PHOTO COURTESY OF SCALETHESUMMIT.COM
WEBSITE: www.scalethesummit.com
COUNTRY: United States  l  STYLE: Progressive / Experimental / Metal

WHEN WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU BECAME AWARE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AS A GENRE AND WHAT MADE YOU THINK “THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO AS WELL”?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: I grew up listening to instrumental music. My dad played multiple instruments growing up and passed that along to me. Ever since I could remember it was Jos Satriani playing on the stereo. It probably took until about 19 years old before I decided that instrumental music was what I wanted to play full time. I had played in a normal technical metal band for a year or so when me and Travis (other STS guitarist) decided to move out to Cali to further work on our guitar skills at Musicians Institute.

Only a couple months there and we had already started writing music, looking for other guys to complete our band… not knowing that we were going to play instrumental music. After we finished our first song, we set back and thought about what we had wrote and decided that it felt full enough as is, so we didn’t add vocals. From then on out, we all liked the idea of playing instrumental music, and here we are today, a full time instrumental band. Its great!

WHEN I FIRST HEARD ABOUT THE BAND AND SAW YOU USING SEVEN AND EIGHT STRING GUITARS I WAS EXPECTING SUPER HEAVY DOWN-TUNED MAYHEM BUT WHAT I HEARD WAS SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. DO YOU GET THAT REACTION FROM PEOPLE A LOT?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: Haha, yes, we get that all of the time. People use to write us asking how we used 8 strings, when they didn’t hear any low tuned chuggy parts. I would just explain to them that we went the opposite direction and tuned one low and one high string, with standard tuning 6 string in the middle, instead of the 2 low. I found more use with that tuning, as you could make bigger chords, extended melodies, etc… It really helped to push my writing boundaries.

THE COOL THING ABOUT AN INSTRUMENT IS THAT YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW ALMOST EVERY DAY. WHAT PLAYING TECHNIQUE HAS HAD THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON YOUR PLAYING STYLE AFTER YOU LEARNED TO MASTER IT?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: I would say string skipping on guitar. I like the large interval jumps, and I think that sort of sound really stands out a lot in our music. Thats one thing that I love about music and playing an instrument is you can never learn everything! Keep life forever fresh.

ONE GUITARIST USES A SEVEN STRING WHILE THE OTHER ONE USES AN EIGHT STRING. IS IT HARD DURING THE WRITING PROCESS TO FIND AND STAY IN KEY WITH ONE ANOTHER SOMETIMES?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: Not at all, we are all trained in theory, so writing is very smooth with zero problems.

If you look at the tuning stacked it’s easy to see how it lines up. 

BEADGBE - 7 String.
BEDAGBEG - 8 String. 

We basically have the same tuning, except I have a extra high G string, which like every guitar player knows, there is already a G string on the guitar, so it’s really nothing new.

IN THE PROCESS OF FINDING THE SOUND YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU MUST HAVE USED A LOT OF DIFFERENT GUITAR AND DRUM BRANDS OVER THE YEARS. HAS THE ROAD TO FINDING YOUR IDEAL INSTRUMENT BEEN A LONG ONE?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: Not really, I think a person’s sound really comes from them. I could recreate our sound on any electric guitar and high gain amp with ease. I would say that our sound is really distinguished by our chord and melodic construction on guitar, and then the bass and drum parts that are written afterwards.

DO YOU LIKE TO EXPERIMENT A LOT WITH DIFFERENT AMPS AND PEDALS AND IS THERE STILL A PIECE OF GEAR THAT IS ON YOUR WISH LIST; AND HAS TOURING WITH A BAND LIKE DREAM THEATER GIVEN YOU BETTER IDEAS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR OWN LIVE SHOW EVEN MORE WHEN IT COMES TO GEAR?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: I’m not too in to trying tons of amps. I know a lot of guys in the guitar scene that are gear heads and they seem to be trying new stuff all of the time which seems to make them pretty stressed. For the past 5 years I had played an ENGL amp, and just recently switched over to Mesa Boogie Mark V and a Mesa Stiletto cab. I love the new Mesa head. Definitely hearing it every night out on the road with Dream Theater helped me to get a great idea of what you could accomplish with Mesa, so I thank John Petrucci for pounding my head with it every night, haha.

I would have to say the biggest thing we got from them was stage lightning for shows. Granted, this all comes down to budget, the bigger, the better the light show is. As the opening band on that tour our budget was nowhere near theirs, but we’ll get there. We are brainstorming ideas for our stage show every week when off of the road. Thinking about adding in some imagery to our stage show with some sort of video projection. I think that would really help set the vibe/mood for our music being able to see images or video with color, etc… Should be interesting.

THE MOST FUN YOU’VE EVER HAD ON THE ROAD, AND IF YOU COULD PERFORM WITH ANY BAND AGAIN WHO WOULD IT BE?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: Dream Theater tour was by far the most fun I have had on the road and the most relaxing at the same time. Everything is so well organized on larger scale tours like that. Plus Dream Theater are top notch professionals when it comes to every aspect of touring. We would drive up at our scheduled load in time, there would be venue employees there to unload our gear and move it inside, we would then proceed to catering, where everything was ready and waiting for us. That was probably the most spoiling of the entire thing, food already cooked, and good food that that. I hate eating fast food on the road, when on top of the less amounts of sleep you are getting, you are eating unhealthy, not fun for sure.

So besides that, the shows ran really smooth with little ease and zero problems. Their crew was very helpful and did their job well. Definitely would like to tour with Dream Theater again in the future. The Between The Buried and Me tour in Jan was awesome as well, mainly because we were in a bus on that tour, so we didn’t handle any of the driving. That was fantastic. Basically go to sleep at the end of the night and wake up outside the next venue. Spoiled I guess.

I SEE ON YOUR MYSPACE THAT THE BAND WILL BE PERFORMING NEW SONGS LIVE FROM JUNE ONWARDS. WHAT CAN FANS EXPECT AND IS THERE A NEW ALBUM ON THE WAY ANY TIME SOON?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: You got it. We’ll be playing brand new songs on all tours from here on out for the rest of the year. We are all really excited about the new stuff. From our most recent album to the one we are working on now, there has been some evolving like never before. Not that we have changed our “sound” by any means, but we are clearly progressing and playing more with each other, it’s awesome.

We’re trying out a couple of new approaches to song writing that I think people are definitely going to be shocked by and really get into. We’ll be performing around 2-3 new songs each show, all which sound surprisingly different when I handled the writing for all of them. They all have really great vibes, color, and feel to them. As for the next record’s release date. We are looking to enter the studio in the fall with a projected early 2011 release…. and then consistent touring worldwide.

YOUR SONG “THE GREAT PLAINS” HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE ROCK BAND GAME. IT IS AMAZING HOW TECHNOLOGY IS ALWAYS FINDING NEW AND EXCITING WAYS FOR MUSICIANS TO CONNECT WITH THEIR FANS. EXCEPT FOR SHOWS, HOW DO YOU GUYS LIKE TO INTERACT WITH FANS?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: Yes, the Rock Band thing is definitely awesome. It’s cool to think back when I started this band I had no idea where me and the guys would end up, especially not on a video game. Its great promotion and for the people that already know of us, get to jam out on our music in the easiest possible form, haha. Even though, on a side note, I’m terrible at Rock Band.

As for interacting with our fans, me and a few of the other guys (as our fans know), write back every piece of fan mail we get… even though majority of it will be from me. Via email, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube comments, letters, etc… We get back to every single one. It’s really cool spending all the time getting back to our fans and seeing how excited they are to get a response from us. I like people to know that we are real people as well and glad to see how many of them really appreciate it! We also come out during shows, after our set and mingle, talk with fans, sign stuff, etc…. That when you really see excitement in people, scares me a little at times, haha.

NOW THAT THE BAND IS SIGNED AND HAS REACHED A CERTAIN LEVEL OF SUCCESS WHAT ASPECTS OF THAT DIY ATTITUDE THAT GOT YOU SINGED IN THE FIRST PLACE STILL REMAINS WITH THE BAND TODAY AND WHAT WOULD YOU GUYS STILL LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THIS BAND?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: Everything actually. I’m still very stubborn in not wanting to let anyone take over anything that has to do with this band. Basically how I look at everything, is whatever work you put in is what you will get out. So still to this day I do just has much promoting and hard work as I did before we were signed, except now I have help from the label for advertising and budget help, our agent for booking shows, etc… So in a way they take the load of from the really time consuming parts, which opens up more time for me to spend writing and interacting with fans. I actually still run our merch store full time when we are not on the road.

I think as far as accomplishments for the future, we would all like to tour a little more full time than we have been, and make it overseas. I would like to get a Steve Vai and Satriani tour under our belt as well as go to South America and Europe with Dream Theater. We were invited on the Prog Nation South America tour with them in March, but at the time we didn’t have the budget to make it happen sadly. Hopefully we’ll get another invite in the future. So, tour tour tour, and keep releasing many more albums!

ANY OTHER COMMENTS OR ANYTHING ELSE FANS SHOULD LOOK OUT FOR?

CHRIS LETCHFORD: First, thanks for doing the interview! And a big thanks to all of our fans that have been supporting and listening to our music and for all you new readers, make sure to check us out online and on the road later this year. Everyone be on the lookout for our next full length release, should be releasing a new song online before the year is up!

INTERVIEW BY NEIL VAN ZYL