CRIS MARTIN

💿 Hi, it’s a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal the well-known guitar hero CRIS MARTIN!! Let’s start talking about the early days of your career..When is this all begun andwhich guitarists have influenced you?

Thank you for having me. I started playing the guitar when I was 16 years old and initially borrowed my brother’s classical guitar. It had a nylon strings, a huge neck and the action was very high and was very hard to play.

My first electric was a Satellite les paul copy which was made in Japan but was a budget instrument but allowed me to develop my lead playing skills. When I eventually got my first professional guitar, which was a sunburst Gibson Les Paul guitar with DiMarzio pickups, I began to make real progress, practicing scales (which I still do) and playing along to vinyl albums. Early influences were Gary Moore, Alex Lifeson, Brian Robertson and Michael Schenker. I was also into jazz guitarists like Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Allan Holdsworth.

I really liked the fluid legato lines these players came out with although back then, I couldn’t copy any of them at all! I played in a few amateur bands but my first metal band was called Predator in 1981.

They were very Iron Maiden influenced in their songwriting and image. I joined Thunderstick in 1982 and recorded an EP and album and we did one tour before I left. After that I did some session work and lots of demos with different people. In 1997 I left the music business altogether.

💿 We’re listening your new single OVERRUN and we’re very satisfied about it. Can you say us somethin’about that and its composition process and style?

Overrun started off as a demo back in 2013. I had only begun to play guitar again in 2008 and was exploring if I could still play well as I once used to! I was recording in a small studio in south London.

Not having recorded in a modern studio for many years, I found the use of computers in the recording process quite amazing in terms of the freedom they allow to edit and manipulate sound.

Anyway, getting back to Overrun, as the sessions progressed, more musical ideas began to materialize and I realized that I could record a solo album. I was interested in instrumental music and wanted to explore the idea of making a part instrumental record. I wanted to avoid playing over complicated lead lines especially with instrumentals, there needs to be space in the music rather than filling everything with 16th notes! I used a wah wah pedal on Overrun to add to vocally texture to the guitar.

💿 What’s your feeling about music business today and about a classic format like vinyl?

The music business today is very different to how it was back in the 80s.

The rise of the internet and home recording has allowed everyone to make music.

The record companies are less relevant now. The downside of course is that it is much harder to make a living from music these days. Kids can download tracks for free, there are literally thousands of bands releasing music online and as it is more of a free market, there is far more competition. I have mixed feelings about this. New acts now have to compete with so many others, trying to sell music is very difficult. Unless a band has rich parents or they are discovered, then I think it is almost impossible to forge a career in the music business now. I am very excited about the reemergence of vinyl records. I love analogue audio equipment and still use old formats like Cassettes and vinyl. I have Nakamichi tape decks that sound amazing even playing tape recordings that are 40yrs old. Obviously digital music will never die out but I think there is room for older formats to be rediscovered by younger generations.

💿 On your last album ROCK DAWN,THUNDERSTICK and BLAZE BAYLEY were special guests. Can you tell us somethin’about the relationships with this amazing british artists?

Answer. Being a long time Iron Maiden fan, I thought having Blaze Bayley singing on the 3 non-instrumental would be great. I sent him demo mixes of Witches Tower, Heretic and Call of the Wild which he liked and he recorded his vocals in his studio so we were never in the studio together at the same time. He was a pleasure to work with. I needed some of his vocal parts changed and he was happy to re-record them until I was happy with them. Having previously worked with Barry AKA Thunderstick, he was the obviously choice to play drums on the project. He ended up playing on 9 tracks, the other three we used programmed parts. We had some latency issues with the electronic drumkit which caused some timing issues with the drum tracks which took quite a while to fix but the end results I was very happy with.

💿 Can you tell us somethin’about next studio and live projects? Are scheduled some gigs?

I am planning to record another album in 2018 although no decisions have been made who I will work with as yet. I have a number of songs already written as well as a number of instrumentals so I think it will again be a mixture of songs with vocals and instrumental tracks. I would also like to tour with a new lineup when the album is out which will probably be released in the autumn of 2018 so watch this space!

💿Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal!

(Thanks DARREN JOHNSON PR)

#guitarhero #martin #ironmaiden #thunderstick