NOVEMBER 2012
REMY HANSEN
For Those About To Camp
Caramba/Eureka ! I'm Happy
Zoo Me
REMY HANSEN
remyhansen.com
You Tube
Well...
You may have Guessed!: My name is Remy Hansen! Born in the Netherlands ( The Haque) in 1974. I started playing Guitar when I was 10. My Father kind of inspired me to pick up the guitar. He got me my first electric guitar ,which was an old Ibanez Roadstar series 2 start type guitar.I never really played an acoustic back then. There was always Rock ‘n’ Roll music around the house. The Beach Boys, Dave Edmunds, Status Quo and The Shadows. My first years of playing was all about playing Rhythm Guitar, Learning Chords etc... NO SOLO Guitar! That kinda gave me my strong / solid background when it comes to just figuring out stuff . That all Changed when Guns n’ Roses “ Appetite for Destruction came out! Wow! I didn’t realize one could bend strings! Distortion was also new to me, so was the concept of tuning your guitar down a half step ! Or even more...
Things kinda got out of hand from there... I bought the Cherry Lane Tablature book for AFD , and locked myself away from the world of school. Well, I did go to school , but only because I HAD to. After a year or two things got even more out of hand! Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert ...Read on!
Like I said, after the first years of “ just ” playing Chords, I was blown away by Guns n’ Roses! I took the Tablature book, and started playing everything it said in there! I WOULDN”T settle for less! It had to be exactly what the book said. No Stripped down ( easier) version of that. That’s also something I say to Everybody who asks me how I play or practice: First Play it EXACTLY like it is, before trying to do it your own way! That way you’ll become acquainted with all the styles and techniques used out there, before ending up with something that’s not really it! Sure, there are exceptions! But Hey, I guess there’s no new Eddie’s or Yngwie’s or Jimi’s out there right now! If you know what I mean!
Then there’s /was always people telling me to play from the heart!( they don’t tell me that anymore...) What the hell does that mean?! When people play I guess they Always play from the heart ! You put your soul your everything into it! Even if you don’t know your theory whatsoever. The way YOU play makes it special! Even if you’re covering a song...
Then , in 1986 was the release of the Movie “ Crossroads” , starring Karate kid : Ralph Macchio, and some other folks. One of them made his appearance at the end of the movie playing : Jack Butler! Little I knew at that time it turned out to be one of my all time favorite Musicians( Yes , Musicians!) : Steve Vai! Man ! Those Clasical sounding Arpeggio’s of the Final battle blew me Away! I didn’t know how he played that! Even with my good ol’ Ibanez Rock and Play, I couldn’t hear it...
‘cause all that I’d been doing was playing Pentatonic stuff and some scales which I didn’t know the Names of...
So I decided to look beyond the Gibson Les Paul guitars I saw on MTV Music videos, I went to look in Music shops for Cooler guitars with 24 frets! I fell in love With the IBANEZ JEM! The one with the straight monkey grip all black with pyramid inlays! This was the guitar I needed to go further on my musical quest!
So I did Paper rounds, Mowed some lawns and washed some cars etc! You get the idea! And Finally I bought this 2 thousand dutch guilder guitar!
And man! It was insane ! All the stuff I could do what that guitar! The Tremolo system worked like a charm! So My 5 hour daily routine of playing went up to 6-7 hours a day! And I also got Myself some cool magazines!
Guitar World and Guitar for the Practicing musician! Those 2 magazines were my teachers back then! Because I never took any lessons actually.There were cool articles about scales and Chords which I had never heard of...
A few years later a Local music store held a competition. Guess what piece we had to play! Eugene’s Trick bag! The Final piece from the movie “ Crossroads”!And they handed out the sheet music too! both in Standard notation and Tablature!
I was Happy!
So I practiced it for a while and decided to enter this thing! The winner would get a
Nice Fernandes electric guitar...
I won the Competion! They handed me the guitar ... Well.... ooh ,aah.... hummm... I wasn’t really impressed with the thing...
So I went next door , to the other music store, And I traded it in for an Ibanez RG model! The same day!
Next I found out about a really cool player That goes by the name of : Paul Gilbert
His playing terified me beyond belief! He has had the biggest influence on my playing !Even now, He still has ...So I found out that there were Instructional videos on the market by him Released by REH Videos...
I bought “ Intense Rock 1&2 “ and a whole other bunch by : Ritchie Kotzen, Yngwie, Joey Tafolla etc... And a whole bunch of Album Transcriptions:
Joe Satriani’s : Surfing with the Alien, Flying in a Blue dream,And his lesson book! all of Yngwie’s books, Steve Vai’s : Passion and Warfare, Eat ‘em and Smile and Skysraper. And would play these “ Note for Note” No Compromises...
I’m pretty sure there were way more then that! But I can’t remember them all!
At that time ( 1990ish) I was really struggling with trying to understand the Chords / Scales and how they related to each other. But it slowly came to me...
I could see diatonic chord progressions and the Names of what scales to play over them. When playing some non-diatonic stuff ( key-Changes) , I looked and listened very closely to Joe Satriani’s “Flying in a Blue dream” , and songs like his “ Lords of Karma”. Now I started to know and understand WHAT I was playing, and I could Apply it!
Around 1991 I started working in A Local Music store ( the one where I traded The Guitar I won), and during that time I met and Jammed/ Played with some very Interesting Guitarists! Steve Lynch , Neal Schon , Michael Angelo Batio to Name a few.
I hung out with Michael Angelo after his Clinic and Showed him my New Guitar , The Ibanez PGM 100 which I bought that same day! We both had Beers and played for about an hour! Swapping ideas around. That was a pretty intense moment! No Digital Cams yet ! Back then...
At That time People/ Customers from the shop started to show appreciation for my playing and asked me if I could teach them. So I started doing that. It gave me a lot more insight on guitar playing! Even my own playing! Also working in the music store had it’s advantages ! I could get my gear a lot cheaper!
In the Years that I worked there I bought another Ibanez Jem, The Green multicolor, An Ibanez Universe Multicolor, an Ibanez PGM 500, A Yamaha Attitude Limited 2 In Blue, ADA Pre-amps , Digitech Stuff and an Ovation Limited model. I couldn’t keep everything unfortunetly, so I traded a lot around...
In 1991-1992 I discovered the Prog/metal band “ Dream Theater”, That shook things up quite a bit! I really liked John Petrucci’s Playing! It was clean, Precise , Emotional, Technical etc...
I remember transcribing “ Metropolis pt 1 “ and “ Erotomania “! No Internet , Powertab , Guitarpro back then! I did use my Ibanez “ Rock an’ Play” to figure out some of the dense, Complex parts in their music! Nowadays one can just look it up on the internet and search for the “ Tabs” , and practise it! But Beware.... One should also UNDERSTAND what one is playing!
Then in 1995 came the fax that changed my live around ...
The Thailand Story
I Remember getting a Fax from an old schoolfriend ...
Basically it asked me if: I wanted to play in a Rock-Cover Band
I wanted to do that on a Stage?
I wanted to get Paid for doing that
I would be playing with my old school Buddy on the Drums and 2 new guys who I’d never really worked with before.
well..........What’s the Catch?
I had to Travel 10,000 Kilometers to get there first! My Friend Faxed me from Bangkok with a story that he’d met a Manager there who could get us playing there , Good acomodations etc.... All I/ We had to do was Play music I really liked! Mr Big, Bon Jovi and even songs “nobody” knew by Ritchie Kotzen! But also some Cranberries, Steppenwolf and even Richard Marx!
So I bought a 1 way ticket and Headed east.... I don’t want to get into too many details about what a 21 year old , guitar playing, guy gets to see and do in Bangkok...... What happens in Bangkok, Stays in Bangkok.....
The same day we arrived in Bangkok we had some Auditions in ( For me) really big venues! It was great! People taking us in as Rock Stars! After 2 months gigging in Bangkok we landed our first real gig in Ubon Ratchathani , That’s North- Eastern Thailand! We shot some Promo- Posters and they were up throughout Ubon... From Holland: Highrise!
At that time I also discovered that I liked to sing! What better place to practice that than on stage with an audience! Well , I guess not in everyone’s case, but for me it worked!
We were Rockstars there in good old Ubon Ratchathani! We played two 45 Minute shows every Night 6 days a week, A Hotel room with AC, Cable TV, Room service, a Swimming pool Free Food and the kind Thai People showing us around and taking care of us!
Unfortunetly there were some Personal issues and blah blah blah , so the whole thing lasted a full 4 Months! The band needed a break! And they wanted to do that back in Holland. Not This guy I can tell you!
I did go back to Holland , but only to tell my Family that I would be in Thailand for a while longer!
I had this thing going with a local Celebrity , I had just tasted the life of a Musician and I wanted more of that! Besides I had just Resigned from my job at the music store to go and make it Playing Music!
So, Long story short , I Returned to Thailand all by my Lonesome self with two Guitars , My PGM100 and PGM 500, And my Rocktron Chameleon Effects/Pre-amp.
Luckily a lot of the people who’d seen me play with “ Highrise” remembered me, and really wanted me in their bands! So I had a lucky break!
My Celebrity Girlfriend episode didn’t last very long, we broke up and I played everywhere in Thailand! In Ubon, Udorn, Khon Kean, Khorat, Lopburi Bangkok and some other places I can’t really Remember...
I learned the Thai Language on the street by being surrounded by people who didn’t speak any English( That way You’ll learn much faster and easier I guess), and I also started singing in Thai... That Paid off!
I was singing ( more than playing guitar ) in this nice place called “ The MonkeyPub” in 1999, and one day some Producers from RSPROMOTION came by and offered me a Record deal...
I worked with them for a few months, then they hooked me up with Goldie Stanley , who was working with RS at that time , to form a new Duo!
Remy- Goldie : The Tycoon
The Tycoon??
When I found out about the name , It was already on the Album-cover...
Why not just Remy & Goldie?? Anyways.... I did two albums with RSPROMOTION.
Man! The Sales were Devastating! The internet had Many downloads available...
With The 2nd album it became worse, 2 weeks before the release I was walking around in The Famous “ Phan Thip” plaza and I found my own Album With Cover and all... Inside Job?
The worst thing that I can Remember was this one time after a concert a fan showed up and asked me if I wanted to Sign his album. Sure! When he handed it to me it was a Re-writable Cd... That really ticked me off! I Told him to buy my album first!
So! In 2002 , with some persuasion from my Mom and other Family Members, I decided to go back to Holland and Start again... In the 7 years In was in Thailand I had like 3-4 months off. The rest of the time I was always Playing /performing from Football Arenas to the Tiniest #$#$holes you can imagine! I learned a lot from playing live in almost everyday different sound conditions! In 2000 I was asked by IBANEZ Thailand to join Paul Gilbert on stage during his Asian Clinic tour! After that amazing event, the 5 other guitarists and me were asked to join Paul for Dinner. Which was also very nice ! We talked about everything ! Not just guitars... Personal stuff etc.. While eating Incredibly Good Chinese Food on one of the top floors of the Bayoke Sky tower! Lightning even struck that evening.
PLEASE GO TO Remy Hansen.com FOR THE COMPLETE BIO with PHOTOS and
VIDEOS.
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