The SECRET behind the UNIQUE tuning & guitar parts in the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” ft. @timpierceguitar

[Music] yeah i was nervous those moments are always nervous you've both done them i mean it's like yeah you're sitting there they're behind the glass and they're going okay amaze us right [Music] welcome back to dead wax today we are listening to google dolls iris with one of the greatest session guitars of all time this is tim pierce he's a legendary session guitarist he was named one of the top 10 studio guitarists in history by guitar world magazine he's played on over a thousand records including elton john christina aguilera bruce springsteen and so many more he also has an incredible youtube channel go check him out here we go let's dive right in and take a listen iris [Music] [Music] it's not all me but it was probably the luckiest day of my life as far as playing on a song oh my god the most really really yeah is this the biggest song that you are this heavily featured on i think it's the biggest song i've ever played on as far as airplay i looked at yesterday and it's and even now it's 985 million streams it's approaching a billion streams oh my god and even during the time for 18 months after we did it it was more played than any song anywhere for about 18 months how i mean was this in that movie city of angels that's right it was yeah this is the scene like he she's like riding the bike and then she she gets hit by a car right yeah spoiler alert spoiler alert it is so cinematic it is such a tragic song there's like four minutes of space in the middle of this song where nothing is it feels like it was written for a movie it was they wrote it for the movie they did right they were they were asked to write a song for the movie johnny was yeah and it's more a set and rob cavallo produced two kind of big singles for the movie and this was one of them and it was the first day i met rob it was a total fluke uh-huh it was just the right place at the right how did you meet him so i got a call they asked me to play mandolin and i thought okay there's no way i'm going to show up with a little case to work on this big song with this big rock band they sent you the like the demo or this guys so you didn't know the song no no that's just winging it that's sitting there winging you show up to the studio you get into the control room and they play you what they have yeah were there strings yet was there not yet not so it was just guitar and bass and drums it was guitars and bass and drums yeah exactly so it's even a little more serious than that you're sitting there by yourself in a heavily air-conditioned tracking room that's meant for you know 17 20 musicians you're by yourself there's a microphone they're all behind the glass they put up the track i've scratched out a chart and i'm going breathe breathe breathe and the whole band is behind the glass yeah so you were nervous i was i yeah i was nervous those moments are always nervous you both done them i mean it's like yeah you're sitting there they're behind the glass and they're going okay amaze us right they didn't say that did they no but that's okay but that's what it is that's what it feels like right yeah you're hired as a studio musician you're hired to be part of things which is to fit in but you're also hired to create events that are mm-hmm memorable i mean this little guy is doing so much work he's doing so much heavy lifting on this song is that the mando no it's a different mandatory so i'll explain that in a second but it was just three takes i'm looking at this chart that i scratched wait you got three takes three ticks that was on the mandolin yeah and was that the first thing you did did they give you feedback between takes did they say a little bit more like well it's kind of like yeah yeah that was really cool let's do another one yeah that was really cool let's do another one cool and so so you just came up with that descending line yes maybe we should start there should we start on the absolutely so it was a different mandolin it was a flatiron so you you kicked it off right out of the gate listen to this mando part right at the beginning it became a signature okay so now let's hear just the mando bites it was a different mandolin that i sold to a good dolls fan with a letter it was pretty cool and then i was just winging it doing colors doing answers you know and then jack joseph wig he mixed this for three days wow and he took the comp and he carefully grabbed what he thought all the best events were with rock of olives so yeah they took a comp but this stayed where is that section i recognize that part obviously it's at the top and then it there's a re-intro so it's at the very top yeah it's such a nice part and that just came out of you take one take two yeah there's not that's the job there's not who did this string arrangement okay this is great david campbell okay david he often i did tons of records with david after this because this is one of those moments not only do you do the session in the song but you meet people that you worked with for 20 years and two of those people were rob cavallo and alan sides and rob and allen always use david for strings on their songs so often i would play guitar parts and david would write orchestral parts around them it was so fun so fun yeah this is david campbell with a 35 piece so so you you you would play guitar part and then somebody would hear that and say we're gonna we're gonna turn that into an orchestral game we'll do add oboz and and david would texturize it and make it yeah they're they're who else does that right now i think is andy schauff i don't know if you know those records but wonderful singer songwriter i hear the parts often there's orchestral elements wins he uses a lot of wins like uh clarinet and stuff like that and it's often doubling guitar parts and i just wonder if they're in the studio and then they just bring in wins to kind of texturize some of the recordings yeah well you know how the best idea wins all the time so you're looking for ideas all the time and david was open to everything so but your your answers to the vocal are integral integral integral yeah which do you say right i would say intergrapulose okay with their intergrapulous to the song can you play uh i wrote down a couple of these moments um before verse two play before verse two those little answers are the song [Music] [Applause] like you you're the drum phil going into the chorus it takes you into the chorus yeah that's the idea you know you you make a ramp they would do that on a laptop now but i had to do it right you're doing it manually yeah but that's what i mean it's like you're doing so much work produce oriole work and wait can i just do that this is a complicated song this is not a simple song harmonically it's it i think it's it's um it you know it's this kind of one flat six thing but from a from a rhythmic perspective this is transitioning from four four and six eight seamlessly without any queues or breaks and you've dropped bars drop bars time series changes yeah this is a complex thing to hear the first time now it's part of our culture and we know it and we can all sing it but like i imagine hearing this for the first time in history i wonder if are you sure that dropped bar wasn't something to do with picture like they needed it to land on a certain could it be sometimes i could drop a beat yeah i could get back to you on that but i don't remember at the time i was just breathing very deeply totally yeah i've been there i've been there i know i know that feeling and my chart was not accurate so they had to punch in a couple of times yeah that's the other thing you go in there's no charge right i mean this is a complicated thing and they go are you ready to play well let me do a takedown you go oh my god there's yeah do you like being a session player like d is that work rewarding for you very yeah why what do you like about it my love of music comes from 60s pop radio top 40 radio and so to me it was always the song i've talked to you about this yeah it was always the song and the guitar part how magically it would interweave with everything so to be be in the studio and work on a singer's song is my dream come true yeah yeah i mean this is this is what i wanted to do i wanted to orchestrate guitar parts for songwriters ugh i love the way you just said that even thinking it is orchestrating guitar parts what it is yeah you're asking michael jordan like so do you like playing basketball is that something you enjoy okay speaking of guitar parts let's talk about the guitar for this song walk us through the tuning was this the exact guitar used i didn't do it okay this is johnny resnick so this is him playing the guitar yeah so one of his brilliant things is in order to like be fresh as a songwriter he would do all these crazy tunings so this guitar is all d's and then a b so crazy so wait do that again do that wait do do each string again okay d d now down the octave now down another octave now down to minor third [Music] that is oh no yeah yeah so so this this low string just for all you you know novices out there this is a full fourth below what this nor this string would normally be usually tuned here yes yeah but it's here right and they did use a heavier string this one's not that heavy but it doesn't matter for this and even the the tuning the wide tuning actually helps it it sounds totally it sounds like all chorusy and it sounds like two guitars sounds like it sounds like four guitars yeah it sounds like four twelve strings exactly well i think they probably snuck in some doubles in there can we hear that part by itself [Music] that's so interesting if i heard that i would probably say yeah that's a double track on the on the acoustic guitar because of the pitch differential between those d's yeah right it just it starts to feel like a double track works great all these common tones happening and then the bass right it's doing this at some point oh yeah yeah now that's the original that's the bridge that they all created together because johnny's demo was very simple johnny's demo was in six eight but there were no changes there were no variations none of this musical stuff going on okay so he was using the same chords over and over again in his demo that makes sense yeah and the entire bridge didn't exist i mean the bridge is i can't believe how much the song got played on the radio because the the bridge you could go make breakfast and come back and the bridge would still be happening the bridge is so long there's there can we it's part of what and then there's a solo after it that's what's so special about it and i think what's so special about this song and one of the things that makes it so cinematic is the arc right the song has a narrative yeah and it takes you to this place and part of that is the patience and the pacing of the song and the way it unfolds over time and the lengthy bridge is a big piece of what gets your juice i don't know man i would appreciate and edit without that lengthy bridge should be honest i love your solo i love your soul there is one there there was a single edit i'm not sure what they there was a single layer i think they took out the slides so that makes sense yeah there is an edit i feel like they they probably because i remember hearing that slideshow i wonder if they took out the part before the slide solo yeah there were two versions because i saw it on spotify last week but the i mean the textures between the jangly ass guitar the mandolin which is just another jangly thing it's and then the slide and then all this you know like this sort of four kind of stuff yeah all the the lydian and the nine yeah yeah it's just like it's pulling on all of the emotions yeah literally it's pulling on the the strings and the heart strings one of my favorite chords is a minor ninth chord probably you guys too i mean i just made your seventh major knife it's a vibe yeah yeah so the slide solo they actually were angry with me because as i said i didn't want to walk in with this little case or a major rock session so back then i had a cartridge company and a truck would bring a massive amount of gear oh my god and i found out way after the fact that they were boiling mad at me for filling the room with amps and guitars and rob said just just just you know it's okay let's just see what happens and then the stuff was sitting there and i think because i did well on the mandolin they they rob and johnny met in the hallway and said well just give him a shot let's see what he does yeah because there was space for a solo yeah you did all their work for them they didn't have to do anything else let me hear that let's listen to that guitar thank you though here we go let's listen to the guitars one more time [Music] so this is you yeah oh sorry [Applause] [Music] [ __ ] that's so nice oh [Music] i love that speaking of a minute i don't know i can't believe you [ __ ] played that that solo is so epic and so good in that section i love what guitar was it do you remember yeah it was a les paul okay and it was a matchless club man which is the first matchless head that i got okay the 412 marshall cabin in the room in the room in in the tracking room so okay with jet engine loud somewhere else right right right and then i think i used a hot cake okay a little australian boost pedal yeah i don't have anything yeah but i think it was mostly a first take when we fixed the ending and so [Music] it's a beautiful melody it's such a beautiful melody are you improvising it yeah yeah wait there's one note that sounded different to me can we listen as well oh i didn't do all of i abbreviated it okay okay there's one moment in particular i know the one [Music] that's the one you like [Music] oh that's such a oh it just pulls it out of you okay guitar nerd question i notice as you're playing that slide part you're not muting behind the slide right you're your fingers are up behind the slide let's see what are you seeing here oh sorry i'm muting over here no i'm i yes so i'm quieting the strings with the side of my palm here and that's that's why i don't have to do it up here [Music] so this time do you ever do you ever mute behind the slide with these two fingers no you don't i'm just my slide playing is basically uh i'm kind of faking it yeah yeah yeah yeah but it's cool i mean it's it's you know it's a it's a cool sound it's just it's slightly different than i've seen in the past it's slightly different than what you've seen okay jack so the idea can we get the other host in here [Laughter] the idea is to find the notes that make you react the way you did just right and for me it was yeah what note is going to be the most powerful thing at the end of this cylinder yeah it's the minor nine yeah because it feels unrequited yeah right which is the same it's the story in the film it feels it doesn't resolve it it feels like it never goes back to home yeah yeah because she died yeah on the bike exactly yeah it's also an 11th chord or you know a over b so that's part of it too so it's three notes that are floating and don't resolve right [Music] yes i have a friend who would write anytime a chord like that was in a song he would write a palm tree i like it we use that cord all the time what's cool about the way it's used here is that it's yeah it's a minor we normally use it in the case of yeah that that sort of version of it yeah um so cool man so was there other stuff that you did on this track that didn't get used no they used everything i was in and out of there that was it how long was the session probably two hours mostly me showing up saying hi writing a chart seeing it sitting out in this frozen tracking room and when you left did you think man i killed that you never know yeah you don't know what they're gonna use yeah yeah isn't that bizarre yeah you never know that's bizarre that like you recorded that solo and those mandolin parts and left and were like well i guess i'll go have lunch like what the hell did you so weird well people are so nice and enthusiastic and in the moment here's the thing you record something and they live with it for four weeks that's when they might decide to redo it because in the moment everybody's loving it right but as you live with them you're making a record sometimes it can't make the car did you when you heard that song did it sound like a hit can you predict a hit when you when you hear it i don't think i can but it was a big deal because the movie people were there uh the music supervisor alan sides legendary engineer you know i knew they were going to do strings you couldn't i knew it was going to be a big song in a big movie did you uh did you get more calls after doing this session did did you start to get more work and more gigs did people say like damn i want that slide player heck yes was it a lot more slide work in particular okay no the the thing about about doing icing on the cake on a song like this is you can get more credit than you really want and because the guitars were amazing on the song i remember doing a faith hill record after that and and they they were in love with that song and i played on that song so there i was yeah and did when they said okay we need a solo did you try something before slide or were you hearing the slide part in your head and so you just that was the first thing you grab for okay so i'm thinking survival at that point and i'm with this band that's really a punk band yeah and their credibility is really important to them and i'm thinking okay what is the most basic thing i can go for that's not guitarist ego centric right slime mm-hmm yes just an instant that was the first thing you did yeah yeah but what's what's interesting too about this part like this is like we're at the climax of the song it's building it's huge it's [ __ ] strings it's orchestral it's a it's like this massive part of the song and you do [Music] but you hold a note there's a ton of space for like three seconds time space oh my god like instead of shredding and doing some bluesy thing and whatever it's this incredibly lyrical musical kind of yes line you you you added a new melody to the song where was the shred tim where was the shredding i think that's why i worked so much is because i could always tell you can kind of it was empathy you have empathy for the people in the room what they're trying to do and they didn't want any you know shredding yeah they wanted a melody they wanted did you know that how did you know that it's just it's i think that's the reason i worked so much because i was able to kind of intuit what people well plus i really wanna even the way you're talking about what you do like the words that you've been using like i i love orchestrating guitar parts for people like everything you do is in service of the song it's not about you it's not about your ego it's not about your chops it's not about what you can play i mean those are the people that work the people that can come into a room read it be friendly be easy to work with be prepared you brought a lot more stuff than they asked for and you served the song i mean if i was that producer yeah you did you did all his work for him i would have called you back of course rob is a friend of mine we worked together to this day yeah it ended up it was the best for that we did tons of phil collins after that tons of new artists that's a movie song since you've played on so many recordings so many records what are some highlights like what are you most proud of that you've done in terms of albums you've you've played on or artists you worked with or tours or whatever what what's what would you uh play for someone who didn't know okay it it's this song it's also crowded house don't dream it's over [Music] that song got me a ton of work because i that's after that song i graduated to kind of studio work full time um i played on bon jovi's first single which still i used to hear it in trader joe's all the time it's called run away [Music] when i was 23 years old wow got to mention it because a lot of people thought it was richie sambora and it was you know it was a demo that ended up on his first direction that's awesome with phil collins we did a song called you'll be in my heart and because phil was an actor he won the academy award for that i love that song and i tracked with them and you can imagine i walked into that room and there he was tarzan yeah yes such a good song and we did five years of work with him after that wow that was really really who called you for that session it was rob rob cavallo yeah wow so part of those relationships are important so check it out so this song and doing well on this day led to phil collins and that's you know that's how it works right so it was a lot more than just one song so cool are you listening to anything recently that you're excited about any new songs that you think are just yeah what's been on repeat and the pierce okay it's not new but i i i did a video recently sowing the seeds of love with tears for fears okay so it's kind of what we're talking about here that song the album version six and a half minutes the short version is over five minutes it has a middle section with five different bridges five movements and two turnarounds [Music] check it out next time you listen to it a lot of it's instrumental there's an opera singer that shows up there's hammond organ it was a time when you could actually really do extended stuff and get away with that and the and quarterly in the verses they're really pretty chords major seventh elevenths cool yeah so not a new song but that's that's what i've been listening to what do you got jack calamenku by the bulgarian state television female choir [Music] incredible mind-bending record not western scales not western pitch bend techniques um this is a good wreck this is a strong wreck unbelievably emotional just just i mean actually it does a similar thing to me as this song it tears me to pieces listening to these women saying it's just the most beautiful choir you've ever heard love that um mine is the song paul by a big thief do you know this band big thief no great band great guitar player buck meek is his name plays cool guitars she plays guitar too and she's she's a cool guitar player guitar player but really cool songwriting like lyrically melodically all the important stuff she's she's got and uh i love this song it's called paul [Music] before before we go well two things before we go the first thing is i want to plug tim's channel because tim is not only an amazing guitar player who's playing on everything but he's an incredible youtuber who makes incredible videos and you have a course you have a course with like how many videos you have in your course 1700 plus oh my god if you are a guitar player go check out tim's course thank you um because you just have such a great way of explaining things um that's that's very easy to digest and understand and i'll just say if you like this channel you will most certainly like tim's channel absolutely you can listen to this channel you can watch the channel and spend three minutes with it i'll be damned if you don't walk away with like five things that you can do in your own music and your own compositions that will just make you feel a sense of freshness as you're writing so absolutely love the channel it's awesome thank you and second thing will you sign wall simon for us yes well simon the red diamond okay you can sign uh next to lewis cole there or narada michael walden oh man good stuff next to tony berg there you go love it thanks guys thank you so much this has been another episode of dead wax thank you for watching if you have ideas for what we should listen to next please leave them in the comments below and we will see you next week you

Channel: Dead Wax

Views: 600,879

Keywords: goo goo dolls iris, goo goo dolls, iris, goo goo dolls iris guitar, dead wax, jack conte, ryan lerman, tim pierce, tim pierce guitar, ryan lerman guitar, patreon jack conte, tim pierce session musician, patreon ceo, music reaction, reaction video, react, react to, music, tim pierce session guitar player, guitar, mandolin, jack conte ceo, reaction, tim pierce studio guitar player, reactions, session musician, session guitarist, goo goo dolls guitar, professional musicians react

Id: i611ZPzE_6k

Length: 26min 45sec (1605 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022