Chris Green already had a well-established and respected career as a rock guitarist and songwriter, building reputation as a virtuoso riff-master, first with the bands Furyon and later Rubicon Cross throughout the early years of the 21st Century.
His fame began to match his acclaim when he was tabbed to take over lead guitar duties in the latest lineup of venerable American prog-metal pioneers Tyketto in 2014, playing a significant role in the success of their most recent release, Reach, which came out in October 2016.
But for many years, he had been harbouring the dream of putting together a solo album that would showcase his talents as a musician and songwriter of some technical ability, but also an instrumentalist who was able to convey and evoke powerful emotion through music alone.
That time finally came, and Green has released a long-simmering new instrumental EP entitled Unveil. A scintillating and breathtakingly dynamic project, Green credits the insistent encouragement of his late father with it finally seeing the light of day – although with a bit of a delay.
“Realistically, the time for this was right about five years ago, but I somehow just got very lazy with this one. And really what inspired it was a conversation I had with my late father. I guess he got fed up with me moaning about what it was like being in bands and having to endure the democratic process when it came to making music and stuff like that. So he just said to me, ‘well, why don’t you just do your own album, under your own name and then you don’t have to worry about all these problems.’ And when he passed away in 2011 I guess that’s when I thought I should do something,” said Green, a native of the U.K. who now lives in Atlanta, after years of living in Chicago.
“I went in to record at the same place I have recorded with Rubicon Cross and Furyon and it was only in the mixing process that things kind of broke down. I got a little disheartened about it, I guess. I got a little too close to the demos and found that the album was sounding very different than I wanted or expected. So I actually put the whole thing on hold for about three years until another engineer I was working with told me I should do something with these songs. He sent me a rough mix of one of the tracks and kind of breathed new life into everything. Then it all moved really quickly again and here we are now with it coming out in December.”
Green said Unveil was ready to go earlier in the year, but he wanted to make sure the Tyketto album was the focus until it came out in October. Green played all instruments on the EP excluding drums. For this important role, he brought in long-time friend and fellow Atlanta resident Garrett Whitlock, who is also the skin basher for Mark Tremonti {Creed, Alter Bridge] and his solo band Tremonti.
“He lives only a few miles from me and he is an exceptional drummer. It’s very rare you can find a drummer that has power and technical ability at the same time. He also has tremendous feel. And he came in cold as well, which was pretty difficult because, as you have heard on the record, these songs are not necessarily straightforward. Some of it is very progressive, so God bless him for not having a heart attack when he realized what he signed on for.”
Unveil is a guitar lover’s delight, but the songs are still accessible for non-six string nerds. Green believes the song itself is the important variable, not showing off his mastery of the fretboard.
“I call what I do melodic, progressive instrumental music. Ultimately, it’s all about melody and I pride myself that I play for the track, so it’s got all of the melody where it counts, but it’s also got all of the acrobatics when they’re needed. I play to serve the song, even on an instrumental guitar album like this. But there are still a lot of people who want to hear the technical stuff and hear some speed and dexterity. I believe that it needs to happen within the context of what’s best for the song. It’s a tough dynamic to find – to still have subtlety and depth. There’s something for everyone on this EP If they’re into guitar, but I also think there’s something for everyone even if they just like rock music,” Green said.
“There is still a lot of power in hearing instrumental music if it’s done well. It can still make you think, make you feel. I am a true believer that you can evoke emotion just through music alone. When you look back to the dawn of melody, people weren’t all of sudden coming up with deep lyrics to sing over music. It started as an instrumental process and I have said many times before I think something’s been slightly lost in that. If you ask people these days what bands they are into, they generally talk about bands whose lyrics really touched them.
“A lot of it is related to the vocals. When you write an instrumental piece of music and you’re trying to move somebody just through those notes, it’s why I try and play to the song. If I was just going to play a million notes over time of some heavy music, then I would imagine people getting bored pretty quickly. Plus it wouldn’t be memorable – it wouldn’t make an impact on them, emotionally.”
Like any good songwriter of any genre, Green understands that a memorable melody is crucial to making music accessible and ultimately successful.
“If there’s a secret to songwriting it’s a saying that someone told me many years ago. And that’s to never underestimate the power of predictability. So when you are writing something, if you write a melody that’s almost at that point where the listener thinks maybe they have heard it somewhere before, it creates an air of familiarity, and I think that’s what stays with people,” he explained.
“What makes a great hit song? What makes great pop music? What makes great popular songs within hard rock music? For the most part it’s almost always the melody that people cling to. You can probably hum the melody before you can remember what the words were. I would say melody is key, even for instrumental rock music. If you’re creating a melody, make one that people will remember and that’s a huge step towards getting people attached to it.”
The lead-off track on Unveil is deeply personal, and sets the emotional tenor and tone for the remainder of the five-song EP. Undefeated is a personal statement for Green, both as an attitude towards life, but also as a musical creator.
“My dad’s death definitely informed the record, especially Undefeated. I wasn’t originally going to start the album with that track but it just seemed apt to do so. About three weeks after he passed, I was playing a show in Raleigh, North Carolina with my friend C.J. Snare from FireHouse. He said for me to do an instrumental break while he noodled around on the keyboards to back me up. He just started hitting some patterns on the keys and I just sort of let loose and basically improvised for the next few minutes. The whole intro section to Undefeated is pretty much what came out on the spot at that point in this show down in Raleigh,” he said.
“I had to go back and watch a video of it afterward to remember what I played because I knew it was a keeper. At the time I was in just such a raw emotional state. We just buried dad and I was still trying to go through the sadness and anger and that entire sort of stuff all at the same time. When I went back and realized what I had played at that show and started creating the rest of the track, it really was a case of, as some people say, the song practically writing itself. It was completely driven by emotion and that’s probably why I am most proud of that song.”
Like many artists, Green believes having a creative outlet helps him to process, understand and express his emotions and is grateful for the gift of making music in this regard.
“I have no idea what I would do if I didn’t have music as an outlet. And this album is a complete labour of love. There are a lot of people who are fortunate enough to make a really good living out of music and there are multitudes more than that who never have the opportunity of making a living from music and those people are the ones who are doing it purely for the love of music,” he said.
“When I did this solo album, I didn’t think of the return on my investment – I just had to do it. I had to get this feeling, this music out of me. And whether it sells one copy or a thousand copies or a million copies, it really didn’t matter. And if people review it and say it’s rubbish, it honestly doesn’t matter to me. I didn’t do Unveil for that. The moment I start doing it just for the money, I am probably better off working an office job or something. If I want to earn money doing something I don’t enjoy doing, there are probably a lot of better paying jobs out there than doing music.”
As for Tyketto, Green said he has thoroughly enjoyed his time with the band and is looking forward to more touring in 2017.
“We are a very, very close band and we tour well together. We’re enjoying ourselves all the time, even when we have to get up at 4 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight. There’s wonderful camaraderie. And the band is getting almost close to the same kind of reception and acclaim that they got back in the early 1990s with their first album Don’t Come Easy. They guys are saying the reception to the new record is the best it’s been in 25 years. So the band is enjoying a fantastic second wind,” he said, adding that he would love to do a solo tour, but it all depends on whether Whitlock, or a drummer of a similar calibre is available.
“And it would take a pretty skilled and dedicated band because some of the tracks are pretty technical. I really would like to try it on the road sometime,” he said.
In the interim, you can get hold of a copy of Unveil at Green’s website, where you can also see his Tyketto tour dates and his other projects. Visit www.chrisgreenmusic.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com
