Steve Hunter
Altea, Spain
Musician
Question:
You’ve played guitar on albums from Peter Gabriel, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, and countless others, as well as your own solo albums. Is there one guitar riff that you are particularly proud of?
Answer:
I have to say it is the riff and arrangement I did of Rock ‘n Roll for the Detroit album. That album was my first professional album and I wasn’t completely sure what my contribution should be, other than playing guitar. I was very new to songwriting and had no tunes. Ryder had talked about how he would like to do Lou Reed’s Rock ‘n Roll on the album but wanted to rock it up more. I went to see Mountain one night at the Eastown Theater and was completely blown away. They actually got seven encores that night. It was amazing. When I got home I was too amped to sleep so I decided to have another listen to Rock ‘n Roll. I suddenly had the thought….’I wonder how Mountain would do this tune?’ That’s when the riff came and the rest of the arrangement. I showed it to the band the next day at rehearsal and they loved it. It was the first thing I had done that made it on a record so, of course, I was very proud of it. I was really blown away when I found out later that Lou loved it.
