Can a band form right after one impromptu jam? Well – The Aristocrats are proof that when you get three masters together, you might – accidentally – form a supergroup.
As the story goes, the power trio of Guthrie Govan, Bryan Beller, and Marco Minnemann brandished their weapons of choice – guitar, bass, and drums, respectively – at a NAMM Show jam back in 2011, and, well, the rest is history.
However, Beller insists that the hype around the band wouldn't have been what it was without Govan's involvement.
The virtuoso already had some pretty significant accomplishments to his name – including winning Guitarist magazine's “Guitarist of the Year” competition in 1993, a stint writing lessons for Guitar Techniques, touring with the British prog-rock band Asia, as well as releasing his own debut, Erotic Cakes, in 2006 – which made the prospect of him teaming up with Beller and Minnemann all the more exciting.
“We had done the [Mike] Keneally thing, he played on one of my albums, I played on his instructional DVD. And so we were floating around doing stuff,” Beller tells Scott's Bass Lessons, discussing his pre-Aristocrats work with Minnemann.
“It wasn't until we found Guthrie that, suddenly, it was like that explosion happened. And we're also fortunate that when we found Guthrie, he was one of those underground guys who didn't have a website [and] wasn't on social media.
“The rest of the world didn't know that the world's greatest guitarist was playing a weekend gig at this place in Chelmsford every week.”
He continues, “So when we formed the band, we had this initial push of publicity, because every guitar magazine in the world said, ‘Oh, Guthrie Govan's in a band now with these other guys. We can put them on the cover of our magazine.’”
Beller describes how that kind of organic publicity from guitar magazines around the globe served as “the initial rocket fuel for the band.” That, coupled with extensive touring and, as the bassist puts it, “doing it our own way – all independent, going straight to the fans, not dealing with a record company or anything like that.”
The Aristocrats put out their latest album, Duck, last year – and Govan opened up about his amp modeler “epiphany” that empowered him to ditch tube amps in favor of an all-digital approach.
