November 29th, 1953: Bud Isaacs started the ball rolling with his revolutionary use of pedals as an integral part of his playing on the recording of Webb Pierce's Slowly. I was born 12 days later.
The Pedal Steel Guitar and me ...... part two
So it's 1985 I've been playing for about nine months now. Anyone who's ever played steel will tell you that's nowhere nearly long enough to be truly proficient. I was living on the edge on stage and was really forced to learn on the job. It was something I simply had to come to grips with, and quick. We were about to go into a studio in London to record an album called Born Sandy Devotional. This album turned out to be a classic that has an enduring appeal lasting to this day. Amost everything that I played on that record was played on a Shobud Maverick just like the one in the picture and an early sixties Fender six string lap steel. I also managed to sneak in a line or two on a lovely Fender Tele Deluxe that was later lost in a major rock riot in Athens, but that's another story.
The Triffids was a band blessed with one of the finest songwriters ever in David McComb. Dave was able to create songs that were literary, articulate, tender, violent, cinematic, funny, often all at the same time. In the studio Dave demanded musical settings that were appropriate. He didn't ever think in genres. A song might have a country influence but it never sounded (or read) like a straight country song. His influences were there if you wanted to search for them but they were many and varied and always under his control. What he wanted from his musicians was atmospheric backdrops for his tales of unrequited love and this made our job easier in some ways but much more difficult in others. There was no point in me playing country licks as that would be far too obvious and would restrict the scope of the song. I will readily admit to a considerable amount of insecurity and nervousness before the recording of this record. My answer, consciously or not, was to turn up on the day that I recorded most of my major parts with a crushing hangover. My focus was on survival, both musically and personally. Though I wouldn't recommend this approach to anyone it did give me a strange kind of clarity and economy that really seems to work.
At this time (1985) there were few if any pedal steel players in rock music. In Australia in the mid to late seventies the steel appeared on a few hit records by the likes of Axiom, mostly played by Michael Burke, but this was no longer the case in 1985. I'm not taking any credit here, but I was an unwitting pioneer. This is when my nickname came about too. It came to Dave's notice that most steel players had a nickname and he figured he was getting shortchanged here. A pedal steel player without a nickname - we can't have that. So one night we were watching the movie Evil Roy Slade and the rest is history. He was very diligent about applying the name, even sending me to night classes to learn to be really evil. It may have been with some of my college buddies that I acquired the hangover I mentioned before.
It was also around this time that I first came into contact with Bill Drummond. Bill had been a manager, a record company A&R man and had, understandably as he is an intelligent and sensitive man, become disillusioned with the industry. He was turning thirty three and a third and this seemed like the age at which one would be ripe to make one's first solo album. It seemed so to Bill anyway. He asked Mick Houghton, his friend and publicist, if he knew any bands who might be interested in being his backing band for said record and Mick recommended us. The Triffids minus Dave were the musicians for most of Bill's solo record, The Man. It was a strange and exciting series of sessions and I quickly warmed to this odd but exceedingly warm and talented man. This was the beginning of an association that I'd hope has not yet ended. Perhaps I'll have to wait until he turns 78. More of Bill and how I became the first ambient, chill out steel player and played with the KLF in a later installment.