I heard about the audition for a band through Neil Young and my brother. I auditioned for rhythm guitar and when the lead guitarist broke a string in the middle of a song, I switched to lead and finished the song. He said to me "You play better than me so let’s switch roles. From then on I was the lead guitarist in what was to become the Guess Who in the early ‘60s.

And you still tour with the Guess Who from time to time – how does it feel?

It’s fun to play twenty hit songs back to back where the whole crowd knows the songs and sings along. It’s like one big rockin’ kumbaya.

The tough part is being locked in a bus with smokers when you’re the only one who doesn’t smoke for weeks on end. It only takes about ten days of being out on the road when I start to miss my home and the West Coast. But it’s always fun to go out with the guys and play.

Who were some of your early influences? Who do you still enjoy listening to?

The Shadows were my first big influence with their clean crisp, clear, immaculately played bass, drums, and rhythm guitar. I can’t leave out Lenny Breau or Chet Atkins either, as they were huge influences on me as a player. I also really was moved by the early Clapton stuff too (Cream).

Nowadays, I listen to pretty much everything commercial and spend more time listening to Jazz now than I ever did. I sit and practice my archtop every night while in my lounge chair.

You’ve created some of rock’s most enduring anthems – American Woman, Takin’ Care of Business, and You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet to name a few. How do you account for the fact that these songs are as easy to find on the radio now as they were 30 years ago?

A good song is a good song. It’s the currency of the music business.

Something about those particular songs stuck. I think there was a lowest common denominator in the approach to the songwriting mixed with 3 chords, some basic street lingo of the time, and there you go - they became hits and still are today.

Tell us about the Every Song Tells a Story project – this sounds fascinating! How did this come about?

I saw Ray Davies doing a show in London England called "The Storyteller” which was a history class of his songwriting with the Kinks. After the show I went backstage and told him how great it was and he said, "Randy, you need to do a show like this in Canada and the States.”

I thought he was onto something. I’ve always told the stories to different DJs one person or radio station at a time. So I decided to chain them altogether and make it a one-evening theatrical event - a night where you can spend the time digging deeper into how many of the songs were written and created and all the circumstances that were involved.

You recently got back from Denmark with Every Song Tells a Story – how did audiences respond?

They weren’t that familiar with The Guess Who songs - only "American Woman.” But once they heard the Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO) stuff they went crazy. The clubs in Denmark are great places to play.

Is there a recording of Every Song Tells a Story available?

At my website, the CD of the show is available for purchase. (www.randybachman.com)

How did you first hear about iZotope products? Any favorite things you use iZotope plug-ins for?

With our latest project, my engineer Christian Stonehouse and I have been tediously recreating the original sounds to my classic songs "Takin' Care of Business" and "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.” When we were tracking the guitars we felt we had a tone that was very close.

After listening with scrutinizing detail, we realized that our "tone" was close, but the pickup sound on the guitar was way off. With Trash we were able to load up the Worcester Bright Box Model with a slight Low Pass Filter on the top and we got it just like that – undistinguishable from the original clean guitar part made 30 years ago!

The flexibility of this plug-in to add spice to an already cool guitar sound is unparalleled! And the ability to mix in the dry signal with the affected tone is brilliant! Rock on iZotope!

For more information on Randy Bachman, visit www.randybachman.com.