By Brent-Anthony Johnson

Bryan Beller continues to be one of my all-time favorite bassists! Ever since he showed-up with the bands Z and Beer For Dolphins, I have pointed young aspiring players to his abilities as both musician, composer and as a journalist and bass-gear guru for a number of bass-oriented publications and manufacturers. Bryan has also served as sideman for the likes of Steve Vai and Wayne Kramer, and his commercial session log is almost too monstrous to include in these few pages. But, I digress… I don’t want to take away from the man, and bassist, by citing his numerous and deeply contemplative works.

When Bryan very recently released his long-awaited second disc as leader, “Thanks In Advance” and the accompanying DVD, “To Nothing – The Thanks In Advance Special Edition DVD”, I made a mad run at my editor for the opportunity to chat with Bryan about the disc. Believe it! The disc is brilliantly performed and produced, while running the gamut from the completely balls-out RRRRock of “Cave Dweller”, to the manic humor of “Love Terror Adrenaline/Break Through”, to the beautiful, Keneally-esque blowing duet lines of “Blind Sideways”, to the deftly composed swagger of tunes like “Snooze Bar” and “Casual Lie Day”. Bryan simply “brings the goods”, and the world of music is a slightly better place as a result of this release!

Meanwhile the DVD clearly defines the issues of traveling from Nashville, TN, to Los Angeles, CA, in order to record with some of the best musicians on the planet – and what it all means to record a release of this quality. Let’s add “GUTS” to the many defining characteristics of this brilliant bassist! So, here is Mr. Bryan Beller…

BAJ: Bryan! Congratulations on the release of “Thanks In Advance” and the accompanying DVD “To Nothing – The Thanks In Advance Special Edition DVD”! What a major undertaking! How much blood did you leave on the tracks and throughout this incredible process? Also, please talk with us about the undertaking of the film documentation of this project!

BB: I left my whole life on the tracks! Seriously, it was a major project, as any record is. People don’t realize that we’re making thousands of choices on any full-length album…there’s just no way for it not to take a toll after awhile. But really, it was the subject matter that made the bringing the music to life so involving – “Thanks In Advance” is the story of a life-altering epiphany I had after the death of a close friend of mine. Most of the record deals with the months I spent in self-examination after the tragedy, which were pretty dark and painful times, and the musical arc of the record reflects that. But eventually I broke through to this new way of looking at life, and now I find myself grateful for just about everything I experience. That’s what “Thanks In Advance” means, literally – gratitude for what’s coming… whatever it is. You can imagine the intensity required to create the music that tells that kind of story.

As for the video aspect of it: I really wanted to share not only what the record was about – which is easier to explain in interviews than it is in mostly instrumental music – but also to give people a look inside three things: one, the process of making, mixing, and producing your own album; two, how I approach the bass tracking on my own project; and three (and most importantly) I wanted people to get to know this incredible group of musicians I’ve been playing with for years, many of whom also played on my first album “View.” We’re such a tight group, and that friendship and camaraderie really makes a difference in how the music turns out. Plus there’s some serious geek-ery for music and bass freaks all over the place. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

BAJ: How did you gear-up for this musical journey, and when did the compositions for these wonderful pieces begin? Also, how do you make time to compose, and what is your general process?

BB: I don’t have my own ProTools rig! I actually demo everything out completely on a BOSS BR1180-CD hard disk recorder, I got it in 2002. The thing is ancient by today’s standards, but it has a drum machine, decent guitar models, and you can mix and master demos on it, and then burn to CD… the whole thing. I moved to Nashville in early 2006, just after my big epiphany, to be with the woman I’m now married to. It had been four years since I’d written any new music, and it was only three months later that all this new music appeared in my head. So I started demo-ing-out new stuff in April of 2006, and it took a year to write the whole record in full demo form.

Interestingly enough, I was having a hard time “finding” time to write, and was stuck for a while. What I’d forgotten is that “making” time is the key word. You really do have to set aside time, regardless of what’s going on, and just get in front of your demo world and just write. Life is always going to be filled with craziness and potential distractions. Somehow you have to choose to find a space inside that and just be with yourself and write. Once I did that, I had a burst of creativity that drove the main pieces home.

I start with a list of song titles, believe it or not. If I’m telling a story throughout an album, the song titles are the only opportunity I have in language to convey what the song’s meaning is. So I’ll get a list of song titles, in rough album sequence, and then start writing music that “fits” the title. Plus, I write mostly on guitar and keyboards. I’m a bassist by trade, but in my own band, I’m just the bassist. I don’t seek out a more prominent role for the bass just because it’s my solo album. Whatever the right bass part is, that’s what it is.

BAJ: Are there any new techniques you’re currently working on, or musical or compositional devices you’re employing these days? Also, can we take a moment to go over the tools you used during the sessions for “Thanks In Advance”?

BB: New bass techniques…actually, no. I was never much of a technique-driven practitioner anyway. I always just learned songs and developed technique as necessary along the way. But compositionally, I did try and go a little deeper into new harmonic textures on this record, and I think “Casual Lie Day” (with its mini-orchestra arrangement) and “Blind Sideways” were two good examples of me trying to use chord qualities and compositional theory that I hadn’t used in the past. They’re a little more harmonically dense, maybe jazzier, than other stuff I’ve done. Remember, I’m a rock guy at heart, so anytime I’ve got a chord over another chord, I’m getting close to over my head!

I used a lot of gear for these sessions, bass-wise. My main Mike Lull Modern 5, a Mike Lull fretless, a Fender P-bass, a Fender ’64 Jazz Re-Issue, and my Taylor AB-4 acoustic/electric bass all got used…to say nothing of the four separate bass tracks I ran on almost every song. I used the ART TubePAC into an original Urei 1176 compressor for the main DI channel, the SansAmp PSA-1 (preset 32) for a sub boost, a mic’d cab (usually an SWR Super Redhead) with some effects in-line as well, and then a fourth channel that could literally be anything… usually something wild! I wasn’t lacking for gear, and I used a lot of it!

BAJ: You have long-standing relationships with the many players on the disc. Could you articulate the importance of relationships, and how these musicians influence your compositions and playing style?

BB: Well, a lot of my close friends and musical partners – guitarists Mike Keneally, Rick Musallam, and Griff Peters, drummer Joe Travers, and my wife Kira Small who played keys on a tune – all knew Wes Wehmiller, the close friend of mine that died and inspired the journey that led to the creation of this record. So there’s a unique bond there for all of us, and it will always be there regardless of whose record we’re making. I’ve since tracked stuff for Rick, and for Mike, and we all take turns making each other’s projects. There’s an incredible amount of trust and shared experience among us, and that makes the creative process that much more intimate and, ultimately for me, worth doing.

But on a more technical level, I have to mention something that Mike Keneally once told me – the sound of a song, and a record for that matter, is first formed by the composer’s choice of the musicians who play on it, even more so than the instrumentation or mix or EQ or anything else. He’s so right. Even when I’m writing, after the consideration of “what kind of emotional response am I trying to evoke with this song?”, the very first thing I think is, “Who is going to play this and how will that affect the part?” As a result, I often write parts specifically intended for a specific player. “Cave Dweller” was always going to be a Griff Peters guitar showcase over a Toss Panos sludge-heavy groove. “Love Terror Adrenaline” wouldn’t be what it is without Keneally’s insane guitar part and Marco Minnemann on drums. “Greasy Wheel” is Joe Travers and Rick Musallam going to town in their own special way. I know these guys, and they all have their own musical personality, and knowing them as well as I do helps make the songs come to life as I intended when I wrote them.

BAJ: Your playing remains razor-sharp throughout the record – but there is a depth of musical maturity here that shows stronger than before! Tell me, is the pocket deeper here than on many of your previous tracks? If so, can you elaborate the ins, outs, and whys of this maturation situation?

BB: I really think that any kind of creative output, whether it’s musical, literature, painting, or what have you, is enhanced by more life experience. At the risk of sounding both “new age-y” and “old fogey-ish”… life is a tapestry of unending magnitude. It’s a miracle that we’re able to digest and understand any small part of it. But the ability to do so becomes easier over time, and I think that’s why you see so few truly great players – and even fewer great composers – in their early 20′s, and many more in their 30′s and 40′s. Living, and the content of life, is all just more grist for the mill, and I think that counts in the end of the day when it comes time to saying something creatively.

BAJ: Your taste in drummers remains completely ridiculous, by the way! Could you tell our readers about the differences and relative similarities of playing with Toss Panos, Joe Travers, Nick D’Virgilio, Marco Minneman, and the great Marcus Finnie?

BB: And let’s not forget about chief album engineer Mark Niemiec, who’s also a drummer and plays on “Cost Of Doing Business”! (BAJ: “Oh yeah!”) But I have been blessed with having played with some truly great drummers, and everyone you mentioned above has their own unique thing that makes them great, which I took into consideration when assigning songs (and which also correlates to what I was saying before about how the player contributes heavily to the sound of a song). Nobody does a slow swamp-groove like Toss Panos! Just nobody… And he’s my favorite traditional swing jazz drummer as well, so he got “Cave Dweller” and “Blind Sideways” respectively.

Nick D’Virgilio can do a million things well, but his straight rock-pop production sensibilities were just what I needed on the album’s only vocal tune, “Play Hard.” Marcus Finnie is a serious rising star in Nashville in the jazz/fusion scene, and I first heard him doing my wife Kira Small’s R&B gig (which I was also on). I didn’t know he was already playing with bass super-freak Adam Nitti! But I could hear that the guy had an amazing groove and serious chops in exactly the style I was looking for on “Snooze Bar” (Marcus does the real-deal slow 12/8-shuffle gospel ballad groove on that) and the strings/horns-orchestrated Scofield/urban-swing tune “Casual Lie Day.” He’s amazing.

I could spend a page on Marco Minnemann – Modern Drummer cover artist, greatest independence technique in the world today, unparalleled virtuoso musicality, ten solo albums already to his name – but once I played with him and Mike Keneally together, I knew they were the guys to bring this impossible opus “Love Terror Adrenaline” to life. Marco in particular brings an emotional edge to his playing that I see in few musicians, let alone drummers, and it’s a very emotional song, to say nothing of its intense degree of difficulty.

And finally, there’s Joe Travers, my rhythm section soulmate and close friend, going all the way back to our days at Berklee College Of Music together in the early 1990′s. “Greasy Wheel” is the kind of funky, heavy rock groove he does like no one else, and when it comes to bringing the album home, on the ballad “Thanks In Advance” and the wild closer “From Nothing”, he’s the one I trust with that job. He’s also the first-call drummer in the live band. Even though any of these guys could do an amazing job on this material, Joe and I have a very special thing going on.

BAJ: Since we talked about the drummers on the disc, let’s chat about Mike Keneally and the incredible track, “Love Terror Adrenaline/Break Through”, documented on the DVD! (Editor Note: The DVD is worth almost any price for the commentary of that specific session!)

BB: It’s the climactic track of the album, a ten-minute rock/jazz/progressive opus about experiencing the molten core of the fear experience – literally, a panic attack – before overcoming that fear and breaking through to a new way of being. Sounds pretty high-falutin’, I know, but that’s the point of the song, and the album, is really getting to this moment. So I set out to write something really epic, and the first eight minutes of it is the sound of a waking nightmare, and what that heart-pounding, tremor-inducing panic would sound like in music. It ended up first revealing itself to me as a horribly difficult stuttering guitar melody and some dissonant keyboard chords, and I just took it and fleshed it out from there. The superhuman Mike Keneally got tasked with tracking this beast, and amazingly he did it all in one single day of tracking (you can see him doing it in the DVD). I don’t know anyone else who could have done it and really gotten how to translate that undercurrent of fear onto the guitar. We’ve also both listened to plenty of progressive rock, and it really helped for us to have that shared experience when it came time to bring the track home for its triumphant conclusion, with its layers and layers of guitars. He was just amazing on it. And like I said before, Marco Minnemann’s unrivaled skills on the kit were really put to work on this tune, and he came up with his own incredible interpretation of it.

It took me a month to write, and 30-hours to mix. I don’t think I’ll ever write anything like it again. I’m still trying to figure out how we’re going to do it live.

BAJ: Are there any aspects you feel are missing in popular music at this writing? What would you change about what you’re hearing “on the radio”, if you could change anything?

BB: I have to admit that I don’t really listen to the radio anymore…part of that is the sequestering process I go into when I’m working on a solo album. I just don’t let all that much in once I get a clear vision for the album. It’s been awhile, so I guess I couldn’t tell you what’s missing. I wouldn’t mind more rock/jazz fusion on the radio so that my album could get some more mainstream airplay…but something tells me that’s not what the question was about. (Laughter) (BAJ: “that’ll do…”)

BAJ: How do you approach the concept of delivering a “bass solo” for your record versus recording a solo for another artist? Also, if you could pinpoint a singular aspect of your soloing voice, what are you trying to “say” when you step out?

BB: I really don’t differentiate between what I would do for me and what I would do for someone else. It’s really all about the song, and what the producer wants. In my case, I’m the producer, but my music is really guitar-driven when it comes to the melody and key textures, not bass-driven. I’m just the bassist in my own band, playing the music I’d want to hear or go see. So if there’s a bass solo in one of my songs, I just try and apply my voice to the song at hand as best I can, without getting too attached to my own identity as a soloing voice. My voice will always be there – it’s baked in the cake, if you know what I mean – so I try and make the music work first, and worry about my own soloing second, and that goes for my own music and other people’s music alike. I certainly don’t live to solo. I’d rather just be the bass player. But when the song calls for it, I’ll do it.

BAJ: Now that you’ve survived another release as leader, what’s next for you?

BB: I’m actually looking forward to being a sideman again! There’s a lot of pressure when you’re the composer, producer, record company exec, all that. It’s pretty easy to just play bass compared to all that, I’ve found. So in 2009 I’m going to be working with Mike Keneally and Marco Minnemann in our new power trio KMB, which is going to be the three of us all contributing material into a highly improv-based live set… And I’ll also be going out on the road again with Dethklok, the death metal “band” I’m in that’s based on the show Metalocalypse on Cartoon Network (if you don’t know what I’m talking about you have to Google it – it’s hilarious). But I also want to get some kind of live action happening for “Thanks In Advance.” I don’t have a real touring budget, but I’m trying to figure out a way to do some spot dates that makes sense. I want people to hear this music being played live.

BAJ: What are a few things (musical and non-musical) you would like to achieve in the next 3 years:

BB: I want to finally get a home studio together. I want to write a novella based on some experiences I’ve had in the past three years. Eventually I want to write a novel. I want to pay off “Thanks In Advance!” I want to hear my music played by an orchestra. I want to work on fulfilling musical projects for folks I already know, and also folks I don’t. I’d like to take my wife to Europe. I want to do some hiking in the High Sierras. And, in case this isn’t clear enough already… I want a pony. (Laughter)

BAJ: You spend a lot of time interviewing others… do you enjoy the interview process? Also, what items would you really like to cover in this particular interview?

BB: I am fortunate in a completely different way for having the opportunity to interview some of today’s leading and most interesting bassists, and I really do enjoy it. First, it’s a unique way to be able to give back to the community. People are hungry for knowledge, I think, from the folks who are doing this for a living, because it’s not easy to pull off and plenty of people want to know how they’re doing it. So I see it as a public service, in a way, to get their thoughts out into the public square. Also, you realize that there’s no “right” way to do it – everyone’s got their own thing going on, and for my part, I’ve gotten that we’re all sharing the same experience, doing this “being a musician” or “being a bassist” thing, even though our particular situations are all unique. But I’m also a fan of great bassists, and getting to talk to John Patitucci and Victor Wooten and Dave LaRue about how they do what they do, at the musician-to-musician level, is a real gift. All there is for me to do is share the experience, and hopefully the writing gets that across.

As for this interview, I think you’ve covered everything!

BAJ: What was the most difficult issue to overcome that arose during the recording of “Thanks In Advance”? Also, how did you find yourself dealing with the matter?

BB: The hardest part was mixing and mastering the album, by far. We tracked in eight different studios, with six different drummers, and plenty of different engineers. It was the job of mixing engineer Mark Niemiec, mastering engineer John Golden, and myself to take all of these disparate mixes and tonal palettes and make a cohesive record out of it all. At this point I’m pretty confident with my choices around composition, parts, producing other musicians, and everything it takes to track an original tune. I’ve got a ways to go when it comes to mixing and mastering, and though I’m very pleased with the final result, there were definitely some dark moments along the way. I found myself really having to give up the notion that I knew what I was doing – which, as the producer, isn’t easy to admit! – and just let the songs be what they wanted to be to a certain extent while still keeping them tied to the sound of the overall record. My poor wife, Kira, had to listen to me agonize over it for two whole months before I finally let go of it. The mastering was revised eight times. Like I said, in the end it all worked and I’ve gotten some great feedback on the overall sound of the record, but I feel like I’ve got some chops to develop in that part of the process.

BAJ: Describe your happiest experience in recent years?

BB: Finishing this record and getting married are two big ones. Doing the Dethklok tour was a real joy, like going to heavy metal fantasy camp. I’ve had lots of great moments. But interestingly enough, I’ve been just happier in general, outside of any one or two experiences, ever since I had this shift in the way that I look at life. Just having gratitude for life’s everyday content makes things that seem mundane to be an ongoing happy experience, which is really cool and new for me.

BAJ: Do you have to force yourself to take time away from music? What are some of your favorite non-musical activities?

BB: I don’t have to force myself to take time away from music at all – it comes quite naturally! I’m not a music addict, and don’t spend all day practicing or listening to music or anything like that. I love working out, hiking, rollerblading, shooting pool, and reading about politics. I had a couple of motorcycles for a while when I lived in California – I love riding in the western U.S. And there’s always eating, which has long been one of my favorite non-musical activities.

But seriously, I do lots of other stuff, and the writing – as in literature – is a great way to take breaks from music while still being creative. One day I may write more than play. We’ll see. Right now, I’m happy to do both.

BAJ: Bryan, thank you for taking time with us, man! What do you want to say to our readers in closing?

BB: Just thanks for reading along, thanks for being bassists (because we’re the coolest folks around!!)… and just to put on my marketing hat for a second here…feel free to stop on by at www.bryanbeller.com, where not only can you check sample audio and video from the new CD and DVD, but you can also read a mountain’s worth of stories from my years as a musician, which is perfect for wasting hours of time at work or other places that require distraction.

www.bryanbeller.com
www.myspace.com/bryanbeller