Guitarist Taz Taylor moved to Los Angeles from a small town just outside of Birmingham, England, in 1997. Struggling to make ends meet, he landed a job as a truck driver and eventually saw the whole continental U.S. through the windows of his eighteen-wheel rig. He would often nestle himself in the rear of the cab and practice chords and scales when time permitted, as his real passion was guitar.

Though he'd been playing regularly since 1979, living on the road by himself provided an opportunity to develop his style and hone his craft. With his love for the playing of Michael Schenker and Ritchie Blackmore, among others, he eventually developed and perfected his own style, particularly within the genre of instrumental rock.

His first album release, Caffeine Racer, is a collection of diverse songs, laden with appealing guitar textures and tones. As opposed to some instrumental guitar rock, the songs are down to earth and pleasantly recalled to memory following just a play or two. Though bursting with energy and fast-fretted extravaganzas, one thing that's never lost throughout, even in the powerfully poignant "George's Song", is the style: Rock.

I recently had an interesting conversation with Taz. In fact, we spoke for quite awhile. Below is what became relevant for an interview, as we could have gone on for hours, speaking about life, guitars, and music in general. Besides being a fine guitar player, Taz Taylor is an interesting and personable human being, as down to earth in conversation as he is in his approach to music.

BH: Caffeine Racer is an excellent CD. It's bursting with texture and emotion.

Taz: Thank you very much, Brian. I put a lot of myself into it. I played all the instruments except for the drums. The drummer was Calvin Lakin. He's in the touring band as well, and he's just an incredible drummer.

BH: Talk more about the band. When you finally put the touring band together, were they able to join right in? In other words, could they keep up with you?

Taz: [Laughing] It's funny you should say that. The very first show we played, it was kind of a low-key, warm-up show in San Diego. It was a bit rough. The band was me, the keyboard player, Calvin Lakin on drums, and the bass player was a guy by the name of John Osmond, who was really just a good friend of Calvin's for about twenty-five years standing.

The bass player I have now, his name is Dirk Krause. Dirk came up to me after the show and said that Batttttty, the woman who runs my website, said he should make himself known to me. Even though she runs the site from England, she knew Dirk from different websites she runs. She didn't even know he was a bass player; I didn't know he was either. He shook my hand and bought a CD, and then he signed the guest book on the website a day later. He also said that if I ever needed a substitute bass player to give him a call, which I eventually did. [Laughing again]. I thought I was the biggest Michael Schenker fan in San Diego, if not all of Southern California. But it turns out Dirk was completely on the same wavelength as me. It's like a union made in heaven, and it works perfectly. I needed a permanent bass player anyway, so when he showed up at rehearsal ten days later he knew every single song and didn't miss a note. He even knew the songs by name, which a lot of people struggle with, especially when dealing with music that hasn't any lyrics. He was very impressive. He's been the bass player ever since.

Bob Miller is on keyboards. Again, just a great player, and he's capable of a lot more than what he gets to do in this band. He's a great piano and keyboard player, and he adds so much color to my music. And he takes the place of the absent rhythm guitar when playing live, especially in songs such as 'Lightning Strikes' and 'Loose and Unscrewed'. So he has a huge roll live, though it's not like Keith Emerson or anything. People like that are his idols. But he enjoys doing it, and we have a blast.

BH: What about a tour?

Taz: We're trying to get something going on the west coast, and we're trying to spread the word as much as possible. We have a good show coming up in Hollywood, a benefit gig for wounded soldiers. It's a charity by the name of Fisher-House, organized by Luck Media.

BH: Do you ever tire of the Satriani and Vai comparisons?

Taz: I wouldn't say I tire of it, because I take it as a compliment. I don't think I sound anything like either of them, as it's not where I'm coming from stylistically. But if other people think I sound ... particularly like Joe Satriani, then it doesn't bother me, because he's an incredible guitar player. I think people might sort of gravitate toward that comparison because it's instrumental guitar rock. And Satriani is the best-known instrumental rock guitar player out there.

BH: Your style is more straightforward rock.

Taz: Exactly. It's more old school, and based more on feeling and emotion, and my style is more on the lines of Michael Schenker and Ritchie Blackmore.

BH: I hear a lot of Van Halen in your playing as well.

Taz: Yes, and Randy Rhodes, too. Those are the people who I listen to constantly.

BH: Have you had any formal guitar training?

Taz: I had lessons for about a year and a half starting back in about '95, going into '96. I'd already been playing since about '79. I must admit, though, that the lessons did me a world of good, learning all the modes and major scale systems, just basically learning how music works. I basically played by ear up until that point.

BH: Do you think in theory when you play?

Taz: Yeah, I do to a point. I mean, it kind of opened the doors. As I said, I always played by ear. I always knew what sounded good and what didn't, but learning the modes and finally understanding what harmonic minor is and all those kinds of things, it makes a huge difference when you know what you're doing. I like to set the parameters of what I'm doing within a song, and understand the theory behind that.

But you go somewhere else once you start to jam. It's a cliché, but people say to learn all the theory and then forget it while you're playing. That kind of makes a little bit of sense. You begin to feed off the last note you played and where it goes, and then the emotion takes over. But I think you've really got to know the theoretical stuff before you start. I really do have a thorough understanding of music theory, to be honest.

BH: Are you still driving a truck for a day job?

Taz: Yeah, I do. I drive an eighteen-wheeler between San Diego and LAX. But it's not very demanding.

BH: Do you find it easy to balance the day job with the music career?

Taz: Yeah, because I only drive three days a week, and it's a very flexible schedule.

BH: I heard that you used to nestle yourself within the cab of the truck and practice your guitar whenever time permitted.

Taz: That's right. I drove cross-country in all 48 states for a year. It was a great experience actually, as I'd only just moved to this country. I saw virtually the whole country. I enjoyed the solitude and lack of distraction. But I had a lot of free time, because of no TV, no friends coming around, no phone ringing. I'd situate myself in the sleeper berth of the cab and play guitar. I had just moved here from England and I'd just had my guitar lessons, so I was still processing all of that information. In the truck was where I got all of my theory together. I was obsessed with guitar. In fact, I still am. It's all I ever think about.

BH: Since we're on the subject of practicing, whether it's done in a truck, a bus, a bedroom, or wherever, I find it interesting to learn about the gear guitarists practice with. You know, that 15 watt amp and old axe beside the bed or in the cellar. What are your gear choices for the daily practice session?

Taz: That's the gear that's often the most important. I'll tell you what I use to practice with, the whole set up. But it's not often that I just noodle on the guitar unaccompanied anymore. I like to do everything within a musical context. I have a Boss BR-8, which is an 8-track digital recorder, and also a Boss drum machine. With those, and my Yamaha keyboard and Ibanez bass, I write and record backing tracks for myself all the time. I put my guitar through a Line-6 POD. So, even when I'm just practicing guitar, the POD is always plugged in through the BR-8, and the BR-8 is plugged into two computer speakers. So I'll sit in my apartment playing guitar and I'll hear the POD through my computer speakers. I don't use an actual amp at all. And it's got great tone.

BH: I know you're into motorcycling. The cover of Caffeine Racer is a dead giveaway, too. Is there a relationship between bikes and guitars? Maybe the need for speed?

Taz: [Laughing] It's kind of funny, because the picture on the cover is a Café Racer actually. A Café Racer is a style of motorcycle born in London in the '50s. The solo seat, the clip-on handlebars, and so on. People would take bikes like Triumphs and BSAs and strip them down to make them lighter, the rear set, foot pegs, a real hunched up kind of look.

I'd just written and recorded the track "Caffeine Racer", and thought, this is like fast and high energy. I think I was drinking a lot of coffee when I was writing and recording it, too, which led to my girlfriend and I bouncing titles back and forth, eventually coming up with Caffeine Racer. I went on the computer and Googled Café Racer and found a bunch of websites. My girlfriend's a good artist. She used the pictures we found as a reference and drew them in an animated style. She drew the cover. I think it really sums up the attitude of the music.

BH: Talk about Caffeine Racer.

Taz: I wanted to put a CD together that I would be really proud of, and then put a band together and start promoting it. And that's what I've done. "Major Minority" is one of my favorites on it. It goes through some transitions. The basic opening riff is in no key at all really. The first verses are in F major, but the bridge section is in the relative minor stage, in D minor. Then it repeats in F major. But then it goes through a time change and goes to D harmonic minor. That's why I called it "Major Minority", because it flip-flops back and forth all the time. I also like "George's Song" a lot, as it means a lot to me for obvious reasons.

BH: The CD was dedicated to the memory of your father, George Taylor, and he was the inspiration behind "George's Song". It is a beautiful song, one of my favorites on the CD. It has that melancholy atmosphere, with excellent electric and acoustic guitar phrasing.

Taz: I like sad music because I like to be moved. I like happy music, too. I like the first couple of Van Halen albums, as I like to party. But it doesn't move me like something that's sad, or like something that makes the hair stand up on your arms. It's a huge emotion when something can move you that much, or have that much of an impact on you. I like to think that I can have that kind of effect on people. It's nice to make people smile, but sometimes it's nice to go a bit deeper. I'm actually starting to slow my playing down a bit in the songs I'm writing now, to connect with people with more feeling and emotion.

BH: Excluding drums, you played all the instruments on the CD. Was that a difficult task?

Taz: Not really. I spent so long writing and demoing the material at home. Though I didn't have a band at the time, I was thinking that I could advertise and get one together. We could spend time learning the material and then go into the studio. But so much of the original feeling could get lost that way.

So instead, I went into the studio and took song by song. I laid down the drums on each track with the drum machine. I cut it up and added in the breaks after we laid down the keyboards, bass, and lead guitar tracks, just to make it sound as though it fit with the whole arrangement. I then gave the demo to Calvin Lakin, so he could listen to it in his car or wherever, for about a month or so. We then went back into the studio and laid down the real drums on their own tracks.

BH: Pro Tools?

Taz: Yeah, it was all done on Pro Tools. We really didn't get into all the technology that's available, because I didn't need to edit things, and I really didn't need to move things around either. I had all the arrangements down. I know a lot of people chop and change, and cut and paste.

What I like about Pro Tools is the song is just the way you left it every time you go back into it. I could listen to a mix in the car, and figure that the cymbals could be changed, or the guitar, maybe a few dbs higher or lower. I could make all these alterations in my mind over a few days and then go back into the studio and make those adjustments, and then leave with that CD. You couldn't do that back in the old days of tape. You had to throw faders up and down; it was really a lot of work. Pro Tools has made it that much easier.

BH: What about new material?

Taz: I've been getting together with a vocalist by the name of Graham Bonnet. He was on one Rainbow album, called Down To Earth, the one that had "All Night Long" and "Since You Been Gone" on it. It was one of their biggest albums commercially. He was also on one Michael Schenker album, Assault Attack. I'm doing a few songs with Graham. He's an outstanding vocalist. He's British, too, but lives just up the coast here in LA. So he'll be doing three or four songs on my next record. It'll bridge that gap between the instrumental rock and the more normal rock stuff. It's really too early to get into all that, though, because I'm still full force promoting Caffeine Racer. But since I was able to get a hold of Graham, I knew I had to strike while the iron was hot.

BH: I'm aware of your influences, Michael Schenker, Ritchie Blackmore, etc., but who do you like on the scene now?

Taz: It's hard to say. Are Joe Satriani and Steve Vai considered current? They're about as current as anything I listen to. But I love Evanescence, too. I love that piano they've got going on, and her voice is incredible and pure. What we were talking about earlier, there's so much emotion there, and then they come in with that really beefy guitar. Oh, and I almost forgot, I just bought the new Billy Idol CD, Devil's Playground. It's great! Steve Stevens is back with him. He's a phenomenal guitar player, and he's so chunky on this one. His rhythm guitar playing is just incredible.

BH: Your gear?

Taz: For some strange reason, I had written down at one time that the Gibson Explorer was the guitar used on Caffeine Racer. That's what I usually play. In fact, that's all I've ever used onstage. But I actually recorded the CD with a Gibson Flying V. I also used a Les Paul here and there on some rhythm tracks. I don't know why exactly; I guess I just felt like a change. The V was never really me, though, so I'm back to the Explorers again. I play Gibson Explorers exclusively, with Ernie Ball Super Slinky strings. My amp is a Peavey 5150, the original Eddie Van Halen model, into one Marshall 1960 A 4/12 cab. I kick on a Boss RV-5 reverb pedal for the leads and that's it. I don't use anything else. I like to hear the rhythm parts completely bone dry.

BH: I hope everything gets going for you, Taz, and a major tour happens.

Taz: Well, it's all been very positive. It's still a very young project, but a lot of hard work has been done behind the scenes. I'm hoping Caffeine Racer paves the way and leads the path, so that the second CD already has an audience when it comes out.

Caffeine Racer
1) Caffeine Racer

2) Major Minority

3) Loose And Unscrewed

4) Right Back Where I Started

5) On The Edge

6) Pot Of Gold

7) The Banquet

8) A Sting In The Tail

9) Chilling Times

10) Through The Turns

11) Lightning Strikes

12) George's Song

Guitar, bass, and keyboards: Taz Taylor.
Drums: Calvin Lakin

Copyright 2004 Neil Taz Taylor

Published 2004 DSM Producers Inc. (ASCAP)
W.B. Music Corp.

Links
Taz Taylor's Website
Purchase Caffeine Racer