Bumblefoot na Facebooku
About to call OZFM radio station in Canada, live from the tourbus as we head to Montreal overnight... www.ozfm.com
Ale nie wiem czy już był w tym radiu, czy dopiero będzie?
Skrypt:
On the phone with us, we have Ron Bumblefoot Thal, from Guns n' Roses.
Yo!
Ron, thanks for calling this morning.
Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.
You said in your facebook message that you'd either be partying in Axl's dressing room or on the tour bus. It sounds a bit quiet there.
Yeah. Everybody's sleeping and resting up because it's gonna be insane when we get to Montreal. Yeah and actually I'm getting texts on my phone from the other bus. I'm getting from Axl's tour bus, I'm getting texts from people on there.
What's an average day in Guns n' Roses on the road like?
Well, with me, I am boring. I am so boring. What do I do? I sleep, I eat, and I play. For me the most important thing is making sure that I'm at my best for everybody. So, I really try and take care of myself on the road and not get too crazy where it's gonna affect my ability to do what I gotta do up there. I kinda got a little busy job up there. I'm playing 2 guitars at once while singing and so I gotta have my head clear, otherwise I'm doomed.
That's right. Because all of your focus is on those 90 minutes, I suppose.
Yeah, I mean we play for a good almost 3 hours.
3 hours? The setlist must be everything, is it? From Appetite on up?
Oh yeah. We do, I mean, god, we've done almost - I know in Tokyo we did 13 outta the 14 songs on Chinese. And we do a whole bunch of stuff off Appetite and scattered stuff from the Illusions and the other albums. And...yeah man, sometimes we just throw in covers, like just random things. Tonight we just started doing a Halen cover. The night before we started doing a little bit of Pink Floyd. Sometimes AC/DC or anything...just whatever one of us starts jamming to and everyone just kind of jumps on.
That keeps it really fun for the fans, man. You know, when Appetite for Destruction came out in '87, right? I mean, you were about 18 then. So you must've been a huge fan at the time, and now you're playing guitar in one of the biggest bands in the world. That must be quite the...culture shock.
You know...it's another day at the office. (laughter)
Well, you know, you made your own musical mark before Guns n's Roses. 10 or 11 solo albums, and lots of TV music as well. Ka-ching on that, by the way.
You know, I'm keeping busy.
So tell me a little bit about Bumblefoot. I hope you never actual suffered from that, did ya?
Oh, not personally, no. My wife is a verterinarian and when she was in school studying, and I was helping her study many, many years ago, one of the diseases that we stumbled upon through all the notes and everything, was this thing called ulcerative pododermatitis, also known as Bumblefoot. It was such a bizarre name. I was like, "you know what? I'm gonna write a song about that - like some kinda crazy superhero kind of thing!" And uh, yeah I did.
It was great name, too. Great guitar, as well.
Haha, thanks. And then from there, the first album I put out was called The Adventures of Bumblefoot. It had this sort of apocalyptic, cartoon-looking thing - you know, and the cover's art. And it had this foot with wings flying overhead, sort of the, I guess the cause of all the destruction and everything going on. And once I got out of that deal, I started my own band that was sort of this quirky, Primus-ish/Faith No More-ish thing, and the name just fit. It had the right vibe for the music, like that Zappa-ish quirk.
We wanna thank you for spending some time with our winner, by the way, and that little guitar lesson. That's gonna be...
I am gonna torture that dude.
Will you be able to teach him some of the Guns n' Roses riffs, you know?
Oh yeah. I'll be happy to show him -- or her, whatever they wanna learn.
What if they don't know how to play guitar at all?
That's alright. I'm gonna get them started.
You're like the master teaching Kung-fu Panda.
(laughs) It'll be good, man. It'll definitely be good.