BLUES ROCK LEGEND ROBIN TROWER TELLS MATT FROST

GBINTERVIEW ROBIN TROWER
TROWER
POWER
Blues-rock virtuoso Robin
Trower has been entertaining
concert crowds for well over 40
years now. During the early ’60s,
he learned the ropes with the
Paramounts, the high school
rhythm and blues troupe he
founded with Gary Brooker, before
teaming up with Brooker once
again in the singer’s new band,
prog rock pioneers Procol Harum,
who Robin rocked with until 1972.
By that time the sheer wealth of
material he was writing
necessitated a break away to start
his own band. Since hitting the big
time with the monumental Bridge Of
Sighs LP in 1974, Trower has hardly
allowed himself time to snatch a
breath, banging out album upon
album of his unique brand of
hard-edged, effects-heavy blues
rock. This year has been a busy one
for Trower, with the ‘First Farewell
Tour’ seeing the guitarist take in
around 80 gigs in the US and Europe
across just five months.
...
SEVEN MOONS
The early part of the year also saw
the release of the much-anticipated
Seven Moons album, where Trower
is reunited with former Cream
bassist and front man Jack Bruce,
who he played with in the early ’80s
on the albums BLT and Truce. Seven
Moons, which also sees regular
Bruce collaborator Gary Husband on
the drum stool to complete the trio,
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is a thick slice of early ’70s-style
psychedelic-tinged blues rock and
has led some reviewers to state
that it’s the next best thing to
Bruce, Clapton and Baker knocking
out a new Cream album, which is
perhaps a little unfair to Trower. In
actual fact, the album, which was
recorded at Intimate Studios in the
City of London, only came about
after a decision was taken to
reissue the records that Bruce and Trower had made together
way back when.
“We’d been talking about doing a
remix and re-mastering of the stuff
we’d done together earlier on in the
’80s,” says Trower, “and Jack had
the idea of writing some new
material for that package. We got
together and suddenly we had four
or five songs so we said, ‘Well, we’ve
got half an album here so let’s go on
and do the rest!’”
THE TONE THING
Aside from the classic songwriting
and fluid playing that resound right
the way across Seven Moons, one of
the main things that stands out is
the richness of Robin Trower’s
guitar tone. And while Trower’s
trusty signature Fender
Stratocaster and Fulltone Fulldrive
overdrive pedal feature once again
on the new album, in terms of amps,
Seven Moons is the first time in a
long time that Trower has strayed
away from Fender and Marshall.
BLUES ROCK
LEGEND ROBIN
TROWER TELLS
MATT FROST
ABOUT HIS
most RECENT
ALBUM AND
THE SECRETS
BEHIND HIS
LUSH TONE
Enter stage left, Dennis Cornell.
“For a start, Fender sent me to
[Cornell] when I had something
wrong with a Fender amp because
he’s like their local troubleshooter,”
Trower explains, “and then from
there, I tried out a 50-watt amp
that he had. I quite liked it but I said
it wasn’t beefy enough for me for
playing live. But then before I went
in the studio with Jack, I thought,
‘Well, I need to play quite quietly
otherwise all we’re going to get on
the microphones is guitar’, so I
called Dennis and he said, ‘I’ve got
just the amp for you!’. He got me to
try it and it was just fantastic – a
really, really lovely tone!”
The amp in question was a Cornell
Plexi 18/20, a 20-watt combo with
a single 12-inch speaker, and Trower
went on to link two of them
together during the recording of
Seven Moons. As far as Robin’s live
rig goes for ‘The First Farewell
Tour’, while he was using Marshall
JCM800s in the States, the UK leg
of the tour saw the debut of a new
100-watt custom-built Cornell
amplifier. When we caught up with
him, Trower couldn’t have been
happier with the way the road-testing was going.
“It’s been really great,” he says.
“I’ve had it since the very first UK
date and I haven’t used anything
else so it’s obviously dead right – I
haven’t even changed the settings
➔
since that very first night!”
➔
August 2008
guitarbuyer
25
GBfeature The custom Cornell amp came about
as a result of, firstly, Robin Trower
being so blown away by the sounds
he was getting from his Plexi 18/20
in the studio and, secondly, by the
fact he felt it was time for a change
after loyally sticking with various
Fender/Marshall combinations over
the years.
After Trower tested a 50-watt
prototype, which he felt “wasn’t
quite man enough for the job”,
Dennis Cornell let him try out the
100-watt version, which more than
ticked all of Robin’s boxes, although
he’s the first to admit that he never
turns it all the way up to 11.
“I don’t run it on the full 100
watts,” he says. “I run it on the
second power setting, which is
around 65 or 70 watts. It’s nice to
have that little bit left to go on an
amp because if you start running it
flat out it just starts to get very
spongy and you can’t get that
percussion to the sound.” During
the UK leg, Robin is also running the
Cornell Plexi 18/20 through a
Marshall 4x12 cab as a back up.
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guitarbuyer AUGUST 2008
ROBIN TROWER
SIGGIN’ THE BLUES
As far as Trower’s guitar goes,
these days he never uses anything
other than one of his signature
Fender Strats and on ‘The First
Farewell Tour’, he’s been using the
first signature prototype that
Fender built for him.
“The first one they made me was
about four or five years ago now and
the one I’m actually playing at the
moment is that prototype,” he says.
“I have got others but I just tend to
go between two or three – you just
pick one up and say, ‘Ooh, that’s got
something the other one hasn’t
got!’, because they all sound a little different.”
When it came to choosing the
spec of his signature model, Trower
gave the whole process quite a bit
of thought to ensure he got the rich
tone he’s renowned for. “The main
thing is I have a ’70s-style
headstock, which is the larger
headstock,” he explains. “When I
started thinking about it, I thought,
‘Well, a bit more wood might be
more resonant’ so that’s a good
thing. Then I chose three different
types of pickup. At the neck I’ve got
a ’50s vintage reissue, in the middle
is a ’60s vintage reissue, and on the
bridge is what they call a Texas
Special, which is a higher gain
pickup. Otherwise it’s pretty much a vintage reissue, with the
old-fashioned cast saddles and all
that kind of thing.” The Robin Trower
Signature Stratocaster is currently
part of the Fender Custom Shop’s
Custom Artist range.
A FULLER TONE
Since he first came to prominence in
the late-’60s through his work with
Procol Harum, Robin Trower has
always been known for messing
around with various stompboxes and
effects units, not least for his
unrivalled mastery of Univibe-style
rotary speaker effects. However, ➔
GBfeature ROBIN TROWER
on Seven Moons, Robin is relatively
restrained, simply plugging his
signature Strat into a Fulltone
Fulldrive 2 pedal on the way to the
two Cornell Plexi 18/20s. In Trower’s
live rig, aside from a Boss tuner, it’s
Fulltone right across the board,
with a Dejavibe 2, a Clyde Deluxe
wah and a Fat Boost sharing floor
space with a brand new Fulltone
signature overdrive pedal.
“It must’ve been 15 or 16 years
ago that Mike Fuller sent me the
very first overdrive pedal and said,
‘Would you try it?’”, says Trower.
“I’ve always liked what he does
– obviously his ears and my ears like
the same sort of thing. I like a lot of
the overdrives he’s done – that old
Fulldrive 2 is about 15 years old and
I still use that occasionally, like I did
on Seven Moons, but this new one’s
really, really good!”
The new prototype of the RTO, or
Robin Trower Overdrive, that he is
currently using is the third that
Mike Fuller has sent through, and
given how happy he is with the tone
he’s achieving with it, Trower
believes it won’t be long before it
goes into full production.
SWEET FX
ROBIN TROWER AND THE UNIVIBE
n Trower’s pedals: (l to r) a Boss
tuner and Fulltone’s Robin Trower
Overdrive prototype, Fat Boost,
Clyde Deluxe wah and Dejavibe 2
■ In 1969, Univox released it’s Univibe pedal, designed to
mimic the shimmering sounds produced by plugging a
guitar into a Leslie rotating speaker cabinet.
Alongside Jimi Hendrix, who debuted the Univibe at Woodstock and
went on to use the effect on his classic recording of ‘Machine Gun’ from
the Band Of Gypsies live album, Robin Trower is widely regarded as one
of the Univibe’s foremost exponents, as epitomised on 1974’s Bridge Of
Sighs LP. Robin fondly recalls the moment he first fell head over heels
with the effect.
“I was in New York and I went into a guitar shop called Manny’s,” he
remembers. “I was trying out various pedals and that one just
immediately said, ‘Hello!’. I’m pretty sure Hendrix had already used it,
so that was probably the attraction when I heard it – ‘Ooh, that’s that
sound on such and such!’. I started to use it with Procol Harum on an
album called Broken Barricades and it’s been one of the sounds I’ve
always used ever since. It definitely puts the guitar in another place, a
more atmospheric kind of thing – it’s great!”
Robin now plugs into a Fulltone Dejavibe 2 when he wants to wow
his audiences with this particular trademark sound.
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guitarbuyer AUGUST 2008
AXE KINGS
Robin Trower has often been likened
to Jimi Hendrix in terms of his
playing style, and while Robin has
always declared Hendrix as a major
influence, there are other guitar
legends that have been just as
important to him, none more so
than the figures that first inspired
him to pick up the six-string when he
was in his early teens.
“I think probably more than
anything it was Scotty Moore, who
played with Elvis, and he’s still one of
my favourite guitar players today. I
just think he’s one of the most
musical rock ’n’ roll guitar players,”
Trower tells us. “There were other
guitar players like Cliff Gallup, who
played with Gene Vincent, and the
Everly Brothers’ guitar player – all
wonderful players – and then that
was it as far as my heroes go until I
heard B.B. King, which was in the
very early ’60s. I think ‘Three O’Clock
Blues’ was the first one that I heard
and, at first, I couldn’t really figure
out how he was doing it – it sounded
more like a slide guitar rather than
someone bending strings!”
Trower will never forget the time
he managed to catch his favourite
blues guitarist of all time, even if it
did very nearly lead him down to the
local job centre to search out an
alternative career. “Albert King is
my favourite blues player,” he says.
“I think he’s just out of this world.
When I saw him, I wanted to give up
playing the guitar – he was just so
good! I thought, ‘I’m never going to
come near that!’ but I managed to
keep going somehow and moved on,
but at the time it was just like, ‘Oh forget about it!’”
FUTURE BLUES
Despite having such a busy 2008
thus far, Robin still has quite a few
plans for the next 12 months,
including the mouth-watering
prospect of potentially teaming up
with Jack Bruce for a few gigs and a
follow-up album. But at the moment,
Robin’s looking forward to putting
his feet up for a while.
“Well, Jack and I are talking about
doing some gigs but there’s nothing
definite at the moment,” he says.
“I am working on ideas and lyrics for
another album, which Jack and
I have talked about doing, but we’ll
have to see. There’s also a
possibility of some work in the
States at the beginning of next
year, but after all the touring I’ve
just done, I’m just looking forward
to having a break for a bit!” GB