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West Side Dave: What made you decide to play bass, and was this in fact your first
instrument?
Phil McKenna: When I moved to Boston MA in the late 80's, I found the rumors were true, there were so freakin' many guitarists but hardly any bassists, so I saw an opportunity for more gigs and recording that way. And also, whenever looking for jam or band situations, it was always so hard to find a good bassist, seemed like all the good ones were booked into the next century, SO, I decided to stop grousing and start grooving so to speak. This was in 1989.
Actually, trombone of all things was my very first instrument at age 9 (couldn't play one to save my life now). I started playing guitar when I was 12 and still do to this day, although I did take a long pause from in through most of the 90's, in a quest to deepen my knowledge of bass and the areas of composition and arranging, all a self-inflicted musical miseducation BTW. (laughs)
WSD: Who were some of your early influences?
PM: Ahhh, let's see. my earliest musical memories from childhood were hearing things as diverse as Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, a lot of big band stuff and generous doses of classical composers like Bach, Ludwig Von, Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy and many of the Russian composers of the late 1800's or so. I got into rock & roll at age 11 or so, stuff like Hendrix, Cream, Grand Funk RR, Ozzy-period Black Sabbath and even ELP and Yes rearranged my brain cells in a major way. I started getting into progressive rock AND the whole jazz-rock thing about age 15, I was never quite the same after hearing Genesis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, King Crimson and a young upstart B rit guitarist named Allan Holdsworth playing with Tony Williams in '75.
WSD: Who/what are some of your current influences?
PM: Some have endured a long while for me, like KIng Crimson, Magma and many of the classical composers I mentioned. More recently, I have to admit some of what I've heard of Tool offers interesting possibilities in terms of the production and sonic design. Miles Davis has had a gigantic lasting influence on me, not so much in terms of musical style (though I LOVE so much of what he's done), but rather creative and operational methods. Many times,, if faced with a creative dilemma, I'll say to myself, "What would Miles do?". I also dig bands like Soundgarden that combined heaviness and very unusual melodic and songwriting ideas, plus their songs haunt you for days on end. One non-musical influence that works for me is impressionist and abstract painters, sometimes, the visual will trigger something in me to c reate with.
WSD: How does your latest album, "Ghost Of A Train" compare with your previous release, "Tales From The Inflatable Forest"?
PM: I think that "Ghost--" is a lot fiercer, heavier and darker than "Tales---", kind of like a huge steam train rumbling at you full tilt. "Tales--" in retrospect strikes me as more whimsical in certain respects yet has a certain amount of ferocity that "Ghost--" used a lot more. The other thing I tried to do differently with "Ghost--" was pack a lot of musical substance into somewhat shorter pieces, yet lose NONE of the substance. The one danger of strictly instrumental music is that the potential for listener boredom is incredibly high, even for people with long attention spans. You have to keep them engaged with enough interesting and evolving details.
WSD: What equipment are you currently using?
PM: Guitar: Gibson/Epiphone SG and a Traynor YCV-40 tube amp (1X12" Celestion)
Bass: Schecter Stiletto Series Custom 5-string w/ active electronics
RECORDING: Windows PC w/ Cubase SE software, Magix Audio Cleaning Lab and a truckload of VST effects, amp modellers and soft-synths including Melltrons, Organs, synths, Clavinet and pianos, M-Audio Radium-61 MIDI keyboard controller, Alesis 16-channel mixer, M-Audio soundcard and M-Audio BX-5 monitors.
WSD: In your opinion, what are some of the biggest problems in the music industry today?
PM: Pretty much the same ones that have existed for a couple decades but only worse now. At the root of it all, I'd say EXTREME short-sightedness and greed. One of the worst things that EVER happened was MTV, where overnight, the emphasis went from creativie ability to LOOKS and marketability of same. All of a sudden, if you didn't have a certain look, your chances of getting signed went out the window. The boy-band thing of the 90's highlighted several major problems, among them, shameless fakery and a ridiculous unrealistic front-loaded way of doing business where they put all their eggs in one basket so to speak, and if said product didn't sell X-billion units in the first 5 miutes of release, the financial losses would be catastrophic. And not to mention, the ever present drug and whore habits of most of the major label types, wasting money right and left while their artists are getting reamed right and left. And of course, companies like Sony have consistently shot themselves in both feet with things like putting spyware in CD's and other illegal and unethical displays of idiocy.
These, among many reasons are why I am such an advocate of doing it yourself, the technology is so affordable now to the average person, and that's what scares the giants. And they should be, they bought it on themselves.
WSD: What is the state of Progressive Rock these days?
It's certainly not going to sell out stadiums like it did back in the days of ELP and what not, but since the early 90's and with the advent of the internet, there has been a healthy semi-underground revival going to this day, heck there's even numerous festivals that draw larger and larger crowds every year. There seem to be 2 major camps, one I would call the neo-prog side where elements of the classic bands (likeYes and Genesis primarily) but yet tend to water it down with more pop elements and commercial hooks so to speak. Another major extreme camp tends to really push the envelope, seen with bands like Dr Nerve, Present, Thinking Plague, RUINS and such, incorporating elements of modern classical music, unorthodox compositional techniques and unusual instrumentation. And there's all kinds of variations in between. I have no illusions about prog being big again but it does my heart good to see people still love to challenge pre-conceived ideas and actually try to progress creatively and an audience that will support them. Even more mainstream bands like The Mars Volta are doing very interesting and unusual things that no one else would dare try given their commercial status.
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