By A. Lee Graham  - January 2009

Lee: Collection spans your entire career, from Perpetual Burn to some new compositions. Why release it now? Was your intent to share your art with a new generation of listeners?

Jason: I had been wanting to do a “best of” album for a while, then Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records asked me about putting one together. I wanted new people to be able to hear the stages of my career, but I wanted my old fans to have something new. When Varney first asked me about it, I hadn’t started working on the new songs. We talked about waiting until I finished them. I was nervous because I hadn’t worked on new music for quite a while. I didn’t know if my new system would work. 

Jason: The reaction has been so great. I couldn’t be happier that people really get and feel what I am doing. You never know if people will feel your emotions. I must say, I was pretty blown away when the great Uli Jon Roth told me he loved it and thought it was magic. That was big for me. I feel the same about his music.

Lee: Some big names make guests appearances, from Joe Satriani to Greg Howe. Have they always expressed an interest in working with you, or did you contact them? How did you go about pairing them with specific songs? What made Greg more suited for "River of Longing," for example, or Joe better for "Electric Prayer For Peace?"

Jason: I contacted them. I have been friends with Greg and other guys for a long time, but I had never physically met Joe, so I was thrilled when he agreed to do it. The reason Greg is on “River of Longing” is that I had asked him before I knew I wanted guitar on “Electric Prayer.” When I started really diving into “Electric Prayer,” I thought it needed some expressive guitar to bookend the piece. I thought Joe would be awesome.

Then I played “River” for Marty Friedman, and he asked if he could solo on it. That would have made it too long, with Steve Hunter, Greg, me and the choir, so I thought of making a reprise. But then I needed another soloist. I had written to Steve Vai previously, but had the wrong e-mail address. A fan of mine had just met him and told him I said “Hi.” Steve told him he would be honored to play on my album. That was cool, because it would be a big honor for me.  We got in touch, and the rest is history.

Jason: Thank you very much. Yes, I have wanted to do that for a long time. Marty Friedman and I started doing that kind of thing in Cacophony. Ever since I got into Indian music I have wanted to mix it with electric guitar.  I think all sorts of world music sounds good with electric guitar. The electric guitar is more diverse than people sometimes think.

Jason: I chose pieces for two reasons. One, I chose my personal favorites; the ones that I felt were the most moving in some way. Two, I picked the ones that my fans mostly write me about. These songs seem to hit my fans the hardest.

Jason: Good question. Actually, “Images” is a Cacophony song. I would have loved to include the track “Speed Metal Symphony,” but Marty Friedman wrote over half of that tune, and it wouldn’t be fair if he wanted to use it for a future best-of album of his own. I considered using the track “Go Off!” because I wrote a little more than half of that, but I don’t like how the intro came out. It was played too fast to be effective. Also, it sounds sped up for some reason. Maybe it was when I had my back turned. HA HA. I did include that Go Off! intro in the bonus material of the CD, from the demo I did of it. There is also a bunch of never-heard ripping of myself.

Jason: We worked together on making my old design. I like to be able to easily reach the 24th fret. I insisted on jumbo yet thin frets. I designed the headstock because that is important to me. We all worked closely on all aspects of it. I have wanted to make this available to my fans for many years, and Paradise made this a priority. They added a really cool feature: the Floyd Rose Pro floats like I always liked, but you can also lock the bridge into place. You can easily de-tune that way.

Jason: I only started practicing when my dad got my little brother a xylophone and taught him the melody to a Bob Dylan song. I said, ”Hey, why aren’t you teaching me a Dylan song?” He then taught me the chords to Dylan’s “As I Went Out One Morning.” I could do it, and I loved it. I started learning every Dylan song and sang along with myself.

I definitely don’t think I was a natural. I have always had to practice a lot. I didn’t improve rapidly until I was in high school. My family would disagree with me. They thought I was a natural, but I felt it didn’t come so smoothly.

Lee: Cacophony. Speed Metal Symphony. Those names alone really turn your head! What was your and Marty's intent for the project? Were you trying to take the neo-classical approach into the super-aggressive, heavy metal realm?

Jason: I think Mike Varney came up with those names after he heard what we were working on.  Marty may have come up with Speed Metal Symphony. I am not sure. Marty had already started writing a lot of that stuff before I came along. I don’t think we were trying to do anything, really, except play the music that we wanted to play. He was always into really aggressive metal, and I brought my own thing into it. Our separate styles and influences combined to make the final outcome. I don’t think it was quite conscious. 

Jason: Practicing with Marty in the beginning. There was so much creativity, inspiration and imagination flowing between us, it was just magical. Also, touring the states and Japan with all those great guys. We had such a blast together. It really bonded us.

Jason: That is difficult for me to put into words. I guess he leaned toward Japanese and odd melodies, and heavy rhythms, and I leaned toward counterpoint, ripping arpeggios, and odd times and modes. We both loved emotional melodies. Of course we also had each other’s tendencies on our own stuff. We couldn’t help it because we worked so closely.

Jason: Let me clear this up right now. Marty is my musical guru. He definitely had the greater influence on me. I had chops before I met him, but he made me a better musician and player. I bow at the feet of my master.

Jason: Actually, I got in Roth’s band before Marty got the Megadeth gig. When I was down in LA auditioning, I called him and told him I was sure that I would get it. A few weeks later he called me and told me he was in Megadeth. I was so happy. Before Roth, I had sent a CD and tape to Whitesnake. I would have been in that band if it weren’t for that pesky Steve Vai. HA! That was the extent of the possible bands. I was working on forming my own band.

Jason: Actually, it was because I left to do my own thing. I wanted to explore what I could do with my solo guitar and writing. Our band was talking about going for more vocal oriented stuff while I wanted to dive deeper into guitar and composition.

Jason: I was working on my own songs. I wrote about 10 songs. Cacophony’s bass player, Jimmy O’Shea, came over to see if he was up to singing. I had an appointment with another great singer that I had to cancel because I had to go to the Roth audition.

Jason: Well, Varney sent him and the then producer, Bob Ezrin, my new songs after talking to the great Gregg Bissonette. When Dave called me to tell me he dug my scene, I was just practicing in the living room at home. He said, “we’re all having pizza, do you want a piece?” He didn’t ask me to join until the second day of the audition. I said, “no thanks.” He laughed. I had already felt that I was in, so it wasn’t a surprise. I was totally stoked. It was right after we all played “Hot for Teacher.”

Jason: I think they had spent a few years searching for someone. They had a cool player, but they wanted a more flashy and in-your-face kind of guitarist, from what I understand. I think once they heard my tapes, they knew they wanted me, but they had to meet me to make sure I wasn’t a dick or something. 

Jason: He is both the partier and serious worker. He can easily switch gears. He wants certain things with his music and can get very serious when trying to get them. He can also have fun with music. When I wrote “Showtime,” he called me a genius, and he and the band sat around thinking of show biz phrases to use in the lyrics. He had a beautiful girlfriend at that time. I would go to his pool and they would be climbing a man-made rock climbing wall.

Jason: For me, easy question. David Lee Roth. Sammy is awesome but Roth is the quintessential rock front man.

Jason: Yes. On Mother’s Day in 1989, I woke up with a painful cramp in my left calf muscle. It remained as a lazy feeling in my leg. I spent months trying to exercise it away. I toured with Cacophony and went to Japan like this. Finally my toe started dragging a little. When I was living in LA because of Roth, my dad told me I better go get it checked out. My sweet friend, Miko, went to the hospital with me. After some tests, they told us it might be ALS. I knew nothing about ALS. I called my parents and told them it might be some weird nerve thing. I wasn’t worried, but they were.

Jason: I never experienced shock. Anger came way later, but it was never at my fate. I got impatient with people who had to do more and more things for me. I definitely experienced denial, but it felt more like positive energy. I was too busy and happy to even think about it. I was always positive and upbeat about it. I wanted to keep my family and friends happy and free from worry. I also felt no sadness for quite some time. I purposefully did not research ALS at all. I didn’t care about stats. I am a different kind of person. I am strong.

Jason: I would have to say yes for the most part. I think this is mainly because of my parents. They taught me of the magic in life; that even little and simple things are incredible. They taught me the beauty of art, creativity and kindness. From them I learned that people and life can be beautiful if you see it that way. Happiness starts within yourself.

Jason: When I was losing my voice in 1996, only a few people could sometimes barely understand me. My dad was afraid I wouldn’t be able to say anything very soon. He went into his art studio one day and invented it in maybe an hour. He brought the “alphabet board” out to show me. I avoided it for a while because I didn’t want to stop exercising my voice.

Each letter requires me to make two eye movements. The first movement is to point to one of the six squares. The second movement is to point to one of the four letters in that square. It takes a bit to get it fast, but after two or three weeks of doing it, the “Patient” and “Caregiver” memorize it and don’t need the “board”.  Then you start talking faster than any computer could. We made kind of an instruction video of the system. Search Jason Becker+vocal eyes on YouTube.

I took a break from composing for a while because I didn’t think the technology was good enough. I finally went crazy enough to try using my communication system to instruct my caregivers what to play on the keyboard. My buddies Dan, Mike and Franklin taught me how to use the music software called LogicPro with a Mac G5 computer. My dad, mom and girl friends aren’t keyboard players, so once they record a few notes, I can go into a  “matrix” and see the notes. Once there, I can direct my peeps on how to edit the notes to be in the correct spots, with the right volume, velocity, length, instrument, and so on. I eventually wound up with hundreds of tracks on the piece “Electric Prayer For Peace”. Since I can usually hear a kind of final result in my head, it isn’t frustrating to go at a slow pace. The only bummer is when my dad and I run into computer difficulties and start arguing. Ha!

Lee: Are you familiar with the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Not only does its lead character suffer from a debilitating condition whose effects are similar to ALS (in this case, "locked-in syndrome"), but he communicates only by blinking his left eye. I ask because I wonder how accurate you thought the movie was, not only in depicting someone living with such a condition, but with the eyelid communication that seems vital to your own artistic productivity.

Jason: That movie was brilliantly done. It was very accurate in how it can feel. My thought through much of the movie was I wish he could have had my communication system. My system is so much faster than his was. He could have written 50 books with my system instead of just one. Stephen Hawking has a great system for giving prepared lectures, but when I met him it was so slow for conversation compared to mine. I can converse with anyone at any time, relatively quickly. I hope more people in our situation can benefit from it.

Jason: That means a lot to me that you and fans hear that. I feel it, but I think some listeners and critics in the past don’t  have the subtle ear to get it. Maybe it is because my favorite players growing up were emotional players like Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray and Eddie Van Halen. I guess it is also because I can’t really separate my emotions from my music. Even when I am playing something technical, I am still me. I am not trying to play a character. Even when I play fast, I have something to say. I am not just trying to impress. There are feelings I want to get out. There is thought behind the notes.

When I was 14, my grandfather and his wife were getting divorced. They were both very cool together and I was sad for them. It inspired me to write a song called “Remember.” Pieces of that song wound up being in both songs, “Speed Metal Symphony” and “Air.” Emotions can fit anywhere.

Jason: Man, thank you so much. Yes, I often get that reaction from this song. I was sick when I wrote it, so maybe people are responding to the mixture of my vulnerable heart and my modern technique, along with the sweet tone. There is nothing to get in the way of my Guitar and the listener’s Soul. No drums, bass or distortion.

Jason: This is getting deeper than words can describe. There is just something inside me that is fully connected to the heart, and I think that is the same as the Universal Heart.

I think it is part of God, which is part of everyone. I don’t know, it is just sometimes how it feels. Maybe it is simply that today's music lacks haunting melodies. Many artists are just trying to be cool.

Actually the first half of “Higher” was written on guitar. I just had to transpose it to a different key for voices. We also had to change octaves for a couple of parts. I don’t exactly know how to write for voices. I just write what I want and then my buddy, Dan Alvarez, tells me the range of the human voice.

Jason: Hmm... I would have to say to write the kinds of things I am writing now, I couldn’t do it without knowing some theory. I am not good at notation at all, so that doesn’t help me. Between my good ear and my knowledge of some theory I have a workable system. I bet other rock musicians could do more than they think.

Jason: I am sure it has changed me as an artist. I have more silence without being able to constantly noodle around on the guitar, and silence is where all music comes out of. I can now hear whole pieces of music in my head. Now I am the director, instead of the actor. The composition has to be stronger now, because I can’t just pump it full of guitar.

Jason: The Dimebag thing is such a tragedy. I would also include Randy Rhoads. I welcome being seen as an inspiration. I used to want to avoid it because I just wanted to make cool music, period, but now I think the world really needs positive inspirations. I am honored and grateful to be that for some people. I embrace the role of making people want to be better. It is such a beautiful thing to feel like you are doing a little good in this sometimes scary world.

Jason: Not yet, but I hope real soon.

Jason: 1. Jeff Beck. He is my favorite guitarist. His playing gives me goose-bumps like no other. He often brings tears to my eyes. Hearing his interpretation of one of my pieces would reveal to me what I really meant to say.

2. Sarah McLachlan. Her voice and sense of beauty and harmony would add so much to my music. If my music were the mountains, her voice would be the snow and the sun.

3. Peter Gabriel. He is so brilliant it hurts. It would be such an honor. He is the one who turned me on to lots more world music. His music is so primal and powerful the cavemen would love it and they would probably dig it on Jupiter.

4. George Clinton. I need to get my funk on with the master.

5. Yo Yo Ma. He would be a blast. Plus he is a genius. I have always loved the rich throaty warm tone of the cello.

Jason: I don’t keep up too much. I do think Jeff Beck’s new album is great. John Mayer gets me sometimes. Flipsyde is awesome. I saw Tom Waits in concert last year which was great. I like Alicia Keys. Killswitch Engage did a great version of "Holy Diver."

Jason: I hope to finish my autobiography soon. I am looking to do something with my already written music.

Jason; Thank you so much.

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