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<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nThanks for giving us the time for this interview. James, no other way to say it, you are a guitar virtuoso extraordinaire! You’ve done such extensive, very notable work in your career. I feel you can put a solo to anything! You come in with a quiet intensity and put down your solos just-so, in all the right places. You cover all areas of the musical spectrum, laying down intricate, superb solos to the harshest, most brutal grindcore on up to the most progressive, technical kind and everything in between. You bring beauty and brilliance to even the most brutal unforgiving of music! Tell us what’s going on these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n James<\/strong>: Right now, I’m setting up a rehearsal space for this Death\u2026<\/strong>I don\u2019t want to call it a tribute, or call it sort of a, what do you call it when band members come together after a prolonged period of time and play all the songs off one particular album they played on together? I don\u2019t know what you call that\u2026.<\/p>\n A reunion? Which band are we talking about?<\/strong><\/p>\n Death. The shows have been on sale for a while, it’s two dates (note: these shows took place 11-12.12.2021<\/em>) The first date is sold-out, the second one probably has about two hundred tickets left. Playing the full \u201cSpiritual Healing\u201d<\/strong> -album and a song or two, each off \u201cScream Bloody Gore\u201d<\/strong> and \u201cLeprosy\u201d<\/strong> will be me, Terry Butler<\/strong> on bass; fulfilling the part of Chuck Schuldiner<\/strong> will be Matt Harvey<\/strong> from Exhumed<\/strong> and Gruesome<\/strong>. The drummer will be Gus Rios<\/strong> from Gruesome and formerly from Malevolent Creation.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is crazy! I bet there’s going to be so many people going to that, when did you guys decide to do this?<\/strong><\/p>\n We’re putting together a supergroup of guys that played on albums after \u201cSpiritual Healing\u201d and they’re playing a selection of songs from all of those albums. It came up about a month and a half or so ago. People are flying in from all over the world. I know a guy flying from Scotland, and one guy flying from Germany. They’re coming from all over. It’s going to be pretty cool.<\/p>\n I’m convinced something otherworldly is behind you being one of the most talented solo guitarists of our time. What went into the creation of what we know as James Murphy?<\/strong><\/p>\n If there’s any sort of mystical thing I don\u2019t think its mystical, I think its biology. Its mystical in that it\u2019s a mystery of the human mind. I actually believe that people should take better advantage of the neuroplasticity of children and exposing them to things. I don\u2019t think you should waste a lot of time playing kiddie music for your kids. I think you should play complex, harmonically rich, rhythmically involved music to children. Lots of cool jazz. That’s what they should be listening to and I believe it should be done while they’re in the womb even!<\/p>\n I was exposed to probably a lot of music while I was in the womb and hearing it blasted in the house on the stereo. I did something that a lot of kids did but maybe they didn\u2019t do it in the same way I did it. I think a lot of musicians I know did this. I think I conditioned myself to know what music should sound like by when I was very, very young when my brain was still creating new neural pathways left and right.<\/p>\n I would sit in the dark with headphones on for hours at a time and just listen to my music, flipping my records, just listening to them. I listened actively. I wasn\u2019t passively listening. I wasn\u2019t throwing on music and reading comic books. I wasn\u2019t throwing on the music and playing with my action figures. I wasn\u2019t playing music and hanging out with my friends, fighting, and blowing stuff up. I did all of that when it wasn\u2019t my music listening time.<\/p>\n My music listening time was sitting in the dark for hours at a time, headphones on, and I was analyzing. Total immersion into the music where you just block out your other senses. You\u2019re in the dark, you\u2019re not seeing anything, you got your headphones on , the only thing you can hear is the music.<\/p>\n By the time I ever got a guitar, I knew so many solos in my head. Of course, I didn\u2019t know how to put that on guitar. I knew what they were supposed to sound like. I knew exactly what bends were supposed to start on a note that sounded good in the scale against the harmony underneath, and they were meant to be bent to a note that also sounded good to it. And that any vibrato’s that happened there should be in key. I didn\u2019t know those terms to put to it, it was more instinctual. I just knew innately what vibrato was supposed to sound like, so it didn\u2019t take me long at all to develop a good vibrato because I knew what it was supposed to sound like.<\/p>\n All the immersion into music will set you up.<\/p>\n When I see you at age 20 playing like a guy that\u2019s been playing for twenty years it makes me wonder what the heck you were doing to get yourself to that point by then? What inspired you to get into playing the guitar?<\/strong><\/p>\n My very initial inspiration to want to play guitar was probably my dad’s music early on, very early on. Just whatever he listened to at the time. He played a little bit of guitar and he could play a couple of songs that he himself listened to on records. So, I thought it was cool. I was like oh my dad can play the song that he’s listening to. It was just acoustic guitar strumming you know. He listened to stuff like Dooby Brothers,<\/strong> Steve Miller Band<\/strong> and Alan Parson’s Project<\/strong>, stuff like that.<\/p>\n I kind of just grew up on that. But I reached a certain age, it was probably about eight or nine, where I decided that I wanted to play guitar. At that point, I think I was probably listening to stuff like Aerosmith<\/strong> and Queen<\/strong>, probably the heaviest. The first two albums I ever purchased was Aerosmith\u2019s \u201cToys In The Attic<\/strong>\u201d and I think Queen\u2019s \u201cNews Of The World<\/strong>\u201d along with other stuff that had nothing to do with rock like Parliament<\/strong> (\u201cFunkadelic<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cOne Nation Under A Groove\u201d<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Other than that, just my dad playing and being into those bands, what finally kicked me to want to play guitar was Kiss like so many kids of my generation. I started seeing things about Kiss<\/strong>, started getting inculcated into their whole commercial culture of Kiss that existed in the mid-to-late-seventies. \u201cDestroyer<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cLove Gun<\/strong>\u201d and all those albums sort of sucked me in as a kid. Then of course there was \u201cKiss Alive II<\/strong>\u201d. I loved it so much that I started really doubling down on asking for a guitar.<\/p>\n Then I started getting stuff like Cheap Trick<\/strong> and a lot of their albums. I started really gravitating toward guitar things like AC\/DC<\/strong>, Black Sabbath<\/strong>, Rush<\/strong>, and then Judas Priest<\/strong> of course as well. Believe it or not, I asked for a guitar every year for my birthday and for Christmas from the age of eight to like sixteen or so.<\/p>\n What really grabbed me by the tail and drug me was Ace Frehley<\/strong>, then Angus Young<\/strong>, then Tony Iommi<\/strong> and Alex Lifeson<\/strong> and then Randy Rhoads<\/strong> and then it was on.<\/p>\n When did you get your first guitar?<\/strong><\/p>\n At sixteen, I was living in Germany because my father was in the army. I was there for a total of six years. At the age of sixteen, I decided to take advantage of the Department of Defense Dependent Youth Employment Program. That meant that during the summer, you could go apply for this program and the US Army would assign you a job somewhere on one of their bases. I worked two summers in a row as a helper to the handy man at the officers club on the\u00a0Giessen military base in Giessen, Germany. I saved all those pennies and in between times I went and mowed lawns and did everything that kids usually do to save money until I had enough money to buy my first electric guitar for myself.<\/p>\n I went down to a little music store in Eason, and bought a Flying V, not just a little influenced by players like K.K. Downing<\/strong>, you know guys like him, like Michael Schenker<\/strong>. I also bought a couple of pedals and someone had given me a piece of crap – practice amp and I started practicing.<\/p>\n Let’s talk about Agent Steel, how did you get that gig? You were 20 and already amazingly skilled at solo playing. You hadn’t made a name for yourself publicly yet had you?<\/strong><\/p>\n There used to be this music store called Thoroughbred Music. This was a place where I went and always ran into the local musicians and it was sort of like a hub of connection for the whole scene. That\u2019s where I first met guys like Ralph Santolla<\/strong> back then. He was teaching guitar lessons at Thoroughbred. Santolla was eventually in Death, Deicide <\/strong>and Obituary<\/strong> in later years. I went there once in 1987 and I go back to the bulletin board because that was our internet back then, that\u2019s how we found gigs. You put one up on the bulletin board or you go look at it. By this point I already had \u201cScream Bloody Gore\u201d, I had a Nuclear Assault<\/strong> -album and I had a few other things from Combat Records. I was a fan, so I was familiar with them.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m reading this flyer on the bulletin board in 1987. Even though I’m coming off a string of failed auditions, it did absolutely nothing to curb my determination. I’m sitting here looking at this bulletin board and I come across this flyer that says, “Combat Records band recently relocated from California looking for a guitarist and bassist for our upcoming European tour in support of our upcoming third album”.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019m thinking this is a band from Combat Records, they don\u2019t want to say who, they\u2019re playing coy about that. But they\u2019re letting it be known they\u2019re on Combat Records and they have an album already in the can that\u2019s about to drop and they have a tour of Europe in the UK booked or being booked at the moment that they need musicians for. I’ll bite! I’ll fail another audition, no big deal, I’ll learn something from it, no biggie.<\/p>\n To be honest, I probably wasn\u2019t thinking like that at all. In fact, I know I wasn\u2019t because instead of tearing off the one little tag, I think I took the whole flyer down and threw it in the trash. I didn\u2019t want anyone else calling!<\/p>\n So, I called, and I reached the guy who had already been picked as the bass player. That\u2019s whose number was on the flyer. He told me the band was rehearsing at his house, that he had a rehearsal room, a dedicated standalone rehearsal building behind his house and that\u2019s where they’re rehearsing and if you come out here on this and this day, and play for us, that’ll work. I said ok that works for me. I had quite a little trek in my 1971 Plymouth Fury 3 that I had at that time. I got out there and I played. It turned out to be the band Agent Steel and they were about to drop their album \u201cUnstoppable Force<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n So, I played some stuff for them and they said here’s an advanced copy of our album, go home and learn these four songs. Come back in a few days or next week and play again. Something like that happened. I went and learned those songs and came back and auditioned. They said awesome you got the gig. An audition finally paid off! I got the gig!<\/p>\n That opened the door directly to me getting in Death. The reason being that literally just the next year after that tour I didn\u2019t stay with that band, I had no desire to stay with them. Lots of stuff happened on that tour that led me to say hey guys it\u2019s been real, this is not the band for me, I probably just phrased it along the lines: I\u2019m looking for heavier stuff, you guys are a little more power metal proggy than speed metal even. I want heavier stuff.<\/p>\n Can you tell us about your brief stint in Hallows Eve? Were you even in the band long enough to do anything?<\/strong><\/p>\n I went back to teaching guitar and eventually I decided, you know what, I want to go to school for this. I found a little school in California, Guitar Institute, GIT, that was a bit beyond my means. I didn\u2019t have the family support. but there was a sister school to it up in Atlanta, which was only eight hours from where I was living in Florida, called Atlanta Institute of Music, AIM.<\/p>\n I decided to pull up stake and move to Atlanta and try to go to this school. In my search for people to live with there I came across David Stewart<\/strong> who had been the guitar player in Hallows Eve on Metal Blade Records. They had two or three records out on Metal Blade. They had sort of disintegrated. We decided to become roommates. Then we started trying together to revive Hallows Eve. We got Tommy Stewart<\/strong> on board. We were working on that and I was trying to figure out how I could attend AIM. It just sort of seemed like it was beyond my means and I needed to live in the meantime, so I went and got a job landscaping. I was working a landscaping job and jamming with these guys that were maybe going to be the new Hallows Eve lineup we weren\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n So, how did you get into Death? You appeared on their album \u201cSpiritual Healing\u201d in 1990.<\/strong><\/p>\n I was a big fan of Death. They played, I don\u2019t know the date off the top of my head, but it was 1988 at the Sunset Club in Tampa. They were supporting \u201cLeprosy\u201d that night. The club no longer exists, the whole building is gone, but back then bands played there all the time. I\u2019d gone to a number of shows there. I\u2019d seen Morbid Angel<\/strong> there; I’d seen everybody there.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019m walking into the Sunset Club from my car, and I happened to be wearing an Agent Steel t-shirt I had gotten from the tour that I did. As I’m walking to the door, I see some people in the periphery of my vision in a small group talking, three four people. I wasn\u2019t paying much attention, I’m looking at the door trying to get in to get a good position. As I’m about to reach the door, I hear a voice go \u201ccool shirt dude\u201d, almost like a California surfer type voice. And I recognized him as Chuck Schuldiner. I recognized him because I had seen Death live and from having the album. I was like \u201chey Chuck\u201d. \u201cHey yea man cool shirt dude, Agent Steel rules\u201d.<\/p>\n Despite being from Florida, he talked like a surfer guy. He did \u201cScream Bloody Gore\u201d out in California so he was based out there for a while. He wanted to know how I got that shirt. I earned it; I was the guitar player in the band for the tour. He said \u201coh yea dude I heard of you. You\u2019re the dude from here that got the gig with Agent Steel. Yea I heard you were good man, I heard you were good.\u201d I said \u201coh cool\u201d. We started talking .and Terry was in the conversation and Bill was also in the conversation at this point and we realized we all had a mutual love for early eighties French heavy metal bands like Sortilege and H-bomb. So, we bonded over that sort of stuff. As I had planned to do, I asked them if I could do this little interview thing, they were all up for it. We went across the street to a vacant lot, and I asked the questions and I said let me snap a couple of pics, I had probably a Kodak disc camera. I had to stand against this building at the end of the vacant lot and snapped some really horrible pictures because I had absolutely no sense of photography back then.<\/p>\n I said \u201cif anything comes up where you guys need a guitar player\u2026\u201d I just said \u201cyou guys are pretty well connected, you guys know more people than I do, you know me by reputation. I know you haven\u2019t heard me play but dude if you kick me any leads on bands, I\u2019d super appreciate it\u201d. At that point my goals were to make a record and to go out on tour and support it. I had already gone on tour in support of a record I didn\u2019t play on. I didn\u2019t want to do that anymore, I wanted to go out and tour on a record I had played on.<\/p>\n I gave them my phone number. I said \u201cyou guys obviously got your full lineup but who knows what the future will bring. If you ever need anybody for anything even if it\u2019s to fill in give me a shout\u201d. I went on about my business. And that was in 1988.<\/p>\n So, I’m at home. Oddly enough I was organizing my cassettes among which were \u201cLeprosy\u201d and \u201cScream Bloody Gore\u201d when Dave came to my bedroom door, knocked on it, stuck his head in and said, \u201chey man you got a call\u201d. I figured it was my mom or somebody, so I said, \u201cok man I’ll be there in a second\u201d. He said, \u201cdude I think its Evil Chuck\u201d. That\u2019s what everyone called Chuck back then.<\/p>\n Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, I don\u2019t know, just cause of Death Metal. Not because of anything actual evil, nothing like that. Just because death metal had that image thing. He said, \u201cdude I think its evil Chuck\u201d. Chuck was not very evil but he certainly had his temper and his moments, but he was a family guy, into his family, into his pets, his dog and his kitty kat, he was not an evil dude. That was his nickname just because of his voice. People thought it sounded like evil dead or something.<\/p>\n I was like \u201cno way\u201d. I got up and went answered the phone and it was Chuck. And he said, \u201chey man we fired Rick<\/strong>\u201d. I was like \u201cwhoa ok\u201d. He goes \u201cwe’d like to audition you\u201d. He said, \u201cI got your number from your mom\u201d and I said \u201coh great, hey man I’m really flattered but I’m living up here now and I\u2019m jamming’ with these guys and I\u2019d feel really like a jerk to leave them at this stage\u201d.<\/p>\n We just started looking for a drummer, in early talks with Metal Blade to produce some new demos do this Hallows Eve -thing up here. He said \u201coh ok well I understand. No problem man, good luck with that and have a good one\u201d.<\/p>\n Which I find a little weird because you were so into Death and here’s the guy from Death actually asking you to join the band?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was but I was loyal. I had this weird sense of loyalty to these guys. Loyalty should always be a good trait. It should be considered a good trait in general. So, I’m hanging out with these guys later and we had a party scheduled. Some guys came over and we were going to have some drinks and it was me, the other guys who were in this sort of Hallows Eve -lineup that we were trying to build and our friends in the band Nihilist<\/strong>, the American Nihilist though and the brothers there named Brent<\/strong> and Richard Turner. They were hanging out and so all these guys were there and Dave Stewart asked “so what happened on the phone with Chuck?”. I told them he asked me to come audition for Death and I told him I had this thing going on. Every single dude at that party, including the guys I was jamming with were like “are you nuts?!” \u201cAre you flipping nuts?!\u201d \u201cDude, they\u2019re going to be big, dude what are you doing?\u201d I was like \u201coh wow\u201d. I thought they’d appreciate my loyalty, they thought I was stupid. And I’m like \u201cyou\u2019re right!<\/p>\n So, I tried to call Chuck back, no answer, he was gone. Got home from work and immediately ran in to call Chuck. I caught him. I was like \u201cdude I don\u2019t know what the hell I was thinking I definitely want the audition\u201d. He says \u201cdude we didn\u2019t have any time to waste so we moved down to the next guy on the list. He was down, he came out to audition last night and we told him he had the gig. He’s in man. His name is Mark<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n I was like \u201coh man\u201d. I was like \u201cI understand\u201d. I blew it. Then I said \u201cyou know what, because I couldn\u2019t reach you on the phone I had to go ahead and start making my plans. So I’ve already contacted my work, I’ve already taken the Friday off and I plan on Thursday night to start driving. I’m going to be there Friday Saturday and Sunday and I’m not going to start driving back until Sunday afternoon. I’m going to be there in Florida. I’d like to at least meet up with you guys and hang out. I’m already coming, my family is already expecting me, I’ve already told my work, I’ve already partially packed my car\u201d. He was like \u201cok I guess you can come hang out if you want, we definitely got our guy but if you just want to come hang out we’ll be at Terry’s house\u201d.<\/p>\n So, I drove out, arrived on a Friday, spent time with my family, went out to Terry’s house and hung out with the guys. We listened to records out of Terry\u2019s record collection, again reminiscing about old albums, early 1980\u2019s European heavy metal albums that we all loved. We spun them because Terry had them of course, and we played them and then I was prepared. I had a guitar in my car, I had a little practice amp, and I had a boom box. I said \u201chey man I want to play something for you guys\u201d. And I brought the stuff in and I said \u201clook I\u2019m going to play some of your songs for you. I just want you to know I can do it in case anything ever happens with this guy. I don\u2019t want to waste the time I have here because I’m staying up in Atlanta now. I would have moved back for you guys, but you never know what can happen\u201d.<\/p>\n They were like \u201coh ok\u201d. I kind of had them on the spot. So, I played through a selection of songs off \u201cScream Bloody Gore\u201d and \u201cLeprosy\u201d. Where there was a Rick<\/strong> Rozz Delillo<\/strong> on \u201cLeprosy\u201d-song I just played my own thing. I already knew from talking with them they really did not like Rick’s whammy bar style. Rick is like a whammy bar master. That\u2019s what he does, He\u2019s the whammy bar king. I appreciate it, I like it. I like his solos on \u201cLeprosy\u201d. They\u2019re cool, they\u2019re classic. It would be weird to hear those songs and hear any other solos but Ricks. But they didn\u2019t want that for the next Death-album so what I did was I played my own thing over the top of Ricks solo. It worked because Ricks solos weren\u2019t so busy or dizzy, they were whammy bar stuff. It was almost like extra background stuff to what I was playing. It didn\u2019t hurt. It allowed me to be able to play and improvise solos over these parts so they could see what I could do solo wise.<\/p>\n I knew they didn\u2019t like whammy bars, so I just didn\u2019t even put the whammy bar into my guitar. I left it in the case. I just improvised and played solos with no whammy bar whatsoever and I played I don\u2019t know, four, five, six songs. They were like \u201cyea dude you can definitely play the stuff man and your solos are way cool, they’re definitely cool as shit bro\u201d. The night came to its natural end and I bid my farewells and I headed my ass back up to Atlanta feeling like a putz for not jumping on it when he first called me.<\/p>\n Days later, Chuck calls me back. Dave comes to my door, \u201cdude its evil Chuck again\u201d. I go \u201cwhat? oh weird\u201d. \u201cHey man what\u2019s happening\u201d. He goes \u201cdude we fired Mark<\/strong>, three days in a row the dude called out of rehearsal, we don\u2019t deal with that. He\u2019s done\u201d. I said \u201cdo you want me to come down and audition?\u201d He said \u201cyou don\u2019t need to audition. You already did at Terry’s house. We know you can do it. You have the gig, it\u2019s yours if you want it\u201d. I was like \u201cdude I\u2019m going to repack my car right now. I’m going to quit my job in the morning, then I\u2019m going to head out\u201d. That\u2019s what I did and that\u2019s how I joined Death.<\/p>\n So that was what year? What did you do when you got down there?<\/strong><\/p>\n That was 1989, one year after I saw him at that gig. I arrived and they were already writing the music for \u201cSpiritual Healing\u201d. They had four songs written and I immediately integrated right into the writing process. They had four songs to go and right off the bat Chuck was like \u201cdude you got some riffs?\u201d I was like \u201cyea\u201d and just started playing riffs. The secret to that in which everyone knows by now is that I didn\u2019t really have any riffs. I just started making up riffs on the spot. Every single riff I presented, every single riff I pulled out of my ass, they accepted. To this day it\u2019s in a Death song on the \u201cSpiritual Healing\u201d album. I co-wrote half the album with the guys because half of it was done when I got there.<\/p>\n The only other things we did before entering the studio was, we played a show in Orlando and I think we went and played Milwaukee Metal Fest III. We drove up and played that. Then we went into the studio. So, I joined the band in 1989 and the album was recorded and in the can before the end of the year. It came out in February of 1990. We started touring in February of 1990, right before the album came out all over the US and Canada.<\/p>\n Is it true that all of you guys stayed in one hotel room during the making of the \u201cSpiritual Healing\u201d -album?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yea, I think so for the most part, but I think Terry went home and maybe Bill went with him, I don\u2019t really remember. It wasn\u2019t all four of us every night, I think it was just me and Chuck some of the night perhaps. Terry didn\u2019t live too far away so best memory serves he might have gone home at night, I couldn\u2019t tell you for sure though. It was no thrill lol.<\/p>\n How did you get in Obituary?<\/strong><\/p>\n As I was leaving Death, I called Scott Burns<\/strong> and I told him \u201cdude I’m quitting\u201d. And he goes \u201cdude really? I got Obituary in the studio right now and they need a lead guitar player\u201d. And I was like \u201coh do you think they’d want to check me out?\u201d And he said \u201clet me talk to them, call me back\u201d.<\/p>\n So, I called him back and told him I\u2019d be around tomorrow. They didn\u2019t need to audition me. They knew who I was, they had seen me play with Death, they had heard that Death album, they knew exactly who I was and what I could do. So, they didn\u2019t really need to audition me, they just said \u201clook, the gig’s yours if you want it. We’re right now at the stage where we’re ready for solos to be recorded\u201d. So, they had already had their entire album written while I was still in Death and I had no idea about Obituary needing a guitar player. I never wrote any music for Obituary at all. Had I written any music for Obituary, it would have fit. It would have worked with Obituary and they probably would have used at least some of it.<\/p>\n They had not only written the album, they had already recorded it except some of bass, some of the vocals, and guitar solos. Drums and pretty much all the rhythm guitars were done when I walked into the studio. So, the songs were completely written. I had nothing to do with writing that music.<\/p>\n I co-wrote half of the “Spiritual Healing” -album and I played on the rhythm tracks and I played my solos. With Obituary, all I did was walk in and I played my solos. Here’s the solo section, starts here and ends here and I was like \u201ccool let me write something, let me come up with something\u201d. Scott Burns would roll tape and I would start making stuff up, right off the cuff, until I came up with something good and I\u2019d go \u201cyea cool let\u2019s keep that\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kkdowning.net\/steelmill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/unnamed-2.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kkdowning.net\/steelmill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/jamesmurphy1.jpg\")
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