Jimi Hazel lead guitarist of the eclectic rock band 24-7 Spyz

By Oscar Jordan

Jordan: Your vocals are perfect. The package is there. It’s complete. What’s the future for the band?

Hazel: The plan is to cut three more songs, remix Face The Day and combine all those tracks together into one cohesive action packed piece of work. Bumblefoot (Guns N’ Roses guitarist) wants to shop it which is interesting because I sold a lot of copies without any hype, any promo, without anything. We cut the record together. We did it at his studio and it was a great thing. When it was finished I said we should try to find a home for it. I knew a couple of people at a couple of labels. We sat down and played it for a couple of people and they all went, “Wow! This record is great! I can’t believe you guys took ten years away to come back and make a record this strong.” I’m like, “Who the hell do you think we are?” (Laughing)

I see bands who get back together for all the wrong reasons or decide to make music, not because they want to make music, but because they’re broke. Because they had one hit thirty years ago, they can get back together on the strength of that one hit. Somebody will sign them because they go, “You struck lightening once we can probably strike it again!” A band like us has consistently made solid pieces of work whether they’re great or not great. There was always a glimmer of something in every record, yet we can’t get arrested. It finally hit me. You know why we can’t get arrested? It’s the Elvis Presley thing all over again.

The music that we created, the scene that we helped to nurture (with a whole bunch of other bands), but took it to a place that a lot of other bands didn’t take it musically, got polluted. By getting polluted I mean that all those bands couldn’t play R&B, couldn’t play ska, couldn’t understand jazz and couldn’t implement any of those other colors in their rainbow. They took aggression, put their hat on sideways, put on clothes five sizes too big and rapped over it. Or tried to sing over it. The white record companies had a field day with it and called it Nu-Metal. So now you make money hand over fist selling white people a derivative of black music. When they have nothing left to say, their car runs out of gas. When the car runs out of gas, all the bands disappear. The record companies decide that’s one genre of music we need to bury. We need to bury it because you can’t have Spyz come back. Spyz did it better than all of them on every level at every turn at every time. And guess what? Spyz were black!

Jordan: And you’ll have people approach you after hearing your music and say, “Oh, I can tell you guys are really into Korn!” (Laughing)

Hazel: (Laughing) “Man! You guys must have been huge Limp Bizkit fans!” (Laughing) I have nothing but great respect for those bands. When I first met the guys in Limp Bizkit they were like fifteen years old. They were Spyz fans. I met them when they were LAPD. We played Bakersfield and they opened for us.

Jordan: What was it like working with Bumblefoot?

Hazel: It was great. What started off as us just planning to cut drums in his studio turned into us making the entire record there. It was amazing to me because nobody at that point would have given us the time of day. We didn’t have anything. We didn’t have any money, we didn’t have a deal, we didn’t have anything. What we had was a desire to make music again. This time do it in a way so we could maintain ownership of the masters.

I’ve been fighting for a long time trying to get back all the records that are languishing out of print. I’m like, “How do you keep people from eating?” (Laughing) “Why you taking food outta my kid’s mouth?” C’mon now. Everybody else is paid. Let these records continue to live. If you don’t want to do it, give them back to me. We wrote them and produced them. Let them continue to make people happy.

Working with Bumblefoot was a beautiful thing because it was just complete freedom. It was just about having some fun. He’s all over the record which is great. He’s the one screaming on “Waiting for the Sun.” (Laughing) He’s singing all over the disc and playing guitar parts. We had a ball.

Jordan: The record has a lot of vibe on it. It came off really well.

Hazel: The thing about Bumblefoot that I think people are understanding is that he’s a player’s player. It doesn’t always have to be about a million notes. I know guys who can play a million notes and they don’t say shit. Bumblefoot is the other way around. He can play a million notes and it would still have the same impact as if he played three notes slowly that spoke volumes. On “Blues for Dimebag” he played all his parts on a fretless guitar. It’s amazing when you’ve got that thing down like the back of your hand. It still sounds like you’re playing a fretted guitar until you choose to go off and do some delta slide and tap all over the place. I was diggin’ it.

Jordan: It’s one of my favorite tracks. It sounds like two guitar players just blowing each other’s heads off.

Hazel: Dimebag was a really gifted soulful player. Metal became his idiom. He was a swaggerin’ stompin’ good dude. The way it ended wasn’t the way it should have been. Not by any means. If I gotta remember him I gotta remember him the way I like to remember him. That was for my friend.

Be sure to check out Jimi and 24-7 Spyz on their myspace page HERE

SMG’s Oscar Jordan talks with Michael Anthony at Rock Camp!

Have you ever dreamed of jamming with rock stars? Well now you can! Share My Guitar spent a day at the Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy Camp in North Hollywood, California. On site were rock legends Dave Mason, Michael Anthony, Billy Sheehan, and Gary Hoey.

According to their website, Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp™ is the ultimate music experience, that allows musicians and enthusiasts alike the once in a lifetime opportunity to jam with legendary rock stars, play live on stage at major concert venues, and live their rock ‘n’ roll dreams. Simply stated, our mission is to bring people’s musical fantasies to life! Learn more about the camp here.

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Jimi Hazel lead guitarist of the eclectic rock band 24-7 Spyz

By Oscar Jordan

Jordan: Why did she try to kill it?

Hazel: In certain circles Sylvia Rhone is known as the black widow of black-rock. I believe she doesn’t believe in it. You can’t not be hip. To be hip you gotta play hip. So you gotta claim you know everything. “Oh yeah, we got one of them too!” Family Stand was a great case in point. She had Family Stand with the first record and had the urban hip ghetto heaven. But she decided for the next record to go deeper and get into who they really wanted to be. Moon In Scorpio was an amazing record. They did nothing for that record because they couldn’t sell it to black radio. “Oh no! We can’t sell that rock stuff to these people. This will straighten them jeri-curls out!”

Jordan: To play devil’s advocate, can you see it from the suit’s point of view? They’re trying to sell black-rock to R&B or hip-hop stations. The formats are pretty strict.

Hazel: Yes and no. In the case of that record I can understand the suit’s point of view because you had success in a market that won’t be open to what you’re about to give them. I use Spyz as a great one. Here’s the difference. If we sell 300,000 copies of our debut record on an independent label and we sell just under 400,000 copies of our second record on an independent label, how is it that we come over to a major label who can’t even do a tenth of that?

Jordan: There’s something wrong there.

Hazel: Yeah. In other words the box was created, the vehicle was already up, running and already had gas in it. You chose to crash it instead of driving it. When we did Strength in Numbers I really wanted to up the ante because we got a new singer, a new drummer and I really wanted to write some songs that I didn’t really feel I could have written with my original band. I really set out to make a real solid piece of work. I wanted to make the record I’d always wanted to make. When we finally did it, everybody was just blown away. It was funny because Rollingstone had never reviewed any of our prior records but they reviewed Strength in Numbers. We were like, “Wow.” All of a sudden all the critics are going ga-ga over this record, but the record company is acting like, “We don’t know, we don’t hear, we don’t see.” You had singles, you had whatever you needed.

Here’s another great case in point. Geffen Records had signed White Zombie. That album had pretty much already stiffed. It was done. Here comes Beavis and Butt-Head. (Laughing) Picks up “Thunder Kiss ‘65.” Starts playing it. The record company was smart enough to go, “Wow that episode with that song keeps getting played every couple of weeks. That’s free advertisement to a whole bunch of record buying people. Let’s put that record back out.” That record became the hump that got that band over. Beavis and Butt-Head started playing “Stuntman.” Mike Judge was a Spyz fan, which we found out later on. He dug the band. The episode with “Stuntman” on it started running almost every other day for months on end. The record company didn’t do nothing.

We shot a Budweiser commercial. That commercial ran for almost six months. I got emails from people going, “Dude, I saw the commercial! I bought the record!” Used because they couldn’t find it new! (Laughing) All these opportunities for the record company to turn what you got into something, and they chose not to. At the end of the day they turned around and blamed us for it and then dropped the band. Once again I blame Sylvia Rhone whole-heartedly. I’ll put my hand on it and state that.

Jordan: How does a person like that explain things to you?

Hazel: They don’t. They send their minions to explain it. All of a sudden they don’t take your calls. All of a sudden they don’t appear at meetings anymore.

Jordan: So the bottom line is that they can’t market you?

Hazel: No. At the end of the day their bottom line was she wanted to kill the band.

Jordan: Why did she want to kill the band?

Hazel: I think it was more personal than anything else. Our first drummer was something like a godson to her. I really can’t put my finger on it. Anybody and everybody who had any sort of rock project signed to Eastwest or Electra at that point when she was running it had problems. If you were white you didn’t have a problem. As a matter of fact she tried to take credit for Metallica’s success. (Laughing) Motley Crue?! Yeah we did it! It was almost like the Adolph Ceaser character in A Soldier’s Story. Black bands got signed but they didn’t get signed to do good things. They got signed to kill the niggers. White bands got signed because they do what white bands always do. They’ll sell a lot of rock records to rock lovin’ white folk.

Jordan: It’s an easier sell.

Hazel: Yeah but the black mind at the top is running the show with a twisted mind. Your attempt is not to show the growth of black people as a diverse group of artists who do other things and are successful at it. Yours is to show that we fail over and over again. She did it with the Family Stand’s second record. She did it with The Eric Gales Band record. She did it with the Spyz record. The Spyz record was truly criminal because we had already sold more records than all those other bands combined. It just started really becoming the ultimate joke.

We made Strength in Numbers for $250,000 dollars. I said, “How am I going to spend $250,000?” (Laughing) What am I supposed to do? I kept hearing stories about how producers would go out and buy plants to put in the studios because they really wanted fresh air. They wanted oxygen from the plants. So they spent up the band’s money buying truckloads of plants. I wanted to work in certain studios. I wanted to work at Electric Lady, I wanted to work at Little Mountain up in Vancouver. I wanted to work with Terry Date as opposed to taking the money and just jerking it off and getting strippers to come in every night and having drug parties. We went and made really solid pieces of work. At the end of the day they pressed up 18,000 pieces allotted for promotional purposes and 16,000 pieces were sold in the week. That was the end.

By the time we get back to the 90’s we left a major, took a break and got with a European independent. The original band got back together for 1994 and made a record. That was a bad mistake and we became a three piece. When we became a three piece is when it all made sense. I have nothing against our former singers but I think I took everything personal. I kept watching people do things to me and I think I took in personally. If we become a three piece at least I don’t have to worry about stepping on somebody’s toes when I feel like stretching out as a player. If we want to get off into some extended jams and stuff, the singer’s not sitting there doing a Roger Daltrey just flipping the mike around.

To be continued…

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Oscar Jordan is a staff writer at SMG. Oscar is a Los Angeles based actor, martial artist, songwriter, guitar teacher, music journalist and shootist. He’s appeared in a bunch of films, TV shows and commercials and gets the honor of asking guitar virtuosos smart aleck questions. Email: oscarjordan@sharemyguitar.com

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Jimi Hazel lead guitarist of the eclectic rock band 24-7 Spyz

By Oscar Jordan

Jordan: When you write are you getting it out of your system, or are you a disciplined writer who can crank out songs?

Hazel: No. Not at all. I’m so bad. Right now I’m trying to write three songs. For me it’s usually organic. I write when I feel like writing and since there’s no deal and no restrictions, I write when I feel like it. I’m trying to write these three songs as kind of a test. I gotta write stuff that fits in the midst of things today. We’ll either implement them on Face The Day when we remix the record or pull something out and put this in.

I wrote Face The Day in 1996-97. We didn’t record it until 2006. I’d written the songs to be the next Spyz record after Heavy Metal Soul by The Pound, but we wound up without a deal. By ’97-’98 we didn’t exist anymore. There was no Spyz. I was so burned out. From ’89 to ’96 all we did was make records and go on tour. You become a hamster on a wheel. You’re so busy just going, going, going that you forget what it’s like to stop. Anytime we did stop, you still kept moving. Your feet stopped moving but your mind didn’t. It took a while for everything to stop and catch up. When it finally caught up to us, it just ate away at us and me and Ric had to split camp. I stopped playing. I got irritated. The business made me irritated because I kept saying, I believe in the music we make. I believe in the songs that I write and I don’t think anybody does what we do any better than we do. But why is it that every mediocre white band on the planet has come up to me and said, “Aw man, your six albums have been our bible!” Yeah, but what you didn’t do is listen. You picked up aggression and you ran with it. You didn’t listen to musicality. You didn’t listen to the beauty. I’m appreciative of people saying, “Man, “John Connelly’s Theory changed my life!” Yeah but did you listen to “Dude You Knew?”

Jordan: They never picked up on the ska and R&B aspects of Spyz.

Hazel: It was none of that stuff, but the thing that made me mad was I watched the industry as a whole not embrace the black rock scene. What they did was they saw another opportunity to make money without understanding that this is real. This isn’t fun. This isn’t like Halloween where we put on our masks and go out and scream, “We rock!” This is who we really are every day. When they started making money off of it, what every label did was run out and find a black rock band. What they didn’t do is allow those bands the luxury of growing. They expected to put out one record with four black guys on the cover and sticker it, “If you love Living Colour, 24-7 Spyz and Fishbone, you’ll love these guys!” Then you wonder why the record didn’t sell. They did that instead of saying we’ll make record two and three and keep growing. Everybody got dropped.

Jordan: There was no artist development. They wanted to turn over a profit quickly and move on.

Hazel: I think it’s funny. Here in lies the rub. I hate to say this but I’m going to call it what it is. I use the Chili Peppers as a great example. The Chili Peppers’ first couple of records were horrible. I don’t know if it was because of a great lawyer, great manager, or a great A&R person. There was no way in hell they should have been allowed to make the second record. But they did.

I think The Uplift Mofo Party Plan for me was the record that I finally said I like this band. The point was they had to make those early records to get there. A lot of the black bands weren’t allowed that. I always use Sinister Dane as a great example. They were a great band out of St Louis with great potential and made a really good first record. They could have made a brilliant second record. Probably the most criminal of all was Follow For Now out of Atlanta. David Ryan Harris is now renowned for being John Mayer’s songwriter music guy. Follow For Now was an amazing band that didn’t get to make a second record.

Spyz for a lot of people were heroes. “Nobody can stop you guys!” I don’t know if that’s the case but I think we just got really lucky. For everything that we tried to do, there was somebody in our corner who felt just like we did and said, “To hell with it. Let’s just do it.” It wound up working and it struck a nerve with people. Nobody expected us to sell what we sold on the first record. We sold just under 300,000 copies of Harder Than You. That was amazing. We thought if we sold 10,000 records we did something. The second record Gumbo Millennium sold closer to 400,000. We scratched out heads and said, wow. This is deep. There’s people listening and that is wonderful. The mistake we made after that is going to a major label and realizing what the perception is of a band when they make the transition. What you think they are as opposed to what they really are. The values haven’t changed, the music hasn’t changed. When the labels change, that’s when everything starts going sideways.

Jordan: You guys were in business to sell records. That’s the bottom line. Was there ever a group meeting where you guys discussed writing something commercial ala a Journey ballad without selling out? (Laughing)

Hazel: (Laughing) No. The beautiful thing about not having a meeting like that was that we made the most accessible record of our career with Strength in Numbers. For a long time I couldn’t listen to it because I was so hurt by what didn’t happen with it. What didn’t happen wasn’t because of the band or the fans. It was because of Sylvia Rhone and the record company who chose to completely try to kill it.

To be continued…

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By Oscar Jordan

Jimi Hazel lead guitarist of the eclectic rock band 24-7 Spyz

Jordan: When did you get into the hard stuff?

Hazel: Me and a core group of guys that I grew up with just loved music. Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rush, you name it. As much as we loved The Commodores, Earth Wind & Fire and Rufus, it was prog-rock. We would listen to Farewell to Kings by Rush or anything and everything. The heavy stuff was always there. We also liked heavy stuff in an R&B vein and the best thing that could have happened at that point was Funkadelic.

The real life changer was Maggot Brain. Eddie Hazel…forget it. I always say that when Hendrix died he did something really wonderful that he doesn’t get credit for. When 24-7 Spyz came our right after Living Colour a year later, everybody made such a big deal about black bands rocking out. I remember I told one guy, “You don’t understand what it was like growing up. For me when Hendrix died, Hendrix changed the game. For at least two years he had turned on every white person on the planet.

Some of the brothers who were advanced enough were getting turned on as well. By the time he leaves us every guitar player on the planet has a wah-wah pedal and a fuzz pedal. R&B bands are all hippied out now. What it made was that everybody had to have a decent if not a great guitar player. There were a whole bunch of bands who filled the void. The first band that turned me on after him was Mother Night. Come to find out years later, that was a seventeen year old Eddie Martinez. From there it went to The Isley Brothers. Here we go. Mandrill, New Birth… I’m still checking all the guitar players out because for any band that didn’t have a guitar player who played “Rock,” they had a guitar player that held it down so beautifully. That was New Birth. It wasn’t about distortion. It was about Curtis Mayfield, country and beautiful chords. On the other end Ernie Isley. Ernie Isley became the savior. Then Eddie Hazel. So I kept finding what I like to call replacement fathers.

Jordan: Why are some white people shocked that black people can rock out?

Hazel: I think it’s the same thing where people believe Elvis is the king. It’s like racism. You’re not born a racist. You’re taught racism. If you’re taught, “blacks do this and whites do this,” if you’re surrounded by stupidity, it becomes ingrained in your mental state. When it comes down to us, I always laugh because I get guys that say, “Dude, you got the heaviest sound on the planet!” Naw man, not even close. What I learned a long time ago was that heaviness wasn’t necessisarily relegated to distortion. Heaviness isn’t where you tune your guitar or how much distortion. Heaviness is the feeling you put into what you’re playing, how much conviction. I could tune up to standard E and be as heavy as the guy who has a seven string.

The distortion aspect use to make me laugh. I remember when I was a kid. The first thing I couldn’t wait to get was my first electronic gear. I got a wah-wah pedal, a Big Muff and a Small Stone Face Shifter. I was like, “I’m set! (Laughing) I’m so set!” But even now I laugh because guys say, “Dude, your sound is so big!”

Jordan: Take me back to the early days of 24-7 Spyz.

Hazel: Spyz first started because we didn’t like what we were hearing on the radio. Black music had become a joke. Black music became rooted in Poly 61’s, Korg synthesizers and bad drum machines. The poor guitar players got put through so much processing that he could only play little chicken pickin’ notes but it wasn’t about the guitar at all. It wasn’t even about real instrumentation. This just became accepted. You’d watch all your favorite bands who had twelve people for the first five albums. By album six there’s three guys and ten dancers who don’t sing and don’t play. All of a sudden the music is about, “Boy they use to have a great drummer. Where did he go?” “Oh, he left.” “Oh.” What was being said in the music was just as hollow as the music itself. I got tired of, “Oh mama, oh baby. Oooo.” The 80’s should have been a lot about protest but everybody was into the me, me, me gratification. Whatever makes you feel good. The music reflected it and the music sucked.

Jordan: There were a few shallow tunes back then. (Laughing)

Hazel: I called it cocaine music because you had to be coked up to like that shit. If you were sober, you’d be like, “This is hurting my ears!” Spyz started as a revolt against what was the norm at the time. The best thing that could have happened at that point was The Time and Prince. The whole Minneapolis thing. I didn’t even care so much about the stupid drum machine or the over bearing synth. At least somebody is playing a damn guitar! I was just glad to see that.

Jordan: You guys always had interesting lyrics about society, relationships and stuff that mattered.

Hazel: I always thought about the songs that I liked. Nine times out of ten the stuff that I liked was rooted in reality. An an anal Virgo, I can’t write about dungeons and castles. I can’t write about shit I don’t know about. It’s real cool to read a book and read about slaying dragons but I’m not going to write a song about it because I can’t relate to it. People can always relate to love. Love will never go out of style. There are so many variations on love. You can write a whole album about love and it’ll never be the same song twice lyrically. There’s so many different degrees of love.

Jordan: And different stages…

Hazel: There ya’ go. That’s an opus in itself.

To be continued…

By Oscar Jordan

Jimi Hazel lead guitarist of the eclectic rock band 24-7 Spyz

Jordan: Were you playing guitar at that time?

Hazel: No. Shortly after that I started nagging my parents for a guitar. I got a guitar for my seventh birthday. I was like, “Yea! I got a guitar! I’m gonna be Jimi Hendrix or Chuck Berry or Wes Montgomery!” Jimi Hendrx died two weeks later. It messed me up so bad. It really did. Years later I understood it. At seven years old you don’t know what depression is. Your goldfish died or something. I was broken. I felt like I lost a family member. I decided that was it. I needed to play and proceeded to teach myself to play.

Jordan: You’re self-taught?

Hazel: Yeah.

Jordan: No neighborhood guys to show you chords and stuff?

Hazel: No. Nobody showed me anything. There were some great players. Older guys would let me come into rehearsals to let me sit and watch them play, but nobody sat down to show me anything. I would just go home and listen to records and try to figure it out.

I’m so glad that that’s how it all worked out because by the time I got to be thirteen I was cuttin’ heads. Which was just funny. It must have been my calling. I use to play the guitar flat on my lap and really only use to use my thumb and my first finger.

Jordan: You were a blues man.

Hazel: (Laughing) Yeah. I was afraid to use my other three fingers. When I did, I wouldn’t use my pinky. I thought my pinky would break. By the time I was thirteen I was on fire. But then I decided to go and take lessons because the older guys would say, “Wow you’re really good. If you want to do session work you gotta learn how to read music.”

A couple of blocks down there was an old, old, old dude giving lessons. I went there, sat down and he goes, “Show me something.” I’m sure that in his mind he’s expecting me not to be able to do anything. I sat there and proceeded to play what I thought was a stellar piece of work. He goes, “Ok, that’s fine. We’re going to start here.” He pulls out Mel Bay Book One. “This chord is a C chord…” He’s showing me the ultimate, true three note basic everything. I’m doing what he showed me to do. What I wanted to know is, how come I can play this chord over here, invert it, and make it make sense to me. It feels better than up here where you want me to play it. He got mad. He said, “You’re here in my class, in my school. If you want me to teach you guitar then you have to learn it my way!” I said, “I don’t want to learn it your way. I like my way better.” Then I walked out.

Jordan: So you were basically asking him about inversions.

Hazel: I wanted him to tell me what I was doing. (Laughing) I wanted him to put a name to the chords that I was playing. I had picked up all this stuff from Curtis Mayfield, Wes Montgomery and Jimi Hendrix. I knew it all, I just didn’t know what it was called. I had a perfect ear. If I heard something I could play it back in five minutes. If you said, “Is that a F minor 7th with a raised whatever?” I’d say, “My pinky goes here.” (Laughing) Like that.

Jordan: So he was control freaking your guitar playing. (Laughing)

Hazel: He was older than Methuselah! I think he was a little irritated that I knew a plethora of chords and could play a gang of anything. “You do things my way! You want to learn, you learn like I teach you!”

Jordan: Guitar Nazi.

Hazel: Basically yes. “No guitar for you!” I said, “Thank you for your time. I’m gonna keep doing what I been doing because I have the greatest teachers in the world in my records.” I kept learning and that was it.

Jordan: Did that turn you off to teachers completely?

Hazel: Yes. I really became obsessed with the idea of not wanting to read music. I felt that it would actually limit my thoughts. I thought it would be somebody else’s restrictions placed upon what I could do, which wasn’t the case, but that’s what I thought at thirteen. I learned off records and never picked up a book again.

Jordan: Tell me about those early records.

Hazel: The first record that I became enamored with was “The Horse” by Cliff Nobles & Company. The A side was called “Love is Alright” but some disc jockey wound up playing “The Horse” and the next thing you know it took off. That instrumental became the biggest thing on the planet. When I was a kid the rhythm guitar work just took me out. Years later I found out that was Norman Harris who wound up playing guitar on that. The first things that really made me want to play was an old Jerry Butler song called “It’s Too Late.” I’m not sure if it was Curtis Mayfield, but the guitar work on that was just impeccable. This is me hearing music at four and five but all these things made me want to listen to stuff.

Jordan: It’s sad that we don’t hear a lot of that style today unless it’s some abbreviated Red Hot Chili Peppers guitar lick.

Hazel: What’s even sadder is that when you hear it placed back into black music, it’s not even about a guitar player. It’s a sample. It’s almost the karaoke staple of neo-soul music.

Jordan: Exactly. Two bar loops that go around and around.

Hazel: Yeah. You hear these little trills. No progression. Where’s the movement? That guitar style was the basis of everything. That and Wes Montgomery. I’d go spend part of my summers with my grandparents. My grandfather turned me on to Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Charlie Parker. I was gonna wind up playin’ something!

Jordan: How does someone all alone with no help figure out something like “Four on Six?’

Hazel: I fought with it. I wrestled with it. The funny thing is, the first Wes Montgomery song I tried to play was “Little Child.” I’d play (singings opening melody)…when it got into the chords I’d sit back and let him play. (Laughing) Yeah, take it Wes! I thought Wes was part of the family at some point. There were certain things that came on the turntable when Friday night hit. You were guaranteed to hear some Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith. You always heard something good. I always tried to play anything and everything.

Jordan: There’s an entire lineage of great guitar with Charlie Christian, T-Bone, B.B. King and moving into the modern players. Is that were you lived for a while?

Hazel: Summer time was all about the blues and the rest of the year was all about R&B and jazz. The rock stuff was always there too. Between Jimi Hendrix and Sly & The Family Stone that was all I needed. The next thing that hit me hard was Grand Funk Railroad and The Nazz. As much as all the good black stuff there was, there was so much great white stuff. That was the beautiful thing about what radio stations were like when I was a kid. You turned on your radio and it didn’t matter. You heard anything and everything across the board. I heard good music by everybody. I was a Todd Rundgren freak for years, from The Nazz on. Grand Funk to me was like the white Band of Gypsys. (Laughing)

To be continued…

By Oscar Jordan

To truly appreciate this interview you have to put it into historical perspective. Actually my own historical perspective. Use your imagination. It’s the mid to late 1980s. You’re an artsy-fartsy black guy guitar player in your twenties living in Chicago. You’ve created a delusional, drama filled, time consuming mind f**k for yourself. You believe that “The Man” has artistically handcuffed you to prevent you from being free to express the music you hear in your head. You’re trapped in a world where you can’t rock properly because Jimmy Page stole all your music, and anytime a black guy picks up a guitar it becomes all about Jimi Hendrix.

Jimi Hazel lead guitarist of the eclectic rock band 24-7 Spyz

You’re trapped in a world you never created betwixt the New Wave skinny tie types and the old fuddy-duddy Chicago blues scene. Yeah, I know. I said it was delusional. But you’re still a black guy and when you walk into Guitar Center, they think you’re either a bass player or a little too much into Hendrix. It gets old. There’s no way you could possibly be hip to Van Halen’s Women And Children First or Queensryche’s Operation Mind Crime.

As a reader you say, “What’s the big deal?! Enjoy whatever you like! Why do you care what people say!?” You caucasoids don’t know my pain. Black guys who showed up to Judas Priest or Whitensake shows equated to “oddball,” or worse, “trying to be white.” You’re a black dot in the audience amidst a sea of white, dope smoking, mullet wearers. It’s a lonely existence but we couldn’t help it. We dig the kind of heavy guitars you didn’t hear in blues, funk, and R&B. People think we’re genetically challenged. And forget about finding a black girlfriend who’s into Rush. Just forget it.

It becomes a silly battle in your mind to dismiss the kind of musician everybody assumes you are (Blues, funk or R&B), and being an annoying smarty-pants by telling everyone you were influenced by Yngwie J. Malmsteen. The reality is we had it made in the 80’s and didn’t even know it. Despite the self-created drama, the 80’s was a special time in music history and I was lucky enough to grow up conscious and in the middle of it.

Eclectic black rocker types of a certain age (like myself) got a brainful of the wide diversity of 80’s music and everything that came before. James Brown, The Jackson 5, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Chaka Kahn, Django Reinhardt, Rush, The Carpenters, Louis Armstrong, Kiss and Terrible Teddy Nugent were all part of our listening experience. Just because Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo changed my life doesn’t mean I hate Johnny Cash and Earth Wind & Fire. For me and many other black rockers, it all fit on the same plate.

When 24-7 Spies came to The Metro in Chicago in the late 80’s, I realized I wasn’t alone in the universe. There were other black weirdo guys just like me. Not only was I not alone, they had actually by-passed the whinery and just went out there and did it! Their first record Harder Than You was out by then. Oh, it was hard! They were an animated group of upstart Negroes who dared to mix thrash metal, ska, pop, jazz and funk. They occasionally put it all into one song. Oh yeah, and they were soulful too. Guitarist and visionary Jimi Hazel was a bad mother f**ker on guitar and wrote some great tunes. There was plenty of band conflicts, personnel changes and inept record company decisions over the years, but Hazel has stayed the course and continues to write, produce and play the sh*t out of the guitar. Many a band stood on their backs to achieve greater success, but they couldn’t have done it without hearing 24-7 Spyz first. The Spyz showed everyone what was possible. They’re current record Face The Day is bonefide, in your face and delivers the sonic goodies that Spyz fans have come to expect.

So you can imagine the significance this band had for me as whiney twenty-something learning to find himself. I never really quite found myself, but 24-7 Spyz knew who they were from the very beginning and their legacy continues.

24/7 Spyz – taking a quick break from the Metal, Punk, Funk!

Jordan: Your story is a wild ride. It’s a roller coaster of ups and downs. Through it all you’ve always been producing, writing and playing guitar regardless of the thousands of drummers you’ve had. (Laughing)

Jimi Hazel: (Laughing) We had the Spinal Tap thing where they implode. Smoke and a pair of sticks is all you see left.

Jordan: In terms of the guitar where does it all begin for you?

Hazel: It’s starts early on when I was a little kid. We use to go to The Apollo every weekend. For years I saw the cream of the crop of the R&B stuff. Even if they weren’t headliners I saw so much good music and just got interested in wanting to play. My brother had a guitar and a keyboard, but I couldn’t touch that stuff. He was the one who was playing Are You Experienced? and Disraeli Gears. He played the really good rock stuff. In my house it was a constant mixed up bombardment. My father was the Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock cat. My mom would be playing Richie Havens and Miriam Makeba. My sister would be playing all the bubble gum stuff. My brother would be playing all the good R&B.

Jimi Hendrix was due to play at the New York Pop Festival, which was right across the bridge from where we were living at. I asked somebody who was about ten years older than me if he remembers Jimi Hendrix coming to our neighborhood. He dropped the phone, “Thank you! Somebody remembers!” I kinda remember that, but Jimi showed up in the neighborhood in a limo because he knew somebody in our projects. All these kids were standing around saying, “Oh my God it’s Jimi Hendrix!”

Jimi was saying, “We’re playing at Randall’s Island and you should come on down. It’s going to be a beautiful day.” My brother was like, “We’re going to the concert!” For me it was no big deal. My parents had plans so he had to watch his brother. He was like, “Don’t tell mom and dad. We’re going out!” I’m six! Who am I gonna tell? (Laughing) “Whatever you say big brother!”

We wound up at Randall’s Island. Went across the bridge and went over to the concert. The concert wound up becoming a free concert because of some crazy gang trying to rob the box office. I saw Hendrix when I was six years old!

Jordan: I have that show.

Hazel: I do too.

Jordan: It’s a good show.

Hazel: It’s funny because I don’t remember much about it as a kid but I think I turned it into a better show. When I heard it years later I felt bad because he was having such a hard time. He was picking up all the radio signals. There were people hassling people in the audience, “Ya’ll stop f**king with my friends!” It was just not a good show. He played but he had a lot of problems.

Jordan: He did a good “Red House.”

Hazel: Yes he did! (Laughing)

Jordan: He could always pull that off.

Hazel: I think that was his band-aid. ”Foxy Lady” is going side ways, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” is going sideways. He’s trying to pull off “Ezy Rider” but it’s still so raw he just can’t get it right. Then he plays something where he can stop, regroup and just breathe. “Red House” and “Hear My Train a’ Comin’.”

To be continued…

Guitarist Mark Wein riffing during an impromptu guitar lesson at NAMM

SMG’s own Oscar Jordan caught up with guitarist and teacher extraordinaire Mark Wein at the 2010 NAMM show. Mark showed Oscar a few cool tricks that can take any axe picker from sounding average to awesome in minutes. Check out the bluesy Hendrix rhythm lesson that Mark gave us on the spot from the NAMM floor.

Mark has been playing and teaching guitar for over 20 years in Southern California. Check out Mark’s free video lessons on his website. Be sure to watch anyone one of Mark’s excellent video lessons. You might also notice that he has a killer collection of guitars too.

Over the years Mark has played guitar in several bands of various genres including a band called, “The New Originals.” I wonder if they had to change their name to the New Originals when the East End Originals (now the Regulars) threatened a law suit? I guess we’ll have to wait until we run into Mark again to find out.

Not Always The Same Old Song and Dance

Guitarists are often asked who their influences are. Depending on the style of music, they typically name a lot of the same people and bands, and for good reason. The more influential musicians are the ones who have made the most impact with their music and consequently have gotten the most recognition in the form of radio play, album sales, and touring. But what about the slew of unknowns? The vast multitude of incredibly talented musicians flying under the radar of mainstream recognition? Thanks primarily to guitar magazines and iTunes, my ears have been opened to amazing guitarists I may otherwise have never come to know.

There are numerous publications dedicated to our favorite 6-stringed wonders: Guitar World, Guitar Player, Premier Guitar, Guitar Edge, and Acoustic Guitar to name just a few. And there are more including some killer mags from overseas. You’ll see many of the same high profile musicians over and over but these magazines also do a great job highlighting new talent and old but recently discovered or even rediscovered talent. Each one has a different focus. For example, Guitar World is primarily dedicated to rock from classic to contemporary heavy metal whereas Guitar Player covers the spectrum from rock to jazz to world to funk. I find this particularly valuable because even if you’re a straight up metal head, you will be blown away by some of the artists performing in other genres. There’s a good reason these people are given recognition in major national publications.

Check Out Guitar Magazines

Every month as I pore through the stack of magazines I subscribe to, I have my laptop by my side. As I come across musicians I haven’t heard of before and those I may have heard of but never paid much attention to, I punch their name into the search box on iTunes and listen to 30-second samples of their music. As a result, my music collection has grown exponentially, my taste has broadened, and my love of music and guitar in particular has grown. And I love spreading the word to friends when I’m introduced to killer music that I’m sure is fresh to their ears as well. Influentially these discoveries have enlightened me to greater possibilities in my own playing.

Some of my recent favorites include Eric Sardinas, Monte Montgomery, Greg Koch, Indigenous, Oz Noy, Ike Turner, Pat Travers, Michael Gulezian…I could go on and on.

So get out there, treat yourself to handful of mags, download a basket of music you’ve never heard before from musicians you didn’t know existed or fell completely off your radar, and enjoy this lifelong journey of music nirvana – there’s never been a better time.

Photo by Oscar Jordan

It’s Not The Arrow It’s The Indian

Don’t get caught up in the snooty psychological dementia that says your guitar can only be played through a certain type of amp. It’s bullshit. When you get up onstage and plug into an unknown amp, you have to make it work. This is part of the challenge. It’s a test. The test is, “Can you sound like you no matter what?” Your home rig and your stage rig will never sound the same anyway so just get over it. Plug in, quickly trouble shoot to dial in what you need to hear, then play. People who bring their full rigs to blues jams are a pain in the ass. It’s just a jam. It’s not an audition for Guns n’ Roses. There’s a reason they call it “Sitting in.” You’re sitting in with somebody else’s rig! High maintenance people who bring all their gear to blues jams clutter up the stage and rarely sound better than the gear that’s already included in the backline. Being a good musician is about being able to communicate. Sure, you might have to turn a few knobs or attack your guitar differently than you normally would, but that’s the cool thing about playing in the trenches. It’s a new experience. It forces you to reveal your soul without a crutch. Everyone else is playing under the same battlefield conditions, why are you so special? Tone is in the hands and Jeff Beck will sound like Jeff Beck no matter what crappy amp he plugs into. Plug in, have fun and make it work. You’re playing a few songs in a crappy little club. It’s not that big of a deal.

Everybody’s Everything

These are just the basics. I recommend you attending your first blues jam without your guitar just to get the lay of the land. Just hang out, have a drink and get a sense of the vibe and level of musicianship. Keep in mind that becoming a better musician is a process. Know that putting yourself in this uncomfortable situation is a positive thing. You’ll only get better playing with better people. Over time you will get comfortable, learn to relax, and have fun on stage. The idea is that you’re improving your musicianship. You’re making living and breathing music in real time with high functioning life forms. You might wind up on stage with musicians with a lot less experience than you, but you still have to make it work. Being on stage is about working with people and finding a unifying sound and groove. You’ll find that it’s not about sweep picked arpeggios and fast scalar sequences with a metronome. Finding tasteful and simple ideas to play in a slow blues guitar solo will have more importance than knowing “The Attitude Song” note for note. It’s about thinking on your feet, giving over to the moment and being an ensemble player. Maybe you don’t want to be the next B.B. King. That’s all fine and dandy, but being able to play well with other people is the whole point of being a good musician.