Hellter Interviews Ron Bumblefoot Thal (Guns N Roses)!!
Hello Grue-Lings,
Today we go Rock and Roll and bring to you Ron Bumblefoot Thal, formerly from Guns N Roses. Bumblefoot is a guitarist, songwriter, and producer. He was the former lead guitarist of Guns N Roses from 2006 to 2014. He performed on the famous Guns N Roses album Chinese Democracy and tour. Since the early 90s, he has released 10 CDs and a live DVD. He has appeared as a guest performer on other albums and on numerous compilation CD’s. Over the past twenty years, he has also worked with numerous bands and artists as producer, engineer, writer, arranger, and performer. He also writes TV jingles, theme songs, and background music. Please welcome the great Ron Bumblefoot Thal:
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HELLTER: How did you come up with the name BumbleFoot?
BUMBLEFOOT: It’s actually an animal disease. Was the early ’90s, my girlfriend (now my Mrs…) was in veterinary school and while helping her study I came across ‘Bumblefoot’. I pictured this giant flying foot with a stinger and black & yellow stripes… so I wrote a song about it, haha. In ’94 I signed my first record deal and named the debut album “The Adventures Of Bumblefoot” ( http://tinmanmerchandising.com/product_info.php?cPath=467_473&products_id=1562&tplDir=Bumblefoot#.VWB-YU9Viko ), and named every song after a different animal disease. In ’97 I started my own label, started releasing albums and touring under the band name “Bumblefoot”. After all those years of being the face of it all, it became like a nickname… a disease to a song to an album to a band name to a person, (laughs).
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HELLTER: Very interesting (laughs). What horror movies have you been in?
BUMBLEFOOT: I’ve been in “The Meat Puppet” (2012) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2232322/ , “Gravedigger” (2013) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2631554/ , and the upcoming “Clean Cut” (2016) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4313982/ . Each time the role gets a little bigger – finally have a kill scene in Clean Cut, woohoo!! The dude gets what’s comin’ to him, (laughs).
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HELLTER: What horror movie got you hooked in loving horror?
BUMBLEFOOT: The first edgy films I remember seeing were “The Omen” (1976) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075005/ , and an obscure psychological one called “The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud” (1975) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073615/ and the edgy but not-so-horror “Bad Ronald” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071186/ . After that it was all the ’70s & ’80s classics. I saw the “The Funhouse” (1981) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082427/ when it came out, I was 11, dragged along a friend who covered his eyes the whole time saying “Is it over yet?” I loved the movie.
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HELLTER: Talk to me about your solo albums and your new solo album out now?
BUMBLEFOOT: That’s 20 years of albums to talk about….
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“The Adventures Of Bumblefoot” CD (1995) – debut full-length CD of instrumental guitar music.
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“Hermit” CD (1997) – second release on Shrapnel Records, first release vocal-oriented album. Quirky progressive grungy metal.
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“Hands” CD (1998)
Raw experimental hard rock, in the vibe of System Of A Down, Faith No More, Primus…
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“9.11” CD (2001) – fundraising CD for disaster relief. Half-vocal half-instrumental, the first album to feature the fretless guitar. Quirky experimental metal, with guest appearances by guitarists Mattias Eklundh and Dweezil Zappa.
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“Uncool” CD (2002) – quirky and experimental modern-rock mixed with 70’s lounge. Picture an urban metal band getting unruly at a karaoke bar, or Tom Jones singing with Mr. Bungle…
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“Forgotten Anthology” CD (2003) – a collection of 18 songs from 1995 – 2002 that didn’t get onto their intended CD releases. The songs either weren’t fully written, fully recorded, or didn’t fit the direction of the album. (The song “Day To Remember” from this album became the theme song to VH1Classic’s “That Metal Show”)
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“Normal” CD (2005) – Normal brings you into the world of a musician who takes mood-altering medication and experiences what it’s like to be ‘normal’ for the first time – but the medicine silences his ability to make music. Eventually he must choose which life he wants. The songs on Normal follow his journey, leaving you to ponder, “What’s ‘normal,’ anyway?” Hard rock album with flavors of punk and melodic rock.
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“Abnormal” CD (2008) – First solo release as a member of Guns N’ Roses. An experimental edgy hard rock album with flavors of punk and melodic rock.
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“Barefoot” acoustic EP (2008) – collection of acoustic recordings, re-interpreting previously-released songs in a stripped-down bare form.
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Bumblefoot singles (2011) – a collection of nine singles released digitally one–song-per-month, including guitar transcriptions, backing tracks, and mix stems.
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“Little Brother Is Watching” (2015) – hard rock with lots of epic-style songs, released this past February (on iTunes at http://bit.ly/bbf-itunes , CDs at http://bit.ly/bbf-merch ) Also just released the first music video for the title track ( http://youtu.be/VmwLc6MiZY0 ), I’m hoping to release more music videos throughout the year. Also have ‘Making Of’ videos for the album on YouTube at http://bit.ly/bbfnow
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And lots more music on the way! In early June there will be the album release of the band “Art Of Anarchy” ( http://smarturl.it/aoaCMDISTRO , http://itunes.apple.com/album/art-of-anarchy/id979723247 ), a ‘super-group’ album I produced and play on that also has John Moyer from Disturbed on bass, and Scott Weiland on vocals. I’ve also been producing and playing on a rap-metal collaboration of DMC (from Run DMC) and metal band Generation Kill (with ex-Exodus singer Rob Dukes), we’ve begun releasing songs and will continue throughout the year. Doing the music score for the “Clean Cut” movie, doing guest guitar solos for lots of different artists’ albums as well… I’d like to expand the line of hot sauces ( http://bit/ly/bbfsauce ) too, and want to keep doing charity work to put all these music efforts towards a greater good, to help people 🙂
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A lot of travel coming up as well! August 1 – 8 I’ll be at www.CorfuRockSchool.com , where people stay at a resort on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu, I give workshops into the early afternoon, we take a break and hit the beach, go sight-seeing, and in the early evening we start working on songs together. Then at night we hit the local bars and pubs and jam out all night 🙂 It’s a lot of fun 😀 And in Oct & Nov I’ll be touring all over France as part of the “Autour de la Guitare” guitar festival tour ( http://www.AutourDeLaGuitare.com ) 🙂 I’ll post info & updates at www.bumblefoot.com and on www.twitter.com/bumblefoot & www.facebook.com/bumblefoot 🙂
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HELLTER: How was it like playing lead guitar on a 2009 tour for Lita Ford?
BUMBLEFOOT: It was a blast, lots of shenanigans… she called me wanting to revamp her band, on 2 days notice we got it together, learned 15 songs and hit the road playing the US & Europe all Summer. Lots of great spontaneous jamming in songs, trading off solos, me, her and keyboardist Michael T. Ross – man, he’s phenomenal, amazing player…!
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HELLTER: What got you into playing themes for hit tv shows on mtv and vhl and others?
BUMBLEFOOT: I started writing music for publishing companies, they’d want a bunch of punk songs, metal songs, hip-hop songs… from there TV production companies started reaching out, and it kept on going. My music always fit with TV, film, video games, not so much radio. Radio has a strict format, my music doesn’t. So I’m not often on commercial radio, but people hear my music every day on TV, and don’t even know it’s me, (laughs). It pops up in lots of unexpected places – Oprah, So You Think You Can Dance, WWE Raw… I’m a wrestling fan going back to the Flair/Snuka/Backlund days, hearing the music on wrestling shows puts a big smile on my face… 🙂
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HELLTER: Thank you for joining us today, was a pleasure talking to you. Anything else you want to promote?
BUMBLEFOOT: Your welcome. It was fun and yes I do.
Bumblefoot headlines Pattaya Bike Week festival in Thailand for children’s charity, raises $163,000
http://t.co/lpk5PjEpbn
Bumblefoot on BBC
http://t.co/uOLEBut9SB
Bumblefoot on playing and giving
http://t.co/OqIbVlNXcZ
Bumblefoot dazzles all ages at free SXSW show
http://t.co/FycvRTmCPq
Bumblefoot visits orphanage in Jakarta
http://youtu.be/pJHDBlcBLX4
Bumblefoot: Behind the Scenes ~ That Metal Show (VH1Classic)
http://youtu.be/L71H4Lp2x_E
www.bumblefoot.com
www.twitter.com/bumblefoot
www.facebook.com/bumblefoot
www.instagram.com/bumblefoot
www.youtube.com/bumblefoot
www.reverbnation.com/bumblefoot
Try JamPlay for FREE – complements of Bumblefoot
jamplay.com/bumblefoot
Bumblefoot Guitar Cases
bit.ly/bbfguitarcase
Bumblefoot Hot Sauces
bit.ly/bbfsauce
BBF Merch store
bit.ly/bbf-merch
BBF iTunes
bit.ly/bbf-itunes
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