Andy Wood's 24-track sophomore solo double album Caught Between the Truth and a Lie showcases his virtuosity in both mandolin and guitar, including fusion of bluegrass, metal, and jazz styles.
Few guitar shredders, when presented with a dreadnought set up for bluegrass playing, could make the instrument sing. Fewer still would know what to do with a mandolin. But electric virtuoso Andy Wood is equally dexterous on flattop acoustic and mandolin. All sides of Woods' musical life are displayed on his new double-disc album, Caught Between the Truth and a Lie, the follow-up to his 2012 debut, A Disconcerting Amalgam.
Wood is most visible as a sideman to vocalists such as Scott Stapp and Sebastian Bach. Those gigs display Wood's sensitivity as an accompanist, but not the full range of his skills and experience.
Cosmo Music Podcast: Andy Wood Talks Guitar Tone, “boomer Bends”, Southern Guitarists, And More
Wood was a mere preschooler when his grandfather started teaching him mandolin. He eventually entered the competition circuit, winning second place in the World Champion Mandolin contest by age 16. He's played guitar nearly as long, but didn't take up electric until he was a teen. When he did, his mind exploded. He discovered both country greats like Brent Mason and Albert Lee and pyrotechnical rockers like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, He eventually synthesized both styles into his own idiosyncratic approach, one that helped him triumph over thousands of rivals in Guitar Center's Guitarmageddon Competition in 2003. Around then he also founded a hard rock band, Down From Up.
“Most gigs just require that I stay in tune and have a tone that doesn't suck. People tend not to care too much about chops.
But Wood never left country behind. He's long been in demand as both a Nashville session musician and a clinician/educator. We chatted with him about how he manages to unite so many musical strands, and the tools he uses to do so.
Andy Wood: Un Chicken Pickin'
What was it like playing mandolin as a kid? It was really good for me. I played mandolin and my cousin played fiddle. When you're that young—we were 4 or 5—you don't realize how technically demanding uptempo bluegrass is. You just don't think of it as being hard. My grandpa showed me a bunch of traditional tunes that I learned by ear. That's where all my right-hand and alternate-picking facility comes from. I didn't learn the way guitar players typically do, dissecting the way highly technical players approach the instrument. Learning like I did was a great foundation, certainly a much different one than, say, sitting around watching YouTube videos.
I started playing electric when I was about 17. I was working in a theater in Pigeon Forge [Tennessee] when one of the other musicians said my right hand was technically very advanced, and that I must have been listening to a lot of Paul Gilbert. At the time, I had no idea who that was. So the guy made me a tape, kind of the 101 of instrumental guitar, with pieces by Steve Vai and “Cliffs of Dover. But what really got me serious was listening to Brent Mason's solo on “Pick It Apart [from Mark O'Connor's TheNewNashville Cats, 1991], which I bought because all my bluegrass heroes are on it. When I heard the solo I just thought, “That's where I'm headed. I still remember that solo note-for-note. A friend who's a professional transcriber recently tabbed out the solo, and I was able to point out some inconsistencies between the transcription and what Mason actually plays. That's how deeply I got to know the solo.
Andy Wood plays the title track from his new album on a Custom Classic T model at the 2014 Suhr Factory Party.
Suhr Andy Wood Ss Modern T
It's probably my general professionalism. We as guitar players have a bad tendency to let our egos determine what we can and can't do. For the gig with Sebastian Bach, for example I just tried to do exactly what was required to fulfill his vision and not overplay. I always strive to dial in just the right tone that the artist needs, even if it's not what I prefer. Scott Stapp, for instance, likes scooped highs and lows, but I like fat midrange. It's not my name in lights, so I do what the gig needs and make my own music, on my own terms, on the side.
Sessions are funny—they're never the same, but always the same. You get a call at the last minute for some random mandolin or banjo part—I don't normally play banjo, but can do a convincing overdub. Sessions tend not to be too technically demanding—I often track quickly, in one or two takes. Basically, most gigs just require that I stay in tune and have a tone that doesn't suck. People tend not to care too much about chops. There's a misconception among young players that you always have to play with the same tone, but most situations require that you be able to take off one pair of shoes and put on another.
It's an old saying from my grandpa. Sometimes when we used to watch the Academy of Country Music Awards, with all these guys playing their electrics and their gadgets, he would say, “You don't need all that—you just need a Martin and the truth. And he was right. Some players might be off the chain on the electric, but hand them a Martin with high action and .013s, and their technique just shrinks. So the lie is an electric guitar with low action, and the truth is a good old Martin. Somewhere between the two is where I'm at.
Andy Wood Workshop
“Pop music could use a little injection of smarter harmony, which is what I try to bring to the table, says Nashville guitarist Andy Wood. Photo by Andrew Fore.
A lot of people in the community view me as a rock-fusion instrumental guitar player, but first and foremost, I'm a mandolin player at heart. So I wanted to do something cool for the guy or gal who knows Steve Vai but not Sam Bush, to show those fans that there's all this other stuff I do and feel close to. But for the fans that don't care about hillbilly stuff, there's a whole side of fusion guitar solos.
I wrote the title track on mandolin, and it fits so easily on the instrument that I can really fly through it. But if I try to play it on guitar, it's a nightmare. Paul Gilbert–style arpeggios with wide stretches on the guitar are easier to play on mandolin, with its smaller scale and [perfect fifth] tuning. Bebop lines, on the other hand, are way easier on guitar. Keys like Bb and Eb suck to play on mandolin. When I was young I transcribed [AC/DC's] “Thunderstruck and learned it in a different key on mandolin. Sometimes a great Vai or George Benson tune makes a great mandolin workout. On the other hand, I don't really go from guitar to mandolin, and much of the music I like—Chick Corea, Béla Fleck—isn't on guitar or mandolin. Speaking of Béla Fleck, I really like to transfer banjo parts to the mandolin. I often feel like I play the mandolin like a banjoist.
Suhr Andy Wood Signature Series Guitar
On one hand, when it comes to riffing and rhythm, it's like apples and bicycles—not even close to the same worlds. But when it comes to soloing, they're very much alike. Eric Johnson lines, Steve Morse lines—when you think about it, those are essentially mandolin and fiddle melodies played on guitar.
“Some players might be off the chain on the electric, but hand them a Martin with high action and .013s, and their technique just shrinks.
Jazz and bluegrass are a lot alike. In both, musicians play heads, or tunes, which they use as springboards for solos. That's probably why I gravitated toward jazz when I went to the University of Tennessee for two years. In college I learned enough jazz not to feel alienated if people are sitting in a room playing standards. I love to play fusion tunes like [Chick Corea's] “Spain at shows, with a lot of distortion. That's where I live: kind of in Al Di Meola territory, though I'm not necessarily a hardcore jazz guy.
Suhr Andy Wood Modern T Signature Series Whiskey Barrel Electric Guitar
The Led Zeppelin cover was quite a task. We transferred every single element over from one format to another. The original keyboards I play in a chord-melody style. The drums have been assigned to hand percussion. The mandolins all go after Robert Plant's vocal mannerisms. We even used a wooden whistle to copy the original recording. Everything was acoustic, and I'm proud of the way it turned out.
This album is a bit more mature than the first, where I was trying to cram in as many different 32nd notes as possible into an 11/8 time signature. This one has a lot of tunes like “Reach and “The Hardest Goodbye, which are indebted more to Jeff Beck than to Paul Gilbert. I don't have anything to prove this time. That's not to say there aren't a lot of notes, but I feel it's okay to do a song like “For the
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