Coldplay may not be known for shredding, but Steve Morse has been challenged to change that perception by punching in a guitar solo on their 2005 hit, Fix You.
It’s his second appearance on the American Musical Supply YouTube channel in recent times, having delivered a sumptuous Jeff Beck cover last time out. This time, he’s been tasked with making one of the British pop rock group’s biggest hits a little more virtuosic.
For his performance, Morse pairs his Music Man signature guitar, which was derived from the carcass of his heavily modified 'FrankenTele', with his Engl 20W head. And, shock horror, his tone is fantastic.
First, he gets to listen to the track, and as the first droning organ chord plays out, he brushes his fingers across the fretboard, saying, “Gotta find the key!”
“When you're sticking with that super diatonic thing, as a guitarist, I would try everything I could to give it a different identity,” he says. “I'm obviously not a pop artist, so I don't base my life on what's going to sell.
“The producer is betting that the vocals and the lyrics are gonna sell the whole thing and probably just wants the guitar to be limited. Still, I'm gonna try to sneak some stuff in there to give it more personality.”
He also says that, while a studio musician might be forced to “play it safe” he wants to “explore” his options. “You find your best ideas by going, ‘Hmm, I wonder what...’” he adds.
As for tricks employed, there are some pedal steel imitating swells, played on the bridge pickup with the tone knob, rather than the volume, rolled as he plays the note, although it’s scrapped in the final version. It’s replaced by a beautiful tapping refrain, and a call-and-response approach to playing through the chorus in the lead-up to his solo proper.
There’s something engagingly candid about Morse’s performance that gives the solo a more human feel – it’s not perfect, but it’s honest, and it lets Morse’s talents shine in their own light.
“The main things are: work around the vocals, if you play over the vocals, you're gone,” he reflects. “And think melodically. On a song like this, no one wants to hear riffs. They want it to be something they can sing or whistle. There's gotta be little nuggets like that, and it's easy to do when the chord changes are common to each other. Almost anything would work.”
Eagle-eyed viewers will also note Morse’s strange muting device sitting on his headstock, which he once developed to help with his battle against arthritis.
Elsewhere, Morse recently joined a covers band to play rock classics at an intimate jam session, and Steve Lukather has recently let slip about his secret supergroup with Morse, Eddie Van Halen, and Albert Lee.
