Jan. '07 GT interview -- schmange


earthman buck
Registered User
Joined: 10/15/05
Posts: 2,953
earthman buck
Registered User
Joined: 10/15/05
Posts: 2,953
12/24/2006 7:22 am
The new year has practically begun, and what better way to ring it in than to have a virtual sit down with a techno-rock innovator and oldschool GT daddy-o? Ladies and gents, I give you schmgnae. Schmooge. Schmelknge. Uh....Kevin.

What got you interested in music in general?

Listening to my dad’s Shadows record when I was a kid. I had a long play 45rpm record with songs like The FBI, The Stranger, Apache etc.... and used to listen to it constantly. The only other records I had were Ravels Bolero, Frank Sinatra, Strangers in the night and Mario Lanza so that's what I was forced to listen to between the ages of 4 to about 10. I always had a total fascination in guitar, though. Even when I was 5 years old I was asking my parents about how the guitar was played. Then I stumbled onto the Beatles.

What kind of impact did discovering the Beatles have on you?

A big impact. Revolver was one of the first albums I ever bought. I didn't know how to play guitar back then though, so I learned all the drum parts instead. Then I got my first cheapie guitar and learned all the bass parts.
Of course I also used to play air guitar on my badminton racket in the privacy of my bedroom, but don't tell anybody :)

Who is your favourite guitarist and why?

Van Halen is the obvious choice mainly cause he elevated my own playing to new levels.
I spent years learning that first album and he's the sole reason I got into two handed tapping in the first place.
Other than that it'd probably be Alex Lifeson although I was way more into Neil Peart than the guitar playing.

The music of yours I've heard is hard to classify; it's somewhere between rock and techno. Did you just stumble onto this style by accident, or were you consciously trying to achieve it?

I started off doing hard rock and heavy metal but always liked stuff like Thomas Dolby and Yello. I kinda noticed that there were no techno bands using guitar as the main instrument so I started experimenting and found that I really enjoyed combining techno rock with rock guitar.
Now I'm experimenting with guitar loops .... recording hard rock riffs, splicing them up and altering them with filters.

What’s your latest project?

I'm working on a new CD combining techno music with hard rock. Right now I'm spending most of my time gathering ideas and riffs for future use. I'm also converting .wav files into .rex files for various companies in my spare time, so that's giving me all kinds of new ideas for songs. I've got about half the album finished but I'm delaying releasing anything so that I can take the extra time to work on my recording skills.

Do you have any advice for beginners?

Listen to lots of other guitar players and learn songs. Work on scales. Leave your guitar out where you can get to it any time of the day or night instead of hiding it away in a case.
Get into multitrack recording and read lots of books.
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