A Chat with Steve Hunter (01.09.25)
Interview with Karen Beishuizen (guest contributor)
Steve Hunter is an American guitarist who has worked with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper and has a long association with record producer Bob Ezrin. We talk about Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, new projects, and more.
Did you always want to be a musician growing up?
Hunter: I don’t know if I thought I was going to be a musician when I was growing up, but I loved music, and eventually it turned out that a musician was what I was going to be.
At what age did you start playing guitar, and do you remember your first gig?
Hunter: I started playing lap steel when I was eight years old. My father got me lessons on it, and I took them for four years. That was before I went to regular guitar, which is what I played for the rest of my life. But I’ll have to say that I ended up playing lap steel all through my life on various projects.
As far as my first gig, the first gig I remember playing was my cousin’s wedding. I was about nine years old or so. If you want to call that a gig.
How did you get the name The Deacon? What is the story behind it?
Hunter: The nickname The Deacon was actually just a joke. My friend Bob Ezrin had called me at my parents’ house about a gig. My mother answered the phone and then handed it to me. One of the first questions that Bob asked was, “Are you okay? You’re not drinking and doing drugs now, are you?” And I said, “No, I’m still the Deacon of Rock and Roll,” as a joke, and it ended up sticking. From that moment on, that’s all he called me.
You worked and played with Lou Reed. How did you meet, and what was it like working with him?
Hunter: Well, I met Lou Reed because of Bob Ezrin. Lou had heard my arrangement of his song ‘Rock and Roll’, which was played on the Mitch Ryder Detroit album, and loved it and the production, so he hired Bob to be the producer, and had me play guitar on it.
I met him for the first time in London when I was working on the Berlin record. He was kind of a quiet guy, um, but we liked each other. We had a rapport. Much later on, when I did the Lou Reed Berlin Live show in 2006, he and I got along really well, like brothers. It was really wonderful.
You worked with Alice Cooper for many years, appearing on 9 albums. What are your fondest memories?
Hunter: Alice is a great guy, with a great sense of humor, so there were all kinds of wonderful things that happened. I remember we used to play cards almost every night on the airplane, poker mainly. And on one of those occasions, I ended up getting a royal flush and beating Alice, which was great. He had a full house; we both remember that. I mean, it was an amazing thing. You don’t get a royal flush ever. There were lots of things, and Alice is still a good friend; we still stay in touch. I did a tour with him in 2011. I have lots of fond memories.
Your uncredited 1974 solo on Aerosmith’s ‘Train Kept on Rollin’ is considered one of the greatest guitar riffs ever. Do you remember the day you played this, and how did that day unfold?
Hunter: I was in New York working with Bob Ezrin. We were getting ready to do some overdubs on a project, I don’t remember which one, but I think it might have been Alice. Bob had to do some two-inch tape editing, and it’s very tedious. So I told him I would go out into the lobby of the record plant where we were recording and have a cigarette while he did that. The lobby of the record plant is very small, and right across from where I was sitting was the door to Studio C. I’m sitting there just kind of chilling, and the door opens, it’s Jack Douglas. He said, “Steve, do you feel like playing?” And I said, “Well, yeah, I’m just hanging.” So he went into Studio A, where Bob was, and got Bob’s permission to use me for a bit on some overdubs. He grabbed this great old Fender Tweed amp, which was the record plant’s pride and joy. It was a wonderful-sounding amp and brought that into Studio C.
I went in there and met all the band members. They were all there. We didn’t say much ’cause we had to get busy. So I went into the studio, plugged into the amp and played through a couple times to learn the song, then Jack said, “You have to be careful playing over the vocals.” I said, “Well, I don’t have the vocals in my headphones”. “Oh, okay. I’m sorry”, and he put them up in my headphones, then I did one or two more passes, and that was it. We were done. He was very happy. I actually never heard anything more about it until suddenly it’s all over the radio, everywhere I went.
Are there artists out there you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
Hunter: Well, that’s a tough question. I think it would be better if I thought of it as people I’d like to play with. One of the people I wish I could’ve played with was Jeff Beck, or at least met him, and Jimi Hendrix, maybe. Or my favorite rock and roll drummer, John Bonham. If there was somebody I’d like to collaborate with, like on songwriting or something, I think it would be Peter Gabriel.
I read that your eyesight is almost gone due to pigmentary glaucoma. How does this affect your music and playing?
Hunter: Well, I try not to let it affect it too much, but it does affect my eye-hand coordination on the fret board, so that has been compromised a bit. I suppose it’s making me play a little differently than I was before. As far as recording with something like Pro Tools or Logic, I have some trouble seeing detail on the screen. But, you know, you do what you gotta do and you find ways around it.
What are you currently up to?
Hunter: Well, I’m always making music, that’s what gets me out of bed. Even if I don’t release it. I always try to write something that I enjoy putting together or something that comes up in my head that I would like to put down. I finished an autobiography, and at the moment we’re trying to get it published or find a literary agent. But we will put it out one way or the other. So, that’s my next main release. I also have another CD’s worth of material so I’ll probably release that sometime next year, maybe some time around the book release.
Thanks to Steve Hunter for speaking with us. Find out more about Steve Hunter on his official website, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and Soundcloud.
