By 1997, guitarist Brent Mason had appeared on records by George Strait, Shania Twain, Alan Jackson and more. He’d helped define the sound of modern country music in the ’90s, but he wanted more.
Before his session career took off, Mason had dreams of being a songwriter. So, after hitting paydirt in support of others, he decided that it was time to realise his dream in the form of his debut solo record, Hot Wired.
But finding time wouldn’t be easy, as Mason was in demand. “I got busy,” he tells MusicRadar. “I was making loads of money doing sessions.”
Few players in music history had cornered the session market the way Mason had within a booming and resurgent country scene, and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.
Still, the itch to create nagged at him.
“I had a lot of songs,” he says. “And I was concerned that a lot of them were different from each other. But I thought, ‘What the hell! Who says you have to do the same style for every song?'”
It helped that Hot Wired turned out to be an instrumental guitar album.
This wasn’t an anomaly per se. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Greg Howe, for example, had done well with these types of albums.
Mason was a country player, a genre not particularly welcoming to instrumental guitar smorgasbords. But he didn’t limit himself to one genre.
“I made the album kind of around the map,” he laughs. “It jumps around a bit.”
Scattered as the album seems, the sessions were condensed.
“We cut the album in the analog days, so no digital,” Mason says. “I was running low on budget, so when I cut the song Hot Wired, I said, ‘Damn, I wish I could have cut that song faster…’ So, what we did was speed the tape up, which took the pitch up. If you listen to it, it’ll make sense!”
Mason’s budget for recording might have been slim, but he spared no expense when it came time to recruit the album’s supporting cast.
He recalls: “We had Stuart Duncan on fiddle, and Paul Franklin on steel guitar, and I got Lonnie Wilson and Eddie Bayers on drums, and the late great Michael Rhodes and Glenn Worf on bass.”
Despite the rushed recording and genre-hopping track listing, Hot Wired was well-reviewed. It wasn’t a big seller, but in the 28 years since its release, it’s gathered a cult following.
Mason had a blast doing it, but after returning to his session career, he hasn’t found time for a whole lot more.
“I did a record called Smokin' Section [in 2006] with my brother Randy,” he says. “But I got so damn busy doing sessions. I said, ‘I can really make some tangible money doing this.’ I wasn’t going to strike it rich as a songwriter!”
Mason finds himself in a position now where he can pick and choose his sessions. But does that mean he’s planning Hot Wired’s long-awaited follow-up?
“I keep saying I will, but I never do,” he laughs. “I’ve got some songs, so I could do an EP, but it’s hard to follow that album.
“When you’re writing instrumentals, it’s fun to play great solos, but what makes a song is the composition.
"I’ve got some great songs — I just don’t know when I’ll get them together.”
