The Interview By MikeBlackburn

Part 2. Roy Marchbank Biography

MIKE : Where were you born and where did you grow up?

Roy : Cresswell Dumfriesshire Southwest Scotland 24th June 69,theres a village just outside called Moniaive,most of my early years were spent there

MIKE : Was your family a musical one? What are your earliest musical recollections?

Roy : I would say they have a love for music,but not a passion for it. My parents always sang,my mother used to have a game when I was a kid where she would sing a phrase and I had t finish the last word, I was around 2, it was also I guess my first music lesson. My dad used to play guitar and sing a whole bunch of traditional Scottish and Beatles songs. He showed me my first basic D major and G chord

MIKE : When did you get your first guitar and what kind was it?

Roy : I was 5. No idea who made it, it has no mark. Might have come free with a packet of frosties or something, lol

MIKE : Who were your major early guitar and musical influences? How were you introduced to those influences?

Roy : When I first heard Big Bill Broonzy and was able to play my first ragtime,it was like magic,I really fell for the guitar after that.Later I was introduced to a friends record collection,he had stuff by The Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Motorhead, Van Halen, Gary Moore, Hendrix it was like walking into a gold mine. About 2 years later, I'd be around 14, I watched a TV documentary on Les Paul, that was the real turning point.

MIKE : Did you have a particular teacher who influenced your musical direction, guitar or otherwise?

Roy : My own mind, but I feel music follows its own course,it has the essence of water,it doesn't stop and think “I,ve a huge problem in front of me” it goes round, under or over.

MIKE : Tell us about your amateur career and bands?

Roy : I don't think there is a kind of music I,ve not played in the 26 years I've been at this, so many sessions and bands. It would take a night to write them all down

MIKE : When and what influenced you to make a career in music?

Roy : I am dyslexic and y'know back in the witchfinder days dyslexia was something no-one knew about or if they did, they didn't talk about it. People thought me stupid, the end result was being perpetually surrounded by aggression because as they saw it, I was lazy, I also had a very odd experience happen to both me and my sister as kids and these experiences continued 'til I was well over 12. I'm toying with the idea it being electro-magnetic in nature, but cant be sure. So I had to find a window out and well… the rest is history I guess.I also got given an accordion around the same time, jeez,as if things weren't bad enough, lmao

MIKE : Give us a brief professional career background from inception until now?

Roy : I had a country band gig when I was around 15 working weekends and during music college I formed a rock and an instrumental band that played the occasional gig, later I moved t Edinburgh Scotland and taught private guitar for a couple of years and played in various rock bands both local and in other citys before moving to Ireland to join Bohinta . I later played in the pit band for theatre shows such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell,etc., while simultaneously balancing sessions with other artists.I was also working in bands both original and cover and taught guitar weekdays. I Left Ireland for Scotland to tour international and record with Scottish contemporary traditional act The Iron Horse and recorded the occasional session on tour time off. Left for Barcelona and started various music projects and my first solo album. I'm currently working in construction in Barcelona with my solo album just completed.

Mike : Tell us about touring with Iron Horse, particularly your Uzbekistan tour.

Roy : We toured mostly Europe when I joined, with the exception of Disney, Orlando, playing festivals and theatre for the better part of 3 years. It was always fun, but there were troubles lurking in the background before I joined in “98” with a certain PETER Nameless, but he planted a dark seed to put an end to what I believe could well could have been a world known act on a major stage. The last tour we had was in Uzbekistan with the Uzbek folk instuments chamber orchestra “Sogdiana”. The aim was to build a better understanding from two very different cultural backgrounds and I would say, for the better part, succeeded in doing so in the 2 weeks we had,I felt proud of both Iron Horse and Sogdiana after 14 days of what was one of the most intensive musical moments of my life. CDs and Videos are not available now to my knowledge. But if your interested Contact the British Council in Uzbekistan

MIKE : What brought you to Spain? You seem to have previously been on a musical quest?

Roy : Well my partner is Catalan and i felt it was time for a big change. I'd experienced everything I really wanted to in music up until that point but write and promote my own work and of course progress as a musician, also my style has no clear pigeonhole other than guitar intrumental,so i can forget making a living out of it. Its back to the day job for now, I have no interest in teaching, cover bands and sessions anymore, its just not my path.

Mike : Tell us how and where you met your Catalan beauty?

Roy : In a telephone box in Malahide, County Dublin Ireland, lol.

Mike : Has that move (to Spain) had any impact upon your music? If so what and how?

Roy : For the most part its been a positive step, even if initially the first 2 ½ years were incredibly difficult to settle, I miss my people,but on the flip side I'm growing again as a musician and can once again afford to buy new gear. Anytime I've recorded before, its been at the expense of someone elses time. As far as guitar is concerned, i'm living in the land of Flamenco so I'm getting another education, the guitar playing here is of course incredible, make no bones about it, I feel if you want to really learn, you have to go to the culture and be in the environment be it here or elsewhere, in fact I feel a move to Andalucia may happen at some point

Mike : What is your current stable of guitar and amplifiers? How are you set up to practice and work? What recording equipment do you use?

Roy : I work with the basics, fingers, plecks and various guitars for different ways of playing. I have a baby Yamaha APXT-1 fitted with a Fishman Humbucker and sperzel string locks, a custom stainless steel fretless that used to be an old Ibanez 560, my main electric yamaha 1221, totally overhauled and customized. A standard 70,s Ovation steel string Custom Balladeer and an Epiphone C70-CE classical.

For amps a Peavey classic 50, that sounds incredible for rock and blues and a little Roland micro cube for street sessions, I have the Roland VG-88,V.2 and a Boss GT-6 with a Boss compressor and Kork Pandora PX4 through the fxs loop. The PC has a Creative soundblaster Audigy soundcard and a Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 program, not exactly pro-tools, but it works well for recording guitar, later this year I'll be investing in an apple G5 w/pro tools, Korg Triton and a Virtual Roland kit to record and hopefully tour my second album.

Mike : How much time do you typically spend practicing and recording?

Roy : If I can, all day, it depends on my day job. Right now I'm lucky if I can get an hour in on the weekdays, the weekends are prime time

Mike : Pending the expected success of your initial album followed by a blossoming and renewed career as a musical artist, you currently work in a very labour intensive and often dangerous construction trade. One in which every day you roll the dice with regard to the well being of your hands and fingers, the very conduits of your musical creativity from your brain to the strings. Doesn't this worry you?

Roy : All the time,but risks sometimes have to be taken, the bills don't get paid themselves, its that simple.

Mike : What is the most difficult hurdle facing an instrumental guitar artist in today's musical environment?

Roy : As its always been, becoming self-actualized

Mike : When I was growing up, my guitar heroes were all in bands that I could see on tour somewhere near my home at some point in their career. Nowadays, guitarists toil in the sanctuary of their own home studios jamming with remote band members electronically or with computers as backing. If you are very lucky geographically, you might possibly be able to catch them performing with backing tracks at a guitar festival or at an instrument supplier's conference or in store seminar.

What are your thoughts on this? When I was growing up half the fun was playing live with your friends. That seems to be disappearing somewhat these days, particularly with strictly instrumental artists.

Roy : Its changed days unfortunately, playing along to backing tracks is all very well, but people come for the experience, I still have a lot of faith in that, jam sessions with great musicians are your best bet, check out the local bars that hold them.

Mike : Many of today's players possess astounding technique but often to me, that certain feeling, natural phrasing and timing that comes from hours of playing and discussing what you are doing with others seems to be missing. Also missing is the immediate and honest feedback you can only get from a close friend or band mate. Do you think this is a fair assessment?

Roy : Yip,way too much info on what you should do, The road to self discovery is not handed out in books and video, It comes from within and a lot of hard graft, there is no quick fix. To say one way is THE WAY you have already crystalized a form of work and killed it stone dead, it cant grow because the boundarys have been built. No style as style,now on that path you can progress forever

Mike : What do you see as the next major technological breakthrough for guitar players?

Roy : Guitars with no strings, its going to be a strange step.

Mike : So you see guitar becoming a percussive rather than string instrument with notes being hammered rather plan plucked?

Roy : No I don't think you'll have to change anything technique-wise at all, the only difference will be no string tension problems and the freedom to make a guitar from another material other than wood.

Mike : What are your five (5) indispensable desert island albums? The ones you cannot live without. They do not have to be rock or guitar albums.

Roy : The best of Ben Webster, Stevie Ray Vaughan “Greatest Hits”, Art Tatum group masterpieces Vol 7, Steve Gains “One in the Sun” and my Randy Newman compilation Part III Widowmaker's Highway

Mike : When was the seed that became WH first planted? When did you start collecting music you had already written or when did you start composing specifically for this project?

Roy : I've been at this since I first picked up a guitar,but never had a vehicle to show it up until now

Mike : What is the origin of the project's name and the artwork? What is the general musical and creative theme behind the effort. How the tracks mesh together to support this theme?

Roy : There is a road in Nevada desert that is dubbed Widowmakers Highway by the wives who lost there husbands working with highly toxic and top secret materials to what the world now knows as Area 51. Janet Frost is one of those woman and now seeks compensation from the US government. The problem is the US government denys its existance, so the working man has no rights, he can't get prescribed the proper medication from the doctor because he is sworn to secrecy so the end result is sometimes death The reason it is top secret is because they have, and this is a fact! a new form of science that would revolutionize the world as we know it. A form of energy that would put an end to fossil and nuclear energy forever, but…..they don't,“whoever they are” want to put an end to a multi-trillion dollar war and energy industry.

The head chief staff director for the CIA and national security council couldn't get access for christsakes. So here we have a government taking orders from a rouge Cabal, black special op, kind of mafioso that is hell bent, on what could well be steering us into WW3. The tracks are just stages of my life. I've had a deep burning sensation, that can best be discribed like a knot in my stomach to find out what it was that I saw with my sister so long ago and its brought me here, wherever that is.

Mike : Let's now discuss each track individually. The origin, theme, key technical aspects, equipment used etc….(any other important or relevant point)

Widowmakers Highway - All the versions and original work including all solos were written using various unknown open tunings,except Widowmakers Highway DADGAD and Feels like home, DGDGBD, then translated back to standard pitch and recorded. Using this idea I am left with only technique, all I've learnt is forgotten and I'm free to bypass straight to heart and later use theory to arrange. Its my way, not The Way you understand

Siempre Amor: The backing track was recorded by Invisible Boss and originaly called Daves song,. I had a solo written before called Papyrus of Ani which by chance happened to fit exactly, so I called the boys up and asked if I could use it for the album. I recorded all the guitars with a yamaha 1221 to a boss cs3 compressor sustainer into a digitech 2101 with a Korg PX4 and bass parametric eq pq-3b running through the fxs loop out direct into the pc. The name Siempre Amor is a somewhat sarcastic title,translated in spanish "always love"

Blue Bossa/Phoenix Street: B.Bossa is written by Kenny Dorham although this version is a twisted form of what Emily Remler taught on video. Phoenix Street is a basic jazz chord prog I wrote to support some kind of solo work, originaly I thought to have a violin solo, but got talking to Paul Clark via the good peeps at Talk 2 Joe/Joe Satriani site and thought it would be different to have a no bars held dual guitar solo between myself on clean guitar and ol nick on filth, so I opted for that idea and this is the end result with Juan Carlos from the band Fundation Tony Manero on bass. I recorded direct with no effects using a semi acoustic yamaha for the backing and beginning slide and my 1221 for the clean parts after.

Flymans Knuckle: A term used by the crew that "fly" the scenes backstage in the theatre when the hands become swollen. After my first visit to Barcelona, I started a lot to think about life and travel, its joy and heartbreak of arrival and departure and the walking of that fine line between the two without loosing your decorum I recorded with an Epiphone classical direct to desk and my 1221 through a digitech 2101. The drum programming, synth and overall master track was done by Graeme Watt .

Widowmakwers Highway: Again recorded direct to PC with the Yamaha semi-acoustic tuned to DADGAD

Autumn Leaves: After 2 years of living in Barcelona, I landed a few gigs along with bass player David Salvadore playing Standards in restaurants. Autumn Leaves and Bolivar blues were two that we recorded during a six-month period. Both were recorded direct to PC using a fretless custom guitar, Fender telecaster, yamaha semi-acoustic, Yamaha 1221 and Epiphone c70 classical through a Boss cs3 compressor.

C-prelude : Bach/The Hungarian Gypsy Airs No.1 "Zigeunerwiesen" Op.20/Pablo de Sarasate. Probably the most complex guitar parts I've ever played and recorded to date, a real challenge to write a solo for the Bach chord section and the translating of the violin part to guitar for The Gypsy Airs. The chord section at the end was by far the hardest of the entire piece to record clean, sorely underestimated but lesson learnt!

Egyptian Psycho : Because she was, nuff said. Recorded at the same time as Siempre Amor and written with the midi file 10 years ago, but I needed better string samples and programming. Graeme Watt to the rescue again

Feels like home : Sitting in a friends flat looking out the window on one of those rare sunny days we get in Scotland and written in under 10 minutes. Recorded at the same time as Widowmakers Highway except for the DGDGBD tuning.