Steve Hillage belongs to an extremely exclusive club. It is made up of guitarists who, after six decades, are not only still recording and performing, but continue to evolve as players and artists. Really, outside of Jeff Beck and John McLaughlin, what other guitarists from the ’60s stand with Hillage in releasing new music that sounds, well, new? In System 7, his current duo with longtime partner Miquette Giraudy, the guitarist takes the echo effects that have been part of his sound since the invention of tape units and syncs their digital versions to programmed beats and synth arpeggios for music best described as “guitar meets EDM.” This is viewed by Hillage as part of a natural progression, which comes as no surprise since Hillage is considered one of the pioneers of progressive rock.
From his earliest school combos with keyboard player Dave Stewart (not of the Eurythmics) through bands like Khan and the highly respected prog stalwarts Gong, a stint as guitarist for Kevin Ayers, a live performance of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, and a solo career spanning over a dozen recordings, the London-born Hillage has been pushing the sonic limits of rock guitar. Yet, despite complex arrangements and swirling synths, Hillage’s music has never been your typical prog. On records like 1977’s Motivation Radio, 1978’s Green, and 1979’s Open, and especially his live recordings, his compositions embrace decidedly more “urban” rhythms than those of bands like Yes or ELP.
For his PG interview, the guitarist spoke about of his love of funky grooves, mind-altering substances, “glissando guitar,” and Searching for the Spark, a new 22-disc box set that includes a 188-page hardcover book chronicling his journey.
What first drew you to the guitar?
I was listening to the Shadows and Lonnie Donegan. I decided I wanted to play the guitar, got obsessed with it, and made life difficult for my parents until they eventually got me one at age 9. After a couple of years, I started taking it quite seriously.
Did you take any formal lessons?
At about 15, I took classical guitar lessons. When you play classical style, you hold the guitar differently with both your right and left hands. I decided that wasn’t for me. I went more for the rock way of playing with a plectrum. The useful thing I learned from classical guitar lessons was to read and write music. That has come in quite handy when I have done complex arrangements.
Which guitarists influenced you when you were starting out?
I became a complete sucker for the blues guitar sound with distortion and sustain when it appeared. My big guitar influences became Eric Clapton—particularly from the time he was with John Mayall—Peter Green, and Jeff Beck. But my absolute number one influence was Jimi Hendrix, who I was fortunate to see live on several occasions.
How did your guitar style evolve?
A significant thing was picking up a John Coltrane record with the song “My Favorite Things” on it. I started transcribing sax phrases to the guitar. Coltrane used what I later discovered was the Lydian mode. I started learning about the Lydian mode and then about the Phrygian mode, which is more Oriental. A lot of my compositions are in the Mixolydian mode. The next big technical progression was working with my friend Dave Stewart. [Editor’s note: Initially this was in the bands Uriel, Egg, and Khan, starting in the late ’60s.] We became interested in different time signatures and chord changes. I started trying to make my modal, bluesy guitar playing fit. That was the music I was hearing in my head.
Many of your compositions have multiple guitar parts. In the days before home recording systems were readily available, how did you work those out?
I had a tape recorder that let me build up things by bouncing from left to right. But a fair amount of it was constructed in my head and then put on paper. I would work out how it was supposed to go before I ever recorded it.
Your music seems much funkier than most prog. How did you get interested in funk?
I always liked a good groove, going back to ’60s soul and Motown. Jimi Hendrix had a fantastic funky side as well. In the ’70s, I became friendly with a sound system designer who used to set up these rigs and play Funkadelic, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, and stuff like that. In ’74 and ’75, we would have parties where we listened to funk music played very loud. It was almost like the early raves. That really reinforced my liking for funk rhythms.
When my band did an American tour in early 1977, I met lots of fans after the shows. On several occasions people asked me what kind of music I was listening to. I would say, “I am really into Bootsy’s Rubber Band, Parliament/Funkadelic, and Earth, Wind & Fire.” They would be horrified, but I didn’t want to be seen as a generic prog artist. I wanted to be my own person. I decided to take a left turn and actually incorporate a bit more funk into my music, keeping my own sound and style, but with a funk-based rhythm section.
Watching early videos, it looks like you started out playing a Les Paul and then at some point switched to the Stratocaster.
No, the Strat was before that. My first electric guitar was a thing called a Watkins Rapier. A guy heard me playing when I was 14, thought I played well, and said, “I’ve got this guitar—take it.” Later I worked at a shop to earn some money, and with some very generous parental support we bought the Stratocaster when I was 15. That was my guitar until ’73 or ’74, when I got a Gibson SG and a Les Paul.
What amps were you using in that era?
I’ve alternated between a Vox AC30 and a Fender Twin. When I had my first band, Khan, I had a Hiwatt head and a 4x12, but I reverted back to a smaller amp.
What were you using for overdrive in those days?
I had a huge collection of pedals, various fuzz units and wah-wahs. I tried all kinds of things. Funnily enough, no matter what effect unit I’m using, I always end up sounding like me. It’s like the trumpet, which has this set of valves and a mouthpiece that are like the cables, effects units, and speaker of your amp. But what makes the sound of a great trumpet player is what he does with his lips. When I play my guitar with no amp at all, I still sound like me. Obviously, all the technology and wonderful devices are part of the galaxy of making great guitar-based music, but the fundamental thing is your fingers.
What were you using for phasing and flanging in the early days?
I used the Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress. Also, there was a friend of Todd Rundgren’s in Boston who made the Pipe Flanger. There were only about three of them made, and I got one, but it broke. I had a really good phaser called the Wing Phaser, which I had to work with a pedal. You could get a sound a bit like a wah-wah, but with phasing. That broke as well. That’s the problem—after intensive use, these things break and you find out the guy who made it is doing something else and can’t get you a replacement.
When you do Gong reunion gigs or resurrect your solo bands, what do you use to replace those early vintage effects?
I basically use a Line 6 POD XT Pro. I spent a lot of time recreating the sounds with that and then run it into a Fender Twin.
Although shown here with System 7 playing through a Fender Twin, Hillage goes direct these days, using his Line 6 POD XT Pro multi-effects unit. Photo by Peter Hart
What is glissando guitar?
In the ’60s, people were experimenting with echo units. Early on, I got a Watkins Copicat. If you tap, stroke, or strike the guitar with the echo on, you find it makes all kinds of funny, beautiful sounds. At an early Pink Floyd gig, I saw Syd Barrett doing this glissando-like thing with a Zippo lighter [as a slide] and was very impressed. When I got involved with Gong in the early ’70s, Daevid Allen had become a master of glissando guitar using some surgical instrument handles he had found at a Paris flea market. I still use a collection of original handles from that flea market. The great thing about the surgical instrument handle is that you can rough it up slightly with a file, which gives a little bit of edge to the sound. Daevid moved away from that and started using the tremolo arm from a Steinberger for a bit more weight. I prefer the softer, subtler sound I get with the surgical instrument handles. Other people use screwdrivers and things like that.
How did System 7 start?
It was a logical progression from when I made the turn to a more funk-rock sound. At the end of the ’70s we stopped the Steve Hillage Band because my partner, Miquette, and myself were a bit jaded. We felt we had said all we wanted to say in that context and wanted to do something else, but weren’t quite sure what it was. I noticed the remnants of psychedelic culture were embracing electronics. I got involved in club culture, and it developed from there. I went along with that flow, and then it all exploded in the late ’80s with acid house. I joke that what interested me with acid house was more the acid than the house. With System 7, we wanted to retain some of our classic sounds like the glissando guitar and the synthesizer sounds Miquette had developed, but use them with dance-based rhythms.
Steve Hillage’s Gear
Guitars
• Fender Stratocaster
• Gibson Les Paul
• Gibson SG
• Steinberger L series
• Steinberger Synapse
Amps
• Vox AC30
• Fender Twin Reverb
Effects
• Line 6 POD XT Pro
• surgical instrument handles
• Zoom 9050 multi-effects processor
• Dunlop Cry Baby wah
• Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer
Strings and Picks
• D’Addario nickel-wound double-ball end (.010–.046)
• Dunlop medium (.73 mm)
After years of playing music with complex time signatures, syncopation, and very different sections, you are now playing simpler licks, with a different style of dynamics and a straight-ahead 4/4 groove with System 7. Do you miss the complexity of prog?
I’ve managed to find a way of getting various parts of my musical universe in. It all works together quite well. What I like about dance music is the minimal side. Though you only have a few sounds, it opens up the whole universe.
In 1973, when I was in Gong, we had this fantastic house in a forest in France. We had a music room where we used to play all the time. I was working on echo loop stuff with my Watkins Copicat, jamming with our drummer Pierre Moerlen. If your tempo is spot on, you get to a point where you go through an amazing Stargate kind of doorway, and I got very attached to that. But if the tempo is shifting, you lose the Stargate effect. I would say to Pierre, “You are moving the tempo out of synch with the echo loop.” He would reply, “I am not a machine. I’m a drummer. If you want to play with a machine, play with a drum machine.” I thought, “That’s quite a good idea.” But I love playing with drummers as well. The sound has more “oomph,” and I love it when the tempo moves. Still, there is something about fixed tempo music combined with my echo that I will love to my dying day.
What gear are you using with System 7?
In ’85 or ’86, I got my first Steinberger, second hand. I fell completely in love with it 30 seconds after picking it up. I felt I would be doing different and new things with this guitar. It has more tools for exploration. I love the trueness of the neck and the carbon fiber construction. The first one I got was stolen, so I bought a second one in 1988. That is my main guitar. I’ve also got a more modern Steinberger Synapse, which is part graphite, part wood. It is half baritone, so I can play some deeper stuff on it, but it’s a different kind of sound. I still like the original the best.
What is your signal path with System 7?
I used to use a Zoom 9050 effects processor, preceded by a Cry Baby wah-wah and a Boss CS-3 compressor pedal. It was a good sounding rig, but a bit less versatile than the Line 6. Now, I use my POD XT Pro, but set to direct-out mode as opposed to going into an amp. I have actually recorded a lot digitally, out of the USB port, directly into Pro Tools. When recording, I use some Pro Tools plug-ins for effects. My favorite echo effect is Soundtoys EchoBoy. Back in the ’70s, when I did the L record with Todd Rundgren, a big part of our sound was the prerelease version of the Eventide Harmonizer, and the engineer of Soundtoys is one of the original Eventide engineers. But I don’t go through the computer for plug-ins live. I use the POD XT Pro direct out.
How are you syncing the delays to the beats?
The beats are in Ableton Live, and I set a matching tempo on the POD.
What prompted the release of Searching for the Spark?
We decided to remaster all the CDs in 2006. At that time, the Virgin label wanted to do an anthology. I said, “No, let’s just do the remasters,” but it planted the seed. A few years later, I thought if I was going to do an anthology or box set, I wanted to tell my whole story, so it had to include all the released CDs from the very first record we did, Uriel’s Arzachel, right up to the first System 7 album. As our fans would likely have these CDs already, and might even have the new remastered versions, it would be cheesy to sell them what they already have, so I wanted to find a lot of extra material to balance it out and include a book that tells the whole story. A couple of years after that I was at the Progressive Music Awards in London and Snapper Records won an award for product design for the U.K. band Family’s box set. I was very impressed with it. The next year Snapper contacted me, we had a meeting, and I told them I wanted to do a boxed set that might be up to 22 CDs. They said, “Great. Let’s do it.” I chose the stuff in the box set very carefully, based on what would work to tell the story, but I have other stuff I’m probably going to release separately—maybe on vinyl.
What’s next?
Next, more recordings of System 7 and our “chilled out” project, Mirror System, will be released. We’re also hoping to come to the United States and play at an Oregon solar eclipse festival this summer, if we can get our visas sorted out.
YouTube It
Here’s classic Steve Hillage: In this live 1977 performance of “Solar Musick Suite,” from his 1975 debut solo album, Fish Rising, he opens up his humbucker-equipped Les Paul for a singing solo at about 3:25.
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For the first time in the band’s history, the Dawes lineup for Oh Brother consisted of just Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (left and right).
Goldsmith’s lyrics spoke to me the loudest, with lines like “Well, you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks / Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it’s starin’ right back” (a casual Nietzsche paraphrase); and “Oh, the snowfall this time of year / It’s not what Birmingham is used to / I get the feeling that I brought it here / And now I’m taking it away.” The way his words painted a portrait of the sincere, sentimental man behind them, along with his cozy, unassuming guitar work and the band’s four-part harmonies, had me hooked.
Nothing Is Wrong and Stories Don’t End came next, and I happily gobbled up more folksy fodder in tracks like “If I Wanted,” “Most People,” and “From a Window Seat.” But 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Folk Albumschart, didn’t land with me, and by the time 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die was released, it was clear that Goldsmith had shifted thematically in his writing. A friend drew a thoughtful Warren Zevon comparison to the single, “When the Tequila Runs Out”—a commentary on vapid, conceited, American-socialite party culture—but it still didn’t really do it for me. I fell off the Dawes train a bit, and became somewhat oblivious to their three full-lengths that followed.
Oh Brotheris Goldsmith’s latest addition to the Dawes songbook, and I’m grateful to say that it’s brought me back. After having done some catching up, I’d posit that it’s the second work in the third act, or fall season, of his songwriting—where 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscrollercracked open the door, Oh Brother swings it wide. And it doesn’t have much more than Dawes’ meat and potatoes, per se, in common with acts one or two. Some moodiness has stayed—as well as societal disgruntlement and the arrangement elements that first had me intoxicated. But then there’s the 7/4 section in the middle of “Front Row Seat”; the gently unwinding, quiet, intimate jazz-club feel of “Surprise!”; the experimentally percussive, soft-spoken “Enough Already”; and the unexpected, dare I say, Danny Elfman-esque harmonic twists and turns in the closing track, “Hilarity Ensues.”
The main engine behind Dawes, the Goldsmith brothers are both native “Angelinos,” having been born and raised in the L.A. area. Taylor is still proud to call the city his home.
Photo by Jon Chu
“I have this working hypothesis that who you are as a songwriter through the years is pretty close to who you are in a dinner conversation,” Goldsmith tells me in an interview, as I ask him about that thematic shift. “When I was 23, if I was invited to dinner with grownups [laughs], or just friends or whatever, and they say, ‘How you doin’, Taylor?’ I probably wouldn’t think twice to be like, ‘I’m not that good. There’s this girl, and … I don’t know where things are at—can I share this with you? Is that okay?’ I would just go in in a way that’s fairly indiscreet! And I’m grateful to that version of me, especially as a writer, because that’s what I wanted to hear, so that’s what I was making at the time.
“But then as I got older, it became, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not an appropriate way to answer the question of how I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ve spent enough years thinking about me! What does it feel like to turn the lens around?’” he continues, naming Elvis Costello and Paul Simon as inspirations along the way through that self-evolution. “Also, trying to be mindful of—I had strengths then that I don’t have now, but I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. And now it’s time to celebrate those. Even in just a physical way, like hearing Frank Zappa talking about how his agility as a guitar player was waning as he got older. It’s like, that just means that you showcase different aspects of your skills.
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human [laughs].”
Taylor Goldsmith considers Oh Brother, the ninth full-length in Dawes’ catalog, to be the beginning of a new phase of Dawes, containing some of his most unfiltered, unedited songwriting.
Since its inception, the engine behind Dawes has been the brothers Goldsmith, with Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums and sometimes vocal harmonies. But they’ve always had consistent backup. For the first several years, that was Wylie Gelber on bass and Tay Strathairn on keyboards. On We’re All Gonna Die, Lee Pardini replaced Strathairn and has been with the band since. Oh Brother, however, marks the departure of Gelber and Pardini.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is an intense time; this is a vulnerable time,’” remarks Goldsmith, who says that their parting was supportive and loving, but still rocked him and Griffin. “You get a glimpse of your vulnerability in a way that you haven’t felt in a long time when things are just up and running. For a second there, we’re like, ‘We’re getting a little rattled—how do we survive this?’”
They decided to pair up with producer Mike Viola, a close family friend, who has also worked with Mandy Moore—Taylor’s spouse—along with Panic! At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis. “[We knew that] he understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says Goldsmith.
Griffin stayed behind the kit, but Taylor took over on bass and keys, the latter of which he has more experience with than he’s displayed on past releases. “We’ve made records where it’s very tempting to appeal to your strengths, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’m just gonna nail it,’” he says. “Then there’s records that we make where we really push ourselves into territories where we aren’t comfortable. That contributed to [Misadventures of Doomscroller] feeling like a living, breathing thing—very reactive, very urgent, very aware. We were paying very close attention. And I would say the same goes for this.”
That new terrain, says Goldsmith, “forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album of a new phase.”
“That forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do.”
In proper folk (or even folk-rock) tradition, the music of Dawes isn’t exactly riddled with guitar solos, but that’s not to say that Goldsmith doesn’t show off his chops when the timing is right. Just listen to the languid, fluent lick on “Surprise!”, the shamelessly prog-inspired riff in the bridge of “Front Row Seat,” and the tactful, articulate line that threads through “Enough Already.” Goldsmith has a strong, individual sense of phrasing, where his improvised melodies can be just as biting as his catalog’s occasional lyrical jabs at presumably toxic ex-girlfriends, and just as melancholy as his self-reflective metaphors, all the while without drawing too much attention to himself over the song.
Of course, most of our conversation revolves around songwriting, as that’s the craft that’s the truest and closest to his identity. “There’s an openness, a goofiness—I even struggle to say it now, but—an earnestness that goes along with who I am, not only as a writer but as a person,” Goldsmith elaborates. “And I think it’s important that those two things reflect one another. ’Cause when you meet someone and they don’t, I get a little bit weirded out, like, ‘What have I been listening to? Are you lying to me?’” he says with a smile.
Taylor Goldsmith's Gear
Pictured here performing live in 2014, Taylor Goldsmith has been the primary songwriter for all of Dawes' records, beginning with 2009’s North Hills.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster
- Gibson ES-345
- Radocaster (made by Wylie Gelber)
Amps
- ’64 Fender Deluxe
- Matchless Laurel Canyon
Effects
- 29 Pedals EUNA
- Jackson Audio Bloom
- Ibanez Tube Screamer with Keeley mod
- Vintage Boss Chorus
- Vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
Strings
- Ernie Ball .010s
In Goldsmith’s songwriting process, he explains that he’s learned to lean away from the inclination towards perfectionism. Paraphrasing something he heard Father John Misty share about Leonard Cohen, he says, “People think you’re cultivating these songs, or, ‘I wouldn’t deign to write something that’s beneath me,’ but the reality is, ‘I’m a rat, and I’ll take whatever I can possibly get, and then I’ll just try to get the best of it.’
“Ever since Misadventures of Doomscroller,” he adds, “I’ve enjoyed this quality of, rather than try to be a minimalist, I want to be a maximalist. I want to see how much a song can handle.” For the songs on Oh Brother, that meant that he decided to continue adding “more observations within the universe” of “Surprise!”, ultimately writing six verses. A similar approach to “King of the Never-Wills,” a ballad about a character suffering from alcoholism, resulted in four verses.
“The economy of songwriting that we’re all taught would buck that,” says Goldsmith. “It would insist that I only keep the very best and shed something that isn’t as good. But I’m not going to think economically. I’m not going to think, ‘Is this self-indulgent?’
Goldsmith’s songwriting has shifted thematically over the years, from more personal, introspective expression to more social commentary and, at times, even satire, in songs like We’re All Gonna Die’s “When the Tequila Runs Out.”
Photo by Mike White
“I don’t abide that term being applied to music. Because if there’s a concern about self-indulgence, then you’d have to dismiss all of jazz. All of it. You’d have to dismiss so many of my most favorite songs. Because in a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.” (He elaborates that, if Bob Dylan had trimmed back any of the verses on “Desolation Row,” it would have deprived him of the unique experience it creates for him when he listens to it.)
One of the joys of speaking with Goldsmith is just listening to his thought processes. When I ask him a question, he seems compelled to share every backstory to every detail that’s going through his head, in an effort to both do his insights justice and to generously provide me with the most complete answer. That makes him a bit verbose, but not in a bad way, because he never rambles. There is an endpoint to his thoughts. When he’s done, however, it takes me a second to realize that it’s then my turn to speak.
To his point on artistic self-indulgence, I offer that there’s no need for artists to feel “icky” about self-promotion—that to promote your art is to celebrate it, and to create a shared experience with your audience.
“I hear what you’re saying loud and clear; I couldn’t agree more,” Goldsmith replies. “But I also try to be mindful of this when I’m writing, like if I’m going to drag you through the mud of, ‘She left today, she’s not coming back, I’m a piece of shit, what’s wrong with me, the end’.... That might be relatable, that might evoke a response, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily helpful … other than dragging someone else through the shit with me.
“In a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.”
“So, if I’m going to share, I want there to be something to offer, something that feels like: ‘Here’s a path that’s helped me through this, or here’s an observation that has changed how I see this particular experience.’ It’s so hard to delineate between the two, but I feel like there is a difference.”
Naming the opening track “Mister Los Angeles,” “King of the Never-Wills,” and even the title track to his 2015 chart-topper, “All Your Favorite Bands,” he remarks, “I wouldn’t call these songs ‘cool.’ Like, when I hear what cool music is, I wouldn’t put those songs next to them [laughs]. But maybe this record was my strongest dose of just letting me be me, and recognizing what that essence is rather than trying to force out certain aspects of who I am, and force in certain aspects of what I’m not. I think a big part of writing these songs was just self-acceptance,” he concludes, laughing, “and just a whole lot of fishing.”
YouTube It
Led by Goldsmith, Dawes infuses more rock power into their folk sound live at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel in 2023.
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
