Chris Poland Interview: Megadeth, OHM and Gear

By: Brian D. Holland

Photo Credit: Mike Sherry

Chris Poland is best known as the over-the-edge lead guitarist for thrash metal band, Megadeth. His legato speed runs and hypnotic phrasing provided a signature sound for the group’s first two releases. However, Poland’s direction before joining Dave Mustaine’s California-based Megadeth was as the guitarist for an L.A. fusion outfit called The New Yorkers. While eventually leaving the fusion environment behind, he adapted much of the sophisticated style into his metal playing.

Though fame and glamor followed Poland’s move to metal, rock ‘n’ roll demons waited in the wings. Substance abuse, rehab, and personal indifference became common among Megadeth members. When Mustaine and Poland were no longer able to see eye-to-eye, Poland departed. Simultaneously, longtime Megadeth drummer and Poland’s friend, Gar Samuelson, was also let go.

Chris took advantage of this situation and slowly returned to the style of music he loved. With his brother, Mark, on drums, he released his first solo endeavor, Return To Metropolis, which was a mixture of fusion and metal. Next came Damn The Machine with David Randi on bass and Dave Clemmons on vocals. The group later took on a new singer and reemerged as Mumbo’s Brain.

Chris Poland’s latest endeavor is a fusion extravaganza called OHM. Their second release, Amino Acid Flashback, features Kofi Baker, son of Ginger Baker, on drums and percussion, and Poland’s longtime bass playing friend, Robby Pagliari. On Flashback you can hear traces of Jeff Beck, John McLaughlin, and even Joe Satriani, in Chris’ playing, along with the legato precision and melodic style that are all his.

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Brian Holland: I’ve been listening to Amino Acid Flashback. I enjoy it very much.

Chris Poland: Thank you.

Brian: In comparison to the guitar playing techniques you’ve been associated with over the years, especially in Megadeth, this is quite different. Megadeth had some good guitar work going on, too. However, this is a step in a different direction altogether.

Chris: Yeah. The thing about that is, before Gar [Samuelson] and I even joined Megadeth, the reason we came to L.A. was to start a fusion band. We were out here trying to do that whole Mahavishnu thing, you know, Stanley Clarke and Return to Forever kind of stuff.

We were trying to get that going. Then Gar hooked up with Dave [Mustaine]. But anyway, this was the kind of stuff we played before anything happened. It might seem weird to people who have seen me as a metal guy, but I was a fusion guy in a progressive metal band.

Brian: Some are of the opinion that you’re one of the greatest guitar players in the world.

Chris: I’m totally flattered by that, man. I just do what I do, you know.

Brian: I’ve also heard people refer to OHM as the Cream of the new millennium.

Chris: That’s probably because Kofi is in the band. [Laughing]

Brian: He doesn’t walk around reciting “Pressed Rat And Wart Hog” or anything, does he? [Laughing]

Chris: No. He doesn’t. [Laughing] But every time he talks, it’s almost like that’s what’s happening. He’s pretty funny.

Brian: Have you ever thought of adding a vocalist to the band?

Chris: Actually, Robby, the bass player, sings. We do a lot of Cream blues covers during our sets. But I think once you’ve decided you’re going to have a vocal member in the band, you’ve got to take it in a different direction.

It’s something we’ve thought about because we want to reach as many people as we can with our music, but we kind of like what we’re doing right now. I think we’re going to make one or two more records like this, and then maybe make a blues record. That’s where we all came from before going in different ways. That’s the music we grew up on.

Brian: Talk about the ’90s Return To Metalopolis and how it came about.

Chris: After Megadeth I had to go into rehab and whatnot. I decided against playing guitar when I got out, but a lot of people just gave me equipment. I started playing again and that was the kind of music I wrote.

I had wanted to do an instrumental thing. But because I had just left Megadeth, I brought the heavy guitar crunch stuff with me into that record. I really like it, it’s different. It’s something I don’t mind putting on once in a while.

Brian: What about the band, Damn The Machine?

Chris: That was a really crazy experimental band. It was a rough band to write for, because everybody was writing parts. The arranging, kind of, was a real pain in the ass. It’s hard to take twenty parts and arrange them into something that makes sense. Otherwise, it was a great band.

We didn’t really have a chance because before the album even got any legs on it the label dropped us and everyone else who didn’t sell over 500,000 units. And we didn’t know it at the time, but Rage Against The Machine was being released the same month Damn The Machine was.

We didn’t even know who they were until our publisher, who was handling them as well, said, “Hey, have you heard these guys?” As soon as we did we knew we were screwed. [Laughing] Our names were just too similar.

When we finally got dropped by the label I realized how tired I was of doing what record companies want. I called up my bass player and said, “Hey man, why don’t we just play the music we like to play and let the chips fall?”

Brian: Talk about the L.A. fusion band you were in, The New Yorkers.

Chris: It was the first band we formed when we moved out here.

Brian: Robby Pagliari, who was in the band as well, sounds like he’s from the school of Jaco Pastorius.

Chris: Yeah, Jaco. But mostly, he’s a Percy Jones fan, from Brand X. But he’s totally into Stanley Clarke and everybody. His music tastes are really broad.

Photo Credit: Mike Sherry

Brian: I can picture his bass sound alongside Joni Mitchell.

Chris: Yeah, like on the Hejira album.

Brian: You were on a couple of Lamb Of God releases.

Chris: Yeah. One day, Chris [Adler], the drummer, called me and asked me to play. I said okay and he sent the stuff over. I didn’t know what to expect, but upon listening to it I felt like my whole world was in slow motion compared to that music. It was great. It was fun to do and really challenging. They liked the first one, so they called and asked me to do another one.

Brian: You were actually fired from Megadeth because of substance abuse?

Chris: Yeah.

Brian: That’s kind of ironic and funny, coming from Dave Mustaine. [Laughing]

Chris: I know. [Laughing] People say it was like the pot calling the kettle black. What it really was, we were on each other’s last nerve. He gave everyone in the band money one day. I wasn’t there. He was kind of the controller of everything. I said, “Hey, I need some money.” He said, “Well, you’re not getting any.” I just got all verbal on him, and said, “You know what? Why don’t you just fire me? You won’t, because you wouldn’t know what to do without me.” I went off on him. Two days later, I got a letter from the band’s attorney, basically saying they wouldn’t need my services anymore. [Laughing]

But it was mutual, man. I couldn’t stand it anymore. It wasn’t something I was enjoying. The thing was, they had approached me two months before that, saying, “We’re gonna fire Gar. Are you going to stay in the band if we do?” I looked at them like, “What are you talking about?” That’s when I knew that when they fire Gar they were going to fire me, too. So when I got my letter, Gar got his the same day.

Gar was there from the beginning, getting them endorsed by B.C. Rich. He was the head of the A&R department over there when the band was forming. Gar had a lot of arrangement ideas and Dave took his suggestions. In the end, they were going to fire Gar because he had a really bad problem with drugs.

But on the other hand, everyone in the band did. I was more hurt than anything that they would even come up and say something like that, because that’s when I realized that they had no camaraderie at all with anybody in the band and that everyone was replaceable. That’s when I didn’t care anymore. We weren’t a band.

Brian: You left after the first two albums, Killing Is My Business … And Business Is Good, and Peace Sells … But Who’s Buying?. You returned for the last one, however, The System Has Failed.

Chris: Yeah. Somehow they got hold of my manager and then I spoke with Dave. He asked me to come down and do some solos on the record. When they told me that the drummer was Vinnie Colaiuta I said I’d be there. [Laughing] It was fun.

Brian: Amino Acid Flashback is OHM’s second CD.

Chris: Right.

Brian: Supposedly, it’s very exciting live, too.

Chris: Yeah. You know, that’s something we’ve been working on since the get go of this band, how to make three people sound big, live. So, we work on that.

Photo Credit: Mike Sherry

Brian: You were at Clapton’s Crossroads Fest down in Texas last year.

Chris: Yeah. Yamaha had a booth there. Ken, who heads the custom shop, asked us if we wanted to represent Yamaha that day, so we did.

Brian: It appears a huge amount of the music never actually made it on the festival DVD.

Chris: I’ll tell you, I was really surprised that Jeff Beck’s performance didn’t get on it. He played so good, man.

Brian: Do you have a theoretical background and an education in music?

Chris: No, not at all, man. My dad’s sister taught me piano when I was a kid. I didn’t read the music. I just watched her play and then I’d mimic it. After about a year of these lessons and doing recitals, she forgot to turn the pages during a recital and noticed that I wasn’t reading the music.

She told my mom to watch while she put a wrong page of music in front of me. I played the other song she asked me to play. [Laughing] That was the last of my formal training, which I never really grasped anyway. The entire band is self-taught, except for Kofi. I think his dad taught him time signatures, and how to read drum music and stuff.

Brian: Your influences?

Chris: I guess my first really big influence was Jimmy Page and then Jeff Beck and then Clapton and Hendrix. Those were my influences for a long time when I was a kid. You know, Duane Allman and Dickie Betts, anyone who was in a great band. Then I heard the first Mahavishnu Orchestra record and that was what I was into for a long time. And all the usual suspects with that, including Jeff Beck’s instrumental stuff.

Brian: Who do you find interesting in today’s music scene?

Chris: I like to listen to this guy named Henderson a lot. He’s got some blues in his playing. I like Landau a lot. I like Frank Gambale, but more live than in the studio. Actually, Rafael, from Pink’s band, he did a fusion record. I heard one song off it and I think it’s real good. But anyway, every once and a while I’ll listen to old Tony Williams stuff. There isn’t a lot of new stuff I listen to, except a new Holdsworth record, or whatever.

Brian: Let’s talk about your gear.

Chris: Ernie Ball. I use Ernie Ball .10s. I use the Yamaha SBG2000 guitars. That’s my main guitar. I also play the AES series here and there, but I love the SBG2000. The ones I’m playing now are the ones Santana left behind when he went to PRS. After he left, they just threw the guitars underneath a desk. They didn’t even have finishes on them.

One day, Ken told John, “Build those for Chris.” It’s basically a 335, but with that Europa, Santana style. A guitar’s a guitar. Once you get locked in with one, if it’s the one you like then you’re lucky you found it. That’s how I feel about my guitar. It’s the one that suits me fine for any sound I want to get. So, I’m not looking for guitars anymore, and that’s a good thing.

Click to Check Out Chris Poland's Yamaha at Musician's Friend

I was running that into Bogner preamps. But I got a hold of a Marshall JMP-1. What I give up in a lot of tone aspects, which a lot of preamps can’t even match, I make up for in the fact that I can do a lot of program changes with the JMP-1, in volume and tone settings. It works out with the OHM music because there are so many changeups I have to do. I get to manipulate the tone a lot better with that preamp.

I run that through assorted stuff, like a TC G-Force, TC chorus, a couple of different reverbs and delays. I use a Bradshaw switching system and that goes into a Strategy 400 power amp [Mesa Boogie]. I run that into two Carvin 2/12 cabinets.

I use a couple of Fulltone pedals, a 69 fuzz and a Deja’Vibe. I have this old blue Vox fuzzy wah-wah pedal. I can’t play without that thing. It makes my guitar sound the way I want. It’s not true bypass, so I’m going through the arp amp. It rounds out the top end in a way I really like. I’ll have to buy a backup in case it breaks.

Brian: Would you like to say anything about Amino Acid Flashback before we’re done?

Chris: Yeah. We spent a lot less time on it. That’s almost the opposite of the first record. The first record we looked at everything about four times, this one not more than once. I think that’s why it seems so much different than the first record. That’s good, because some guys make the same record over and over again, and that’s something I don’t want to do. If you buy the first record, or even the live one, all three sound totally different. They all have different strengths.

The difference between my band and a lot of other guitar instrumental bands is that, first, we’re a lot more rocked out than say, Holdsworth or Henderson. Not that they can’t rock out. I think they do what they do and that’s their thing. We seem to be heavier than that stuff. Plus, one big strength the band has is that the rhythm section gets to play what they want anytime they want. They’re not locked in. I think drummers and bass players get a big kick out of this band because there are no restrictions. And if that’s what interests people, then they should pick up a record.