A great solo works like a powerful and moving speech. Something that grabs your attention, keeps you interested, tells a story, and wraps up leaving you feeling like you got something from it.
Music is a language, it comes from your soul and your body. I`m not hung up on technique or theory; that`s why I love Santana as much as Vai. What they play just comes from the heart.
One I stopped procrastinating and making excuses and decided that I really wanted to make an album that I would be the first in line to buy - an album that really excited my heart.
I`m very fortunate in that I get to tour and play live quite a bit. I`m also happy to say that my fan base continues to grow, so considering the state of the music biz these days I`ve got no complaints.
When you hear generic music, you can bet the composer wasn`t inspired, rather they were stringing riffs together and trying to impress.
Regardless of the economic slowdown, people tend to want to download a lot of their music for free, thus leaving artists without income that would be generated through royalties from CD sales.
I like to compose instinctively. First of all, I imagine a theme to follow up, as if I was writing a story, using my guitar instead of a pen, and from that point on, it`s all about improvisation.
Most of the songs were the result of me sitting by myself in my living room and fiddling around with the bass guitar, completely directionless - which is the setting I find most conducive to songwriting.
I wanted to be very careful not to have a CD that seemed to ramble on endlessly. I wanted to put out a CD that the listener could listen to front to end and feel musically satisfied when it was over.
I`ve been exposed to music throughout my whole life, basically because my parents were such fans of music. I`ve been a huge fan of the guitar since as far back as I can remember.
