Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, guitar player extraordinaire, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer with over 20 years of releasing music and performing to audiences all over the world released his 10th CD entitled Little Brother Is Watching back in February of this year, an epic modern rock album described as upbeat and haunting with huge choruses and witty lyrics. A personal piece of coming to terms with what everyone faces – beginnings, endings and beyond, everything on this album is Bumblefoot; composed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered, with the exception of the drums that feature Dennis Leeflang.
Outside of his solo career Bumblefoot has many other collaborations including DMC from legendary rappers Run DMC, Scott Weiland in the supergroup Art of Anarchy and Guns N’ Roses. His music can also be heard in TV, film and videogames including the theme song for VH1’s “That Metal Show”. With the little time he is not involved in a music project he dedicates his time to multiple charities as well as developing and marketing his own line of award-winning hot sauces. I had the opportunity to discuss these subjects and more with Bumblefoot.
Let’s talk a little about your musical history – first experience truly as an artist?
I started really young. I was five years old and I had just heard the Kiss Alive album. Immediately I was like, “<<Boom!>> That’s what I want to do!” Then I started following those steps. I started writing songs. I couldn’t even play anything yet, but I was writing songs based on melodies I had heard on the radio and whatever else until eventually I was able to write around whatever I had played. Everything was kind of simple, cool rock riffs that a 6 or 7 year old would write. And making little cartoon drawings to make our own little band comic books and I would cut up pieces of confetti into cups to throw up in the air at the end of our concerts. We would take a big window shade and draw our band logo and hang it behind us. We would put on concerts in my basement and backyard, my neighbors backyard, the school across the street. We would make demos using multiple cassette recorders that we could overdub, record on one while the other is playing back next to it and then we would sing along and overdub vocals that way. We did everything using whatever we had at our disposal to do what a band does. So it really started at age 6 or 7. Extreme motivation and dedication early on, it was like Gilligan’s Island, taking two coconuts and building a radio (laughs).
Do you recall your first experience playing live and what are your memories of that experience?
The very first time playing live I was seven years old in my basement, the band was called Target. We cut out a paper, we had these scissors that had a zig-zag edge to it, and we made circles and a target shape and hung it on the back wall and the cups of confetti and all that stuff. That was the first gig. As far as playing a bar, first time I was about 13 or 14 years old, a little place in Staten Island that was called Club Intimate, a majority was old Rush, Ozzy and Iron Maiden. I don’t remember the crowd size because I was staring at my feet shaking the whole time, I was too afraid to look out into the crowd. It was all our friends and the locals, people were cheering and into it.
Can you tell us about the recording process for your latest record Little Brother is Watching?
We started laying drum tracks in May of last year, I had just finished some South American touring and we were about to start some U.S. stuff – so I quickly jumped into the studio and recorded half the album. I would do scratch tracks as a reference for how the song went. I then hit the road did a U.S./Canada tour with Yngwie Malmsteen in June and July and as soon as that was finished I was writing the rest of the album on the tour bus. Then I just stayed in the studio and finished it from there. The last thing after everything was done, in December we went to a club in Brooklyn, invited 100 people, and everyone sang along to different parts of the song, recorded them and put them on the album – the big crowd, foot stomping and chanting and all that. It’s funny if you look at the album. The album credits will say Dennis Leeflang drums, then it says backing vocals and it has a list of all these names, then at the bottom it says Bumblefoot, other stuff.
Where did you record the album?
I have this second house I got like a dozen years ago in a woodsy part of Jersey. I gutted the place and turned it into a studio. It’s just a place to get away, undistracted, to make music and focus.
You self-produced Little Brother is Watching. Why would you do this as opposed to bringing a producer in?
I do a lot of stuff: I sing, I write, and I do a lot of producing of bands and artists. I felt like for this album I wanted to give it everything that I had. It’s not just playing guitar, it’s the singing, the bass line and the final delivery of the sound. Making it sound the way it sounds, the idea of punching the wall as percussion and shaking this and doing that and with certain mids sucked out of the high end kicking, at this point so it feels like it’s floating over the music, all that kind of stuff. I wanted to give that too. If I’m doing a solo album, if it’s going to be a Bumblefoot album, I don’t want to give half of what I can do, I want to give everything that I do.
It was released back in February. How has the reception been?
It was good when it first came out, I remember seeing it on the Amazon charts. I think the best it did was in France the day after it came out. It was number 4 on the rock charts on Amazon. I didn’t do retail. I would have needed to go to a label and give it a whole bunch of other stuff. That’s too big to bite off. So, I stuck with physical copies available at shows and over the web and iTunes and whatever else, Spotify.
With how many people go to the store these days to buy records…
Yeah, that’s the thing. I’m not going to deal with retail. It’s a lot of work for what I do and it’s not going to be a big result. If I had a different type of music, yeah it might make sense. But for what I’m doing, no. For me it makes the most sense to just have CD’s for shows and events, and having it over the web whether it’s my website, Amazon or anything like that. People will use YouTube or stream it on Spotify, or download it from iTunes.
For those not familiar with your solo material how would you categorize your music and are there any solo artists/bands you might compare to?
I would say it sounds like a foundation of classic rock and punk with a lot of crazy guitar moments. Some people would say it sounds like a blend of Queen and the Sex Pistols, although the latest album is a lot more toned down and melodic – Queen meets Sex Pistols with crazy guitar stuff.
Are there one or two favorite moments in your solo career?
There’s so many! It amounts to something for the greater good. Fundraising and charities and benefit stuff. One thing that I feel good about was this year: there were a bunch of benefit shows in Thailand, headlining bike week and the whole thing raised a $163,000 for the kids. It’s a legit organization that’s been around a long time. It’s very transparent and is really helping the kids.
You’ve done some extensive charity work. What drives you to support a particular charity with so many out there?
Usually it happens organically, someone you know or meet is telling you something and it’s legit. It’s very easy to take action. As a musician, all you have to do is what I do: instead of just doing a show in a club, maybe I’m doing a show at a benefit for some greater purpose besides just entertainment that’s motivating people, including yourself, making your own contribution. It just happens that way. 9/11 I donated my album proceeds, I took one of my albums and made it a complete benefit album. Everything went to the Red Cross. When a close friend of mine was diagnosed with MS and he started a non-profit to raise money for research and all his friends and family volunteered, doing shows for that. You cross paths with something or someone and it means something to you and you do something about it.
What are you current tour plans?
I’m taking off the next month and then I’m going to hit Cyprus. Then I’m doing a week at something called Corfu Rock School, what it is, Corfu is a beautiful Greek Island in between Italy and Greece and we have one week where everyone is staying at a nice resort. We have an onsite chef doing lunch and dinner. We spend the first half of the day doing guitar workshops. Then we take a break in the afternoon and go to the beach or do whatever they want to do, see some sites. Then we get back together at dinner work on some songs, then we go hit all the local bars and play all night and jam. Right after that I am doing a couple shows in Greece, then I come home for a second, though I might do something in Turkey. I’ve got to see. Then I’m going to play some metal in Pakistan, there’s a big metal thing out there. It’s interesting, in America we see the worst of things and that tends to define that whole place because that’s all we have to go by. Going all over the world you find that it’s everybody wearing their rock shirts playing guitar with their long hair listening to the same bands as you. Those people are who we need to get together with and bond with. You find that music really does erase all the boundaries and the differences and brings people together in a very natural, normal way; the way it should.
I’m probably going to hit India again then I might do Israel. Then from there I’m going to do something in Romania, try to squeeze in the Ukraine, possibly Belarus and Russia and then come back for a second then I’ve got to do a two month tour of France with Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, a whole bunch of great guitar players. Then I’ve got to do some stuff in England and France, possibly do something in Brazil if it can come together in mid-December. Then I’ve got to figure out where I want to stay for the next three months because I’m not spending another winter in New Jersey! This last one was too damn cold I’m done with i!
I’m up in New Hampshire so I know exactly what you mean.
Screw that! From September through February or March, for as long as I can stick it out away, I’m going to be eating coconuts on a beach somewhere. I don’t know where but that’s where I’m going to be.
Nothing in the U.S.?
You know what the problem is? This is the thing, when I’m home I want to just nail down all the things I can only do when I’m home so I’m always spending all my time in the studio and laying either guest solos or recording demos or the next Art of Anarchy record or something for DMC or ideas of my own or whatever it is. I’m just doing that kind of stuff and if I’m going to go out and play, I’ll play in the places I can’t do this other stuff. So I just keep choosing the things I can only do here over playing. I should really do some playing. I did in North Carolina about a week ago in Raleigh at the Raleigh Music Academy, did two days of workshops and then did a two hour concert on the final night. Right before that I was up in Toronto at the Rock N’ Roll Fantasy Camp.
Art of AnarchyTell us a little bit about Art of Anarchy.
The album came out and we put the video out for the first single. There are still radio stations that are adding the song. That’s good. We’ve got to settle some stuff with that so that it can move forward because it seems like with some of the reception we have gotten, people do want us to move forward. We have some things to work out. There’s still another video we need to put out. We recorded last year with Scott, so we need to get another video out as well. Just some infrastructure that we need to tidy up.
I’m a huge hot sauce fan. Tell us about Bumblefoot hot sauce.
We could spend another hour just talking about hot sauce (laughs). We’ve got a whole bunch of flavors and I have a lot more in my head that I need to get into bottles. You can find it on my website and there are a couple of stores that are carrying it. You know it’s like retail music, you’ve got to have a buyer at a store that wants to make shelf space thinking that they are going to move it. There’s six different flavors: “Bumblelicious” with cherry bourbon and chipotle, really great barbeque kind of sauce; you have Normal sauce named after the Normal album and that one is like a nice tomato based almost like a puree salsa, sweet tomato with Mediterranean herbs that make it go great with Italian food and Mexican food; there’s “Uncool” that’s a medium heat that goes great with Thai food and Indian food; the “Abnormal” that has jolokias and tamarind that goes great on steak, chicken, stir-fry, as well as lamb; the hottest one is “Bumblefucked”. That one is ginger, tropical fruit, ginseng and caffeine, like an energy shot. It’s just pure pain! It’s tasty but it will leave you fanning your face for a good ten minutes.
