Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal spoke in a recent interview with Let’s Rock Chats about his journey as a guitarist and his early musical influences. He explained that he always wanted to be part of vocal-driven rock bands, such as KISS and The Beatles.
“I never even wanted to do instrumental music. I would make songs just for fun on my own but my goal was always to be like the bands that really inspired me most, like Kiss, The Beatles — the bands where you got four people that you know on a first name basis and it’s vocals musicians that sing and making rock music. That was always the path that I tried to walk on and be part of.”
In 1994, Thal signed with Shrapnel Records, a label known for instrumental music. However, the label asked him to release an instrumental album, even though his original plan was to make vocal music: “When I got my first record deal in 1994, it was Shrapnel records, which was a guitar instrumental label. but they told me that they were starting to do vocal music and they were going to make a subsidiary that does vocal music. That’s what they signed me for, it was going to be vocal music. As soon as I signed they said, ‘Well, would you just do an instrumental album to start things off?’ You’re taking me off my path and it’s not what we agreed to, but I did it.”
After the instrumental album ‘The Adventures of Bumblefoot,’ Thal was able to return to vocal-driven rock with his next release: “Then right after that, immediately the next album we put out had vocals and then when I started my own label just to put out my own music for the next decades, it was all vocal music where I might put an instrumental song here and there because I always loved Van Halen. They would also just have a small little guitar interlude between the vocal songs. It’s like you have the main songs of the album but then you have ‘Spanish Fly’ or you had ‘Eruption,’ or the intro of the ‘Little Guitars.'”
Thal also spoke about how difficult it can be for musicians to break away from early labels and expectations: “It’s interesting how whatever the biggest thing you do tends to define you and it’s hard to shake that. So you have to really consider that especially when you’re starting out. You’re getting opportunities, you don’t want to say no to anything. It’s like you may never get another opportunity, at least that’s the mindset.”
He wrapped up by sharing how, even though the instrumental guitar world was never his primary aim, he was thankful for the chance to explore different musical avenues: “So you’re not going to say, ‘No, take me out of the record deal, I’m not doing an instrumental guitar thing.’ I want to enter this world as a vocalist of a rock band, a guitar player, vocalist. A Paul Stanley or a Kurt Cobain or somebody that is a singing guitar player. I don’t want to be an instrumental guitarist and have to try and spend the rest of my time breaking that definition of me that has been created and try to convince people that I’m something else. Picture it, you come out as an instrumental guitarist then suddenly I sing. It’s like, ‘Oh, he’s another guitarist trying to sing,’ compared to just coming out there as that people accept you as that and they say that’s what you are,”
Thal’s 1995 debut and his latest album, ‘Bumblefoot…Returns!,’ both feature his unique mix of genres, but the recent one comes with a more modern and heavier twist. It includes collaborations with Brian May, Steve Vai, Derek Sherinian, and Guthrie Govan.
