I did [picking cotton] from - until I was 18 years old, that is. Then I picked the guitar, and I've been picking it since.
I started playing guitar when I was 12, and I started getting into more metal, like Maiden and Metallica... Of course, as I kind of got better and better in the guitar, I was listening to more guitar players, so then I got into, I guess, more of the prog side.
Guitar players get inward and analytical about their playing but when you start to get positive feedback from other players it makes you think that it is coming together.
Americans have been good at improvising for a long time, but in the last few decades, we have gotten very sloppy about the rote memorization of facts. That's a discipline issue. You need the rote skill in order to have something to improvise off of, otherwise you are simply playing air guitar.
Absolutely, all guitars are different. You can go into a store and grab five guitars, all the same model, and even though they look identical they're not identical. They play differently, they feel a bit different and they sound slightly different.
There's just not a lot of guys around playing like that these days; a lot of steel players are plugging into stomp boxes, trying to sound like Jeff Beck on a steel guitar.
We've done every record on our own. Its produced by our guitar player and sometimes we'll have some help mixin' it and have some outside engineers but for the most part, it's done by the band and I think that's the reason why CKY sounds like no other band, 'cause we make our own albums.
I've tried to become a singer with the guitar and not let any technological licks run my life. Just write the licks and play them as best as I can as a part rather than ad libbing.
Some are skeptical. My mom thought the guitar was going to fizzle out in two weeks, that it was just a fad-and that was in 1958.
I'm working on my music a lot, like folk singing, guitar. It's sort of rocky, folky, alty, angsty. I'm putting a lot of energy into that.
It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.
It seemed so wimpy at first when I started to play [guitar]. So I started playing loud with lots of effects just to try to mimic the dynamic [of the drums]. Drums seemed a lot more expressive. [I was] Trying to emulate the feeling of playing the drums on the guitar - I guess that's why I played it so loud.
I have limited interests. I really like all sorts of gear. Guitar gear. Recording gear. Stuff like that. I like music, you know.
All the time I was playing the flute, the lines, the solos, the riffs, the construction, were based on my guitar skills. I did not play the flute to exploit its natural faculties, but I used it as a surrogate guitar.
The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.
After the Ed Sullivan Show, Feb. 9, 1964, at approx. 8:04pm [laughs], after that moment every album, every guitar, evey set of drums that was ever sold ... 10% should have gone right into their pocket!
I'm more of a rhythmic player. My soloing is pretty much limited to playing slide guitar.
There's the whole significance of Krishna as the flute player who awakens our consciousness. It doesn't necessarily have to be a flute because for me it was a sitar or a guitar or even Elvis Presley doing "Heartbreak Hotel." It was like Krishna's flute calling me somewhere. It's just really simple when we can remember.
Guitar gigs were everywhere in the '50s, and I started diddling around so I could keep working. Playing honky-tonk, simple stuff. I took a few gigs with an organ band that put me out front.
When I got my first guitar, I played along with everything I heard that had guitar in it, like the Ramones, Nirvana and Sublime, as well as whatever hip-hop and R&B stuff was on the radio.
Most of my songs start out as being very aggressive and guitar-driven.
One thing I loved about New Zealand was the indoor/outdoor lifestyle of the place. I remember going from Xboxing, jamming out on guitars and drum machines in my buddy's apartment, to a bike ride through the parks and up and down the streets all over the city, to the ocean, right into the water. I remember we were swimming outer ways and we got to a certain place where we wanted to see - or I wanted to see - how deep the water was.
I fool around with guitar and I can fool around on piano. I don't really play either instrument although I can play a couple of songs on guitar. You don't really need to be able to play to compose. There are many composers and arrangers who work out of their heads.
One night I was standing on Third Avenue playing my guitar, when this big Irish policeman came strolling by, and stopped to listen to my singing and playing. When I was done, he politely handed me a ticket for disturbing the peace, while at the same time telling me how much he liked my voice. I wish I still had that ticket.
Well, I've heard a lot of people, but I think I would say a Brazilian musician named Hermeto Pascoal was one of my biggest influences. Through the years he mastered the keyboards. He use to play the organ Hammond B3, flute, saxophone, percussion and guitar. He is one of the most complete musicians that I ever met. Not too long after we came to the United States, Airto Moreira introduced him to Miles Davis, who recorded three of Hermeto's compositions on his album "Live Evil.