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Phone interview with Dave Reffett of Shredding The Envelope

March 26th 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: Your debut album 'Call Of The Flames' is amazing. Are you happy with how it turned out and is being received?
Dave: I'm very happy with it. We wrote all the songs over the course of a couple of years. I think we really put our best work out there. We loved the production and we produced it all ourselves. We got a friend of mine Mudrock who's working with Alice Cooper and Avenged Sevenfold to mix it. He did a brilliant job, and then we also got this guy George Marino to master it. I've been a really big fan of his work. He's worked with Metallica, AC/DC and a bunch of stuff. So I'm really proud of it and I would say the reception has been really good. The reviews have been outstanding. I get letters and emails from all over the world telling me that people love it.

Andrew: Which song on the album was the most challenging for you and took the longest to compose?
Dave: The song 'Shredding The Envelope' was very tough because its 8 minutes long and doing the guitar riffs was crazy. That was a pretty tough one to play. 'I Don't Want To Say Goodbye' is a really tough one to sing. There are some really high parts on there and some challenging vocal work. Some people have compared it to Dio and Ozzy, which is great. I love hearing stuff like that. They were all hard in different ways but those two specially were pretty tough.

Andrew: The vocals are great and I clearly hear a Dave Mustaine influence. How much would you agree?
Dave: Yeah, definitely. I've been a big fan of Megadeth since forever. So I hear that, I hear Axl Rose, Sebastian Bach, sort of all over the map and then got my own skill on it.

Andrew: You studied music at the Berklee College of Music. How and why did you go into working on the business and legal side of things at Sanctuary and later at Virgin records?
Dave: Well, Berklee has a bunch of different programs. You can go into business, while some people do performance and engineering. The business stuff appealed to me and I saw myself in a way that I would be good at it. I got my degree in that and then I went to work at Sanctuary Records, which isn't around anymore sadly. But I loved that place. It was so cool, they had KISS, Anthrax, Megadeth, Lynyrd Skynyrd and all my favorite bands. I was in the legal department and got to look at a lot of contracts and read stuff. But unfortunately the way things are in the world right now the music business is in a bad shape so they went under. I went over to EMI who own Virgin Records and Capitol Records, worked on a lot of big projects there like the Stones and Janet Jackson. That was great. So yeah the business stuff appealed to me and I really enjoyed it.

Andrew: Did it help you in putting out this record?
Dave: Absolutely yeah. Knowing how to deal with the press, knowing how to approach and talk to people, how to try to persuade people, its like the old saying you know 'People aren't just buying the vacuum cleaner, they are buying the salesman who's trying to sell it to them'. Actually you need to know how to walk the walk and talk the talk, all that kind of stuff. I think it definitely helped me learn how things go down and you really understand the way to go about things. And it helped me think on a really broad scale, how to accomplish what you want to do and how to really home in on you fans to reach the people you want to reach. Being a metal fan for as long as I have been now, that's basically what I did when I made this album. I wanted to make the album that I wanted to hear, because nobody was making the music I wanted. So I sat down and decided to make it myself. So this album has been really great for me and it's what I always wanted.

Andrew: Tell me about the Crossroads Guitar Fest due to take place in Chicago. I believe you'll be playing there?
Dave: There's a guitar festival every year called Crossroads that Eric Clapton started. They have a contest this year where you can enter to play. I just put myself on there and figured what the hell, you know. So if you guys want to vote for me, you can go to the myspace (link below) and it'll take you through the link on there to the Crossroads website. It's a cool festival. Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and a lot of big players play there and I figured I might as well try.

Andrew: What is the exact process that goes on behind writing a guitar solo?
Dave: Everybody is different in how they do it. But I think generally for me and a lot of the people I've heard from, you have the groove and the riff laid down. The way I did this album was, I would write the songs and I would know where the solos are going to go. Sometimes the solos were just like an extension of the song and it would just naturally happen where you would just go into a solo. Sometimes you would say, right here I want to change it up and do something different, like on the song 'Stand Still And Scream'. I incorporated a whole different riff into the song at the point where it goes into double time. I sent that to Michael Angelo Batio who is one of my favorite guitar players, and gave him his own section that was individual to him. The riff that he solos over doesn't occur at any other place. So sometimes you sort of plan it out and never change it up and like I said, sometimes you just incorporate into what's going on. I lay the riff down, put it in a CD player or whatever and then just start rocking out to it while improvising. I start to get some ideas and some central themes that start to happen. You start to go with those and at other times you hear the song and just intuitively know what you want it to be. Some of the best solos are when you go into the studio at 4 in the morning and just start goofing around. You go, 'Wow what was that?' then you go back and re-teach yourself what you did, because you don't even know. So sometimes it's by accident and you go, 'Oh that's awesome, lets keep that'.

Andrew: Dave Mustaine often says that he composes some of his best solos on the acoustic guitar. How much of a difference do you think that makes when it comes to composing?
Dave: I started out on the acoustic guitar when I was 13 and played on it for a year and a half, two years just because my family were not ready to get me an electric unless they knew I was really serious about it or whatever. It was kind of cool for me because my hands got much stronger that way. A lot of people jump right to the electric guitar because the acoustic is too hard. The strings are much thicker gauged and it takes strength from your hands to play. So I had the good fortune that I really knew what I was doing on an acoustic before I started playing an electric. When you do move to the electric, you'd be kicking ass because your hands are going to be strong. Also, something cool about composing on an acoustic is you don't have all the bells and whistles that you do with an electric. You can plug an electric in, crank it to 20, put all kinds of effects and just blast it. A lot of people hide behind all the effects and never really get their technique good. On the acoustic there is no place to hide. If you're not playing something good, people are going to know because there is nothing to mask it. I always tell people when they're starting out to play acoustic. Your hands will get strong and you'll develop those fundamentals that you need. It sounds really good too. It has a certain tone that's good for writing.

Andrew: Andrew Mudrock produced your album. What was his input like?
Dave: He's such a studio wiz. He has stuff that was made by NASA and all kinds of crazy gear that he collects. He's got lots of stuff that you'll just never find any place else. So he would add effects on certain parts. What he did was he just really made the mix the way I wanted it. He got it to a really good place and it was easy for me because I got to sit back and let him do his thing. I would come in and be like lets turn this vocal up a little bit or turn this guitar solo up. So him and George Marino always took something that sounded good and made it sound really, really good, making it pristine, clean and crisp. Also, lets say you are not a 100 per cent thrilled with your bass guitar tone or whatever. He can re-amp it, run it through certain things and get it to a place that you like.

Andrew: Are you planning on doing any gigs any time soon?
Dave: I would love to! I'm still looking for people. If anybody wants to join me I'm on myspace and facebook. I'm looking for people that are committed and can really play, have their stuff together. I'm doing guitar clinics and stuff. I did one at the Berklee College which was really good. I'm doing some more in New York and around here. But I definitely want to get out for shows. We've been getting a lot of buzz in Europe so I want to go and play in Poland, Germany and other countries.