2015.11.20 - Louder Noise - Why Bumblefoot Plays "The Pink Panther Theme"

Transcript:

Bumblefoot: The Pink Panther thing, that's an interesting one. See, honestly, I always hated taking the guitar solo, I did. I'm shy doing... and to stand up there alone and just be [imitating shredding]. I just feel like a douche, I do. I mean, I'm getting over it. I am. Finally in my mid 40s I'm getting over this thing. Took long enough. But yeah, so for me it was always about playing a song and giving people music and giving people what they want. And I just always felt like they don't want to see me up here just dicking around. They they want to hear a song. They want to hear something. So I started playing Don't Cry just as, you know, single version of it where I'm playing the melody and the chorus together and the audiences would sing along.

And then it was time to hit the road again. We did that. It ran its course. Time to do new solos. And I remember throughout 2009 I was just, you know, sucking on my thumb, "I don't want to do a solo! Wuaaah! I hate solos!" Just being a total brat about it, I was. And finally it was like 3 days before we had to pack up the gear and send it to Taiwan to start playing. I'm like, "Alright, I'm gonna have to do something on it." I remember asking them was like, "Has anyone done like a good version of the Charlie Brown theme?" And they're like, "Yeah, like every kid in MIT's," or "in GIT has done that". "What about Pink Panther?" "I don't think so." "Alright, let's do it. Let's do the Pink Panther theme." And it was just like that [snapping fingers]. "Alright, Frank [imitating a drum beat on cymbals], Tommy [imitating the bass riff], Richard [imitating the guitar melody], DJ, come in heavy [imitating louder guitar]." And we just put it together and just came up with chord progression and there we got together. A few weeks later we went over it [?] and just started playing it for years.

And did that until time to change the song go up and I was like, "Why don't we do one of my vocal songs or something like that?" and I went through a bunch of them. There's a song called Glad To Be Here off the Abnormal album, and then Objectify off the Abnormal album, and then the song Abnormal, and that was it. But I still do the Pink Panther theme, I recorded it and put it out, so it just became, I guess, part of what I do. So yeah, from that and from putting it out. It's a fun song. People like it, so, you know, like [?] [snapping and drumming the intro]. You know, and little kids smile. Everyone knows it and it's fun. It's putting in a good place, so I like doing that.

Finished this.