Reeves Gabrels

Born

1956-06-04

Birthplace

Staten Island, New York City, New York, USA

Biography

Reeves Gabrels (born June 4, 1956) is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. A member and guitarist of British band The Cure since 2012, Gabrels worked with David Bowie from 1987 to 1999, and was a member of the band Tin Machine. He has lived in New York, Boston, London, Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York's Hudson Valley. His Nashville-based band since 2007, Reeves Gabrels & His Imaginary Friends, features Gabrels on guitar and vocals. As a guitarist, Gabrels is recognized for his virtuosity and versatility, able to "explore sonic extremes with a great, adaptive intuition for what each song needs most." He has been characterized as "one of the most daring rock-guitar improvisers since Jimi Hendrix". As a songwriter and composer, Gabrels spans genres. The songs on Ulysses, an album from 2000, range from "hard-hitting blues rock to 21st century electronica", as Guitar World put it. Describing Rockonica, in 2005 Guitar Player's Andy Ellis wrote, "Gabrels walks the line between song structure and wiggy sonics like no one else... His tunes on Rockonica have familiar verse/chorus construction (and are often maddeningly catchy), and his riffs and solos typically possess the contours that define classic rock. But bubbling and roiling under and around this foundation are layers of eerie, broken sounds and oddball textures. And Gabrels isn't shy about juxtaposing genres. For example, "Underneath" ends with a trippy mélange of Wheels of Fire-era Clapton licks, acoustic Delta blues riffs, and fluttering, guitar-generated helicopter sounds."