Trey Gunn’s eagerly anticipated and highly acclaimed new album Music For Pictures (7d Media, June 2008) is now available. Ahead of reviewing the album I had the opportunity to interview Trey himself about his career to date and his future plans. Trey provided some revealing and informative answers about his life and influences.
The album is a collection of twenty nine, sometimes brief, musical pieces that provide the perfect platform for Trey to further explore and demonstrate his extraordinary talent as the world’s leading exponent of the Warr guitar, or The Beast, as Trey calls it. The result is a magical, compelling and thought provoking album.
I was extremely grateful to Trey for taking the time out of his demanding schedule to do this interview exclusively for Blogcritics. When one of the answers has him saying that there are simply not enough hours in the day for him to fully explore all the avenues that his mind wants to travel – then that gratitude is not at all misplaced or understated.
A cross-Atlantic interview of Trey Gunn on Wednesday, August 6, 2008.
Hi Trey. Many thanks for giving me the chance to ask you some questions. I
have just heard your new album Music For Pictures. Firstly, I want to say how much I am enjoying it, hearing something new on every play but secondly as a reviewer it is hard to find the right superlatives. Where does your inspiration come from?
From the masters of other disciplines. Film, literature, painting, and photography.
Your work with Robert Fripp started back in the early nineties - how did that come about?
When I was a young man, I thought that it was absurd that as rock musicians
we were supposed to discover everything about music and our instruments on our own. I made a short list of revered musicians to me, at the time, and set out to contact them for apprenticeship. Fripp's name flew to the top of the list. Within eight months he made himself, for the first time, available as an instructor. I studied guitar with him within his craft program for three years, before switching to touch guitar/tapping instruments. At that point we began to work together professionally. Most notably with David Sylvian before he invited me into King Crimson in 1993. At present, I am open to students coming to ‘tap’ into my experience.
You have also been part of the same Mr Fripps’s King Crimson - is there a certain album or even a track that you are particularly proud of?
The Power To Believe album is the strongest to my ears. Although King Crimson always leave their recordings in the dust when they go on stage. On stage, this band destroyed audiences and skewered their hearts with light. The individual track would be “The Deception of the Thrush”. It completes with these striking string chords played by Robert and I soar above it with an achingly beautiful solo. Often, when we would perform it, the audience would be left breathless and utterly silent at the last note. One time, in Montreal during an encore, the audience sat in silence with us for two minutes at the piece’s conclusion. And this was a rock concert!
You have also worked with Brian Eno, someone I really admire (Ambient 1 -
Music for Airports etc); can you see any parallels in both of your work?
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