We've been lucky that we've been able to follow or participate in certain trends throughout the years without it feeling like, "Oh, we're just following that trend just like everybody else," because our thing is so far detached, if we're taking influence from whatever's going on in the pop world or in the hip hop world. And then you might have an original voice. They're going to make their way into original playing. And it helps to be into a lot of things so that you can pinpoint contrasting stuff, because eventually you get good at all these different things that you like stylistically. And the way that you do that is you learn your favorite things, you learn your favorite styles. I think the most important thing as a young player or musician or composer, producer or anything, creator, is to find your voice, to find your style. So it's a nice thing to be able to journey through those different styles. And those are the die hards that really keep us going. Through doing that, we've found the people that have stuck through each era. And it's been a lot of finding out who we are as artists, and a lot of weeding out the naysayers of the fan base. I think that our not sticking to the same sound through each record has definitely helped us grow. But that's also the fun part about creating, is maybe on the next record we'll just want to fucking start from ground zero and just do something completely different. I'd say we know who we are now, at least musically for what we're doing right now, so that's a nice thing, to not throw something at the wall and see what sticks. We're endorsed by Ernie Ball Music Man." And it was just the coolest fucking thing to be able to customize a guitar. We were playing Music Man back then, and I remember just thinking, "Holy shit, we made it. Yeah, I would say Compassion and Transcend, I think, from just the super early days, I remember that got us our first endorsement with Ernie Ball. I remember being in high school, and just the Ernie Balls were the superior one that I'd spent money on. you pick the shit really hard, and then the Cobalts were strong enough to deal with it without going dead, with as much as we were practicing, the next day. I remember picking the Cobalt and being like, "That's the fucking one I want," because at the time we were really wanting to gent, and that just takes so much. I think we've been playing Ernie Ball strings since we were teenagers going to Guitar Center and buying strings. And then it just eventually got less blast beaty and more groove-oriented, and then evolved to what it is today. Eventually, we started Polyphia in high school, and it started out death metal, because that's what we were really into at the time. And I don't give a shit about any of that, but I just wanted to play, and it was an opportunity for me to play every weekend. Then I joined a worship thing for a youth group. That was one of the first times I ever played for a group of my peers. We were doing covers of those songs at church lock ins. And so we all wanted to start bands like that, so we did that at first. And in middle school, everyone, at first they were into Green Day, and then they got super into the emo stuff with Cheotos and From First to Last, and that whole scene thing. From age 10 to 13, I just practiced with the intention of becoming the best guitar player in the world. And then I watched Crossroads, with Steve of course, and just the idea of selling your soul to the devil or whatever and then you were the best, I just thought that was so cool. So I think I had watched School of Rock, because that came out around then, and Pick of Destiny, and just the Jack Black movies were really influential. I had this idea in my head that I wanted to be the best guitar player on earth. And of course everyone rolled their eyes, or something stupid. In 6th grade, my friend group's parents were asking us what we each wanted to be when we grew up, and I said I want to be a rockstar. That was one of the first things I ever learned My upbringing was very dad rock, dad guitar, with the Boomer bands and everything. And I always just wanted to solo over whatever they were doing. My dad would go and play with his band, and occasionally he'd take me and let me just play with them. After doing that till I was 10 years old, my dad just brought out a guitar one day. As a kid, it's like most of your life, it feels like. And I really just hated it, because it was just a couple of hours a day. My mom made me pick that up at age three and kind of forced me to play it my whole life. My first instrument that I started on was violin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |