2017 catalog

13
FEATURED MUSICIAN
New Directions
with Craig Bartock
How did a guy who never even thought of himself
as a guitarist end up getting invited to join a famous
rock band — as the guitarist? To hear Craig Bartock
tell it, he just did his thing. And he kept it simple.
The story goes back to 2002, when Bartock was
running his own busy music-production house,
producing and developing new pop artists (such as a
pre-Oscar Brie Larson) and collaborating with legacy
acts like Blondie and Meat Loaf. “As far as my
resume goes, playing guitar probably wouldn’t have
even been on it,” Bartock says from his home in
Northern California. “It would’ve been ‘music
producer,’ ‘songwriter,’ ‘arranger,’ blah blah blah.”
Then came Heart’s Nancy and Ann Wilson, looking
not to organize a nostalgia tour but to find a fresh
musical direction.
Bartock and the Wilsons clicked both professionally
and personally, co-writing a series of songs right out
of the gate. When he then moved into his familiar
role as go-to man on the album that emerged
(Jupiter’s Darling), Bartock ended up handling many
of the guitar parts himself, naturally finding his own
way inside the band’s retooled sound — and fabric.
“So one day I’m sitting in the studio,” Bartock
remembers, “and Nancy kind of just sheepishly said
to me, ‘You should really be our guitar player.’ And
I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Did she just ask me to join
the band?’”
She did, and Bartock accepted, principally because
he’d developed such respect for — and personal
rapport with — the Wilsons, who, he says, continue
to honor their desire to avoid merely milking past
glories. “Ann and Nancy as artists just can’t do
that,” he says. “I don’t think any of us would want
to be a part of a band that’s an oldies act. It’s a
fine line between a band that is duplicating their
[past] music and a band that feels themselves to
be vital.”
Strong relationships and intentions aside, adapting
to a job he neither sought nor expected still required
a transition-period, particularly when it came to
playing live. Bartock hadn’t actually taken to the
stage since his young-man-in-a-band days in
hometown San Diego, and was quickly thrown into
the fire. His first show as an official Heart member
was on the CMT’s “Crossroads,” which meant lots of
TV cameras in a sizable Nashville venue. He had all
of three days to rehearse.
He got through it by staying in the moment and not
trying to do too much. And now, more than a decade
later, he abides by his less-is-more approach as the
band plays everywhere from ships to “sheds” and he
looks to ensure that his tools can withstand the rigors
of touring. “The most important thing for a live
set-up,” he says, “is you just want it to be working all
the time. That’s why I’ve always gone for simplicity.
Stick with simple guitars, don’t go through a whole
bunch of effects.”
Indeed, simplicity has served Bartock well. He thinks
back to those early Heart days, when he was grappling
with the fact that the band had transformed
several times over the years, and had different sets of
fans with different sets of expectations. “I realized:
There’s no way as a guitar player I’m going to be able
to cover all these sounds,” he says with a laugh.
“So I better just do it as myself.”