at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\nSt. Pete Catalyst: I\u2019ve heard you talk about \u201cThe passion of playing,\u201d and how necessary it is regardless of where you are in your career. Is it still there? Do you still wake up every day and think \u2018I\u2019m doing it today!\u2019?<\/p>\n
Eric Johnson: Yeah, especially when you have the opportunity to work on new music and throw away the rulebook a bit. And say \u201cWhat can I do that\u2019d be new and different?\u201d or \u201cWhat can I do to challenge myself?\u201d and try that isn\u2019t the same thing you do normally. And then you kind of invite more of that enthusiasm to be there, because you\u2019re coming up with something creatively fresh and stuff. And as long as there\u2019s a good mixture of that implementing what you do, there can be a real joy to it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve done acoustic records, fusion records and other, different things. Is that part of the cake batter, too? Switching it up?<\/p>\n
It is for me. I never was a master at anything, really, style-wise. I just kinda liked to jump around, take this and take that. It kinda keeps it interesting for me, \u2018cause to me the focus is more of, anything I can learn to widen my guitar approach. I don\u2019t have any shame in going into any style of music and seeing what I can steal!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I hear everything from Hendrix to Metheny in the way you play. Let\u2019s talk about influences \u2013 what was your bedrock?<\/p>\n
Well, I originally played piano so I think of the guitar like the piano, as far as piano chords, and I try not to get too stuck in what the guitar mandates, as far as the way it\u2019s laid out. It\u2019s like \u201cOK, it\u2019s laid out that way, but let\u2019s see if we can skip around to different strings,\u201d or I can do different inversions, you know, use some of the piano ideas.<\/p>\n
Sometimes that makes it harder to play the instrument, because you\u2019re not making it as physically easy. And also, I\u2019m a big fan of steel guitar players, the way they produce their sound. It\u2019s kind of like the sound jumps out more than gets picked hardly \u2013 a hard pick sound.<\/p>\n
I think somebody\u2019s originality really can be boiled down to just who are the amalgamations of artists they really like. There\u2019s guys that I just love, Hendrix, Beck and Clapton, B.B. King, Freddie King, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt, Bill Connors, Keith Richards.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
What did you get from Hendrix? Specifically, what was he brilliant at?<\/p>\n
He was brilliant at making music, and it just so happened that his instrument of choice was guitar. Especially for the time, there wasn\u2019t a question of synthesizers being so deep and pervasive in all different styles. They could do these little Moog things, but for the most part the guitar was the only way. He wrote great songs and lyrics, and the guitar just happened to be in it. It really puts the right emphasis on it; it\u2019s about music, and what you\u2019re saying, and if you want to add some prowess on an instrument that\u2019s fine, as long as it doesn\u2019t overshadow the music that you\u2019re trying to say. And I think he\u2019s a perfect example of that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
You mentioned a number of blues players. What did you get from them?<\/p>\n
I think the way you stretch a string, or the way of vibrato, or the tone you might go for, or the inflection \u2026 I grew up learning from those blues masters. Although I\u2019m releasing an EP this fall that\u2019s me playing blues\/rock stuff, it\u2019s what I do for fun, it\u2019s real different from most of the records I release.<\/p>\n
But having said that, I think I learned the ABCs of guitar approach with that, as far as inflection.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some thought out in the world that electric guitar players like Vai, Satriani, and even you, are just shredders. That\u2019s what you do. But there\u2019s nothing wrong with playing fast sometimes, is there?<\/p>\n
It really depends on what you do. It really is about the song, or the piece of music, or the viability of what you\u2019re trying to say harmonically and melodically. That\u2019s going to be different for different folks. Everybody has a different thing that interests them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas guitar virtuoso Eric Johnson performs Friday at the Capitol Theatre in Clearwater. A dynamic player whose oeuvre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-232938","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\/232938","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=232938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}