As a young sandlot football star, Jason Becker had hands that could catch any pass. By age ten he knew he could dedicate those hands to playing guitar. Jason learned classical from his father and blues from his uncle. At 17 he recorded his first album, Speed Metal Symphony, a collaboration with Marty Friedman. They called their band Cacophony, and like all Mike Varney productions, the record featured relentless speedy guitar playing. The next three years saw a second Cacophony album, Go Off, and a Becker solo album, Perpetual Burn.

Then, at age 20, Becker got the best and worst news of his life. After hearing a cornposite tape and a short live audition, David Lee Roth asked Becker to join his band, which in 1990 may have been the most coveted gig in hard rock. Roth was looking for someone who could handle the parts once played by Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai as well as speak in his own voice. But then fate stepped in. What began as sluggishness in Becker's leg was soon diagnosed as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease), a degenerative muscle condition. Even as Jason finished up his work on Roth's A Little Ain't Enough, he could feel the strength in his hands leaving him. Over the next few years his arms and legs progressively failed him. But despite a bedridden hody and increasing difficulty speaking, Jason's inexhaustible spirit and imagination have allowed him to explore the far reaches of music.

Today Becker is not unlike a musical Stephen Hawking, and the latest discoveries in his universe can be heard on his newly completed album Perspective. With the assistance of engineers Danny Alvarez and Mike Bemesderfer, Jason painstakingly composed and recorded the music he heard in his head using a Macintosh computer running Opcode Vision software and sounds from an EMu Proteus module. Bemesderfer and Alvarez kept some original sounds and replaced others with Synclavier, Kurzweil K2000, Yamaha SY99, and Korg Wavestation patches and tracks from live musicians such as former Journey vocalist Steve Perry, Alice Cooper/Lou Reed vet Steve Hunter, string-bender extraordinaire Michael Lee Firkins, and Matt and Greg Bissonette, the sometime rhythm section for Roth and Joe Satriani. The album also features digitally revitalized versions of older Becker tracks, so even though Jason cannot presently play, the record resounds with is fluent guitar work. "Rain," for example, incorporates tracks Jason once recorded just for fun using a Carvin guitar and a Scholz Rockman amp. Perspective was clearly intluenced by Jason's fondness for movie soundtracks. "I love the way they can yank certain emotions from you, even if the scene in the movie isn't that good," he explains. "Some of my favorite soundtracks are The Black Stallion, Jaws, Edward Scissorhands, The Natural, The Last Temptation Of Christ, Batman, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, Amadeus, and Mishima ' From the African/Middle Eastem chants and drums of "Primal" and the Japanese- influenced march of "Empire" to the Albert King-flavored "Meet Me In Yhe Morning" and the quasi-classical flourishes of "End Of The Beginning," all this diverse music on Perspective has one source: Jason's seemingly limitless spirit.

Becker says he is already planning his next record. "It won't be easy to do because of my poor weak body," he admits. "My mind is going 100 miles per hour with ideas, but my body can only go a half-mile per hour. I'm having a hard time adjusting to this, but somehow something will happen. The new music I have in my head is about 60% done. But I don't have perfect pitch, so I have to learn it. As I learn it, I might mess up in a good way, or get off in another direction." Whether he wishes it or not, Jason's will to overcome his physical roadblocks will make him a positive role model for guitar players of all stripes. What does he feel other musicians might learn from his experience'? "I don't feel like a role model," he replies. "But if I influence people in any way, I would love it if somehow I steered them away from judgment and hatred and more toward love, peace, and creativity. I know that sounds wimpy and cliched, but I think that's all this world needs to be like heaven. This disease has taken a lot of my life away. There are times when I get very angry, very sad, or very scared, but we all do to different degrees. I fully expect to be healed and play guitar again. Even though playing guitar isn't really that important, I can't eliminate the craving for it." To contact Jason or obtain information on purchasing Perspective, write to him at Box 5109, Richmond, CA 94805.

An article from Guitar Player