“You saw heavy metal bands doing power ballads!”: Why MTV nearly made Steve Morse quit music for a VERY different career
With his work alongside some of rock’s most notable legacy acts including Deep Purple, Kansas and Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse has been instrumental in shaping the world of rock music and guitar as we know it today. His career has exclusively been in music, though. For a brief period in the late ‘80s, the guitarist served as a regional airline pilot.
A longtime pilot and aviation enthusiast, Morse started flying as a teenager, and bought his first plane for about $4,000 while attending the University of Miami in the ‘70s. And his passion for flying ultimately led to a six-month stint as an airline pilot. But what prompted such a radical career shift amid a hugely successful music career?
READ MORE: “The jazz people were laughing when they saw me at the audition with my Telecaster”: Steve Morse reflects on his early guitar journey
As the 72-year-old guitarist explains to Guitar World’s Matt Owen in a new interview, it came down to a disillusionment with the music industry and the increasing demand from record labels and management for music to have MTV and mainstream TV appeal.
“[MTV] had developed into this thing. I was in the band Kansas, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna write a bunch of cool instrumental stuff like Kerry Livgren did… I thought that was gonna be what we were doing.
“But there was a big push from management and the record company: ‘We need a hit single that could play on VH1 or MTV.’ And so these platforms were kind of ruling the musical decisions that were happening. And it was happening everywhere. You saw heavy metal bands doing power ballads just to have a video on VH1.
“And I was just at the point in my life where I said, ‘You know what, I knew the music business would change. I didn’t know what it would change to.”
Morse ultimately left Kansas in the late ‘80s to work on his own music. “I’m gonna record whatever I wanna record,” he remembers thinking to himself. “So it just became, ‘I’m gonna work on my own music. I don’t care what it is. I ended up writing some of the best stuff I ever did for High Tension Wires [his 1989 solo album], because I just didn’t care anymore.”
“It’s not that I didn’t care about the music, I just didn’t care about whether the record company or the manager liked it or not. I just said, ‘I know some people will like this, and I will find where those people go and play gigs where they are.’ It was very liberating.”
It was during this stint as a solo artist that Morse decided to obtain his licence to be a commercial pilot. He ultimately qualified and worked as a pilot for an Atlanta-based regional airline for six months, but notes his short time in the position was down to it being a “really bad time to be a pilot”.
“They had so many pilots applying for the positions that they could do anything they wanted, and they did,” he remembers.
“They didn’t pay us anything to start with, so I was broke. I was booking gigs on my days off. I had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Ever and New Years. And on the days in between I booked a solo gig so I could make enough money to keep the electricity on in my trailer.”
Morse ended up in a face-off with his bosses: “They drafted me, and said, ‘You have to come into work.’ I said, ‘I can’t, I have a gig.’ They said, ‘You have to.’ I said, ‘I can’t.’ They said, ‘Well you’re gonna have to quit.’ And I did.”
The decision to quit being a commercial pilot was influenced, however, after he received an invitation to perform with Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“Gary Rossington had called me up right before that and invited me down to the Omni [venue in Atlanta, Georgia]. He was getting back together with Lynyrd Skynyrd… He said, ‘Morse, bring your guitar.’ And I get down there, they’re already on stage. The crew says, ‘Alright, go up now.’ And they said, ‘Alright we’re bringing out special guest Steve Morse!’”
Watch the full Guitar World interview below:
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
