Biography
UPDATED: May 1st, 2010
I
hate writing these fucking things. It's like staring into a mirror
with a magnifying glass and analyzing the upside-down distorted reflection.
Everything comes out stiff, factual and boring 'cause I feel stupid presenting
myself, like it aint my place. I hate being a salesman, and that's
how I feel when I write my life story. Nobody's more valuable than
anybody else, and everybody's got some different skill - my thing was
guitar. So what. I always played guitar because it was my
medication. It gave me peace, sanity, stability, focus, distraction,
ventilation, a purpose, goals, identity, and a way to communicate 'cause
I was too shy to speak. But that doesn't define me, and I'll never
feel like it's a big enough reason to write some written dedication to
myself. I just always loved music, like everyone else, and guitar
was my instrument.
Born in Brooklyn, 1969, missed the moonwalk by two months. Oh well.
I was this odd little brainiac kid, who could spell when I was 2 before
I could speak. I had this board and magnetic letters I'd move around
to spell things. For every birthday my parents would ask what I
wanted, I'd answer "More letters." I remember being 5
and sitting in the yard reading encyclopedias on a sunny day when I should
have been out playing football with the neighbors. Didn't need other
people, was happy just challenging my brain with info and art, it was
like a drug. I memorized all the Presidents of the US and facts
about them, and would be able to draw caricatures of their faces.
Knew every State in order that they joined the country, and their capitals.
Could draw a map of the world freehand. When I was 10 I read 3000
pages of world history and wrote a 300-page summary. All that and
I couldn't get laid, go figure.
It was 1975 and my family just moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island.
I immediately
had this feeling like I didn't belong there and and I was pretty depressed.
You'd be surprised how intuitive a 5-year-old can be. I had REAL friends in BK - we had history. Here, I was an outsider,
I sensed people analyzing me, and I felt like I was under that same fucking
magnifying glass. For the 20 years I lived there, I never
fit in, and didn't care to. But ya do your time like a man. So I
did. The neighborhood kids I'd hang with all had older bruthas and
sistas, and I got to listen to their music - Beatles, Yes, Stones, Ramones,
but it was hearing the KISS Alive! album that turned a light on in my
oversized bulbous child-head. I knew I was meant to do what they
were doing - make music and dress funny. I wanted to be a drummer.
But so did my brother and he was older and could do a faster drum-roll
on his knees than I could on mine, so he won. I went to the nearest
music store and enrolled in bass lessons. They knew my hands were
too small, and that there were no "kid-size basses" like there
were guitars, so they told me that 'the law says ya gotta start on guitar
and play for 2 years before you can play bass.' It was a crushing
blow, but I was willing to endure this if it was the only option.
So I spent my childhood years studying history, art, science and music,
while all the other kids with crusty dried chocolate on their faces called
me a hermit. Fuck 'em.
Yeah, so I did my time as a guitarist, and had a band with my brother
on drums and neighbor on guitar/vocals. We wrote our own shit, did
cover songs (Stones, Floyd, Zep, Ramones, Sex Pistols, and other 60's/70's
stuff) and played schools, parties, and outdoor concerts. We'd record
by positioning ourselves at different distances from a boombox at the
other end of the room and record the music, then overdub vocals by playing
it back and singing along while a second boombox recorded it. I
got a taste of band bizz, writing a lot and making demos, making homemade
band comic books as merch and tourbooks for our shows, etc...
This went on till 1982 and we all started doin' our own things.
The whole time, I never stopped taking lessons. At this point, I was 12
and had my rhythm and jazz theory down. All was fine. Content.
Then a kid asked me if I liked Van Halen. Who? To me
it was all about Angus, Ace and Jimi. He played me the intro to
"Mean Streets" off VH's "Fair Warning" album - it
fucked my shit up. All this time playing guitar I had no idea just
how creative you can get with it. Everything changed. Started getting
into soloing and fancy shit after that. Made a point of learning Eruption
note-for-note by ear, then opened up the cassette of it and flipped the
tape reels, and learned it backwards. Started building my own guitars,
taking apart old one's, re-wiring them, cutting the bodies, and re-painting
them. I was also doing alot of art - canvas paintings, sculptures, and
painting album covers on the backs of dungaree jackets for $20 a pop.
That's how I saved up to buy this beautiful black strat-style Ibanez Roadstar
I wanted - with a vibrato bar! I was psyched! It was
beautiful! The first thing I did when I got it home was chip off
the paint, drill it full of holes, and paint it yellow. That was
my main guitar for the next 13 years.
Ok, so I'm 13 now and I start teaching kids guitar.
Have a new band, and we start playing bars. Writing and recording
originals, covering Maiden, Ozzy and Rush, this goes on for years. I get
an 8-track reel-to-reel and start making a home studio and recording bands.
15 - I'm in High School now, and it sucks. Everyone's divided into
cliques, and I choose to be part of none of 'em. Teachers take one
look at my long hair and decide I'm an idiot. I'd get high grades
and they'd accuse me of cheating. The only redeeming quality was
guitar class, but even there people treated me funny because I had 8 years
of playing and gigging experience and they were first starting out.
So half the people acted like I should be worshipped, and the other half
like I should be killed for my sins. Both extremes sucked - I just wanted
to be unnoticed and unbothered by people, as I was on the verge of murdering
a good amount of them. People made up weird rumors that I was a
coke-head and would sleep with my guitar. Dicks. Having a
psychotic suicidal girlfriend that shaved her head didn't help either.
So when I turned 16, I quit school and stayed home where I wouldn't be
a danger to anyone.
Shrinks didn't help. They tried to medicate me - I threw the shit
out. I cured myself by doing the opposite of what I was telling
myself to do. If I didn't want to talk, I'd call a friend.
If I didn't want to go out, I'd hit the mall. It slowly worked me
out of dangerous mental hole. I went and got my GED. Surprisingly
I never smoked or sniffed or swallowed or injected anything my whole life
- maybe it was because I didn't trust anyone and needed to stay clear-headed
to keep my defenses solid, maybe it was that I thought the mind is everything
and you need to take care of it, maybe it was because I always felt stoned
and tweaked and elevated and dropped and high and low all the time already,
maybe it's because I knew I was a timebomb and didn't wanna set it off
- maybe all of the above. I drank a little when I was 16, and found
it to be an emotional crutch, it would ease the anxiety - but I didn't
want to be dependent on anything external for that, needed to handle it
from within. Plus I was taking care of a girl who's leg was ripped
into pieces and held together with some bionic gadget, ending her career
in dance - car accident with some kid showing off how hard he can fold
a car around a telephone pole. Given the choice between drinking
OR driving, wasn't gonna do both, I wanted to drive - had a '77 Camaro,
then got a '76 Monte Carlo - the thing was like a fuckin' boat, got about
10 feet per gallon.
In '89 I started writing some instrumental guitar music. I put together
a demo, and sent it off to the guitar magazines for review. Soon
after, Mike Varney (CEO Shrapnel Records) called me and put me in his
Spotlight
column, where he reviewed unknown's in Guitar Player magazine. We
stayed in touch, and two years later, I had my first published work on
Shrapnel Records' compilation CD "Ominous Guitarists From
the Unknown" - did a guitar version of Chopin's Fantasie
Impromptu piano piece. This led to work as a transcriber for Inside Edge
instructional videos and Shrapnel University instructional tapes
(never released), and more instrumental releases on Legato Records' "Guitar
On the Edge" compilation CDs, volumes 2, 3 and 4.
So I'm doing gigs with my original band, got some side bands goin' doing
cover shit, recording people in the home studio, and teaching out of music
stores, then at the Sam Ash Music Institute in Edison NJ (the building
is now a McDonald's), and at 24 became a school teacher (ironic for a
High School dropout, eh?) I figured I'd be responsible and have
a "real" job to "fall back on", get that "job
security and stability", all that stuff parents tell ya while you're
trying to "make it" in music that just makes ya work
that much harder to prove them wrong. But I wanted to do it, I enjoyed
teaching. I set up a darkroom and taught the kids B&W photography,
and set up a music program for the school - jazz band, choir, music education,
all that. After a few months, the school broke contract and cut
our health benefits and salaries. I tasted reality: there's no such
thing as "job security and stability." I retired early
and went back to being my own boss, made a new demo, and 6 months
later had a contract with Shrapnel Records. Released
"The
Adventures Of Bumblefoot" instrumental guitar CD in May 95,
did the soundtrack for the SEGA CD-ROM game
"Wild
Woody" shortly after, and released the
"Hermit"
CD in January '97. I had a 32-track ADAT studio in Brooklyn and
was starting to do a lot of producing, so I started my own music production
company Hermit, Inc. in late '97 and terminated the Shrapnel
contract.
I was always a singing guitarist, but the instrumental guitar stuff labeled
me as a shredding solo instrumentalist. I felt like GILLIGAN. The actor
Bob Denver from Gilligan's Island - no matter what he does, everyone will
always look at him and say GILLIGAN! That's what the "Adventures"
CD did for me. Gilligan. I've always been a team player
into bands, and that's what I always did long before any instrumental
stuff. So the first thing I did on Hermit, Inc. was get a band back
together, starting with just me and my brother on drums, and release
the "Hands"
CD in April '98. Got the whole band together, did some radio interviews
and gigs, the highlight being a big festival in Nice, France. In
early '99 the drummer quit weeks before headlining a festival in Europe,
and it led to starting from scratch. Kept on writing and producing
meanwhile. Started work on the next CD, "Uncool".
Kept hoping for a band that would have a long life together but never
could find people that would dedicate as much as was necessary.
Everyone had a cut-off point where the dream became too real and they
didn't want to progress any further - and ya never knew where that cut-off
point was until you reached it and really needed them to stick to their
obligations. One would quit before an album release, another before
a tour, never with any warning... they'd go back to life-as-usual
and I'd be fucked out of everything I literally lived for, and start from
scratch auditioning, rehearsing, pulling teeth to do photo shoots so I
can arrange new press and promo, pulling teeth to get people to play on
their own record, mediating all their petty disputes, learning every new
skill for designing album art and making websites because no one else
would, and making money however I can to fund CD manufacturing and marketing
(and supplying their clothes and equipment), while only taking a quarter
of the minimal money back because I always believed in splitting band-related
income equally even though nobody shared in the expenses, even though
my day-job was to make a living for everyone in the band, even though
they had their own day-jobs and did little more than show up to some rehearsals... you
get the idea.
In September 2000 I licensed an early version of the
Uncool
CD to a label in France, and toured there in March and April 2001.
Patrice Vigier (CEO Vigier
Guitars) had a lot to do with the success I had in France and
I'll always be grateful to him. And Julien Hugonnard (founder of
"The Adventures Of Ron Thal" newsletter.) They've always
been there.
In the Summer of 2001, I started concentrating on the next CD - more like
the old stuff, more instrumental songs, was gonna call the album "Guitars
Suck." After the terrorist shit went down on September 11th
'01, I decided to make it a nonprofit CD and donate all of the money to
disaster relief. Released it in November 2001 and called it "9.11"
to easily identify it as the fundraising CD. After releasing 9.11,
I stopped having my own band - couldn't keep putting my fate in other
people's hands that didn't care. That's about the time that "Bumblefoot"
went from my bandname to becoming my nickname. Did some local fundraising
shows jamming with friends and released the final version of "Uncool"
through my own company in February 2002. Started donating proceeds
from the 9.11 CD to the Red Cross.
Just to back up a little, there was a student of mine that I taught at
that music-institute-turned-McDonald's back in the early 90's, named Ralph
Rosa. We stayed friends, played together, he moved to Puerto Rico
and played in a cool up-'n-coming band. Just as things were getting
good, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He moved back to
NJ, and decided to do something positive. He started M.S.R.F.,
the "Multiple Sclerosis Research
Foundation", a non-profit org that puts together fundraising
events, where all the profit goes directly to the researchers working
on a cure. I'm on the Board Of Directors and help any way I can.
We had the first Multiple Sclerosis fundraising dinner/comedy show with
MSRF in May 2002, donated $10,000 to research. Been doing
annual shows ever since. Ralph's the best friend anyone could ever
have, always was.
Toured Europe in late 2002, with musicians from bands in the countries
I was touring - members of prog-metal band Sun Caged in The Netherlands,
members of instrumental rock band Plug-In
in France... These weren't sterile hired musicians, they were real
band folks... and for the first time in my life I knew what it was
like to work with musicians that understood. Before this, there
were always people that would come to rehearsal after their day-jobs and
treat the band with a level of disrespect they'd never attempt elsewhere,
inevitably killing the band. Music was my life, and I was finally
working with people that were the same way. The chemistry was great
and the band had its own sound like we played together all our lives.
And no surprise, everyone got along. And real friendships grew.
Dennis Leeflang,
the drummer from Sun Caged, moved to NYC soon after the tour and we continued
working together. Touring was always tough. Conditions weren't
the greatest. Sharing hotel rooms sometimes with no heat or hot
water, no sleep because we can't afford days off and have a 10-hour drive
to the next show, one person sneezes in the van and everyone ends up passing
the flu back-and-forth - screaming on stage every night in smokey clubs,
I'd get it the worst. And after a month, ya come home with $300.
Ya do what ya gotta do, and you forget everything as soon as you hit the
stage. I've had stupid label assholes arguing with me about wanting
to take ownership of my copyrights as I'm walking onto the stage to play,
I've had stupid tour-company assholes laughing at how sick we were or
how hungry and refusing to stop for food. But you forget it all
when you hit the stage. The audiences were great, we'd play for
an hour-and-a-half, hang out with everyone for 2 hours, load our shit
into the van, take turns sleeping on piles of equipment and do it again
the next night.
In 2002 I started licensing songs to TV shows, along with the bands I
was producin', also started working as a songwriter/producer for Carlin
Publishing and different artists. Got my own studio for the first
time in Sept. 2002 - an old house that I've since been gutting and renovating
- love doing that stuff. Building a house is the greatest feeling.
It's good having my own studio - needed it. Too much music to make.
That's what I do, and no matter how tough things are I don't quit.
April 2003, took all unfinished songs that weren't officially released
and put out the "Forgotten
Anthology" CD. Meanwhile, had a manager that for the
past year screwed up everything he touched and got me to the point where
I was gonna sell guitars and get a paper-route to pay my bills.
After years of getting dicked around by half-assed bandmembers, labels,
managers, tour companies, being betrayed by the people closest to you
in it all, I was feeling pretty battered, beaten, and Bumblefucked.
Was really considering packing it in - life, that is. Went on meds.
First two days, my spit felt like sandpaper. Then they kicked in
- I couldn't think a bad thought if I tried. No more cravings to
eat human flesh in large crowds or hang myself with a guitar cable or
swerve into every telephone pole I drove past. Started writing my
next album, called "Normal"
- first line, "I just got a new medication..."
Then *click*, it was like someone hit the pause button in my head.
I knew what it was. The meds - they block *everything*. I
couldn't write music anymore, at least not my own. Was still able
to collaborate with other artists and wrote other stuff while producing
people, could still play, did a bunch of benefit shows, kept teaching
guitar and bass and vocals and recording, started teaching music production
at SUNY Purchase College, did some clinics, one which we put on DVD "Live
At the RMA" - just couldn't write my own stuff. I never
felt better, I finally knew what it felt like to be "normal".
It was good. But good isn't enough. I stayed on for a year-and-a-half,
and decided I'd rather give up internal peace to make music again.
Went off the meds, with the experience of being normal that I can draw
from whenever needed. I couldn't tell that the meds were leaving
my system, but knew they were - people started saying, "What's wrong?"
for no reason - my face was slowly changing. I was becoming me again,
whatever that means. In July 2004, Joe Satriani invited me to jam
at a nearby arena the following month - was a personal highlight, he's
such a cool guy. :) Then got a call from some band about
maybe playing guitar with them - will get back into that. Played
in Moscow, got myself a furry hat. Started writing the rest of the
Normal album, started laying tracks Jan '05, still writing, finished recording
in June, mixing and mastering was obsessive torture, manufactured by Oct
2005. By that point I was working 140 hours a week in the studio
on 11 albums, for 2 years straight doing 40-hour days, and teaching and
playing in a cover band. And one day I went to get off the couch
and it felt like there was a finger in my chest pressing against my heart.
Tried to get up again and the finger pressed harder.
I also looked down and suddenly noticed I looked like Fat Bastard - that
sure kinda crept up. Bumblefat. Reached over to the
phone, called 4 bands I was about to record and canceled, quit the cover
band, stopped teaching the private lessons, and started hittin' the treadmill
the next day. Dropped over 80 pounds since. I realized something
- negativity and stress will shorten your life, make ya fat, make ya not
wanna live... since then, anyone that tries to cripple me
with that shit is poison to me and I cut 'em out of my life - need to,
it's survival.
I've been recording and producing an electro-pop artist named
Q*Ball since '96, we're good friends. He started his own label in
2005, "Bald
Freak Music" - he handled my CD and merch shipping in exchange for my
co-writing, performing, recording, mixing and mastering all the acts on
his label. In mid '05, I put out Normal on his label. Toured Europe Oct/Nov 05, another tour with the worst fucking bird flu I ever experienced that we just kept passing to each other.
6 out of 7 of us got it, doctors and medicine couldn't fight it, one crew
member had to leave, had to cancel a show for the first time in my life,
in London, which fucking sucked ass-balls. We stayed sick for a
month home after the tour, it was that bad, it was fearing-death kinda
stuff. Came home with $700. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't
be touring...? Six months later, I'm touring the world with
Guns N' Roses, throughout '06-'07. The first concert I saw
was Kiss at Madison Square Garden in '79. I can still remember the
feeling of the heat on my face from the flames shooting up on the sides
of the stage. A life-long goal was to play there, with the lights,
the flames, the bombs, the volume. In November '06, we played there
- with the lights, the flames, the bombs, the volume. Been a great
fucking time. Laid tracks for the "Chinese Democracy"
CD in NYC and LA, between legs of the tour.
Started writing songs for the next Bumblefoot album "Abnormal"
in October 2007, started laying drum tracks with Dennis in November, tracked
up until April 2008. During that time, I recorded artists for FuseTV's
"Talking Metal on Fuse". Recorded people jamming,
mixed/mastered it - did a little performing on it too. Had the pleasure
of working with Zakk Wylde, Exodus, The Spyderz, members of Overkill,
Dream Theater, Anthrax, Twisted Sister, Iced Earth, In This Moment, God
Forbid and Warrior Soul. Ran a contest
to find opera singers to do backing vocals on Abnormal, mixed it in April/May, put together
a nice high-end analog mastering studio and mastered the album the end
of May, finished the art, got it off to manufacturing early June.
The Abnormal CD was released on the web July 1st, 2008.
In the Fall I signed retail distro deals for the entire Bumblefoot catalog
in North America and Europe, did a bunch of radio appearances. When not doing all that, I try to make good use of my time and put it
towards fundraising events and positive things. Organized some
fundraising stuff - a concert for diabetes research and a children's
hospital, an event for athlete's health issues, and donating proceeds of
my album sales to the MS
Research Foundation. Did the theme song for VH1's "That
Metal Show" and the music for the NY Islanders hockey team 2008/2009
season. I hit the studio again in September and started working on an acoustic EP, taking songs from
my last few albums and making new stripped-down versions. Recorded 4 songs,
then had the fans pick the final 5th song for me to record. While doing all that, GNR
was getting ready to release Chinese Democracy - had a song in the "Rock
Band 2" videogame, another in the
movie "Body Of Lies", title track hit the radio in October - album came
out on November 23rd. Booked myself a 1-week promo tour in Paris,
London and Berlin in mid-December, meet-n-greets and interviews.
Released my acoustic album "Barefoot"
on December 23rd.
Spent the first half of 2009 in LA, rehearsing with GNR, nailing down the 'Chi Dem' songs
and updating my gear for upcoming touring.
Took a break over the Summer and toured the US & Europe playing guitar
with Lita Ford. Back to LA in the Fall for more rehearsing and hit the road with GNR
in December touring Asia, Canada in Jan/Feb 2010, and South/Central
America in March/April 2010. Had a great time on the road, giving
spontaneous acoustic concerts and meet-n-greets for fans waiting outside
the hotels, organizing contests for fans to win tickets, backstage
passes, albums... will never forget the people I've met and
the great times.
Ya learn a lot along the way. Loyalty's so fucking important. If you fill your life with decent people, you'll grow together and lift each other to the next level. But don't just give it blindly. Honor it - save it for the people who deserve it. Only time will tell who those people really are.
BUMBLEFOOT
MAY 1st, 2010
 |
bfOOt uses Vigier guitars, DiMarzio
pickups, Ernie Ball
strings, Engl
amps.
| Another
bio Ron Thal (aka "Bumblefoot") Been a member of Guns N' Roses, touring since May 2006. Sold-out shows around the world, headlining festivals with crowds of 150,000. Recording with them since Oct '06, we released the "Chinese Democracy" album November 2008. I've worked as a songwriter for other artists, for TV jingles, theme songs and background music. I've also written for classical instruments and orchestras. I've been hired by bands/labels for the past 20 years as a producer. This has included writing, arranging and performing, usually engineering. As a songwriter and producer, I have experience in pop, R&B, hip-hop, funk, disco, electronic, classical, opera, blues, folk, jazz, swing, Latin, Middle-Eastern, new-age, lounge, rock, progressive, industrial, metal, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's retro. Last cool things I did were 24-7 Spyz "Face The Day" CD, Return To Earth's "Automata" & "Captains Of Industry" CDs (ft. Chris Pennie - drummer of Coheed, formerly Dillinger Escape Plan), and a rock re-mix of rapper Hurricane's "Abaybay". I've been hired by Carlin Publishing to write songs for their music
library, and I've acted as my own publisher pushing songs from my albums,
and writing music specifically as theme songs and background music. I wrote
the theme song to the SpikeTV show "MXC", the theme to VH1's "That Metal
Show", the music for the NY Islanders hockey team 2008/2009 season, I've
done all the music for a SEGA video game, did a jingle for the Oxygen
Network, and in the past year my music has been internationally on
Smallville, WWE Raw, Red Bull's Air Race TV series, and on MTV/VH1's Hogan
Knows Best, Real World, Pimp My Ride, Next, My Super Sweet 16, Osbournes, Made, Date My Mom, Road Rules,
Extreme Elimination, You've Got A Friend, Clone High, Sausage Factory, Power
Girls, and plenty more. |
