The Life Of Bryan
From Taylor Guitars' Wood&Steel
By Bryan Beller
With Introduction and Editing by John D'Agostino
Published Spring, 1997

In an exclusive self-interview, Bryan Beller tells Bryan Beller that
anything can happen (and usually does)

One late night not long ago, I was about to conclude a roam-alone visit to guitarist Mike Keneally's very entertaining web page [www.keneally.com], when I decided to take a side trip into The Life of Bryan, a column contributed to that cause by bassist extraordinaire Bryan Beller. Keneally, Beller, and drummer Toss Panos are the components of Beer For Dolphins, a trio whose raw slaw of post-avant pop, protean shred, and please-don't-call-it-progressive-rock virtuosity, all of it leavened with whimsical mayhem, is making them the dahlings of the "more is more" crowd.

At the time, BFD had recently completed a cross-country tour as the opening act for Steve Vai. Keneally, whose prior credits include celebrated stints with Frank and later Dweezil Zappa, was performing double-duty as the second guitarist in Vai's band (both on this tour and on the much-touted "G3" tour that featured Vai, Joe Satriani, and Eric Johnson). So, he got to ride in the fancy-schmancy band bus, while Beller and Panos schlepped around the country in Keneally's red Mitsubishi Expo. This particular installment of The Life of Bryan, then, was a blow-by-blow journal of life literally "on the road," from Beller's engagingly twisted perspective. The diary is so comprehensive (okay, wordy), that it is divided into chapter-like "acts," and this installment (Act 21) was subdivided into "parts," each of them longer than the last. Because of the lateness of the hour, I fully intended to read a part or two and turn in. Instead, I found myself so enthralled with Beller's insightful descriptions, narrative powers, and humorous anecdotes, that I was compelled to finish all five parts, and consequently got to bed around 3:30 a.m. I had wanted to interview Beller for Wood&Steel anyway, but The Life of Bryan convinced me that he, and we, would be better off if he interviewed himself. I hope you agree.

First, some background stuff. Beller was born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, where his formative years were spent mostly goofing off and getting into various sorts of trouble with the local authorities. Fortunately, he was both interested and gifted in music, and ended up attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music, in Boston, an appreciable improvement on the juvenile facilities of Westfield.

In 1993, after four years of intensive study on the electric bass, Beller was recruited into guitarist Dweezil and vocalist Ahmet Zappa's band, Z, and moved to Los Angeles. Keneally was Z's other guitarist. By his 24th birthday, Beller had recorded two albums of Z music that he has variously described as "hard rock, or goofy heavy metal, or eclectic guitarists' music, or lounge-country." He handled the challenging material with aplomb, and Keneally noticed. In 1995, he asked Beller to join his new band, even though both were still employed by the brothers Zappa.

On July 30 of that year, Beller debuted the Taylor Acoustic Bass when he and Keneally performed as a duo at the public "Taylor Guitars Day" event in San Diego. The two earned a standing ovation with a 45-minute set of "unplugged" material from Keneally's two albums, hat and Boil That Dust Speck, the latter of which features Beller.

As every musician knows, however, a band-within-a-band poses certain difficulties for those involved, and this was no exception. Keneally and Beller split from Z in early 1996 to pursue Beer For Dolphins full-time. The threesome can be heard on the recently released, live double-CD, Half Alive in Hollywood (Immune Records). Beller describes the music as "a dizzying conglomeration of styles, with influences ranging from the Beatles to XTC, from Frank Zappa to Nirvana; it's highly improvisational. Anything is fair game at a BFD show." The band toured the country twice in 1996, the second time as openers for Vai. A studio album is in the works.

Here, then, is Beller on Beller. All persons mentioned are real and living, and bear no resemblance whatsoever to fictional characters.

--The Editor [John D'Agostino]

Beller: As a well-placed source inside the Keneally organization, you write an excruciatingly detailed, behind-the-scenes look at the innards of Beer For Dolphins. Still, isn't interviewing yourself a little weird?

Beller: Well, I've been talking to myself for years now, but I never thought anything would come of it.

Beller: Recently, Half Alive in Hollywood was given a rave review in Bass Player magazine. How does it make you feel to be praised so highly by the mainstream music press?

Beller: Weird, actually. Press is a weird thing, in general. Like, if all of a sudden I were to say to you, "Hey, you have a great nose!" And, then, if someone in the nose industry decided that you were worthy of a spread in Nose magazine, should you suddenly start checking-out your nose in the mirror? A lot of musicians get weirded out by reading their own press too much. It's a bad thing.

Beller: Talk about meeting Mike Keneally, and how that all started.

Beller: Well, when I joined Dweezil's band in late '93, it was Mike who auditioned me, not Dweezil. I could tell right away that Mike was a freak. His ears were so quick, he could play anything Dweezil wrote. Plus, I mean, the guy played with Frank [Zappa]. It was a little intimidating, to be honest. I think I eventually grew on him. Mike only had one album out at the time [hat]. I got a copy and just freaked out. I loved it. And there he was, the guy who wrote all of it, in a band with me. I started learning his material in my spare time, and during breaks from Z rehearsals, I'd play him little licks from his own record. Usually, I got a grin out of him and that was it. But, finally, we started jamming, and one thing led to another. Before you knew it, he'd asked me to join his band. I was pretty happy that day.

Beller: What, specifically, brought about your split from Z?

Beller: I don't want to go into detail, so let's just say that it could have gone a lot smoother. All of '95, things were really cool for me; I was recording an album for Dweezil and playing around town with Keneally. It was good while it lasted, but things got weird with the schedule, and Keneally wanted to do his own thing. I got caught in the middle. Keneally and I became closer friends as a result, but I don't have anything against Dweezil. I had a great time in his band. I just couldn't do both projects, and Keneally's music spoke to me.

Beller: Keneally's writing style involves a lot of intricate time signature changes, polyrhythms, and dissonance, and Beer For Dolphins essentially is an electric power trio. Yet, you and Keneally have appeared several times as an acoustic duo, in which context you play a Taylor acoustic bass. How does that work for you?

Beller: Let's back up a bit. Keneally had been asked to play at a Taylor event ["Taylor Guitars Day"] in San Diego, and he asked me if I'd want to do it with him. He said there'd be this new acoustic-electric bass there for me to play. I wondered if this music would translate well into an acoustic format. Mike said, "Well, we'll find out." We didn't even rehearse beforehand. So, we get to this venue and it's a real hippy-trippy place called the Better World. All these Taylor acoustic guitars are on display, and it seems like a real folkie crowd; there's all sorts of sensitive, soothing music coming from the stage. I'm thinking, "These people are gonna hate us."

And then I saw the bass [AB-1]. The body was just huge, with a large sound hole carved out. The thing was just gorgeous, but its girth scared me. I figured I'd better practice on it a little before the show. Sure enough, I pick it up and I can't put it down. It plays real easy, and you can actually hear it acoustically, naturally above the crowd noise. The tone was really warm and round. I dug it.

Beller: Was this your first experience with an acoustic bass?

Beller: I'd played other acoustic-electric basses, and I never liked any of them. Some of the bass sounds I'd heard major artists getting from their acoustics, on shows like MTV Unplugged--whoa, they were pretty gnarly, very thin-sounding and bottomless. So, I had a predisposition against that sort of instrument, and yet I really liked the Taylor.

Beller: So, what was it like to actually play it live?

Beller: Well, we go on after this unbelievable fingerpicking solo guitarist [D.R. Auten], and Mike and I are looking at each other like, "What have we gotten ourselves into here?" But we got onstage and the tunes translated instantly. The Taylor bass was percussive enough to fill out both the bottom and the rhythm, and Mike was doing his most complicated stuff on a Taylor acoustic guitar. People even clapped for us! We decided to do that sort of thing more often.

Beller: Have you performed anywhere else as an acoustic duo?

Beller: We've done gigs in San Diego and Los Angeles. We also have a new, full-length video, called Soap Scum Remover, which includes some bits with us playing acoustically in my then-girlfriend's living room. We actually ended up using one of Keneally's more complex pieces--a nasty 90-second thing called "Love Theme from Vulture Fun." It worked really well.

Beller: This was all with the Taylor bass you played at the "Taylor Guitars Day" event?

Beller: Not the same one. I ended up buying a Taylor bass later, and that's the one I used. I had to have it. It's that whole thing where, once you pick up a certain instrument, you just know that you're either going to own it, or be sorry that you don't.

Beller: Have you used the Taylor bass in other types of gigs?

Beller: Sure. Keneally had an acoustic gig at a too-hip kind of L.A. coffeehouse/restaurant called Genghis Cohen, and I invited a singer-songwriter named Janet Robin, who used to play guitar for Lindsay Buckingham. She came and watched us, and said, "We have to do that!" After I eventually did a gig with Janet, another female singer/guitarist had the same reaction, and I ended up playing an acoustic-duo thing with her, as well.

Beller: Which bass players are your main influences?

Beller: John Paul Jones, for starters. For a bassist, playing along with a Zeppelin record is cool for two reasons: One, you get to cop Jones' bass lines; two, you get to "play" with [the late drummer] John Bonham, who remains underrated to this day. Also, Flea [Red Hot Chili Peppers], who taught me how to slap. And [the late] Jaco Pastorius, who taught me what 16th notes are supposed to sound like. Scott Thunes, who played with Frank Zappa in the '80s and with Dweezil in the '90s, was a genius at doing things most bassists would never think of doing in rock music. And John Pattitucci. There's a song on his third album, a standup acoustic bass solo track, called "Backwoods," that's one of the most gorgeous things I've ever heard. In fact, it was one of the first things I started playing when I picked up the Taylor bass at that Taylor party.

Beller: Did you get to play acoustically on the Steve Vai tour?

Beller: No. First of all, BFD's part of the tour was really low-budget. We were driving a car, following the Vai bus around. We had no space for extra gear, and, to be honest, we didn't want to risk having any acoustic instruments crushed in some bizarre touring accident. If we'd had more space, and a longer set time than 45 minutes, we definitely would have done some acoustic material. As it was, I brought only two electric basses, and one was strictly a backup, in case my main one's neck cracked in half, or something.

Beller: So, in other ways, what was the Vai tour like?

Beller: I don't have time to tell you the whole story, but I'll divulge a couple of things. One, Keneally was in both bands. He was Vai's rhythm guitarist and keyboardist, as well as BFD's frontman. So, he was exhausted. Two, in addition to playing bass in BFD, I was Keneally's tour manager and driver. I drove 9,000 miles in five weeks, along with doing all the other tour-manager crud. So, I was exhausted. Three, we were blessed to be playing in sold-out clubs every night, for people who were willing to give Keneally's music a chance. Not once were we booed, heckled, or anything like that. They actually liked us. So, we were pretty happy about that. And, four, our car didn't catch on fire.

Beller: I heard something about a bus fire . . . .

Beller: In late-November [1996], Vai had just finished playing the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, and everyone went out on the town. This was the first opportunity for both the Vai and Beer For Dolphins musicians to hang out together; the next day, everyone needed to be in Oklahoma City, which was a 14-hour drive. The Vai guys, of course, had a bus, so they could leave in the middle of the night and sleep on the way. But BFD had only a car and a hotel room, so, typically, we'd get a good night's sleep, leave the next morning, and spend the whole day driving. Because Toss [Panos] and I were out doing clubs, we didn't realize that Vai, who felt sorry that we had to make this drive in a small car, had told Keneally to invite us onto the bus for that trip. So, the bus leaves that night without us, and we wake up the next morning and hit the road in our car. When we get to Oklahoma City at 1 a.m., we find our hotel lobby littered with black garbage bags filled with clothing, personal items, and stuff. I ask the hotel clerk, "What the hell happened here?" and he says, "Vai's bus blew up." Apparently, at 1 p.m. that afternoon, Vai's bus was somewhere near the Oklahoma/Kansas border, and everyone was still sleeping because they'd gone to bed so late. Vai woke up, smelled smoke, and saw it coming up through the floorboards. By the time he alerted the bus driver, the smoke was pouring from underneath the bus, so Vai goes around waking people. The bus pulls over, and everyone gets out, but because they'd left in a panic, they left their personal items--CD players, wallets, eyeglasses--in their bunks. Then, they realized that their luggage and some musical equipment, including guitars, were in the bus's lower compartment. They open the bay door to discover the generator is on fire. As the air rushes in, it feeds the fire and before long the entire bus is consumed in flames.

The musicians salvaged as much of their gear as possible before stepping back out of harm's way; then everyone sat on the side of the highway and watched the bus burn for more than an hour. Luckily, another truck held the bulk of the band's equipment, but a couple of expensive guitars that were in the passenger compartment--so the musicians could practice en route--were lost. Vai's tour manager had to run back onto the bus to retrieve the gate receipts from the previous three concerts, which was a considerable sum of money. The bus was charbroiled.

Beller: Wow. So, for once, being in the car was better than being on the bus.

Beller: Yeah, until our car got broken into in St. Louis. Someone smashed the right rear window, and we lost some minor drum gear and portable stereo equipment. America the beautiful, y'know?

Beller: Let's get back to more pleasant thoughts. Which single track that you've recorded makes you the happiest when you listen to it?

Beller: That's hard to say. Probably, for me, it would be "Land of Broken Dreams," on Keneally's Boil That Dust Speck. He showed it to us about 10 seconds before the tape started rolling, and the only reason we were even doing it was to finish up a roll of tape that had about two minutes left on it. Anyway, I just felt wide open, like I could do anything and get away with it. And I did. Keneally overdubbed some guitars and vocals and made it a song, and put it on the CD. I never thought he'd do that. But that's what I like about working with him. Anything can happen.

Beller: What's up for the rest of 1997?

Beller: Well, Keneally is in the middle of a two-month break from the Vai tour, after which they'll go back out for the "Son of G3" tour, or whatever they're calling it this time around. That's this summer, which means we've got until June to finish recording Keneally's next studio album. I've been playing around L.A. with those female singer/guitarists I mentioned. We'll probably tour again in '98, but not this year. Those two 1996 tours took a lot out of us, and Mike hadn't stopped until just recently; he was going out of his mind. We're both just glad to be where we are for a change. Home.

This copyrighted article first appeared in the Spring 1997 issue of Taylor Guitars' quarterly publication, Wood&Steel. It is reproduced here by permission of Taylor Guitars for the sole discretionary use of Bryan Beller and cannot be reproduced or reprinted anywhere else without the express permission and consent of Taylor Guitars.