I’ve never really been schooled in music theory. I’m a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it’s more unique that some other people.
I have a little history. I met Stone Temple Pilots, and their guitar player was a huge Extreme fan. Somewhere down the road, Extreme made its statement.
The guitar player that I’m doing my solo tour with, Angel Vivaldi, he’s been releasing incredible guitar albums and people just don’t really know about them because instrumental guitar isn’t really at the forefront of music these days.
It’s funny, I guess when I was growing up, I didn’t really think about being an instrumentalist, per se. I didn’t think, well, I want to be a piano player, or, I want to be a guitar player, or even, I want to be a singer. I just wanted to be a musician.
Oftentimes, whenever I do interviews with guitar magazines and we discuss my influences, I mention people like Steve Morse, Alex Lifeson, Al Di Meola – but John Scofield’s name never comes up. And that’s funny because he’s so amazing; he’s the epitome of a really cool guitar player.
I think every physiotherapist will tell you that it’s not a very good idea, and there are many musicians in the metal scene who have suffered severe damage – like, the guitar player from Iced Earth, Jon Schaffer, had severe neck problems due to headbanging.
At some point, I had to make a decision: I could practice more and become a really great guitar player or I could work on writing better songs. There are only so many hours in the day, and I found writing songs more fulfilling than working on becoming this virtuoso guitar player.
Mostly, I’m much more of a guitar player than I am a singer.
Muddy Waters, I suppose, was my first great hero. You know, every boy wants to be a guitar player, and Muddy Waters was just the king. He was the King Bee. He was it.
It’s hard to get a start as an instrumental guitar player. It’s a much quicker route to be in a band, so I was always in a band and writing songs with singers, but I always had the dream in the back of my mind to make an instrumental record.
When you’re up on stage, especially being a female guitar player in a male-dominated field, if they just see you’re into it, and it’s your passion, and you’re just giving it your all – it’s not, like, an accessory – then it’s all cool.
I wanted to be a guitar player.
I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.
As a guitar player, you never stop learning, never stop honing your skills.
My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived, I probably wouldn’t be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.
My first musical dream was to be a guitar player, and believe me, it’s still in there.
There is a project that I did back in 2008 with a Norwegian guitar player, Jorn Viggo Lofstad, who plays in Pagan’s Mind. We wrote a rock album, and we never released it.
It’s not easy being a female guitar player. You have to believe in yourself.
Still to this day, I am deeply satisfied when watching a guitar player who is connected with their art and instrument. GuitarTV helps you tap into that connection, and to each other.
I used to aspire to being more of a traditional bass player, to be honest. People say I play it like a guitar – and I was a guitar player when I was growing up. I started learning when I was eight, and that’s what I was fascinated with in my teen years.
My engineer on the ‘Life is Too $hort’ album was Al Eaton. Al Eaton had a studio called One Little Indian Studios, and he was a pretty good guitar player. He would suggest certain songs. Al was the force behind ‘Life is Too $hort’ and definitely the force behind songs like ‘The Ghetto.’
I went from wanting to be a Beatle to becoming a ‘widdly-widdly’ guitar player.
I wasn’t planning on being a guitar player; I was going to be a singer. And I was for a little bit in the Sex Pistols – that is, until we got John Lydon. And then I realized I wasn’t really suited as a front guy.
There’s no leader of this band, and there never will be. That’s the key. You can’t control how the public perceives you-people see rock’n’roll bands as the guitar player and the singer.
Everybody besides my piano player has been with me since the very first day. We were a four-piece band for a solid two years. It was me playing acoustic and rhythm electric guitar, a bass player, a drummer and a lead guitar player. For a couple of years, we sounded like the Foo Fighters.
I was an engineer for a long time. I was a sideman guitar player.
The music I was really listening to in 1968 was James Brown, the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and a new group… Sly and the Family Stone, led by Sly Stewart from San Francisco.
You hear it in the great musicians, whether it’s a drummer or a horn player or a guitar player – you hear them take those breaths. You can feel that there’s something they’re trying to tell you.
I think I’ve gradually learned to become more of a frontman than I was initially. I mean, when I first started, especially playing with Alter Bridge, you know, I really considered myself more a guitar player who sang.
And this whole period of time of gradually working at being a better guitar player and songwriter have gradually led me to the point where I feel I’m doing a clearer representation of the thing that I’ve been feeling inside me since I was four years old.
I’m a guitar player first. So my first hero was Angus Young from AC/DC. I used to copy every move that he did, play every lick that he would. I knew I wanted to be some kind of a rocker, back in the day.
My stepfather met my mother when I was seven years old, and he was a guitar player. So he caught me messing with his guitar, his electric guitar, and he tried to show me some chords, but my hands were too small.
My dad is Jean-Paul Bourelly, a really prestige guitar player in Europe, and he toured with Miles Davis. I was always surrounded by the most prestige kind of musicians from Senegal, Trinidad, Poland, Nigeria, and all around the world.
I’ve always been an acoustic guitar player, and I’ve pretty much continued to play acoustic guitar throughout all of the Sonic Youth periods. My material for Sonic Youth often started on acoustic guitar.
The drums were new to me; I was just playing what was in my head. I was a guitar player originally – so on the drums, I just played what was in my head rather than caring too much about what others were playing. And in that way, I came up with a simple but unique style.
It keeps my feet on the ground just making sure that I’m always trying to learn something new or trying to be a real guitar player.
I’m fine with being thought of as a guitar player, and if I can get any recognition or respect for doing that, that’s a pretty good thing for me.
I was a guitar player first off.
I discovered flamenco when I was 14, before I even got involved with jazz music. I was so crazy about flamenco music. I wanted to be a flamenco guitar player.
I don’t think I’m getting better, quote unquote, as a singer or guitar player. But I’m more comfortable in this particular space. I get better at being a bad singer, so to speak.
As a guitar player, I’ve been influenced by dance music – it was Crystal Method and The Prodigy back in the day. I would listen to those textures and try to approximate them on the electric guitar.
I’ve only ever been in bands where I can be the punk rock guitar player in the band because that’s all I want to do. I don’t even know if I could do anything else.
Of course, I’m a guitar player, so I’m thinking as a guitarist. I have to work within my physical limitations as to what my hands will do, and also the patterns I’m familiar with, and the places that my fingers are used to going.
Growing up, I was listening to a lot of Metallica, a lot of instrumental guitar music because I started out as a guitar player.
And they kind of left to find a guitar player at the very end, so you know, I don’t really take it as any slight that I wasn’t able to play on the record. It’s flattering just to play with them period.
I took the rhythm place, which a lot of people didn’t know how to do the way I could, and this was really the first time that Johnny had a rhythm guitar player.
I don’t like the word ‘rock star’ or ‘super star.’ I am a guitar player, a songwriter who got lucky because I stayed at it and didn’t give up, long enough that people noticed me.
I wanted to be a guitar player and musician so badly, and I prayed to get this the very few times I went to church, and I feel like I got my prayer answered.
To stay a great singer or guitar player, you’ve got to do it 24/7. That’s what I do.
I had a rock and roll band as a kid. What I wanted to be in was a country band, but in Sandy Hook, Ky., you’re hard-pressed to find a steel guitar player or a drummer.
I feel so lucky to have been in a group where it was a real band. This wasn’t a singer and guitar player and some other guys.
I’ve always known from the time I was eight years old what I wanted to do. I would have been fairly content to be someone’s lead guitar player.
My brother, who’s ten years younger than me, worked with me in the studio when he was very young. He’s a guitar player and does programming as well. To have the working and personal relationship coincide has been very natural.
