Playing parts for rock tunes

Jeff Buesing · From: Minnesota, USA

I'm not sure this is the place for this, but I couldn't find a better category.

I am in a band. We are female lead vocs, drums, bass, guitar, pedal steel. We have all played our entire lives. Lots of experience.

While we are doing 75% country stuff, we are also doing some older unconventional (for me) rock and roll. Examples:

I'm the only One - Melissa Etheridge
Brass in Pocket - Pretenders
Goodbye to you - Scandal

I like playing this stuff, and I like copping guitar (or even organ - I have a B9 Machine) parts, but I could also "country up" some parts. For instance, the part in Brass in Pocket, that goes "I'm going to make you see" I could certainly add some nice countryish connecting double stop runs.

I'm looking for opinions on how some other players might approach this.

Thanks

Howard Parker · From: Maryland

All depends what the band is going for and how much latitude they afford you to make artistic decisions.

In my roots rock period it ran both ways, depending on material. "To Twang or Not To Twang".

Sometimes a sweet, layered approach is warranted. Sometimes over driven solos. Sometimes you twang like Tom Brumley.

Let the material, arrangements and audience be your guide.

Oh, your band mates also.

h
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Fred Treece · From: California, USA

I played in a band that didn’t do any country, except for a couple Ryan Adams tunes. We covered songs that had no steel guitar parts, where I was free to invent. I tried to be as true to the material as possible, covering keyboard themes and hooks as well as guitar parts. It was a great creative experience.

I think it’s okay to inject your own style and taste into cover songs, and not get too caught up in offending people with pedal steely “twang”. Play what you feel. Everyone’s a critic, but if you trust your ability and judgment, you might be pleasantly surprised at the reaction.

Duane Becker · From: Elk,Wa 99009 USA

Jeff, I'm in a motown 70's soft rock band as well as another band that does country and some things like Rocky Mt Way, I Want You to Want Me-that sort of stuff.
I sat down with my nephew who is a metal rock guitarist, just a hobby for him, but he's really good. I asked him what if anything I could do on the hard rock songs with no steel. He gave me some ideas to pick muted strings within the chords that would sound like a chopping clicking sound. You actually can hear the rock and metal guitar players doing this on their covers. So I rest my bar hand across the strings and in sync with the rhythm, I'll do the clicking sound. Seems to work and it actually fills the rhythm section out quite a bit when playing those wild rock songs.
Just as a personal thought, I don't like adding country steel licks to rock songs that didn't have steel on them. I try and emulate what a second regular lead guitar would do and maybe think about sounding like a string bending rock guitarist-really easy to do on steel with the bar. I use a touch of lite distortion too on the steel.

Also some of that motown from the 1960s sound really good with using the pedal steel's C6 jazz chords as background chord pads.

Landon Johnson · From: Washington, USA

It really depends on the band and the other players. I'm in 2 groups - we both play Wonderful Tonight. In one group, the guitar player pretty much hogs the lead and I play the organ part on the steel.The other band, the guitar player also sings the song so I do all the lead riffs, and depending on the crowd, I can 'country it up' a bit.

Many guitar players have no idea what the pedal steel can do, and are surprised by the versatility the instrument has to offer. Some are more open-minded than others.

We do plenty of Skynyrd, ZZ and SRV so I take many of the slide parts; use a Proco Rat. I was fired from a previous band because I took up too much space for what I was playing; they never gave me a chance to improvise or come up with something that fit.

I do love the country stuff, but there is plenty of room for pedal steel in non-country music... just ask Ed Ringwald.
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ajm · From: Los Angeles

Duane Becker *almost* got all of the way there.

"Just as a personal thought, I don't like adding country steel licks to rock songs that didn't have steel on them."

So to go the final leg, there is one option that no one mentioned: Don't play at all.

Steel players and guitarists and fiddle players and banjoists and sax players and harmonicists and keyboardists and vocalists and ________(fill in the blank) DO NOT need to be playing ALL OF THE TIME.

As a PSG'er, do you like it when you're soloing/filling and the guitarist or fiddle player or banjoist or sax player or harmonicist or keyboardist or vocalist or ________(fill in the blank are muddying up the mix and drowning you out?

I rest my case.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Jeff Buesing · From: Minnesota, USA

I spend plenty of time not playing anything.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I don't get to do this kind of material very much because most musicians, in my experience, have steel guitar, and especially pedal steel, stereotypically pigeonholed into its classic country role and sound. Most bands I know find dealing with pedal steel to be a pain in the ass, and if they're willing to do that, it's because they want the classic sound. But when I do, which is generally more in the context of a loose aggregation of musicians, as opposed to a band ...

... for me, what to do playing non-stereotypical steel material depends on what other people are doing. If other musicians are covering the essential signature stuff, I feel more free to be more creative and try to expand from the original. But if I'm expected to hold down, let's say, signature riffs/licks with a sound that goes with them, then I don't really see much option but to do that, unless we're really going for something very different than the original. For me, that's generally guitar or slide guitar parts because I play a lot of guitar-driven music. I play guitar and slide guitar (actually, a lot longer than steel), so I can always grab a guitar if that's what's needed. But I like the challenge of doing this kind of stuff on steel. Plus, being able to do it all on steel saves more annoying equipment hauling and, especially, time-sucking and context-switching guitar changes. I also have done the B3 organ type of simulation, which can also be cool if the song calls for that. As always, it's whatever the song and situation call for.

But for me, a lot of getting a good guitar-like sound is having something besides a classic-clean pedal steel amp. If I'm gonna be in a situation where I want a good guitar sound (i.e., I'm playing guitar parts on more than a tune or two), I bring a relatively small guitar amp. It's pretty hard to beat a small tweed or blackface/silverface Fender, and those don't add a lot to the equipment-hauling burden. I always have a pedalboard with a tuner, a Digitech Drop pedal, a compressor, a good, natural-sounding overdrive (Klon-KTR, ZenDrive, Simble, or something of that ilk), delay, and reverb. The Drop pedal is good for doing baritone or tic-tac parts, either for guitar or steel. The overdrive is useful to get a more pushed-amp sound at a reasonable volume - I do tend to use pretty classic guitar amps with no master volume. Even a tweed Deluxe can get too loud in some cases if the song calls for a pushed tube amp sound.

BTW - I clearly distinguish what I'd do in an Americana band (which in my experience is more like playing in a classic country band than actually playing in a modern country band) from doing something like Melissa Etheridge, Scandal, or other 60s-early-90s pop/rock or classic rock. And note that Eric Heywood has been playing with the Pretenders for some time now. There's lots of video out there with him in that context, you can probably glean some good ideas from that. I think, there, he's in a situation where the rest of the band is covering a lot of the essential signature stuff.

Just some ideas.

Jeff Buesing · From: Minnesota, USA

Thanks for all the advice, friends.

Chris Templeton · From: The Green Mountain State

When playing ZZ Top, Skynyrd, Stones type rock songs and I'm sitting in and not familiar with the song, key or arrangement, I usually go for a 1-5-1 chord grip to start. and scoot around and find the key, then think about the main options for the next chord changes.
When I locate the key, there's the next likely chords, a 4 or a 5, 2, 2m, 3m, 6m and so on.
Gotta watch those 3rds closely on a rock tune.
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Ken Pippus · From: Langford, BC, Canada

What Chris said. “Power chords.”

Works well on C6 with a little “gain.”

Robert Murphy · From: West Virginia

Pedal steel is a very versatile instrument. I don’t like to limit what you can do with a pedal steel but for me when I can serve the song but using my C6 lap steel to do the job then that’s what I do. I’m not talented enough to make made a pedal steel sound like ______. It’s a tool in the box.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Power chords were mentioned. Of course, they're used a lot in some kinds of rock and pop/rock, but not all. As compared to standard E9, this is a generally easier on a universal E9/B6 tuning, where the tuning lo-hi is B E G# B E F# G# B E G# D# F#, so you at least have the guitar string 6/5 E/B dyad on strings 11 and 9.

I play universal sometimes, but I also set up my D10 10-string E9 necks with heavier strings on 10 and 9 so that I can just tune them down to (guitar 6th string) E and B, respectively, to give me those standard guitar power chords on the bottom two or three strings. I set the pedal/lever stops so they work on string 10 and 9 in standard E9 tuning (i.e., tuned up to B and D, respectively). That throws them off when I tune down, but I don't care because I'm just treating the bottom strings if I'm playing open E = E B E G# B E, and play it like I'd play slide guitar or Open E lap steel.

I think power chords are more prevalent on blues/rock and hard rock than softer or more pop/rock material. Here's a clip of Eric playing with The Pretenders on Austin City Limits in 2017 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwfyZD3atOg. Guitar player is doing the heavy lifting on the signature stuff. A lot of the time, I hear Eric blending in with the guitar as a texture thing. I think he plays a universal E9/B6, which makes sense for this. I just see what look like silverface Deluxe Reverbs for the guitar. I saw a closeup of Eric's amps, I saw a silverface Fender and something else. I noticed Eric playing a lot on the lower strings. Here's a closeup of Eric adding some fairly slide-guitar/lap-steel type of stuff - https://youtu.be/HwfyZD3atOg?t=68 - and more here - https://youtu.be/HwfyZD3atOg?t=1764 - and a bit more standard E9 stuff here - https://youtu.be/HwfyZD3atOg?t=1079

I guess for me, it's a lot of 'think like I'm playing guitar', but I ain't. And apologies to Mike Sweeney, who got me away from playing like a guitar player on the classic country stuff. And he was smack dead-on correct for that stuff. When in Rome. Smile

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Try forgetting about the pedalsteel and listen closely to the music. Then play something supportive with the ensemble. I do a lot of listening to the viola in string quartets and the inner voice leading playing in Ellington arrangements. You don’t really notice what the viola is doing but without it the music would fall apart. The same with those perfect and simple little moves with the trombones in an Ellington tune. Become an essential part of the music and not just a decoration. Make sure you clearly hear what you are going to play in you head before making a sound. Don’t let your hands lead. If you can do that you will never be limited by the pedalsteel.
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Tim Harr · From: Dunlap, Illinois

My approach - the pedal steel guitar is a musical instrument. Play it like a musical instrument and focus on playing the song. If I am playing a straight up country song, then I play in the style of Lloyd, Hughey, Rugg, etc... If I am playing a rock song, I don't give any of those players a thought. I simply play what the song needs. String parts, horn hits, other back up figures, etc..

Too often, PSG is pigeonholed into being a lick machine that produces country and western sound effects.

Have fun with it and focus on the song.
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Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

I thought you said it just fine, Bob. In fact, I’ve got Duke Ellington on my must-listen list.

Brandon Mills · From: Victoria, TX. USA

My dad, Arnold Mills, always blew me away with his ability to hang with whatever was being played….. ie Pink Floyd, Skynard, Emmons, John Huey style ect. He taught me to be ready/able to play anything and everything that a singer might call out.

On my own, I rarely gig without at least having a distortion pedal in my seat, just in case. I actually did an entirely rock gig a few months ago just to see if I could, and it was pretty cool.

To the point of the original post, one of the most useful techniques i was taught, and confirmed by pickers much more experienced than me, was to play two frets down from the open position and work the B and C pedals for rock tunes, lap steel licks, ect.

Landon Johnson · From: Washington, USA

Here's how I handled 'Pride and Joy' last evening. https://youtu.be/1dNdvNTDwio?si=vteK42WfN9QwzRvc
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Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Landon I like what you added to the song.
With the sustain your guitar setup has, I like it.
some of you runs sound near harmonica fills, Way to go.

Bruce Derr · From: Lee, New Hampshire, USA

A little distortion is good but for me it's mostly note choices, a little bottleneck-style vibrato, etc., to convey the right attitude for the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_koinRLNXv8

Don Mogle · From: Round Rock, TX, USA

Jim Fogarty · From: Phila, Pa, USA

Here's how Chrissie and Co. do "Brass in Pocket" with a pedal steel in the band (far stage right. Not very loud, but audible on the verses).

https://youtu.be/DfPUL5Taavo?si=HVw0ygWacxjeW2nz

In general, I would say think like a keyboard player, with pads and small parts to add flavor. Only do big power chords if 2 guitar parts are needed, or to comp for the guitar player's solo. Otherwise, it can get messy.

Bruce Derr · From: Lee, New Hampshire, USA

Don, thanks for the kind comments. And I agree Landon was smokin' on the SRV tune. Definitely the right approach for that one.

"Rock tunes" is a big umbrella covering lots of different styles. It can be tricky to find the right thing to play sometimes. I like Jim's suggestion about using a keyboard mindset.

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