| Gerry Leonard | |
| Birth Place: | Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland |
| Years Active: | 1989–present |
Gerry Leonard (born 26 February 1962) is an Irish guitarist known for his harmonic and ambient guitar style and for his work with David Bowie, Suzanne Vega, Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, Duncan Sheik and many others. He has a solo project called Spooky Ghost. He currently lives in New York.
From Clontarf in Dublin, Leonard played in bands as a teen, influenced by a mixture of Led Zeppelin, punk and post punk and whatever was playing on Top of the Pops.[1] Early on, he worked as a tape operator in Lombard Sound Studios in Dublin, where one job was recording a demo tape by a sixteen-year-old Sinéad O'Connor, and he got to see U2 and Phil Lynott at work.[2] He then studied classical guitar for five years at the Municipal College of Music in Dublin, particularly interested in exploring the instrument's harmonic possibilities. In 1989 he moved to Copenhagen, where he formed the band Hinterland with Donal Coughlan. Leonard handled guitars and production and Coughlan sang and played bass and keyboards, with writing duties shared by both. The band released an album with Island, Kissing the Roof of Heaven in 1990 and toured in Ireland, the UK, Germany and Switzerland. The last Hinterland release was an EP, Resurrect, in 1992.
New York's East Village was the next stop for Leonard, where he established himself as a solo performer, producer, and as a session player. He has recorded and toured, usually as lead guitarist, with Duncan Sheik, Laurie Anderson, Jonatha Brooke, Cyndi Lauper, Sophie B. Hawkins, Avril Lavigne and Chris Botti, among others.[3] In addition to playing guitar for Rufus Wainwright, Leonard was the musical director for Wainwright's Milwaukee at Last!!! tour and subsequent live album. He works a lot with Suzanne Vega, touring with her effectively as a duo; he produced and is given writing credits on all the songs on her album, Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles (Amanuensis Productions, 2014).
As a producer, Leonard has also worked on albums for artists Donna Lewis (In the Pink), Ari Hest (The Fire Plays), Donnie Mortimer (Ten Eventful Years), the Czech band Čechomor (Mistečko), and Pamela Sue Mann. Of his playing on the latter's L'Oeuf, Laurie Anderson said, "I've always been a fan of Gerry Leonard's lush and groovy parts, so that makes the listening experience even deeper."[4]
Leonard has worked in film and theatre. His guitar is featured on Peter Nashel's scores for The Deep End and Bee Season, on Trevor Jones's soundtrack for CrissCross, and on Roger Waters's song for The Last Mimzy. He wrote and performed the score for the Irish independent movie 32A, directed by Marian Quinn, and for Quinn's earlier short film Come To (1998). He has also been involved with some of Duncan Sheik's theatrical works, including Whisper House, staged in San Diego in January 2010. He provided music for a performance of "Twelfth Night" at Shakespeare in the Park in New York.
Leonard worked extensively with David Bowie,[5] featuring on the Heathen, Reality and The Next Day albums.[6] He toured with Bowie on the Heathen and Reality tours, and was musical director for the Reality tour and DVD. He has the only original writing credits other than Bowie on The Next Day, for the songs "Boss of Me" and "I'll Take You There".
Bowie and Leonard were introduced by Mark Plati: Leonard first worked with Bowie on a track from the abandoned album Toy which Plati was producing.[7] [8] Besides availing of Leonard's own style, Bowie also needed him live as he was equally able to cover the stranger guitar parts on older Bowie songs, such as those initially played by Robert Fripp or Adrian Belew, and to rock out. Leonard's first live appearance with Bowie was for the straight-through performance of the entirety of both Heathen and Low in the Roseland Ballroom in 2002.
In 2013, he participated in an April Fools' Day spoof involving an announcement that Bowie would be representing Germany in that year's Eurovision Song Contest.[9]
As a solo artist, Leonard works under the name Spooky Ghost, Donal Coughlan's description of Leonard's guitar sound. He worked on the first Spooky Ghost album from 1996 to 1998, recording it in his East Village apartment. The result, also titled Spooky Ghost, was primarily an exploration of ambient guitar atmospherics. A second Spooky Ghost album, The Light Machine was released in 2002. On this recording, Spooky Ghost was expanded to a trio, featuring Jay Bellerose (drums, percussion and tabla) and Paul Bryan (bass, keyboards and production). Both musicians had already contributed to Spooky Ghost; the trio is the band's live configuration.[10] David Bowie described The Light Machine as "Quite the most beautiful and moving piece of work I have possessed in a long time." Frank Goodman called it a "sonically brave, and innovative, and challenging" work that enables the jaded listener to hear music again.
Leonard's work with Spooky Ghost focuses on soundscapes and ambient explorations. As a session musician, he works extensively with rock and folk musicians. He also remains in touch with the musical traditions of his Irish roots, from the naming of his publishing company for Spooky Ghost, Ceol na Phúca (Irish for "ghost music"), to his work with Irish and Irish-influenced folk musicians, and with Irish filmmakers. In particular, Leonard has worked with folk musician and fellow Dubliner Susan McKeown. The two have performed joint concerts, and Leonard has contributed to several of McKeown's recordings. McKeown is known for her encyclopaedic repertoire of folk songs and under the name Bowsie, she and Leonard explore old songs in an expanded setting of ambient soundscapes and loops. (A "bowsie" is a word used in Ireland for a rascal or jack-the-lad.)
From the beginning of building his first electric guitar with his dad, Gerry has always designed and built his own sets of effects chains and systems. Often referred to as pedal boards there has always been a progression of these designs. Early days of a ’69 Gibson Sg, a Vox AC 30 and a Memory Man delay pedal have morphed into larger Muti Pedal boards in the 90’s to rack-mounted switching systems to handle the demands of a 64-song set with the David Bowie band, there have been many iterations to say the least.
These days compact powerful rigs are the new brief. Having tried the latest digital modeling setups Leonard prefers to keep a more analog chain but incorporates some amazing new digital devices like the Eventide H9 or Strymon Timeline delay to handle the reverbs and delays. The distortions, however, are all analog pedals and selected to complement the artist he is working with.
Everything is controlled by either Boss ES8 or MS3 style switching systems or a Voodoo Labs GCX 1 switcher, depending on the gig and the firepower needed. The multiple rigs are available and tailored to the gig so things remain flexible and versatile. Looping is handled by Strymon, Line 6 DL 4, Pigtronix Infinity, and Boss RC 30 or Boss RC 500.
Another big part of the Spooky Ghost live set is using a PRS Hollowbody II. “This guitar developed by the guys at PRS is what I call a hybrid guitar,” Gerry explained. “It is like two instruments in one”. There is a beautiful 2 pickup / volume and tone electric side with vintage pickups. And then there is a custom piezo acoustic bridge with some proprietary electronics to produce a powerful warm realistic acoustic guitar sound. This instrument produces a warm, clear tone, and by having two discreet outputs for Electric and acoustic allows for separate processing and looping of each.
This guitar is a mainstay on Spooky Ghost and Suzanne Vega's duo shows. It is also the guitar featured in the Reality live DVD performance of David Bowies “Loving the Alien” arranged by Leonard.
Gerry also has a collection of vintage Gibson’s, including his first real guitar, a ’69 SG Custom which he still uses today, a ’65 Firebird with P90’s, some more recent SG’s and white Les Paul custom shop with Bigsby. He also uses a variety of guitars, including PRS Custom 24, P22T, Fender Jazzmaster, Knaggs Choptank and Kenai J P2, Teisco del Rey, Rickenbacker 12 string among others.
Leonard uses a variety on amplifiers when recording at home or in the studio. He favors tube amps, small amps and combos like his 65 Fender Princeton reverb or 50s Fender Champ 600, A Somatone Roaring 40 2X10 combo was one of the main amps on Bowie’s The Next Day sessions alongside a Mesa Boogie TA 15. He also has a couple of Black Cat custom tube amps based on the Kalamazoo 2 circuit and the 50’s Gibson Skylark circuit.
But the main stay has always been Mesa Boogie amps. From the MK III combo bought with his first Island record deal to the current MK V series, Leonard has had a strong relationship with Mesa Boogie amps. He used a Nomad 100W head and Dual Rectifier 100W with 2 X 12” cabs on the Bowie tours. He still uses Lone Star 100W and 30w Special combos for tours and recording. Currently, he favors using two small Boogie heads; the Mk V 25w mini head and the TA 15 mini head for touring with Suzanne Vega. He runs these into two Boogie 1X10 cabs and uses the Boogie Cab Clone IR for attenuation and a direct XLR to the front of the house.