Having been privileged to have seen Shane at some of his first gigs with The Neville Brothers and with our local Lafayette, LA legend Zachary Richard, I was already a fan of Shane. I became even more of a fan when he joined H&O and Darryl’s band. This was a cool episode for me…it was the most constructive one for me personally because of Shane’s specific demos and articulate responses to Dweezil’s pointed questions.
I’ve long struggled with how to integrate nearly any part of Edward’s playing into my own playing or into other non Van Halen contexts. And I know I’m not alone in this. I never thought of infusing things with the “attitude” and “between the cracks” fills and stinging wide bend/vibrato one-noters that Ed certainly used along with those little voice leading triad things a la “Women In Love” that Shane demoed. These are the very things that really can be integrated into almost any situation.
This seems simple, but something clicked with me only through this interview. I think I’ve always been so caught up in thinking (pretty correctly) that Ed’s visual fingerboard lead patterns don’t work in the music that I’ve played…it is pretty grating and atonal because of the lack of regard for reference to harmony in non Van Halen music. And even the pentatonic Ed stuff that I sometimes tried to integrate into blues standards worked only with varying degrees of success. But the stuff that Dweezil asked to hear Shane demonstrate…the “finger grease” stuff that is aptly named throughout the conversation for instance…THAT type of ATTITUDE stuff is really useful because you can put that stuff in until the cows come home and still play in key and follow the chords!
I know many might say “Duh!” and I’m saying it to myself! But it took hearing a great player demonstrate potential answers to the questions that I couldn’t answer about how to integrate Ed influenced things into a broader range of material to really make the light bulb go on! Thanks Dweezil and Shane!
Thanks Dweezil, that was a really cool episode. “Eddie made the triad rock&roll”, ha, that’s a good quote! Loved the focus on the rhythm-side of things and glad to have now been introduced to Shane Theriot who played some really groovy stuff and made many interesting observations. I’ll be thinking of ‘finger grease’, ‘bundles of harmony’ and ‘good wrong notes’ from now on!
As an aside, the reference to Hocus Pocus by Focus as an early example of triads in a rock and roll context, and Shane’s discussion of Secrets and Little Guitars reminded me of a wonderful youtube video that was posted after Edward’s passing (WHY EDDIE VAN HALEN KICKS ASS!! (youtube.com)). Check it out, it’s a similar kind of deep dive into the rhythm playing on Little Guitars, also referring to Focus and highlighting the chord progression into the verse section.
Dweezil, it's so cool that you and Shane are friends. I do recall the contest and Shane's submission. Thank you so much for including him here! You two need to collaborate on an album!
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Having been privileged to have seen Shane at some of his first gigs with The Neville Brothers and with our local Lafayette, LA legend Zachary Richard, I was already a fan of Shane. I became even more of a fan when he joined H&O and Darryl’s band. This was a cool episode for me…it was the most constructive one for me personally because of Shane’s specific demos and articulate responses to Dweezil’s pointed questions.
I’ve long struggled with how to integrate nearly any part of Edward’s playing into my own playing or into other non Van Halen contexts. And I know I’m not alone in this. I never thought of infusing things with the “attitude” and “between the cracks” fills and stinging wide bend/vibrato one-noters that Ed certainly used along with those little voice leading triad things a la “Women In Love” that Shane demoed. These are the very things that really can be integrated into almost any situation.
This seems simple, but something clicked with me only through this interview. I think I’ve always been so caught up in thinking (pretty correctly) that Ed’s visual fingerboard lead patterns don’t work in the music that I’ve played…it is pretty grating and atonal because of the lack of regard for reference to harmony in non Van Halen music. And even the pentatonic Ed stuff that I sometimes tried to integrate into blues standards worked only with varying degrees of success. But the stuff that Dweezil asked to hear Shane demonstrate…the “finger grease” stuff that is aptly named throughout the conversation for instance…THAT type of ATTITUDE stuff is really useful because you can put that stuff in until the cows come home and still play in key and follow the chords!
I know many might say “Duh!” and I’m saying it to myself! But it took hearing a great player demonstrate potential answers to the questions that I couldn’t answer about how to integrate Ed influenced things into a broader range of material to really make the light bulb go on! Thanks Dweezil and Shane!
Thanks Dweezil, that was a really cool episode. “Eddie made the triad rock&roll”, ha, that’s a good quote! Loved the focus on the rhythm-side of things and glad to have now been introduced to Shane Theriot who played some really groovy stuff and made many interesting observations. I’ll be thinking of ‘finger grease’, ‘bundles of harmony’ and ‘good wrong notes’ from now on!
As an aside, the reference to Hocus Pocus by Focus as an early example of triads in a rock and roll context, and Shane’s discussion of Secrets and Little Guitars reminded me of a wonderful youtube video that was posted after Edward’s passing (WHY EDDIE VAN HALEN KICKS ASS!! (youtube.com)). Check it out, it’s a similar kind of deep dive into the rhythm playing on Little Guitars, also referring to Focus and highlighting the chord progression into the verse section.
Thanks Rolf! I'm glad you enjoyed Shane's episode! I'll check out that link you sent.
Dweezil, it's so cool that you and Shane are friends. I do recall the contest and Shane's submission. Thank you so much for including him here! You two need to collaborate on an album!
Hey Tim,
Yes we do need to collaborate. He did play on stage with me a few times. You can hear hime here. https://www.dweezilzappa.com/songs/1964851-threesome-then-some-pound-for-a-brown
From NAMM 1987 with permission from Dan Kozlow who took these pictures…
Great pics!
I’ve just completed my “On Fire” transcription and I thought I would share it here with any of you guitar players that are interested. As I always do with my transcriptions, I used all available footage and the raw mic track helped a great deal.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kLobmynnf1wGMePMddkjnLrjyBDTPiVX/view?usp=drivesdk