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Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.
I guess because I had such a horrible life growing up, going from place to place not knowing what I was gonna do and ending up being homeless, there was a lot of pain and a lot of anger that was coming out through my guitar playing.
I grew up across the street from, you know, the Villarias, which was a great Mexican family there. In fact, there was three houses right across the street from me. So, day and night, I listened to Mexican music, and I'm sure, you know, my guitar playing, singing, writing, whatever, has a lot of Mexican flavor there, but it comes natural.
I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.
My guitar playing is a synthesis of traditional American acoustic style and Urban Pop and R&B.
The Lounge Lizards were relating with a tradition and it was like I was playing within a musical context. The guitar playing stood out as being different in some way. That was a real education for me.
My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.
I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.
Guitar playing is both extremely easy for me and extremely difficult for me at the same time.
I'm supportive of women, absolutely, and it's so gratifying to have girls come up and say, 'I'm really inspired by your guitar playing.' I mean no disrespect to the sisterhood, but musically I feel more drawn to things like Dirty Projectors, the National and Grizzly Bear.