::Just let’s move toward north europe.Amsterdam, to meet an extraordinaire musician :Richard Hallebeek .
Well Richard, let’s start to talk about your real beginning as a guitar player. How old were you when “started the fire”?

'I was 10 when I started. Watching Top Of The Pops, I decided for some reason that I wanted to play the guitar. I think I saw a video of the Talking Heads. My dad got me an acoustic and I started out taking lessons from a local teacher. My parents weren’t musicians but they have always encouraged me to do my thing.'

:: Do you remember your first concert as a professional musician?

'Yes I do. It was at my school when I was 11, together with my brother and my nephew. We had a band called Distortion, original name heh!? We did these extended jams. Songs were just a key for us like A or E and then we would just play around those notes for like 10 minutes. We were into it, I’m not sure if the audience was!'

:: Who were your biggest inspirations at that time?

'I had a teacher who thought me every Beatle tune in the book when I was 10. I was listening to that a lot. The other thing I discovered were the Frank Zappa records in my sister’s room. When I was 12 I moved to another teacher in the big city. He had quite a name locally and my sister recommended him to me. He was a jazz teacher. I had no clue about jazz at that time but was listening to a everything I could find in the local library. That new teacher also introduced me to some names that were new to me like Pat Metheny, Pat Martino, Allan Holdsworth etc. We played the majority of Standards from the Real Book, like Night & Day, Scrapple From The Apple and all that Charlie Parker stuff, but also modern jazz like John Scofield who was just coming out at that time and stuff from Steve Swallow. After a couple of years I was 17, had finished my school and decided to give it a shot at the Amsterdam conservatory. They mostly accepted older people who were more matured, so I didn’t really count on it. I played a couple of jazz tunes for the guitar department and was surprised they admitted me. At age 17, I was the youngest student they had ever admitted to the conservatory and they just told me to work very hard. So I did.'

::Tell us about how did you get the chance to release that great cd called “Generator”, with your guitar partner and good friend Antti Kotikoski and how you got such great special guests(F.Gambale, T.J.Helmerich and S.Henderson)

'After the conservatory, I got a scholarship for a foreign study. I choose the G.I.T because most of my favorite players were teaching there, like Scott Henderson. I moved to L.A. to an appartment building in Hollywood and the very first person I met was my neighbor Antti Kotikoski. What a coincidence. He just came in from Finland and he was playing a Steinberger which I had never played before. So I came over to his place to check that guitar and it really clicked. We were into the same music, modal harmony, practising the same stuff, we were both also into composing a lot. That’s something we did not see too much at G.I.T., there were mainly shredheads. At school we started gigging with a band to perform our tunes, and we also started to perform locally. T.J. Helmerich checked us out at a gig and he liked what he heard. He offered us the chance of recording those tunes at the MI studios were he worked full-time as an engineer, which was of course a great opportunity for us to record. So we went in to record a couple of tunes. Some players that stopped by at those dates were Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale and Scott Kinsey. We jammed on those tunes during the lessons so they were all familiair with the material and just stopped by to play there because they liked it. There was no major money involved in that album, just plain enthousiasm from everybody to make great music.. TJ Helmerich had a deal with Varney’s Legato label together with Brett Garsed and spoke to Varney about our music. One day the phone rang and it was Varney. He asked me if he could check out our music and playing because he had heard some good stories about it. I could not even believe it was him at first, I thought it was some joke! A couple of months later, we signed a four album deal with Varney. About a year into the release of the album, Varney moved to the desert with his family. And our money. We also absolutely never saw ONE cent from that release. A classic example of completely ripping an artist off.'

:: I know that something is going on with Antti. Would you tell us about it?

'He still lives in L.A. and is playing with a great bass player from Cameroun, Andre Manga. He also just recorded ‘Cave Men’, together with bassist J.K. and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and Steve Tavaglione. A great album. We are almost finished with the follow up to Generator. That will be a very cool album with our strongest songwriting to date that goes into a lot of different directions, but is mainly on the heavier rock side. That’s a side of me that has not been reveiled much I guess. There is like a 10 minute heavy ‘classic’ rock tune on there with a long classical middle piece. We are both kind of tired of having special guests on our albums. We both did that before and decided it’s about time to do an album with just the two of us. I hope the people still like it and decide to buy it.'

:: Well, let’s talk now about your last released, actually your real first solo album; “Richard Hallebeek Project”(RHP). How was the creation’s process? It took you a long time?

'The whole thing, including organisation part and preperation part took me 1 ½ years. It was about time I released my own real solo album. I had done a lot of guestwork that was a lot of fun, but I could never control the whole situation. If you’re a sideman, well... that’s what you are and you don’t have much control over the mix and the way the album is gonna sound, the arrangements etc. I have a pretty clear picture how I want my music to sound. I had lots of tunes ready and at one point drummer Bas Cornelissen, who I have been working with a lot, kicked my ass and told me it was about time to do my own thing. A year before that, I had recorded ‘Seasons’ for the double album ‘The Alchemists’ with Bas and got to know Lale Larson through that. Lale was enthousiastic in doing some more stuff, too. Then I was thinking that it would be great to have some really, really special guests on there. I knew Shawn already from an interview I did with him and also I helped him out with his equipment a lot of times. Whenever he played in Holland I would set up my stack for him to play through. Because of his health problems it was hard for him to bring his own stuff from the States. His tours were also low-budget, so there was not exactly the money involved to ship his rig from the States. After those gigs I would often hang out with Shawn and on one occassion I played him some songs I wrote and he liked that.. He was also a big fan of Lale Larson. He thought Lale sounded even more crazy then Buckethead! I asked him if he would like to play a couple of solos and he was immediately into it. Having Shawn on the album was like a dream come true, I remember I heard Centrifugal Funk when I was young, I almost couldn’t believe it was guitar recorded at normal speed, it was so fast! Lale played me some bootleg video’s of a younger Shawn, and that was spectacular. Shawn is probably the most amazing guitar player that has ever lived, he would just literally shred the neck to pieces, so unbelievable. But the great thing is that is was never mindless shredding, the guy was so musical, with soulful bending and great melodies.
After that, Brett Garsed came to mind. I already knew him from some lessons I took from him at G.I.T. I mailed him some songs and he liked that. He also liked to perform with Shawn on an album again.
I spoke to Liquid Note Records about it and they were more then happy to release it. This kind of ‘project’ album really fits their catalogue.
Then the whole organizing process happened… and that was just a ton of work when you have to take care of things all by yourself! I did everything from recording the majority of the parts at my studio, designing the covers together with a good friend of mine Ronald Van Wijnen, and then there’s mixing and mastering. There is no money involved in this kind of music, so I had to do it in my spare time. I still had to teach, do my journalistic work and play every gig I could get in between. That was disctracting a lot of times, but it had to be done to make some money. It was a lot of work, but also fun to finally be able to control the whole situation myself. I’m really proud of that album. It’s also great in a way that I got Shawn to play on there. As it appeared, this was his last recording, and it’s really great to hear him play this western style jazz rock with chord changes, but with his new ‘Indian’ sound. I’m very happy to have captured this.. I also have some outtakes on my harddrive, he did like three takes per song, who knows it might be an idea to release that stuff once the time is right.'

::How do you compose your music?What comes first? Melodies, chord progressions? Do you compose on guitar or piano? Or both?

'I compose mainly on a keyboard into Cubase software on a PC. Sometimes I connect my midi guitar and play that into the sequencer. On the road I take one of those handy Yamaha QY sequencers with me. It has a small keyboard for real-time input of notes and great internal sounds. I cannot play keys really well, but it works for me like this. If I play guitar I will end up with all the same boring riffs and chords. Because I don’t know keys really well, it helps me to stay fresh. Sometimes it’s a bitch, like on ‘Axe’. Those chords were written on keyboard and you just cannot play it on guitar. I had to do a lot of retuning to transfer those chords to guitar. But again, I would have never found these chords if I had composed on guitar.
Mostly I write from the chords and hear the melody in there. Sometimes I start with a melody that I harmonize different ways to get some different views. Sometimes I take a rhythm and take it from there. These are all just little tricks to find a ‘hook’, a ‘doorway’, whatever you want to call it, to a memorable melody or chord progression. If that’s there, the song finishes itself most of the times. Then I like to do some stuff like introduce a new part at the ending of the tune, which I did on RHP on all of the tunes I composed. That way a tune stays fresh till the end.'

::And what about solos? Do you improvise or you write it down before?

'I always improvise. Worked out solos suck big time, at least I sound like shit when I do that. One thing I might do sometimes is play one round of solo and then come back to it the next day and pick up where I have left off. The trick is to be ready to improvise. So one thing I might do is program the chord sequence in Cubase and practise over that jam track until I know the changes by heart. Then when you hit ‘rec’ on the recorder and start to record your take, you hear the live drums and the bass and you get the excitement of the live band, but you have played through the changes on the sequencer over and over so you know those really well. But you’re able to pick up on the excitement. If you do to many takes, it starts sounding to thought out and sterile. At least I start to sound like that. So I try to keep it to a minimum and not freak out with a 1000 takes. I don’t like much of what I hear when I record myself, but I don’t try to be miserable anymore where I hate everything I do. There was period where I had that, now I try to be more positive.'

:: Every guitar fan sadly knows about Shawn Lane’s death, in last september . Let’s have some memory from your experience with him.

'Shawn is such a genius, underground phenomenon, multi instrumentalist, knows every book and saw every movie, but at the same time such a humble human being and such a fun character and fun and kind company to hang out with. You don’t find those people too much, you know. In fact, there’s not much of those people at all. Being in a room with him meant you were never bored. Lots of stories and fun comments and humour. It’s really sad that he did not get the chance to pump out much material like other players do. There’s players releasing more than one album a year, Shawn just could not do that because of health problems and money problems.'

:: Give us now some technical info about the recording process . Which “toys” did you use?

'I have tons of pedals and too many toys that I use, but tried to keep things simple to give the album a group vibe where the guitars are not overdone compared to the rest of the band. My main tool was the Diezel head. I used a G-force for some effects like pitch shifting, different boosting pedals like a Custom Audio Freddy Fuzz, an Ibanez Tube Screamer and and Art Tube MP. I also used a Soldano head here and there. Most of the clean tones came from the VG-88 and I used guitar synth sounds from the GR-33. Most of the times I recorded all these signals at once on different tracks. That way I can still decide afterwards which sounds I like to keep. I tried to get a different sound for every song. I don’t like to play my same ‘favorite sound’ everywhere. I also like to make a ‘virtual’ sound, something I haven’t heard before. Most of the times that’s something in between a keyboard or synth sound and a wind instrument kind of tone. Finding a tone is a challenge, but it can also be a trap if you wind up sitting behind your equipment for a day and no music comes out but you’re just fiddling and turning knobs all the time. So what I try to do is spend like an hour and then just start to record with whatever sound I have at that time. Most of the times I like it the next day. If not, I start over. My main guitar was the Brian Moore C-90 which is very versatile.'

:: Now let’s talk about your own gear .Are you endorsed?

'I have an endorsement with Diezel amps and Brian Moore guitars. The Diezel head is all I need, four seperate channels, stereo, insertion points for pedals, etc. I like the Brian Moore guitar, although I’m experimenting now with some different necks. Guitar builder Patrick Koopman is building me a guitar now with a very straight neck with some graphite in there for maximum stiffness, nice thick wooden body and it will have all the midi capabilities and piezo.Windmill guitars have approached me, they want to release that guitar as a custom RH model. Hopefully that happens sometime 2005. I think there’s defenitely place for a traditional kind of a guitar, dressed up with hip featues like midi, piezo and some push-pull options.'

:: Do you use the same gear in studio and live?

'The studio lends itself more for some crazy experiments. I record two, sometimes three different amps at once, Soldano’s, Hughes & Kettner and a Koch head and mix that with a GR-33 guitar synth and VG-88. Live I try to keep things simple, that seems to work the best for me. Although I still like to have some ‘ear candy’and use different sounds, instead of playing with two tones all night. So my live setup is still pretty big.'

:: Do you collect guitars? If yes, how many do you have and which ones you love the most?

'No, I’m not a guitar collector at all and I don’t have anyting with vintage instruments. I think those ‘boutique’ guitars are just way overprized! I did have more guitars when I was younger, like 12 different ones, but ended up playing only one that I really liked. So I ended up selling most of them. Now I just have a great Brian Moore guitar that is my main guitar and I love it. I play the Patrick Koopman strat a lot, too.'

:: You also appear as guitar player on Holland drummer René Hengel CDs “Spheres of Samarkand” and “Nostalgia”. Let’s tell us about these experiences.

'When I came back from the States Rene contacted me if I wanted to be the guitar player in his band. His debut album ‘Despite Opposition’ was just released and the guitar player who played on there left for some reason. Rene sent me an album with his stuff and I liked it, so I studied his songs and did my first gig with him and the band very short after that. It was really demanding though, long and hard themes and lots of strange rhythms. The songs were written by a drummer, that was for sure! Challenging stuff. Rene gave me total freedom though how to play the tunes and it really clicked with the band, Maik Schott on keys and David De Marez Oyens on the bass. A year or so after that, we recorded an album with this group called ‘Speres Of Samarkand’. That turned out really well. We did a short tour for that and a couple of years later we recorded ‘Nostalgia’. That was the first time I recorded my guitar parts in my home studio and I like the way the guitar stuff on that last album turned out. There was another short tour after that, that also covered some places in Germany. Rene is currently working on his next album.'

:: From “Generator” to “RHP”, how do you feel as musician? What’s changed the most in you along the years?

'A lot! Post-Generator, I discovered much more different styles, like the great Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and more other stuff that has influenced me a lot. I think I sound way more mature on the RHP and think it was very much the right timing for this cd to be recorded. Right now I feel I have a story to tell and have to guts to tell people to sit down and listen to it. I would not have done that 10 years ago!'

:: Let’s talk about your formation as a guitarist.Do you pratitce every day? Do you have a daily rotine in this case?

'I don’t have a daily routine, that would be to stiff for a creative thing such as playing an instrument. The main thing I try to do is stay in touch with the instrument. There’s a couple of things I always seem to be working on: my vocabulairy, my lines, my sound, my legato and fingerpicking techniques and checking out new scales. I try to come up with a different practise routine every time I sit down to keep things fresh. But the main focus is always on making music instead of doing some ‘dumb’ exercices. From my teaching experience I see a lot of guitar players practising with ‘no brains’. They don’t know what to do when they sit down. They just play E minor pentatonic over and over, year after year, it doesn’t get any better.'

:: You left your fingerprint as special guest on guitar on track n.5 “Mr.Tone”,in an italian artists Attitude( Salvatore Vecchio and Simone Damiani ) cd titled “Overflowing” .Some note about it…

'Salvo sent me an e-mail if I would like to appear on his album and I liked the track he sent me. He was very cool in the fact that he was being very patient! I was recording the Rene Engel album at that time and it took me forever to get to his song. But Salvo was really cool about it and also mixed the guitar nicely up front with respect. I hope the album is doing well for him.'

:: How is the musical scene in Holland?Is there a good situation about instrumental music?

'I don’t think it’s any different from any other place in the world, that there’s not much interest in adventurous music here. The main audience just tends to like what I call ‘fast food music’, in one ear, out the other. But there is an underground scene that still listens to jazz rock and instrumental stuff and wants to sit down to listen to a 10 minute tune, you know.
There’s government push and money to keep the jazz scene alive, but unfortunetaly those organisers have no clue what adventurous jazz is and they save that money for jazz festivals with straight ahead jazz and guitarists with a hollow body Gibson guitar wearing a suit. I play with distortion and our band is really loud and I just shaved my head, so I just don’t fit in there. I’m happy not to. '

:: A lot of italians visit Amsterdam all along the year. Could you suggest them some good place where to listen good live music?

'I would suggest The Melkweg and The Paradiso at The Leidseplein who have some national and internation acts and sometimes even some (gasp) jazzrock.'

:: Keep the talking about live music; will be possible in the next future see you play live the “RHP” music?

'I’m trying to take care of some gigs around Holland, but it’s not easy since our keyboard player lives in Sweden and our drummer spends a lot of time in the U.K. There’s a lot of cd copying going on so there’s not much money coming from sales. Gigs also hardly pay anything, so it’s more of a hobby you have to do in between. If we would sell 20.000 albums we could probably do a world tour, but it’s just not that easy. All I can say is: buy the album straight from the artists site if you want to keep this stuff alive. It helps. '

:: Do you play as studio musician? If yes , let’s talk a little about it.

'I’ve been doing studio work since I was around 17 or 18. I have played tons and tons of guitar parts and solos for every situation you can imagine. I lost count really. My last jobs were: playing a couple of songs for an English singer that will be released on 4lux records, composing 4 songs for a children’s birthday package for Jumbo that was printed in a huge quantity of around 20.000 pieces, and is available in every toystore. Then I played some guitar parts for Candy Dulfer’s singer Monique Bakker and for a new great band called The Flowriders. Those albums will be out this year, I will try to put some of that stuff on my site.'

:: Do you play in some cover band?If yes, which kind of repertory you play?

'I make a living making music, so I play anywhere and everywhere they want to have me, if: 1) the situation is musically challenging and/or 2) the money is good.Sometimes those two even go together! I have a couple of different steady coverbands I’m doing lately. They all consist of jazz musicians so there’s lots of room for improvisation and we jam a lot. I also get to try out different pedals and amps and stuff live to see what works best.'

:: Do you teach? If yes, which kind of students do you have?(Beginners, intermediate, advanced)

'I teach at a music school in Haarlem called Tune Up. Different levels, beginners to advanced, children to adults. Those students keep me sharp and show me new stuff all the time. I’m as much a student of them as they are of me.'

:: Some guitar player likes to listen other guitarists music, someone not so much, and someone else not at all…What about you?

'I don’t really listen to typical guitarists, except when they don’t sound like an average guitar player, if that makes any sense! I don’t really like the guitar cliches and boring string bending. I just tend to listen more to horn players and keyboard players like Zawinul or Chick Corea. For guitar players, I like the ‘non guitaristic’ guitarists, like Holdsworth, Garsed, Gambale, Metheny, etc.'

:: Which instrumental song not from you would you have liked to compose?

'Mozart’s Symohony no.40 in G minor K550: the ‘Andante’ and ‘Menuetto’ part.'

:: Tell me the three best guitar solos ever (not from you and not necessarily in order)

Allan Holdsworth- ‘The 4.15 Bradford Executive’
Wes Montgomery- ‘No Blues’ from ‘Smokin’ At The Half Note’
Pat Martino – ‘Road Song’

::I know you always have around you such good musicians, but let’s put in this way:if you have the chance to choose your “dream band”, who will you choose to play with you?

'My dream band is defenitely on the RHP! Lale, Bas, Udo, Shawn and Brett, those guys are amazing, positive creative musicians that are also fun to hang around.'

:: Back to your last released, in time where is not so easy find labels that give you the chance to release a “food for thought” music cd , would you like to talk us about Matt Williams and his “Liquid Note Records” ?

'Matt is a guitar fan that stepped out and decided to give creative guitar music a chance again in these days of fast food music and started Liquid Note Records. He is a hard-working, positive guy that responds fast to his mail. The contracts are musician-friendly and he is open for a lot of things. I’m thankful for that.'

:: How do you see the situation about instrumental guitar oriented music for the future?

'There’s still great stuff out there and through the internet it’s much easier to check out new stuff or get in touch with artists all over the world. A great situation. As far as the music goes: with good songs, guitar music will survive. Guitar players are always focused on technique for some reason, but that thing has nothing to do with music.'

:: What’s your ideas in order to “spread the word” and keep the business alive and may be (hopefully) increase it?

'Buy the music straight from the artists website, that’s the way to keep the artist alive.
Last one…Before to thank you very much , feel free to se what you want to Axe magazine readers .
Italy is a country full of musiclovers and guitar fans. I get lots of mails from Italian people and I’m always pleasantly surprised with how much they know about ‘good’ music and how open they are to adventurous music. It would be great to play with the RHP band there one day.'

Axe januari 2005 - Guglielmo Malusardi