“Eddie Van Halen ruined rock guitar”: The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim and William Reid think “guitar players should never learn scales” because it gets in the way of making music
Scottish alt-rock brothers Jim and William Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain have offered a hot take on rock guitar orthodoxy, arguing that Eddie Van Halen “ruined rock guitar” by inspiring a wave of imitators.
In a new interview with Stereogum, the pair discuss everything from guitar technique to genre labels, and why, in their view, too much musical knowledge can sometimes get in the way of making music.
READ MORE: “I’m nowhere near qualified to start dabbling in the Van Halen world”: Steve Lukather says he’s not playing any guitar on the posthumous Van Halen record, and that the material Eddie Van Halen left over is “not throwaway s**t”
The idea that technique is somehow the enemy of feel is a familiar argument in indie rock circles. Whether that always holds up is debatable, but the Reids are very much in the “less is more” camp.
Reflecting on his own approach to the guitar, vocalist Jim Reid says that keeping things deliberately minimal is key to the creative process.
“Not having a lot of equipment actually forces you to be more inventive,” he explains. “I can play guitar, but only just. It’s kinda deliberate. I play guitar to the level that I need to play guitar. And sometimes knowing too much about making music gets in the way, and it ends up back to Eddie Van Halen again, do you know what I mean?”
William, meanwhile, takes the argument further, rejecting the idea of technical study altogether.
“I think guitar players should never learn scales,” he says. “I think the worst guitar players in the world – like Eddie Van Halen. I can’t stand Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing. I think he ruined rock guitar all through the ‘80s and ‘90s ‘cause so many people copied him.”
“And I just couldn’t get any of that playin’ as fast as you fuckin’ can and crammin’ as many notes in one second as you could,” William continues. “And I listen to Peter Hook’s bass riffs, and I think that’s as thousand times better than anything Eddie Van Halen could ever come up with.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jim Reid also takes aim at one of indie rock’s most persistent genre labels.
“Shoegaze, I’ve got a problem with that just because it doesn’t actually exist,” he says. “‘Cause it was some clown at the NME [who] made that up.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
