BUDGIE - Next Stop, Cuckooland! Page 3
by Martin Popoff

Switching gears to the all important guitar situation within this new version of Budgie, Burke offers some interesting background on both Simon and some of the interesting, seldom heard textures you get with the new record.

"I want to work with each guitarist that I have in the band. I want to work with them, with my ideas. I don't want it to be just me writing and telling them what to do. I want to drag the best out of them, and the incentive is, you're part of this track if you come up with the ideas and Simon is dead keen, and that's what I want. At first he was a bit apprehensive, I think he was, about using more electronic sounds and what have you. But he's got like a Boss GT-8 type set-up, and of course, like most guitarists, he does his pre-sets the way he's going to do them throughout the set, to find the best sound, don't they? They just pre-set them for the next set up. That tends to be just a convenience, and he uses it for probably about, I don't know, 1% of the sounds out of these pedals."

"And I said, 'What else is in there?' And he starts tapping through, and there's all sorts in there (laughs). It's like a kaleidoscope of sounds. I say, 'Why don't you use that?!' And he looks at me blinking, 'Are you serious?!' You know, it's only been synthed up a bit; it sounds sort of like a soft synthesizer, and you get around with messing up with the envelopes and the waveforms and they disappear, and they're great on rhythm tracks, as long as you keep a certain amount of definition. I mean, if you're not too over-the-top electronically. I just don't want to hear the same old sounds. I think that's what it is. And I try to coax Simon into trying a bit more, trying to use his effects in different ways. And I think after the first time, there's no stopping him; he's pressing on the pedals and coming up with all sorts of things. It's brilliant (laughs)."

In closing, Burke relates that the band is off to Australia, and then who knows? America, you see, is never entirely off the dance card - it's just seemed that way in the past, save for the odd jaunt straight into old hard rock-mad San Antonio and back out again.

BUDGIE - Next Stop, Cuckooland! Page 4