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GW: What was your first instrument?
SCHOLZ: Piano. I had lessons and learned how to play classical piano. Actually, I got through a few fairly well-known pieces; not that I can play them now. In fact, I can't read music anymore, either. But I used to, back when I was in fifth or sixth grade. Then I quit the piano and didn't start again until I heard the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds...the English rebellious type bands. That's when I got into rock and roll. I started learning how to play keyboards by ear. I'd try to play the rock songs I liked on piano. And that turned into playing organ in bands, which is what got me into guitar. I always thought that the way the guitar player was playing wasn't as good as what I heard on the records-this was strictly cover bands. So I decided to try guitar myself. I've been trying ever since! [laughs]
Keyboards were a snap. I can stay away from those things for years and then come back and play just fine. But guitar is a constant struggle. It's like basketball. If you don't do it every week you lose it.
GW: Do you practice regularly?
SCHOLZ: No. I practice very irregularly. I'm torn between so many other things that I choose to do or have to do. I end up spending an enormous amount of time working as a producer, recording engineer and songwriter. And I play all the other instruments on Boston records. So between bass, keyboards, drum parts and just simply playing guitar parts in the studio, I get very little time to practice the thing. I'm trying to make up for that now. We're getting ready to go out on the road in 10 days. I don't want to be the weak sister. Walk On has some very demanding parts, both on guitar and keyboards.
GW: How soon after Third Stage did you begin writing material for Walk On?
SCHOLZ: I started right after we stopped touring, in 1988. I also decided to build a new studio at that point. The old one was getting too outdated. I had a concept for putting a studio together that would make it possible for me to bypass most of the time that was required by production work. The idea was for me to be able to go into the studio and be a musician and an arranger and songwriter, as opposed to an engineer and producer.
In a typical studio situation, you might spend eight hours trying to get a guitar or drum sound. I wanted to find a way to get past all that screwing around. So I took my best shot at a production sound for all the instruments that I like to use drums, bass, Clavinet, Hammond organ, a bunch of electric guitar sounds, acoustics-and preset those sounds in all the equipment that was required. And I built some other gadgets where I could select one or the other at will. For example, if I'm working on an organ track for one tune, and I want to try a guitar idea for something else, I can push two buttons, put on the guitar and roll tape, play and get a real good, finished, master sound.
GW: Is this all accomplished via Rockman modules?
SCHOLZ: Yeah. My studio is wall-to-wall blue-all Rockman units, because the Rockman stuff is obviously designed to get a sound that I like. Everything ends up going through Rockman modules sooner or later. The guitars certainly do. I'll fool around a little with a tube amp here and there, but 99 percent of it is Rockman stuff, straight-in, direct. The keyboards are all processed through Rockman Sustainors, Rockman preamps and the Rockman choruses. The Rockman chorus is certainly part of my secret for getting that widely dispersed stereo sound where you can't find its center. I first became fascinated with that kind of really wide stereo spectrum when I heard the song "Hocus Pocus" by Focus. That had a lot to do with the kind of production I went for in Boston.
GW: Since your new studio is optimized for you to work alone, is it one big room? Or did you go with a conventional control room/recording room design?
SCHOLZ: No, there's no separate room this time. By the end of Third Stage, that separate room was nothing more than a place to store junk. Who needs it? I feel lost if I go in a commercial studio and I have to go off in a separate room and play something. In fact, I tried that with a piano track for Walk On, and it reminded me of why I make records by myself; trying to explain to another person where the punch point is going to be and what isn't right about the headphone mix is just too time-consuming for me. The way I record, I don't have to communicate with people, and it saves an incredible amount of time. If I tried to do one of those Boston records in a normal studio situation, forget it. I'd only finish one record in my life. That would be it. I'd have to retire after that. I wouldn't have time for a second one.
GW: You were one of the first to blur the the between musician and engineer/producer.
SCHOLZ: Yeah, I did the basics and even a few of the vocals for the first album in the basement of my apartment house. I knew I could not do that working in a studio with an engineer running stuff. And I also didn't think I could perform the things with somebody else there watching. I got used to doing it by myself.
GW: Are you a shy kind of performer?
SCHOLZ: Oh, yeah. In the studio. I'll be the first to admit that most of what I do is horrible. I think most of what I do sucks. But I'm very tenacious. So I'll keep trying. I like to do things in unconventional ways. All you have to do is tell me, "Oh, that's not how you record that." Or, "That's not the way you're supposed to play that chord." I'm just so naturally rebellious that that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Any way you tell me I shouldn't do something, that's the way I'm gonna do it. Just because you said I shouldn't.
GW: Are any tracks on a Boston album ever recorded simultaneously, for example bass and drums?
SCHOLZ: No. I do it all piece by piece. And on the tracks where somebody else plays, I usually do that by remote control. Like if Dave [Sikes] is going to play bass on a track, I'll just give him a copy of the basics without the bass, so he can try some bass lines in his own studio. If there's anything I like, I'll dub it onto the master. I find that's better than working one-on-one with a player in the studio. I find that people do better work if they don't have to worry about what some other person thinks of what they're playing while they're doing it. Eventually I started working with [guitarist] Gary Pihl that way, too. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't even come into my studio anymore. He got used to doing it by himself, too. I'd still be the producer, because I'd sort through all the takes and see where I thought it was going. Sometimes I'd say something like, "This one starts great. Keep going with that kind of energy." Or, "Back off and be smoother there." The only person I work one-on-one with is the singer. And he's always singing to a tape track. So there are never two things being done at once.
GW: Does Gary play any solos on the album?
SCHOLZ: Oh, sure. Some nice stuff, as a matter of fact. He played that blistering solo in the middle of "I Need Your Love." He also played some of the solos in the bolero section of the Walk On medley. He plays that guitar thing that goes over that whole bolero part. That's just one of my favorites.
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