Vinnie Moore Interview

by Dr. Matthew Warnock.

Vinnie Moore has long since established himself as one of the leading rock guitarists of his generation. After impressing Mike Varney of Shrapnel records at the age of 12, Moore was chosen to showcase his guitar talent on a national Pepsi commercial which brought him his first widespread exposure as a guitarist to watch out for. Since then Moore has found success as both a leader, including his vastly popular first album Mind's Eye featuring Tony MacAlpine on keys, and as a sideman in such bands as U.F.O., Vicious Rumors and as a member of Alice Cooper's band. With over 25 years in the business, Moore continues to steadily release new material and perform to sold-out venues all over the world.

Moore's latest CD, To the Core, showcases the guitarist's advanced melodic approach, his lightening fast chops and ability as a modern rock songwriter. The album also showcases the many different styles and genres of music that have influenced Moore over the years. Moore's writing and soloing melds elements of rock, blues, jazz-fusion and metal to form a musical style that can only be described as Vinnie Moore.

Recently, Moore began working with the Dean Guitar Company on the Vinman 2000, which features Moore's signature Shredhead humbucker pickup. The guitar is made with a maple top, alder body and maple finger board. The VM-2000, as it is also called, comes with a Floyd Rose tremolo bridge, the Shredhead pickup on the bridge and two DiMarzio single coil spaced noise-cancelling humbuckers in the middle and neck positions. With the release of his new signature guitar, Moore is giving his fans a chance to play with the same killer tone that he has become famous for. Strap on a set of .10s, tune down a half-step, and any guitarist can step into Moore's musical shoes in the comfort of their own practice room.

Currently touring to support To the Core and working with the Dean Guitar Company on the new Vinman 2000 model, Moore is shows no sign of slowing down as he heads into his second quarter century in the business. With a seemingly endless source of new musical inspiration, Moore is reflective about the events that have brought him to this point in his career while maintaining a steady focus on his musical future.

Matt Warnock: There are many influences that come out in your playing on To the Core such as rock, blues, jazz fusion and of course the hard rock and metal. With such a variety of influences in your background, how would you describe your music to someone who has never heard you play before?

Vinnie Moore I would say basically I'm a rock guy who likes a lot of different styles of music and who throws a number of different elements into the rock genre. I've always been a rock guy but maybe a little more adventurous than your normal rock guitarist.

Matt: On tunes like "Panic Attack" and "Fly," just to name two, there are elements of rock, fusion, metal, funk and blues. Was it a conscious decision to feature these different styles out on these tracks or did it just happen organically as the writing process progressed?

Vinnie: I just play and go with the flow and let it happen naturally. As soon as I plan or have thoughts about doing a particular thing, I'm not being creative anymore. To me, I just go for it and let the music flow. That's when I'm truly inspired and the best stuff comes out, in my opinion. So no, I don't like to plan anything out that way.

There have been times when I have, say, seven songs finished for a record, and I had to think about what type of tunes would best fill out the rest of the recording. That type of thing has happened in the past, but for this album I had a lot of material to choose from, so I just kept writing and tried not to force anything, just let it flow through. All those influences kind of came out naturally. I'm into a bunch of different styles of music so those things just seem to come out by themselves without me having to force them.

Matt: Many guitarists prefer to write away from their guitars for various reasons and either write tunes on the piano or apart from an instrument all together. Do you write with your guitar in hand or do you prefer another method when composing?

Vinnie: Mainly it's when I'm playing guitar. I keep a little Sony cassette machine close by when I'm playing, which has been my greatest writing tool over the past 20 years. Then, when an idea comes up, or pops into my head, I play it and record it. After the initial inspiration other ideas seem to begin to come to me and the song starts to come together.

Listen to samples from the album To The Core by Vinnie Moore:

Most of these ideas come to me when my guitar is in my hands, but a lot of times if I have a song in my head, I'll walk away from the guitar and do something else for a bit. Then, what seems to happen is as I'm going over the idea in my head it begins to develop naturally without me having to really think about it. Those ideas kind of ferment up there. Once I have a couple of ideas going I'll walk away from the guitar and often have to come back to it five minutes later because I've got a new idea I want to work out and songs can come about that way as well.

Matt: On To the Core did you have all of the tunes completed when you went into the studio or did the songs transform and grow once you started laying down the initial tracks for the album?

Vinnie: They always grow during the recording process but I have a studio at home, which is where I record, and I'll record the tunes to loops or drum patterns and with this record I totally finished most of the tracks at home and then the drums and bass were added after. There might have been about three songs where I actually played after the drums.

I'm very meticulous when I demo things. In the past I've laid down demos and they end up sounding just like the record and I'd have to go back and redo the whole thing again in the studio. Now that the technology has gotten better I can lay everything down at home and then just add the other instruments later which saves me from having to do the whole album over again. It's great to be able to capture the initial inspiration and get it down on tape instead of having to go back and redo it when the initial inspiration isn't there anymore.

Matt: The album has a very "orchestral" feel to it as far as the texturing and layering is concerned. Do you sit down and think about all of the overdubs you are going to use beforehand or do those come after the initial tracks have been laid down?

Vinnie: It all starts to happen pretty naturally, and I think it's a bit of a blessing and a curse that once I have an idea I just keep hearing new things to add to it. At a certain point, I have to stop adding things and be done with it, or else I could add stuff forever. I try to strike a balance between throwing too many things into the mix and not having enough stuff on the track, trying to find a mixture of textures that's just right for that song. I'll come up with an initial idea for a song, and then as I get it down on tape I'll start adding things as I hear them, just trying to go with the flow of what I'm hearing.

Matt: For the guitar solos on the album, how much preparation was involved beforehand? Did you have an idea of what you wanted to play or were they conceived in the studio?

Vinnie: There are usually two directions I follow with my solos. One is that I just start improvising and it's a cool vibe and I nail it, or get close to nailing it, then I just go back and fix or add a few things to finish it off. The other approach I use is sort of composing the solo one phrase at a time. Where I'm thinking about which chords I'm playing over the top of, that type of thing.

Both approaches work but I prefer the easier way of just playing off the top of my head and hopefully something good comes out right from the beginning. That's the best way. Though the solos that I build one phrase at a time, they're good too. They have a different feel to them, I'm glad that I can do both.

Matt: For a guy with incredible chops you show a lot of restraint in your solos. There's a good mix of vocal-type riffs and burning runs in your solos. Is this something that comes naturally to you or have you had to work on holding back from only using your chops to create interest in your solos?

Vinnie: That might have been more of a thing early on, when I would play more notes and had to be conscious of it. But now it's all slowing as I've matured over the years. Music in general, whether it's guitar, saxophone or whatever, has always been emotional to me. Playing fast and being a technician will work sometimes but it's not always the thing. The melodies and the feel is always more important to me.

Matt: Guitar playing has seemed to follow this pattern since the 1980s, when guitar pyrotechnics were the thing, to today's scene when things are a bit more subdued as far as soloing is concerned. Did the change in the music scene have an affect on your soloing approach or was it just how you developed as you matured as a musician?

Vinnie: I think it happened to me naturally as I grew as an artist. I tried not to pay attention to what other guys were doing over the years. As a matter of fact, players like Jeff Beck and David Gilmour had a big influence on me when I was young, but so did guys like Al DiMeola, so I've had both technical and melodic players influence me over the years.

I think in the early days I was just dong my thing, not really paying attention to what was going on at the time, and really, I've always been a melody guy. Whether I'm playing slow or fast, even on the early stuff, there are still melodies and there are still songs. I've always thought that the song is most important. You can't just put down a couple chords and solo over it and that's a song. The song has to be the most important and the playing side of things should be less important.

Matt: How much time do you have to spend everyday maintaining your chops?

Vinnie: I tend to play everyday when I'm at home, and if I do that I find that I can maintain my chops no problem. I used to carry my guitar with me on the road all the time and I'd play on show days, being bored in my hotel room. I used to play a lot and now I don't bring my guitar around with me, I just do the gig. We do a 90-minute show every day and that's enough. Otherwise I feel like I'm playing too much.

The gigs for me have been better by not practicing on a gig day. I will grab the guitar and play for 30 minutes or so before we go on stage but that's it. Then on off days I'll make sure I practice for 15 to 30 minutes just to maintain the physical stuff. I used to get in the habit of playing because I was nervous, kind of a neurotic thing, but I try to avoid that now.

Matt: Did you ever have a period in your life when you practiced hours and hours a day, especially when you were first learning the instrument?

Vinnie: I've been through both phases. When I first starting getting serious about guitar, at around age 14, I tried to practice a couple of hours a day which was a big deal for me. As I got more obsessed with the guitar, I had times when I practiced seven to ten hours a day but it was because I loved doing it. I never really thought about practicing that much, I just loved doing it and kind of became obsessed with it really.

Matt: On the tune "Jigsaw," from your new album, you play some slide guitar during a few sections. Have you always played slide or is this something new that you' re exploring?

Vinnie: I've played slide a little bit over the years, but I don't consider myself a great slide player. I wrote that song awhile ago, sometime in the '90s, it was just something I had laying around. I've always liked the song but it just never seemed to fit on any of my other albums, but it seemed to fit on this one. I decided to put it on the new album, I changed the groove a bit, but I still had to practice the slide to get it down. I went back and listened to some Allman Brothers records, Live at the Filmore especially, to study up on Duane's slide playing. That really helped me get into shape for that track. It's not something that I do a lot- - I never practice it- - so that's something I had to practice when getting ready for this album.

Matt: What gear did you use on the album?

Vinnie: I used a lot of different guitars on the album. I was a Music Man endorser when I started the album so I used my "Silhouette" special, which was my main guitar at the time. I used like three of my Strats, a Les Paul and somewhere in the middle of doing the record I became a Dean endorser and designed a guitar for them, so I used two or three of those guitars on the record. As far as effects there were almost to many to name, but a few would be a Fulltone choralflange, an Arion chorus, a Boss PH3 Phase Shifter...

I started off with the idea of using a bunch of different amps on the record, I have about ten different heads, so I planned to use them all to get different tones for different songs. Then I found I was spending so much time testing out different amps as opposed to playing that it got on my nerves. I ended up using only a couple of amps, mostly a Marshall JCM-2000 and an Engl Special Edition and they just worked. I set up the mics and just went for it.

Matt: What gauge of strings do you use in order to get that thick tone while still being able to play as fast as you do?

Vinnie: I use a standard .10 set which I find is a good balance between slinky and not too slinky. There were a number of songs where I tuned down and had to use .11's to get that heavier sound.

Matt: Is it hard on your hands to play that fast on those thick strings?

Vinnie: I'm used to it now. When I joined UFO we tuned down a half-step and I've gotten used to it. I think that helps make the .10's feel lighter, but I've always used .10's, even when I tune to A440 standard pitch. I've gotten used to them over the years and just think they're the best gauge for me.

Matt: When you were ready to finish up the recording process and were mixing the tracks how conscious were you of the track order and how that relates to the album as a whole?

Vinnie: I'm conscious of it but tried not to get into it too heavily on this record. Back in the day, we had two sides to records so we had to be more aware of the order. We couldn't start the second side with a ballad or something. I knew I wanted to start off with an energetic track and then tried to mix things up so that there weren't two tracks in a row with the same feel. I put it together kind of quickly keeping that criteria in mind.

Matt: You've managed to maintain a long career in the music industry, which seems to be a rarity these days, with most bands being lucky to get a second album out before the fans move on to something else. What do you think has been the "secret to your success," so to speak, as far as your career is concerned?

Vinnie: I think persistence is a big thing, and I have a passion and love for making music. Also, there's nothing else I would rather, or would even know how to do. There have been rough times, as there have been for everybody, and I've just hung in there and went with my heart.

Related Links
Vinnie Moore
Dr. Matthew Warnock's review of To The Core
To The Core on Amazon.com

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