Gary James' Interview With Session Musician
Marty Walsh



Marty Walsh has worked with some of the best known names in the music business; John Fogerty, John Denver, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Eddie Money, Donna Summer and Neil Diamond. And that's just in the studio! He's been a touring member of Seals And Crofts and Supertramp. These days you can find Marty Walsh at Berklee College Of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where he serves as a professor in the Ensemble and Music Production Departments.

Q - Marty, when I think of a professor I'm thinking of someone who has a Ph. D, a doctorate degree.

A - (laughs)

Q - Do you have a doctorate degree or are you an adjunct professor?

A - Here's the thing, no, I don't have a doctorate. I went to a college in the San Fernando Valley, L.A. Valley College. I went there because I was a crazy musician, high school kid. Didn't know anything about theory. A good friend of mine who became extremely successful, who was a huge mentor to me, Jay Graydon, said to me, "You've gotta go to this school and you've gotta take these music classes, and you want to play in a the 'A' band. You want to do this stuff." So, I went to this college and I did my time there. And then after that man, I studied privately with some good teachers. I had a guy named Barney Kessel, who was a serious Downbeat Award winning guitar player. I was a guitar player. I wanted to be a guitar player. That's what I wanted to do. I needed to get all my theory, solfege, ear training, and get all that together, which I did. But right away I was gigging. I was working. I was out there doing gigs and playing. I had no idea I would wind up at Berklee. I mean, that was the last thing on the radar when I was young. But as time progressed, I knew about the school. My wife is from Massachusetts. I have such a wealth of experience from being in the real world and doing it that when I knocked on the door at Berklee; apparently a friend of mine, Larry Finn, had already recommended me to the Chair of the Ensemble Department, Ron Savage. And so I interviewed with Ron. They needed some teachers. They had so many kids coming to the school. They had classes they didn't have enough teachers for, kind of entry level classes. And so in 2003, I knocked on the door because things were changing dramatically in the music industry and I thought, "Hey, I live in Massachusetts. Why not? Let's see if I can get a gig at this college." I've been in Massachusetts since '96. Everybody I met that was good had a position over there, and I said, "This is the hub of the music scene, this college. So, I need to get there." That's kind of like being in L.A. and saying, "Well, where you hangin'?" Well, you're hangin' at The Baked Potato. (laughs) I knocked on the door and they really brought me in because of my experience. My college thing was very limited, but I've got a lot of knowledge and I've got a lot of experience. So, there I go. They let me in.

Q - You teach in the Music Production Department and the Ensemble Department, Music Production. I can understand. You've been in the studio. You know a lot about production. What's the Ensemble Department all about?

A - Well, it's the best gig you can have (laughs) in the school because you walk into a room and you have a drummer and a bass player, guitar player and a keyboard player, singers, and you go, "Okay. Here's the band. Let's make music. What's the identity of the band?" And you kind of get a beat on the level of the students, where they're at in terms of their playing ability. And we have conversations about the kind of music we want to pursue. And we just start diving in. I have a ton of charts. I hand out charts to everybody and I give the singers lyric sheets. We listen to stuff and design background vocals. We design guitar parts and we put the music together and do a performance at the end of the semester. But when I started at Berklee I talked to Ron Savage, the guy that brought me in, the Chair of the Ensemble Department, after a few weeks that I was there. I said, "Listen, I've got this idea for this class that I think would be really great. I want to call it the L.A. Studio Ensemble and it's going to mimic was I used to do as a professional studio musician," which is; The phone rings. They ask if you can make a date, a session. You go, "Yeah," and you hang up the phone. You call your cartage guy and say, "Take my stuff to Capitol next Tuesday, Capitol Studio A, or Ocean Way, or any of the studios in Los Angeles. You show up and there's no prep. You don't know what you're walking into. You might know if it's a certain producer, It's like, okay, they give you a heads-up. This is back in the '80s, before all the technology we have. But you basically walk in and are expected to deliver on short notice in real time. And so ultimately they let me put that class together. It took a long time. It didn't start until 2008.

Q - I can see using a cartage company if you're a drummer. For you, the cartage company would take your guitar and amp?

A - Well, no. In Los Angeles, when you do studio work as a guitar player you have to have ten guitars. Back then we had multiple amplifiers. We all had these big effects racks that were on wheels. They were like studio rack effects. A guy named Bob Bradshaw built these systems for everybody. Before that it was pedal boards. You'd show up at a session, well if they wanted you to play mandolin or they wanted you to play a Country song, you'd have to have your Telecaster. If they wanted you to play a Heavy Metal tune you better have something with a revved up Humbucking pickup. You have to have multiple acoustic guitars. You need a twelve string, a steel string. You need all this stuff. So at a session you'll show up and they're going, "Okay, this is what we're gonna do." Then you have to make a decision as to what you're gonna use. Drummers would show up with a drum kit and fifteen to twenty snare drums. They'd have a case filled with snare drums. This snare drum is the right snare drum for this particular song. I would work with, especially doing overdubs on on album for instance, I'm working with the engineer and producer and I've got a guitar. I'm working on a sound and the engineer is tweaking things and I'm working on the part with the producer and we're honing in the thing and then I'll wind up going, "You know something? This Les Paul ain't cuttin' it. Let me go grab my Strat." "Okay then, you try the Strat." "Well, this Strat isn't really the one I need. I need this other one that has another sound." So consequently, in Los Angeles at the time, everybody had cartage services. Bass players would have seven, eight, nine basses they would have delivered to sessions. They would have their amplifiers. Guitar players, percussionists, drummers, keyboard players, would have all the synths (synthesizers). There was a huge group of people that had these delivery services. I was with a guy named Andy Brower. He had all of the guitar players. You would go into his place and you could see who wasn't working that day. (laughs) You'd see everybody's equipment sitting there waiting to be put into a truck and taken to a studio. Considerably different now, obviously.

Q - It almost seems like you'd have to have your own roadie when you got to the studio.

A - That's essentially kind of what it was. You would show up and your staff would be all set up and your tech would be there. He'd go, "Okay. Plug in. Make sure everything's cool. It's just the way you like it. You want some coffee?" (laughs) Literally you're ready to roll. If the call was at 10 a.m. for instance and you're making a record from 10 to 1 and 2 to 5, you show up at 9:30. Your stuff is all set up. Everybody is in place. There's the guitar on your stand which is your number one guitar. He's there (your tech). He goes, "Cool. Great. Plug in. Make sure this is cool. Can I do anything else? Are there any problems? Is there anything else we've got to make sure is okay?" Once you're set, he splits. When you're done you call him and go, "Hey, come and get my gear." He comes and packs it all up.

Q - I take it the vocals were all pre-recorded?

A - No.

Q - So, one day you might be in a session with Kenny Rogers and the next day it might be a Heavy Metal guy, right?

A - Right. But then it all depends on the artist, the session and the producer. Everybody's different. I did a song called "We Got Tonight" for Kenny Rogers. I got that call by David Foster. I was not his number one call. I had worked with David. I had done some things with him. I can't remember if it was David or his assistant. It probably was his assistant. They called me, I don't know if it was New Year's Eve or the day before New Year's Eve, and they said, "David wants you to come and do a session New Year's Day at 10 a.m. (laughs) Can you make it?" I'm like, "Yeah." So, I show up and that song had already been done. The whole thnig had been finished and he just wanted to put a couple of little touches of guitar in it. So, when I played the guitar track on "We Got Tonight", I was listening to basically the whole thing produced. Then on the other hand, I've done records for Le Ann Rimes and Le Ann Rimes sings that song at the session with the rhythm section. She knows the song. The arranger gives us these charts. We start working on the arrangement as a rhythm section, drums, bass, typically two guitar players, keyboard, maybe a second keyboard and Le Ann is singing. She cuts her final vocal at that session. She was unbelievable.

Q - In the classroom, do your students know of your background?

A - Yeah, some of them do. I've been teaching there since 2003. So, when I would introduce myself I would say I played on a lot of records your parents know. Now I say I played on a lot of records your grandparents know. (laughs) I would say "Supertramp" and they would go, "Whoa!" Or I would say I toured with John Fogerty. The people who know who Creedence Clearwater Revival is, their jaw would be on the floor. I worked on "9 to 5", the Dolly (Parton) record. I walked into that session not knowing what that was. But I was doing a recording session that I have with Berklee last Spring and I'm in there with the singers and somehow that song comes up. I'm in there with these six vocalists, these girls and the lead singer, this guy. And I'm tweaking something, the mic or something like that, and I go, "Oh, I played on that." They go, "What?" (laughs) "Yeah, I played on "9 to 5". One of the girls went, "You mean you're like my ringtone?" I go, "I guess." There are certain things they will clock into. Obviously it's 2020 and there's a lot of artists back then that these kids have no clue who they are.

Q - Maybe that's changed these days.

A - I'll tell you something great, man. Two semesters ago I said I want to do the music of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", the Joe Cocker tour. I put a band together. I had the right piano player and I had the right singer. I had a singer that could do it and a piano player that could play Leon Russell. I put the rest of the band together. The way I did it was I found students that I thought might be good to do it. I would say, "Just watch this. I'm going to send you a video. You watch this video and tell me if you want to be in this band." I would send them the Stones' tune, "Honky Tonk Women" by Joe Cocker, live from 1970 and they would all flip. They would all go, "Oh, my God! This is like the most unbelievable music!" Some of them said, "This is my father's favorite music when he was a kid." And now we've turned it into an actual class. It's actually going to be listed in the registry when you sign up for Ensemble classes, they all have different names and different vibes. This one is going to be The Music Of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs And Englishmen Tour. It's great! These kids love it. They eat it up! It's so good.

Q - That's wonderful that they have such an appreciation for the music of the past. While the technology has improved, you just can't beat the creativity that existed in the songs and musicians from the past.

A - See, this is where I kind of part ways with a lot of people. Look, I work with these bands at Berklee. The last thing I do is bring in some tired old Linda Ronstadt tune from the '70s. I go, "What do you guys want to play?" And they make suggestions. I've found some unbelievably great music that these kids know about. Look, it's not going to be in the Spotify Top 50. It's going to be obscure. There's a lot of obscure, indie bands, single artists that are kind of like artsy. Regina Spector is amazing. There are some really, really great young... Regina is not that young now. I hear all the time, young, new, fresh music that blows me away, just as much as Steely Dan or any of that stuff. It's just that we don't know about it because everybody talks about what's on the radio, what's popular right now. Right now the radio is consumed by Hip-Hop, which is fine. The reason that kids at Berklee like this kind of thing is because they're all performers. A Hip-Hop record is a guy doing a bit or a woman doing a thing with a backing track that's all computer generated. If you're a producer, that's great. If you're an instrumentalist or you're a vocalist and you want to sing some songs and you want to play the bass, then you're going to be seeking out music that has that live element to it. That's why they like the music that a lot of times they don't know what it is, like this Joe Cocker thing. They hear it and it's just so damn powerful that they're just enthralled.

Q - When you get right down to it, can you really teach someone to do what you've done? Obviously there's a lot of skill that goes into it, but you also were of the right age at the right time, and you got the right breaks along the way. That's something that's very difficult to duplicate.

A - Okay, well I kind of think the question is two fold. Can I teach them the skill set that I had that allowed me to do what I did, number one, which I can. I walk into every class of mine and I say this, "The most important thing that you as a performer can't refine is your feel. It's all about feel. I don't care what kind of blazing chops you have and some crazy solos you can play. Nobody cares about that. If you have a great feel then you've got a chance. If you don't have a great feel, you can have all the skill in the world and if you don't feel right, it ain't gonna work." So, my focus literally, whenever I'm working with a student in depth and trying to get their performances better, it's 90% of the time or better, it's about, "This doesn't feel right. You're not in the groove. You've got to start feeling the pulse better." Regarding the other question, which is having a career in the music business, I talk to my students. Sure, I was very fortunate. My father was a musician. He was a singer/guitar player, did gigs. That's how he made his living in Los Angeles. My older brother, thirteen years older than me, had a record deal with Warner Records when he was 19 years old. A phenomenal singer. Got drafted into the Army, end of career. My sister was doing the piano thing, but she was off into psychology. My other brother, who was four years older than me, had a career as a songwriter. He was good. He wrote hits. He was a very successful songwriter in the '70s into the '80s. And so I was very aware of the music industry and I was connected to people in the industry growing up. I'm a young kid. I'm in high school and my brother is playing with a fellow by the name of Jay Graydon. He played the solo on the song "Peg" by Steely Dan. Now, that's kind of his big guitar moment. He became the number one session guitar player in L.A. for a number of years. That was kind of his pinnacle moment, that solo. Everybody talks about that solo. After he kind of started to ramp his studio career down, he was producing. He wrote "After The Love Is Gone" for Earth, Wind And Fire, with Champlin and David Foster I think. He wrote "Twilight Zone" with Manhattan Transfer. He produced George Benson. He produced Al Jarreau. He produced all these big records. Well, guess what? When he started ramping his career down, who did he recommend to take his place? Me! (laughs) There was Steve Lukather, who was the King. Jay is older than me. I'm closer to Steve Lukather's age. Steve Lukather was the guy. When he came out of the box, everybody wanted Steve Lukather, but he couldn't be everywhere. So, there were a number of us that were working, myself, Michael Landau. There was a guy named Dan Huff that came to town and took over at one point. Dean Parks. A whole bunch of guitar players. But when Jay started to lose his studio career and get into producing and writing, he started recommending me. That's how I got gigs. Now I tell my students, "The most difficult thing you have in front of you is getting the phone to ring." How do you do that? How do you get the call? Everybody wants to do this. Not everybody gets the call. Sometimes it takes a long time. You have to hang in town for a long time before you get that break. I say if you do the work. If you work really hard and you really refine your skill set as an engineer, a producer, as an instrumentalist, it will work. You will get the call. Then it becomes that first time you get an opportunity, it becomes, did you do it? Did you cut it? Did they love you? If they do, they recommend you to other people. That's why you look at some people who work in the industry and they wind up coming in and doing one thing and all of a sudden they blow up and they're on everything. Everybody wants to use them 'cause they're that good.

Q - With Supertramp you got that gig because the drummer is a guy you played in a band with in your high school days.

A - (laughs)

Q - What do we call that? Is that simply fate? Luck?

A - They say it's better to be lucky than good.

Q - You made the album "Brother Where You Bound" with Supertramp.

A - Yeah.

Q - And they then asked you to go on the road with them.

A - Sure.

Q - Many times bands will not have the same musicians in the studio with them go on tour with them. Is that correct?

A - That is correct. That happens a lot because there's kind of a division between guys that go on the road and guys that do sessions. Session musicians are of a certain caliber. Microphones don't lie. You can be a very accomplished player and not be really really great in the studio, but you can be great live. So, you can fit that role really well. In my instance, and I think this is pretty much true for most people; I played on an Eddie Money record called "No Control". He had huge hits and he wanted me to tour with him. This was in '81 I think. I was at the peak. I was burning. I was in L.A. doing sessions like a crazy man. He asked me to go on the road. I go, "Eddie, I can't leave this thing I've got, all of this work that I have. I'm getting calls constantly. It doesn't work for me. I've got more work in town that pays me better than if I was to head off with you and go on the road." Plus, that takes you out of town, which means that if you leave, somebody else has to take your place. And if somebody else takes your place, good luck getting it back. So, nobody wants to go on the road. Most musicians that play on Pop records and hit records, especially back in those days, they played on those records and then other people were hired to learn the parts and go on tour and play the parts live. If you leave, then you're leaving your gig and there's a lot of guys standing behind me that want that call. Supertramp was a little bit of a different story for me because by this time I had been in a number of bands. Growing up, my focus was I always wanted to be in a band, write the hit song and have a career in a band. I had a number of bands I put together over the years. I got the call three times from labels. I'm in these different bands and the lawyers are talking. They're in the midst of negotiating our deal. I get a call from this manager, Elliot Abbot, who managed Randy Newman. He calls me from the offices of Atlantic Records. He goes, "I'm standing in the president's office in Atlantic Records. I want you to know your band is signed." I go, "Elliot, c'mon. Really?" He said, "What do you want me to do? Send you a dozen roses?" Guess what? We lost the deal. Supertramp was a little different. By the time I did that record it was '85. Now we're into '86, and they said, "Do you want to go on the road?" And they were so big. I said, "I kind of have to go do this. This isn't going on the road and just touring the States with somebody who's going to play 1,500 seaters. These guys are going to go to Europe. They're gong to go to South America and they're going to play for 12,000 people." We did eight nights, sold out. We played Albert Hall. I shook hands with Princess Di. It was on a different level. I was the only guitar player on the record except for David Gilmore. My buddy Scott Gorham played a little bit on it, but I did all the guitar work. I wasn't playing anybody else's parts. I had to play Roger Hodgson's parts on the songs they'd done prior. I'm not just one of the guys who played on it. I did everything on that record. I'm the guitar player. It was too big. They were too big. They were really cool. I knew them really well by that time. I said, "Yeah, let's hit the road, man," and we did it.

Q - What is more difficult then, being a studio musician or a touring musician?

A - Oh, session player without a doubt, because like I said, initially you have to have the arsenal of equipment and number two, microphones don't lie, man. You can have an off night live and that's the end of it. You can't have an off moment (in the studio). They say in the studio business, records are supposed to be three minutes long. That was always kind of the consensus. People would say you're only as good as your last three minutes and the word gets around pretty quick, like, "Oh, that wasn't happening. Don't call that guy again." It's like my buddy Jay said in an interview I saw with him, "Everybody gets replaced." Everybody has those times where maybe it ain't the best performance, so you can't go crazy about it. If you work with a producer that really likes you then typically you're in and that's cool. That's great, and it all works. But doing sessions is much more difficult. The pace is faster and they record it and it lives forever. (laughs) If you're out of tune they're going, "Well man, you're out of tune." It's not like you're out of tune last night, so let's fix that. You're out of tune on this record, you don't get called back or you get replaced.

Q - Would you have been a part of Seals And Crofts in 1978?

A - No. I was with them in '76 and '77. That's when I made the decision I wasn't going back out with them. In '76 we had a band and that version of the band was going to be dismantled because some of the guys didn't want to go back on the road. They were doing a lot of sessions. So, they had another band in '77. They were going to replace them with the people in that band. They called me and asked if I wanted to do the '78 tour and I said, "You know, I've just made a decision. I'm not going back on the road." But I recommended a friend of mine, Scott Page, who's a sax player. He wound up working with Pink Floyd. He worked with Supertramp. Scotty had a band that was playing some gigs in L.A. and the San Fernando Valley and I said, "Call this guy. He'd be great." And so they put his whole band in there and they went on the road. I think he toured with them for three or four years.

Q - Prior to Seals And Crofts you were in other bands, weren't you?

A - Yeah. I was a young guy doing weddings and barmitzvahs in L.A. I tell my students one of the best things that happened to me was that when I was young I was able to do these weddings and I could make enough money where I was off from Monday through Friday. I'd work Friday night, a couple of gigs on Saturday, one or two on Sunday and that was paying my bills. So, I had all this time to practice and shred and work. I had about a six year window where that was what I was doing. My whole life was that. When I was 22 I got a call to go tour with The De Franco Family. They were like an Osmond Brothers from Canada. They had a hit out.

Q - I interviewed Tony De Franco.

A - Yeah. Tony De Franco. I played in this back-up band and we played Six Flags and stuff. And then I was recommended for that by a guy named Dan Sawyer, a guy I knew in college. After that, next year I'm 23 and Sawyer recommends me to do this gig with Eddie Kendricks, who was a singer in The Temptations. And he had hits out at the time, "Boogie Down", "Keep On Truckin". I went and I toured with Eddie. It was a real spotty thing. He'd go out and do a weekend. He'd fly out to the East Coast and do dates on the East Coast. We'd fly back to L.A. It was kind of nutty. But man, that was groove school because three of the musicians were Detroit studio players. Uriel Jones was the drummer. Eddie Willis was the guitarist and this kid, Roderick Chandler was the bass player. Uriel and Eddie had played on a lot of hit records. They had played on a lot of those Motown records. Boy, I'll tell you something. Being 23 years old from Burbank and you're standing on a stage with those guys? Dude, you know where the time is. (laughs) You know right where the feel is man, and they just take you along. They take you and put you on their bus and say, "Here we go!" It's really easy to play because they're so freakin' good. Then after that I did the Seals And Crofts stuff and then I really focused on doing sessions.

Q - What was it like to work with Kenny Rogers, Eddie Money and John Denver?

A - Kenny, I couldn't really tell you because the only thing I did with Kenny is there might have been another Kenny/Dolly thing I played on. I'm not sure. But the only record I did with Kenny was "We Got Tonight", and that was a single and he wasn't there. That was done. So, I don't even recall ever meeting Kenny. Eddie, I worked with on the recommendation of a drummer friend of mine. Eddie was great! I loved his music. I loved Eddie Money records, man. They were great. And so I get the call, and look! It's Eddie, who I revere. Tom Down is producing, who produced Eric Clapton and engineered the Cream records. I'm like, "I'm here with royalty, man." Andy Johns was the engineer who worked with The Stones and Led Zeppelin. I mean, like it was unbelievable man to be at this thing. I'm at rehearsals with them. It was Rock 'n' Roll. It was bash, crash, loud. It was balls to the wall, man. Everybody that played on the record, we did "No Control", man, everyone one of those tunes was just smoking. You'd walk into the studio and listen back and it'd be cranked and everybody would be jumpin' around the room. It was an unbelievable experience. He was a wonderful guy. He was great. I loved Eddie. I wouldn't tour with him, (laughs), so he got pissed. I mean, he didn't really get mad, but he asked me to go on the road and I said, "I can't. I just can't do it." I wound up seeing him years later and a friend of mine was playing bass with him. This is when I first moved to Massachusetts in the '90s. A buddy of mine said, "I'm playing at this place with Eddie." I'm like, "Eddie!" I went to the gig and I'm backstage with him. I go, "Dude, you gotta let me play "Shakin' Man". You gotta let me on the bandstand." And I got up there and played "Shakin'" with his man and so he was cool. Very, very sad to see him go. John Denver was fascinating because I knew about John. I knew some of the people who worked with him, sone of the background singers, Elizabeth Lamars. And so I get the call to play with John from Roger Nichols. I was so lucky. Roger Nichols did Steely Dan records. He calls me up one day and says, "Marty, I'm doing this record with John Denver. I'm producing him. I need you to come and play." I go, "Dude, I'm so in." So, I go do this album with John and he has Elvis' old band. He's got the freakin' cats. He's got James Burton on guitar for cryin' out loud! I'm going, "That's James Burton!" I'm sitting there next to him doing these sessions. And John wanted to hip up things, so he brought me in as kind of the younger, hipper guitar player guy with all the effects. But the interesting thing about John was, number one, he was an absolute sweetheart. Talk about a guy you would think... He was exactly like you would think him to be. He was. I'll give you the shirt off my back. He was just First Class. Everything was just the greatest. But the best thing for me, and the most fascinating thing in retrospect, is John Denver back in the '70s did a thing called the EST training.

Q - I remember reading about that.

A - When I'm 24 years old I take the EST training. It changed my life completely. It was like a 180 you couldn't believe. All of a sudden everything worked in my life. They say you're going to be transformed. It was literally for me, and this didn't happen for everybody, it was a 180. I'm kind of struggling and all of a sudden I do this thing and my mindset about life and looking at life and taking responsibility for my life and all of these jargonic jargon line of terms, all of a sudden everything starts working and I wind up years later with John. I said, "John," and somebody was doing an overdub and we were at the studio and I said, "Hey man, can I talk to you for a minute.?" He said, "Yeah." I go, "Look, dude. I did the EST training man, back in the day. I just always loved what you had to say about it." We did a half hour talking about it. And so, it was really great. We do our first couple of shows and he meets my wife and he goes, "Hey, you gotta come on the road with us." He was just such a sweetheart. Such an inclusive guy. I can't say enough great things about that man. He was wonderful. Unfortunately that tour didn't last very long. We did the album and he had kind of a minor hit, I don't know. The album didn't do much. We did kind of off dates. We'd fly off, do stuff. It didn't go that long. It was kind of spotty. We weren't out like on a bus for months. It was like, fly out, do these dates, and fly out and do this. We did a number of things. And after that I was off doing other things. But, he was great.

Q - Is it important when you work with someone in the studio or on the road to like them as a person?

A - Here's what's important. It's important that they think you love them and you love their music. That's what's important. I talk to my students about this all the time. You have to give the music the best you can. Look, you have to love it. That's the bottom line. It's your job to love the music you're performing and love the artist you're working with. Look, if they're a pain in the ass, they're a pain in the ass. If the music isn't necessarily what you would do, it's not necessarily what you would be doing if it was your turn, but it's their show. It's their music. You've got to give it everything you've got. If you don't, you shouldn't be there.

Q - At your brother's insistence, you put down the drum sticks and picked up the guitar.

A - Yeah.

Q - Do you think you would've been as successful as a drummer instead of a guitar player?

A - Wow! That's a really good question. Man, that's really something. Well, I will say this, I can still play the drums. I've got one groove that I'm really good at. (laughs) I can't do much else than one groove.

Q - Sometimes that's all it takes.

A - But, I'll tell you it was a foundation for my musical journey. There's something about understanding what a groove is supposed to feel like. By playing the drums, you do it physically. You feel it. I took that as kind of a piece of how I looked at playing the guitar. I was very focused on having really good rhythm and having a great time. Would I be as successful? There's a lot of drummers. There were a lot of guitar players. I had a certain skill set that got me where I was. Who knows if it would have worked as a drummer? I started out playing drums because of The Beatles.

Q - You liked Ringo.

A - Yeah, I liked Ringo. I had like some kind of sticks and I had a drum set with my snare drum was like a cooler. My tom tom was a box. I had a floor tom, another box. I created some cymbals out of a lamp that had a lamp shade that had a ring around the lamp shade on top. I have that and I put rivets on it. So, I was getting pretty creative when was 12 (laughs) or 10 or whatever. Then I got this kit and away I went. But the guitar was just always sitting there in the living room. That was what happened. I just started playing that a lot more than I was playing the drums. So my brother said, "Look dude, you've got to sell the drums and get a guitar. You're a Walsh. You've gotta be like the rest of us."

Q - And off you went and here you are today.

A - Yeah, I know. Kind of crazy, man.

Q - All these things that fell into place for you, while you're working at 'em or not, they just came together.

A - Yeah. I believe that man. I kind of have always felt like every process, everything that kind of happens to you in life is a piece of what's to come. There have been moments where you're living your life and you go, "Well, that could've killed me." (laughs) Nearly getting hit by a car. Stuff like that happens and you go, "Well, if I had left this place three seconds earlier, (laughs) I might have gotten hit by that car, but I didn't." I kind of have always looked at life like, the process of life is what's important. There is no end result. As soon as you get an end result you go, "Well, I want another result." So, it's the process. It's like digging and enjoying the process of what you have in life. It's like finding solutions. There's a saying, there are no problems. There's only the next thing to handle.

Q - I'm sure talking to the people you've met over the years, they were always looking for the next challenge. They weren't really happy with the success they've had. They were always looking forward.

A - Man, that's such a big part of having a career. I talk to my students about it. You've gotta be looking ahead. You have to be looking constantly for, especially now with technology the way it changes; you have to constantly be looking ahead. What's next for you? Okay, this is what you're doing now. What's on the horizon? What feelers can you put out? Most people in the industry have a career that walks up the ladder. Okay, I'm a guitar player. I'm playing weddings and barmizvahs. Okay, great. Now I'm touring. Okay, cool. Well, now I'm doing sessions. That's good. Now I'm on the road with one of the biggest bands in the world and I'm touring to do that. There's a certain shelf life you have in this business. Most people that have a career and stay in it and start as an artist or a musician, they wind up in the business side of things. They wind up in management, working for record companies. A&R. There's a constant moving up the ladder kind of idea. When you get to the point for instance where I was at when I started working at the college, it was like, okay, my career has been great. I'm still working. I'm still doing stuff in my studio. That's all fine and well, but I'm at an age, back sixteen, seventeen years ago I'm going, these young kids, this is their time. This is their thing. Fortunately I live in a town where the premier music school in the world exists. What an opportunity for me! All my guys in L.A. that I worked with back in the day, when they found out I was teaching at Berklee, they go, "Dude, wow! How'd you do that? You figured that out." It's been great. This particular job that I have now is incredibly rewarding because I'm on the back end of a career in music. When I was in my twenties, thirties and forties, I was groovin' man. I was a player. I was doing it. Now I'm more like, okay, let's coach these people on how you can do it.

Official Website: www.MartyWalsh.com

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