It takes a special type of person to wear as many hats as Pete Anderson.  A Grammy Award winning producer, record company executive, spirited songwriter and longtime lead guitar player for Dwight Yoakam.  Pete has shaped the sounds of maverick country, Americana roots and alternative rock through his acclaimed achievements with Moot Davis, Roy Orbison, k.d. Lang, Flaco Jimenez, Buck Owens, Lucinda Williams, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores, Michelle Shocked, the Meat Puppets, the Backsliders, the Lonesome Strangers and Thelonious Monster, among others.  Pete’s acclaimed instructional video Roots Rock Workshop is now available on DVD and has been updated with new footage and special bonuses.  Pete will be touring throughout 2007, and if you don't get a chance to see him live, his third solo album, DareDevil, is perfect for high volume listening this spring - or anytime!

  Guitar Digest Magazine contributor Mike Overly (EncycloMedia Man) interviewed Pete Anderson a while back and what follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.

  Mike Overly:  One of your fans said, “Other guitar players are merely driving on the super highway you built.”  Do you remember a time when you moved from “imitation” to “influence”?

  Pete Anderson:  Well, let’s see...I can tell you the story.  I never really had a good ear.  It was hard for me to cop licks.  So in my early learning days I played along with blues records (Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Albert King, Sunny Boy), and I think it was a big plus for me in phrasing, rhythm and time.  I still couldn’t cop their licks, but I got their feel by mimicking the area on the fretboard where they were playing.  Later I got a gig in a band and it was a great opportunity for me.  I played every intro and every solo on every song - all night long!  Which is ideal for what I do, right?  This band had a repitore of country, rock-a-billy and rock hits from Hank Williams through the Beatles.  We didn’t have a set list, we just knew all these songs.  Somebody would go - Roy Orbison - and then we would play ten Roy Orbison songs.  I studied really hard in this band.  I had to learn steel intros and play banjo licks - and I still got to play blues and rock.  It formed a huge portion of my style, a real aggressive kind of country playing.  That’s when I began asking myself, “Why is it that when you walk into a bar and a band breaks into ‘Johnny B. Goode’ you want to gag?”  But when you’re driving in your car and you hear Chuck Berry do it you lose your mind.  You have to really study that.  It’s not as easy as you think.  Chuck Berry’s guitar is not blues guitar, it’s all those intervals.  So, I made a conscious effort to learn Chuck’s style.  Not the exact riffs, but just how he was doing it.  And the same with Albert Lee, Ray Flake, and all those guys - the cool west coast scene.  I would do some of that, but at the same time, if I did it, I would only be a 3rd generation guy doing it no matter how well I played it.  So when I started recording with Dwight, I decided to take a completely different approach - channeling Freddie King while playing my steel licks.

  MO:  And then all of that imitation at one point turned into influence?

  PA:  Yeah, people started pointing out to me that some guys were copying my licks, and I found that flattering more than anything else.  But I think a lot of it was attributed to low string licks on an electric guitar.  A big low E string on a telecaster through a really cranked-up clean amp is pretty deadly! 

  MO:  So learning to play guitar was difficult for you?

  PA:  Oh, yeah.  It was very difficult for me.  I was coordinated, athletic and rhythmic, but I couldn’t pick stuff out by ear.  I had to teach myself to do that, and I got much better over time.  I worked really hard at guitar.  I practiced and played all the time.  I was just a hound for it.  I drug it around with me everywhere I went.  I fell asleep with it in bed.  I loved the sound of it and I worked really hard at it and eventually cracked a few of the codes.  

  MO:  Did you have any guitar teachers?

  PA:  I tried to find a teacher in my mid-twenties in L.A., but that didn’t really work out for me because nobody really had a curriculum.  And then I went to a three day seminar that Howard Roberts was doing.  It was like being born again.  Like getting baptized.  It was like putting all the pieces together.  About a year later they opened up Guitar Institute of Technology and I went there.  It really helped me get into jazz harmonies, chord substitutions and music theory which was really what I needed.  I studied during the day and practiced my lessons while playing clubs at night.  GIT was a big plus for me as a player and a big plus for me as a producer and arranger because now I could speak the language of music.  

  MO:  Who did you study with when you were at GIT?

  PA:  Let’s see...Joe Diorio, Don Mock, Ron Eschete, blues with Keith Wyatt, seminars with Howard Roberts, and country/roots with Al Bonhomme.  Al is a really great player with a monster right hand.  GIT was really cool.  I learned a lot.

  MO:  Did you ever teach guitar one on one?

  PA:  Many, many years ago in Phoenix.  But I could hardly play myself, so it wasn’t really like I was teaching.  I do clinics now in music stores and book stores and it’s fun!  I enjoy being around the young players.  They are such a fresh pallet.  They don’t preconceive anything about you or the music.

  MO:  Did you play in bands in high school?

  PA:  Actually, my first band was a jug band in Detroit.  We had two guitars, a wash tub bass, a wash board player, and a guy on kazoo.  I played harmonica and guitar, a Gibson LG -1 Sunburst that I bought brand new in the ‘60’s.  We were playing jug band music and learning folk blues while everyone else was playing Beatle music.  

  MO:  Do you remember your first guitar book?  

  PA:  Yea, the Mickey Baker one.  I worked a lot out of that book.  I learned some really cool minor chords.

  MO:  Do you ever get out the Real Book and play?

  PA:  I used to do that a lot.  I still love to listen to Chet Baker (trumpet), Wes Montgomery and other jazz greats.  Occasionally I’ll play along with their records, but very rarely.  I just listen and appreciate their music.  I take things from it that I like and that I can apply to other music.  Usually it’s about technique.  I think in the case of Wes Montgomery it was definitely his solo’s.  He would play beautiful solo’s that were mini compositions.  Chet Baker had such great tone and a great sense of time.  His timing - where he puts the note - is what I absorb most from his records.

  MO:  What advice would you give the beginning guitar player?

  PA:  They would have to decide what emotion the guitar brings to them.  In my case, I love the sound of it.  I was obsessed by it.  To be great, unfortunately, you have to be somewhat healthily obsessed.  You can’t take it lightly.  You’re not going to be competitive unless you’re some brilliant genius that can just pick up a guitar and say, “This is easy.”  I just wanted to play it really well.  But I didn’t even think of that, I just went, “Man, I want to play this.” and everything else fell in place.  Sure, I had certain styles of music that I loved.  I loved blues.  But in the beginning it never really crossed my mind about being in a band and making a living from it.  It wasn’t until I had played a few more years that I realized, “Oh, you can be in a band and actually make a living at it.”  

  MO:  What suggestions would you give a guitarist on his quest for tone?

  PA:  I would begin by concentrating on the mid-range.  In recording, I realized that aggressive records did well on the radio because they had a middle to them.  They weren’t hollow.  An electric guitar is in that mid to upper mid-range.  So, I would just walk up to any amp and crank the middle knob first and then work the other knobs around until I’d go, “Oh, there’s a cool sound.”

  MO:  Speaking of recording, you said that in the studio, humor, non-ego, and skill are qualities that you admire.  Are there any others?

  PA:  You have to be able to focus.  You’ve got to be able to flip the switch and not let any business slip by that needs to be taken care of.  And when it comes time to focus, you need to have undivided attention.  I also think maturity helps a lot, and that’s not an age thing.  Hopefully it comes with experience, but I doesn’t always.  (Laughs).  You can be experienced but still be immature.

  MO:  What guitar processors are you using in the studio?

  PA:  Mostly Amp Farm and the Pod.  Amp Farm is amazing.  I actually beta tested the Fender deluxe that they modeled, and then A/B’d it, and I could never tell the difference.  (Laughs).  I really love amplifiers - but Amp Farm won every time in a blind fold test!

  MO:  I saw that you are endorsing the Tascam Guitar Trainer (CD-GT1).

  PA:  Oh, man, my life would have been a lot easier when I was a kid if I would have had that.  (Laughs).  I love it.  It’s on my desk and I’m touching it right now as we speak.  When I started doing the Moot gig, I’d put on a CD of his music and I would just sit here and practice everyday.  I also have a Pandora (Korg Tone Works), and when I was on the road and I’d plug in my headphones and just take off.

  MO:  Any other toys you’ve been playing around with?

  PA:  The Rock Slide.  I’ve been playing slide guitar forever, and this is incredible.  It’s not much of a change - but it’s prefect.  It’s comfortable.  What a brilliant idea.

  MO:  So, have you been playing a lot of slide lately?

  PA:  Yea, and I’m playing slide on a couple of tunes with Moot in standard tuning.  My biggest influence initially was Duane Allman.  He figured it out - you don’t have to tune for slide.  It’s all in your dampening technique.

  MO:  Do you go to many guitar shows?

  PA:  No, not really.  I went to the Santa Monica show, I was actually selling an instrument.  There were all kinds of parts, cool straps and even screws. (Laughs).  There were guys there with just trunk loads of screws and springs.  And it’s funny because you know what all of them are, “...these are the pick guard screws, these are for the pick ups....”  Through the years you accumulate all this knowledge - just by osmosis.  (Laughs).

  MO:  One last question, if your were going to record a collection of guitar cover tunes, what would be on that CD?

  PA:  Well, I love “Telestar” and I love “Apache”, especially where he rubs his finger on the string to get that “rup-rup-rup” sound.  And still, if I’m driving in the car and hear Santo and Johnny’s “Sleepwalk” I just gotta stop, turn it up and try to get inside that record.  It’s their commitment to each note and the intense tone.  Instrumental records are tough, because the human voice is really it.  If you’ve got a great voice you can win people with it.  But with an instrumental it’s difficult.  You really have to have a melody.  You’ve got to have a melody that fits the instrument and creates a mood that affects people.  That’s not easy.  

Copyright 2007 Mike Overly.  All rights reserved.  Reproduction strictly prohibited.