Dolphin-Friendly Tuner/
Sonic Boom Boy
Guitarist (U.K.) Magazine Feature Article with Sidebar
By Simon Bradley
Published April, 2002

[NOTE: This being bryanbellerdotcom, we're going to show you the text from the Beller-focused sidebar first. Yeah, it's like that. Although, one of these days, I'm going to have to figure out how to stop being such a spaz so that the interviewer doesn't feel compelled to put eight exclamation points after everything that comes out of my mouth.]

Sonic Boom Boy

On a trip whose Brownian Motion has included stops at the Berklee College Of Music and a stint in Dweezil Zappa's band Z, bassist Beller is at the core of Keneally's band, Beer For Dolphins, and is probably their number one fan to boot.

Purveyor of arguably the best music web site out there (www.bryanbeller.com), he unsuccessfully auditioned for Steve Vai's band ("Man, that was five years ago! It's been a long time," he splutters when I remind him) but has had a hand in virtually every K recording since. Strangely, he only played on one track from Wooden Smoke - album-closer "Thanksgiving."

"I happened to be in San Diego and Mike said I should come by the studio. He sung the progressions to me, I wrote it down on a piece of paper and 10 seconds later the red light was on. I recorded it and by the time I was on my way back to LA I'd forgotten everything about it. I got my credit, man!

"I listened to Wooden Smoke on the way to work on this ridiculous mountain road and I thought, This is sullied by the likes of me!" He laughs. "I really dug the fact that the last bits on the album were mine. Well, mostly mine!"


Dolphin-Friendly Tuner

[NOTE: The italicised paragraph below was the large-type header just underneath the title. The bolds and small-caps section lead-ins are as they ran in the magazine.]

In between stints with the Zappa family and Steve Vai, the genial Mike Keneally has found time to produce some of the most musically stimulating albums of recent times. With his latest - Wooden Smoke - just released, it's time for a chat

It's probably no coincidence that the world's perceptions of Mike Keneally and mentor Frank Zappa are similar: both are musical innovators, neither felt the need to conform to any boundaries and both have a back catalogue as long as a giraffe's leg.

Of course, Frank succumbed to cancer on 4 December 1993, aged 52, while Keneally continues to juggle various commitments - whether they be with Steve Vai's touring outfit or his own conception Beer For Dolphins - in order to make ends meet, and subsequently do what he loves best: making music.

"If I was in a place, career-wise and financially, where I didn't have to think about searching out projects, I'd be writing constantly," he affirmed when we met at the recent NAMM Show during a time-out from performing on the Taylor Guitars stand. "Music tends to come very naturally to me. Lyrics are more of a path that needs to be dealt with diligently, but music just pours out."

Bryan Beller, BFD's bass player, SWR Product Development Manager and the final member of our affable triumvirate, agrees. "He never stops writing, y'know? If you could put him in a room with no demands on his time and say, Write whatever you want, he'd probably spew stuff out all over the place…"

Quick with a handshake and quicker with a wide grin, Keneally, in trademark fishing hat and casual duds, is the most unlikely figure to have gone head to head with Vai during smoking live renditions of The Attitude Song, and to have also taken the latter's mantle of 'stunt guitarist' in the final incarnation of the Zappa band way back in 1987.

COMING RIGHT UP to date, late 2001 saw the release of Keneally's (probably) 10th official solo album, the mostly acoustic affair Wooden Smoke. Compared to virtually his entire output since 1992's debut Hat, this is a far more straightforward affair. If you've been hooked by the track that resides on this month's Guitarist covermount CD, rest assured that its sheer quality is mirrored throughout the entire album.

The title track is a beautiful solo piece drenched in reverb that harks back to, and answers the questions posed in, another song Bags; 5 Legs features a fascinating take on the whole edict of 'backing vocals' and Boom comprises a twisting vocal harmonies on top of a solo piano, insects and a train…

It's not all melon-mashing, though, as Dee 'n' A illustrates just perfectly: some kinetic acoustic tapping, a gorgeous double melody that wraps around itself in impossible ways, and then an improvised electric solo that sees Keneally teetering on the edge of the dreaded 'wrong note' abyss without ever quite falling in.

Get the idea? Without wishing to demean the rest of the MK catalogue, these ears find that the elegant simplicity of the majority of Wooden Smoke makes it a genuine experience and I somewhat ruefully say as much to the man himself. Fortunately, Keneally knows exactly what I'm burbling about.

"Well, it's my favourite Mike Keneally album too," he says, unable to keep the almost paternal glint out of his eye. "Tellingly, no album of mine was easier to write; the stuff just fell out. A lot of it had to do with the pleasurable sensation of just sitting on the floor of my home with an acoustic guitar and pretty much letting the songs write themselves."

He continues, warming to the theme: "The song forms and progressions are fairly simple when compared to other things I've written; they're generally not made up of more than two or three components. In the past, songs would have five, six, seven or more. But for Wooden Smoke I wanted the forms to be more concise, even if the actual cells that made up the forms were still somewhat convoluted. For me there's always a pattern, but here it was much more readily graspable."

AS A REASONABLY experienced music-listener, 1999's Nonkertompf opus had me scratching my head for months, looking for a way in: over 30 instrumentals containing some of the most whacked out music since Sir Zappa at his peak. It's worth it in the end, of course, but how on earth does Keneally break this stuff down for his band to get to grips with?

"Last year we went to the Netherlands to play Nonkertompf live and that was for an 11 piece band, so everything was charted, but it does depend on how many people I want to know the song. On an album like Dancing, where it was an eight-piece, I had to write charts for certain members, but I really enjoy getting together with just one or two guys and showing them what I've written - basically showing them my part - and that's especially fun with Bryan. We've been playing together for eight years and I know that if I just show him my part, he's gonna come up with the goods."

Beller, nodding at the compliment, sheds more light. "There is a method to his unconventional songwriting - when he wants to be unconventional. I mean things that only happen once come in and out, buried under all these layers of sediment and geological underpinnings. There is usually a pattern somewhere," he ends with a raucous laugh.

Keneally returns the smile. "For me it's a more rewarding experience that way because I haven't set in stone every aspect of the music so I can get surprised and delighted as the song comes to life."

Some tracks are wholly instrumental and some feature vocal melodies performed either by Mike himself or hired gobsmiths. One particular lyrical highlight of Wooden Smoke is Nanny-Ass Crow. Er… what's going on?

"Lyricists are expected to be a bit more literal than, say, James Joyce," he explains, "and I claim for myself the right to be as unliteral as I want in all aspects of making records. I knew I would get a lot of questions asked about Nanny-Ass Crow and I knew that fans would get a lot of fun trying to figure out what I was saying. For me that's also part of the fun… as a Beatles fan listening out for 'Paul is dead' clues, or searching for conceptual continuity between the Zappa albums. It's good to plant things on the album that keep people listening actively."

What's more, Keneally's friend and co-producer Scott Chatfield suggested a unique variation on the themes painted within Wooden Smoke; an album featuring different interpretations of the music. Wooden Smoke Asleep was born.

Mike explains. "Well, Scott imagined Asleep as being a dream about the first album. Once he came up with that framework it was a lot of fun during the mixing process to come up with alternate mixes, and we layered things on top of each other in the computer afterwards.

"I think of it as a really pleasing adjunct to the first album; it's not necessarily an essential guide but something that, when you've got used to the first album, is a fun thing to have. There are some people who say Asleep is their favourite Keneally album, so…," he trails off with a smile. He is always looking forward, and the next album is well into the planning stage.

"For the next album we do I just want it to be the quartet that went on the road (comprising Keneally, Beller, guitarist Rick Musallam and drummer Nick D'Virgilio). We believe it's the best-sounding band we've ever had; there's something really good that happens when we get together and play. So I'm going to work together with these people from the ground up for the next album - it'll be a lot of fun."

The word genius is overused in all walks of life, but if you looked it up in an encyclopedia you'd probably find a picture of Keneally. Taylor Guitars is hoping to bring the Keneally/ Beller acoustic show to Blighty in 2002, so watch this space and prepare to re-evaluate your musical perceptions.

by Simon Bradley/Guitarist Magazine, copyright 2002 Future Publishing LTD with pictures by James Cumpsty Reprinted from the April 2002 issue of GUITARIST. Reprinted with permission from GUITARIST. For subscription information, please click HERE.