BOSTON Guitarist Gary Pihl

BOSTON Guitarist Gary Pihl On Leader Tom Scholz - "He's A Really Smart Guy, A Genius Who Likes The Anonymity Of Walking Down The Street And Not Having People Bother Him"

Dan Craft from Pantagraph.com spoke with guitarist Gary Pihl who joined BOSTON in 1985.

Though leader Tom Scholz has a reputation as a reclusive control-freak more at home obsessing over multi-track guitar sounds than on stage performing live, Pihl offers another take.

"He's a really smart guy, a genius, in fact, who likes the anonymity of walking down the street and not having people bother him," says Pihl. "He's never been one to want to be on the cover of a magazine or be a part of that sort of rock star thing. He wears a T-shirt and shorts on stage; he's not a Spandex kind of guy. And, like most musicians, he's a perfectionist."

When Pihl joined Boston, the band was in one of its periodic states of transition, with the long-awaited (eight years) Third Stage album in the works.

"All the other guys had left for new solo careers, except for Tom and Brad (Delp)," he says.

Pihl would be filling "the big shoes" of guitarist Barry Goudreau, who'd left the band several years earlier. He wound up contributing to the final recording stages of Third Stage and was unveiled to the public on the subsequent "Third Stage" tour.

There's been no looking back for Pihl since, never mind the continual membership changes and the major setback of lead singer Brad Delp's suicide a year ago.

That tragedy led to what he describes as a "bittersweet moment" in Boston history: the aforementioned March 2007 tribute concert in Delp's memory, a momentous occasion that brought most of Boston's past membership on stage for what turned out to be more than a simple feeling.

It was a milestone in the band's history.

"Gosh, I'd known Brad for 30 years...," Pihl begins as he addresses the sense of loss over Delp's untimely passing. "So it was a wonderful feeling to see most of the original members and the other members coming together, and singing together, again."

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