By Andrew Bansal
Greek guitar hero Gus G capitalized on down time in the Ozzy Osbourne camp and hiatus with Firewind to launch his solo career, releasing his debut album ‘I Am The Fire’ in 2014 and receiving unanimously positive reactions from listeners worldwide. Now, a little over a year after, Gus G has returned with his second solo effort ‘Brand New Revolution’, presenting an expansion of the guitarist’s musicality and featuring guest vocalists Jeff Scott Soto, Elize Ryd (Amaranthe), Jacob Bunton (Adler, Lynam) and Mats Levén (Candlemass, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen). Recorded with the amazing Jay Ruston, the album was released July 24 2015 via Dismantic / EOne in North America and Century Media in Europe, Australia and South America. Last week, I spoke to Gus G to discuss the making of this album, working with Jay Ruston, touring with Marty Friedman, playing in front of guitar players, future plans and more. Enjoy the conversation below:
Gus, you put out your debut solo album not too long ago, and now the second one is ready for release. It must be a good feeling, because it wasn’t a one-off thing and the second album means that you’re actually moving towards a solo career.
Yeah! You could say that. I didn’t have many expectations from the first one but I was surprised by how well it was received. I had a lot of songs written for the first one, a lot of ideas that were not finished, so I managed to do the second album pretty easily because there was a lot of material laying around. The response was good and I did some successful touring, so I said, why not? Strike when the iron is hot!
Right, and I remember interviewing you for the first album sometime early last year, if I’m not wrong, so this new one has come together fairly quickly for you.
Yeah, even when I finished the ‘I Am The Fire’ writing sessions in September 2013 and then finished mixing it, I kept on writing more material. Songs like ‘Burn’ and the title track ‘Brand New Revolution’, I had those in late 2013. It took a while launching the first record and going on tour, but I already had a direction of where I was going to go with the next one. Of course I wrote some newer stuff as well this year, but there were definitely a lot of creative periods that I went through in the last year-and-a-half. So I guess there was a lot of stuff just waiting to be released.
Over the last year or two, you have mainly done solo touring. There’s been nothing with Ozzy or Firewind. That also must have helped you to maintain this mindset of writing this kind of music for your solo albums.
Yeah, I actually haven’t played with Firewind for two years now and we’re on hiatus, and with Ozzy there hasn’t been much. There was just one show last year. So, after I launched the debut record, I just went on tour. I was surprised that I had offers to tour. A lot of guys put out solo records but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to take that on the road. I was lucky enough that the record was selling a little bit and I got to play shows. I had fun with it and so decided to continue with it.
On this new album, you’ve had some guest vocalists as well. How do you go about selecting them? Is it just people you find easy to work with or did you have any specific ideas about who you wanted?
It’s a combination of things, like the things you mentioned. Obviously it has to be people that are easy to work with, and you have to have some sort of chemistry. You cannot force that kind of stuff. Secondly, it has to be people you admire and like. For the first album I didn’t know who I was going to go with. There were a lot of different types of guests, but on this one, the team was a bit more selective and it was kind of a close group of co-writers which includes Jacob Bunton, Mats Levén and Jeff Scott Soto. So I mainly wrote with those three guys. And then I wrote a song with a producer friend of mine in LA named Matt Dauzat, and that became the song ‘What Lies Below, which we had Elize Ryd sing on.
Usually, solo guitarists that have a solid career go with one particular singer who becomes known to be the singer for that guitarist. But in your case, you’ve been more open and varied in that sense. Has it been a better approach for you to seek out more different singers on each album?
Yeah, exactly. I like co-writing with other people. It adds different dimensions to what I can do musically, because I learn from the guys I write with. It keeps things very fresh and exciting for me. I’m not opposed to having one singer, but all these guys have their own different bands and I guess it’s a fun side project for them, and for me also. It gives me a chance to explore new territories, and I think that’s what a solo project should be like. I have a band and it’s called Firewind, so we do what we do there, but this solo thing gives me the freedom to do whatever the hell I want.
The last time I talked to you, I think you were getting ready to go on tour with Marty Friedman in Europe. What was that experience like? It must have been a great show for fans of shred guitar.
Oh yeah, that was amazing. That tour with Marty was actually my first solo tour in Europe. It went really well! It was a bit of a different audience, because like you said, my records have a lot of singers and it’s not necessarily all instrumental stuff all the time, but Matry’s records are exactly that, all technical and shredding. So it was mainly a guitar players audience, not the kind of audience that would go crazy like a proper rock crowd. They all just looked at the fretboard (laughs), but it was fun. It was a great tour.
How do you feel about having a guitar players audience? Is that good or bad? You obviously want to reach out to genuine rock fans and not just guitar players.
I want to reach out to everybody, man. It’s not like I’m closing doors to people who enjoy my music. It’s the contrary. I think my audience is a mixed bag, kind of like my records. You get the guitar players, the younger kids that are into that stuff and like to check out what I play, and then there’s the older rockers who like the classic rock stuff that I do, the loyal fan base. Hopefully I can reach out to all kinds of audiences.
You already toured with Marty, but what are some of the other guitar players of that level that you would love to tour with in the future if given a chance?
I have so many heroes. It would be great to tour with a guy likee Yngwie, or with Satriani, or Slash. It would be great to tour with any of those guys. I’m a fan of theirs, and what I do fits perfectly with what they are doing.
Coming back to the album, you worked with Jay Ruston. I’ve really admired his work over the years. He did a fantastic job on the new Armored Saint album, and he’s done great stuff with Steel Panther, etc. What did he bring to your album?
Actually, what Jay suggested on this record was something that I’ve never done before, and thank God he suggested it because it was a new thing. He proposed to get me and my band in a studio and record live. So, half of this record was done in a session in LA where we just went in there, me, Marty O’Brien on bass and Joe Nunez on drums, and we hammered out six tracks in two or three days. It was a great feeling. There was a raw energy, like a stripped-down rock ‘n roll band. And then we went back to Greece to do another six tracks which were done more traditionally, but we already had the direction we were heading into.
So, what plans do you have now? The album comes out July 24th and I believe you have a Europe tour in September with Kamelot?
Right now I’m in Greece doing some festivals, then going to Hungary, and like you said, I have the Kamelot tour all over Europe through September and October. Then after that I’ll be going on a huge, extensive clinic tour all over Europe for another month. So I’m going to be pretty busy in Europe, and then I’m going to do a one-off show with Ozzy, for Ozzfest Japan in November. And honestly, man, I’m really hoping to come to the US and finally bring my solo tour to American audiences coast to coast. But all depends on how the new album is received and if the fans support it. So, hopefully there’s going to be enough interest for me to come out there and play.
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