Showing a remarkably versatile range as a composer and lyricist, Ty Tabor may be one of the most uniquely prolific rock guitarists currently working today. Besides being a member of critically-acclaimed pro rock legends King’s X, he has released more than a dozen solo albums and has participated in many extraordinarily diverse side project, as well as guesting on dozens of other releases.
Tabor’s new album, Alien Beans, was released in mid-January. It features 10 new studio tracks as well as remixes of 11 other songs from his impressively diverse solo repertoire for a sort of ‘best of’ collection to accompany the new material. This makes it an excellent ‘gateway’ album for music lovers seeking to get a sense of Tabor’s artistry as a composer, vocalist and musician.
Initially it was only supposed to be the remixes plus maybe a couple of new tunes, but Tabor said once he started writing new tunes, he couldn’t stop.
“It did not start out with the intention of creating a whole new block of songs. It was only going to be two or three new ones and the rest of the songs were going to be remixed and remastered from older releases. But after I got the third song done I still had several others nearly finished, plus there were new ideas coming all the time. So that’s when I told the label [Rat Pak Records] if we could just hold off until I had enough for a full album. In between touring for King’s X it got kind of busy last year with that and lots of other projects so I would use every spare minute I got to work on the album, finally finishing it just before the end of last year,” Tabor explained, adding that he is always writing, and that some of his material veers off into more esoteric and experimental territory, including for his main side project The Jelly Jams, as well as some of his ambient music, which has been released under pseudonyms and often released privately, just because he needs to get the material out of his head and recorded.
“I’ve got three albums that I have done with Wally Farkas [Galactic Cowboys] under the name Xenuphobe and it’s so very, very bizarre psychoactive music. I did another album because I had all this other ambient stuff that I wanted to put out, and right now I’ve got a whole ambient album in the can. Although it is ambient, it might be the heaviest music I have ever played in my life without vocals but that one does go into complete ambient freakatude at times.
“I am just constantly writing and doing stuff like that, so I am always putting things out and a lot of times people have no idea that I am doing it. I am doing things under different names. One of the best-selling records I ever did is something called Trip Magnet [2010] which was just an EP of ambient-ish stiff that took off. People have been bugging me for years to do another one because it’s their favourite album.”
Alien Beans is closer to what fans of King’s X are used to but allows Tabor to express himself both as a composer of dextrous, sometimes complex, but very compelling and melodic progressive rock music, as well as incorporate his own sensibility and topicality as a lyricist.
“As a lyricist, when I was younger I would go into a club and then I would write about the beautiful girls I saw at the club. And then go ahead a few years and I am writing more about political situations and government and things like that. The truth is, probably for the last 15 years it’s almost been all about politics in one way or another. And the last 10 or 15 years have just been more concerned with actively participating in things where there is change that I would personally like to see,” he said.
“The song Deeper Place on this new record is about exactly that. It’s about how I have changed over the years and feeling more responsibility in taking an active part in society and the many changes that I think are good that should have a voice. I think Deeper Place is about that time in life when you have the realization that things are getting deeper and more meaningful now, and it’s not playtime any more; its time to get serious. That’s really what this song is about – it’s time to step up to the plate.”
The song Freight Train is an all-out hard rock assault on the senses, but lyrically also fits into the theme that change is badly needed in the world if society, culture and humanity have any sort of hope of long-time survival.
“It’s about turning up the amps and using the guitar as a sledgehammer. It’s also a political song. It’s saying there are things coming at us like a freight train, and it is coming and it ain’t slowing down – it’s speeding up if anything. And it’s time for us to get moving on a lot of things,” he said, adding that another standout track on Alien Beans, the more atmospheric Heavenly Twisted, is about loss.
“That one is about walking away from a friendship that just isn’t really a friendship any more, for reasons of growth and change over a period of time. It’s a case of where that growth and change means you are just not compatible as friends any more, and the sad realization of that fact, but also the realization that it’s necessary to move on.”
Growing up in small town Mississippi, Tabor was surrounded by music of all types. From an early age he gravitated to the guitar and by his teens he was performing alongside his father and brother on the bluegrass circuit. But at the same time, rock and roll had deep roots in the Deep South, and Tabor remembers he and his fellow musician pals being completely enchanted by the original and energetic brand of rock music coming across the pond in the guise of four mop-topped lads from Liverpool.
“The Beatles were what pushed me to play rock and roll and that was before I even started playing guitar. I realized that’s what I wanted to do the moment I first saw them on TV. I started listening to The Beatles when I was a little over two years old, which was around the time they came to America. I grew up on The Beatles. My babysitter was a Beatles fan, so she always brought Beatles records over. So, every time they put out a new single, I couldn’t wait to hear that new Beatles song. They were the only thing I really cared about as far as the idea of what I wanted to do in life,” he said.
“All the other music I played I did enjoy and it was fun to play that stuff with my family all over Mississippi, but as far as my own personal love and what I wanted to focus on, it was always rock and roll and it was because of The Beatles. And for all the people in my area playing music, it was that way for all them too. It was all because of The Beatles.”
So, when John, Paul, George and Ringo officially called it quits in 1970, the nine-year-old Tabor was devastated and heartbroken. But not long thereafter, while hanging around with his drummer buddy Randy St. John, with whom Tabor is still friends and who has played on some of Tabor’s albums, he was introduced to the next musical obsession in his young life – Alice Cooper.
“One of his brothers had bought Love it to Death by Alice Cooper and when he was out we went over to Randy’s house and we jammed Love it to Death over and over and over. And on one hand it kind of scared us to death – because the first thing that came on was The Ballad of Dwight Fry, which is complete insanity for a 10 year old. But at the same time, it floored me beyond words. I couldn’t explain at the time why I loved it so much, but I loved Alice Cooper’s voice – it was so different. And I loved the power of that band and the horror movie feel to the whole album,” he explained.
“So, I became a huge fan right through to Billion Dollar Babies which again is one of my favourite albums of all time. There were what I call the holy trinity of Alice Cooper records at that time, Love it to Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, and you also had School’s Out at the same time. I can still play all of them by heart and I still love them as much as I did back then.”
Later influences showed Tabor leaning towards a host of different styles – some quite eclectic, some more straightforward. From the blues-based stylings of Robin Trower and Johnny Winter, through the straight ahead rock riffs of Ace Frehley during the Kiss heyday, through the ground-breaking sonic storytelling of Brian May and Alan Holdsworth and even the more jazz-grounded work of Phil Keaggy, Tabor soon began to create his own progressive rock sound, which lent itself perfectly to King’s X, when he joined the band alongside dug Pinnick and Jerry Gaskill in 1980, a year after the band’s formation.
And although it’s been almost six years since King’s X released Burning Down Boston, the band is still a draw on the concert circuit with several dates already in the works for 2018. Working around those shows, Tabor said he hopes to play some select solo dates in Texas, New York City and California through out the year.
For more information on Alien Beans and the various other projects of Tabor, visit http://tytabor.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.
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