A la fin des années 80, Nuno avait participé à l'enregistrement du premier album d'un illustre inconnu...
Jim Gilmore a écrit :
Do you want to know a little about me? Ok, for those that said, "Ya, sure - whatever." Here goes.
Nothing compares to working on a song, for me anyway. When asked if I liked playing live over working in the studio, I quickly answered; "The studio." Ok, don't get me wrong, I like playing out, but there is a creative process that goes on with writing and hearing a song that was in your head come to life. (hopefully the way you heard it)
My first album, Putting Back The Rock, was recorded at Normandy Sound in Rhode Island. A great studio with a bigtime atmosphere that several large acts were recording in. It was my first real studio experience. Not having a band at the time, I hired a one, Fox and Company: from the North East, to record a few songs I wrote. Everything sounded fantastic, better than I was expecting. That was it - the bug bit me. I needed to record more. I went home and wrote as much as I could for several years. Eventually, I got asked to join a cover band as a keyboard player. That was a whole other experience. Anyhoo, I loved recording at Normandy and tried to go there as much as possible when ever I had a song I thought needed to be recorded.
Just a little side note about my thought process regarding writing: When I was young, listening to the radio, I thought how cool it would be if one person wrote all those songs that were in the top 40. Why not? They're all great songs. I thought, "What an album that would be." So eclectic yet so good. I was so naive. Since I love a lot of styles why not write the kind of music that you want. Write it all. But as this was my mind-set, I was quickly told by some A&R guy at a big Record company, that people don't want variety they want a sound. They want to know who's playing even before you start singing. My mind quickly went to a band like the Eagles. But ok, he clearly knows what he's talking about. Again, I was so naive.
One thing I came to realize in the music world is; there are musicians and then there are musicians. I am the first kind. Sure, I can play a little keyboard, guitar and drums but not the way I needed to in order to record a good album. That being said, I was able to meet and use some very talented musicians from the Providence and Boston area.
I was recording a lot at Normandy and was using a variety of players for different songs I worte. In one song called "I Just Like To Dance", I was able to have the Saxaphone player, Michael Antunes, from John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. (They had Just finished the Eddie and The Cruisers sound track)
But the new songs I was about to record needed a special guitar player, someone that was really good at the style. The studio found someone for me and I listened to his demo. He was an Eddie Van Halen style of player, and yes, he was very good. I sent him a demo of the songs and called his apartment to confirm that he got them. I only spoke to his roommate. "Ya, he got it, I think," was the reply. A few days went by and I called again to make sure the guitar player was ready and see if he had any questions. "Well, he's not here but I'll let him know you called," was the short conversation with his roommate. Feeling a bit uneasy about how this was going, I went to the studio to begin the session and hope the player showed.
The session started and no guitar player. The engineer tried calling but could only leave a message. What do we do? Here I am paying about seventy five bucks an hour with no guitar player. The Engineer and assistant engineer were racking their brains trying to think of someone. But who? Suddenly, Mike, the assistant, turned and shouted, "Nuno!" Tommy, the engineer, instantly yelped, "Call him!"
Fortunately, for me, Nuno answered his phone and all I heard Tommy say was, "You wanna do some tracks? - Great! Someone's coming to get you right now."
Mike and I drove from Warren to Boston for a guitar player that I knew nothing about. It didn't matter. Once Nuno got in the car he reached over and handed me some music to play on the car stereo. He said, "I'm going to learn this next (on his guitar). It started playing and all I heard was Itzhak Perlman playing violin. Are you kidding me?, I thought. You want to learn Paganini on guitar? That's not normal. But as I heard it, I realized Nuno isn't a normal guitar player.
Once we got to the studio I played him the demo and he had it down in minutes. Not only that, but that's when I understood the difference between musicians and musicians. He started telling me things like, "Ya, I think the longest I've gone without putting my guitar down was about ten hours." Really? Ok, clearly, I needed to stop calling myself a musician. That's when I simply refered to myself as a writer. At least you can't take that away from me.
Now that I had Nuno Bettencourt in the studio it was a pinch like Christmas; I wanted to go over songs that were already recorded and have him decorate 'em in any way he wanted.
So my silver lining that day, for getting stiffed by one guitar player, was getting another that, in my opinion, was far and away much better. Who could ask for more? Not me.
Please enjoy my first album, "Putting Back The Rock", featuring the likes of Nuno Bettencourt (from the band Extreme and Population One) on guitar; George Correa from Steve Smith and the Nakeds (to name only one of many), on drums; and Michael "Tunes" Antunes from The Beaver Brown Band.
There are many other players and it was a blast working with them all.
