ADVICE| REEVES GABRELS
TIP SHEET
Think effects are a crutch? Reeves Gabrels has a few choice words (and good advice) for you.
BY JOE BOSSO
What’s Reeves Gabrels’ strangest effect? See tip number five.
ALESSANDRO BOSIO /ALAMY
“DON’T GET MARRIED to your effects.” “Effects are no substitute for playing well.” Over the years, guitarists have made these and similar comments in music magazines (even in the pages of Guitar Player). For his part, Reeves Gabrels is having none of it.
“Effects sometimes get a bad rap, and I don’t know why,” he says. “Effects can be marvelous tools to express yourself, but you have to use them creatively. I think the problem comes when guitarists don’t apply them with a sense of imagination. Copycatism is the real issue, and who wants to be a copycat?”
Thus far, nobody has had the nerve to suggest to his face that he relies too much on effects, but if such a scenario occurred, Gabrels imagines he would handle the situation in one of two ways: “If it was somebody I liked,” he replies, “I would say, ‘I think you’re wrong, but why don’t you watch the show tonight and tell me what you think?’ And if it was somebody I didn’t like, I’d say, “Well, then you must be a fucking idiot.’”