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badnewswhatsleft · 3 months

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total guitar #160 march 2007 [joe's video]

transcript below cut:

You voted Dance, Dance in at No 57 in TG’s 100 Greatest Riffs, so we managed to collar the dual guitar talents of Fall Out Boy’s Joe Trohman and Patrick Stump to ask them how they write riffs, who they think is the ultimate riff-writing machine and what they deem to be the top five greatest riffs ever written…

Words: Claire Davies, Images: Joby Sessions

When you look at Fall Out Boy or listen to any one of their albums, it’s easy to dismiss them as pop punk scamps who like to mess around on the guitar but don’t take it that seriously. In some respects you’d be right, but singer/guitarist Patrick Stump and his talented co-guitarist Joe Trohman know quite a bit about writing insanely catchy riffs and playing guitar.

Patrick, for instance, doesn’t respect players who wail unnecessarily over a song. “I like restraint in guitarists,” he says. “It’s easy to go overboard and try to be Eddie Van Halen. But here’s the thing: you’re not.” Joe, on the other hand, is completely obsessed with vintage guitars. “I was really into vintage Gibsons, but I just used to break them all the time and it turned out to be kind of expensive. Now I play Washburns ‘cos they have that same wide-neck feel and pickups as some of those 70s Les Pauls.”

One thing they’re both passionate about, however, is writing great riffs and how you - by expanding your musical horizons - can write one with as much groove as Pantera’s Walk…

So guys, why did you choose guitar and when did you start playing?

Joe Trohman: “I started playing guitar because of Metallica. I used to listen to them loads and when my grandma got me the Live Shit: Binge And Purge video I couldn’t stop watching it. I used to play viola and trombone in my school band, but watching bands like Metallica and Smashing Pumpkins made me wanna play guitar. From the moment I got a cheap $50 guitar, I played it all the time.”

Patrick Stump: “I chose drums to begin with, but my dad was a folk singer in the 70s so he always had a guitar lying around. I’d mess around and write songs on it, but I never fancied myself as much of a player. When the band started I ended up singing, even though I was supposed to be a drummer. Then one of our guitarists quit, I had to fill in and it went from there.”

When you were starting out, which guitarists influenced you?

Joe: “Kirk Hammett and Dimebag had a huge impact on me, as did Billy Corgan. I was into a lot of lead players, I guess, but as I got older I realised how important it was to play rhythm as well. People don’t realise how good a rhythm player James Hetfield is. I also love Johnny Marr, who has probably been my biggest influence so far.”

Patrick: “I’m not a huge Stones fan, but I appreciate Keith Richards’ playing ‘cos it’s all about his riffs. Outside of that, my favourite shit as a guitar player is funk; everyone from James Brown to Prince. I also love jazz player Joe Pass, who is one of the only people good enough to noodle on guitar, and Jesse Johnson who was in a band called The Time from the Prince movie Purple Rain. My favourite solo of his is just one note, but the crazy shit he does with that one note is unreal.”

Moving on to riff-writing, how would you describe a guitar riff?

Joe: “It’s a cool guitar part that catches you instantly. It’s something you can play over and over without it losing its edge.”

Patrick: “Yeah, it’s four bars that are simple and that grab you immediately, like the riff from Janet Jackson’s Black Cat. I think a good riff comes down to a good rhythm section. When you look at a guy like Dimebag, he always got right in there with the bass and drums. Pantera were built on a groove as strong and simple as any R&B groove.”

Joe: “Yeah, Walk has to be one of the simplest riffs ever but it grooves, and that’s what matters: what you do with the riff and how much it grooves.”

So how do you come up with riffs, such as the one on Dance, Dance?

Patrick: “We just fuck around until we come up with something. You’ll come up with a gazillion riffs when trying stuff out, but every so often something will jump in front of you. Once you’ve got your four bars, stuff will start happening. With Dance, Dance I was just sitting in the van and we were all talking about The Cure, and I had this idea of a Cure bass line that they never wrote, which ended up being the riff in Dance Dance.”

What’s the best riff you’ve written?

Patrick: “I really like the riff on Of All The Gin Joints. But The Take Over, The Breaks Over from our new record [Infinity On High] is easily one of our best riffs. I wrote it after reading something Bowie said: that he was sitting around one day and decided that he really wanted to write a riff like Keith Richards did. So he wrote Rebel Rebel. After reading that I thought, ‘Fuck! I wanna do that!’”

What, in your opinion, makes a kick-ass riff?

Joe: “A great riff comes from being part of the rhythm and acknowledging that you’re not gonna produce something totally original. You should listen to loads of different music and put your own spin on it. Like on our last album we wrote a riff that was like Panama by Van Halen. We’ve obviously taken influence from them on that song, but we’re not ripping them off wholesale. Instead it’s like paying homage to them.”

Patrick: “When you’re writing a riff you’re part of the rhythm section and you keep up the tempo and rhythm as if you were the drummer. You have stabs as though you were the snare drum and you’re hitting low notes as though you’re the bass drum, but you’re also controlling the melody. At the end of the day, a riff is something that you can hum and it’s a rhythm you can play on drums. If you have both those qualities in your riff then you’re onto something good.”

What do you think are the Top Five greatest riffs ever written?

Joe: “I love the start of This Charming Man by The Smiths, and Black In Black by AC/DC. Walk by Pantera is probably one of the best riffs ever, same as Battery by Metallica, but if you can’t do triplets and haven’t got tons of stamina then it’s hard to play. I also love South Of Heaven by Slayer just ‘cos it’s so evil sounding.”

Patrick: “Satisfaction by The Stones is the be-all and end-all of riffs. I’d also go for Rebel Rebel by David Bowie, Janet Jackson’s Black Cat, the second section of Bohemian Rhapsody and Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath. That one riff alone changed metal as we know it. I also wanna throw in Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Yes ‘cos it’s a great example of having really talented guitarists who still keep it simple.”

Who do you think is the ultimate riff-writing machine?

Joe: “I’d go with Randy Rhoads, just ‘cos I love that riff in Crazy Train. That guy was a genius.”

Patrick: “Angus and Malcolm Young have written so many phenomenal riffs that you can’t do any better than those guys. But I come from an R&B background so I wanna say Prince, just ‘cos Let’s Go Crazy is so awesome. And I also wanna know who wrote the riff to Michael Jackson’s Beat It [TG mentions it was session musician and Toto guitarist Steve Lukather]. Was it Lukather? Yeah, of course it was: he played the riff and Eddie Van Halen played the solo. I wonder why Lukather doesn’t get more recognition? Now you’ve mentioned Lukather, I wanna change one of my Top Five riffs to Toto’s Hold The Line, ‘cos that’s one of my favourite riffs ever!”

How did you approach the guitars on your new album, Infinity On High?

Patrick: “We’re both playing a lot more rhythm on this record, but if there is lead then it’s in much more of a BB King way where there’s a call and response.”

Joe: “My favourite thing about the guitars on our new songs is that I can ad-lib when we’re playing live. I know scales well enough and understand the fretboard well enough to do that. I could never tell you what key something is in, but in my head I know what it is. The cool thing about being in this band is that Patrick and I play guitar really well together, and I’ve learned a lot from watching Patrick and playing guitar with him.”

So can we expect a lot of guitar interplay from you on this album?

Joe: “Patrick also plays piano on this album, so he’s not always on guitar, but we split up a lot of the guitar playing. There’s a solo on The Take Over, The Breaks Over that we split in half when playing live, even though on the record it was done by Chad from New Found Glory and Ryan from Panic! At The Disco. We thought it was cooler to have guest guitarists than guest vocalists. So yeah, we split a lot of the guitar stuff up and switched between rhythm and lead. The weird thing is that I’m always pegged as the lead guitarist of the band, but we always switch back and forth.”

Patrick: “I think in general, I play a lot of the single-note leads and Joe plays a lot of the octave and chord leads.”

Which tracks on the new album best exemplify you guys as guitarists?

Patrick: “The end solo of Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am? Is how I love to solo. It’s real bluesy, which is what I’m about as a player. I’d also say the solo on You’re Crashing But You’re No Wave.”

Joe: “Yeah, that one had a lot of Johnny Marr filler guitar in there, and also Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am? It's filler guitar that doesn’t really jump out at you, but it’s atmospheric and it changes the vibe without you really knowing it.”

Finally, how proud are you as guitarists of your new album?

Patrick: “This is my favourite record because it’s restrained and funny. It’s basic rhythm playing, which is my favourite kind of guitar playing. I’m much happier playing a strong riff 100 times over than playing a kick-ass solo once. We do have kick-ass solos, but the way we write doesn’t always leave that much room for them.”

Joe: “I learned from playing on this album that I don’t need to play solos all the time. I’m proud of the record and proud of the cool riffs and songs that we’ve written together.”

Patrick: “I’m less impressed when someone shows off, and on this record we don’t show off a lot so obviously you should be impressed… I’m kidding!”

#i was like im not gonna type up a transcript.#and then i was like fuuuuckkkkkkk it is so annoying when ur thinking of smthn specific but u cant search the text in a scan.#and then i fucking typed up a transcript.#patrick stump #joe trohman #fall out boy #time capsule #read the charts #on film #media blitz #also joe's video teaches u nothing btw u just get the pleasure of watching him play thru some riffs

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