Leonid Salvaje - Composer/Guitarist/Songwriter
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Composer/Guitarist/Songwriter Leonid brews a concoction of hallucinogenic soundscapes in a variety of settings. From classical serenading acoustic guitar and country jazz to 70's power funk; eastern instrumentals to heavy rock n'roll metal, Leonid is a modern warrior fighting for true expression, emotion, and energy through music.
Leonid is an active advocate for animal rights, environmental, and humanitarian causes.
INSTRUMENTS:
Here is a list of the instruments used on the album followed by a brief description of each:
Leonid: electric guitars, classical guitar, bass, keyboards, electric sitar, kalimba, "littlebigstick", and various string arrangements/effects.
"Mad Mike" Cullens: drums, percussion, gong, engineer.
Electric Guitars: I mostly used an Ibanez RG and a Fender Strat through Crate and Fender amps. There are many guitar parts and harmonies and I was always into the concept of a guitar choir similar to how Brian May uses guitar harmonies on Queen albums. As for influential guitarists, I've always liked people who really had a message, something moving, people who grab just the right notes! Slash solos are of the most expressive I've heard, just epic. Jeff Beck is another where you ask "Why the hell would he do that there?" Awesome stuff. He uses the instrument as a tool of sound as opposed to mapping intervals, very different. Another guy is Trey from Phish where he'll trip you out and then hold a bend and you're frozen. I would quote Phish quoting Arnold Schartzenegger but, nah.
Classical Guitar: Used a Takamine cutaway which is very versatile on a few tracks. I've also used an old Goya with rusted strings that came out nice; studio magic.
Bass Guitar: On most tracks I used a Cort bass I borrowed from a friend, and on some tracks it was a Fender.
Keyboards: I used my friend's Roland. I think it was from the 80's, maybe 90's. Whatever happened to the 80's anyway?
Well, definitely some nice presets here. (And people thought that was a real vibraphone!)
I also used MadMike's Sonic which had effects loaded on hard disk. A lot of the string arrangements and spacey sounds were done on this, some eery sounds, like on the surf/flashback horror soundtrack "Ghost Town" which was more keyboard heavy.
Electric Sitar: I've been planning new projects with more of this. I've always loved Indian classical music and the sitar sound. Ravi Shankar is so inspiring and influential as well as the 60's psychedelic influence like on the Beatles' Revolver album. There are a couple of tracks, "Samadhi", and "Raga Bhari" using electric sitar, with some very free and lengthy improv sections influenced by Indian ragas. The titles are in Hindi.
Kalimba: This instrument is a version of the mbira or "thumb piano" popular in many parts of Africa such as Zimbabwe. It is a small wooden board with metal keys that are plucked with the thumbs. The Kalimba was a kind of modernized version in that it was "westernized" to be more accessible to western scales. When I found it in a box of percussive instruments a friend gave me, I didn't know what it was but I decided to "de-westernize" it. So I tuned it to a similar open tuning they use for the sympathetic strings on some electric sitars.(D, F#, G, A, C, D, F#, G; I think it was something like that) It took a while to tune, since to do so, you need to unscrew the metal keys and and move them until you get the tuning you want so intonating could be tough. You can hear some kalimba in the background of "Raga Bhari".
A very cool instrument and portable.
"LittleBigStick": I forgot my slide so Mad Mike takes out this huge oversized drum stick so we used it for the slide parts. It took a while to get used to, but it worked.
Drums: Mad Mike's drumming was awesome and added more madness to the project. He's played with Chuck Berry, Mick Taylor, and Max Middleton to name some, and other eclectic acts with Gunter Hampel, and his project, the Psychedelic Steppenwolves. The drums contributed to a large part of the x-factor when recording. I'd usually come in and bring in a rough take of the song I wanted to work on, and then we practiced the parts, sticking to some, changing others, and with plenty of room for improv in many. Mad Mike's mad drumming on this cd keeps people asking for more later, when the head gets straighter.
Some INFLUENCES: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Prince, Mr. Bungle, Queen, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Jeff Beck, Roy Orbison, Ravi Shankar, Pantera, Devo, Zappa, Dragons, Phish, Fantasy Art, etc.
"ADVENTURES OF LEONID" INFO:
Produced at Mad Hands Studios, Teaneck NJ
Mastered by Willy Weist, Take Five Studios, Linden NJ
Artwork by Peter Oumanski
Photos by Theodora Ravago