What I do is, I look at rock guitar players, and I say to myself, 'What is this guy doing? What does he have that can inspire me?' I try to see what other people are doing and take what they have and turn it and twist it into my own thing.
I think my best advice for young guitar players is that it's not an easy road - definitely not; female guitar player or male guitar player, it's not an easy road at all.
In Nashville, good guitar players are a dime a dozen.
I mean, no offense, but I don't really see why, like guitar players from Creed, or something like that, are on the cover of guitar magazines. Almost anybody can sit down and learn to play those songs.
I was a kid that grew up listening to The Beatles and The Stones and Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and I wanted all of that in there. But at the same time, a large part of my playing is Tony Iommi and Billy Gibbons. I'm just a sum total of all of the guitar players that I think were really cool.
I don't really find it to be a man-dominated industry. I mean, I guess when you look at it, it is, but I don't really look at it as a female or male thing, or female or male guitar players or whatever.
It's hard to say this about a guy like Eddie Van Halen, one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, but he's really limited to a style and they're locked into it.
My major influences were primarily guitar players and bands; I started playing bass by accident.
The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.
In L.A., I played with Joe Pass and Gabor Szabo. Mick Goodrick plays guitar in the Liberation Music Orchestra, and he's a real special player. Then I did a duet concert with Jim Hall at the 1990 Montreal Festival.
I tried the guitar, but it had two strings too many. It was just too complicated, man! Plus, I grew up with Steve Cropper. There were so many good guitar players, another one wasn't needed. What was needed was a bass.
Over the years, I played with a couple of spectacular guitar players, and playing with them has made me play better than I knew how to play. I hope the same thing is true with acting.
Nick Zinner has been one of my favorite guitar players for a long time.
I'm not like other guitar players. In fact, I'm not even like most acoustic players because I use the nylon-string acoustic. I do play steel-string and the electric guitar, too, because I love rock 'n' roll and guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. But my bread and butter has always been the nylon-string.
I just love music and great guitar players.
The one thing that Hendrix had that is unique among extraordinary guitar players is he had songs that were on the radio. His guitar genius was exposed to the masses by 'Foxy Lady.'
Most blues guitar players don't concentrate on singing and melodies. And forget about the bridge - the bridge doesn't exist. They go straight for the solo.
To be honest, I'm one of the least-technical guitar players around. I just want a guitar to feel good and sound good. That's it, period.
I started doing up-and-down strumming, basically to keep time and to play fast. As time went on, I started realizing other guitar players couldn't do it. I always went against the grain.
I'm grateful that as part of the Ernie Ball family, I'm able to connect with my fans in such a meaningful way and hopefully inspire guitar players to up their game!
There are two types of session guitar players. One reads and only plays what the 'dots' say. The other adds that something special and plays notes and solos you dream of. Big Jim Sullivan was such a player.
I aim to inspire a bunch of female guitar players to get out there and take it seriously and never give up.
The ultimate guitar players can play every scale in the book.
I go online, and I love watching heavy metal bands and guitar players play heavy metal versions of the 'Zelda' theme, and people do all the 'Zelda' music, which is one of my favorite soundtracks.
I assume most guitar players are like me. They're playing, having fun; then they get a magazine in the mail that says "Shred Is Dead" and they say, "What the Hell?" They throw it away and keep on playing.
