Phil Collen on Jeff Beck: “Jeff’s amp blew up and his pedalboard didn’t work, so they just brought in another Marshall – he sounded exactly the same. He didn’t even flinch”

“Jeff Beck has always been one of my idols because he’s unique. No-one sounds like him, no-one plays like him, and you’ve got to respect that more than anything else. Everyone else you ever play with, there’s always a tip of the hat to the archetype they learned from. Beck is an archetype, like Jimi Hendrix is an archetype. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. No-one was able to get anywhere close to that.

“All your idols, you think they’re gonna last forever. When Bowie went, when Prince went, I’m like, ‘What do you mean they’re not here?’ This was like that. When my dad died, he was 81 and he had a good 15 years left in him. He was just getting going. Jeff Beck was like that. There was so much life in him, in his playing and in him personally.”

Jamming with Jeff

“I was fortunate enough to play with him and hang out with him at the Classic Rock Awards in 2016, and he was like a young guy, with all this wealth of experience and uniqueness. We were actually honouring Jimmy Page.

“Jeff’s amp blew up and his pedalboard didn’t work, so they just brought in another Marshall, and he sounded exactly the same. He didn’t even flinch. I’ve seen some guitar players throw their guitars or get really flustered. Jeff was like, ‘Yeah? Bring it on!’ To me, that was just great.”

More jamming with Jeff

“He was doing a bunch of songs. Robert DeLeo [of Stone Temple Pilots] was playing bass. He goes, ‘Phil, he wants to do Superstition, do you want to sing it?’ I’m like, ‘Absolutely!’ So I sang and played guitar and then Jeff goes, ‘Well, you’ve got to stay up and do Beck’s Bolero.’ I said, ‘But I only know the lead part!’ He goes, ‘Just come in on the heavy part.’

“When you’re having this conversation on stage, you go, ‘Fuck, it’s Jeff Beck!’ Ray Luzier [Korn] was on drums. Dean DeLeo [also of Stone Temple Pilots] was playing guitar as well, and he just shouted the chords out for me and we got around it. Robert DeLeo goes, ‘Jeff, please just play a bit of Freeway Jam!‘

“Jeff said, ‘What?!’ This is real Jeff Beck geekdom – there’s a live album with Jan Hammer and Jeff where they’re jamming, making car noises. I went into making car noises, and Jeff just went into the Freeway Jam. It was so cool actually hearing that live with the guy playing it, an incredible thing to be part of.”

Flying solo

“I’ve been listening to Beck since the ’60s. I’m from London and he was always floating around. First it was The Yardbirds, then later on he went off on a tangent like no-one else. I love all the fusion stuff with Stanley Clarke, all of his solo albums, especially Blow By Blow and There & Back, which is just amazing.

“I always thought that the Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart on vocals could have been a huge band. They were supposed to play Woodstock, but Jeff had to fly home, so they never got to do it.

“Then Jeff launched a solo career. It was all instrumental, which was way better. It highlighted his guitar playing. And then we got Rod Stewart in the Faces, so everyone gained from them not doing Woodstock, even though if they’d done it they could’ve been as big as Led Zeppelin.”

That vibrato

“Blow By Blow was the first time he really shone. The songs were beautiful, the playing was unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was just gorgeous. You can tell a guitar player from their vibrato, and no-one has successfully copied Jeff Beck’s vibrato. That album to me really kicked it off. Because I’m from London, I got to see everyone: Deep Purple, Bowie with Mick Ronson, Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, but Blow By Blow stood out.”

The Strat and the Les Paul

“I got my first Les Paul in 1976. I saw Jeff with Beck, Bogert & Appice at the Rainbow Theatre. He was playing a Les Paul there but he would switch to a Strat sometimes. It’s like, why not? I got a Strat and I would switch between them, and then I ended up playing the Jackson PC-1 which is like the ultimate hybrid.”

Bend it like Beck

“When we did the G3 tour, my guitar tech, John Zucker, goes up to Joe Satriani and asks, ‘How you can do this double stop country bend [with a Floyd Rose] and it doesn’t go out of tune?’ Joe said, ‘That’s palming.’ Say you’ve got your little finger on the E string and you bend the B string, you push down on the bridge so it doesn’t go out of tune. I think that came from Jeff Beck because he’s been doing that for years.”

The tribute

“When I recorded Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers [for the 1995 tribute album Jeffology], I knew it in my head. I knew the vibrato, the bends, and all of that stuff, so when I had to apply it, it became easier. I’ve always only worked out little parts of songs, just a lick or a verse, but I knew how it was supposed to feel.

“If you want to do a really killer drum fill or a guitar fill, it should only last for a bar or you’re taking away from the thing you’re trying to convey. So for the most part it’s the same as what Jeff was playing but occasionally I just throw a little bit of me in there, but not long enough for it to detract from what the song’s supposed to be.”

Jeff Leppard!

“I play Beck licks all the time in Def Leppard. I actually do some of the vibrato things and whammy bar things. I was listening to Jeff’s version of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat the other day and I’m going, ‘Oh, shit!’ There’s something I do constantly in there, and that’s where it comes from. I constantly play them.

“I’m really a fusion fan. I love Stanley Clarke on his own and Stanley with Jeff Beck. There’s a great track called Hello Jeff from a Stanley Clarke album and I’m constantly playing like that.”

A different beat

“When Beck collaborated with [EDM producers] Apollo 440 I totally applauded that. I think that the more tools you have to experiment with, the better you can express yourself. I do it all the time. I’m always using different beats and even some music trends that I’m not a fan of, I still kind of incorporate. There’s great stuff all the all the way around. So when Jeff Beck did that, it’s absolutely what you’re supposed to do.”

Jeff and Jagger

“When we were recording Hysteria in Holland, Mick Jagger was doing his second solo album with Simon Phillips on drums and Jeff Beck on guitar. You can’t hear fuck all through a studio door but I’m still trying to listen because I know they’re in there! Then the door opens and it’s Jagger.

“He goes, 'Hey man, come on in!' So me and [Leppard drummer] Rick Allen went in. We’re sitting in the control room with Mick Jagger doing a live vocal, and there’s Jeff Beck and Simon Phillips playing live with Doug Wimbish on bass. It was completely surreal.”

The pursuit of happiness

“Some people just express themselves in a beautiful way. That’s why Beck was Beck. I think the integrity of your actions makes you happy. He could have been in the Stones, but he had his own stuff to say. Some artists want to be famous above everything else. That’s not the Beck way. He kept his integrity and that’s really rare – I think he was completely happy with choosing that.”