STEVE BARTEK

The former Oingo Boingo guitarist talks “Dead Man’s Party,” his early days with future Skynyrd guitarist Ed King, upcoming shows with Danny Elfman and a lifetime of scoring films

- Andrew Daly

 

GUITAR HEROES COME in all shapes and sizes, but the imagery often associated with the “greatest” ax-slingers always seems to coincide with bombast, pomp and circumstance. But there’s another side of the proverbial pillow. Don’t believe us? Just ask former Oingo Boingo six-stringer Steve Bartek.

Throughout the Eighties, Bartek played sideman to Boingo’s founder, vocalist and primary songwriter, Danny Elfman. And if the duo’s exploits had stopped there, to be sure, their legend as champions of all things quirky and alternative would be set in stone. But in truth, cuts such as “Weird Science,” “Fool’s Paradise” and “Dead Man’s Party” were just the tip of their musical iceberg.

“The chemistry between Danny and me was immediate,” Bartek tells Guitar World. “It was the kind of thing where we connected on many levels. We had similar musical interests and loved injecting ethnic elements into our work. And Danny had ventured to Africa and brought back all these African instruments, some of which we used on our albums. So we had a shared mindset for sure.”

Elfman was a deft songwriter and inventive multi-instrumentalist. But without Bartek, who “filled the gaps” in Elfman’s seemingly endless creativity, what happened post-Boingo might never have come to pass. And what happened was a succession of hyper-successful film and television scores such as Back to School, Beetlejuice, The Simpsons, Edward Scissorhands and so much more.