Sound of the band as a unit is always been a really cohesive thing. And like I imagine that it isn’t any really distinctive band, its like every part of the equation is equally important. Its rarely one person that really kind of carries the whole thing. It’s a really guitar heavy band, and so in that way I guess you can say that I have a pretty heavy stamp on that. but its so important how Shawn and I play together and how Mike and I play together as well. It makes that all work and it really takes the team. And some times we play multiple positions on the same team, and sometimes you do in a band. Its like one guy steps up, another guy kind of steps down or steps back. But I've always been lucky to be able to write a lot for this band and that's another thing that I'm very proud to do. And actually to be able to create things that you enjoy but also maybe speak for the guys in the band. And then maybe even on a bigger level, if it passes that filter of the demand and something that we can all stand behind. Then it gets to go out to the world and see who it turns on.
You know, everybody pretty much starts up the same way. You're a fan of music and maybe there's some players that you really gravitate to or maybe toward and maybe kind of started you out. And for me a lot of the guys that I gravitate towards earlier, one isn’t even a guitar player, its Elton John. For me that is the first music I ended up firing in my ass. It kind of made me want to do that. some of the guitar players that have the biggest impact on me when I was younger was probably Angus and Malcolm Young. I would say probably the biggest and remain probably one of my favorite rock and roll band of all time. that real distinguishable sound. So you end up emulating your heroes, I guess. The gys that you look up to and at some point, maybe you start becoming yourself by emulating others. That’s how it work for me and I think it works for most guys that way. If you're able to, I think we were able to maybe find that sound and right about the time when we made that first record, it was really coming into focus there. it wasn’t maybe completely there yet, but for the most part, that first record, Facelift, there's a stamp there. and as we continue to make music and record, that kind of got defined and it also got broadened. We did a lot of styles of music. we did some really heavy stuff, basically a hard rock band. But have some metal tinges and some punk stuff in there and the blues. There's even some country stuff, even the acoustic stuff. I mean, I grew up listening to all sorts of stuff, country, pop. I've even listened to some disco, blues, soul, and a big healthy helping of like rock and roll and English metal.
I was a really big fan of guitar tandems. And a lot of stuff that I listened to early on were tandems. Like Angus and Malcolm, and KK Downing and Glen Tipton were really big with me, and Dave Murray and Adrian Smith. There's a bunch of those. Even Metallica and stuff. I was always drawn to the rhythm aspect of guitar before I ever was drawn to anything that was like the soloist aspect of the guitar. And I guess, that always stuck with me, is the rhythms and riffs. How riffs make a song. And that groove and how important that is. I would be just as happy playing rhythm guitar all the time. I’d gladly be Malcolm Young, no problem. I love guys that are dedicated to that and I think that James Hetfield is an amazing rhythm player. So I guess I was always drawn to that first and song writing would then creating those riffs. And most of my solo work, there are some songs where I kind of maybe take a little bit of an extended attack. Lke doing some stuff, just basically kind of pretty brief and for the song. I also kind of created it as a vocal part. Like a singing vocal part. I didn’t put enough time in practicing the lead, super pyrotechnique, I made a conscious choice to maybe I could’ve gone that way at one particular point. But its more important to me to create songs I guess and work off the rhythm bass.
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