Soul Asylum's DANIEL MURPHY jumps aboard the runaway train to stardom
SOUL MAN, by Daniel B. Levine
"This is something like our 200th show this tour", says Soul Asylum's Daniel Murphy, regarding his band's performance that night at New Orleans' Municipal Auditorium. Most people would be checking themselves into a funny farm after such a grueling road schedule, but Murphy's voice doesn't betray even a hint of strain. After a decade of playing guitar in one of the world's hardest working bands, he's used to the pressures of the road.
Dealing with the pressures of becoming an international superstar after a decade of being overlooked by the mainstream press can even be tougher, but Murphy also seems to be taking his new-found fame in stride. Even with the craziness surrounding his band, he remains a calm, humble and well-spoken voice in an industry known for hype and super-inflated egos. As a musician, he retains a child-like sense of discovery and awe for his instrument of choice.
This ethic of self-discovery and growth permeates his playing on Grave Dancers Union, Soul Asylum's current smash album. "It's a realization of what we've been trying to do all along," says Murphy. He regards the album as a culmination of everything he's learned about playing and recording in his long career.
As Murphy prepared for yet another gig on Soul Asylum's almost endless U.S. tour, he took time to speak with Guitar School about teaching oneself to play, life on the road and the band's next album.
GUITAR SCHOOL: When did you start playing guitar?
DANIEL MURPHY: I was pretty young - I must have been in sixth or seventh grade when I bought my first guitar. My step-brother played, and I wanted to be just like him. I didn't take many lessons, just a couple from my brother and a couple from a music school. The first song I learned was 'Like A Rolling Stone'. My brother showed me a few blues scales, and I learned to do that two fret Chuck Berry thing. Rock'n roll is pretty easy; I don't think you really need that many lessons. I'd played piano and saxophone before, but the cool thing about playing guitar was that people didn't need to hound me to keep at it. I was pretty self-motivated. Once I learned a little bit, I really dove in. I'd just sit in my room and play along to albums. =20
GS: What where some of those albums?
MURPHY: Back then, I was into the Stones' Goat's Head Soup, and "It's Only Rock'n Roll". I pretty much memorized the first couple Aerosmith records, too. Thin Lizzy was another favorite. I was into the fake guitar harmonies they played.
GS: Did you play in bands back then?
MURPHY: I was in a crummy rock band called At Last. We played at our high-school talent show and got booed off the stage.
The cool thing about that band was that we were all writing our own material at an early age. The songs weren't very good-at least the ones I wrote. [laughs] Maybe we were creative, but I think it was just easier to write our own stuff than figure out other people's music. [laughs]
GS: When did you buy your first real guitar?
MURPHY: I remember it pretty well. I bought it in a store in Minneapolis called Knutkoupe - a Guild SG copy for $200 bucks. Eventually, I traded it in '76 and bought a Les Paul Custom. They were only 400 bucks back then, and I washed dishes in a restaurant to save the money for it. My old guitar was a green and black house-painted thing - I think it was a Kingstrom. It had all kinds of switches and knobs that didn't do anything but look good. It was one of those guitars made to appeal to dumb kids.
GS: What do you play now?
MURPHY: I still play Gibsons. I have a couple of Les Pauls and a couple of Gold Tops. Gibson just gave me a really nice Twentieth Anniversary model, with P90's model. But I played a Telecaster for much of the album. A buddy has a '56 or '57 Tele that's all original. It's really beaten up, but it plays and sounds just great. I'd never played one before, and it was a little uncomfortable at first, but it worked really well for the acoustic/electric stuff.
For amplification, I use two Ampeg V4's that I've had for years. They're just great, and they never blow up. Dave [Pirner, singer/guitarist] plays a Tele through a Marshall, so he gets a lot of high end. I fill up the low-end with the Les Pauls and Ampegs. We really complement each other's guitar sound.
We're also into vintage gear, and use many old amps for recording. Our practice space is just crammed with amps; we have some old 50-watt Marshalls, an Ampeg Reverb Rocket and an Ampeg Gemini, which we used for many of the bass tracks. I also have an Orange, which is incredibly loud. It's not the most tonal thing, but if I ever needed to fill up a hockey rink by myself, that's the amp I'd use. We also have a bunch of Fender Princetons, and Karl has an old Ampeg Portaflex.
When it comes down to it, a guy who can really play guitar can sound good on a $200 guitar. I think people get caught up with having the best gear, and it's really not that necessary. I used to be that way -I'd go through all these different kinds of amps, pedals, phasers, flangers =85 I guess after a while I just chose to go straight through to the amp. I'll use an old [Ibanez] Tube Screamer occasionally, but people steal them from me! They make new ones called "Classics" that are supposed to be the same, but aren't even close. The old ones are getting really hot. =20
GS: You also use chorus when recording.
MURPHY: Yes. But most of the time what sounds like chorus is actually doubled guitars. George Harrison was really into that trick.
GS: What acoustic guitars do you play?
MURPHY: On the acoustic side, I have a pretty nice '62 Gibson J50. I have a very old J45, too. Dave has a really nice Martin that I used for a couple of tunes. We went out of our way to find really good instruments for this album. It seems to me that, for acoustics, old instruments are much better - if you can get them in tune. [laughs]
GS: You had tuning problems?
MURPHY: [laughs] It was a bitch. We spent hours tuning guitars. Our engineer and producer both thought they had perfect pitch. [laughs] It was difficult getting anything past them. "Uhh, your B-string is just a little bit flat there, Dan". Who cares? It's rock'n roll.
In hindsight, all the attention we gave to tuning worked out. If you want to layer guitars, you really have to be precise with your tunings.
GS: The mixture of acoustic and electric guitars on Grave Dancers Union is new to the band's sound.
MURPHY: It was something that really scared us. We tried to do it before, but it never really worked. I kind of felt the band was in a rut. We had a lot of records out, and did a lot of touring. We were looking to do something different-out of boredom, if nothing else. [laughs]
This record was written almost exclusively on acoustic guitar. "Someone To Shove" doesn't have any acoustic on it, but "Runaway Train", "Black Gold", "Home Sick" and "Without A Trace" are pretty much all acoustic. Originally, our demo for "Black Gold" didn't have any electric guitar at all. The cool thing about acoustic guitar is that it's a very percussive instrument. It sounds good in the studio and fills up a lot of space.
GS: How do you handle the acoustic songs live?
MURPHY: It works our pretty well. Dave's got a pretty nice black acoustic - I don't even know who makes it.
GS: Is that the one he fell on during your MTV Inaugural Ball performance?
MURPHY: Yeah. [laughs] It has a big hole in it now, but we duct-taped it up, and it still sounds good. I play my regular electric configuration, but I have a bunch of switches to turn down for the acoustic sections.
We hired an organ player named Joey Huffman for this tour. He plays a Hammond B3, so songs like "Runaway Train" and "Black Gold" sound pretty faithful to the album. [Stax legend Booker T. played organ on Grave Dancers Union-Ed.]
Live, I play Les Pauls exclusively. But there's this guy called Jerry Jones who makes guitars, and I want to get one of his. I think he bought all of Danelectro's patents. I've used his guitars for recording and they sound really cool, though they feel like toys when you're playing them.
GS: I've heard that you and Dave Pirner have been playing acoustic gigs together.
MURPHY: We did a few in Minneapolis, and we rented this little theater space in Chicago and did a couple of sit-down gigs. It was really nerve-wracking. You're communicating with people on an entirely different level, because they can hear what you're singing about. That's really different from playing small clubs, because in clubs, not a lot of the vocals get through. The whole experience was intimidating, but we overcame. When it came down to doing solos on acoustic, however, I was really embarrassed. We're really not big on solos; we just do a few of them each record.
GS: you have a really commercial-sounding solo on "Keep It Up".
MURPHY: Yeah. It kind of sounds like the Cars or something. I get self-conscious playing around a lot of people, so I usually play my solos in the control room, because I can kick everyone out and create. I don't come in with many pre-planned solos - I think I'll sound uninspired if I do.
Sometimes I think solos are over-rated. Some people buy records to listen to the solos, but I'm under the impression that most people buy records to listen to the songs. I think that if someone writes a great song, you owe it to them as a guitarist not to screw it up with a solo.
GS: Do you work out solos for your live show beforehand?
MURPHY: It's kind of half-and-half. On older tunes like "Cartoon" and "Veil Of Tears", I have solos that I pretty much stick to. But on "Keep It Up" and the newer stuff, I just shoot from the hip. I know that Dave does a few solos that are different every night, for better or worse. [laughs] Some days we want to play a lot of solos, and other days, we dread them. Songs like "Runaway Train", that just has a chordal, fingerpicking solo, are rather nice. When you're playing them it's not like, "Oh, oh. Here comes the bog solo!"
GS: How are your slam dancing audiences reacting to "Runaway Train" and your softer material?
MURPHY: You do see some people getting passed around and slam-dancing to that song, which seems rather ridiculous. But it's fine, as long as people are having fun, not hurting anyone and not throwing shit at us. [laughs] When we play at night, the kids get out all the candles and lighters for "Runaway Train". [laughs] I used to go to shows and do the same thing.
GS: Soul Asylum is known as a punk band, but Grave Dancers Union has a real "classic rock" feel to it.
MURPHY: I know I'm going to sound like an old man, but I really think it's the stuff that you first listen to that sticks with you. For me, I was into Jeff Beck, Joe Perry and Keith Richards. I actually had a cover band for a while called Her Satanic Majesty's Paycheck. Soul Asylum did the Keith Richards tour for six weeks and it was really a thrill. I've got those Stones tunings down now.
GS: Do you use different tunings for Soul Asylum's music?
MURPHY: On Hang Time I used a lot of this one tuning where you use the top strings off a 12-string. It's a standard tuning, but you're using a six-string, tuned to the high strings of a 12-string. [This is commonly known as a Nashville tuning-Ed] It has a really jingle-y sound.
I used a dropped-G tuning on "Growing Into You". There's also a song that used that tuning that didn't make the new album, but is on the I Married An Axe Murderer soundtrack.
Some people think that the high stuff in "Runaway Train" is in a different tuning, but it's just an arpeggio played high up the neck. Some other guitar magazine was making fun of my arpeggios in their performance notes, saying that they don't follow any structure or form whatsoever. [laughs]
It's pretty funny seeing our songs charted out. I wouldn't want to give anyone advice, but if you hear a song you like, pick up a guitar and figure it out. Most rock'n roll is pretty self-explanatory. That's what makes rock'n roll fun. If you played classical music, you probably couldn't play anything that sounds good for months, or even years. Just take a few lessons to familiarize yourself with the fretboard.
GS: What about practice.
MURPHY: In our formative years, Soul Asylum had a pretty serious practice ethic. We'd get together five, six times a week, and play for three hours at a time. We don't practice anymore. I can't even remember the last time we did! After a while, you get pretty instinctive with the people in your band, and know what they're going to do.
GS: How are songs written in Soul Asylum?
MURPHY: Dave will come in with a song and an acoustic guitar and I'll tape him. He won't even have words, just a vocal melody that he'll mumble over and over again. I'll take the tape and noodle with it for a while. Then we'll get together and I'll ask, "Is this too much noodling? Or not enough?" [laughs]
GS: Do you try out new songs on the road?
MURPHY: We normally do quite a bit, but not on this tour. At soundcheck we've tried a few things Dave's been writing, and I've heard many bootlegs of that material. After we do a couple demo sessions for the next record, we'll go out and pick some Midwest cities where they think you're good even if you suck and try out a bunch of stuff in front of a live audience. I knew "Runaway Train" was going to be a big hit because when we first started playing it, people would be singing along by the second verse. Our demos get really passed around and bootlegged. There were so many people who were familiar with out new material, even before the record came out. I think we sold more demo tapes than records on A&M. [laughs]
GS: Are you going to take your next album in a different direction?
MURPHY: I think we want to remain being more melodic. We're really into songs that have melodies. I don't know what the next record will be like, but I'm really nervous about it. It's the first time we've had some success, so it feels as if all eyes are on us.
GS: Is success taking its toll on the band?
MURPHY: I think we're all a little tired. This is something like our 200th show. We've been on tour since September, and it's been a crazy year. We played with Guns N' Roses in Europe, did Letterman, The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, Unplugged - None of us thought that any of this would happen. If you'd have told me I'd be doing this back when I was 16 years old and playing guitar in my room, I wouldn't have believed you.
Special Thanks To Rafs
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