His unique musical journey, which includes stretches with David Bowie and The Cure, now brings him to Kelly’s Logan House
By Matt Morrissette
Though best known for his stunning electric guitar work as a sideman to David Bowie and a member of the British goth gods The Cure, Reeves Gabrels’ career reads like a great adventure novel brimming with exciting plot twists.
Born in Staten Island, N.Y. in 1956, Gabrels began playing guitar at age 13 and never looked back. His varied life and musical path includes: attending the Parsons School of Design and the Berklee School of Music; taking lessons from legendary jazz guitarist John Scofield; playing in bands with styles ranging from rock to jazz to experimental in scenes ranging from Boston to London to Nashville; making six solo albums; being an in-demand studio and touring guitarist and producer for artists such as Paul Rodgers of Bad Co. fame and Jeffery Gaines.
Despite such a diverse and busy career, Gabrels has maintained his sense of adventure and musical restlessness that manifests itself in the form of his improvisational outfit Doom Dogs. Featuring Jonathan Kane (a founding member of Swans, a legendary NYC band) on drums and Jair-Rohm Parker Wells (Machine Gun, Embryo) on bass and electronic textures, the trio plays a unique and unpredictable brand of experimental music. The band is on a short tour playing intimate venues, which brings the trio to Kelly’s Logan House in Trolley Square on January 11.
We had the privilege of firing a few questions at Reeves Gabrels ahead of this month’s show.
O&A: You have such a varied musical background. What is the itch you get to scratch touring in an improvisation-based band?
Gabrels: It’s a freewheeling, no-holds-barred, conversation when I play music with Jonathan Kane and Jair-Rohm Parker Wells in Doom Dogs. We’re a trio of three equal instrumental voices: guitar, bass, and drums. Nothing is off limits musically and anything can happen at any point. The subject matter can turn on a dime and, like a great conversation or brain-storming session, it can be digressive or tangential in the best way.
Because we listen to each other intently, and read the room at the same time, no two shows are ever alike. Sometimes the mood gets heavy, sound-wise or expressively or emotionally. Other times we find ourselves floating in a lighter atmosphere. Jair-Rohm and I started playing together over 30 years ago, yet we don’t recycle conversations. Jonathan became our drummer in 2023, and he has plenty to say too. We’re all devoted to improvising fully and freely, and it’s a real pleasure to be able to do that together.
Here’s how someone who came to a gig last year described what she heard: “[Doom Dogs created] an improv soundscape that took us to five different sound eras and ten countries… One moment there was melody, and the next we were teleported into a David Lynch film only to drop back down into a jazz club and step outside to a funk band. It was RAD.”
O&A: I’d be remiss not to ask about Tin Machine and your long relationship with Bowie. What was it like to play in a band with David Bowie at such an interesting point in his career, and what did you learn?
Gabrels: At the point I met David he was “a bit lost at sea”(his words) and was no longer sure who his audience was. He was worried his next stop was Las Vegas. And Las Vegas most definitely wasn’t what he wanted. We struck up a friendship and started staying at his house or mine and writing songs together with no album nor home in mind for them. Music for music’s sake.
We tracked these songs with just him, me, a drum machine, and a couple of guitars. We each had a first-generation Tascam “Porta One” four-track cassette recorder. We had a blast. In retrospect, we realized we made that period of time interesting in his career by our disregard for the marketplace and by making the music we wanted to hear.
What I learned first and foremost from David Bowie was never to judge a musical idea until it is near fruition. Treat it like you are trying to build a campfire out of kindling and flint. Crowd around it and protect it until it catches flame.
Tin Machine came into being after David by chance ran into the Sales brothers (Tony and Hunt) and invited them to Switzerland where we started recording in Montreux at a studio that belonged to the band Queen.
Other things I learned: Never watch the clock; the idea shows up when it’s ready. And keep record company people out of the recording studio until the recording is complete and mixed.
O&A: I know you were educated at The Berklee College of Music in Boston. As someone who has made music in disciplines ranging from rock to soundtracks to improvisational music, how do you feel musical education has benefited you?
Gabrels: Before music school, I went to Parsons School of Design, then the School of Visual Arts (SVA), both in New York City. All the while, though, I played music — in NYC bars (such as CBGBs) during the school year, and roadhouses in the Catskills during the summer. Also in New York, I took some lessons from guitarist John Scofield. He suggested I should apply to Berklee in Boston. So, after three years in college, I really went to college.
I was at Berklee for six consecutive semesters, trying to get as much knowledge as possible and get my ears to catch up with my hands. At one point, I had a fusion quartet and was doing arrangements for an 11-piece horn band. I have always felt that the real education was meeting and learning from other students, many of whom were from other countries, and played different instruments. And we jammed all the time.
Beyond Berklee, on nights and weekends I played in a post-punk band, assorted rock bands, on the local Boston country music circuit (yes there was one) and lots of weddings. All of this enabled me to put into use the things we were being taught at Berklee and helped me see the difference between the “book” and the practical use of new ideas.
O&A: Being from Staten Island, N.Y., describe your early trajectory in local bands before you moved to Boston for music school or London? How did those early days affect your later choices and projects?
Gabrels: Before computers and digital tools, you’d make friends at school, someone has a garage, you put a band together, you get better, and you end up playing high school dances, then college beer blasts, then bars. Staten Island had all of the above. Every gig informs the next one in everything you do. Along the way you learn what your fellow band members need from you and what the music wants. You learn when to lead, when to support, when to speak and when to listen. Like life.
O&A: Obviously, I have to ask about the excellent new album by The Cure, Songs of a Lost World. Being in such an iconic band for more than a decade, how did it feel to finally have new music (that you played on) released to the world? And to have the record and tour be so universally well-received?
Gabrels: We’re all delighted that our album has had such a wonderful response. Especially as it’s been a long road, what with starting studio work in 2019 and laboring away through several tours as well as during a couple of years of Covid-19. What’s truly meaningful to me is to realize that so many long-time fans as well as new listeners worldwide are moved by the music we made together.
By the way, though Songs Of A Lost World is indeed the first studio album recorded and released by The Cure since I joined the band in 2012, it’s not the first release on which I’m heard. In 1997, I played lead guitar on ‘Wrong Number,’ a song by The Cure that came out as a single and featured as the sole new track on Galore, a compilation of hit singles. That happened during the year I first met Robert Smith, while I was still playing, writing and producing with David Bowie. And I’m on our 2019 live release, which is titled 40 Live – Curætion-25 + Anniversary. It was filmed and recorded at shows we did in 2018 at the Meltdown Festival that Robert Smith curated, and in Hyde Park in London.
All these recordings are part of my story with The Cure. I’ve always felt like what you do creatively is the trail you leave — the story of your life and your time on this planet. Music is what I do, and it feels like what I’ve always done.
Above: The Doom Dogs (l-r): Jair-Rohm Parker Wells, Jonathan Kane, Reeves Gabrels. Photo by Henry Leutwyler.