2008.12.17 - Neue Rheinische Zeitung - Interview with Chris Pitman

Interview with Guns N' Roses keyboardist and songwriter Chris Pitman

"The voice as the most expressive instrument"

By Gerrit Wustman

As a keyboard player and songwriter for Guns N' Roses, he was instrumental in the creation of the new album "Chinese Democracy". As a singer and guitarist in his band SexTapes, he is currently working intensively on another project. The NRhZ gave an interview to Chris Pitman, who tends to shy away from the limelight and otherwise prefers to stay in the background.

Chris, when you're on tour with Guns N' Roses you're on keyboards with Dizzy Reed. In your band SexTapes you sing and play a pretty heavy guitar. What is your favorite place on stage and in the studio?

Pitman: I like to sing best - like with LUSK, Zaum and some other bands. The voice is the most expressive instrument there is, and it's completely different from playing an instrument. I have no idea why, but it's like being in a completely different world.

Will you also perform live with SexTapes?

Yes, we've recently started performing in LA and it's going well, better than I thought. Of course there are many possibilities, although the economic crisis is affecting all future plans at the moment.

Your projects, whether GN'R, LUSK or SexTapes , sound out very different musical directions. There seems to be a wide range of things that interest you and that you try. What drives you?

All of this reflects what is going on in my life at that time; Music is the only way for me to express these things artistically. I've always been fortunate to have great people to work with and they have the same determination not to repeat the past but to follow their own curiosity.

Axl Rose is a wonderful example of this, always looking for new boundaries to push and at the same time being well prepared for the consequences. Especially since he finds himself under this microscope driven by the market and the media, some of it harsh criticism. It's about how you feel about your work, nobody can understand what that means.

You've been with Guns N' Roses for ten years now. “Chinese Democracy” came out three weeks ago, the album you've been working on all these years. How does that feel?

The product is just a formality. I think about the journey that lies behind me and I listen to the memories.

Songwriting topic: You wrote the guitar melody for “If The World”, the Guns N' Roses song that also plays in the credits of Ridley Scott's film The Man Who Never Lived . Where did the inspiration come from and how did the recording go?

As with many songs I write, it all started with my old 12 string guitar sitting next to my sofa. I bought these from a pawn shop years ago for $50 and have never changed the strings since. This gave her a pretty bass-heavy sound. I just started with this riff which allows for some pretty cool vocals. Crazy as I am, I recorded this straight onto a drum machine sampler, MPC2000, and edited it in such a way that it sounded almost mechanical.

After that I wrote the drums with a dub/reggae beat, hitting the second and fourth beats really hard. After that I went to my studio and added strings, piano, bass, echo guitar, synth and sub-bass. I gave Axl the recordings and he added his part by recording the vocals in a single night. When I heard what he had done with the material, I was completely blown away. I've never heard a song like this before - that's the way it is to this day. Later we added guitar solos as a "spice on top" so to speak.

Guns fans know you primarily as a keyboard player and "technician". What equipment do you use?

The fans think you're "just" the keyboard player because they've only seen us live and they don't know who's doing what. I get numerous inquiries about the instruments and technique I use. I'm currently putting this together and will be posting a list on my website . It was ten years with a wide variety of instruments, recording devices, I have to dig that out of the beer haze of my memory.

Last question: When will German fans or even fans from Cologne have the opportunity to see you on stage again?

I love Germany, a lot of my favorite artists are from there - Joseph Beuys, Immendorff, Baselitz, Richter, the list goes on and on. And that's just the visual art. I can think of Conny Plank, KlingKlang, DAF, Can, etc. I can't wait to come back.

http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=13269

The text is auto-translated from German, so you may want to have a look at it, @Soulmonster.