20:12 and The Tree Loving Guitarist

“Music is about breaking boundaries and I wanted to prove that rock music doesn’t have to be scary. I think Bite will have people bobbing their heads without realising and hopefully understanding the amount of work and soul that goes into it,” 

   Rithan aka RE10 from Deja Voodoo Spells is an ambitious artist, his next endeavour if i may is a 20 minutes 12 seconds long of a song which is basically unheard of in this 3 minutes song of the Malaysian Radio Realm.But if any man can do it, he is definitely one of them. Hailing from Johor Bharu with a guitar in his hand and a luggage in the other he migrated to KL to pursue his dream of world domination. He played with some of the best eg. Steve Vai, Herman Li to mention a few and with his band has toured and is coming out with their 3rd CD containing just one song tentatively called - Dangerous Knowledge- or as i have always called it the 20 minutes song. Well guys just to satisfy my curiosity i have constantly bugged the guy for an interview and alas he answered on a rainy night.
   
GN : Good Evening bro...

RE10 : Good Evening, How's Life bro..

GN : Great bro, so ..heard you've been busy.So when will the next album coming out? How will u market it?

RE10: Yeah, been travelling . Well now we are mixing the album and hopefully soon this thing will reach our adoring fans. We shall distribute it DIY, although the CD could still be purchased at your local music stores. And behold there shall be something special coming with the CD.

GN: Wow, so it will be a one song CD with an added bonus? cool.

RE10 : I just can't wait to perform this song live bro... I want to blow people's minds.

GN: Well you know GN is a guitar fan oasis, so which guitars did you used for the recording?

RE10: 3 Ibanez guitars... my Cookie guitar (a heavily modded Prestige) my trusted RE10 guitar ( a JEM with RE10 logo on it) and my 7 string Guitar called Marie ( with a liquid fire on the bridge). Live though, I will have to play my 7 string, cause its the only one that can play all the parts on the song.

GN : Aha the 7 string!

RE10: Yup the 7 that i was closed to sell to you..hahaha.. luckily I didn't dude.

GN : Yeah, I would have bought it you know. So whats the theme of the song? Is it related to the movie 2012 ?

RE10 : Well... some parts of it... if you watched a documentary of it relating to the events of Armageddon, the end of the world as we know it... from the I Ching theory to the Mayan calenders and the Al Gore's Global warming. its related you know?

GN: Deep bro... so how would you explained it to our music lover buddies at GN?

RE10 : Hmmm, its a 20 minutes song with 9 movements, or you could look at it as 9 songs.

GN: Are there any characters in the song we should be aware of?

RE10: Well its 'tersirat' i want people to interpret it by themselves, you know?

GN : Where does the recording takes place?

RE10: Let me see... Drums was at 101 studios, Guitars,Bass and Vocals at my home studio using Logic and Innuendo. I use re amping this time. I record my guitar parts clean at home and re amp it at the studio using my RE10 amp, a 5150 some fenders for clean parts

GN: Why not Pro Tools?

RE10: Well for me, that is just tools, the important thing is the person behind the board. Nowadays software can do everything.

GN: Explain to me about your own RE10 amp. Are you selling it to the masses?

RE10 : Well, i haven't actually sold it to anybody but if GNers are interested I an arrange for testing and if they dig it, they can buy it. Its a single channel tube amp 50 watt with Presence control, Bass,Mid,Treble a pre master and master volume. Its basically me in a box..hahaha.

GN: Why did u decide to build your own amp?

RE10 : You know back in the days, I can't afford all those Marshalls,Mesas and in 1998 Line 6 and tech 21 was the only doing those modelling amps stuff. my pal Jack from Sputum turned me on the Line 6 POD. So, I bought the POD 1.0 the first generation and I find the tones on that satisfies my need, there's even a patch in there that is my 'Cari Makan' Patch you know. I depended on that until a few years back my rig was stolen from the trunk of my car. I cried for days man.. sob sob

Anybody with info on RE10 POD 1.0 please contact Rithan

GN: Wow... that sucks man..  so after that u decided to build your own amp?

RE10 : I've bought Carvin and Mesa, but I still can't find my tone , so I learn about amps and the components and all that and yeah I built it after 2 years of researched I've got 2 prototypes. My taste is diverse and I need an amp that could play anything from rock to Metal and more, and I want it to have 1 channel cause I want it crystal clear. Ibarat macam air la, I nak amp ni macam air kosong..jadi bila I nak sirap, I campur sirap, nak Oren I campur Oren..macam tu lah.

GN: Terbaik punya analogi! Going back to your project. How long does it take for you to record all the music and vocals.?

RE10 : I wrote it back in 2009, I wrote it like 5 times until I was fully satisfied and we recorded it for 2 months. Now its at mixing stage. The song will be 60% music and 40% vocals so it is progressive but with
 ol' skool metal attitude and my hardcore influence... :)

GN: OK, nice talking to you dude... hope you can give us GNers some special deal with this upcoming CD. Any last words?

RE10: This CD will be about humanity...start thinking about your kids and your kid's kid and their kids.

GN: You are so cheesy dude.

RE10: Hahahaha...thanks for the interview dude.. and to all GNers 'POWER TO THE SOUL'.
Jangan lupa beli CD saya nanti ye.



PS: Stay tune to know more why I called him the The Tree Loving Guitarist. :)