Barrie Cadogan

Squeezing us in between tour dates and many other musical commitments, the Little Barrie frontman drops by the Guitarist studios for a catch-up and to deliver a video masterclass…

- David Mead

The past few years have been particularly eventful for Barrie Cadogan. When we spoke to him, he had just finished a tour with Matt Johnson and The The, which included gigs in the UK and across Europe, America and Australia. Johnson hadn’t toured since 2002, after deciding to take time out of the music industry’s glaring limelight. But once lured back, he decided to put a band together and, thanks to a certain Mr Johnny Marr, Barrie got the job playing guitar.

“Johnny had worked with Matt before,” Barrie tells us, “and recommended me to Matt. Matt recognised my name because he had Shazam’d the Better Call Saul theme, so he heard the name before.”

The aforementioned TV show theme music was another event in Barrie’s calendar, and we’ll be hearing how that came about later. Next was a gig in London to honour the memory of Fleetwood Mac’s Danny Kirwan, who died last June. Danny had a been a long-standing influence on the guitarist and Barrie shares some of the techniques he learned from him in this issue’s accompanying tutorial video (turn to p56 to find the music).

First of all, though, we spoke about the tragic passing of Virgil Howe, who played drums in Barrie’s own band, Little Barrie. His sudden death came just prior to a tour that had been set up to promote the band’s newest album, Death Express, in September 2017. It was an event that was to change everything for the band and something that Barrie hasn’t spoken about until now.

What effect did Virgil’s death have on you and the band?