Tracii Guns sat down with The Rock Experience with Mike Brunn for a new interview. During the chat, Guns recalled his conversation with Shout It Out Loudcast where he addressed the people putting Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton on the same page. In the recent interview, he explained why the two were completely different musicians and why people shouldn’t compare them:
“We were talking about the guys that are on the top shelf, Richie Blackmore was the inspiration for the question. We were talking about definitely Jeff Beck definitely Jimmy Page, Hendrix and then the guy goes, ‘Well how come Clapton’s always in there? What did he do?’ I’m like ‘Yeah… No.’”
Guns then mentioned Clapton’s time with Cream and added:
“When he was in Cream he had Jack Bruce and Ginger [Baker] back there, those are dirty motherf*ckers, those are badasses right? So I feel like Clapton kind of rose to the occasion in Cream. After that, to me, he’s just a really great songwriter, but as far as a productive bar-raising rock guitarist. Putting him in the same breath that Jeff Beck is a little bit offensive to Jeff Beck. That’s my personal opinion and you can’t change my mind on that.”
Guns’ Earlier Comments
Tracii Guns said on the Shout It Out Loudcast that he believes Eric Clapton is overrated. In the chat, Guns argued that Clapton reached his peak during his time with Cream but did not achieve the same level of success afterward:
“Cream, for me, Cream would be Clapton’s pinnacle. It’s like, dirty guitar sounds, wah-wah pedal, man, f*ckin’ going for it. But after that, he didn’t do that. But when he was in The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, man — he’s got the fuzz pedal, he’s got the wah-wah pedal. He was moving forward, and then this excuse [for Clapton], ‘Well, yeah, but he’s a blues guy.’ Everybody’s a f*cking blues guy!”
He suggested that putting Clapton with Beck was ridiculous:
“I’m not trying to bang on Clapton… But, you know, you talk about underrated guys. What about the f*cking overrated guys? You’re gonna put Clapton with Jeff Beck? In what reality?”
You can watch the rest of the interview below.