,” which features Cody’s sizzling guitar, and “Lone Star,” a fiery instrumental sparked by Johnson’s inspired Strat work. An extra treat for four-string fanatics is the live solo bass-showcase, “Quahogs Anyone?”, recorded during the last year’s Satriani tour. Hardcore Hamm fans will also recognize familiar Stu themes like “Linus and Lucy,” “Count Zero,” “Sexually Active” and “Country Music (A Night In Hell).”

Hamm, 31, recently scored an unprecedented double win for Rock and Jazz Bass in Guitar Player’s 1990 Readers Poll. On The Urge, he flashes the full range of his award-winning style, from a live recording of his two-handed solo extravaganza to piercing lead-bass lines and multi-tracked Kubicki orchestras. Much of the time, though, Stu just nails the groove. “That’s what it’s all about,” he emphasizes. “There were places on the album where I thought I should do lots of different bass parts. But the more I worked on some of those songs, I realized I just needed to play the groove. More than anything else, I wanted this album to have a feel.”

The new Hamm is also a bandleader. This summer he joined forces with Testament’s Alex Skolnick and led a legitimately smoking outfit on tour.

Stu Hamm, rock and roll hero?

Any bass-related conversation with you must begin with Jaco Pastorius.

Jaco was, without a doubt, my hero. I saw Jaco play dozen of times in various states of mental and physical well-being – a few times when he was just embarrassing – but the first time was magical: I couldn’t sleep for two days. Jaco got us all into experimenting with playing harmonics, incorporating melody into bass-lines – just basically pushing the limits of the instrument.

And now you’re dabbling in vocals and straight rock forms on The Urge.

Yeah, we really wanted to do something in-your-face and different. I’d hate to feel like I had to put out the same album over and over again. The vocal track on “Who Do You Want Me To Be Today” reflects, my attitude towards the album. People may expect certain things from me, but I can’t let that dictate what I do.

Your vocals are quite good. It sounds like you’ve sung professionally before.

I have – sort of. In 1979, when I was 18, I played with an Elvis impersonator, El-John. I sang a bit in that band; I have a photo of myself in a lime green jumpsuit, singing a Village People medley. And then after recording Vai’s Flexable I did some gigs in Atlantic City, where I sang “Far From Over” while Eileen Valentinia changed into her feathered boa. Imagine me wearing a tuxedo at Bally’s Park Place!

I wasn’t surprised to see you playing with Steve Smith and Jonathan Mover on this album. But Tommy Lee of Motley Crue?

Look, the guy can play, I don’t think people realize what a superb drummer he is, because it’s easy for those who entered music for music’s sake not to take a lot of these rock guys seriously as players. But we opened up for Motley Crue once and they were the best rock band I ever heard in my life. They were really tight, and after their set I met Tommy. He’s just the nicest guy in the world, and he’s VERY funny. He had heard my last record, and agreed to record with me. I think it was fun for him to play on something that musicians will take a little bit more seriously than Motley Crue. And he kicks ass.

I understand that the drums were recorded last.

Yes, on the whole album. Obviously, the ideal thing would be to have a band, rehearse the stuff extensively and cut the tracks live. But on my other albums I found that if I put the drums down first, and the beat dragged just a little bit. I was forced to stick with that and and change the groove to fit. So we got a sequencer and I put down totally quantized drum tracks. Then I did the bass parts, thinking that if I could make it sound good with those totally mechanical, perfect drum beats, it would really spark when someone like Jonathan Mover or Steve Smith or Tommy Lee came in. So we really got it grooving with the drum machine, then all the drummers just came in and kicked ass.

How do you get such a present bass on “The Hammer”?

I had a new Kubicki bass made with a P-bass pickup between the two other pickups. It makes a really nice, deep tone when I turn on all three. The main lick is just one track of bass, and one overdubbed an octave lower, just to get the real bottom growl. There was an old Leslie speaker lying around the studio, which I used on the lead bass track to get this great whirling, semi-distorted sound. I also put mics all around the room to achieve a natural acoustic sound – genuine, not pedal-generated.

What about the more subdued bass role in “Who Do You Want Me To Be Today.”

I wrote a lot of that song on the bass, and initially it had a lot of two-handed parts. But when I arranged the song, I focused on what the bass needed to do. As a songwriter, I don’t want to ruin a song by overdoing the bass.

It must be pretty hard to do all that and sing at the same time.

It’s not that hard. It’s like doing the contrapuntal stuff – you just get the bass part down well enough to the point that you don’t have to worry about it and then play melodies or chords, or in this case, sing over it. That song worked out great, and Buzzy Feiten is the world’s greatest rhythm player. He came up with all these great ideas – chordal things he did on the bridges and his solo at the end – that really made it work.

What’s going on in “If You’re Scared Stay Home”?

Tons and tons of bass tracks – just kick drum and basses. I love that song. Whenever you try to merge on the L.A. freeway, there’s always someone in front of you with Kentucky license plates who is too scared to get on the highway. One day we encountered somebody driving like that and a friend of mine yelled out. “If you’re scared, stay home!” We threw in taped newscasts of traffic disasters, murders and other everyday L.A. freeway stuff.

There’s a real Hendrix vibe to “Lone Star.”

That’s Eric. It was such a pleasure to work with him. I got to hear him play every night when he opened up for Joe, and we struck up a friendship. We wanted to play together and this album was the perfect opportunity.

What are Quahogs?

Giant clams. You’ve got your little necks, your cherrystones and your quahogs. We recorded concerts in Santa Barbara, San Diego and L.A. The original idea was to bounce them together and maybe repair some sections in the studio. Then a friend of mine sent me Weather Report’s 8:30, and I listened to Jaco’s solo on “Slang”. It’s recorded terribly, you can hear fret buzz, and there are mistakes and chord pops, but it’s got a fantastic vibe. So I decided to just leave everything in and stand by it, mistakes and all.

The last cut on the album, “As Children.” Is something of a family reunion for you.

Yeah, that’s my brother Bruce on tamboura and sarod, and my brother Chris on vocal chants. Bruce runs the Ali Akbar Khan School of Indian Music in San Francisco. He’s one of my heroes in terms of musical dedication. Chris lives in Taiwan, so I had him sing a scale onto a DAT, and we sampled that into a keyboard to get the effect of a Buddhist monk choir. The song is a very personal statement about us playing baseball in the backyard in Champaign, Illinois.

How do you feel about being named “Best Jazz Bassist” in various magazine polls?

In one way it means absolutely nothing. I certainly don’t think I’m a better player than John Patitucci. But I remember being alone in my room at Berklee (School Of Music), filling out a magazine readers’ poll, I penciled Jaco Pastorius for “Best Jazz Bassist” and thought, “Someday I want to win that.” So it’s a real dream come true.

I feel that the award places some pressure on me to out “Autumn Leaves” or something on my album. But I don’t think I’ll win any jazz polls with this album, though a lot of people think that when there’s no vocals it’s jazz. In fact, I think a lot of the stuff that Joe’s trio did was closer to jazz than Kenny G’s music is, because we were actually improvising. In my mind, jazz in experimental, improvisational, instrumental music.

How are Alex Skolnick and the rest of the band working out?

Much better that I ever could have guessed. I don’t listen to much thrash metal and I’ve never really heard Testament. You’d never think Alex could play, but he’s fantastic. The drummer, Ron Riddle, has toured with Blue Oyster Cult and we really fit in the pocket together. And keyboardist Jimmy Yager used to be with Cyndi Lauper.

How are you feeling about the tour?

I’m very excited. It was a big ride with Joe from clubs to theaters to stadiums. Now it’s back to the shitholes, all my favorite dingy clubs, and I can’t wait to get there.

Do you have and other upcoming side-man projects?

I think I’m going to be doing a band project with Yes’ Jon Anderson called Uzlot. As a Yes fanatic, I was thrilled to meet John. Th music is very quiet, ethereal stuff on which I’ll play a lot of fretless. I also might do Tracii Gunn’s new album.

What’s Joe up to now?

He’s been working on his album. Though I speak to him pretty regularly, we’re not in the same tour bus 24 hours a day for nine months anymore: I’m not as closely in touch with him as I used to be. I also talked to Steve Vai the other day. I asked them both if they wanted to do my tour for $700 a week, but they both turned me down – believe it or not.

Count Zero : Articles : Rock Bottom (Guitar World, September 1991)