visit this link<\/a>.<\/p>\nSt. Pete Catalyst: When people see a woman playing electric guitar, they think she\u2019s either a blues player or a rock shredder. Obviously, you can do both things, but there are strong pop and country flavors in your music, too. Is it important to you to break that \u201chot chick with a guitar\u201d stereotype?<\/p>\n
Orianthi: I never started as a guitar player; I started as a songwriter. My dad had so many different records, from Roy Orbison to Elvis Presley to the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix to Santana. Eric Clapton. Gary Moore. So I really paid attention to the song. The song, to me, is the most important thing.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re writing a song, you\u2019re telling a story, and you don\u2019t want it to be a shred-fest, or something that\u2019s about \u201cwell, how many notes can you play?\u201d or whatever it is. It\u2019s about melody, it\u2019s about all of that.<\/p>\n
When I came over to America, in the 2000s, I was one of the one first persons \u2013 as a female, I should say \u2013 to put a guitar solo in a pop song. That song, \u201cAccording to You,\u201d could fit into the Avril Lavigne\/Kelly Clarkson vibe.<\/p>\n
It did really well. It connected with a lot of people. It was really awesome to be one of the first females to do that, in that time, and that I inspired so many to do that. I inspired so many women playing guitar, and doing what I did back then. It really feels cool to be one of the first to do that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve described your new album, Some Kind of Feeling, as your first \u201cgenuine\u201d record. What does that mean?<\/p>\n
It means there was no A&R guy sitting in the corner with his arms folded, going \u201cWe need a hit!\u201d Not that the others aren\u2019t honest, it was more like there was just no one saying something foo-foo or weird, \u201cThis should be a pop song.\u201d I hate that. It\u2019s so fake. And for me, I had that a lot going on in my career. It\u2019s a strange thing when people chase hits. I think a hit comes from people being authentic. Sometimes it\u2019s just the energy of me and different songwriters getting together, and it just works. You never know what\u2019s gonna happen.<\/p>\n
But I love the freedom that I had making this record. Several of the tracks were self-produced.<\/p>\n
Is that something that comes with success?<\/p>\n
Yeah, I think the most important thing is going with what feels good in your gut. Because we all change, right? We\u2019re forever changing. As humans, as people, as artists, as whatever in life. You can\u2019t stay the same. That\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n
For me it\u2019s a journey, it\u2019s an adventure, it\u2019s awesome, it\u2019s fun. I try not to get caught up too much with some of the BS that comes with this industry. That I used to before.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re young and na\u00efve when you start. You just want to make a record.<\/p>\n
Yeah, you just go what everyone else is telling you to do, because that\u2019s the right way. But we\u2019re all really powerful people \u2013 you just have to believe in yourself.<\/p>\n
You describe Steve Vai as your mentor. What did he do for you?<\/p>\n
When I was 14 years old, and he toured Australia, I got to open for Steve. And he was so sweet and supportive of me, and that was so cool. He was watching my show from the side of the stage, and he talked to me and my parents.<\/p>\n
We stayed in contact. He said \u201csend me your demos,\u201d and he would listen to them and say \u201cThis is good,\u201d \u201cThis is how you can improve on things\u201d \u2026 he was very attentive and awesome, you know? I was so grateful and still am for his friendship throughout the years. And what an amazing human he is, aside from being one of the greatest guitar players on this planet.<\/p>\n
And Carlos Santana, too. Carlos has been like family to me. And I am forever grateful to the universe for them. Sometimes when I\u2019ve been a bit bewildered by this business, they definitely bring me back to center.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The side gigs touring with Alice Cooper, or Michael Jackson \u2013 did you think of them as detours from your solo career, or as another part of the whole \u2026 enchilada?<\/p>\n
(laughing) I\u2019m a kid at heart, and I think all musicians or artists are, so when something\u2019s put in front of you \u2026 you get a call from Alice Cooper, \u201chey, do you want to be my lead guitar player?\u201d And I\u2019m in the studio with Dave Stewart finishing up a record. So of course I leave that album, and go on tour with Alice. And I\u2019m celebrating Halloween every night!<\/p>\n
It was fun. I got to just be the guitar player. The pressure\u2019s not really on. It is kind of on, but it\u2019s kind of not. You\u2019re a key part of the show, of course, but it\u2019s all on Alice, really. Alice is the captain of the ship. We\u2019re all collectively putting on this crazy awesome show.<\/p>\n
I got on that tour bus and I didn\u2019t get off it for three and a half, four years! I thought I\u2019d just do it for a year.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tell me about your upcoming trio project.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s called The Power of Three. Produced by Eddie Kramer. It\u2019s got Rhonda Smith on bass, Cindy Santana on drums. I\u2019m on vocals and guitar. And we\u2019ve finished the album; we\u2019ll mix it in early November. We\u2019re going for a Cream, Band of Gypsies vibe. And then we\u2019re playing some shows in Vegas in mid-November. Our energy together is awesome; we really dig each other. We\u2019re all going to have fun, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her last name happens to be Panagaris, but Adelaide, Australia native Orianthi is one of those first-name-only artists.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-15943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}