Brian Baker from Bad Religion
There are a lot of good guitar players out there; no doubt about it. Slow things down enough and every one of them can play any part that you want to hear, no matter how complicated. The trick is to do it well while playing a mile a minute.
Enter Brian Baker.
For me, he set the tonal standard years ago. And I don’t usually attribute great guitar tone to punk rock. Simply put, it moves too fast. The hands and the ears can’t make sense of it. Sometimes it sounds like throwing a pile of empty boxes down an open stairwell. Rhythms out of time stumbling over other rhythms until they finally come crashing down at the bottom. And musically it gets discounted because so many players didn’t go to fancy-pants schools or geek out for hours with metronomes until annoyed parents screamed from down the hall.
Why?
…because they were too busy telling the world to suck it and reminding us that the establishment is horrible. Consequently, there are only a handful of guys who can pull it off well and in all likelihood, Baker is the king.
Don’t believe me? Then go see any Bad Religion show and prove me wrong. I just mixed one recently and he’s actually gotten better.
…and don’t get me wrong, he was awesome before!
I first met Brian several days into the Gray Race Tour in early ’96. I want to say that it was somewhere outside of Austin where our bus driver went into detox. The poor fella managed to pull the bus off the road and jumped out just before going into convulsions in the ditch. After giving up drugs and alcohol all at once – an obviously poor decision – he had to be airlifted to a hospital by helicopter.
As the tour progressed Brian and I bonded over guitars, cars and a few years later, Family Guy. Often, in the late ’90s, we would track down a TV at the venue or try and finagle one from the promoter, so we could keep on Peter Griffin’s shenanigans. Sometimes we would even go so far as to schedule our day around it. Over the years he’s weighed in on my guitar tone, turned me on to great pedals and pickups and, despite his current opinion, has the single greatest sounding Les Paul ever. We’ve gotten lost wandering the streets of Europe, talked for hours over books we’ve both read, and experienced that single great moment when after having spent too much time in Japan, eating bowls of God-knows-what scraped off the bottom of a boat, found a Wendy’s!
Hallelujah, Dave Thomas and your yummy number 6!
…hold the tomato.
Brian has a wit that sometimes cuts to the bone. Once when I was wearing a jacket in warm weather he said to me, “What are you waiting for? The weather to come to you?” I replied the only possible way that I could, “Duh.” Another time, after I commented on Mark Knoffler’s guitar tone Brian said, “He holds his guitar too high and that’s too high of a price to pay.”
And without further ado, Mr. Baker…
Q: What is your favorite sandwich and who makes the best one?
B.B. The Capri at The Italian Store in Arlington, Virginia. Prosciutto, Genoa salami, capicola and provolone on a soft roll with hot and sweet peppers. Insane.
Q: What is your favorite meal your mom made?
B.B. Chicken and dumplings and apricot fried pies.
Q: How did you meet your best friend?
B.B. Stage right.
Q: When or how did you find what you wanted to do?
B.B. At my 3rd grade “Field Day” (basically a big picnic with sack races that my school held at the end of the year for parents and students), I saw my first live band. I think they were guys from the high school doing whatever covers you do in 1973. I watched them for three hours.
Q: How did you pursue it?
B.B. I asked for a guitar for Christmas that year.
Q: Did you have a mentor/mentors in pursuing it?
B.B. Not really. I was super into The Beatles (the first song I learned to play was Yellow Submarine) and I liked The Band and Jimi Hendrix a lot. I guess my parents’ records were my mentors.
Q: What do you dream of doing or are you doing it? If so then what is the goal?
B.B. Doing it.
Q: What advice would you give your 15 year old self?
B.B. “Pay attention to EVERYTHING you fucking child.”
Q: If life were a person, what would you say?
B.B. What the fuck have you done?
Q: If you were in charge of the world and you have no restrictions, real or imagined, what is the one thing you would give it?
B.B. A new ozone layer. And I’d get rid of fucking Auto Tune. And Republicans.
Q: Has morality disintegrated to the point that we now need Yelp for people?
B.B. It’s disintegrated to the point that Yelp exists. The only people who submit Yelp reviews are entitled assholes or tragic Pollyannas anyway. Who cares what these people think?
Q: How is society getting things right?
B.B. Free Wifi.
Q: What do people need in order to see each other as equals?
B.B. Intercontinental travel.
Q: Do you have hope for the future?
B.B. Not really. I have to admit I’m pretty glad I don’t have kids. I wouldn’t want them to die of stupid.
Hot topic of the week:
This is an open discussion. Could be Gay marriage or Confederate flag, Donald Trump, for example.
B.B. Brooks quit Bad Religion to join Avenged Sevenfold.
Q: What are three things that work for you: For example, I can’t find a good razor. Because of a near unbridled need for massive profits I find that many products don’t live up to their advertising. What works for you?
B.B. Exercise, curiosity and attention to detail. Also Fender basses are pretty much always good.
