The Psychedelic Guitar presents

The Beast material has such a tight, communal, organic vibe to it. Can you share some words on the band and the creative process at the time?

You are either very perceptive, or have talked to an original Beast band member. We lived together in a ranch house in the Black Forest outside of Colorado Springs that was isolated enough to do acid jams at 4 A.M. with no paranoia at all. This was when we first formed and we were close, wives, girlfriends, cats, dogs, and 1000 acres with 3 ponds on it. The organic part probably stems from the fact that there was no indoor toilet. There is nothing like taking a shit when it’s 10 degrees outside, and your ass has to rest on a popsicle cold seat.

The creative process varied from a circular on the fly idea session, to individual writers working alone, to guys pairing or tripling up. Pretty much a free-for-all.

When my guitar students ask "What is psychedelic rock?" the three things I play them are Blue Cheer Vincebus Eruptum, The Electric Prunes Mass In F-minor, and the first Beast album. I figure that's a good start! Any suggestions?
(I mean, somebody's got to hand Blue Cheer to a 12-year-old!)

I'd hit 'em with H.P. Lovecraft’s first album and Zappa's first album with "Help I'm a Rock" on it. (Freak Out)

There are a bunch of compositional similarities between, for example,
Beast's 1st album and Sugarloaf's "Spaceship Earth". You being the common
link, what were some influences on your songwriting and the distinct way you
stitch together chords and riffs?

The common thread is to write a great song. I was really conscious of writing chord changes and melodies that didn't all sound alike so that each song has it's own musical identity, not just the same chords and groove with different words. Some of the chord changes I wrote then blow my own mind, because now I don't write that radically musically. I listen to the Beast or the Loaf and wonder, "Where the fuck did I come up with that?"

Describe the gear you've used through the years... first guitar, through Beast, Sugarloaf and the years that followed. Guitars, amps & pedals. And, what do you play these days?

Gear; every guitar I've ever owned? That's a tall order to remember.

First guitar was a beater that was pretty much unplayable, so of course that's the guitar I learned on. I had a Martin acoustic that my folks bought me for Christmas once they saw how devoted I was to it. It was a small all mahogany guitar, but it was a Martin and played great. My first electric was some piece of shit, but I soon got a Fender Jazzmaster, cuz that's what the surfin’ dudes were playin’. To list all the guitars over the years with a story with each would take a long, long time. Here is a list with my current guitars at the end.

West Coast Pop Art Band and Superband Les Paul Fretless wonder triple pickup gold hardware, black
Beast-Firebird custom three pickup-I cut down and modified. Amp-Fender Twin Reverb on shred (11).
Sugarloaf-Above Firebird, Fender Stratocaster with Telecaster maple neck, modified with humbuckers and electronic goodies, Emrad "Sugarloaf" custom amps, Gibson Rhythm King Amp-Rickenbacker 12 string –black,
Freddie Henchi-new Les Paul Deluxe-Rhythm King.
Brother Son-same gear,
Bob Yeazel and the Nightcrawlers-Paul Reed Smith custom neck through, Rarebird custom made, double stereo tube works rack system with effects processors, etc. Digital, loud and killer! Also used a GR9 Synth and ran it into one of the stereo amps. Marshall 50w combo.

I just remembered, I owned a Martin D35 12 string, a Martin D28 six string, a Gibson Hummingbird, an Airline six string, all manner of pedals, dodads, herbs & spices, spells, charms and accessories. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, especially the classical guitars I've owned and dragged around to the park and beach etc, etc.

Currently I am using my Paul Reed Smith, Rarebird Statohawk (both these guitars are custom wired internally for the GK2a Synth Driver) and a 40th Anniversary model American Strat with a maple neck and noiseless pickups except for the bridge pickup which is a Seymour Duncan stacked double coil. Acoustically I own a 1941 D28 Herringbone Martin I inherited from my father and a 1964 Martin 0018 classical guitar. They both are two of the best sounding and playing guitars I've ever seen. I'm a lucky man to own such beautiful instruments. My amp set up is a Laney 50W tube suitcase amp, with a Fulltone overdrive, a Fulltone wah-wah pedal, and a T.C. Electronics chorus. Paired to this but a completely different amp is my stereo GR33 Synthesizer. It is plugged into a Stereo Tubeworks rack mounted amp, then sent out to two separate speaker cabinets with an EV12 speaker rated at 300 watts. These speaker cabinets are tuned to factory specs and built by a good friend of mine-Jack Duncan. The sound is awesome and I use the synth pedal as a volume pedal and fade the synth in and out under my guitar as needed.

Influences on your playing: early and through the years, guitar or otherwise.

I’d have to say early would be Chet Atkins. My Dad played in church and basically had real country type roots and he’d listen to Chet Atkins all the time and I’d listen too. The double picking, the thumb and fingers doing the melody and how he could pick the rhythm and bass with his thumb was pretty cool. He influenced me at the beginning and then through the years, like everybody else, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix a lot. He really turned me around. The surfin’ days. Surfin’ leads are pretty much all the same. Beach Boys was pretty good stuff. They always had tight tracks. The Astronauts, The Ventures. Otherwise would be a lot of classical composers. Korsakov with Scheherezade. That piece of music ripped me apart when I heard it. It’s killer music. You know, “Nutcracker Suite”, that’s real commercial but it’s a beautiful melody. It’s beautiful music, just incredible. “Moonlight Sonata” is killer. I don’t go way into classical but I like the stuff I’ve been turned on to. I listen to a lot of jazz or classic rock. Some blues. It depends on my mood. A little bit of everything.

Who do you like in jazz?

There I have to go with pretty much traditional type of stuff. The Crusaders, Miles Davis stuff like that. Stuff that’s melodic. I like melodic jazz. The Crusaders were kind of the beginning of easy listening jazz.

The first Beast album helped keep me thinking right through some wacky times in my 20s. To me, it spoke of many things I strongly believe in. One line that stuck with me and is sort of a personal mantra at this point is, "God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing." As in, work is noble but to make your music is something sacred, and the higher forces acknowledge this. Your views on this and the more spiritual aspects of making music would be of much interest to me.

Yeah, I actually got that line “God respects me when I work but he loves me when I sing”, l plagiarized that out of one of those touchy feely books of, you know, go placidly amongst the noise and haste or whatever. Remember that? Total wisdom to change the things you can’t. It’s almost like an AA thing. I got it out of some book that I got. I just mimicked it and put it to music, so that phrase I can’t take credit for. I did take that phrase and re-do it but I didn’t come up with it, but it really impacted me. You know you go to work to make a living and feed yourself, but you got to have your soul to really let yourself go. To express yourself artistically you sing.

The spiritual aspect; being the son of a Pentecostal minister I was raised in an atmosphere of actually kind of a cult religious fervor that my family is still into. It’s just not my thing. So I did get into a lot of different religious aspects; yoga, chanting, meditation, Eastern religion looking for the answer to inner peace. Find out what God is to me you know. The spiritual aspect is still an ongoing thing. I basically believe that we’re all god. Each person is god and we’re all part of this big overall force. When life’s over it’s probably lights out. Maybe there’s reincarnation. Maybe there’s a heaven. I don’t know. I’m kind of going with what I feel, just like, well people don’t want to admit it. They’re walkin’ on streets of gold you know, being reincarna-ted life goes on you never die and its recycled energy. I think that’s more of a wish than reality. You die and you’re gone. You lived your life, you learned to enjoy it and you are what you are. I could be wrong. (laughs) Going through life being a nice person is just more enjoyable than going through life being a selfish prick. I’ve been that too I guess, but I try to be a good person. Spiritual thing, yeah.

When I’m playing it’s spiritual to me. It is. When I get in a zone playing it’s unbelievable. I’m hang-gliding down the Grand Canyon high on acid. It’s just like woo you’re on a ride! Release the vehicle. You get something on a certain level where you can go beyond where the average person can and it gives back to you. It’s such an incredible high you can’t believe it. It doesn’t happen every night, ok, but some nights. Every night is good, but some nights are unbelievable.

If there was a moment that music / guitar grabbed you and shook you to the core and said "Music is your life's path!" please share the details of this epiphany.

Pretty much I started playing at 14. I practiced 8 hours a day. Two hours classical, two hours finger picking, two hours jazz, I’d study it, and two hours rock and roll. I’d practice 8 hours a day with religious fervor. It grabbed me right by the throat. You know it really grabbed me. I didn’t know it was going to be my life’s path. It wasn’t like that, that it’s what I wanted to be. I didn’t even think about it in terms of life.

What do you carry with you from the "psychedelic" era?

Number one answer; trails. (laughs) Trails and I just get kind of a shit-eating grin that comes over me from having taken so much acid, that makes life very pleasant.

What projects have you been involved in since Sugarloaf?

Refer back to my site for this. There’s a bunch of different bands and some that aren’t even on there so the site can fill you in.

Who are you currently playing with, do they have websites and are there
recordings available?

I’m doing the Freddi-Henchi Band, the J.D. Kelly Revue and pondering putting my own thing back together right now. You can check that out on the What’s New page on the site.

Yes. The Freddi-Henchi Band has a CD (that Bob is on) and the J.D. Kelly band is working on one that I played on one track.

Name five albums that you consider essential to the soundtrack of your life - stuff that really moves you.

Wow, that’s a good one. I’ll have to say Abbey Road, Vanilla Fudge is right up there, the first one, Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced. I really like Donald Fagen The Nightfly. I love that. Only 5? The Crystal Ship by H.P. Lovecraft (1^st LP), killer shit, that’s goosebump music for me. Donovan’s album with “Guinnevere”. I listened to that high on acid so many times right here in Fort Collins in 1965 and it wasn’t even illegal yet. They didn’t know how to classify it. Child is Father to the Man by Blood, Sweat and Tears. I really like that record too. I really liked the tunes and the production. There’s some songs on there that are killer. Scheherezade, classical of course. A Patch of Blue soundtrack is killer. The Nutcracker Suite is another beautiful classical piece that moves me. There’s a lot of them.

Other than the biggies (Hendrix, Clapton, etc. who blew everybody's minds), who were some players of the era (and since) that you thought were just outstanding, and what about them grabbed you?

Let’s see. Peter Green for sure. He had a record called “Supernatural” with the feedback I said, “Who the fuck is that?” It’s incredible. He never got the credit he deserved. Jeff Beck. He and Peter are killer players. Johnny Winter, he’s out there doing bigger clubs and stuff. This guy is a monster. He’s great. Stevie Ray copied him.

Three causes you feel strongly about:

Can’t we all just get along, you know? Love your fellow man. Kindness towards people. I feel strongly about that. You know, walk a mile in another man’s shoes. I don’t know about a cause. Legalization of marijuana. You know some sort of change in the policies of drugs. Let’s see, man’s compassion for man, drugs, and the lack of enthusiasm and support for the arts. Programs are being cut. When I got laid off and went to the unemployment office they have a list of 150 jobs in different aspects. No entertainment, you know. No arts at all as a profession. I had to write it in there that it’s what I really prefer to do. It didn’t enter their mind that that’s a way to make a living. You don’t have to be Madonna to be a singer. So that just kind of blew me away just how little credibility or recognition it gets unless you’re a superstar. It’s not even considered an honest endeavor I guess. It’s not even considered.

A few books that changed your life:

Autobiography of the Yogi…all of them. All of the books I’ve read have changed my life in some way.

What is your perspective on something you helped to create (your music, specifically but also psychedelic rock music in general) coming to mean so much so deeply to so many people?

I don’t know I guess being lucky to be there. It was really a neat time to be happen-ing. It was cool. The social revolution, the self-awareness, the acid flows, free love baby, Yeah!! It was beautiful. Being right there in the thick of it and chipping in a little bit. It don’t mean anything to anybody right now but back then you could get the shit beat out of you just for having long hair. You went against everything this country stood for if you had long hair. You were bad. It wasn’t bad. We paved the way for the pink Mohawks and ear piercings and nose piercings of today and we got people used to seeing something a little bit weird.

If you had to pick three, what were three of the biggest music moments in your life?

I’d say what I really remember right now is opening up for Three Dog Night in Boston. Boston Gardens, “Green Eyed Lady” was just happening and they charged us for it of course, our record company. We flew out from Denver. They got us on the show with Three Dog to open up for them. “Green Eyed Lady” was just coming out, kinda hitting the east coast. We flew out and flew back and we opened up. I was onstage and we had just come from doing clubs, doing these smaller venues. Sometimes we would do bigger clubs but this was like, ahh! 17,000 people or whatever it was. Standing up there I was like scared to death. I’d never done a show that big, you know. I was terrified that I’d make a mistake so I concentrated and looked at my feet and I just froze man. I didn’t move around. I was just like trying to remember all my guitar parts. I was terrified to look out. I wasn’t relaxed at all, but we came out good you know. Jimmy’s (Greenspoon) at the side of the stage throwing bottles and yelling at me “Come on motherfucker. Lighten up. Loosen up.” It was hard. I didn’t see him. But we did it. Then on the way back to the airport we heard “Green Eyed Lady” three times on the radio. You know they played it every 10 minutes. The DJ loved it, so I guess it worked. That’s one.

Two would be the Hollywood Bowl I guess, because it’s the Hollywood Bowl. We did the 99cent show. And three would be probably Bandstand, you know, Dick Clark. Playing on Bandstand was a big deal. There’s a bunch of them. Fillmore West was a big deal, playing at the Grammys was a big deal.

What was the strangest gig you ever played?

There are too many to pick one out as the weirdest. There are a hundred weirdest. I can’t pin that one down.

Any life wisdom you'd like to pass along?

Don’t take yourself seriously and have a good time. Don’t get caught up in your own hype. Do unto others.

Again, thanks to Bob for his time & words.
Visit the official Bob Yeazel site at www.bobyeazel.com.
Thanks for loaning me the pictures too, guys!

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