An Interview with Chris Letchford

IC: How was your recent tour with Cynic, Devin Townsend, and Between the Buried and Me?

Chris: The tour was fantastic! 20 of the 26 shows towards the end of the tour were totally sold out from the pre-sales weeks in advance, which made for really fun shows. The crowds were super energetic, especially when we made it to Canada. Overall, it was just really fun. We got to share a bus with Between the Buried and Me, which beats traveling in a van! We also finished a tour with Dream Theater in August, which was also amazing. We got to play some really big arenas and outdoor pavilions with them.

IC: So how’s the new material coming along?

Chris: It's definitely going good; we've been home for about a month now, so we started working on the next record (which is currently untitled). Like I tell everyone, we're always writing, we're always working on stuff. We just released a new song live called "Colossal," that we played at SXSW. That song is a bit different… a little more heavy, with more dynamics and a bass solo. Really exciting, and it's a bit shorter than normal. So anyway, I have about half of the record written now, and it's going strong. We're probably going to be home for awhile, so we will likely be recording this fall, but nothing official quite yet.

IC: Who are your primary influences on guitar these days?

Chris: Some of my main influences are… Well, John Petrucci, obviously. Growing up as a kid I idolized that guy, so being able to tour with him was a fantastic experience for me. One of my other favorites is Guthrie Govan, who is a phenomenal songwriter and player. Some other guys I really like are Eric Johnson, a Gypsy Jazz guitar player named Biréli Lagrène… Brett Garsed is great… Marco Sfogli - that guy is good. But I guess my top three of all time would have to be Petrucci, Biréli, and Guthrie Govan.

IC: Could you talk about your time at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood?

Chris: Originally I moved out to Los Angles to pursue building custom instruments, so I went to the Guitar Craft Academy course at MI, which was six months long. I decided halfway through that I'd rather play guitar professionally than build guitars, so I entered into GIT once the Guitar Craft Academy was done, and I started working on my playing more. I went there… I think, for two years in the GIT course itself. Meeting the guys there was probably the best thing about going, as we had been having trouble finding a bassist and a drummer here in Houston. They shared the same influences that we did at the time, so that was cool. All of us did two years there. But as far as branching out into playing live and touring… we moved back here because it was cheaper to live (so we could dump more money into the band), and we recorded our first full-length album, "Monument." We self-released that, and then just shopped out to labels and got picked up by Prosthetic a year later. So that's where we are today… touring full time and playing music!

IC: What are you playing on currently?

Chris: Well, one of my current partnerships is with Michael Sherman Guitars; I play one of his RG-style 7-strings. I also endorse Lundgren guitar pickups out of Sweden. The ones in my Sherman are the M7 model. My set-up on that guitar is volume, tone, a two-way selector (because I never really use a blend option), and then I've got two coil split selectors for either pickup. Standard tuning for a 7-string (low B, E, A, and so on). I play Mesa Boogie Amps. A Mark V head and a slant 4x12 cab with the British tan vinyl. Beyond that, Scale the Summit also endorses InTune Guitar Picks, Red Bear guitar picks, Ernie Ball strings and cables, and Music Man guitars, since Travis plays the Music Man JP7 Ball Family Reserve exclusively. I also have a Hipshot bridge, as I don't use a tremolo, and Hipshots are really the best hardtail out there.

IC: Any advice for young players looking to pursue playing guitar professionally?

Chris: Sure, if you're looking to pursue a career in guitar... it's just a lot of hard work. I practiced throughout high school for four to six hours a day, and during college I was playing eight hours a day. But besides that, to be able to be a professional and actually play music for a living, you have to really know the business side and dedicate a lot of time to promoting the band, and you have to tour. You really need to play live and tour regularly. The toughest part is usually finding guys to play with who are dedicated, but I moved sixteen hundred miles away to find the rest of the guys in Scale the Summit! But as far as advice… just a lot of hard work. There's not always a lot of luck involved. Just make sure you're networking as much as possible and touring, because you never know who is going to be where just when you need them!

IC: Any side-projects planned currently?

Chris: As far as side-projects go, I am working on a Jazz record right now. It's not going to be anything traditional, but rather more contemporary based Jazz. That will also be with Pat and Jordan from Scale the Summit, playing bass and drums on it. I'm not sure when it'll be out… I'm currently still writing it, but I have roughly half of it done and I'm hoping to have it out by the year's end.

IC: You also just released an instructional, right?

Chris: Yeah, I have a new instructional book out called Chris Letchford's Guitar Techniques! It was a lot of fun to put together. It has 52 exercises in it, covering all different kinds of techniques, from hybrid picking to sweep picking, legato, chromatic exercises, tapping, and so on. The cool part of the book is that I concentrated on writing more ideas that are very musically-based, so you can actually apply them to your own songwriting and playing. The book is more geared towards intermediate and advanced players, but beginners can certainly learn the licks in the book. The hard part would simply be the goal tempos that I have written throughout.

IC: Thanks a lot for taking the time, Chris!

Chris: Thank you, Dave!