interview by: Saint Jinn

Fans of shred know the names of the stars: Yngwie, Batio and Petrucci are some of the most prominent around, but Rusty Cooley is the name you need to keep your eye on. After two solo albums and appearing on numerous others, Cooley has taken his 7-string prowess to blazingly fast levels with his newest band, Outworld. One listen to Outworld's debut and you'll understand exactly why he's been hailed as the undisputed underground shred king.

Maelstrom: When did you first pick up guitar, and why did you pick up guitar instead of anything else?

Rusty Cooley (below): Well, I got my first guitar for my 15th birthday, and I got an electric guitar because me and a couple of friends had been jamming with some tennis rackets to Ted Nugent records and shit like that [laughs]. So after a few months of that we figured, well, why don't we get some real guitars, and it just kinda went from there. I picked it up and that was it, I knew right away that that was what I wanted to do.

Rusty Cooley: My first guitar was a Peavey T27 with a little Decade amp. You know, good old, stock beginner stuff: Peavey. And that was before Peavey was making good stuff [laughs]. They make some pretty cool stuff now.

Maelstrom: What was the first song you ever learned?

Rusty: Well I'd have to say I never really learned songs all the way through, but the first riff that I learned was definitely "Smoke on the Water." I think that's pretty close to most everyone's first riff.

Maelstrom: So I guess Ted Nugent was one of your heroes back then, who were some others?

Rusty: You know, I really don't know why I was listening to Ted Nugent, but we just happened to be; the funny thing is, before I was actually playing guitar, I really didn't listen to any kind of music in particular, I didn't really think of music beyond that, So I just kinda listened to whatever was on the radio, which I think is pretty common; I get a lot of students that come in nowadays and I'm like, "well, who do you like; why did you pick up guitar?" and it's like "I dunno, I just started to play" so I guess that's pretty normal.

But once I started playing and started figuring things out, started picking the guitar out of music and stuff like that, I think my first big hero was Randy Rhoads. And of course then I listened to all the traditional metal stuff then: Maiden, Sabbath, Priest, you know, all that kind of stuff. Good old metal roots.

Maelstrom: What was your hardest challenge as a beginning guitarist?

Rusty: It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure it was just the common stuff like how to change chords and develop good muting technique, just basic stuff I suppose, which probably all guitar players have the same problems.

Maelstrom: Why don't we switch gears and talk a little about Outworld?

Rusty: Sure.

Maelstrom: Outworld's self-titled debut has been pushed back and pushed back, have you finally settled on a release date?

Rusty: Yeah, it's November 13th. It'll be finally out. In a matter of fact, the CDs should be here any day, and as soon I get them I'm going to start selling them. We've had a lot of problems along the ways. We went into the studio to record the CD in February 2005 and after a few weeks in the studio we realized that the drummer we had wasn't cutting it and so we totally had to scratch all that and we went out and, you know, did the drummer search, finally found a drummer and rehearsed him very hard, and within a month had him back in the studio doing all of his drum tracks. I'd have to say we went back into the studio probably in late, late March or early April and by June 1st, we were done recording all the drums, all the guitars, all the keys, and all the bass and our singer took the next four or five months to do his vocals. Once we were finally done with the CD it had to be mixed and mastered, and then our record label had it in their hands by January of this year. Our label's from France, so they had to secure distribution deals for all the other parts of the world.

So by the time all of that was taken care of, the release date was October 23rd I think. But in the meantime we had problems with our singer and we parted ways with him, and word got back to our label, obviously, because they have to find out about shit like that and we ended up getting dropped from our major distribution deal that we had in the U.S.A., we got dropped from that because they thought the band was unstable and they didn't want to push a CD [from a band] that didn't have a singer. So once again, our record label, they actually wanted us to go back and find a new singer, re-record all the vocals, remix, remaster the CD, release it in 2007, and I was like "no way, the CD's done, I want it to come out." So because of that, and because we got dropped by our distribution deals it got pushed back to November 13th and now our CD unfortunately is not going to be as available in the U.S. as it was; it was supposed to be in all the stores and now it's, at best, mail-order. But you know what, we put our heart and souls into the music and regardless, I think it's a great CD and we're just going to push on and move forward.

We got a new singer, Carlos Zima from Brazil, so we're in the process of relocating him up here.

Maelstrom: Has Carlos been in any other bands?

Rusty Cooley: Yeah, Carlos has been in two really big bands in Brazil; he was in a band called Vougan and he was in a band called Heaven's Guardian. Carlos sent us videos of him performing live with Heaven's Guardian, and I mean, the crowds and stuff that he's playing to, is amazing. It's like huge stadium arena gigs. Carlos is going to come here and play clubs with us [laughs]. But, you know what, we're going to go down to Brazil and make some music as well, so we gotta get him here.

Maelstrom: So what exactly happened with [ex vocalist] Kelly "Sundown" Carpenter?

Rusty Cooley: Well, I don't want to get into a lot of the details, but basically Kelly was getting offers from other bands and kind of putting us on the backburner, and he was up for a gig in a really, really big band, and he told us that if he got the gig he was gonna take it, and that's where we parted ways, because Outworld isn't going to take the backseat to anybody. So basically, Kelly was going to be out for a few months recording an album with this band and go off touring three or four months, and so whenever he wasn't doing something with them, we'd get what was left over, and that's obviously not very cool. So we parted ways, I mean, that's really the only thing you really can do.

You know, it's unfortunate because Kelly's a great singer, so the problem was never anything with his voice, it was just of commitment to the band.

Maelstrom: Outworld has played a lot of local gigs, but do you have any major tours planned?

Rusty Cooley: Well, unfortunately because of what happened with Kelly and us getting dropped by some of our major distributors and stuff, right now we don't have anything set up. So the big focus is just writing the next album. I mean, we would have been doing all of that stuff, but now we're just going to bust ass to get the next CD out so we can get bigger and better deals and get out there and do it right.

Maelstrom: So the second Outworld album is already in the works?

Rusty Cooley: Absolutely. Yeah, I don't want to talk too much about it because we went through so much hell to get the first CD out; who knows what'll happen this time around. It would be great if we could have it ready to release by 2007, summer, that would be ideal. But after what-all we've been through on this CD, who knows? Maybe we'll get a break this time around. But we're hard at work on it; we've got plenty of material — I mean if I didn't write another note, we would have enough material for an album and then some. So the material's there, the work we're doing now is just arranging the material so we can get it presentable for Carlos so he can come in and write the lyrics and vocal melodies. The arrangement always changes a little bit once the singer gets a hold of it because a part might need to be cut or lengthened, it's the process that you go through.

Maelstrom: What is your favorite piece of guitar gear?

Rusty Cooley: You mean amps and stuff, or guitars, or what?

Maelstrom: Anything.

Rusty Cooley: Well I'd have to say first and foremost the most important thing is my guitar, because if the guitar's not happening it doesn't matter what you play it through. My favorite guitar right now is my Dean 7-String, which is the prototype of the Rusty Cooley 7-String Signature model that's going to be coming out in January '07. So right now, that's it. it's an ass-kicking guitar.

Maelstrom: Have you ever thought about using a 9-string guitar? [Rusty plays a Conklin 8-string as well as his Dean 7-string]

Rusty Cooley: I have, I already had one.

Maelstrom: Really?

Rusty Cooley: Yeah, I had a Conklin 9-string guitar custom made by Bill Conklin and it was strung high A to low F#. It was ok. I mean, it obviously was a well built guitar because Conklin doesn't build anything that isn't just awesome, but I don't know. It really just wasn't doing it for me, so I've already gotten rid of it [laughs]. I felt like the main purpose of that guitar was, "look, I can run more octaves than you now" and I wasn't really seeing the musical side of it, which is much more of my focus now that I'm writing material for a band instead of solo guitar records.

Maelstrom: Currently, who are your favorite guitarists?

Rusty Cooley: I'd have to say my all time favorite guitarists would have to be Rhoads, Malmsteen, Gilbert, Becker; and then some of my biggest influences aside from those guys that are a little more recent are Alan Holdsworth and Shaun Lane; they're a little more fusion based. Not really jazz fusion but just fusion, it's just an amalgamation of different styles and stuff like that. So that's where I am with guitar players. With bands, I love bands like Unearth, Nevermore, Soilwork, Arch Enemy, Meshuggah... that's where I'm coming from from a band standpoint, that's the stuff that I really dig; that's what inspires me to write riffs.

Maelstrom: When you use your studio rig, do you change anything when you perform live?

Rusty Cooley: The only thing that I change live is I add more cabinets [laughs]. Right now, I have eight cabinets although I'm not using eight cabinets live. My main preamp is a Rocktron Prophecy, which is what I used for all the rhythm guitar on the CD. I played the Prophecy through a VHT 292 power amp into one Boogie Recto cab with v-30 speakers. I used that for all the rhythms and about 95% of all the leads; and I also used my Bogner Uberschall through a Boogie cab for all the leads.

What I ended up doing when I first started recording all the leads I was using my Uberschall and about two or three songs into it I thought, “hey, man, it'd be cool if I used both of them” so we ran the Prophecy direct and the Uberschall through a cab and then mixed the two tones for the rest of the album; and the thing is, if you listen to it, everything's blended so well you probably won't be able to pick out where I wasn't using the Prophecy.

Maelstrom: Looking forward, do you see yourself anywhere in 10 years?

Rusty Cooley: Yeah, hopefully in ten years I'll have put out a bunch more CDs, making lots of money touring the world, much more gear; I want to get the Rusty Cooley Signature guitar out there. You know, just make some money and some great music. Hopefully by then I'll be playing music full time and I won't have to teach [laughs]. Even though I love teaching, I'll be playing guitar, and you can't beat that.

Maelstrom: Is there any change you'd like to see in the world of guitar?

Rusty Cooley: I would like to see guitar to continue going forward and not ever be put on the backburner by trends. I mean, rock 'n roll, heavy metal in general, that's about guitar. When you start taking lead guitar out of music and it gets to the point where it's uncool to be a good guitar player or a good lead guitarist, that's almost like sacrilege. I think there's room for everything. If guitar isn't your thing that's fine, but it should never be an uncool thing. There's plenty of room for all types of guitar players. I think that's what I'd like to see, being accepted no matter what kind of guitar [style] you play. If it's good music, it's good music, regardless of what it's labeled as. That's the most important thing.

Maelstrom: Do you see any guitarists in the underground that deserve more respect?

Rusty Cooley: Well, the underground has so many different layers [laughs], where do you start and who do you still consider underground? There's lots of great guitar players, I'd have to say a guitar player that's not quite so underground anymore that deserves a hell of a lot more respect than what he's getting is Jeff Loomis from Nevermore. Jeff's a phenomenal guitar player that you just don't see enough of in the media and the press. Michael Amott from Arch Enemy is phenomenal — great songwriting; like the guy in Necrophagist: That dude's great, but I think because their music is so heavy I think that they're always going to be underground.

Maelstrom: Besides Outworld, are there any other musical projects you plan to undertake?

Rusty Cooley: No, not at the moment. Outworld pretty much consumes all of my time. If I didn't have to teach still and I could stay at home all day and write music from the time I got up to the time I went to bed, I would have more room for other things. But right now, no, I just don't have time to take on anything else. People always ask me “when are you going to do another solo record?” and I just don't have time for it. Maybe someday. I'd love to play with a lot of other musicians out there, but there's just no time for it.

Maelstrom: What do you see as the future of metal?

Rusty Cooley: Geez, that's a hard one to predict. I just hope it continues to move forward and to keep evolving. I think that's what we can all hope for.