Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that's what I do, too.
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.
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 saw 'Purple Rain' in the summer of '84, and, 'Spinal Tap' notwithstanding, it's the greatest rock & roll film of all time. There's so much Prince coming at you that you have to remind yourself he's also a breathtaking guitar player.
My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen.
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.
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.
Later in high school, I met Hillel Slovak, who was the original guitar player of the Chili Peppers, and we became really close. We had a band, and we didn't like the bass player, so I started playing bass, and I got a bass two weeks later.
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.
If you'd asked me when I was six, 16, and 26, I wanted nothing more than to be a big, recognized rock star. Especially when I was six and 16, because I thought that if I was a known guitar player in a known band, only cute girls would talk to me.
Just about every rock band and every guitar player from 1964 to 1984. To me, that's the golden period of rock. From the first Beatles album hitting America to the last Van Halen album with David Lee Roth. That's where all my favorite rock exists.
I really truly love all styles of music. A lot of people say that, but the first station they turn to when they get in the car is a rock station. I don't always do that. I really enjoy everything. But, of course, I'm a rock shred guitar player first.
There's successes you have in your career. For me, for example, as a guitar player, as somebody in a band putting out albums, the success that we have in our field and how we're viewed by our fans; that type of success means more than anything to us.
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.
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.
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.
There comes a point with any collaboration like that where you start having other interests creatively. I was moving in one direction musically, and as a guitar player, Mark wanted to move in another direction. That was essentially the reason we broke up.
I don't really make a distinction because when I'm acting, I feel like an actor, and when I DJ, I feel like a DJ, and when I play the guitar, I feel like a guitar player. I don't know which I prefer. I think I just like to perform, in some way or another.
Charlie Christian played amplified guitar with Benny Goodman's quartet. He was the greatest guitar player that ever was. But he never looked up from the guitar. But I put a little dance to it. They appreciate seein' something along with hearin' something.
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.
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.
When I was starting my journey as a young guitar player, I was listening to The Beatles, the Stones, and all the British invasion bands, Top 40, Motown, and all the great music of the '60s. Then the alien ship landed, and life changed again forever... Jimi Hendrix.
My heroes, I couldn't imagine them practicing. Like Bob Dylan, you know? Bob Dylan's a very, very good guitar player, but it's like he's trying to hide it. I always loved this attitude. When you're very good... it's like being an athlete - and I always hated sports!
James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.
Neil Young does throw in a major seven chord here and there, so if you're a new guitar player learning Neil Young songs, you'll learn some seven chords, and some different positions. Nothing too complicated, just enough to kind of open up your knowledge a little bit.
Being a female guitar player back in school wasn't great, and I had to change schools so many times. The male drummers and bass players thought it was cool, but male guitar players said, 'It's a guy's thing. You should be doing something else, like playing the harp.'
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.
Steve Van Zandt, the poor guy, doesn't get to play enough as it is with me hogging a lot of the solos. Steve has always been a fabulous guitarist. Back from the day when we were both teenagers together, he led his band and played lead and was always a hot guitar player.
I like streaming music. I'll be in the car going, 'I want to hear Scotty Anderson.' He's a great guitar player not many people know about - maybe me and two other dudes know him. But I love him, and I can pull him up on Apple Music, and there it is, right there in my car.
I was on the road with my buddy Alex - he's my guitar player - and we watched the movie 'Click' by Adam Sandler. And I don't know why, but me and him just got in our feelings. And then we ended up calling our girls, and we were like, 'We're so sorry. We wish you were here!'
I was just a kid in 1987 when I heard of the Pixies, the year after I graduated high school. But I had my band together, and my best friend at the time, Corey Hickock, who was the guitar player in the band that would become STP, Mighty Joe Young, turned me on to the Pixies.
You know how kids will wait outside after a gig and try to get an autograph from the band? I would do that, but when I found the guitar player, I would say, 'What advice can you give me?' And a lot of my heroes would say, 'Have your own style.' I always kept that in my head.
People always lean toward who's the best guitar player, who's the best singer? I don't see it that way. They're all the best, you know? They've all gotten your attention, you've admired them, you've tried to sing like them. That makes them the best, each and every one of 'em.
All the really good guitar players - Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin - I love all those people. But I didn't start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.
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.
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 could have probably gone on and still played the part of the guitar player of Limp Bizkit, but musically I was kind of bored. If I was to continue, it would have been about the money and not about the true music, and I don't want to lie to myself, or to them or to fans of Limp Bizkit.
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.
Yes, of course, I've been dreaming about it since I was a kid. Even now, I'm 31 years-old now and I've never been on a cover of a magazine. It makes you feel in such a way to do it with my signature guitar and to have it be Guitar Player magazine, it was really just an amazing experience.
I'm first and foremost a guitar player. I've been playing since I was 12, which is over half of my life. I like the physicality of it; you can strangle it or make it sing. I wouldn't say I'm a very technical player, though. I'm more intuitive - it's always more about chasing an abstraction.
A guitar player goes on the road, and he misses his girlfriend for a while, but he manages to get along. A horn player gets out on the road, plays two or three towns, and then he'll get lonely, and next thing you know, he's packed up and left. It's better not to hire him in the first place.
I looked at myself, and I just said, 'Well, you know, I can sing, but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world.' So I said, 'Well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing.'
As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.
I love Jimi Hendrix obviously, and Jimmy Page and Prince. And also Elvis Presley is a really great guitar player. I don't think he ever took lessons; he was piecing it together himself. But he has great rhythm. And rhythm, to me, you can use it to your advantage if you're not all over the fretboard.
When I got out of high school, I was in a blues band. It was the kind of music I was interested in, and listening to, mostly because it was becoming a vehicle for a generation of guitarists - like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Mike Bloomfield. And that's what I wanted to be, principally: a guitar player.
Anytime you go to see a band with a guitar player, there's always a fear of guitar overkill! That's a funny question. If you went to a Taylor Swift concert or a Jay-Z show, people would think, 'Oh, my God, I hope I don't get guitar overkill.' People come to our show for guitar, and there can never be enough.
Inspiration is a really hard thing to describe, but it's something that triggers your brain, like the first time I heard a certain guitar player that I loved or the first time that I saw a monster or the first time that I saw anything that really was an epiphany for me. It just stays with you your whole life.
'Aqualung' marks the point at which I had the confidence as a songwriter and as a guitar player to actually pick up and play the guitar and be at the forefront of the band. It's also the album on which I began to address religious issues in my music, and I think that happened simply because the time was right for it.
I was a guitar player in a band that had two keyboard players, sometimes two other guitarists, a bass player, and a drummer, four or five singers, and percussion. We did a two-and-a-half hour show where the music spanned from the early Sixties to the present. Whereas the David Lee Roth thing was like, Now. Very big and intense.
I used to play a lot of electric guitar. I don't really consider myself a guitar player anymore. Then I got really into how the pickups work. And winding and de-winding Telecaster pickups. And then building Telecasters. And I became more fascinated with making them than I was with actually playing them. So it's a slippery slope.