Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

by Choosh Pies

1.Hello Petr! First of all congratulations for your last work “Pleasure trip”.  Here we are to talk about it, but, first, could you, please, introduce yourself to all the Metal Shock’ readers?

Ok, so I am a Czech guitar player, composer and leader of rock-instrumental group named G-Bod. I am also guitar player in group named Leaders!, which is basically band of one of the best singers of Czech republic – Kamil Strihavka. He is the most famous performer of Jesus in Czech version of rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.

2.And now let’s introduce your bandmates too!  How about the name ‘G-bod’?

G-Bod band is a rock trio. There is Jakub Homola on drums and Martin Hronek on bass. Name G-Bod is G-Spot in Czech language. But it doesn´t exactly mean g-spot.  I don’t know if it is clear and understandable, but is simply my G(uitar)-point(very important thing of my life)

3.It’s time now to talk about your influences… What were your first steps on your musical journey?

My first the biggest music influence was Czech player Radim Hladik. He is one of the most respected guitar player in Czech republic. Now he is 64 years old, still actively playing in band Blue Effect. When I grew up, I had almost no opportunity to listen foreign music. Lately when I heard Van Halen first time, I said wow, this playing is electrifying for me – I want to play like this. After that Ingwie went into my ears, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Gary More, Richie Kotzen, Andy Timmons, Guthrie Govan, Greg Howe, Jeff Kollman for instance. There are a lots of fantastic players in the world, depend only on how theirs music speaks to people. This is the most important.
 My first steps were similar as other musicians, I thing. After couple of years of practising I joined in some groups and moved higher and higher. I have always wanted to play with better musicians that I am and from this reason I always left one band and joined another. This ensured me progression of my musical life. My first quite famous band was John Dovanni – street rock band in 1990-95. Than I joined heavy metal band KREYSON with very famous singer Ladislav Krizek and so on……
Lets move to 2006 when the idea of solo album and group was born. I realised album “Na vlastnich rukou” by myself only and after that I found the band.

4.”Pleasure Trip” is your second album… In your opinion, which are the biggest differences and the biggest similarities between the 2 CDs?  And what are the main differences from the recording the first and the second album?

The biggest similarities are my handwriting of melodies and chords, I thing. Some people say “…there is a big of influence of Satriani…”, but it is not my target. I was always focused on melody just like Satriani and many others as well. And the biggest difference is, that the second album I recorded with my band G-Bod, not only by myself with help of sequencers and programming. It´s a real band in it. So than overall sound and feel is different…

5.Choose one song from the album that you feel represents yourself more than any other.. Do you have any personal favorites among the tracks on the CD?

It is difficult to me choose one song, which represents me. Maybe I don´t know who I am :D. “Take my advice” could be…..I like “Visitors from Outer Space”, “Slippery Road”, “Joy flight” maybe little more then others, but really hard to say… All are my songs and I enjoy to play them…

6.Please, could you tell us something more about the way you compose your music? And could you let us know something more about each track of the album? Let the teacher inside of you do the talking. Do a technical analysis of every song on “Pleasure Trip”. ..

I have a lot of ideas recorded. During practising or playing on the sofa often ideas come up and I record important fragments. And sometimes I listen these things – if catch my attention I work on them, develop etc. Sometime these pieces lay several years in this “trezor”

About tracks:
1.Like a wind – simple rock piece, quite fast flowing. The theme is based on hammeron-pulloff lick in Gmajor. I imagined wind in my hair and wild drive or ride…
2.Take my advice – shuffle groove with very melodic motives in verse and chorus as well. I like this song. Especially middle passage with wild licks, which I improvised. We have not played this song live so far, but we are going to do it…
3.Pleasure trip – title song in optimistic mood just like “music is our pleasure trip”
4.There is still a hope – first a little slow song, in quite sad mood, but there is a hope in chorus – for future, world piece, no starving people… I like this song, but we don’t play it. I miss second guitar a lot in this song at live performance.
5.Better times – I recovered chorus from one song of my first band John Dovanni and wrote the rest. This is my very favoured song at live gigs. I always prolong the final solo and enjoy the nice harmony.
6.Visitors from outer space – this weird sound was made by mix of these pedals – Xotic Robotalk and Whammy WH1. The chorus is very Satriani style of melody-harmony in my opinion. But I don’t care, it has just happened like this, it wasn’t a plan.
7.Slippery road – theme is played with harmonizer set to 5ths up, in chorus are big interval steps played by right hand as tapping. This song always sounds very good at live gigs.
8.Joy flight – very favoured song of people. Very pop-rock mood and Vai style of using whammy pedal in chorus. I really imagined fly over landscape and enjoying the beauty of world…
9.Slow train – it´s actually joke rather than serious song. It is some pseudo country song just for fun…
10.Nightfall – it´s about change of day and night, light and dark and this mood. Nothing special in it, maybe in the middle some arpeggios by 5ths – quite difficult to play without mistakes :-).
11.Welcome to hell – dark song with bottleneck and dropD tuned guitar. And delay was setup to 666ms 🙂
12.Prelude I Um – mood of my bass player Martin, great fit in conclusion of CD
7.You are a great guitarist… Well, in your opinion, what is essential for a great guitar solo?

It must correspond with entire song, it is not only solo of some guitar player. Player must be composer while he plays a solo. Of course, it is much difficult than play some lick of pentatonic and so on. Sometime it works well, sometime not, but it is music, it is life….

8.Which song is the most difficult to play and which one is the easiest, during the live set?

There aren’t the most difficult and the easiest song. There are some difficult passages, which need more concentration. For example work with Whammy pedal in Joy flight, midle passage of Pleasure trip, which is quite difficult by hammer-on from nowhere, unisons with other instruments in Slippery Road etc

9.You play guitar since a long time… Do you still have a daily practice routine or.. ?

I would like have it, but there is no time every day. I am really busy man because I am not only musician, I have a civil job like many others musicians in the Czech republic. Music is only for free time although I play in top of Czech musicians.

10.Congratulations for your signature on a model of guitar.. Could you tell us something more?

Czech company NBE, which mainly produces custom instruments for over the world, have restored production of Czech traditional mark Jolana. Last year they asked me to play and participate on development of my signature model Grazioso. On www.jolana.eu is written about: Inspired by the original electric guitar Grazioso; this model was created in Czechoslovakia in 1955 and received a gold medal during the 1958 EXPO in Bruxelles. The guitar was played by George Harrison in the times before the Beatles became world-famous. The current Grazioso contains some of the original features such as the original body desing from 1955, the original headstock design from 1960, three pickups and a pearl pickguard.

My model has these features:
2pc swamp ash body, gloss finish, neck and fingerboard made of one piece, hard rock American maple, 22 frets “Jumbo, Custom neck profile and shorter headstock by guitarist Petr Henych Custom, locking tuning machines M6 by Schaller / Tremolo: Gotoh 510T-FE2, DiMarzio Pickups: Chopper (bridge pos.), FS 1 (middle), Area 67 (neck pos.), Custom electronic by Petr Henych, 5-way switch and mini-switch
I am really pleased to have my model and I am absolutely satisfied with it. It´s a great pleasure, the people of company did their best and I really appreciate it.

11.You have played supporting great names of the International Rock scene.. But if you could record with anyone in the history of Rock, who would you choose?

Difficult question, but Eddie Van Halen would be.

12.Are you using any social media sites to promote your CDs?

Yes, of course, it is necessary nowadays…

13.You are from Czech Republic.. How about the Rock scene there?

Bad and sad. Many bands which don’t know to play, but don’t care about it. Young people don’t pay attention to achieve some great level, in most cases they are satisfied with making a noise….

14.Do you have an unrealized ‘musical dream’ you are thinking about?

No, I have mostly short-term targets and dreams, and mainly feasible :-). At these days I have not any ideas just like that

15.Let’s conclude with your current and future projects. What are you working on?

Better question :-). I am composing new songs for common album with Kamil Strihavka in his band Leaders now I play as well. I have no time for any other projects….

Thanks a lot Petr! And congratulations again for this current album, and I’m sure about it.. for the next one as well!! All the best! 🙂

Interview by Choosh Pies

Petr Henych & G-Bod – New CD “Pleasure trip”