I've made my own music, and the way I've always described it is Peggy Lee with an electric guitar, or Billie Holiday with some PJ Harvey in there.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals? It's very stuck, whereas with electronic music, new sounds are being created.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?
My stepfather had an electric guitar. He went to his pawn store one day to get a guitar and an amp, and I couldn't understand what I was hearing. All afternoon, I just sat against the amp and let it reverberate through me. Something must have stuck.
When I was 15 years old, my cousin and I formed a singing group called The Altaires. And, because we became the most popular singing group in the Tri-State area, the rest of the group convinced me I should play the guitar - even though I didn't own one! So what happened was, my stepfather actually made my first electric guitar for me for $23!
My stepfather met my mother when I was seven years old, and he was a guitar player. So he caught me messing with his guitar, his electric guitar, and he tried to show me some chords, but my hands were too small.
I heard the Beatles and the Stones, and Mom bought me an electric guitar. I played lead for four years and then switched to bass. One day someone suggested that I should sing, so I sheepishly stepped up to the microphone and the rest is rock history.
What I think is cool about Fender, and what originally drew me to them, was the Fender electric guitar headstock, which I've never seen on another ukulele. I feel like a rock star when I'm tuning it.
My first band was an Argentinian folk group when I was 10. When I was 12 I had my electric guitar, and by the time I was 13, the Beatles came into the scene, and that was over. So I have a mixture of all these traditions, and I think that's who I am, a mixture of everything.
I love five-string banjo. On an electric guitar, let's say a two-hour show, it starts getting heavy right across the neck and shoulders. And I like to be able to flip it off and grab the fiddle, and that's just the way I do it.
