Guitar Heroes #01

Posted on 28th Nov 06 by Contributor | 0

Artist: Chris McCorry : Jedi Jane
Author: Scott Edgar

Chris McCorry : Jedi Jane

Belfast based rock merchants Jedi Jane have built quite a fan base around the Northern Ireland music scene" known for their infectious songs" noisy riffs and energetic live shows. Lead guitarist Chris McCorry takes time out from a hectic gig schedule to have a little chat to us about Michael Jackson" Manic Street Preachers and My Bloody Valentine amongst other things.

Chris has been playing guitar since the age of thirteen and vividly remembers picking up his dad"s electric guitar at around the age of ten and rocking out in front of the TV to Michael Jackson"s "Black Or White". Thankfully he moved on to bigger and better things getting his dad to show him a few chords and racing home from school to jam along to the Manics. Chris is a firm believer in DIY guitar tuition…

"I'm mostly self"taught. My dad taught me all my basic chords" but once I'd learnt barre chords I kind of did my own thing from there. I'd recommend learning for yourself. There's nothing worse than some guy who can play a million notes a second" but who can't actually play anything useful. Do it your own way" and you might end up doing something completely new. Most of what I do in my band is as a result of spending long hours making feedback and experimenting with sounds in my room" it's something that can't really be taught."

During those school days of bedroom practise Chris" guitar heroes were James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers and the guitar sounds of the Smashing Pumpkins and the beautiful noisy feedback of Jimi Hendrix. In more recent years his influences have changed through phases of Fugazi and Shellac to the sheer volume and intensity of My Bloody Valentine. Fugazi and Shellac have clearly had an effect on how Chris presents himself on stage. Renowned for getting lost in the music and occasionally losing control on stage" we ask whether or not being a good showman is as important as playing technique.

"When I first started playing gigs I would make a conscious effort to take it a little bit further and during every show I would go completely mental" jumping off the stage and throwing my guitar around and stuff. I think I took it a bit too far at a point" and after one of the shows it became apparent to me that it was just really destructive" and a bit contrived " it was taking away from the actual music. I made a conscious decision to tone it down a little" and I'm enjoying playing gigs more now."

The current Jedi Jane sound comes from a Fender "62 Reissue Jazzmaster and a Gibson SG Special through a Boss DS"1 and DD"3 into a Fender Blues Deluxe amplifier. The DD"3 is a delay pedal that"s used for all the "weird noise stuff" between songs during the live set and you can hear a great example of it on "If It Pleases You" Surprise Me" which you can hear on www.myspace.com/jedijane

As well as guitars" Chris plays a little bit of bass and has been teaching himself the piano accordion for the last year. He assures us these instruments will never take over from the guitar but enjoys experimenting with different sounds that give him more perspective and some fresh ideas.

We at Drop"D and Chris share a love of female guitarists. It"s sometimes a contentious issue but the Jedi Jane axe"man can"t wait to see more girls with guitars on the scene…

"I think there definitely needs to be more female guitarists around. I saw PJ Harvey play a couple of years ago" and she was unbelievable " she really commanded the stage" and was great on guitar too. I also saw Sleater"Kinney" and both Carrie and Corin were astounding. Corin's guitar lines were functional and held the whole thing together" while Carrie let rip with some great riffs. Also" Belinda Butcher of My Bloody Valentine was a great backbone to Kevin Shields' reverb madness. It's always good to see a girl on stage playing guitar" as they tend to get a real hard time" generally from guitar school losers who have spent their entire lives learning scales."

The next year will hopefully see big things happening for Chris and for Jedi Jane. According to Chris" the songs that Jedi Jane are coming up with now are the best they"ve come up with to date and they"re hopefully going to hit the studio again in March 2007. We"re just as excited by this news as he is"

Photo credit: Chris Semple
www.medialook.tv