1- You have a new album almost out (Interview done on june 17th) , I would like to know the response you have gotten from people who have already had the opportunity to listen to this new album?
People are maybe a little surprised that it sounds different than some of the things I’ve done before, but everybody seems very be pleased with.
02- What’s the reason for the tittle of this new album?
Nothing in particular, except that I do get into to experimenting with sounds
a little bit more...we tried to do a lots of thing that ended up being the sound and the subject matter. So, we actually sort of make fun of ourselves on this album, talking about how guitar players, all of us, tend to really get caught up with talking about tones and talking about sounds and stuff like that, so there are some things that we have on the album that sort of direct your attention towards that. It was really just to sort of have that subject feature be about sound.
03-In your opinion, What’s the biggest difference of this new album if compared to other you have already done?
The actual sonic sound of it is much much better, we spent a lot of time mixing! A lot of it was recorded with all of us in the same room, it’s a brand new band and I think the direction of this album is just a little bit more light hearted, it’s not so serious and it sounds more fun.
04- What was the writing process like?
The writing process was actually pretty quick, I didn’t have a lot of time to write, so I just kind of went with my feelings and whatever came to mind, I didn’t over think things. Some of the compositions were put together while we were recording at the studio, so it was pretty quick and came together. I was worried because I didn’t have a lot of material when it came time to go to into studio in october, but a few weeks before when I went to start recording ideas, things started to happen and it just started to come together so, it wasn’t a very stressful situation. It was just sort of fell in the place.
05- Since you are talking about the studio, what was the recording process like? And what was the equipment used on the album?
We recorded at “Prairie Sun’s Studio” which is located outside San Francisco where I recorded my first two albums. It is an unbelievable studio, with two neve consoles and tons of equipment…and it’s out in the middle of nowhere. It was a great experience to go and record that way and we recorded our basics tracks there for about one week…five days. As far as Guitar goes, almost the whole recording was recorded directly plugged into the Cornford MK50, no tube screamer or hardly any pedals for distortion at all. Most of the lead guitars were done at my personal studio.
06- You did a solo for a tribute to Stevie Wonder organized by our friend Vernon Neilly. What was this experience like?
Vernon had asked me to participate and let me know what was available, song wise and when he sent me the track I thought it was pretty cool! He actually had a vocal on it, and I thought if I were going to be involved I’d rather have been in an instrumental version, so I said that I would play the melody line as well as the main solos. Once we agreed to that it was fun, it took me probably two hours to do that song.
07- You have a new website which you are going to do clinics, seminars and etc. What’s the main goal of this website and what’s the online course all about in this case?
The Website www.ghworkshops.com is really about trying to fill the “VOID” in what I consider to be online teaching information, online information even in normal curriculum information. I just think that there’s a lot of information out there about licks, scales, notes and theory. There’s a lot of information about the technical parts of playing an instrument, making music, but there’s not a lot of information about the creative parts. There’s not a lot of information about a lot of other things such as: how to interact with bands members, how to become insipired, have goal about you are going to affect people with music, how to become a real artist, how to go deeper than just learning scales and theory. So that’s really what I’m going to focus on, but I am also gonna have a lot of licks, of course! But I really want to go to these other places that I just don’t see a lot of information avaliable for.
Are you going to talk about your personal style or in a general way?
I am going to talk about my personal approaches to some of these things, over the years and a lot of to time I get students that once they learn how to play some cool licks on the fretboard, once they learn how to understand some theory and harmony concepts, they realize that just knowing that isn’t necesseraly what will make them an artist, so they start asking me much deeper questions, which have to do with, “ How did you come up with this idea?”, “What inspired you to do this”, “ What made you decide to have this particular chord change?” ,“Why did I used this texture on that?”, “What was I thinking about when I decided to make some of these decisions”. Plus other things such as, “How do I sequence drum machines for writing?” “How do I “mic” a cabinet”. The questions start to become a lot more “broader” and it becomes a lot more comprehensive. So that’s really what I want to start to address. I want to start answering those questions that I know lots of a people out there don’t have.
08- I saw on your myspace that you did a promotion named “Play for me”, and now you did the second edition. When exactly this idea came about?What is the main goal with this? And how is going?
The main goal is that there are a lot of really good great players out there who are at home working hard and especially in some other countries and maybe don’t have the same opportunities. If they can be affiliated with somebody that is more “High Profile” than in certain way it might help them earn some notoriety. That is really my goal, get some guys to be exposed and be heard.
Are we going to have a third edition of it?
Honestly we’ll see how it goes, it’s kind of a big “undertaken”! I have to listen to everything and really try to make an honest “assesment” and sometimes you get people, who are not happy, because they didn’t get picked. So I have to decided “whether or not”, because we had a lot more entries this time than the last time and I have the feeling if we do a third one it will be even more. I’ll have to see how it goes and if all goes well, I would love to do another one.
09-What are your plans for the future?
I would like this GH Workshops website to expand and grow, I would like to eventually even bring on other “well-known” artist and have them also reveal some of this information that’s more in line with what I’m talking about, more about the creative process. Eventually, I would like to have it expand into a much bigger thing. I will also be having a portion of proceeds be going directly to Jason Becker which is one of the goals I have with this. His family was and still has been hugely effective monetarily by his illness, he’s done a lot for the guitar community, so I think it would be cool to have the guitar community help him out.
10- Thank you so much for the interview once again! Please leave a message for the fans here in Brazil.
All you guys down there have been incredible supportive of me, I can’t wait to come down there and finally get to meet everybody, because I know I have a huge support system down there, I can’t say thank you enough and hopefully I can come and see you soon, thank you very much!