InVettagating Charlie Burchill page 2 @ Vettaville.nl

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InVettagating: Charlie Burchill - April 2005 page 2

Hi again, underneath the interview I had with Charlie Burchill. Simple Minds professional Guitarist / Songwriter and joined driving force for Simple Minds with Jim Kerr. Simple Minds; A world renown band with 26 years of professional experience. With their roots in Punk Rock they shifted their music towards synth and industrial pop-like sounds and atmospheres in their songs. Charlie's atmospheric layers of guitarsound accompanied with synth like tones and the destinctive voice and presence of Jim made them a solid part of last decades musichistory.

At present they're working on their new album at Wisseloord studios in Holland. With the same fire and passion inside their hearts as when they first met when they where 8 years old. The enthousiasm and drive is very obvious when meeting up with them. This is also what they put into this new recording.

Charlie will comment on the questions layed before him on the use of his Vetta amps and how it got him hooked. The service and assistance that Line 6 provides for him and his involvement in writing and playing music. Charlie Burchill; guitarist, a writer of tunes that appear Simple, a creative Mind, a warm personality.

Your using the Vetta here for recording Charlie, but do you use it live aswell?

Yeah Vinny, I do, I've taken it all over the world for all the last tours we did. I simply love it. It's just my Vetta and a pedalboard. Simple, fascinating and effective and there's a hughe variation of complex sounds instandly available, is remarkable. For instance I could be switching 6 or 7 radical different guitarsounds in one song. Just to have the right atmosphere for that part of the song.

Okay Vinny, I grant you that this is my thing, maybe not for every guitarist and I can see that. But for us in Simple Minds it's working very well. When we got the synth / keyboards together with the complex guitarsounds it became our corporate identity, our particular style, our approach. With all the effects and amps running with all their variations and variables in Vetta it kinda liberated me.

When we tour the guys from support bands come on stage to look at the gear and they say, where is all the gear that you use? I take them to my Vetta amps (one combo and one head) and my floorboard and I say that's it. So they say, two amps? And I go no, no just one, the bottom one is a spare. It's the head and the pedalboard. And you almost always see that they are somewhat amazed that my sounds are all done with a Vetta and a pedalboard.

Who influenced you on guitarplaying?

My older brother, who is 4 years older, played guitar and I turned to guitarplaying aswell. Later on I'd listened to the Doors, Hendrix and slightly later Velvet Underground. A lot of stuff you can't really point towards at specific guitarplaying. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, stuff that's not especially guitar oriented. Someone who I really related to was Mick Ronson. He kinda plays the guitar like an arrangement, because he's an arranger or was.

He stylized so much of the pop music in the early seventies like T-Rex and David Bowie stuff. He'd also use lot's of effects and was very Hendrix inspired. And after that there came so many guitarplayers that it's hard to mention. I was always a Jimmy Page, a Led Zeppelin fan myself. Neil Young the way he would play electric, you know that kinda anarchy.

Your guitars... what do you use?

With all the guitars I've used or played so far I can say that I'm a Gretsch player certainly in the studio, but live... You know a Strat's a Strat, you can't get anywhere near a Strat with anything else, you don't even want to. Live I use a Les Paul guitar for example, that's just because it's convenient, it's stays in tune and has a Bigsby on it, it works.

But if I'm in a studio I'd play the white Falcon that I have or the Strat. I used that quite a lot or a Tele. with Don't you forget about me I used a customized thinline Tele. Of course I used the 335 for years and years but I don't much use a Les Paul in the studio. But the Gretsch seems to do a lot for me.

Charlie , your using the Vetta for some years now, what's special about it?

Whell some 2,5 years ago I came accros the Vetta amp, and I felt it was specially made for me. I felt this way because now I had the oppertunity to have so much effects and amps in my own patches and change them instantly. It opened op much possibillities that it perfectly fits in with our music.

You know like here in the studio, we have every amp head you can imagine, every effect you can imagine, every cab, every mic, it's like a museum here and while all this is available is doesn't sum up the things that Vetta can do for me.

I'll give you another example Vinny. Even with all this outboard gear here I still don't have the same thing as Vetta. When just jamming on a track to make the song evolve and try different things on it. Planning it and laying in down would cost me more time and effort then with Vetta. Come to think of it, this is what got me chained to Vetta because it's so easy.

This amp gives me numerous options instantly and I can dramatically change the complete wiring and effects in seconds. If I had to do that with the authentic gear it'll not only cost me more time. It's also more complex than in the Vetta's digital domain. You can easily lock tap tempo to every time based effect with the push of a button. In the real word that would take much, much more time.

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