Why didn't Phil play on THINFS?
 

Anyone know why Shanks played in studio? I honestly didn't know that until today. Shame. I really like the album, but this takes away from that a bit.

No idea... It's possible that Phil's style is considered too "heavy", but he's a session guitarist so it's not like he couldn't play what's required or desired.

I love THINFS too, but I hate that Phil only plays on a few tracks and Shanks plays on everything.

I don't think it was a style thing, he played on Come On Up To Our House, one of the softer sounding songs. I don't think we'll ever know if it came down to scheduling or budgeting. Shanks was there any way the entire time and since some songs were recorded live off of the floor Phil would have needed to be there the whole time I guess.

I think Shanks is a better writer who is also a producer and Phil is just a live on tour maniac...

Just like the way they used Huge in the studio and Alec on tour... Let's face it, Huge is not the most exciting member in the band... He was just a session player until Jon had no choice but to fire Alec and bring on Huge... Huge wrote the bass line for KTF... Alec just played it... Same exact situation... Phil is more of a member and John is just helping out IMO...

It's not a secret that Jon and J. Shanks has been the two driven forces behind Bon Jovi in the studio during the latest albums. Even when Richie publicly was Jons right hand, Shanks has always been very close in the creative process.
I guess it comes down to the fact that Shanks knows what Jon wants, which makes Jon feel comfortable. I'd even go as far as saying that Shanks was the one who planted the seed regarding the Killers, U2 guitar sounds that has become more and more present since HAND. For every album it has become less Richie influenced and more Shanks.

So to repeat myself - Shanks delivers what Jon wants in the studio with ease while Phil X is the perfect guy on the road. Like Rdkopper stated, it's pretty much the same situation as Hugh and Alec, except the fact that Shanks actually tours with the band this time. I'm quite sure it will be like this on possible upcoming albums (unless Richie returns). Shanks will be the guitar player, the producer and the co-writer. Honestly, except for Jon himself Shanks is the one closest to Bon Jovi these days.

YES. 300 hundred percent I think this is it.

It's a bit of a bummer for me. As much as I enjoy THISFS, I really want Shanks to take more of a backseat on future albums and leave the guitar playing to Phil (and JBJ). Now that Jon's voice is going (gone?) in my minds eye he really should focus on having a more instrumental presence on the albums. But that's just me, I really don't think most people give a shit really....

I had assumed this was a timing thing - remember Phil didn't play on BB at all, and we know they'd already done a bit of work on THINFS by then. I don't think it was decided that Phil would be a 'proper' band member until a good chunk of the way through the process and then he came in and played on the remaining songs.

I may be talking out of my arse, that's just how I interpreted it from what Jon said about recording and then what Phil posted on social media. It wasn't until Jon said the record was nearly done that Phil started posting photos of recording and it was soon after than he was 'officially announced' as a band member.

This.

Music should be recorded and played live by people who wrote it; hence, Shanks is the guy to play the new songs - in studio and live. If he wasn't a capable guitar player, there may be case, but not here.

Plus, it's not like Phil's involvement in studio would change anything. He already played on a 4 songs on This House and I can't even tell which ones, because they sound the same. And that's exactly how it should be, because Phil is, first and foremost, a session player. He played on albums for pop artists like Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, etc. and did it in a way that matches the music being recorded. So if he was to play on more Bon Jovi songs, he would do the same - play into Jon's vision. So you might as well have Shanks instead, who actually contributed to the songwriting and production.

This is an interesting discussion. You guys know a lot more about this side than I do; but I tend to agree with Walleris that it makes sense and would be more authentic if the guy who co-writes the songs also records them and plays them live.

So I have some questions. Do you think Jon currently has Phil on the road, in addition to Shanks, because the fans reacted so positively to him and Jon knows that the response to Shanks would have been much more negative? And do you think this might be a transitional move to allow the fans to get used to seeing Shanks in the band (while Phil is still the "official" lead guitarist) and then after this tour, perhaps, he becomes the official lead guitarist, Phil goes back to the Drills, and Bon Jovi goes back to being a 5-piece band (well, plus Everett to cover backup vocals)? Or do you think both guitarists will stay and continue to trade off lead and rhythm responsibilities?

I don't think Jon will dismiss Phil X so easily :3

He won't because he fulfills the role of a showman as lead guitarist on stage much more than Shanks who seems rather introverted to me.
Furthermore I'm pretty certain that he needs to keep two guitar players around because of the way the albums are produced nowadays with tons of guitar layers for every track. Remember that ever since Shanks had come onboard as a producer (2005) we've had two guitarists on tour.

I think Bounce was the nail in the coffin for the band as it's probably the most overproduced album up to this date. If I remember it right David didn't feel comfortable to be handling all the backing tracks/layers on Undivided, Bounce, Everyday, Hook Me Up etc. and as HAND continued the trend to use layers of guitars it made sense to bring in another guitarist and backing vocalist.

I picked out Born Again Tomorrow and All Hail the King first time I heard them, Knockout and Our House I'll concede but the guitar's not the main player in them, my initial reading was I could only hear Phil in BAT and AHTK. The BAT solo is VERY Phil. And I think it does make a difference - listen to the rest of the solo's on that album - even THINFS is very constructed. I do like Shanks as a composer in some ways but his execution lacks a bit of... finesse.

As for Shanks replacing Phil - if that happens that's the end of the band as a touring force. While Shanks has no stage presence, casuals can't tell the difference between Phil and Richie and my previous point - he's a solid guitar player but not an exciting one. But anyway I don't see it, I'm not even convinced to leave my initial reading that this is all a time thing and Phil is lead guitar - it won't mean every track but certainly most if we ever get a new record but it's well established that Richie didn't play on every track so... can't whine about that really.

I think Phil is here to stay. That inner circle is hard to get into. I've always thought that he didn't play much on THINFS because he has his own band and commitments. I never saw a reason to overanalyze it. Maybe as an official member now, he will be more involved next time.

I agree... Even if Richie does come back, I could see Phil sticking around...Which would kinda be cool...

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Pardon me sir, but I guess what you meant to say was "Huge wrote the bass line for KTF and in live concerts Alec played it "in his own style"". =)

No... I meant it to read the exact way I wrote it...

If you read the sentence prior, I'm specific about Huge being in the Studio and Alec being the live player... So when you couple that with the next sentence (the one you included), it comes across pretty clear and obvious..

As far as Alec playing it in his own style, I have no idea... They sound identical to me but I'm not a bass player or a musician...

I know a lot of people were shocked when Huge made the statement about him being in the studio during Faith and writing that bass line. I guess if people were shocked, Alec must have done a very good job at fooling everyone and it couldn't have been too far off...

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He most certainly did. It was done much sloppier than on the studio version whereas since 1995 it was done spot on.

The biggest example of the difference between to the two is Evening With. Al's playing of the riff is way sloppier, a much different feel.

Spot on - I guess I have always been more of a fan of Hugh than Alec. He is (and was) by far the better musician.

I just listened to it and I don't hear anything wrong with it... It sounds exactly the same with the exception of the acoustic sound...

Agree to disagree I guess. To me and others it sounds like he's accentuating different notes and the way Hugh plays it sounds exactly like on the record. Al's way almost sounds like he's not muting some of the notes and they ring longer then they should.

There's nothing wrong with it per se, but to me the difference is kind of like the difference when the KOS (Bobby) play the bad name riff. It's almost as if it's a half a second too slow and instead of picking the last C note harder all the notes are picked with the same resonance. It's really not that big a difference but it's just a way to know that he wasn't the one who wrote or recorded the bass part...

YEAH that's more exact than the way I was trying to explain it. He's not wrong, hes playing the right notes but to say it sounds exactly like the record it's easy to hear it's not him. He has a bit of a different attack than Hugh, it's a little more staccato and harder pluck.

Interesting you brought this up. I watched the official version of "Evening..." and KTF mustve been overdubbed by Huge. Then again those leaked rehearsals include rather varied bassline for KTF...

But RDKopper what I meant is that Alec never played the track live the way it was recorded.

Isn't that kinda what rokuli said? I don't know much about bass but to me 'a little more staccato and harder pluck' as well as 'a different feel' sound more like stylistic differences than sloppiness. Or am I missing something?

I'm in agreement with Rokuli, it's RD's point I don't agree with.

I don't really have a point!!! I just can't tell the difference, not being a musician... Some of you are saying that Alec is plucking harder but common sense tells me that's because of the bass he's playing during an acoustic set. Now if you guys are hearing different notes, then that's something I can not comment on...

You can not buy Huey with Alec as well as Phil with Shanks, first I have a good time listening to a lot of Alec's era in show demos, shows with quality SBD ... and I realized that there's enough of a thing to guarantee that he was who Recorded in the studio now A producer who has been producing for a long time with a band and says that Phil has been a staffer as well as says that Alec was not appropriate ..... it is easy to distinguish if Phil recorded or not Like Alec ...

Sorry, just read this now. I'm even more confused. Keep the Faith wasn't performed acoustic that show so I'm not sure were "common sense" is coming into play. He's playing a standard electric bass. Like I said before, he's not playing different notes. He's playing the same notes differently making it pretty obvious he didn't play it on the album.

Sorry, Acoustic was the wrong word... When they were initially asked/agreed to do this, it was supposed to be part of the UnPlugged series but Jon didn't want to jump on that... I guess with being credited for creating the unplugged series and with so many other bands now doing it, I think Jon felt he was past all that and didn't want to jump on that bandwagon... Actually, I know for a fact that's what happened based on interviews... I remember as a kid being disappointed because I wanted it to be acoustic...

So Jon created this acoustic feel with electric instruments (again, not a musician so I might not be saying this right) but I think it's obvious that it sounds slightly different than any other performance... Circling back to Alec, every review I've read has been positive... If you go on YouTube and read the comments that pertain to Alec, it's all positive... My point is, if it sounds a little different it's because it's not a traditional Electric sound... It's a different mix

I think I get what you're trying to say, yeah, but again we're not dogging on Alec saying he's playing it wrong, he's just playing it different than it was on the album. The mix just isn't as different as you're saying, it's electric instruments playing an electric song. If we're talking about the alternate arrangements like Lay Your Hands On Me from that show, absolutely I could see where you're coming from. Compare it to any sound board of Alec playing the lick from the KTF tour, it's the same way he hits the notes there too. I just feel like you're trying too hard to make it sound like it's him on the album and I just disagree. Hugh plays is with the same inflection both studio and live. It's Hugh.

Is this discussion still going on? Phil is a session player and is used to getting paid by the hour. He probably also somewhat depends on taking other gigs on the side when BJ are not on the road. To take time off from other sessions just to be readily available as JBJ & JS are writing and recording stuff over the course of months would be a bad financial decision for him. To have a session player at the studio all the time over the course of months would be a bad finanical decision by JBJ.

Shanks is paid by the hour too, sure, but he's already at the place. He doesn't have to fly in to do basic track so the rest of the band can record their parts. Phil can come in at the end and do some overdubs at a previously arranged time. Which he did.

Hugh was used all the time because he was the only one available to play bass at studio level. If somebody else had been up to it, they might have just used that guy, too. But it seems that for JBJ, Shanks does a 100% satisfactory job at handling guitar duties. I really don't hear that, but it's Jon calling the shots. Plus unlike Bruce Fairbarn who might've called out Alec for being sloppy, I don't see the producer of THINFS calling out John Shank's guitar playing...