In 1997, one year after he had been graduated from the famous music school CMCN, Stéphan Forté composed his first instrumental demo Visions, which is considered to be the starting point of the Adagio adventure. This demo, being very clearly Neoclassical-oriented, quickly helped Stephans name to be noticed among the guitaristic community and allowed him to sign his first endorsement deals with Godin guitars and Rocktron effects.
Jerich: For everyone who is not familiar with your accomplishments, could you fill us on everything you're involved with.
Stéphan Forté: My main focus is Adagio. I spend almost all my day working for the band, musically or buisness-wise. Apart from that, I write columns in 3 Guitar magazines in France. I also do masterclasses, clinics, and I give few guitar lessons to some very motivated students.
J: What are your current endorsements?
SF: Lag Guitars, DiMarzio, Hughes & Kettner Amplification, Elixir Strings, and Emagic:Logic audio Platinum. Also New Rock shoes - not very guitaristically interesting, but so fucking metal.
J: Tell us about your signature guitar, the LAG Stephan Forte' (The Beast!).
SF: This guitar is simply the ultimate weapon of shred. I wanted a seven string of course, with 27 frets. The pickup selector is positioned right under the middle finger of my right hand, and in circular shape to follow the move of the mike switching in an easier way. I change very often from bridge to neck, depending the kind of lick I’m actually playing. The volume knob is just next to the selector, under my little finger. n fact we’ve designed this guitar in function of my playing. Concerning the shape, I always loved thin guitars, so we did it as a Saber from another brand. We just needed to find the right balance between thinness and sound, so it took a bit of time. The neck is also custom - very thin with two titanium truss rods, and pretty flat. Touch is ebony, and the wood is flame maple.
J: What initially got you into sevens?
SF: The fact that everything you could play with six strings you could do with seven, but not the other way around. For the last eight years ago, I’ve decided to work on seven strings only.
J: What type of string gauges and picks do you use?
SF: Strings are Elixir nanoweb 009-046 and 56 for the 7th.My picks are Dunlop jazz III black.
J: What do you have to offer the seven string community as a player?
SF: It’s pretty difficult for me to say. [laughs] I don’t know if I really bring something - I use my seveth string of course to have lower, and fatter guitar riffs and in lead, it’s just allows me to extend my licks a bit more.
J: What are some of your methods for composing?
SF: Generally, the first thing I’m doing before even doing the first note is deciding on the tempo to decide if it’s goning to be a fast tune or something mid-tempo. Then I start on the intro of the song, do all the arrangements for all the instruments, and then when it’s done I move to the verse and do the same for each part of the song. When the whole song is done, I take it from the beginning and arrange/correct the the things with a more general listening of the ensemble.
J: Iin addition to being a technically versatile guitarist, you also have a very distinctive look. How important is image in becoming "successful"?
SF: I think that the image you give to your band is as much important as the music itself. People have to understand your universe, which in the case of Adagio is dark.
J: What made you want to play guitar in the first place?
SF: My brother. He was really into hard rock, and he always played some great stuff home when I was a kid. I was already listening to Maiden, ACDC, Ozzy, etc. when I was only 5 years old. So he offered me my first guitar when I was five, showed me the basic chords, and taught me how to play the riffs that I liked. Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” was the first one.
J: Do you have any special playing techniques, where you combine metal and neo-classical styles?
SF: I use my whammy bar a LOT for expressivity. My playing is definitely based 80% on it. I use a Floyd Rose original 7. My main influence nowadays guitari-wise, is the tzigane or eastern europe traditional violin. The best way to compensate for the fact that I’m not playing a fretless instrument is to work the approach of notes with the whammy bar. I’m also interested in developing my technique a lot - not for the sake of it, but to be able to play what I have in mind technically.
J: Which amps and effects do you use live?
SF: My Hughes and Kettner Triamp Heads, with a Rocktron Prophesy preamp. For effects, not a lot - just some delay for the themes and melodic stuff, and rarely for the shred.
J: When someone says asks who your primary influenecs are, who comes to mind? And have you heard any new guitarists that have really caught your ear in the past couple of years?
SF: Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Shawn Lane and Malmsteen for influences. As far as new guitarists are concerned, Guthrie Govan is an incredible guitar player. He has awesome technique, great phrasing and great sound. He’s definitely my favorite actual guitar player.
J: Do you make a living strictly with your own music and Teaching guitar?
SF: Yes, not with Adagio only, but with the side stuff like masterclasses, magazine columns, guitar teching and clinics.
J: In your off Guitar time what hobbies interest you?
SF: Sex, Horror Movies, Dark literature and art.
J: A key element of your style is your guitar tone. How do you get different sounds out of it?
SF: First I think it’s my pickups. I have a Tone Zone 7 bridge and a Blaze neck, which have a very different sound.T he ToneZone is very medium, and the blaze is more scooped in the mids. I'm also trying to play a lot with nuances - sometimes I play some notes with the fingers to have a kind of more “bluesy” and organic type of sound. I also play a lot with my volume knob to changeup the tone.
J: Is playing technique important for you, or do you prefer a "whatever works is OK for me" approach?
SF: I think that technique is the tool to express what you have to say, just like vocabulary and grammar.
If all you have to say is “fuck you…blah blah….” Well you don’t need a lot of words.But Baudelaire for exemple, when he talks about love, death or anything else, he masters the tongue so well, that he emphasize the meaning of what he has to say, mords take another dimension.I think it’s the same for music.
J: Your technique seems to be very tight and fluid at the same time. How do you keep your playing consistant? Do you practice a lot?
SF: Yes, less than when I was 18, but still at least 3 hours a day. It’s pretty difficult to organize the whole amount of work to do during the day, but it’s necessary to practice everyday. When I’m practicing or warming up, I attack the strings very strongly to have the precision when I play faster in alternate picking. I think that’s what give the effect of fluidity and alternate picking at the same time. I mix alternate picking with legato a lot, like Paul Gilbert, so that you have both sounds in one.
J: How important is ear training for you?
SF: Very important. You have to be able to play in any circumstances, and sometimes,you don’t have time to know exactly what key you're in. In those cases, believe me, you’re happy to have good ears! I think sight reading and ear training are complementary.
J: How do you feel doing this interview for a website dedicated to sevenstrings, and the sevenstring community as a whole?
SF: First, I’m really flattered, it’s a pity that not a lot of people understood the concept. All they see is a big neck, and “wow, it’s gonna be difficult to learn, let’s first be ok with a six, then we’ll see”. It’s awesomely wrong, you can start playing the guitar with a seven, there’s no reason not to.
J: What song or riff are you most proud of ??
SF: Proud, I would say the album “Underworld”, as it has been really painful to compose, to build, to compose for real choirs, to pay for for real choirs without knowing how I would eat the next year.. All of this to realize the music that I had in mind 100%, with almost no compromises. The songs I really like are: The Stringless Violin (Sanctus Ignis), Next Profundis, From My Sleep…To Someone Else (Underworld), Children Of The Dead Lake, Dominate (Dominate). My Favorite solos are: The Inner Road (sanctus Ignis) Solvet Saeclum In Favilla, From My Sleep (Underworld), Dominate, and Terror Jungle (Dominate).
J: I know you are currently in the studio. Can you tell us a little bit about your latest musical projects?
SF: I’m focusing right now on the next Adagio album. Adagio is very demanding, and I know now for sure, that I cannot work on other side projects.
J: I know you were here in Philadelphia a few years ago to record with Vitalij Kuprij. Will that recording ever surface or be completed?
SF: No, we just recorded 4 songs - Two of mine, two of his. It was a demo, but we will never release that.
J: Gus, Adagio's new singer, is amazing. Where did you find him?
SF: We just made an announcement on internet that we were looking for a singer, and we received lots of demos. Gus’ version of Chosen from Underworld blew us away, and few weeks later he came to France for the audition and rehearsals before the show in Atlanta’s ProgPower.
J: (Adagio bassist) Franck Hermanny uses a 7 string Bass. How does that help in composing songs?
SF: He has a 7 string, but he doesn’t use it a lot with Adagio. He plays six strings. That helps a lot because the riffs with the B string sounds much fatter, of course.
J: A lot of the band memebers in Adagio live rather far from each other. How often do you all practice?
SF: We rehearse in general each time we have a succession of big shows. Instead of rehearsing each week like a lot of bands, we just take one full month everyday, from 10 Am to 8.00 pm before the gigs.
J: Will you ever re-release "Visions" your solo guitar shred CD?
SF: No. I was 18 at that time, and my playing has evloved since. I prefer to create instead of using past works.
J: Stephan I would like to thank you for your time. Is there anything else you'd like to say?
SF: It was a real pleasure, your questions were truly interesting. Thanks for keeping on spreading the flame of our beautiful instrument!
Two sites of interest:
http://www.adagio-online.com/
http://www.myspace.com/stephanforte
http://www.myspace.com/adagioofficial
Content: http://sevenstring.org/
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