Jeff Kollman

In the mid-eighties, there was a gigantic explosion that gave birth to hundreds of guitarists with mind-boggling technical skill and the desire to be the fastest, most over-the-top guitarist on the scene. A handful of them rose to the top and managed to outlast the over-saturation deathknell that sounded within a few short years. Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci are the more obvious "survivors". Here we are in the early part of a new millenium and though shred is no longer the media darling it once was, very rarely a player comes around who is truly talented and versatile enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Satriani, Vai or Petrucci. One such guitarist is Jeff Kollman, an Ohio native whose technical virtuosity is balanced by strong songwriting abilities and a producer's ear. From the progressive metal of Edwin Dare to the fusion-shred of Cosmosquad to stepping into the guitar player slot in UFO which resulted in the excellent Mogg/Way record Chocolate Box from 1999, Jeff has proven that he can spar with the big boys and more than hold his own. I spent some time speaking to the extraordinarily talented Mr. Kollman recently and found him to be a friendly, no-bullshit guy who loves what he does.

HOS: How old were you when you started playing?
JK: Twelve.

HOS: What inspired you? What made you say, "I gotta get a guitar!"?
JK: You know, it kind of happened accidentally. My father bought my brother a drum set because he always wanted to play drums. Around my birthday, he said, "Well, do you want to play an instrument as well?" real casual like that. I mean, I didn't have any foresight into wanting to play the guitar or not.

HOS: That's kind of funny.
JK: Yeah, so I took it up for the hell of it.

HOS: (Laughing) You've done alright.
JK: It wasn't as popular as it became a couple years later, you know what I mean? Guitar was popular, but it seems like it was a craze in the eighties. I started in 1978 and I mean, Eddie Van Halen had just come out or something.

HOS: Yeah, I think that's when the whole guitar player thing really started to mushroom. I'm just curious - was your first guitar a playable instrument?
JK: No. It was one of those Sears catalogue deals, like a Global guitar from Sears or something.

HOS: I had one of those Memphis Les Paul copies. The action at the twelfth fret was about an inch and a half!
JK: That's pretty close. It's better than what I had! (Laughs)

HOS: What would you say was your first break into the music business?
JK: Oh, that's a good question. I would say working with a band called The Stain. I got a chance to make a couple albums and that kind of led to soundtrack work.

HOS: I've heard of that band. I didn't know you were in that band.
JK: We actually put out a record and I didn't even let my picture get put on it because I was embarrassed by the style of music. I was a hard rocker and this was hardcore punk. At age thirteen, when you're into, like, Randy Rhoads and you're kind of a naïve kid, you think punk rock is some gay European thing, you know?

HOS: That's exactly what it is! (Laughs)
JK: So, even though I thought this thing was cool, I was like, "Man, I don't want to be associated with this! Let's put this other guy on the record. So, the guy who would go out and do the live gigs, because I wouldn't go out and play live with them, his name and picture's on the record! But, you know, that led to a ton of soundtrack work.

HOS: Can you tell me about some of the soundtrack work?
JK: Yeah. We put out two or three records. I think it was a compilation record or two and then a full-length record on Mystic Records, which is out in California and through that connection with the band The Stain, they started using stuff for Vision Streetwear. Vision, back then, was like Vans is now. It was like totally crossing over into skateboarding, snowboarding... so we started doing stuff for them, like background music, and one thing leads to another and next thing you know, we're doing stuff for Fox and MTV Sports.

HOS: Yeah, I remember watching some of that stuff thinking, "Damn, that's some good guitar playing!" and wondering who it was. Now I know! (Laughs)
JK: I just started getting back into doing some soundtrack stuff. I had gotten away from it for a long time.

HOS: It's a different thing with the deadlines and stuff I imagine.
JK: Yeah, you know, most musicians are kind of complacent and don't take care of business that well and I'm certainly one of those people, so I usually need somebody to go, "Okay, you're going to do this thing for this show and this is what we need. I'm not going to do the phone work. I'm not going to be calling up Miramax and trying to land the next... ahh...

HOS: I hear ya, you wanna play!
JK: Now, I've got a couple of managers that call me up. One of them called me last week and said, "Hey, we need a soundtrack for the new Highlander movie, so I just whipped something up and sent it out. Maybe they'll use it, maybe they won't. It's one of those things that, once you get it going and get the connections, it isn't bad. I'd like to squeeze some more of it between projects.

HOS: You certainly seem to stay busy between producing, playing... what about session work? Have you done much in the past few years?
JK: A little bit, here and there. I did a couple sessions for Lyle Lovett, Matt Rowlings from Nashville, CeCE Penniston who's more of an R&B thing... Linda McCartney... all kinds of different stuff.

HOS: What did you do with Linda?
JK: You know, she had some songs, I think it was 1996...

HOS: Is it that album that came out of her stuff?
JK: Umm...

HOS: They put an album out, posthumously, of her stuff.
JK: You know, I never listened to that, so it very well could be on there. I think what happened was, an agency called me up and a lot of other musicians and what she was trying to do was take songs that she had written and kind of give them a facelift, so she could pitch them to artists to re-record. Some of these sessions, you do 'em, you move on and you don't even look back and next thing I knew, she passed away and it was a pleasure to meet her and... `

HOS: You didn't meet Paul, did you?
JK: No, never met Paul. A friend of mine said that instead of putting Linda McCartney in my bio, maybe I should put "worked with McCartney."(Laughs)

HOS: (Laughing) It wouldn't be lying! You obviously have done a lot of stuff with Barry Sparks and Shane Gaalaas. How did you hook up with those guys?
JK: You know, I was doing some country stuff out in Nashville and Shane and Barry were in the same studio with Michael (Schenker) recording Written in the Sand and I gave them a CD and next thing you know, we're putting a band together.

HOS: Yeah, and you've done a ton of stuff together, obviously, you must be good friends.
JK: Yeah. Actually, Shane kinda talked me into moving out to California, cause I had planned to and so we got a house together and kinda started this studio.

HOS: Is he still involved with that?
JK: Well, I buy all the gear and he suppplies his talent!

HOS: (Laughing) Oh, that's a fair deal! Good thing he's such a good drummer!
JK: Yeah, he always has his drum kit set up in my studio, all miked-up and that way, he can pop by and we can just start putting stuff down.

HOS: Oh, that must be nice.
JK: I'm fortunate to have a guy like him, because he can literally play any style. He's the most versatile drummer I've ever met.

HOS: Yeah, he's awesome! Umm, I wanted to ask you... who's a better guitarist, Shane or Barry?
JK: (Laughing) Umm... Barry. Shane, if he practiced, could be a close second.

HOS: On the Michael Schenker Story Live CD, I was surprised that they did Bijou Pleasurette. I think both of those guys were playing guitar on that. I think the piece is originally for four guitars.
JK: I think the keyboard player grabs a guitar, as well.

HOS: Yeah, that was so cool, because I didn't expect them to play that because Michael multi-tracked so many guitars on the studio version.
JK: It's pretty cool to see Michael playing like quarter notes and the other guys are playing, like, sixteenths behind him. It's like, wait a minute... that's the drummer!

HOS: I know! Someone put something on one of the UFO sites one time saying how Michael had inspired him and he said, "Michael Schenker's drummer is a better guitar player than I am!"(Laughs).
JK: Shane's a good bass player, as well.

HOS: Oh, yeah?
JK: Are you sure this interview isn't about him? (Laughs). Barry just put out a CD called Glimmer of Hope and he's rippin' on it!

HOS: I know! I was amazed at his guitar playing.
JK: I heard it's doing really well in Japan. It sold like 3,000 copies in its first week.

HOS: No kidding? Good for him. He's a talented person. How about your home studio set-up?
JK: I've got ADATs... XTs, a 24 x 8 board. I've got an analog machine, as well, if I want to put certain tracks on an analog machine and kind of work them together. I just got the ProTools set up.

HOS: So, you're not recording primarilly to analog?
JK: No, I don't have a problem with the sound of the ADATs. For some things, I'll use the analog machine to coincide with the digital. I'll put some tracks on the analog at the same time. There's a lot of tricks to keeping it from sounding digital. There's mic pre-amps, recording techniques and mastering. There's ways to master stuff where it really sounds analog. Shedding Skin is probably my best representation of that.
Cosmosquad, on the other hand, was not recorded at this studio. I was living in Arizona at the time and Shane was out in L.A. We went to rehearsal in downtown L.A., which was pretty much just a practice building and we set up a couple ADATs, grabbed a cheesy mixer, threw up mics and just jammed, so it doesn't sound as good as Shedding Skin.

HOS: My first exposure to you was Into the Unknown. The very first piece, Homage to Orf... is based on a classical piece...
JK: Yeah. Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. It's like the most popular twentieth century piece.

HOS: I'm not sure, but I think it's in Excalibur or Conan The Barbarian.
JK: Oh, yeah. Since then, they've used it tons of times. I've seen it used a lot in the last two or three years.
Actually, the composer's name is spelled with two "f s. My uncle is a big classical buff and he looked at the record and went, "Wait a minute... Orff is with two "f"s, not one! (Laughs)

HOS: (Laughing) OOOOPS! My only real complaint with your rendition is that it's too short!
JK: The favorite music of mine that I want to compose, is real powerful, like that, except when you put a singer on, it doesn't become heavy metal, just powerful music. It's hard to find a singer that's just right for the stuff. Like, Edwin Dare was close... this band I had. It was a little too... the vocals were more from the Rob Halford metal side of things.I want to find a nice balance where it's really powerful, but doesn't get classified that way.

HOS: You have a cool hybrid of styles and you seem to be able to weave in and out of them very easily. Have you studied jazz specifically?
JK: Yeah, I studied with a horn teacher. I didn't play horns, but I studied with him in Toledo for a couple of years. He turned me on to that whole thing really deep, like Bill Evans. He was also a piano player, so he could get into a lot of piano voicings and that was a great opener for me. I was around eighteen or nineteen and I was into classical guitar heavily and my style of writing was more of a Diary of a Madman, Randy Rhoads kind of thing. Then, when I got into jazz, it opened up a whole new harmonic world. I like to push real hard rock and jazz together. A lot of guys are from the jazz side and they're adding a rock thing, where I'm kind of the opposite... a hard rock player who's throwing in some jazz.

HOS: You played bass on tour with MSG. Did that come about through your association with Shane and Barry?
JK: Exactly. Shane, actually. I called Barry and said, "Hey, man, I'm replacing you for six weeks, are you mad? He said, "Oh, that's great! I can have my job back when I'm available!" I just wanted to go out for six weeks, hang out with Joe, meet Uli and take a vacation.

HOS: Is Uli up there on your list? He's been my favorite since I first heard his early Scorps stuff.
JK: Actually, we did some drums here in my studio for Transcendental Sky Guitar because, you know, Shane's on that record.

HOS: Uh-huh, and Barry, too.
JK: Yes, Barry is, as well. It was really cool hanging out with Uli. He's one of those guys that you lost touch with and it was like, "God, is he even still alive? What is he doing? And then to hang out with him everyday and eat lunch with him, I was like, "This RULES!"

HOS: I hate your guts! If I could ever see him play live... ! So, what was it like to play in a band with Michael Schenker? Is he as moody and flighty and flakey as rumor would suggest?
JK: With Michael, you know... there's probably different periods where he's better than others; I think maybe when he gets together with UFO, it may be a more difficult thing. They've been together a long time and there are probably more attitudes that are flying around.

HOS: Yeah, maybe more of an ego thing because that's probably the most high-profile gig for all of them.
JK: Well, if it's the Michael Schenker Group, it's sort of Michael and hired side-men that just stay out of his way. I mean, you really don't even see him on the tour. A typical day for me would be I wouldn't see him until the moment we got onstage. Then, we'd rock out, get off the stage and he'd say, "Man, great show!" Then go have a drink, maybe, and I wouldn't see him 'til the next show. Maybe the crew and the help wouldn't be treated so well, you know? That's a tough thing. He treats the band well, though.

HOS: Well, that's good. I still don't understand his walking offstage in Japan that time. I thought that was really bogus.
JK: Yeah, well... you don't want to talk bad about people...

HOS: I know... especially Michael Schenker.
JK: He's definitely got his problems, you know.

HOS: That's too bad. I think there might be a certain amount of frustration that comes from having as much talent as he does and never really being able to rise out of that cult kind of thing. I mean, he's one of the best guitar players ever. I have a couple of magazine interviews from the early eighties where he expressed his frustration with things like Eddie Van Halen being this huge guitar hero and how he hasn't really been able to achieve that for certain reasons...
JK: Well, you know, rock 'n' roll is about all the energy and the flash that goes along with it. Michael certainly isn't the most high-energy, flashy guy. Eddie Van Halen, I mean, c'mon! His guitar is all striped-up... and half the time he's playing on his knees!

HOS: Plus, David Lee Roth was his frontman!
JK: Eddie's jumping six feet off the ground. It's the whole thing... the whole package. Michael certainly has more memorable solos than Eddie Van Halen.

HOS: I think so, too. More memorable songs, too. A lot of the Van Halen stuff doesn't hold up. They still have that kind of juvenile aspect and when I was sixteen, it was great! Twenty years down the road, it doesn't really hold up.
JK: European guitar players are more melodic.

HOS: Yeah, they grow up with classical music and it's just in them, I think. So, after the MSG tour, next thing we knew, you were playing guitar with Pete (Way) and Phil (Mogg) on the Chocolate Box record.
JK: Yeah, you know that had nothing to do with working with Michael. It was such a coincidence. I got the tour with Michael through Shane and, like I said, I don't have any aspirations of being a bass player, I just wanted to go out on the tour because it sounded like fun. Hang out with those guys and play places like Wembley. Two days after I got back, I got a call from Phil Mogg. "Yeah, I got a tape of you from Mike Varney and I like the way you play and we're looking for a guitar player. So, I wrote a few songs for him in the next two or three days, one of them being Last Man In Space. I wanted to write something that... Phil liked my playing, but he's afraid of jazz, you know, and when he sees that side of me he thinks, "Well, that's a little too Jeff Beck." So, I had to paint a clear picture that, yes, this is what I can do. I grew up on this kind of music. So, I wrote a couple songs and that kinda...

HOS: I love that whole album. It was my pick for album of '99. I can't get sick of it! I know you're working on a record right now with Phil, but I hope you also do another Mogg/Way record, as well.
JK: This record we're doing right now isn't Mogg/Way. This is another band.

HOS: Yeah, Phil mentioned that you were looking for a band name.
JK: Originally, I had the idea, "Okay, Phil, let's put out a record of some totally different stuff that you might never get the chance to do, you know, stylistically. Blues roots, this, that and the other thing. Management came out and said, "Man, if you stray too far, you're dead! If Phil starts to explore John Lee Hooker and all this stuff, you guys are dead! We won't be able to sell it."

HOS: I completely disagree with that, myself.
JK: Yeah, actually, I brought him over here and I wrote some tunes for him and we were still feeling out where we wanted to head and then I got this bass player, Jimmy (Curtain) involved and Shane, actually. We started to have some jam sessions and we started to find this thing, you know, and it really felt like a band. Phil was like, "Man, this is a band! This isn't a Phil Mogg solo record, this is a group! It took a completely different shape. Originally, I was more set apart from it where I was just going to be the producer and write and bring in all kinds of different players, but it seemed more special than that, because that tends to be a one-off. Like Mogg/Way, it's not just a one record thing. This isn't a replacement for Mogg/Way. Everybody's kind of busy. Pete was doing his thing, Simon was out with Dio.

HOS: Right. So, would you be working with Simon again? If you do another Mogg/Way record, are you going to go out of your way to have the same line-up as the Chocolate Box record?
JK: Yeah, I don't like all that interchanging members. Unless somebody says, "You know what? This isn't where my heart is at anymore, I don't want to do it." I would rather wait and get everybody available.

HOS: It's worth it to have that continuity.
JK: Simon is definitely the drummer for that.

HOS: Cool. Personally, I prefer him to Aynsley.(Dunbar). Aynsley is on the latest UFO and Michael's Adventures of the Imagination and he's a good drummer, but there's something about Simon...
JK: He's a powerhouse!

HOS: Yeah, he's heavier and he just plays the most tasty fills. He's not a real progressive sounding drummer, but he really plays for the songs... the perfect fills and everything. He's not just trying to destroy his kit at all times; it's much more tasteful.
JK: I would say the drum tracks that Simon did for Mogg/Way was probably the quickest recording session I've ever seen. I mean, he just came in, set his kit up and fuckin' blasted right through the songs. A day and a half!

HOS: Yeah, and he's really a nice guy, too. Are you going to be covering any old blues standards on the record with Phil?
JK: Hey! That's an idea if we run short of material!

HOS: Well, it says on your web site that you've written twenty-three songs, so I doubt that happening!
JK: We have more than enough ideas, but God, that would be a good bonus track idea or something.

HOS: Yeah, well, in the past he's done Built for Comfort and Mystery Train and it's cool to hear him sing that stuff in an updated form. I mean, the guy puts more soul in one syllable than a lot of singers have in their whole catalogue! He just dumps it out. He's amazing!
JK: He's got a tone, man! A friend of mine mentioned that you don't get tired of the sound of his voice.

HOS: I haven't in twenty-five years!
JK: I think there's some singers that have more chops, that have more range and you get sick of them quicker. He's like one of those singers who ... umm... he's subtle. He's powerful, but he's not trying to be in your face all the time.

HOS: I was thinking about that earlier. He's got a certain subtlety, not just in his singing, but in the way he builds a song and the way he conveys a story; something like Last Man In Space. He's a great storyteller and he leaves just enough mystery where you may not be quite sure what he's talking about, but maybe you can plug it into your own life and it becomes almost an autobiographical thing for the listener. How do you go about writing a song with Phil?
JK: You know, it's kind of weird the way I write a lot of times because, like with Phil, I'll try to imagine what he could be singing or really lay down a nice bed track of music for him to just blast right over. A lot of those songs, like on Chocolate Box, I have original tapes of them in the music form without vocals, without him even having heard them yet. Then, we'd get together and jam and we'd rearrange and cut and paste a little. He'd just sing over the top and it was great. That doesn't really work with a lot of singers because there has to be a common ground where you feel the same thing that the music is giving off. There's a lot of singers where I have to sit down with an acoustic and just keep going and going until they find something they like and then you build it. With Phil, I grew up on their music, so I know...

HOS: Right. You just get into that mode because you're familiar with the guy's work and his style. That must be pretty cool, though, to say, "Wow, I'm making a record with Phil Mogg!"
JK: Oh, I love it! The last four or five songs... we had written like eighteen songs or something and then we thought we had everything and we were recording drum tracks and jamming and we had a night where I said, you know, "Let's not worry about these other songs, let's just jam." I put up a mic, Phil started singing and we'd just go into something. We wrote like four songs in about two hours like that and it was really powerful stuff.

HOS: Yeah, you can't do that unless you have chemistry. That's when the stuff just flies out of you and you almost can't even help it. There's nothing like that.
JK: That's when I knew it was a band, when we'd sit there and jam and it felt really good.

HOS: Was Phil coming up with lyrics off the top of his head?
JK: Oh, he's brilliant for that!

HOS: That's real tough to do.
JK: I mean, he'll just sing, you know. What he does is he finds a melody and a rhythmic idea that he likes and he just inserts lyrics. The lyrics just come out of him. They're more of like an afterthought for him. It's the melody and the phrasing and where he wants to be in his vocal range. That's everything. The lyrics are like the last thing.

HOS: He's a great lyricist, too.
JK: He's a pleasure to work with, too. He's really open-minded and easy going. That was the other thing with Mogg/Way... man, talk about no egos, I mean, since I was handling most of the music, the band kind of let me do my own thing. There was never that condescending attitude like, "Hey, kid, you haven't been around, you don't know, this is how it works, this is rock 'n' roll." There was none of that bullshit, you know?

HOS: (Laughing) Well, they heard your playing, that's why! It spoke for itself. So, would you say that you and Phil are friends at this point?
JK: Oh, yeah. I'd say friends more than... I'd say friends first, actually.

HOS: I got a vibe when I met him that he's really an easy-going, down-to-earth guy.
JK: Yeah. I mean, there's people you work with that you don't really care to hang out with. Barry's not one of them, Shane's not one of them, Phil's certainly not one of them. He'd bring his girlfriend to town and we'd all go out with our girlfriends to a show or whatever and just hang like best friends. I think when you have to work with somebody eight hours a day, you'd better like 'em! Otherwise, the money better be so good... (laughs). I don't want to be involved in projects like that where I'm not liking somebody I'm working with.

HOS: You're not going to create anything of any value if you're miserable. So, any hope of seeing you and Phil out on the road?
JK: Oh, that's a good question! I'd love to do something like that! We've talked about doing something, at least out in L.A., where we're recording this record. I think he was trying to figure out a visa situation. Technically, you have to have a working visa, so we're working on that.

HOS: We'll be looking forward to that and to the new record. Well, man, I know you have things to do. You said Phil's coming over later today?
JK: Yeah, we're going to do some mixing.

HOS: Well, do me a favor and tell him I said hi.
JK: I'll do that.

HOS: Thanks a lot for taking the time to talk, Jeff. Good luck with everything and I'll be in touch.
JK: Thanks, Chris. Take care.

A Partial Jeff Kollman Discography:

Jeff Kollman
Schizoid (1992)
Into the Unknown (1995)
Shedding Skin (1999)

Cosmosquad
Cosmosquad (1997)
Squadrophenia (TBA)

Edwin Dare
The Unthinkable Deed (1992, re-released 1994)
Can't Break Me (1995)
My Time to Die (1998)

John West
Permanent Mark (1998)

Mogg/Way
Chocolate Box (1999)

Visit Jeff's website at www.jeffkollman.com.