03/07/2015
Ewan Dobson - An interview
with the acoustic guitar virtuoso from Canada. "When I start writing
music, it comes in waves... waves of inspiration."
Ewan Dobson InterviewEwan
dobson profile
Ewan Dobson is a gifted
acoustic guitarist from Canada. After seeing a few videos of Motley Crue and
Judas Priest as a youngster, he decided to pick up the guitar and give it a
try. He learned the basics and started tackling songs like "Crazy
Train" and other popular metal songs. This continued for around six years,
until his uncle introduced him to classical guitar. It was at this time when he
buckled down and really started to learn and master the acoustic guitar. Ewan
studied with Dr. Alvin Tung from the University of Toronto for around six
years. After going to local open mic showcases to start introducing his music,
Ewan began to compete in regional classical guitar competitions. When listening
to some Leo Kottke music, Ewan got the idea to try using fingerpicks on a steel
string acoustic. It didn't take long for him to master this technique, and he
would enter more acoustic guitar competitions. Ewan wound up winning The
Canadian Fingerstyle Competition and secured a record deal with CandyRat
Records, which specializes in instrumental guitar music. With all this experience,
Ewan began to tour the world showcasing his talented playing, and also began
receiving endorsements from many guitar companies. Now that Ewan has produced
numerous CD's, he continues to tour and prosper. Look for him to be a playing a
city near you on his current 2015 tour.
R.V.B. - This is Rob von
Bernewitz from Long Island New York, how are you today?
E.D. - I'm doing great.
R.V.B. - Are you in
Canada?
E.D. - Yes
R.V.B. - Well it kind of
feels like Canada here.
E.D. - Didn't you guys
just have a snow storm?
R.V.B. - Yeah, we had one
or two this year but it's about nine degrees out right now.
E.D. - Oh, that's not so
bad.
R.V.B. - That's warm to
you right? (Haha)
E.D. - It was -20 here
today.
R.V.B. - Ouch... are you
closer to the New York side of Canada?
E.D. - I'm two hours from
Buffalo... on the other side of Lake Ontario is Rochester.
R.V.B. - So what is it,
Montreal Canadians or Toronto Maple Leafs?
E.D. - Toronto Maple
Leafs.
R.V.B. - (Hahaha) They
were on the Island last night.
E.D. - Oh that's right,
they did play there.
R.V.B. - So
congratulations on your career up to this point. Your guitar is starting to
take you all over the world.
E.D. - I seems to be. I
traveled to places I never thought I would go and play... China, Japan, and
places in Europe. I really enjoy that part of it... traveling and playing.
R.V.B. - Do you get to
take in any sights when you are traveling?
E.D. - A little bit. There
was a bit of sightseeing in terms of when we're driving in and out of different
cities. I get to see the skyline, the entry going into the city, and then the
downtown core. As for museums, I'm not really into that sort of thing. I just
go in and play. I did some sightseeing in China... I saw the Great Wall and a
few tombs.
R.V.B. - Now when you went
to China, were you on an acoustic bill, so to speak?Ewan dobson shanghai
E.W. - No, that was a
mixture of some solo shows and demonstrating a product. There's a brand of
guitars in China called Nightwish, and when I play in China, I demonstrate
their guitars. They're a Chinese made guitar, so the deal is when I play in
China, I play those guitars. There's something called the Shanghai Music Expo,
which is sort of like NAMM of China.
R.V.B. - Oh, ok.
E.D. - There's a booth for
Nightwish Guitars and I will demonstrate their guitars, either there or on the
main stage. As for the rest of the performances, they would be at live houses
or soft seat theaters, where it would just be me playing.
R.V.B. - I see, so you
toured Europe last year also?
E.D. - Yeah, I played 38
shows in 42 days.
R.V.B. - That's a pretty
rigorous schedule.
E.D. - Yeah, it was hard
at first, but once I got into it... there's something about once you get into
the zone... you just get up and maybe do a little bit of exercise, shower, pack
your stuff up, travel, do a show, sell some CDs, Talk to some people, and
sleep. Once you get into doing that every day, the days start whipping by very
quickly. It's kind of a nice schedule to be in, and before you know it the tour
is done.
R.V.B. - Did that take you
eastern Europe?Ewan dobson practicing
E.D. - Not too far east. I
think the furthest east I went was Nitra Slovakia and then I went over to
Budapest.
R.V.B. - The people are
real appreciative of musicians from North America.
E.D. - It's more of a
respectable job over there in Europe. In North America, it's harder to get
respect as a musician with that being worthwhile career. I think it's a
cultural thing with the music that I play over there... I do have a fairly good
body of supporters, especially in Germany and Poland. It's a nice place to
tour.
R.V.B. - Was your family
also musical?
E.D. - A bit yes, my
granddad played guitar. He was more of a country picker and then my uncle
played classical guitar. So there is some on my mom's side of the family.
R.V.B. - Was there a
guitar laying around the house when you were growing up? Is that how you got
started?
E.D. - Yeah, there was one
lying around the house that I think was a gift to my mom from her dad. It was
laying around and I would play it, but one of the things that got me into it
was seeing some Motley Crue videos on television when I was younger. Also it
was seeing the end of Back to the Future part one, where he plays guitar in
front of a school. I saw that and a couple of Judas Priest and Motley Crue
videos and that got me interested in wanting to play.
R.V.B. - Did your parents
like that kind of music?
E.D. - I heard it on my
own... they certainly didn't introduce me to it. They were more into The
Beatles, Roy Orbison and the Moody Blues.
R.V.B. - I can't fault
them for that... it's good stuff (Hahaha)
E.D. - The stuff that I
was into was way heavier then that.Ewan Dobson 1
R.V.B. - So what did you
tackle first when you picked up the guitar?
E.D. - The first thing I
did was take a couple basic lessons... "Here's the notes, here's how to
pick, here's a couple of chords." I remember the first song that I learned
was "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne.
R.V.B. - Great song. Was
that on an electric guitar?
E.D. - I did start on an
acoustic, but that was to build up some initial strength. About a year so into
it, I got my first electric guitar.
R.V.B. - What kind of
guitar was that?
E.D. - That was a B.C.
Rich Warlock.
R.V.B. - Did it play nice?
E.D. - Frankly I didn't
care about that, I just liked the shape of the body. (Hahaha) At the time when
I saw it in the store I thought "That's the coolest thing I've ever
seen".
R.V.B. - What color was
it?
E.D. - It was a snake skin
pattern of like a greenish/yellow.
R.V.B. - Do you still own
it?
E.D. - No, I haven't had
it in a long time.
R.V.B. - Do you still
occasionally still pick up an electric guitar?
E.D. - From time to
time... not as much. I do have one that I have for just messing around on but
no so much because when it comes to playing steel string guitar, the amount of
strength and effort you have to put into it to produce a sound on an
acoustic... if you put it down and pick up an electric, you'll find that you
overplay it. So if I pick up an electric guitar after having played acoustic
guitar for a long time, what ends up happening is, I have to totally lighten up
my touch and it takes a while to adjust. Otherwise I'm putting way to much
power into the picking.
R.V.B. - Right, I could
understand that. So you started playing metal at first and then you switched to
classical for a while. Did you have a nylon string guitar or did you do that on
a steel string also?
E.D. - No that was nylon.
I was playing the electric for about five or six years and then I got
introduced into classical guitar through my uncle. There was that movie
Crossroads that features Ralph Macchio and Steve Vai, and that got me into
checking out some classical music. I started doing both electric guitar and
classical for a while... I kept them both up.
R.V.B. - Did you have a
good classical teacher up in Canada?
E.D. - Yeah, I had a
really good teacher. He taught at the University of Toronto, and I think he
still does. That was for about six or seven years, that I took private lessons
there.
R.V.B. - So you were
basically honing your skills and getting your chops up. I guess the transition
to the steel string guitar wasn't as drastic as transitioning from electric
guitar to nylon stringEwan dobson picks
E.D. - There was a little
bit there because I was trying to use fingerpicks, which I was introduced to.
The sound of Leo Kottke turned me on to using these steel fingerpicks on a
steel string. Using those did require a bit of work to transition from using
fingernails to fingerpicks. Once I did that, I was good to go.
R.V.B. - How many
fingerpicks do you use?
E.D. - The first second
and third fingers of the right hand, I use fingerpicks. I have this little
container that I bring around that has three fingerpicks and one thumbpick in
it. That's my gear for the right hand for fingerpicking.
R.V.B. - Right, now your
practice regiment... how often do you practice? Does it vary if you're doing a
show or do you stick to a routine?
E.D. - When I can, I stick
to a routine. It comes and goes depending on, like if I'm getting ready to
tour, then I'll might have to take care of some business stuff or some travel
planning. Then for a week or two I may only be doing an hour of two a day. But
if I'm getting towards studio mode, which let's just say after a tour, then I'm
practicing all the time... which is like five or six hours a day. I practice
more leading up to the recording of an album or leaving to go on tour. Once I'm
on tour, during the day there's a lot of traveling, you got to do laundry, you
got to stay on top of things.
R.V.B. - Is it like
autopilot when you're playing one night to the next?
E.D. - When you're on
tour, it's pretty much autopilot and I practice less... maybe like an hour at
the most and the stage is my practice. It's pretty much the same show with a
couple of different songs here and there, but once I get into that zone, it
takes care of itself.
R.V.B. - I understand that
you entered a lot of festival contests. Was that enjoyable and also a little
nerve wracking?
E.D. - There were two
types of contests I did that were competitions. When I was younger in my late
teens - early twenty's, I did some classical guitar competitions. Then in 09, I
did three: The Canadian Fingerstyle Guitar Competition, The International
FingerStyle Guitar Competition and the Montreal Guitar Grand Prix. I would say
that competitions are good for training yourself to be ready at a certain time.
The idea of a competition is basically "You got to play at this time, and
you got to play your best". There's no getting out of it. It's kind of
like having a deadline to meet. It's training yourself to meet deadlines. In
some cases it was nerve wracking, but I think that actually helps because as a
touring musician, you're going to be put in the same circumstances, where at
perhaps at that moment when it's time to play, you may not be feeling your
best. It doesn't matter you have to do it anyway. So that's a good skill to
have... being able to play even when conditions aren't ideal.
R.V.B. - Yeah, I gather
when you show up to one of these things, you don't know what time you're going
to play. I presume you learn on the spot.
E.D. - Yes, it was
actually good for me to go through that, because conditions aren't going to be
always ideal in terms of comfort.
R.V.B. - Well you
obviously did real good because you won a couple of them.
E.D. - Yeah, and part of
the reason that happened was because I did it when I was younger. I was use to
that "whether you like it or not, it's time to play" and I got some
of that into my system... some of that tension.Ewan dobson montrael
R.V.B. - So when you
finished with these competitions, I gather you said "ok, I'm gonna make a
go for this".
E.D. - I first started off
going out to open mics, and treating it as training to play in front of
people... play my own original music in front of people. After about two years
of doing that... that was in 07, and in 09 there was the first competition.
That was the year I won the Canadian Fingerstyle Guitar Competition and got the
deal to do an album with CandyRat records. That helped get me out there. Those
Fingerstyle Guitar Competitions helped get me established to a certain extent,
because it got an album out on a record label that specializes in instrumental
guitar.
R.V.B. - How long of a
process was it to record that album?
E.D. - The first album was
actually a two day recording. It was part of the prize for winning the
competition. I went out to Trois-Revieres - Quebec and Antoine Dufour was
there. He's also a guitarist on CandyRat Records. He's one of the recording
engineers on that album. So he kind of walked me through "Here's how the
studio thing works". He had been through the whole process before. I went
in and just recorded it in two days. There's a certain high energy sound to
that first album. It probably has something to do with the fact that I was
really tired and I remember just drinking a whole bunch of Red Bulls. There was
limited time and there was a lot of music and I had to get it done in two days.
R.V.B. - Right, when you
do your writing, do you do it at your house?
E.D. - Yes, Normally I do
it at night time. It's usually like three or four in the morning. When I start
writing music, it comes in waves... waves of inspiration. It's usually after my
schedule flips upside down, and I start sleeping all day and staying up all
night. I get most of my music that comes to me between three and five in the
morning.
R.V.B. - Do you sometimes
put music to a word, or do you add the title after you come up with the music?
E.D. - I usually do the
title to it after, or the word that describes it best might come to me while
I'm playing it. Although sometimes it can be a challenge to have a sound or a
piece of music and figure out what best describes it, or what title best suits
it?
R.V.B. - Do you have a
large hat rack?, because I see in your videos that you wear all kinds of
hats?Ewan dobson hat
E.D. - Well I got a couple
of those lying around.
R.V.B. - I'm, saying that
jokingly.
E.D. - (Hahaha) I have the
original one that I used in the Time 2 video. I wrote inside of it - a little
sign, so I know that's the one that I used in the video, so I don't leave it
amongst the other ones.
R.V.B. - Is that a
Japanese style hat?
E.D. - Originally people
were saying it was a Chinese hat but it turned out to be a Vietnamese hat.
R.V.B. - I see. You have a
couple of Asian outfits.
E.D. - That was just a
series of costumes that I was wearing for the first three albums. I did use a variety
of costumes, just for fun. I wasn't exactly sitting down with a marketing agent
"Alright, what audience are we going to target here?" I was just
having fun.
R.V.B. - It's a good idea
and it looked like you were having fun. I know there's a lot of effort of being
alone and practicing. Did you ever feel that you missed out on anything by
taking on the guitar?
E.D. - Perhaps there was a
time when I did, when I saw where everyone else ended up. I mean some of my
friends and when I look at some of the situations that some of the other people
were in. I was happy with the decision in the end. Although there were times in
the beginning where perhaps I would feel a bit lonely, where maybe I should
have gone down the family path and just kind of chilled out a bit.
R.V.B. - Once you got
music in you, it's hard to get it out. You'll be doing it for your lifetime.
Were you surprised on the popularity of Time 2?
E.D. - Not necessarily,
Time 2 was just a fun thing that I did, where I took an idea that electric guitarist's
had used with a delay pedal... to play things in eighth notes so the delay
pedal would echo in between, so it sounds like a bunch of sixteenth notes going
on. that technique had already existed but I'm doing acoustic guitar with a
thumb that could play the bass and some fingers that could also play melodies.
"Maybe I could use the delay pedal and have a bass and melody thing going
on." It was like "Oh, cool it works." I did this little short
piece, which is like three minutes or so. I didn't put it on the album thinking
it would be anything more that "Well that's a cool idea. It's a delay
pedal, right on." That's the one that people appreciated the most. It
reminded them of trance and dance music and it was also an acoustic guitar that
was making the sound.
R.V.B. - Now I know you've
done some albums called "Acoustic Metal". Now the general theory
about heavy metal is that it's not acoustic. Are you getting the point across
on these tours that it can be considered heavy metal?
E.D. - I believe so. I
haven't met anyone that says otherwise that's seen it live. Some people just
think that it can't be arbitrarily, but one of the things that I did illustrate
was... I've spoken with a couple of different sound engineers, who are also
guitar players, about the ideas of acoustic metal and I showed them that some
of the intervals and chord shapes that I choose which are a mixture of playing
a power chord and a bass and maybe some melody on top. The issue is that if I
were to add distortion to some of the riffs that I write, it would muddy up the
sound and you wouldn't hear the division of the bass and the melody and it
would kind of melt it together. That's the problem with distortion... I would
have to simplify a lot of the riffs that I would write, in order to make it
clear, if I used distortion. With the acoustic guitar, I can actually write
certain riffs that I couldn't otherwise have them sound good if they are played
with distortion.
R.V.B. - Right, now I
noticed that occasionally in your technique, you get like a buzz on the bass
strings. Is that intentional... to give it sort of a distortion feel?Ewan
dobson heavy metal 11
E.D. - Yes that does come
up in Acoustic Metal 2. I just kind of went with it because when you tune a
guitar a bit lower, you run into issues where if you want the action to be
close... if you want the tuning to be low, you have to have kind of a middle of
the road place in between buzz and action. I've just accepted that there's this
middle of the road place where, if I use a pick to do a riff and dig into it,
it does have a bit of a buzz but it makes it kind of sound dirty in a way.
Especially if it's like a low A on a seven string.
R.V.B. - Yeah, it works
very well into it... it appears intentional. It adds a little heavy metal dimension
to it, in my opinion.
E.D. - On the last record,
I tuned this one particular guitar down to an A for one song... I tuned the E
down to an A. For some reason the sloppiness of the looseness of the string
makes the buzz, and the type of sharp pick I was using had this really heavy
sound to it, and it really came across nice on the album.
R.V.B. - Do you self
produce your own videos?
E.D. - All of them, except
for the ones that appear on the CandyRat Records channel. I would go to their
studio and record them, but there were a couple that I did from home that they
released. Basically the last three albums, I've recorded at home.
R.V.B. - What gear are you
going to bring with you on your North American tour that's coming up?
E.D. - I'm going to be
bringing more guitars this time, because I'm not going to be flying. This is
going to be one where I will be doing a lot of ground travel. I won't have to
worry about paying $400 to ship four guitars underneath a plane. I'm gonna
bring a six string Stonebridge for some acoustic metal, a seven string Ibanez
for a couple of acoustic metal pieces. I have a new guitar on the way here...
it will be here any day now, by a company called Emerald Guitars. It's a guitar
made of carbon fiber. The good thing about that material is that it doesn't
expand or contract according to the moisture conditions of the environment.
I'll be able to travel to different parts of the world without having to bring
the guitar in to get set up or worry about the warping of wood. That one and a
12 string Stonebridge guitar.
R.V.B. - When does your
tour start?
E.B. - A week from today
is the first show, and that's going to be in Buffalo.
R.V.B. - Buy the time you
make it to the New York area it won't feel like Canada anymore outside.
(Hahaha) I'll get down to the Iridium to see you.
E.D. - That will be nice.
I'm passing through Texas and I know that it will be warm there in April,
that's for sure.
R.V.B. - Good luck on your
tour. You're a very talented player and keep up the good music.
E.D. - Ok, I'll see you in
May.
Interview conducted by
Robert von Bernewitz
This interview may not be
reproduced in any part or form without permission
For more information on
Ewan Dobson visit his website http://ewandobson.com/
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Dobson - Acoustic Guitarist | Permalink
