"Con Alma de Blues Magazine" Nº7 English Edition Con Alma de Blues Magazine Nº7 /English Edition | Page 56

T
hank you Carl Verheyen for sharing your
time with us in this interview
music?
RF:How were those first times with
I took to music right away because my parents
always played music in the house. Sinatra, Jobim
and some jazz music was playing every night as I
went to sleep. Then I heard the Byrds, the Stones
and the Beatles and really got interested.
RF:How did you become a session musician to
so different artists like Christina Aguilera, Glenn
Frey, Dolly Parton, Miles Cyrus, Cher, etc.?
At a certain point in my life I decided to learn
every style that interested me, every style I “dug.”
So that included rock, blues, jazz, bluegrass, metal,
pop and country. It helps to be fluent in multiple
styles to be a session musician because you can
say yes to any type of session that comes in. From
motion pictures to record dates to jingles and TV
work.
I said, “give me one more chance, if I can’t play it
perfectly tomorrow morning we’ll keep it off the
album.” So I went home and practiced it all night
long and came in and nailed it!
RF:What can you tell us about your entrance to
Supertramp?
I got a call for the audition at 10:00PM the night
before so I had no time to learn any of the mu-
sic. When I apologized to them about my lack of
knowledge of their material they said, “We don’t
want to play any of our bloody tunes, let’s play the
blues!” I knew right then that these guys were
cool!
RF:How do you split your time between Super-
tramp and your solo career?
Supertramp is on hold right now due to our leader
being sick with cancer. But in the past the group
only toured twice a decade while I tour with the
CVB every year.
RF:Which are your memories of the recording of
your first disc “No Borders” in 1981? RF:What's the most important when you compose,
music or lyrics?
It was done in 2 weekends because we got the
studio time cheaper on Saturdays and Sundays!
We were a regularly performing trio so we had
a lot of pre-rehearsed material ready to go, and I
remember the song “Let’s Ride” was done in one
take live. My song “Big Sur” was originally rejected
by the other 2 guys in the band because I couldn’t
quite play it in one take and you could really hear
the “punch ins” on a solo electric guitar piece. So My songs usually start with the music. But some-
times a lyric idea will inspire a melody and I’ll take
it from there. I try to write down musical ideas
every day or at least once a week.
RF:Considering that you've collaborated in many
films' soundtracks as Star Trek, The Crow, The
Usual Suspects, Ratatouille, Land of the cost etc,
how is it like to compose an own record?