The Alternative Acoustic Podcast
A deep dive into acoustic artistry, with the guitarists who play their own way. Hear the stories behind their innovative guitar playing and receive exclusive tips and tricks to enhance your playing and creativity.
The Alternative Acoustic Podcast
Episode 5 - Antonio Forcione 'Following Your Compass'
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Listen to the inspirational Antonio Forcione here https://www.antonioforcione.com/
In this episode, I sit down with Antonio Forcioni. In fact, I sit down in his kitchen. He made the most incredible, quite frankly, inspirational pasta, and we played lots of guitar. One of the jams we had, in fact, is the theme music for this episode, and he imparted wisdom. A serious amount of wisdom. If you don't know Antonio Forcioni already, then please go and spend some time listening to his work. And of course, listen to this episode too. For an insight into a guitarist that has inspired so many, myself included. He's inspirational as a performer, but he's also inspirational as one of the most deeply connected, emotive, visceral guitarists that I've ever heard. And I think we get to the bottom of some of that in this episode. We join the conversation just as Antonio is explaining to me how he was introduced to Michael Hedges and the influence that that had on his music. I hope you enjoy listening. And one last thing before we get stuck in, if you enjoy this podcast, please support us by spreading the word and just clicking follow or subscribe on wherever you're listening to this podcast. You can also join our mailing list if you head to chriswoodsgroove.co.uk forward slash the alternative acoustic podcast. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Did you see him? I didn't see that.
SPEAKER_03You said that was just from your ears.
SPEAKER_00I only I have I've been listening to him about four or five months in the in the car.
SPEAKER_03And you're trying to sort of work out the technicalities.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I was a bit tired also playing so many. Ooh, uh playing um I I needed some um uh some change into my music because I was playing very much, very intense, um uh rhythmical, flamencoish fleurs and and too many notes.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So when I hear the still string and that reverb and then I really it it it had something really appealing to me.
SPEAKER_03Um like a new sound, well, just like a new one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I finally, you know, don't have to rush and doing hundred notes per minute and all the old fat. So I start, you know, playing like just coming in chords like exploring the guitar in kind of a different way. For me, that um it did change the game. So I had this guitar for about six-seven months just to keep in in the hotels after the geek. Okay, about midnight I would just start going, had no idea.
SPEAKER_03Do you think because what what really fascinates me about this is so from my experience, we were talking earlier about John Martin, and I was saying how I was trying to do the the uh this and not seeing that because it wasn't the time of video, yeah. And for me, that made me come to uh create I didn't sound just like John Martin, I sounded like well, kind of a bad version, but like it was me trying to be him. Yeah. Do you think how you learn hedges because you were doing it by ear and you weren't necessarily going, here's the this is exactly how he did it, you found your own way.
SPEAKER_00But I, you know, I probably perhaps it's it's to do with my character. Even even though I loved John McLaughlin so much, I never sat down and and really wanted to learn everything he did or soloing. And I when I got the inspiration, then I was trying to find my own way of doing it. Because also that sometimes it can be so complicated to get in somebody's fingers and brain. I think everyone has has a song that strive to come out. So I I kind of felt I had my own for how little that is and insignificant to the world. But I I always felt that there's there's there's so much to explore. I was hours and trying to you know build something uh onto with my own technique and with our own.
SPEAKER_03So you weren't trying to be my guy, is it? I would never have that.
SPEAKER_00No. And I I never saw him all also as an incredible guitar player. I mean, he is amazing, beautiful what he did. But I had you know, in my own right, I had my own heroes, and you know, it he's not the type of guy that really thought, wow, I've got to play that out. No. I like that texture, and I I I took some of that texture and you know from him, and that's it. I I I don't know one song by Michaelist. I, you know, straight away I wrote this tune called Heartbeat, that's still played now. Okay. Um that was my first uh That was inspired by those stories.
SPEAKER_03Inspired by that sort.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, something like that. Just all inspired by that kind of call it texture, yeah, like soundscape.
SPEAKER_03Do you think now people learn so visually? So they make what the amazing world that we live in. If I want to learn an Antonio Foscioni tune, I can go online on YouTube and learn. Yeah, it can be you teaching the tune. Do you think actually that is kind of maybe stopping that uniqueness and the visuality? Because there's something in that not struggle, but because you're just exploring and you're taking flavours. Do you think now we're actually taking like the data and the finger, you know, the fingerprints?
SPEAKER_00I you know, I think everyone chooses to take that data or not is in your kind of thing. I mean so it was there, but you don't have to, you can just if somebody imitates the where play, I mean it's up to him. Choose that direction, you know. Although I always tell everybody, find your own way, your own direction, because imitation is never good. Inspiration, yes, but imitation. You can't get the same as you know, as I said to you, I had a huge respect and for John McCockman, and I've never there's there's some songs I've learned, but whenever he started playing his improvisation, I never wanted to play that way. That's his way. It's gonna be double hell if you find somebody's vocabulary with their own technique and trying to enter that. I I'll find it really complicated. I think you should just absorb what it touches you and make something out of that, make it yours. That that makes more sense.
SPEAKER_03Um it's kind of easier almost. It's sort of more I I don't mean. But it's it's like a path that feels right.
SPEAKER_00I find it more difficult playing something that somebody else is playing exactly how they play it. It it's great to study some solos or something that really touches you. It's always good because it's you know, to have that knowledge and being able to understand how the melody and and the harmony works together, but um find your own way, you know. Even you know, I've seen so many incredible people touring the world that play in a different ways and styles. I always appreciate that. That question when they ask me, for you, who's the best topper in the world? I think I'm sure there must be hidden somewhere in some some place. Because I've seen so many amazing, amazing players.
SPEAKER_03That's all it's so good to hear, man. It's so good to hear because I I've always found it impossible to sit and learn a whole tune. I got uh the only tab of a Pacussid player I got. Do you know a guy called Eric Mongrane? You know this guy? He did a tab. I got his tab for an album and I learned the first bar. Yeah, and then I went and wrote like two or three tunes, and then I never went back to it. But I always felt that that was like uh a weakness. Do you know what I mean? I was always sort of like, you got what's the word? You've got to focus, man. You've got to focus.
SPEAKER_00But it's not a weakness. I I me too at the moment, I think, mmm, I'm not able to focus and to study these things, I should be studying the whole book and learn. You know, at the end, I think we have a compass inside. And boy, don't forget that little that little compass because if if you don't feel that way you're going, and sometimes you can get very lost. It could be all your life playing exactly the same or very good, even better than maybe your teacher, but then so what if it's not your path?
SPEAKER_03How how do you realize that though? For someone who for people listening.
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the things to realize is it's what makes you really feel good. If that makes you feel good, fine. Do that in your life. I mean, there are you know bands that play other people's, you know, that Rolling Stones bands going around the world that have I wouldn't do that as a job. But if that's your if they're happy doing it, that's good luck to them. I uh originality, we all have originality. Why not search for that? It's worth it. It's really worth it. I mean it has been a long journey for me. I don't always get out in the morning and think, wow, now it's a new tune. Sometimes you struggle a little bit when you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by everything. You you start listening to who inspires you. Just maybe while you're peeling your potatoes in the kitchen. Just listen to that. Or while you're driving in the traffic, you hear that, I think, oh shit, yeah, that's that's the way to go. But that's inspiration, it's not coping somebody, it's it's inspiring. You we all need that, you know. We feed our souls with this moment.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, feed remembering to feed that creative.
SPEAKER_00I remember the beginning of my career. I said, Oh, well, when I was in my twenties, you know, when I'm sorrowing and there's this audience, then I'm not kind of liking the solo and saying, this is not and I actually literally thought what John McLaughlin would do now, surely he would do something. And actually, that that only thought, sadly, you know, my things would take shape. It's uh as if he was watching me and said, Well, I'd better do something interesting here. Okay. It's like you have but that was my way of thinking, and then it happened to me. I mean, I don't do this anymore because I I I have a way of getting into inside things, and it doesn't always happen, but yeah, I'll always do it from the first tune.
SPEAKER_03Let's talk about that. I've had this conversation in a uh with myself a lot, but also in in podcast episodes talking about this simple we expect a musician to be into it. Like if if we come to a gig, the musician has to be completely absorbed and connected, but no one ever really teaches that, teaches how to sort of get into it. And I think for people who maybe aren't professional players or are maybe on an earlier part of their journey, that like how do you how do you get into it? How do you not get into playing guitar but like connect with the music and be absorbed by it?
SPEAKER_00To be completely honest with you, I don't think there's something you can teach or so you can talk about it, but I think it's the is the God, the music itself, that teaches you that. Okay. So that's why I'm saying do things that really move you somehow. You feel something inside, because when you do that, you want to go back there to that place. And it's you that want to go there. When I have to do a you know gig, and if the lighting is not right, at some time I'm saying, can you turn that? Can you do because I want to go there. Help me out. Because sometimes if the lighting is too bright and things and I'm sad in discomfort, or it's too cold, it's too hot. Anything can disturb that that little journey, and that journey is so important to me, and I care about it. So when I'm on stage, I want to play a little bit when I'm doing sound check, even when sounds good or not, everybody thinks let's go now. I said, No, wait, I just I I want I want to make this space mine. I want to I wanna dig in. And when I have the right volume, the right tone of the guitar, everything in the environment is right, I know that I have good chance of you know doing a good gig and getting into it. So care about the space and that thing around you because I think that you need that. Like even tuning into the room. Tuning to the room, the lighting is you know, just be conf. You can't say, Oh god, um I didn't like the monitor. No, if you don't like the monitor, spend some more time, just make it right. Because nobody's gonna be there doing it for you. Tell me, it's just you know, I take my own monitor, but just because for me, my moments, my beautiful moments at home and by the fireplace with my own little monitor, kept it really low. I want to feel that like I'm in my home by the fireplace when I'm on stage. I want to have that feeling.
SPEAKER_03I want to feel I think everyone gets that because every every single guitarist, whether they're a seasoned pro or a novice, it's that enjoyment of playing at home on their own. And then it's kind of the same for everyone, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Then transferring that to onto stage is like such a challenge, huge challenge.
SPEAKER_03And you know, when they especially for acoustic guys as well.
SPEAKER_00For acoustic guys, because things can go wrong, a thousand things can go wrong, you know. You might have feedback, as soon as you start, maybe the lighting was different to what you'd done before, and then suddenly you're put off by somebody else or somebody's talking. A thousand things you've got to really think about it. Obviously, you cannot control everything, but at least make things close to you right.
SPEAKER_03It's weird though, innit? Because it gets easier as you get sort of more well, for want of a better word, maybe known or reputation. Because you get those first gigs in a pub when no one's listening to you and you're plugged into a crappy PA, and then you know, go to Yeah. It's so easy for you, man. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I have no idea. I mean, you're talking to someone that who has been playing in the cold for three years outside, and has an Italian coming to London and you know, I bust for three years, and I've I've I've known what it is like playing the best thing you can play and and and people walk through and not even stopping. And you know, you but I am so glad now that I've I've gone through all that, you know, so many challenges, and you play and there's police telling you to move and there's rain and the the challenges made you challenge. I had four many challenges, so it's uh yeah, I'm sure. I'm happy that I've I've gone through all that. And any gig was a bonus, any you know, a wine bar and pub. I remember my my right leg had more muscle than left because I was keeping the rhythm really banging on the wooden floors to get everybody into the groove and and you know. But we're not talking music then much, we're talking about entertainment and survival, and but it's a very important stage too. Well, why is it important?
SPEAKER_03Because there's the we're talking we were talking earlier about ego as well, weren't we?
SPEAKER_00It's it's important. Yeah, in a way, it's important because you've got to pay your rent and you've got to survive. And and if you can survive through that and keep your music intact and sane, then you're going through some really incredible challenges. And when you go the other side, I mean, I remember after four or five years I start doing theatres. Best time for me when I start walking on I don't have to win the audience anymore. As soon as I walk on stage, I had a huge applause. And I said, Wow, what a difference. Well, life is different. You know, they recognize you, they can't wait to see you on stage, and they actually want you to do well. Well, they don't want you to do well. They're with me. Yeah. And the other great moment for me was starting with a ballad. I didn't have to start with a ballad, but I thought I'm gonna play a ballad now straight away and and bring them in to my, you know, to my wall. Yeah. And those all little challenges you, you know, I've I've gone through and and I'm happy. Life gave me the opportunity to go through all this.
SPEAKER_03Do you think it helps the rhythm and the groove? Because you had to get people to dance, basically.
SPEAKER_00You had to Well that you when you're talking about rhythm and grooves, that goes when when I was age four and five, I was already doing my grandfather went completely mad and telling me to stop it. Because I was playing rhythm to every surface I could find. Okay. You know, then uh my brother bought me a a a drum kit when I was eleven, yeah, around eleven.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I basically as soon I assembled this drum kit, I started bashing it as loud as I could, uh, ignoring uh the neighbor as a shoemaker. He used to live downstairs, and and after four or five months, I think he must have gone crazy. Spoken to my dad, and and my dad, like nothing happened. I came strangely with a guitar after six months. Try this, my son. Guitars and it was boring. You know, age eleven the guitar looked so boring, sitting down and I wanted to make a lot of noise. So rhythm, I think, is is something that um found me first. Okay. Yeah. Something I really like. I I enjoy playing it in fact with a lot of Brazilians, Cubans, and Africans. I think we have that kind of good vocabulary rhythmically and Indians. Um yeah, rhythm is something I I really enjoy and learning.
SPEAKER_03Can we get guitari and talk about then what you uh like how were your sort of picking hand system on that when you're doing like some of those rhythms that we were jamming or whatever, like how you how you do it? Do you use thumb, index, middle and ring, or you because it's always this, you know, amazing rocking. It seems when I'm watching anyway, it's down and up or first of all.
SPEAKER_00I actually I love the six-eighth kind of kind of groove because it's got so many ways of changing and playing it, and I'm particularly fond of this rhythm. Um what I do is just thinking rhythmically like I have a drum, it's duck-that duck-thatch go-that's it not to see, it's like ghosty notes, and then you like to maybe play.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but you can. No, no, no, it's just just because it sounds so bloody lovely. But it are you sort of doing uh those 16 notes and they're consistent, but then you're just accenting and bringing it out so it's like constantly da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
SPEAKER_00Is it constantly thinking that way, but ultimately choosing certain one to accent or choosing certain one to be ghost? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it is like that rhythm because it's basically on doing this. I tend to accent a lot of the backbeating with the buttons. See what is that it's another one. So yeah, the most important though is the it's not a note. Well, you make it important, but it obviously it's it's the upper one. Have a whole theory about what you call it uh back bit, off-bit. Yeah. The off-bit for me is it's got the whole philosophy. I mean, the more you go close to the equator, yeah, the more off-bit you find. There's a lot of off-bits. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I mean, l look you mean the equ I thought you meant like the metaphorical equator. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, man. For sure.
SPEAKER_00That's everything's about the off-beat, isn't it? And I I is it's the thing that has fascinated me uh for the last ten years, like more than ten years, because I just realized that even the way when I went to um uh I was called to play in Zimbabwe on the festival, and then I I saw this uh African playing beer as instruments, yeah, and I could see them move and then move. I always accentuated the off-beat. Always. Yeah, yeah. I said it's something about the off-beat, and then I start thinking, why is the off-beat so important in here? Why? And uh this is my own way of thinking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If we are if you're celebrating, yeah, you you you you go anti-gravitational, you don't go down. When you have goal, you know, somebody's done, go. You go, you go up. When you're happy, you go up.
SPEAKER_01You know?
SPEAKER_00And when you dance, the off-beat is always the up. How important the offbeat is, it's really more important. In the Western society is much more down, which is reassurance. Up is like more celebrating for me. This is the celebration.
SPEAKER_03That's lovely to think of never thought like that. And you were you're rocking, so if I was doing um something like that, I wouldn't I'd be going between thumb and index, but you're like then shifting it to index and middle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just thinking costly. But it's the accents that make the things, you know, choosing which accents to to take out or accentuate or make it ghosty. Yeah. Using certain things that sound a little bit different, but you can easily do basic.
SPEAKER_03I think that takes confidence to do that as well, like uh a sort of uh confidence in doing a sound, because you don't you don't learn that sound, you know what I mean? That's a that's a a sound that you've discovered, you love it, yeah, you just do it. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_00But when you discover something good, that's what you do, don't you? Okay, yeah, yeah. Come on, we all do that. Yeah. When you discover something, and I was sometimes I was doing things like that. Suddenly I've started playing uh solos with my with my nail. And it's just saying, what the hell sound is that? Even using slightly different rhythm, you know. Which is in flamenco they do it a lot. Okay, you know, all those kind of offbeats closer to south. I mean you hear it more and more. I mean if if you do how many times you hear this. I mean, you don't hear them the Western world very often this kind of thing, unless you go to North Africa. And when I heard those things, I it really appealed to me a lot because rhythmically they tell me a little story which is a bit different. I mean, I I don't enjoy when it's too squarish for me. Because it doesn't dance. And if you need to dance, you need to and plus the off-beat makes it lighter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, uh to be many examples like yeah, and there's a there's a song called Um Tears of Joy. It just this is the beginning of it. You know, just to choose the first phrase, it took me ages to build it in a certain way because I wanted it a bit interesting.
SPEAKER_03So this is your your composition?
SPEAKER_00Yes, my composition is called Tears of Joy. Like it starts the rhythm It's a lot of anticipation and and it's that building anticipation to down and choosing those kind of notes that makes it for me uh like a storytelling, you know. It's not it's not down, it just makes it a little bit more skipping. Skipping as that. It just playing rhythmically. But I do, I just change kind of um yeah, the um the accents.
SPEAKER_03And it seems there's there's like a a lot of um left hand little skips as well, little moments. Which kind of reminds me of that almost Malian sort of everything that it's not it's not the same as as just a normal groove.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, of course. Trip trip that's for me that gives character to the the tune. It's it's such uh it's play it's almost it's playful like exactly joyfully just like doing a tunnel simple but it's it's got that glue, you can leave it like open.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it works texturally just really fascinating as well there like using your use heavy handed like that. You're not your store slapping, but like slapping it like you want it to come in to resonate.
unknownI love that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, different way of using even the peak. It's a lot to do with really nicer stuff. Choosing the absence.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Let's let's talk about you started playing in quite a a different time, I think. And like even five years ago. Different time, very different time. It's just everything is so different. And I just wonder what you sort of notice about that. And that that could be anything. I mean, from obviously things have changed from like the live music scene. We were talking about the busking thing, where even now no cash, uh, how that would have an effect, or the the way of learning everything, being online, the way the way of being a musician, of uh being, you know, here I am doing a podcast, and then uh you know, tomorrow I'm gonna do a lesson, and then I'm gonna do a gig, and then it's just different, man, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I you know, it taking obviously my apprenticeship was in the 70s and the 80s. I start really performing, but in the 70s, for example, m my uncle, I played with my uncle, my uncle played accordion. Okay. So age 13, I would go and do a geek that would people had to dance. Okay. So you had you know, a responsibility to keep the rhythm, the timing, you know, tight. So you had to do waltz and azurka, and then I do some some even disco music for a while.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00It's it's all apprenticeship at that time. And for me, uh playing with my uncle was uh really important because he he would say waltz enough. That's all he used to say to me. And I had to really gather all the chords by listening to his melodies. And that was such an amazing um lesson because you got to refine your your your listening and um also playing disco music in the 70s, that you know, that's that for me was uh my good pocket money because then weekends I know I was going to art college and I I'd go and play uh with the electric guitar and all the gold Gloria Gainer stuff and Pink Floyd Santana. Uh so I played all that and you know doing all that kind of uh uh kind of funky stuff. Um anyway, I've learned a lot and from there on I start really wanting to do my own things and and uh go home and then compose some little melodies. And and I I think this there's developing my own vocabulary on the guitar and and and writing my own songs that kept me alive and I really start enjoying when you start enjoying what you do and it's a turning point. Because you can always I know people can play really well, and then they never want to play anything theirs because they think it's not good and nothing you you hooked in a bad loop there. Just try to do something, enjoy it. I played other people's music, but more for different reasons, to make people dance or I was a big fan of Pink Floyd's and David Gilmer's solos and things like that. I I love that. I'm not sparing stuff. So I grew by doing those things. I had a few guitar lessons. Now and then I would go and take some lessons and learn more about chords than age twenty. Then I went to Rome and I studied some uh harmony jazz and started listening to Wes Montgomery and all the guitar players and certain way and start learning some uh um jazz tunes. But I always felt like um I couldn't do exactly you know what I really wanted to do, what moved me. And it was when I heard John McLaughlin of that stag, I won I wanted to play that kind of John McLaughlin was doing the Mahavishnu, but I really liked him what he did Shibith Shakti.
SPEAKER_03Oh right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's quite unusual with the Indian kind of musicians, and then I started listening to Igber and Ralph Downer. That was a turning point for me. So then I I I've heard composing for guitar such beautiful, beautiful stories. And I wanted to get into that, though I kind of like the virtuosity of John McLaughlin, so I had this in me, and but I like the compositional skills of Ralph Downer.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And the daring of England Gizmonti. So combined those three, you know, they've been my heroes for a long time. And um yeah, I started developing my own voice and writing and writing. And so when I came to London, uh I had al already some kind of jazz knowledge, uh improvisational knowledge, and when I played in the streets, I knew I was, if not one of the best in the streets, you know, because everybody was drumming and playing lovely songs and singing.
SPEAKER_03Okay, but you were doing something different.
SPEAKER_00We were doing Yeah, I had Pagadolosia staff and we did we did win the musician as musicians the competition, uh street entertainers competition, and and uh the time out and did uh organize this. BBC was there and those are the times. 1983? Wow. Yeah, and um yeah, and then I went from you know paying the streets, then all these pub owners start uh calling each other, these two Latino guys are really good, and I saw we start being booked in every pub in London.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then wine bars, and then then you go to art centers. So the whole there was a kind of a way to step up slowly to places, you know, art centers, university, and I started doing theaters three years later, you know. And only four years later, um I mean my English was still quite good then, but at the beginning wasn't wasn't very good. So I 1987. Suddenly I had a funkal from uh Robert Masters, uh a very big manager that usually organizes gigs for guitar, and basically asked me to go on tour with Birelli Lagrin, Barney Kessel, Martin Taylor, Victoriz, Jorge Morel, and Juan Martin. So I was only 27 and I thought, wow, I was really and anyway, that really pushed me a little bit more into to thinking professionally, and I think yeah, I better go seriously on this in this direction. So that was a memorable tour to bring whole England and then we went to Ireland also. So for me, it has been an amazing journey from the streets and slowly pubs, wine bars, art centers, university. Um it's kind of a tangible trajectory. Yeah, so but I feel I've been a little bit everywhere, you know. I've I've done steps and I've I paid my bills.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Basically. And um there's a lot to learn always, but I'm I'm glad I'm still here and I'm doing my own records and I'm I'm I'm writing my own songs. I don't know now how new musicians would do. I can see them be a little bit tougher now for some reason, because there wasn't as clear as I used to be in the in my times, uh the you know, the direction you take a certain direction and then you know you've got to go for certain challenges and yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well that's what I mean by like it being a a sort of a tangible progression. It's like when or people talk uh would talk about the music industry where you're you were retaining to get a record deal, for example, was the the big thing, wasn't it? That was the thing that you work towards. But now it's so much more sort of complex and do you do you think there's less live opportunities? What about like guitar festivals and things like that? Do you think there's much more?
SPEAKER_00I think music has for me, generally speaking, has lost its um not because of the music, but because of the with the way we live. Yeah. That magic kind of thing. When I used to think music and when I see somebody with a guitar case, I used to get excited. Just wanted to know how it played. It's not anymore like that. Because I think we're using music for our backgrounds now, for our restaurants, for our we're not paying musicians anymore. We think music is just something you use and throw, basically. It's just I don't know, but I have the feeling. I hope I'm I'm so hope I'm wrong. But it feels like, you know, w we only hear music sometimes only when we get in the airport and there's a piano dance and some kid is playing music and then becomes everything is a show. But music, you know, it's it's it's a lot more than that. And I think it's it's kind of forgotten.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Do you think that's uh because you have to even for free or most like it's everything, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Well, well no check his name out. We're just gonna check him out.
SPEAKER_03That's it. Do you think there's something in that? Um the knowledge as well of learning uh on guitar, for example, is now so free. So everything is so there.
SPEAKER_00I mean, tell you one thing, as I I when I was age fifteen, sixteen, I remember just felling deeply in love with the instrument. Because it took me two, three years after leaving drums to getting into the guitar. But I remember age 15, 16, I used to come back from school and I I I was in my bedroom uh let's say from from two o'clock. I'd be there at 8.30 in the evening. My mum would open the door and I I've been in dark because I I haven't even thought of turning on the lights. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was time to have dinner. And my mother said, What are you doing here in the dark?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Literally, I I was there for hours, kind of lost in this universe. Yeah. Completely lost. I have time and place for me was it was not a story of like you must work hard and suffer.
SPEAKER_03It's uh it's uh it takes time, but you're obsessed and you're loving every note.
SPEAKER_00Like the voters that just got me in completely. I was I was completely hooked. And when I said my mother, it looked like an alien coming out of our room. It's like I was completely miles away. It's it's but because we're living an era of destruction. There's destruction every minute. You've got what Fon called them. Destruction and destruction. It is destruction because it's we're destructed basically by every minute. Oh, it's a friend, and it's SMS. Maybe I have to post every basically ten minutes, five minutes, we've got something going on all the time. I'm glad the timings were a bit longer before. You you could you had the time to get into something. You can't get too into anything now because you've got a hundred things that are waiting for you to do. I think that could be another reason.
SPEAKER_03You're not having well, going back to what you're talking about, of getting into what you're playing, even that's doesn't fit in with the way that we are currently, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00Getting in. And now everybody, if you see any I mean, TikTok, you you just there's some amazing different players. Like within five seconds, you can see amazing. Everything has to be woe and amazing. Yeah. But depth is something else. It's something else. Sixty seconds, you can give something that maybe inspires you, or it it it has a bit of a mystery, but then you want to go and find out. But now everybody wants 100% now and within those seconds. How can you put 50 years of you know, kind of thing in in 60 seconds?
SPEAKER_03Do you do you use it much, or do you just opt out?
SPEAKER_00Do you just go? No, I use it because I use it, but certainly I'm I'm I'm not gonna do everything I know in 60 seconds. Because I don't want to and I don't know how to do it, and and that's not my challenge anyway. That must be other people's challenges. Because otherwise they would not know. Especially at my age, people don't use this very much. So I use a lot of Facebook.
SPEAKER_03Uh that's that's really interesting, right?
SPEAKER_00For me, Facebook is bigger than Instagram. Okay. You know? I see. Because in my age, uh uh they they can see you there and they turn up. Yeah. And still come and and and I love my audience because you know, yes, it might be a little bit older than you than you've older audience, but they are very appreciative. And then I had so much feedback great feedback. I'm I'm I'm really honored to do what I do and I feel honored. And um, yeah, I don't know. I uh I guess I've been a bit lucky and but I'm I'm happy I've How have you been lucky, do you think? Because if you think that uh how the world is going down and me pursuing of this kind of career and being able to pay my my rent, my my lifestyle, because it's you know, but it's it's quite amazing. I find it amazing. I find it a blessing. You know I'm I'm um I know it's not only luck. I think there's a lot of work in it, but um But you enjoyed that work. But I en I enjoyed doing the this and I I I love the fact that I've got people looking forward to to to my performances and they you know they buy my records. And one one thing is is kind of my promise to them. It's like my quality of whatever I do, I I put body and soul and to what I do. I don't think there's one album I thought I'm gonna make money in it. I said, no. Certainly I want to sell them, but I'm not gonna do it. That's not my first idea. I I do things because it moved me first. I I write things that move me first. I'm the first audience.
SPEAKER_03So going back to that, you like it, you do it. You do it more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. If you like it, you do it, you're doing more. But you do don't do it with the idea I've got to make money off, I've got to reach this out, it's not the main purpose is for you to be in it and to feel good about it. That's the main purpose. You might be in your room forever and and enjoying it, but believe me, I I I know it for sure, and I I tested it on the s while I was a busker. One day I wasn't really. I don't I was feeling slightly blue, and I was playing in uh remember, I was in Copen Garden, my head down, and I was I really got into it. I I didn't care about people or you weren't entertaining. I wasn't entertaining anymore. I just w I just thought this is my moment, it's for me. I was there for it must have been like half an hour playing a long thing journey. Believe me, when I raised my head, it was full of people watching. I I was like, whoa, I had no idea. But then for me, I uh that meant something really important. Is if you actually are really into it and really deeply into it, I trust that people will feel it. I they know it. If you're just entertaining, it it will look like an entertainment and uh probably will sound like it too. Get into that depth and I think it's always rewarding.
SPEAKER_03That's beautiful, man. That's that's the conclusion. Words of wisdom. Thanks so much. Pleasure.
SPEAKER_00Glad enjoyed it. I enjoyed the down with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.