The Section String Quartet take rock songs and put them through their classical blender. Tony Clayton-Lea listens to a heady cocktail
What a horrible idea - arranging the songs of Radiohead, Pink Floyd, The Smiths, Nine Inch Nails (yes, Nine Inch Nails!), Led Zeppelin, The Darkness (yes, The Darkness!), U2 and Jeff Buckley for string quartet. The Devil does indeed make work for idle hands. But hold on: listen to Los Angeles-based The Section String Quartet's Strung Out On OK Computer and their tributes, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, The Smiths (various songs) and Radiohead (ditto) and you'll realise that not only does the Devil have the best tunes but they're silky, smooth and slinky, too. These days, strings are undoubtedly attached.
The history of hybrid forms of classical/rock music is, of course, a sorry one. It seems everyone from Deep Purple and Emerson, Lake & Palmer to Nigel Kennedy and The Kronos Quartet has attempted to fuse together the two forms.
On both sides of the divide the results have been varied - from the typically bombastic to the empathetic, certain people should have been arrested under the Misuse of Classical Instruments Act and had their violins and cellos confiscated forever. And yes, Electric Light Orchestra, we mean you.
Sitting somewhere in between the two - although resting its collective bottom notably towards the latter than the former - is The Section String Quartet, fronted and led by Eric Gorfain.
Slowly, word is getting about; not just a quirky novelty, SSQ and Gorfain - who has a classical music background, as do the other members, Daphne Chen, Leah Katz and Richard Dodd - take the constituent parts of carefully chosen rock songs and transcribe them accordingly.
Cultivating his credentials in both forms of music by honing his skills as a classical studio musician while simultaneously hitching a lift with the 20-piece string section on Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page/Robert Plant's mid-1990s reunion tour, Gorfain finally realised that, given the right arrangement structure and - crucially - empathy, the worlds of rock and classical could blend together. Even industrial noise band Nine Inch Nails could attain some measure of sophistication and respectability.
"What makes me think a song will translate well? It can't be a gimmicky song; if there's a strong melody and an interesting progression then you can remove the lyrics, the drums, and you're left with a strong piece of material."
The removal of the lyrics might seem like a bad idea, however; it could take away the impact of the song for the committed fan, particularly in respect of The Smiths and Radiohead. Can the replacement of the voice by a violin or cello compensate for Morrissey singing "I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar" or Thom Yorke mumbling "Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio"?
"I've never really had it said to me that the lyrics are missed. A lot of people at the shows say to me that it's fun initially figuring out what the song is, and then after that singing along to it in their heads. Last year, we did a show with a Smiths tribute band in Los Angeles - it was a Morrissey birthday party show. The club was packed; we were playing in front of a huge crowd of these Hispanic guys who were singing along to our version of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. It was crazy. So it is something people can get into and make their own."
Gorfain comes across as no mere fool sawing away at rock's classic hits in an effort to make the crossover charts or to be the soundtrack to the Noughties equivalent of Ice Storm-style fondue 'n' swingers parties. He's as much a fan as someone who aims to be a genuine innovator; and he has as much an instinct for both forms of music as an awareness of how his work could be vilified or swatted aside by classical music critics.
"It's more important that I like and am interested in the music. If I like it then I can hear how it would sound with the quartet. I'm a fan of both Pink Floyd and Radiohead, along with many other rock bands, so I'm not saying I'm refining or doing anything better than they can. That's not the goal of the Section String Quartet; we're basically presenting the music in a new way.
"I try to keep so much of the original elements of the source music - the groove, some musical hook, to keep the listener, the quartet and myself interested. It's never really easy but some songs lend themselves to it more than others. It's not necessarily all down to melody; melody has a major role in it, of course, but it's also to do with structure, counter melodies, counterpoint. It's more what I feel I can leave out and not ruin the structure of the composition. With Radiohead's music that's always a challenge."
No surprises there, then. And what about flak from classical music critics?
"We've never had a classical music critic take our stuff apart. I would hope they would be open to the experience, but I have a feeling they might rip things apart because they might not be familiar with the source material. Plus, when you're dealing with just a few sections - verse, chorus, bridge - you have to be open to the fact that it's not going to be completely experimental in every sense of the word.
"Hopefully, classical music critics would recognise that and be open to it. Everything's music; I think it would be great if the classical establishment could take it for what it is. They might even enjoy it."
Eager to avoid the gimmick tag, however, Gorfain has nixed the idea of arranging Outkast's Hey Ya.
As for having the novelty tag draped over his shoulders, sometimes it's unavoidable, he says - although rarely in a live performance situation.
"Occasionally, when I snoop around message boards in fan websites, we get called opportunists. Believe me when I say that the publishers and songwriters of the works we do are getting more money than us. Basically, I find myself working on material that I'm a fan of. I come to it from a fan's point of view. I'm genuinely not trying to cash in on someone else's work."
Have any of the bands whose music SSQ reconstruct given any feedback? Nine Inch Nails and The Smiths's former guitarist Johnny Marr have been complimentary, Gorfain admits, although Radiohead has kept a discreet silence.
"I know they know about it and have been asked about it, but nothing has been said. Oddly enough, we're going to be playing on the same bill as them in May in the US, so they might be forced to comment on it then." And the notoriously reclusive Pink Floyd, whose Dark Side of the Moon the SSQ lands on and explores with equal parts grace and menace? "No, but I'd be curious to know what they think. Love to, in fact."
The Section String Quartet play The Sugar Club, Dublin, Friday/Saturday March 26th/27th, and the John Hewitt Bar, Belfast, Sunday, March 28th (as part of the Belfast Film Festival). Their albums are on Vitamin Records www.vitaminrecords.com