Best Guitarists in The World

By: Brady Lavin

In 2007, James Hart, the ex-frontman of metalcore band Eighteen Visions, decided to start a more straightforward rock ‘n’ roll project with producer Zac Meloy. The music they wrote and recorded ended up being released on Burn Halo’s self-titled debut record in early 2009. With the record in the can, Hart had to find musicians worthy enough to tour behind the material.

Here’s where Joey Roxx comes in. A former member of Sacramento nu-metal outfit Die Trying, Roxx joined the band in late 2008, playing the parts recorded by Synyster Gates of Avenged Sevenfold and Neal Tiemann of David Cook’s band with an accurate showmanship and unbridled enthusiasm.

With Burn Halo’s new album, Up From The Ashes, Joey solidified his presence in the band by co-writing a lot of the material with Hart, rhythm guitarist Brandon Lynn, bassist Aaron Boehler and drummer Dillon Ray. Up From The Ashes, which hits shelves on June 28th, promises to be much harder and heavier than Burn Halo’s debut according to the band.

I got a chance to talk to Joey for a few minutes, and he chatted about Burn Halo’s new-found heaviness, The Rev, and noodling. Yes, noodling for catfish.

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Brady Lavin: So it looks like you guys in Burn Halo are taking it easy this summer, with only a couple of concert dates. What are you guys doing in the down time?

Joey Roxx: Right now, we’re in the middle of planning a bunch of stuff, but it’s not confirmed yet so we really don’t want to make an announcement until its fully-confirmed. But most of the time, we do a lot of radio shows, a lot of acoustic stuff, making acoustic arrangements of our new record, which is actually kind of hard because it’s so much heavier than the last one. That’s pretty much all we’re doing. Driving around… We like to fish too, so we do a lot of fishing.

Brady: What kind of fishing?

Joey Roxx: Recently in Oklahoma we went catfishing, and [singer] James [Hart] caught this friggin’ humongous beast. it must have been like seven pounds! It was ridiculous. We actually took James on his first fishing expedition in New York, and he caught his first bass. He was so excited ’cause he’d never been fishing before, so he was like a little kid, it was awesome.

Brady: You’re not doing the catfishing where you stick your hand in there and they bite your arm, are you?

Joey Roxx: Oh, noodling? Our drummer’s that guy [Laughs].

Yeah, yeah. Half our band is from Oklahoma, so they know all about that. It’s kind of funny ’cause last time we got popped by the game warden, but he was really cool. We didn’t have to pay any fines, so that was cool. You know, you just hate to get caught. It’s like “Oh crap! Should I run?” The guy’s a really fat forty-year-old, I’m pretty sure I could outrun him, you know what I mean? The thought pops into your head, and you’re like “Alright, should I go?”

Our drummer [Dillon Ray] loves catfish, and he wanted to cook them. That was my first catfishing experience too, cause I’m from northern California, and the only real things you can catch there are bass and trout. Dude. Catfish don’t die. We literally chopped it’s head off, and it was still flipping around mad as all hell. They have really big barbs on their skin, too. They’re kinda scary fish, man. They’re like buses. [Laughs]

Brady: The guitars on Up From The Ashes are really huge and aggressive. What do you use to get that monster tone.

Joey Roxx: Dude, Bogners and then [Seymore Duncan SH-8] Invaders man. I mean, they are the highest output pickup you can buy. In the studio it’s great, but sometimes at shows…. for instance, at Blondie’s in Detroit I’ll start to pick up radio stations on ‘em, which kinda gets annoying. For the most part the Bogner Uberschall through a compressor, a little delay and my Schecter Hellraiser that I modded to have Invaders in it. It’s awesome.

Brady: It seems like you and rhythm guitarist Brandon Lynn mesh really well musically on the new record. What’s the dynamic between you guys?

Joey Roxx: You know, he’s a real traditional Izzy Stradlin-type rhythm player. It’s really cool, ’cause you know how when you’re in a band, most guitar players are both trying to be the lead, like in Dethklok. [Laughs]

There’s really no ego. He comes up with a lot of cool stuff, and he actually played the intro lead to one song. He’s got this real cool southern, kinda country flair to him that I don’t really have, but for most of the stuff, he holds down the fort and it allows me to do whatever I really want, which is really cool.

Brady: I know Burn halo’s first album was written entirely by James Hart and Zac Meloy. Was the writing process any different for Up From the Ashes?

Joey Roxx: It was kinda crazy ’cause it started with us all jamming in the hangar, and we kinda started writing the record we thought everyone else wants us to make. Like real standard, active rock type stuff, and I won’t mention what kind of bands, but you know what I mean. The real typical rock stuff. And then Brandon had this song he wrote in drop C called “The Coda,” which is on the record, and James was like “Hey dude, I really like that.” I’m a metal guitarist, so once he said he liked that I was like, “Holy crap, green light!”

So I just presented all the metal ideas that I thought were way too heavy for our band, and they all ended up making the record. It was really cool to have the green light. A lot of the writing after that “Coda” song was written… We kinda did the pairs thing. The Tulsa dudes would write songs, and James and I went through stuff personally around the same time, so we really bonded. I’d drive down to LA to his house and we’d just geek out on guitars. Schecter hooked us up with a couple nice acoustic guitars, and we wrote “Threw It All Away” on the spot at his house. It was pretty cool.

Brady: I really think you’re counter melodies really add a lot to the Burn Halo songs. Where do those melodic ideas come from?

Joey Roxx: You know what, man, honestly my favorite band of all time is AFI, and I think [guitarist] Jade [Puget] is one of the most tasteful guitar players ever. Every now and then he has one song on every record where he does something absolutely Van Halen-esque. Things where you’re like, “Sweet. Dude, he can shred,” but for the most part he just makes the song better by adding layers, you know what I mean?

Another one of my favorite guitar players, Paul Gilbert, you know that guy can go off. If he really wants to, he can out-shred almost anybody in the world, but not every song he does it. I was talking to Synyster Gates, who’s a good friend of ours too, and he said “It’s all about note choice, it’s all about the good of the song.” Plus the fact that james and I bonded really well… He’d help me and we’d produce these great guitar melodies that are great counterpoints to the song. It almost added a new dimension.

Brady: You mentioned Synyster Gates, the guitarist of Avenged Sevenfold, who you toured with back in 2009, before the Rev passed away. What was your impression of The Rev?

Joey Roxx: Dude, he was an awesome person and a great drummer. It’s so sad that he passed. I remember when James called me, I was pretty bummed for a while. He was a really big fan of the band, and he just had this great sense of melody, and I’m not sure people really grasped how awesome he really was. He was a great songwriter and he was just an all-around amazing person. And I know everyone misses him.

Brady: The guitar work on the first album was recorded by different guys, but you do play these songs live. When you are playing the solos on these songs, what do you do to add you’re own personal guitar style when you’re playing parts that are set in stone?

Joey Roxx: It’s cool for the Gates stuff. Him and I grew up in northern California. The California style of shred, like me, Jake Pitts from Black Veil Brides, Synyster Gates, we all have semi-similar guitar style. Whether you want to or not you grow up listening to a lot of punk bands for me like NOFX and Pennywise, too. He likes Mr. Bungle, I like Mr. Bungle. Just all that stuff, a lot of us have a lot of similar influences so it kinda sounds similar, which is really cool. The Gates stuff, for me when I was figuring that out, I was like, “That’s exactly what I would have played.” And the Neal [Tiemann] stuff… Neal has this really cool semi-“slow hand” vibe to him. A lot of sass, I guess.

At first I played the stuff note for note the first couple tours, but then eventually we started just jamming around and having a good time with the songs. I still play the leads like he does, but I’ll add an extra trill here and there, or a pinch harmonic. I like to slide notes a lot, there’ll be a lot of sliding going on too.

Brady: How does being in Burn Halo compare to back when you were in Die Trying?

Joey Roxx: Die Trying was cool, I mean I’m from Sacramento and they’re from Sacramento. My boy Jack, him and Jacoby from Papa Roach, who is a really good friend of mine too, they kind of spearheaded the effort to get me in the band in the first place, so I can’t thank them enough for that. Die Trying was basically covering the old record they had, and then me and Jack would every now and then, with Matt Conley, the drummer, write some good songs.

But it’s just a different animal. It’s more of an old school nu-metal type vibe, when this is like straight rockin’ metal, more where I feel at home. I have a lot more input on this, where on that I was coming into an already really really established band, so I had to play my daily roles a little bit.

Brady: Many players want to branch out from whatever current band they’re in with different side projects along the way. Do you have any plans to do anything on the side or maybe some solo work in the future?

Joey Roxx: I’d like to. Right now when I’m in Sacramento, I’ve been jamming with this kind of speed metal band called the Winter Formal. I’ve been playing some shows with them. It’s just really great fun, kinda cool Underoath-type vibe. It’s just a lot of fun.

Ultimately I have a lot of great riff ideas for a lot of As I Lay Dying-type stuff. I would love to jam with them or put something together in that type of vein. Who knows? Maybe I’ll pull a John 5 or something and ProTools a record together, like a cool shred record. I have a lot of obscure stuff around in my head that I feel like some people would like to hear.

Brady: It needs an outlet.

Joey Roxx: Exactly, exactly.