Episode 108 - Tod Howarth (Frehley's Comet, Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent)

And a lot of things that we can segue from, which is always nice for me as a host.

So I'm going to start by question number one in relation to what you just said.

So the perfect pitch thing happens, you get piano lessons.

And you mentioned there, you know, you're playing drums, you're playing bass, guitar, all of these things.

Now, we don't have to get too geeky in this regard because musicians do this.

But talk to me about how you try and nurture the skill once you realize it's there, especially from a time constraint.

Because like you said, you know, once you're kind of in this music, music, music mentality, it's very easy to just breathe, eat, sleep.

But how do you nurture trying to become a great vocalist, a great keys player or pianist, a great guitarist, a great bassist? How do you nurture those skills individually? Or for you, was it just a matter of, like you said, it's all music.

And as long as you were doing one thing with music per day or whatever it was, was that enough for you to try and hone your skill?

That's pretty much it.

I don't know where or who told me at a very young age, but they said, look, if you're going to do music, learn to write songs or write songs because that's where you're going to make your money.

Well, there's a lot of virtuoso players out there that have made very good money in session work and whatnot over the years.

I mean, that's, that's, that's, You know, undeniable.

But I was never focused on becoming an unbelievable keyboard player, unbelievable drummer, a guitar player, bass player, whatever I get my hands on.

I was always constantly thinking of writing the song.

What's the melody? What's the bass chords under it? What's the magic hook? What's the release? What's the bridge? I'm learning so much more nowadays about how to write and construct songs that...

It's completely different from what it was, you know, 30, 40 years ago.

So as I was learning, I never had it, even though I can play like lead guitar, I can play some fairly good lead guitar, but everything to me is a melody.

Even my bass, like on my last three solo records that I did, the Canvas series, I've got a couple of like bass solos in there on fretless bass, 12 string bass.

I'm playing Tom Peterson's, that he gave me a 12 string bass, acoustical bass.

Everything's a melody.

So it fits into the song.

Same thing with parts on the guitar, the keyboard parts, you know, when people, it was amazing when people heard the, some of the, the Fraley's comic keyboards, the early stuff, which I did not put on there, it was already on there.

They thought I was tinkerbelling up the, the, uh, the heavy rock.

And, and I would tell people, I would have never put those keyboards in there.