BAM Magazine
November 1, 1996
TOOLS Profile: Robyn Hitchcock
by J. Kordosh
Eccentric Brit Robyn Hitchcock is best known as a singer-songwriter, although he's spent much of his professional life as a guitarist in bands (namely, The Soft Boys, where he shared chores with Kimberly Rew, and The Egyptians, in which he was the sole guitarist). Still, it's safe to assume that his cult of fans spend far more time analyzing his arcane, metaphor-ridden lyrics and Beatles-meets-Syd Barrett melodies, than they do discussing his guitar tunings.
Despite this, Hitchcock is, if not unique, certainly a stylist on his instrument. His technique is available for scrutiny on the recently-released Moss Elixir, a nifty solo offering that features (most prominently) the violin of Deni Bonet and the guitars (both acoustic and electric) of Robyn Hitchcock.
I mention to Hitchcock what Mac Randall recently wrote in Musician: "Not many people think of Hitchcock as a guitarist. That's a shame because he's developed one of the most distinctive combination lead/rhythm guitar styles around. Blurring the distinction between single-note lines and chord arpeggiation with a gritty tone and plenty of ringing open strings, it's a style at once deliberate and unpredictable. And it fills enough space to eliminate the need for another guitarist."
"I hope he's right," says Hitchcock. "I have been playing guitar for nearly 30 years, so I must've developed in some way -- or, if I haven't, I must've at least arrived at something." He describes his technique as "kind of, involuntary. Backwards, really. Like a spider trying to stay straight. That kind of thing." (It's not only his lyrics that are elliptical, I'll tell you that.)
Hitchcock says he has eight or nine guitars, three of them acoustics: a Yamaha he's had for almost 20 years; a Martin; and a British guitar called a "Fylde" that is his instrument of choice. "The Fylde is a very good guitar for picking," he says. "You can strum it as well, if you want. But you can meander quite high on the neck, and it's very...'tasty''s, sort of, a corny word to use. But a really good guitar sound is edible. You feel you can sink your teeth into it. If you look at the corner of a Telecaster, it actually looks as though someone has sunken their teeth into it. I think that people often refer to the Telecaster sound as 'chunky' -- to me, the Telecaster sound is a very edible guitar sound."
No surprise, then, that Hitchcock's other key guitar is a Telecaster, and that I'm vaguely hungry. As for the Fylde, though -- which he used not only on Moss Elixir, but all the way back on his brilliant 1984 solo LP, I Often Dream of Trains -- Hitchcock says, "I found the Martin is actually hard work compared to the Fylde. I think it's partly the action. I put lighter strings on the Martin just to get a good solid strum out of it. But it doesn't have any of the agility for picking that the Fylde has." He adds, on a pleasant note, "I think Mr. Fylde is still alive."
Hitchcock, while not one to run himself down, doesn't overrate his ability, either. "I used to use things (like a Fender Twin) which would be really loud in the studio -- but when it was played back, there'd be this tinny little clunk coming out. Whereas Kimberly [Rew] in The Soft Boys could get sustain out of a guitar that wasn't even plugged in." Yikes!
"You compensate by multi-tracking, so that you can have three or four of you doing it," he adds. "I think Peter Buck does a similar thing. He doesn't innately have much sustain, so he just plays it really loud to make it sound like it's gonna last." Although he has a Vox AC30 amp in the studio, ("Probably Status Quo had them when they started," he observes) Hitchcock goes direct to the board through a Sans Amp, which is kind of like a Rockman. Speaking of amps, the never-aesthetically-challenged Hitchcock says he likes the Vox because they're "quite good-looking amps. Sort of, rectangular."
"Umm, aren't they all kind of rectangular?" I ask.
"Yeah, but these are handsome rectangles," he rejoins.
Hitchcock also says that he's finally experimenting with alternate tunings: "For 'Heliotrope', I discovered this one: The bottom string is F, then G-C-F-G-E," he says. Making it a C-4th, I guess. He's also discovered what he calls, the "venerable DADGAD tuning," which is exactly as it's spelled -- only more musical sounding.
Robyn sums up his approach to the guitar: "I desperately try to play arpeggios in time, but they never come out that way. I probably put far more effort into playing than I need to. A lot of people will just sit there confidently at the top of the neck, and they'll Clapton-ize all over the place, and they'll hit all the right notes -- and it sounds, in most cases, too good to enjoy. With me, I'm whirling my fingers around before I even hit the guitar. Then I'll desperately hope that my fingers land on the right fret.
"I don't take it for granted."
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