COVER STORY
CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK
STEVE
HUNTER
on “TRAIN KEPT A ROLLIN’” (Aerosmith)
by John Stix
“Pay no attention to the man behind the
curtain.” This is one of the most quot-
ed lines from The Wizard of Oz. It’s also a
common experience in the recording stu-
dio or on the stage. Artists from Ozzy to
U2 use off-stage keyboard players. Larry
Knechtel overdubbed bass on The Doors’
“Light My Fire” and “Back Door Man.” So
for this edition of Backtrack we spoke with
guitarist Steve Hunter about his un-cred-
ited playing on the Aerosmith classic
“Train Kept a Rollin’.”
How did you get the call for this
recording?
I was in New York working with Bob
(Ezrin) at the Record Plant. It may have
been the Berlin album (Lou Reed) be-
cause I think this was in ’73. Before I
could do any recording Bob had to do
some editing. In the old days when you
cut tape it’s best to leave everybody else
alone. It’s very tedious. So I left the con-
trol room and was sitting in the lobby
of the Record Plant while Bob was edit-
ing. Right across from where I was sitting
was the door for studio B. And the door
opened up and Jack Douglas poked his
head out and he saw me there and said,
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GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
“Do you feel like playing?” And I said,
“Well, sure. I’m just waiting on Bob do-
ing an edit.” So he said, “Let me go ask
Bob if it’s alright.” So he went and asked
Bob and Bob said, “Sure.” Jack grabbed
our favorite amp, which was an old Tweed
Twin that just sounded fabulous and went
into the studio. I came in and there was
the whole band standing there – every-
body. Ray Colcord was co-producing. He
was the keyboard player on the Rock and
Roll Animal album. Jack said, “We just
want you to play on this one track called
“Train Kept a Rollin’,” which I didn’t know.
I hadn’t heard The Yardbirds version. So
I went into the studio and put on head-
phones. We played the track. Plugging
into that Tweed it sounded fabulous. I
used the Gibson 1959 Les Paul TV Special.
It had one P-90 in the bridge position.
Great guitar. I was kind of noodling along
through the track just to get my bear-
ings and unbeknownst to me they were
recording it. Jack said, “That was good
but you were kind of stepping on the vo-
cals.” I said, “Well I’m sorry Jack. I didn’t
hear the vocals on the headphones and
I’m just kind of warming up.” They said,
“Oh okay, I’m sorry.” So they put the vo-
cals in the headphones and I do another
MAY / JUNE