Gregg Bissonette: Yeah, Matt's my favorite bass player.
Gregg Bissonette: We do. You know, we get a lot of calls to do stuff together and it's great because a lot of times they'll just call, like a one stop rhythm section.
Gregg Bissonette: Just call us and we'll get drums and bass going for you.
Gregg Bissonette: Well, it features George Bernhardt and Doug Bossi from a great band with my brother called the Mustard Seeds, The disc also features Scott Henderson, Steve Lukather, Andy Summers
from the Police, Steve Vai, Michael Thompson, Paul Gilbert from Mr. Big, and Mike Miller from Chick Corea's band. We got some of my favorite guitar players and wanted to do drums, bass, guitar oriented instrumentals. I did sing on one tune, a remake of a Badfinger song. I've always loved the Beatles and Badfinger and we did a version of "No Matter What". I also played trumpet on a tune that features Ty Tabor from the band King's X. I played a piccolo trumpet at the end. Kind of a Beatle'ly kind of "Penny Lane" thing. Matt wrote every song on there except for a remake of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein".
Gregg Bissonette: Now on "Frankenstein" what's really interesting is that there are no keyboards. It's all guitar and George Bernhardt play all the synth stuff, really complicated stuff on guitar. People freak
when they hear it, but in the middle where the drum solo goes, I wanted to make a nod to all my favorite classic drum type grooves. People always ask how many people in the band? Well, there's three musicians and the drummers always get the short end of the stick. So I wanted to show what songs these are just by the drum grooves. It goes from "Wipeout" to Led Zepplin's "Rock And Roll" to "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix, "Rosanna" by Jeff Pocaro, "Walk This Way", the "Frankenstein" groove, Ringo's classic THE END from Abbey Road. It's really neat because there are like 10 different drum grooves on there.
Gregg Bissonette: Really, that's great. I'm honored. We always stump a few people. We couldn't stump Bobby, but we stump a few with Don Brewer and "American Band". In the midwest, that one was
big. When I went over to Europe they say "I've heard that song but I don't know what that song is."
Gregg Bissonette: Well, I feel very honored lately. I've had a good cool month. One of my heroes who I've always wanted to record with is Don Henley from the Eagles and his solo stuff. A friend of mine, Stan Lynch, the drummer that was with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is producing Don Henley now and here I was getting to play drums a few weeks ago on some new Henley stuff and there's Henley and Stan in the same room. I'm going "Man, I'm in some stiff company," cause they're two of my favorite drummers, but I've gotten to work with him this month. I did a soundtrack with Garth Brooks, Shawn Colvin, a bunch of great artists. I've just been doing a lot of really fun recording. I just love playing on different people's stuff, it's so challenging.
Gregg Bissonette: Yeah, he never plays on his solo stuff. He still plays on the Eagles stuff, although they have a great drummer, who plays in the Eagles' band too, but he never seems to play on his solo stuff. I remember on "The End Of The Innocence", he had Jeff Pocaro, God rest his soul, playing drums on it and Stan Lynch playing drums on it, and Steve Jordan. I guess he is thinking about being
the front guy, the singer.
I understand that you had my buddy Steve Lukather on the air recently.
Gregg Bissonette: We had a ball on the road together.
Gregg Bissonette: He's as wild. Man, he has so much energy. He gets up at the crack of dawn just ready to go. He is really an inspiration because he's a great player and a great singer, a real hard worker. He's a blast to be with. He's always making you laugh.
Gregg Bissonette: Well, I'm 38 and I started when I was ten. I probably started younger, like when I was about eight, so when you think about it, I've been playing for 30 years. I should be a lot better then I
am (laughs).
Gregg Bissonette: Yeah. I'll tell you one of the funniest sessions I've done in a long time was getting this call from this guy that says, "Hey, we're going to do this big band down at Oceanway Studios in
Hollywood. It's not just a big band, but an orchestra with background singers. We're going to play jazz arrangements of heavy metal tunes. Pat Boone is going to sing." It was so much fun, Pat was the coolest guy. He didn't take it too seriously. All of a sudden the cd came out and he was losing his TV show. It was like how could Pat Boone do this? Come on, he's just telling you he likes all kinds of music. We'd go to Denny's and the lady'd say "Can I take your order? Oh, you're Pat Boone." He'd say "Yes ma'am, great to talk to you." He'd talk to her for half an hour. "Well, I'll have a root beer and a BLT, please!" He'd say he was related to Daniel Boone. I get a chance to work with so many different people, that's what keeps it fresh.