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DECEMBER 1999
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Souce: Vintage Guitar, Cover Story
Contributed by Tim Morse
Steve Howe
By Tim Morse
In a rehearsal studio in North Hollywood the legendary progressive rock
band Yes launches into their brand new epic "New Languages." As the group
plays this intricate and yet powerful song, Steve Howe's wonderfully fluid
guitar playing comes quickly to the fore. His guitar work is intertwined
with Jon Anderson's singing and Chris Squire's bass playing to create what
many call the "Classic Yes Sound." Steve's uncontested versatility has
been a part of Yes since 1970 and he is equally at home playing a sitar as
he is working a pedal steel guitar. As a songwriter Howe has co-written
with Jon Anderson some of the group's best loved material, including
"Roundabout", "Close To The Edge" and "Awaken." In addition to Yes,
Steve has worked with Asia, GTR, ABWH and on other solo and collaborative
projects.
1999 has been a busy year for Howe. He has recorded a new Yes album "The
Ladder," released two solo albums ("Pulling Strings," a live album
documenting his last solo tour, and "Portraits of Bob Dylan," featuring
covers of Dylan's work with various guest artists) and is starting a world
tour with Yes. He took time out of his busy schedule for this interview
and we began by discussing his famous guitar collection:
VG: When did you start collecting guitars in earnest?
SH: In the sixties I had about seven or eight guitars: an electric
12-string, acoustic 12-string, a bass, the 175 -- a small handful of
things. But my goal was when I got to the States I was going to buy and
that's what happened. On my first tour I bought a sitar guitar, a steel
and another acoustic, and by the second tour I was buying multiples. I was
buying ten guitars during the tour and stocking them. I bought jazz
guitars and things I considered rare and interesting at that time, mostly
based around myself as a player and not just a hoarder/collector where I
wanted ten of the same thing. I've never really particularly agreed with
that, at least in my collection. I wouldn't have room to have multiples of
the same guitar in the vision I have of my collection. In the sixties I
used to hoard those Gibson catalogs and think that I'd have maybe one of
all of those and sure enough I started doing it! (laughs) I was buying up
L5s, a 2400, an ES295, a 335, an old Stereo and it wasn't long before it
got out of control.
VG: So you started with a void that had to be filled; was there a time when
you actually felt full?
SH: I got more than full -- I got sick! Not sick of collecting for that
reason, but sick of how I'd sort of rather carelessly hoarded too many. I
looked through and I found that a lot of them paled in significance and I
thought I don't really know what I'm doing with that. Something like a
double cut away Les Paul Junior, something I'm never going to play. Maybe
I liked it at the time because I hadn't seen one before and then after
awhile found that it wasn't a useful guitar for me and so I started
streamlining a lot. I really wanted to devise a new route, an escape
route, if you like, for the collection where I would keep basically what
was important in the sense of what was important to me. And that's always
getting smaller, because you realize more and more if you're looking from a
players point of view, that only so many guitars are actually
wonderful. What my guitar collection was supposed to be about was a number
of extremely wonderful guitars, not a very big number of assorted levels of
guitars. I wanted a certain level, a certain quality. And believe me even
with the 90 guitars I've got now, it's not all about great wonderful
guitars. I know that there are certain useful, practical guitars that I'll
always keep, but there are also always around the edge more and more
superfluous guitars, because as I'm getting older I'm becoming less
tolerant of guitars with wider necks that I never feel comfortable playing
and so on.
VG: You become more ruthless about it and say, "I don't need this."
SH: You need to, because I've had them. It's not like I've never had
them. I've always got to keep it in balance with my life. I think that in
a way that being critical of them has refined them and that's what I was
looking for; a very refined collection that said a lot about what I
like. Yeah, I'll have a Rickenbacker 6-string and a Rickenbacker 12-string
and I'll have a Danelectro 12-string as well, because of the different
sounds they've got. So valuing guitars for their individual quality is
what I'm about rather than valuing them for their intrinsic value, their
sale value or their hype value.
VG: What are the problems in maintaining a collection of that size?
SH: Well you can worry yourself sick every night whether or not its the
right temperature and the right humidity. I took a more workable route
where first of all wherever they are they have to be maintained at one
temperature -- that's sort of more important than what temperature it is
really -- that it doesn't keep changing. So my guitars hover around 65 to
70 degrees, I like to keep my guitars around that temperature...humidity is
something I'm not having trouble with, I've got humidifiers, but I don't
find that is an area I need to look at in the part of England where I
live. We don't have great changes in humidity
VG: I wanted to ask about two specific guitars that are identified with
you, the Gibson ES175D and the Martin 00-18 -- can you tell me why these
guitars are so special to you?
SH: Their usefulness is evident in the amount that I've used them, being
that I like to make different noises on the guitar the 175 was quite a
colorful guitar to alter. So when I put that guitar through boxes, delay
lines and things, it gave a certain sound that was part of that
guitar. It's more that guitar has followed me through my career, than its
been a prime instrument. There have been certain periods where I didn't
play anything else. Up until "The Yes Album" it was the same thing, in
fact there's only one other six-string electric on that album; a
Guyatone. A very small bodied, rounded guitar with a single side head
stock -- it sounded a bit like a Fender, really. But the 175 was an image
I created for myself. Right from '64 when I showed up at gigs people's
mouths gaped and I got on stage and they thought, "This isn't going to be
right." And then I play it and it was, so I broke the golden rule, I took
a jazz guitar and played rock on it.
VG: How old where you when you bought that Gibson?
SH: I guess I was seventeen and it was an acquisition and a half. I felt
it was an acquisition that was going to give me something back. It was very
much based on the Kenny Burrell sound I liked and my 175 in a Tremolux
sounds very much like that. I took it home and that's what it sounded like
and I was immensely happy. Of course I loved that front pickup and I
always enjoyed jazz a lot, but I knew this guitar had to transmute into
something that was rock. That guitar is just mystifying, it's just the way
I feel. The main thing about it is that it feels amazing to play. The few
people that have played it have said the same thing. I just limit who gets
to play it!
VG: I know you don't really let people use it or touch it.
SH: I'm pretty possessive about it, but I'm pretty possessive about all of
my guitars. That guitar more than ever, but Martin Taylor, the great jazz
guitarist, played it recently and he said it was an amazing guitar to
play. The stringing on it is so strange, it's two .012's and a .016 on the
top three and it gives the guitar a very unusual, but a very free feeling.
VG : What about the Martin?
SH: The 00-18 I've had since 1968. It was just after flower power and
after I was trying to come back to life, to the real world. I bought the
Martin and decided that sound was the epitome of any acoustic I'd ever
have, there would never be anything better. And as far as I'm concerned
there has only been the Scharpach, which is a totally different kind of
guitar. Very unlike a Martin, but for the creamy, presence-y sound right
from "The Yes Album" across all my records really, I played that guitar and
believed it to be a wonderful instrument...I think the 00-18 is a
stand-alone great guitar because I've written most of my music on that
guitar. That 00-18 has seen a lot of compositional nights and it's a very,
very good feeling guitar.
VG: What can you tell me about the custom Steve Howe Martin 00-18?
SH: Well, fortunately for me I've had a lasting relationship with Martin
and we've never had a falling out. And they asked me if I wanted to be a
part of the signature series and of course I was absolutely thrilled, but
not as much as when I saw the first one...I was well proud and I'm glad to
be a part of the charitable side, we're giving money to Save The Children
from the sales of this guitar. And the fact that they made a guitar as a
tribute to the one I like the best -- which is the 1953 model that I have
-- they consistently make great guitars, they have a great rapport with
artists which can be shown by the people in the signature series who don't
need a free guitar! There is a validity about good things, when something
is good you don't need to shout.
VG: I was curious about how you use guitars in the arrangement of a song --
do you generally know what you're going to use on a track or do experiment
with different guitars until you finally get what you want?
SH: Well, I have to have a starting point before I go on a hunt. During
"The Ladder" it was exactly the same, obviously we had played far more
songs to Bruce (Fairbairn, producer) and what he picked out meant that when
we went to play a song like "Homeworld" I had a note saying
Telecaster. That's because we'd played that song and demoed that song with
the Telecaster and it always seemed right. And usually those things stay,
once the guitar is committed to the track, or I've committed to a Fender or
Gibson...in a way the sound is the next thing, part of the reason I change
guitars is for the sound and for the emotional feel. I can't really
describe it, but obviously a hollow body as opposed to a solid is an
immediate decision. I don't feel particularly loaded down by it, because I
can change it tomorrow if I like. I exercise an option and quite often
I'll stick with it. I was playing the sitar on "To Be Alive" and someone
asked, " What about doing something here?" And I thought, "I'm not playing
a guitar solo on a sitar! Forget it, I'll play the steel." We left the
section clear and at the end of the session I went in said, "Well, let's
try something." And that was the first thing I played (sings the guitar
melody). I played that tune, I just made it up there and then.
VG: It's very effective how the tempo changes and your guitar comes in there.
SH: It switches to half time, that gives it a really good laid back
feeling. I just cooked up that tune and everybody said, "We like that
steel, we like the steel..." I heard that a few times and that was it. So
it gives it an identity, I guess and I suppose that kind of coloration
starts when I play one guitar on it. On "Finally" I always played the 175,
but there isn't any 175 on it at all now. All of the lead guitar was
redone on the Steinberger, it does sound like a Gibson.
VG: I was going to ask you about the end of that song where you get that
very singing, sustained guitar sound -- what did you do to get that sound?
SH: It's just a Steinberger, a volume pedal and a box, the magic box! (laughs)
VG: What is the secret ingredient?
SH: I work with two basic distortion boxes. The Big Muff just gives me
that total sustain, lovely muffly sound and works great with the volume
pedal and it is a very spacey, void-y kind of sound. But if you stomp on
the Danelectro Daddy-O then all you've done is taken your Twin and made it
crunchy, it will be more like rock leads on the Danelectro and more spacey,
wailing leads on the Big Muff.
VG: Does Billy Sherwood play much guitar on this album?
SH: He plays on every track, but he's doing more the rhythm parts,
really. Not the acoustic parts.
VG: How do you like working with another guitarist?
SH: It's not easy really, it would silly to say it's easy. It certainly
wasn't easy when "Open Your Eyes" came along and there was all of this
guitar work all over it from Billy. I was very uneasy and even today I
really don't know why Jon and I let that one go through! I want to start
by saying that in an ideal world there would be just one guitarist in Yes,
but Yes is a curious creature and it works in somewhat devious ways. I
would say that we've got two guitarists, but we've clarified what I'm doing
here, which is providing the noticeable featured guitar work on this
record. And Billy has some very good and productive stuff, but he doesn't
come too close to where I am.
VG: You each have your own territory.
SH: If he crosses over too far then obviously I'm going to put my penny's
worth in and Billy isn't only doing what he wants, quite often he's doing
what other people in the band have asked him to do. "They want me to do
this and Steve doesn't want me to do that..." we do have to work out these
things sometimes, to fit really comfortably. But it's development in the
band, it was more frustrating in the "Open Your Eyes" period than "The Ladder."
VG: Was there a lot of guitar playing kept from the original tracks?
SH: Well, as much as possible was kept, because some of the best playing
you do is when you do it together. There's a lot of guitar work that is
live or done after the session, little of it is the detailed, overdubbed
stuff. It was quite nice that Bruce was so keen to keep the best of the
live playing. It creates some interesting patch up work, maybe out five
minutes you have two seconds where it was wrong. So you've got to recreate
the sound, drop in and fix that section. Some of the tasks were more about
keeping everything solid, making sure there was no faults. Like in the
beginning of "Lightning Strikes" there's that flamenco guitar and Bruce
got me to drop in on it, because he thought it was laid back a tiny little
bit. Even I can't tell (where it is), because you can drop in so well now
and touch up where it's completely undetectable and it doesn't change the
mood at all because it's perfected so well. The work would vary from me
expanding from an idea I had, maybe it didn't work maybe it did, maybe it's
too much, maybe it isn't, maybe it's better than somebody else's idea in
that verse, with some things you have to wait and see.
VG: In the new live set Yes is playing "Perpetual Change" which features a
classic Steve Howe guitar solo. How does it feel to revisit a song that
hasn't been played in years?
SH: It's the best side of working with Yes really. The opening I like most
is looking at something we haven't been playing to pieces. There's no
reason why we should hammer any one or two particular songs into the ground
because we do have such a big repertoire. But there is a caution about
going over to certain songs, certain nostalgic failures like "South Side of
the Sky" has never been played well on stage. Someone will say, "Why don't
we play 'South Side of the Sky'" and we'll all go, "We've done that one, it
doesn't work!" So there are certain no-go areas, but few of them
really. There was also a long history of "we can't play on that because
he didn't play on it", we can't do anything (Patrick) Moraz did with Rick
(Wakeman). We've kind of thrown that out the window with Igor (Khoroshev)
playing anything. He'll play any Yes music, so we've got a wide open
door. We're doing another song from the eighties called "Hearts" that I
was not a part of originally. And slowly I'm getting some things there, I
can fool around and have a bit of fun in a song that's got nothing really
to do with me and so that's what I'll do. We do talk about the songs from
the perspective of being too safe -- we're doing "Awaken" which is a pretty
big piece of work, but it's not as obscure as "To Be Over" or "Gates
of Delirium." So Yes can get a certain amount of things right! (laughs)
VG: That's good to hear! What guitars will you be taking with you on this tour?
SH: The same ones I had on the last tour really: the Telecaster, both
Steinbergers, the Gibson ES5, the 175 and five acoustics, plus the
Steinberger 12-string as well. There is a certain batch of guitars that
has supported what I do in Yes. It got even more clarified over this
period, during the Open Your Eyes 30th anniversary and now The
Ladder. This sort of era has kept these guitars on the move.
VG: When did you start using Fender Twin Reverbs as your amplification?
SH: Yes bought a whole lot of Dual Showmans back in 1970 and that's what
we used initially until the round stage (1978) when I changed to Twins. So
I gradually went over to Twins, but Fender has been the thing I've been
using since Yes. It's my starting point, I can't really work with a
Marshall or anything else much. I thought I was going to switch to Jazz
Chorus, because I like those amps a lot, but they suit my solo work more
than work with Yes, because Yes is bloody, enormously loud. It may be
obvious to the audience, it may not be, but certain members are extremely
loud and to cut above those you need a certain kind of amp and for me the
Twin Reverb is it.
VG: I know that we're supposed to wrap up soon and so I'd like to finish by
asking what inspired you to create the Steve Howe Interactive CD-ROM?
SH: I suppose there's a part of me that likes to dabble in the guitar world
than just the group Yes. There was an opening like that with the CD-ROM
that included Yes music and solo music. Part of it is instructional; you
can see me play and you get three angles. There's some pretty fine
performances of things like "Surface Tension" in there. Basically the idea
behind it was to illuminate and open up the idea of people playing Yes
music, that was the initial idea. Then it got to be a bit like a guitar
book, which it's supposed to include. That was something I wanted to do, I
didn't want my book to end up being a book if it could transmute into a
CD-ROM, and that's great. There's some stuff that is their ideas a bit,
you know? Me talking about people I've worked with and having guests
talking about me...I've probably underestimated just where something like a
CD-ROM fit in until recently, but I think it's getting so broad and so many
people are looking at it on the internet that it seems like a logical step.
Tim Morse is the author of Yesstories and Classic Rock Stories (both
published by the St.Martin's Press).
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