Steve Morse

My dad was a preacher, and I think my mom felt like music could only be played in the home if it was sacred music, church music. So she played that a lot. She could sight-read really well, and she had a great ear. We had an organ in the house, and I was young, but I played a melody and picked it out over a couple of hours, picked out and tried to play chords and reproduce this melody that I could hear clearly in my mind. But I couldn't find the notes without just experimenting because I knew nothing about a keyboard. My mom heard me and she encouraged me, and that was her thing, was, "Keep trying, keep looking, keep reaching for that thing that you know is there, but you haven't found it yet." And that's always been a part of my writing since then, always a part of my musical discoveries. If there's a section that I can hear in my mind, but I can't play yet, or I can't realize or I can't figure out yet, I keep thinking of that.

I had two brothers, younger brother, Mark, and an older brother, Dave. Dave and I played in a band that we'd gotten together with some of the neighborhood guys. Playing at dances and stuff like that was awesome. As a teenager and an adolescent, that's when I really got into rock and roll and heavy music. That was nonstop from then on. I was just about to turn 13 when we moved down to Georgia. So here I was in Augusta, Georgia. Totally alienated as far as culturally different, and I didn't know anybody. And so Dave and I would just play in the house and my parents would let us use one of the rooms. Later, we found some people to come over and jam with us, and started another band. We did various bands. Back then it was possible to get people together, learn a set of music, and go play a concert with some other bands. And nobody was making any money. Nobody was charging any money, but you could at least have an audience. People didn't have cell phones. They had two channels of TV if they were lucky. So entertainment was different then. It was a big deal to have a concert. In other words, it was a bigger opportunity for musicians to get experience, and that was very, very valuable to me.

My influences changed though. When I attended a concert with John McLaughlin Mahavishnu Orchestra. I was right in front, and that changed my life. John McLaughlin was writing with all those guys, but I think Jan Hammer had a big influence on him. So between Jan Hammer's influence and John McLaughlin's just amazing mastery, it really said something to me. It was like, "Okay, you can be outside. You can be jazzy, you can be adventurous, and you could still have a rock and roll energy." So I said, "This is for me." This is kind of the way I envision it, but not the same. I don't want to copy his style. I don't want to copy his compositions, but I do want to take that energy, that outside energy, somewhere between jazz and rock, and mix them together.

So rock ensemble number two did the student forum, and then we played gigs around the area, not as rock ensemble number two but as Dixie Dregs. During that time, I watched people as they walked by, and I sort of learned that total strangers walking by could be intrigued by melody. The more melodic something was, the longer they would stay. And as soon as we got into a lot of soloing without any variety, people would walk off. If you studied Dregs' music, most of the songs are four minutes and the solos are fairly short, and an emphasis on melody. And that's all begat from watching people. And once we got to the point where the arrangements were appealing to people walking by that didn't know us, I think myself and everybody in the band said, "Hey, you know, this is really going to work."

Well, somewhere along the way, I worked out a deal where I was playing. I think Pat Metheny helped me get with Lexicon. They were giving me some of their equipment for working at the trade show. The trade show I'm talking about is the NAMM show. One of my pedals broke. I was freaking out. I've got to play in 40 minutes and I haven't got... So I was looking around, "Can somebody help me? Can somebody help me?" And I saw Ernie Ball. "Ernie Ball! All right!" I didn't know they had battles. I was talking to David Ball, one of Ernie Ball's sons. He said, "Well, let me talk to Ern." I said, "Ern?" He said, "Yeah, Ernie Ball." Ernie Ball's there in the booth, and then Sterling Ball's there and Sherwood Ball's there. And I said, "Do you guys have any volume pedals that I could buy or borrow? Mine broke." And they said, "Well, I'll tell you what, we'll let you borrow it." And that was bending over backwards, huge. And it was a lifesaver for me so I could go back and do my demo.

They offered me a string endorsement. That was huge, huge for me because not only was it strings that I knew were going to be good all the time and would be exactly what I wanted, but it also meant, I mean, finally a company that they're not slamming a door in my face. They're saying, "Hey, we'd like to partner up with you in a way and help you out." It went from there. And over the years, Sterling and I got to be closer from doing clinics together and traveling around. Eventually, when they acquired Music Man, helped him with starting the signature guitar line, and here I sit with serial number one of the first signature Music Man guitars. I still play to this day.

So here's this guy with his three sons and they're hanging out, helping people, working together, laughing. Everybody's smiling, and they're part of this established company. And so I had this in my head that established companies were unwelcoming, closed doors. I really felt a sense of comradery with them instantly. Everything's been great quality, everything's been very nicely done and with great people that I really love.

The Dregs kind of broke up in 1981, I think. We'd done six records. I felt like maybe the music business was a little bit too weird for me. So I started doing some odd jobs, running a bulldozer, cutting hay for people, stuff like that, not trying to work as a musician. And it didn't last too long because I felt like I really missed it. So I had to figure out something to do to eat, and pay my bills. Phil Walden from Capricorn Records was encouraging me to try to make my own band. Whatever the problems were in the past, you do your own thing. I thought that if I had a trio, I could manage everything and get through the lean times better. It would be a real workout for me musically, but that's something I really relished. So we did the Steve Morse Band starting in the early to mid-eighties and went through that for... I don't know. We went for years, and kind of burned out our... We'd been around the circuit enough times where it was getting repetitive.

I got the opportunity to work on a new song with Kansas, and that turned into me doing more songs with Kansas. Finally, turned into me doing an album, then a tour, then another tour, then another album, then a tour. After that, I felt maybe I should take advantage of the fact that I had a bunch of flying time from flying my band around. My friends that were airline pilots, they were telling me what a great job that would be. And I thought, "You know what? If I had that job, I could just record anything I wanted and I could do music without having to worry about pleasing anybody in the business end." And that really appealed to me. So during that time, I recorded my first solo album called High Tension Wires. And the whole intent of that was, to the record company people just, I don't care. I don't care. I'm going to make my living. If this sells, that's one thing, but I'm here to make music and that's it.

Getting that job was a lot of fun, a big challenge, and I really enjoyed it. But once I did it and did it repetitively, I realized every job has things you don't like about it. Sometimes you just have to deal with stuff. So I came back to music and learned a lot from the experience. When Lynyrd Skynyrd was reforming I remember coming back from a long, long day that started at two in the morning, and I still had my uniform on and on the phone was Gary Ross saying, "Hey Steve, we're down to the Omni." Omni was the big coliseum in Atlanta. He said, "Man, you've got to come down. Bring your guitar, we're recording tonight." I said, "I don't know man. I've been at work all day and I cut off all my hair." He said, "Bring your guitar. I'll see you at six." I didn't make it at six. I couldn't. I mean, I was too far away. So I got there, they were already playing. They look over and Gary gets the message that I'm here. He says, "All right, everybody, we're going to bring up Steve Morse playing a song, Gimme Back My Bullets." So somebody pushed me up on stage and here's an amp I've never plugged in before. And I'm like, "Where's the pedal?" "Two, three, four."

So that's a recording. One of the Lynyrd Skynyrd albums is me sitting in with them. I said, "You know what? If it's ever going to be this cool again, I should get back into music full time because this is awesome." Just having guys that remember me, just being part of something, that is so special. So I got back into music full time. That's the bottom line. And since then, I joined Deep Purple for 28 years. I recently departed and I'm doing my own thing back with the Steve Morse Band, Dave LaRue, Van Romaine, and we're doing outside projects everywhere. So music continues to be a job you never finish.

What keeps me interested and motivated about playing music is the fact that it's never done. A lot of people in life say, "Oh, I got my degree, now I can do this or that." Well, in music, it doesn't matter if you ever a degree, it doesn't matter what you've done before. It matters what you can do now, and it matters what your intent and what you are trying to give to the audience. I think everyone's capable of hearing lots of notes on the guitar. But if you're not saying something from deep inside that you really want to share with the audience, it doesn't connect. And to me, music is all about connecting. If the music can move me emotionally then I think that that's a good point to take it and offer it for other people to listen to.

Does this make me happy? Does this make me feel something? Is this worth doing? Music always keeps you working and gives you a direction. I've spent my life doing it. And whatever life I have left, I'll do it as long as I can.