By: Dr Matt Warnock
A collaborative project, OHMphrey features OHM members Chris Poland (guitar) and Robertino “Pag” Pagliari (bass) teaming up with Umphrey’s McGee’s Jake Cinninger (guitar), Joel Cummins (keyboards) and Kris Myers (drums). Highly improvisational, the music on their 2009 debut self-titled album is exciting, unpredictable and thoroughly enjoyable. Recorded over several days in Poland’s L.A. studio, the album’s eight tracks are filled with high-energy solos, an interactive group dynamic and enough catchy riffs and lightening-fast runs to satisfy the needs of guitar fans across the board.
Stepping away from the vocal-based songs that have made Umphrey’s one of the hottest jam bands on the scene today, the groups first release is purely instrumental. Providing further proof as to why Poland and Cinninger are two of the top soloists in the realm of modern guitar. At times heavy, at others cerebral and ethereal, the album is one of the top instrumental rock albums of the year and has left fans hoping that this is not a one time shot, that it is the only the first sign of things to come.
OHMphrey guitarist, and long-time member of Umphrey’s McGee, Jake Cinninger recently spoke with Guitar International about the new group, the recording process that led to their debut album and his unique approach to rhythmic improvisation.
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Matt Warnock: How did the group OHMphrey and the recording project you did come together come about?
Jake Cinninger: I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Poland’s playing ever since about 1990, when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. I was just getting into the metal scene at the time, before that I was checking out mostly jazz. What really turned me on to Chris’s playing was how jazzy it was. He was a metal head playing jazz, which really stood out on those great Megadeth records he did. Any guitarist will tell you that Chris Poland’s a badass.
At one point he became aware of Umphrey’s and my playing, so our managers connected and we ended up doing some gigs together on the West Coast with OHM opening up for Umphrey’s. After that, we just really hit it off and realized that these guys were just like us and liked the same music we did. From the Mahavishnu’s to the Miles Davis’, this is how we both approached metal. After the gigs were over Chris invited us out to his studio to do some jamming and maybe lay down some tracks.
Chris, Joel and I from Umphrey’s got on a plane and headed out to the Chris’ place to do this project. We had pretty much decided that we wouldn’t come into the project with specific songs, we’d just get together and see what happened. Really get the creative juices flowing between all of us. We just wanted to show up, be creative and hopefully come up with enough good material to make a record, which we did.
Matt: You mentioned that Chris Poland was one of your idols growing up, which must have been very cool when you got a chance to record with him. Even though you had a great respect for his music, and vice-versa, often when two guitarists get in a room together the testosterone takes over and there’s a competitive vibe, deliberate or not. Did you think about this beforehand, and did it ever become an issue during the recording process?
Jake: What’s great is that our styles are so different. He’s got this incredible fluid, Jan Hammer, style approach to his soloing. I tend to have a more percussive sound, more space between my notes, when I’m soloing, and he has this buttery flow through the notes, which was a great contrast on the record. As far as the comping went, Chris likes to do sort of an arpeggiated wash with his chords, while I’m more into the Steve Cropper style picking for my chords.
We started to realize that if we just played, while staying out of each others way, filling in the holes here and there, that it worked out great. Approaching things this way is a great way to instantly get results, and to make the band sound like we’ve been playing together for years. It’s all about the communication for us when we’re in the improv zone, and with Chris and Robbie having such great ears it made locking up and getting into that creative area very easy for all of us.
Matt: On most dual guitar albums it’ll often say “so and so is on the left channel and so and so is on the right,” but this album didn’t really need to make that distinction. You both have such unique sounds that it was always apparent who was playing what parts, something that is not always easy to distinguish on guitar instrumental albums.
Jake: When you start to get into overdubbing, the idea of your single voice gets lost a bit. So we wanted to keep things simple, no second takes, no overdubs, kind of the way Miles Davis did “Bitches Brew” and “Peaceful,” those looser albums where he had such a great vide during the improvisations. That’s kind of what we were going for, so it was easy to bring out our personal touches because we weren’t worried about overdubbing as much as we were making a personal, musical statement.
Matt: The album kind of has a Holdsworth vibe to it, with the keys and different things. Is he someone you’ve checked out as a player and writer in terms of musical inspiration?
Jake: Yeah, you know Holdsworth’s a guy that I just got into recently. I don’t listen to a lot of guitar players, when I was younger, maybe in my early 20s, I kind of stopped listening to guitarists and began listening more to songwriters. Recently I got a hold of the UK records, and he used to play with Gong back in the day, the Tony Williams Lifetime stuff, all of those things.
I’m such a late bloomer to his stuff, and after hearing that it’s like “wow, I can’t do that at all,” so I’m just listening to it and trying to interpret it into my playing that way. By listening and not transcribing his stuff I feel that I can use him as an influence without directly copying his style, sort of blending his approach into mine without losing my own approach along the way.
Matt: The new record with OHMphrey is instrumental, as compared to the vocal stuff you do with Umphrey’s. Did you have to approach anything different because of a lack of vocals on this album?
Jake: Not really, no. What we did, we went in for three days of recording, and laid down about twenty hours of jamming. Later, Chris went in and found the beautiful spots and put them on three discs and sent them out to everyone. Then we all worked it down to one discs worth of material. It was kind of a drafting process, where we began with a large amount of material and then through a series of editorial steps, worked it down to the final result. So we were building from the top down, rather than the ground up, sort of thing.
Matt: So there was no rehearsal before hand?
Jake: Right. We both knew each others catalogue so we knew what to expect. It became sort of that Miles Davis’ approach of “I’ll pay you not to practice,” kind of thing. Just come in fresh, with no preconceived ideas, and we’ll keep everything in the present tense. This was the first time I’d ever done anything like that. Where we didn’t even talk about ideas beforehand, it was all just done right there in the moment.
I might have a chord progression, and Chris might have had a B section that worked well with my A section, but we never really talked about it. It just came together very organically. It was never meant to be work, it was just a bunch of guys getting together to make music and have fun, it was almost like making a record on vacation out on the West Coast.
Matt: Your work with Umphrey’s is often described as fitting into the jam band category, which contains a wide range of bands all the way from Dave Matthews to Phish and the Grateful Dead. What does the term “jam band” mean to you?
Jake: Well, I think it was a category set up to sort of explain other genres of rock in America. I think jam band is very much an American term. If you said jam band in Europe they would picture a progressive rock band, like Dream Theater or someone. When I think of jam bands say thirty years ago, those were like the rock bands of the 70s. Because there’s so much accessible music to listen to these days, it has to be boxed into these very specific genres like rock-reggae, or ambient-techno, or metal-country, whatever.
So the term jam band is used to instantly provide a visual connection for the listening public. But I think it can be detrimental to certain groups because when people hear jam band they think of the Grateful Dead and Phish. Twenty years ago the term jam band was those bands, but these days it can be used to describe Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Disco Biscuits and Umphrey’s. Really, it’s just to house a certain vibe underneath a certain genre. But at the end of the day it’s just an approach to good old rock and roll.
Matt: One word that seems to come up time and again when people are describing your playing is unpredictable. With some musicians this would be a negative term, but when speaking about your playing I think it’s more positive in nature. How do you feel about having your playing labeled as unpredictable?
Jake: I would love to be called unpredictable because being a drummer by trade, I think more in terms of unpredictable rhythms than melody. Which is different from most guitarists, who think of instant melody, they’re not really thinking of rhythm before the melody. The better analogy for my soloing would be to take a rudimentary snare book and play the Aeolian mode using those rhythmic exercises, which gives a very rhythmic approach to improvisation. Doing this makes me stay away from all the downbeats. I try and create a syrupy, new one, like Miles used to do when he would lay back so much that he would create a new downbeat because of it. That’s kind of how I’m approaching things, bringing a snare drum mentality to pick and strings.
Matt: Your playing in not necessary chops based, but you do have great chops and use them when the timing is right. How much do you need to practice in order to keep your chops in good playing shape?
Jake: I don’t really practice, ever. Whenever I’m at home and it’s time to practice, it’s always less about practicing and more about creation. Time is short these days so my time on the guitar is spent coming up with new ideas and then shelving them to use later on new material. That seems to be more important to me than practicing now. I feel like I’ve acquired my style now so I don’t want to think about it too much anymore. I really want to keep that rock element, that punk element to my playing, sometimes it’s cool to play those wrong notes in a solo and make them work. There’s this idea about being too precisioned as a guitar player, and you lose that edge, that rock and roll mentality. So I’ve been more involved in keeping that edge and rawness in my playing, rather than working out some new lick or pattern all over the neck.
Matt: But you do have your guitar in your hands for hours a day, just not working out in a practice specific way.
Jake: Right. I’m constantly playing but not strictly practicing. I did that for about fifteen years and I do go back to that for short periods in order to keep certain techniques in shape. But with the amount of live shows Umphrey’s does in a year I usually need to give my fingers a rest when we’re not playing. Give my calluses a chance to heal after being on the bandstand night after night. That’s where the rock element comes into play. “I can’t practice man, my fingers are chewed up from rocking too hard.” [Laughs]
Matt: I’m curious, how would you describe what you’re doing with OHMphrey to your Umphrey’s fans?
Jake: When you listen to OHMphrey’s your going to get an idea of what we do when Umphrey’s is improvising, when we’re writing music in the moment. It sounds like what Umphrey’s would do, but way more heavy in the guitar realm. It’s really a guitar based album. If you’re looking for great melodies and vocal lines this probably isn’t going to be your thing, but if you’re looking for an album to paint your house to, this is probably it. [Laughs]
Matt: Aside from the influences you mentioned earlier, did you grow up listening to the instrumental rock guys like Yngvie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore etc?
Jake: Yes, I was a huge fan of the Shrapnel label and all those artists. Jason Becker, I was freaked out when I first heard him play. He made me feel like almost putting the guitar down, he was one of those guys. If I didn’t have the shred in my vocabulary, I wouldn’t be half the guitar player I am today, and Umphrey’s probably wouldn’t have hired me anyway.
I’ve always been so into the arena rock guitar stuff. It’s so awesome to be a spectator, and I’m sure to be on stage as well. Watching Van Halen DVD’s a few hundred times as a kid does something to a guy. Being from a small town in the Midwest there was no culture. So I had to check out magazines, records and MTV to find out what was going on out there in the music world. Growing up there was skateboarding, chasing chicks and metal, that was about it.
Matt: OHMphrey just got booked for the jam cruise 2010, how can people find out more about that event and buy tickets for the cruise?
Jake: People can google jam cruise and it’ll pop up. It’s a blast. Umphrey’s was on the first cruise back in 2002 on this little tiny boat. Now it’s on a big ship, with 24 hours a day of food, drinks and music. We stop off at the islands along the way, and everyone just has a great time. I really love doing that gig whenever we can.
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