When pop/rock princess Pink was auditioning guitarists for a new world tour around four years ago, she pretty much decided on the spot to hire LA based axeman Justin Derrico. Pink quickly warmed to Justin's amiable nature, rock star looks, and his amazing versatility and dexterity on the guitar. Derrico has now circumnavigated the world several times with Pink's band, but the recent birth of her baby has finally meant some time off the road. Rather than rest however, Derrico has been busy working as part of the band on the successful American television talent show The Voice. More importantly though, the time off has allowed Justin to complete his debut solo album, Boldy Going Nowhere. So excited about this new album is Derrico, that he's packing his bags, pedals and guitars and is heading to Australia in August for the world debut of his own headline shows. Australian Musician's Greg Phillips spoke to Justin just prior to rehearsals for his upcoming Australian tour.
After being Pink's side guy for so long, this new solo album, 'Boldly Going Nowhere' must be pretty exciting for you?
Yeah it's pretty crazy. I actually recorded it about a year ago when we had a little break in the Funhouse tour. I had this window of time and I went into the studio and knocked it out. I finished all the tracking then went back on the road with Pink for about 4 months. In that time I had Bill Appleberry mix it. He's going to be playing keys in the band. Now I've finally got it out, so it's going to be interesting. I have never played this stuff live other than in the studio.
Were the songs written with this album in mind or were they just songs you'd been working on over a long period of time?
There were four songs that had been around for a while. There were actually two which didn't even make the record. I couldn't quite flush them out and wrap my head around them. Another two did make it that had been around for a while. I had some incomplete ideas and my friend Corey, who produced it, helped me finish them up.
A lot of solo albums by lead guitarists are simply a showcase for their chops, but there are some really nice melodic tunes on this. How conscious were you of not only reaching the gear heads, but also the mainstream public?
I wasn't really trying to impress anybody. I really just wanted to do this record for myself. It's kind of selfish but I really wanted to do it ... to actually finish it and to have a piece of work that is all me. It's kind of just what came out. I just wanted to make some songs that were fun to play and fun to listen to. I wanted something that would be enjoyable to listen to not something where people would say, wow what amazing technique. I didn't want a record that people would listen to just to find out what licks I am playing.
There's almost a different guitar sound to each track. Were you keen to try different things on each track?
I guess I wanted to try different things. On the track Fricken Chicken, there's that country ... I don't know what you'd call it ... fusion maybe. I grew up playing a lot of country and bluegrass, so I definitely wanted a bit of that on the record and nail some country sounds. I was just trying to get the right sounds for the songs. The funny thing is though, for most of the lead stuff, we only used one amp. We used different guitars, but only one amp for the lead stuff.
You use a talk box on In The Air Tonight. Where did the inspiration come to do that song in that way?
I was talking to Corey. I think we had about 12 songs in the can ready and demoed out before we started tracking drums. We talked about doing a cover. I have always loved that song. I thought it would be a neat song to cover, then when I started to learn the melody, it just dawned on me that it would be a cool idea to do a whole song on a talk box. I don't think I have heard anybody do that. Also with all of the Autotune stuff that is on the radio at the moment, talk box sounds a little similar to that, and I thought it might be neat to tap into that sound. I used to use a talkbox in gigs when I was younger. I would use it here and there. I saw it sitting in the corner and decided to blow the dust off it.
Did the Frampton Comes Alive album have an effect on you as a young player?
Oh, absolutely. The first time I heard it .. well it was the reason I got a talk box in the first place. The funny thing with the talk box is that it makes you play different. It's wild how it effects the way you play. Yeah so, In The Air Tonight, we were kind of joking at the start but then we worked it out and it came together nicely.
With a song with vocals you have the words to tell a story, but with an instrumental, although it has a feel, you could call it anything you like. I'm wondering how difficult it was to put titles to the tracks?
It was a little tough. The song Manic, well that song is just a manic mess! That's where that came from. We did have some strange working titles. The song Friday, that actually comes from the drummer who played on that track. The interesting thing about that track was that our friend Johnny Friday came in and played drums on the track In The Air Tonight. The way he played on that, it swung a little harder than what I wanted it to be. It was a little too jazzy, too much of a hop. But even though it wasn't what I wanted for that track, he is such a great player and played so great on it, that we took that entire drum performance and wrote a track around it. So we named the song Friday because he's Johnny Friday.
The track Until Tomorrow, I wrote in Scotland while I was on tour with Pink. The way it ends ... it just falls apart. I was tracking the solo to it and it got to the end and kind of split up and I just went with it. It was so cool, I just left it as a neat way to end the record.
What about constructing the order of the songs, how difficult was that for you?
It was tough because a lot of the songs are different from song to song, but a couple are similar. The songs Manic and Fricken Chicken I didn't want to have them next to each other as they have similar riffs. It was a bit of a trick, the order. Basically what I did, was to throw it into iTunes and moved it around. I must have had ten combinations until it had a nice even flow.
How many different guitars did you use on the album?
I guess I used a few. For the most part, I used my main Les Paul that I always use. I also used the Les Paul Axcess and a Tele. For the acoustic stuff I only used my Maton Messiah because it just records amazingly. They are great guitars. I did use a Strat and also a 335 on the track Friday, but mainly the Les Pauls.
Did you use many effects on the album?
Not really. I used a Line 6 M9 and the effects I used were mainly out of that. Any delay stuff was done after we tracked it. Bill used whatever delays he had in Pro Tools. For some of the weird sounds we used POD Farm and Guitar Rig. I did use a wah but for the most part, it was straight into the amp. The M9 was such a big part of this record.
You use Bogner amplification now but I'm wondering what you were using before that?
I have been using Bogner for so long, but I did have a Fender Twin which is a very different animal and then I had an old Marshall JCM800, an old 80s one which I still have. I guess it was the Marshall which I was using most before Bogner.
You chose Bogner's Shiva amp over the Ecstasy and Uberschall, what were the characteristics of the Shiva that you liked so much?
Whenever I plug into the Shiva I could hear my hands coming through. It was a little more organic. The Ecstasy was great too but the problem with the Ecstasy for me was that it had too many damn knobs and buttons and it sort of scared me away from it, but I recently played through a 30th anniversary model and it's unbelievable. The Shiva has a big sound, a really nice low end and it cuts really nice. For my lead sound, I use the distortion and the boost which is on it and it has a milky, creamy sound that I really dig.
How do you usually have the dials set?
The clean channel I have the volume at about twelve o'clock. The bass at eleven and then the treble about one o'clock. On the dirty channel, I dime the gain. It's high gain but not super high, so I turn the gain all the way up. I turn the bass to about two o'clock, sometimes even crank it to three. The mid and treble are at about one o'clock. the volume on that channel is usually at one. The Master Volume is at twelve or one. The funny thing about that amp, when you change the dial it doesn't change the tone a whole lot. it takes a big sweep to make a major change.
Is it a reasonably quite amp as far as surplus noise goes? Do you use a noisegate?
I never used to use a gate but it came into my rig because I was having some noise issues in a lot of the arenas. There was some sort of hum that we couldn't work out and for some reason when we put the gate on it, it got rid of it. I don't use the gate all of the time though. We travel all over the world and sometimes you get these arenas where the power isn't the greatest. So when we play those arenas with funny power I use the gate to get rid of the hum. For the most part, it's a pretty darn quiet amp.
Will you be using the Tele on this tour, and if so, how would that work with the Bogner?
I'd like to be but because I'm travelling from here to Australia, there is only so much I can take with me. I know for sure I have to bring my main Les Paul. I also have to bring a guitar with a whammy bar on it so I'll probably bring the Axcess, which has got coil taps which are nice. It's not like a Strat or a Tele, but I'll bring that unless I can get my hands on a Tele over there. Actually, when I recorded Fricken Chicken, I used the Tele through a Fender Vibroverb. I wanted to get that open backed combo gritty country sound. The Shiva is its own animal. The clean channel is pretty good but the dirty channel is where it is at with that amp. The Ecstasy is one of those amps ... you have 3 channels on it and you have a million possibilities. The Ecstasy is a great utility amp. I am on the TV show, 'The Voice' at the moment and the other guitar player, Dave Barry has hooked up with Bogner and he is using an Ecstasy amp. Dave is a ridiculous player. He played on Janet Jackson's song Black Cat. He played on most of Rhythm Nation and plays with Cher now.
What's it like playing on the TV show, The Voice? Keeps you on your toes I guess?
It's a lot of hours. We typically get one day a week off. Yesterday, the coaches came in with the contestants and we worked with them. Half of them had not made the decision as to what song they wanted to do, so we had to learn most of the songs pretty much right there on the spot in front of all the cameras. You have to be pretty quick. Generally we'd have one listen to the song before we had to play it. If you don't figure it out the first time that you play it, then it's sink or swim. We had to learn a hundred and ten songs in the first ten days. I have never worked this hard in my life. Paul Mirkovich is the musical director with Pink as you know and he did the show Rockstar and even Paul said to me, it's the hardest show he has ever done and that if this gig doesn't rattle your cage, then there is nothing in this world which will!
Tell me how your upcoming Australian tour came about.
Well Mike (tour promoter) plays in a band called Snow Boy Roy with my brother who is the drummer. Mike was here in the states and we had the guys over to my place for Thanksgiving dinner. I was saying to Mike that I'd like to take my stuff on the road but it's just so hard to get together. We discussed it some more and just thought, to hell with it ... let's just do it! It's hard for me even to believe that it is going to happen. I just can't wait to get down there and play.
Who is in your band?
Jeff Bowders who played a on a couple of songs on the album. Bill Appleberry on keys. And my buddy Carlos Cordova on bass. I'm tied up with The Voice until the beginning of July, but then we'll rehearse for a week and a half or so then I'll come out to Australia to do a little promo. Then the guys will fly out a week later and that will be our first gig.
With Pink, everything you do is for her and for her music. Doing your own stuff is there a feeling of wow, I can finally do this or that?
Absolutely. My rig is going to be a little different. The thing with Pink though, is that I have quite a bit of control as far as having my sound the way I want. The way she works is if something sounds funny to her, she'll want to change it. But she understands that live, things have to translate in a different way. She is not a nit-picky person about stuff like that. She uses guitar a lot to get her key. I had a guitar break, actually my main guitar. It fell over and the headstock snapped. So I had to send it out to get fixed. I was pretty bummed out. I had a back up guitar but you know with Les Pauls they all sound different. She picked up on that and was thinking, why is this so different? She was cool about it though, and when I got the guitar back, she was like, yeah that's where it's at! The cool thing is that she really notices that stuff. But to answer your question, the cool thing about this tour is that it's my gig and I have the freedom to do whatever I want. It's just really cool to have absolutely nobody to answer to.
For my rig when I come to Australia, I will be using a Bogner Twin Jet, which is kind of like the Uberschall, and also I'll bring the Shiva. I'll AB between the two. I used the Twin Jet for a lot of the lead stuff on the record. The rig that I use now is so catered to Pink, that I have to pull it apart and figure it to my own stuff.
What will be in the pedal board for this tour?
Again with flight restrictions with weight, I'll bring the M9. You can program stuff on the fly with that. But other than that just a wah, volume pedal and delay, footswitch for amps and that's it. I downsize quite a bit for my stuff.
It's very different being the main act as opposed to a main act's guitarist. Are you going to feel comfortable out there in the spotlight? Are there new things you have to think about?
There are a lot of new things to think about. With Pink, she doesn't even need to try and she just demands people's attention. So I now have to try to capture that. The thought process for me at the moment though, is to go out there and give it my all and I hope they can take that home feeling pretty good about it. It's strange though. Do I set up stage right or centre stage? Actually having a mic to talk to the audience, that's different as well, so it will be a while new experience for me but a lot of fun.
So ten tracks on the album and a couple that didn't make it, I guess there might be some covers too?
Yep, you can definitely count on some cool covers. I don't want to give that away just yet. I've worked up a couple of neat things cover wise. We're actually going to get Mike to come up at the end and sing a few songs. I can't wait.
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