Jeff Beck was your favorite guitarist’s favorite guitarist. For all is success and innovation, the whole story of the twice-inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has never been told…until now. Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill have teamed up for the definitive biography of one of rock’s greatest muscians.
Please click below for the MisplacedStraws Brad Tolinski & Chris Gill interview –
On their backgrounds – BRAD – I grew up and I was a Detroit kid. Then I moved to New York and got involved in playing music and writing about music. I was the editor editor-in-chief of Guitar World for 25 years where I got to talk to people like Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen and all those kind of good folks. I shifted from there to focusing on deeper content, a little away from those magazine stories into the Jeff Beck book, which is 400 pages. It went a little wild, and here I am.
CHRIS – Boy, where would I start? I have been involved in the music industry since the early ’80s. I actually worked for Neil Bogart at Boardwalk Entertainment and always was a guitar player. I think actually working at a record label kind of made me think that maybe I shouldn’t form a band, and maybe I should be behind the scenes because I want to make a living and eat food. But anyways, I pulled in and out of the music industry over the years. Ended up working for Roland, which is where I met Brad for the first time. I was doing artist relations and press relations there at the company. Brad would come by to pitch Guitar World, and I loved it. I ended up after that job working for Guitar Player magazine actually, which I had been reading as a kid. That’s where I first interviewed Jeff.
In fact, that was my first cover story for Guitar Player, was my Jeff Beck interview. I wanted to, move out to New York City, and, ended up calling Brad up and told him to give me a job. I took my porkpie hat and my suitcase and everything like that, and caught the train, and showed up with a saxophone and everything like that and a guitar and threw away the saxophone.
Jeff was always this thing for me. He was one of my top influences as a guitarist, along with Eddie Van Halen. It was just great, to have this opportunity to talk to him numerous times over the years and everything. It was funny because Brad actually initially, he had done these books, this great book on Jimmy Page, “Light and Shade”. And he said, “Chris, you should do a book on Jeff Beck,” because he knew I’d interviewed Jeff quite a few times. I’m like- Me, do a book on Jeff Beck? I don’t have enough material, because Jeff Beck’s career was long. It was all these years and everything like that, and I just thought, “gosh, that’s a lot of work and everything”. Similarly, it was like he was bugging about doing an Eddie Van Halen book, and then we decided to do a book together, combine our material, and that was the perfect union of collaboration. That worked out really well. So of course, once we finished that up, it’s like now let’s do that Jeff Beck book.
On if they talked to Jeff about doing a book prior to his death – BRAD – No. We never really talked to him about doing a book. The idea came about Chris and I had collaborated on an Eddie Van Halen book “Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen”, and when we finished, we were like “What should we do next?” It became obvious pretty quick. Jeff was somebody who was such a monumental figure in the 20th and 21st century of music, and a really good, solid book explaining his life and his career didn’t exist.
I think between Chris and I, we had 40 or 50 hours of interviews with Jeff. It was a real treasure trove of stuff, and it was a great foundation to begin. But much like you we didn’t know the whole story either. Part of the idea of this book was we’re gonna really dig and figure it out and make sense out of his career. It was a complicated task.
On if they learned things about Jeff Beck that they didn’t know – CHRIS – Oh, there, there were many. It wasn’t just one. It was around every corner there was something. That’s, I think, part of the, the challenge of Jeff is his recorded output and the early period, he put out a lot of records pretty regularly for the most part. But he didn’t do a lot of great interviews. Rock journalism was still in its infancy and everything. A lot of times, especially in the mid-’70s, it was really frustrating to read these interviews, and they “What was Jimi Hendrix like? What was it like when you played with Jimi Hendrix?” It’s like, “I just did an album called Blow By Blow. Hey let’s talk about Jimi Hendrix”, and it’s like, “Ugh.” It’s so frustrating. It’s here’s this period, this person has access to Jeff Beck right when he made the album, and it’s fresh, and they’re talking about something that happened seven, eight years ago. That forced us to dig even deeper, and even with our own interviews, sometimes it was just a sentence was a spark of something. There was, when I interviewed Jeff for the first time in December 1992, and we were talking about mostly, Crazy Legs and the Frankie’s House soundtrack, but I’ve talked with him for three hours, so I got to fill in a lot of those holes personally.
I talked a little bit about Blow By Blow with him then. But there’s also just stuff he mentioned offhandedly. Actually, this came later. In fact, this was 1999. But he mentioned about getting together with Jennifer Batten and Tony Levin and Terry Bozzio, and that was just an offhand remark, and he didn’t go into great detail about it. But it’s like what happened with that? Why didn’t that happen? Why didn’t that come together? So, I talked to Jennifer Batten about that. But that was the thing, was like, gosh, there’s all these avenues that weren’t really explored. How do we fill in the holes? The early ’80s, you read most of these interviews with Jeff around the Flash album, and they just say “Oh, after There and Back, Jeff went into the garage and worked on his hot rods.” It’s like, no, he didn’t. He worked on a lot of music. He had a lot of projects that were going on, and we just don’t know about them because there was no interviews at the time. So, we had people fill in the holes about that.
Simon Phillips was wonderful, because he was along Jeff’s side for most of that period. There was stuff there that I’m like, “Wow, I never knew this. I never knew that”. It was funny. It was entertaining and funny, too.
BRAD: There were a few things that, had become legend but didn’t really know the details of it. I had heard from several places that Jeff, for example, had recorded a record at Motown. I knew the the broad strokes of the story, but I didn’t know any of the details, how he ended up at Motown, how that got booked. Because it wasn’t really common for outsiders to record there. So that was, something like that was totally fascinating.
To be honest with you, I’d heard 10 different stories about the song “Superstition”. I’m like which one of these stories is true? What makes sense? What really happened? There were a lot of things that we uncovered that we had no idea about, but also a lot of things that were out there that seemed very important that nobody had the correct story either. We were determined to figure that stuff out.
CHRIS: It was also with Jeff, there’s a few instances where he would tell three or four or five different stories for one instance. It’s like which one is the true story here? You’d see things appear or he’d throw out some tidbit, but it would be so many years removed. It’s like, “Why didn’t he mention this ever before?” So was this true, or is this just something that Jeff created well after the fact when all the bodies were buried? That was our job, was to really be, like attorneys and investigative, detectives out there digging around for the truth and nothing but the truth.
On Beck’s relationship with singers – BRAD – That’s why his turn to jazz and fusion in the ’70s, that was just like catnip to Jeff. The idea that he could make a living and make a record without actually having to deal with a lead singer probably was irresistible to him. There were other factors in that. Of course, he was greatly influenced by Miles Davis, and John McLaughlin and other jazz players at that time. But the idea to integrate, the rock side, the jazz side, and put out a commercial record with a George Martin was probably thrilling to him because, his relationship with singers wasn’t always the best.
CHRIS – It’s interesting because, Jeff, there’s a little bit of a contradiction with him because, personally he was a very private person. He lived well past more than an hour south of London in the countryside surrounded by 80 acres of farmland, and there’s this house built in the 1500s. He would go into the city, to socialize and things from occasion. But generally, he liked to just hang out at home and be private.
He wouldn’t even go out to the local pub. But on stage he had a big ego, and he craved the spotlight and the attention, and he didn’t really like sharing it with the singer. He liked to be, really big bananas, as he called it, and he talks about, “Who are they applauding for? Is it for me? Is it for the singer? I don’t know,” “and I want the applause.” He was he admitted that he wanted to be the focus of attention. I think that was a big part of it and why, for example, why it didn’t work later on with Rod Stewart when he was supposed to go on tour and only does nine shows, or when he’s supposed to join up with Mick Jagger and go off on tour. As he says, “I thought that Mick was my singer, but, no, I was his guitarist,” and that was part of the whole imbalance of it all was just that, he had a bit of that alpha personality on stage and with his music.
On if his public legacy would be greater if he finished some of the projects he started – BRAD – I don’t think that was a huge factor for Jeff. He would joke about it a bit and say, people would ask him about whether he was jealous of Eric Clapton’s career or of Led Zeppelin, and he would kinda go, “I’d like to have their money,” but most of his most of his decisions were artistic choices and that was the motivating factor. I think he always knew that he could figure out a way to balance the art and the commerce, to where he would get by, where he would be successful. I don’t, in some ways I really think that if given his druthers, would he rather be the biggest star or do his own, create his own music?
He would take his own music,
BRAD – Every time. So, what would his legacy be, say, had he joined The Rolling Stones? It wouldn’t be Jeff Beck. It wouldn’t be the guy that we love. It wouldn’t be the interesting player, I think it’s precisely the reason that we care about him, that somehow, he’s been able to have a career for, what?
Had a career for 50, 60 years, was because people were fascinated with that thing that Jeff Beck could bring to the table, and he was always very consistent and and driven by that.
CHRIS – It’s amazing when you look back at his career, he didn’t sell a whole ton of records.
Blow by Blow and Wired were his big successes and everything, and that unfortunately separated him from a lot of his companion musicians, because they weren’t making as much money as he was. They couldn’t take time off like Jeff could. So, it helped give momentum to this whole thing of “I can take my time, and I can do what I want.” He was comfortable and he could live off of that. But as it got on the records didn’t sell, but he always was a draw live. He was playing pretty big venues throughout his career, and he was able to make money doing that, and I think that was a, kind of a nice balance for him, was that he could go out and be Billy Big Bananas on stage and play the music that he liked and people would accept it.
And it’s funny because actually it got as later in his career with Loud Hailer and 18, where he did become a band member of sorts, and he wasn’t exactly the sole focus anymore, and that how he had come to accept that role and everything. But it still was uncompromising on his part, it still was artistic, and it still was fulfilling for him.
On high-profile concerts in the early 80s – CHRIS – Very much yeah, and it’s interesting because I think that really helped cement his reputation was those ARMS shows. The fact that there was people that really didn’t know much about Jeff beyond that he was a member of The Yardbirds and that he had this album called Blow by Blow and Wired, and that’s really all people knew of him at that point. They didn’t realize that he had this whole, the Jeff Beck Group. I know from listening to radio in the ’70s and everything, you basically heard, maybe an occasional Yardbirds song, and then you heard a lot of stuff from Blow by Blow or Wired, but you didn’t hear either version of the Jeff Beck Group. You didn’t really hear Beck Bogert & Appice or anything at that point. But when he goes off and does that tour, it’s all of a sudden, it’s like, wow, this guy’s (amazing), I think most people agreed. That was when VHS was big and people were seeing that stuff, or when, cable television was still new and fresh. Unfortunately, that stuff has fallen by the wayside, and it’s hard to find that, those recordings anymore. It was interesting to watch him mop the floor with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.
CHRIS – That’s the thing, and that’s where people like, when people who saw that said “Wow, this guy’s really good. This guy’s really good, and he’s better than Clapton and Page, and that, I think, helped cement his reputation.
I think it’s weird because then MTV came along, and he became known as, Rod Stewart’s guitar player. From the “Infatuation” video and from the “People Get Ready” video and everything, and I think that kind of pulled him back a little bit. I can remember waiting in line to buy tickets for the 1989 tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff. All these people are like, “Oh, this Jeff Beck guy. He’s that guy who plays with Rod Stewart,” and it’s like people, he’s so much more than that. Wait and see.
On what drove him to keep evolving in the 90s when Clapton and Page stagnated – CHRIS – Boredom. Boredom, and, He was always reaching, he was just built, he was just wired differently to use a, to coin a cliche here. That’s the funny thing is that, he was doing this album with (Steve) Lukather, and Brad, had me interview with Lukather on his solo album, and Lukather was talking for the first half hour about, “I’m working on this album with Jeff,” and that’s, it was great to revisit that for this book, because that stuff had never been printed before, and that was right when Lukather was in the midst of it. All these impressions and things were fresh. It wasn’t like talking to him like now about it, and it’s diluted and changed and whatever.
BRAD – I hope that you got this idea from reading the book. Because what was really important about the book for Chris and I is that it wasn’t just going to be a laundry list of things that Jeff did. Yeah. It was gonna help you understand who he was as an artist and his artistry. That was what we were trying to accomplish. You’re saying what drove Jeff in the ’90s or in the [00:19:00] 2000s? Go all the way and look at him playing in The Tridents when he was 17 or 18 or 19, back in the early days, he was pushing the envelope then. It wasn’t necessarily the most commercial or the best thing for him to be doing that stuff, but he always had this compulsion to evolve, innovate. That was as much part of him as, as anything.
A revelation that came to me while I was working on the book and thinking about the later part of his career is I think what was really different or interesting about his playing is he started really approaching the guitar almost like the way a classical musician would approach playing violin or, when you’re playing classical music, you have to consider each note and each phrase, and the dynamic of each phrase, and how it’s all gonna fall together, and how it’s going to sound as a whole, to create this picture. Which is a different way than most guitar players think, right? You pick up your guitar you start rattling through some of your licks, and maybe after the 50th note you’re thinking, “Oh, maybe I should add some vibrato or a bend or something.” But I think what Jeff was doing was thinking about the impact that each and every note would have on the listener. Again, that’s a completely different way of approaching the instrument than what most guitar players do.
CHRIS – Yeah, the, the nuance is just the attention to detail. Where Simon Phillips and Tony Hymas are working on There and Back, and they’re talking about they’d written this, this song and showed it to Jeff, and Jeff said, “Let me go work on it.” He went in the other room and they sat there and had tea. They’re like listening to him in the other room, and they’re like, and he’s working on three notes. They’re going like, “What’s he doing? That’s this real simple melody.” But then you realize he’s figuring out the best way to play it. Which strings, which fret position, phrasing it. All this stuff, he did three simple notes, but he would figure out what was the best way to play that. As it evolved, the, the guitar became this voice.
It was this, this vocal-like instrument, that’s where it differs a little bit from the classical musician, I will say, is that he transcended the instrument. He heard these sounds in his head, and it’s “okay, now how do I get that out of this? This is my instrument, this is what I’m comfortable with, but I don’t want it to sound like that. I want it to sound like the Bulgarian State Television Women’s Choir. I want it to sound like this Indian vocalist. I want it to sound like Vietnamese flutes, or this Vietnamese string instrument.” He was just looking beyond this universe of the guitar, and at, the musical universe at large.
On people wanting to work with him even though he was difficult – CHRIS – I think with that whole thing with him is that, I don’t think he was so difficult to work with as it was just, he was demanding. He had a certain standard of everything, and I never really heard anybody, except for, I think, him and Tim Bogert, almost came to fisticuffs, or came to fisticuffs at a point, and there was that, but and even the bad blood between him and the Jeff Beck Group, the initial version with Rod they still loved him. Ronnie (Wood) still loved him, and Rod still loved him, and but how could you not wanna work with somebody at that level? It is very enriching for your career and everything. He wasn’t that bad of a person. It wasn’t like he was some total jerk. It just, he was just, he was, he had high standards.
BRAD – He had high standards. One thing Chris and I have talked about a, a lot because I think we said this earlier, we spent a lot of time with Jeff, chatting with him, was he could be enormously charming, too. When you spent time with him, he was a hilarious guy. Very quick-witted, very funny. Look he was a genius. He had high standards. He was pursuing a higher musical, standard. If that meant having to kick people in the butt a little bit, he would do that. But I think maybe sometimes also what gets misinterpreted is that Jeff would go down a path, and at some point, he would also say, “I wanna do something different and these guys aren’t going to be able to supply that support for me in order to do that different thing”. He had vision and sometimes you get people and I don’t blame them, who think that, “Oh, I’m gonna be doing this for the next four or five years and be making money and playing arenas.” And Jeff’s like, “Eh, going in this direction. See you guys later.”
CHRIS – Sometimes that doesn’t sit, that was the cause of some conflict, with some of those, those bands, especially later on, and it was either a matter of not enough work or too much work. That was a thing that was interesting with Jennifer Batten, where she said “Man, he just drained us.” The band had this little meeting with him and said “We can’t go on like this,” and where as everybody else was “Oh, when is Jeff gonna get his act together and do this? We were promised this. We were promised that, and he wants to take another year to work on this record.” Or he’s planning this tour, then he decides he doesn’t wanna do that after all. Again, it wasn’t like anything that particularly mean or being a jerk or anything like that. It was just what was driving him, what did he feel at the time? I think to come back to that, it’s interesting the Lukather thing was just like, he worked on this record, and he felt like he was back, rewinding a bit.
They were doing a fusion record. He’s like, “I don’t think I wanna really do this. This isn’t me.” Of course, he starts hearing all this electronic music coming over the radio and going like, “That’s exciting. That’s what I’d like to do.” People don’t realize, again, he’s a guitar player, but he was listening to electronic music since 1960. He loved Jan Hammer, and he, he loved all the synthesizer music. We were talking earlier about Vangelis, about how, when he initially wanted to do Flash, he wanted to do this Vangelis type of thing. So he loved that.
BRAD – I did I recently worked on a project with John McLaughlin, the jazz guitarist, and Jeff loved John’s playing and everything. It was interesting to me when John would talk about his influences. There would almost never be a guitar player mentioned. It was all horn players; it was keyboard players. It was all of these guys. I find that sort of an interesting parallel with Jeff, because Jeff admired John, and John said that Jeff was his favorite guitar player. They both admired each other. But both of them were driven by, not by guitar players. They were driven by these other, the sounds of other instruments.
It’s almost like they were like, “I can get guitar music any time I want. I can play through a Marshall amp and, I wanna see what somebody else will show me.” I think that had a huge impact on what made Jeff different and a lot of the things that drove him too.
