Studio musician Carl Verheyen visits Seattle

If you’ve ever watched the TV shows Cheers, Laverne & Shirley or Frasier, or listened to BB King or Cher, then you’ve heard Grammy nominated musician Carl Verheyen playing guitar. You just may not know his name.

Carl played with Supertramp for 30 years and has contributed to thousands of albums, TV shows, movies and jingles as a studio musician. But since 1988 he’s also played his own music with The Carl Verheyen Band, with a rotating cast of musicians.

“I mean, I’ve used Simon Phillips who’s been in The Who and Toto. I’ve used Gregg Bissonette who’s been with everybody from David Lee Roth all the way to, currently, with Ringo. All kinds of people,” Verheyen said.

On Sept. 10th and 11th, The Carl Verheyen Band is playing at the Highway 99 Blues Club in Seattle. So I had him in studio to talk about his career.

“I got my first guitar and my first lesson on the same day, which was my 11th birthday. I pretty much never looked back. I did box boy at a market for one summer because I had to pay back a Les Paul guitar. So I’ve always made my living as a guitar player.”

The closest Carl ever got to having to take a restaurant job to pay the bills was his very first gig, playing guitar in a steakhouse in his hometown of Pasadena when he was 18.

After a quick jaunt back East to follow a girl, Carl was back in LA playing music.

“I moved in with some guys down in Newport Beach where there was a great club scene. I started playing down there and teaching at the music store and stuff,” Verheyen said. “But then some of my buddies moved up to LA, where I’m from, and started getting into the studio scene and they sort of sucked me into that. Before I knew it I was doing Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days and then I joined Supertramp in ’85. Went from playing to 50 people a night to 20,000 people a night in, like, one day.”

Carl challenged himself to learn all genres of music, which is why he’s been hired to play in everything from a Star Trek movie to a Christina Aguilera album. John Fogerty even hired Carl as his personal guitar teacher in 1997.

“Then I was teaching a course called Advanced Electric Guitar in the style of Carl Verheyen at USC. It turns out John Fogerty’s son, Shane, was in my class,” Verheyen said. “So I taught the next generation, too.”

One of Carl’s favorite memories is meeting Prince Charles and Princess Diana, with Supertramp, in London in 1986.

“We had an etiquette lesson in the afternoon. Then, when they got there, they came down the row and Lady Diana knew everything. She said, ‘So, Carl William Verheyen, what was it like growing up in Pasadena, California and learning to play the lead guitar?'” Verheyen recalled. “Then she moved down the row and Prince Charles came along and he just doesn’t know what day it is or what band it was. But we connected.”

“We had a really interesting little comedy thing between us. Long story short, we went into the next room which was the royal cocktail receiving room. We got champagne and Prince Charles came to me because I’m the only guy he got a groove going with. He’s kind of a close talker. He gets right up on ya,” he said. “We were hanging and I’m looking around the room and I see Roger Daltrey is there, David Gilmour is there, Tina Turner is there. All this rock royalty. I realize I gotta lose this guy! This may be the future king of England but that dude was in The Who, and still is, so I figured out a way to do it. I grabbed our champagne glasses and walked away and said, ‘I’ll get us some more.’ Walked away and never came back.”

If you want to see Carl, who was named “One of the Top 10 Guitar Players in the World” by Guitar Magazine, click here for ticket information.