Guthrie Govan Discussion

[alexkhan]

Okay, now let's move onto Guthrie's "contemporary" influences although some of these players have been around for quite a while. It could also be that Guthrie really got to know these great players relatively late compared to the early influences that I've covered in the first two installments. Guthrie, like anyone else, is attracted to certain players and styles of music by his own peculiar musical tastes. Just because he really digs some players' playing or music won't necessarily mean that we'll dig them in the same manner. Everybody has different tastes and Guthrie is no exception. Nevertheless, whomever Guthrie admires and respects are obviously great musicians and players and all worth delving into. So, let's continue with more great players who Guthrie enjoys and learns from in one way or another.

"Contemporary" Influences

Bumblefoot - Without a doubt, Bumblefoot is the number one guy in Guthrie's book when it comes to modern over-the-top rock playing. Guthrie and Bumblefoot are also old friends, going back many years before anyone really knew who either were in the world of guitardom. The fact that they're good friends and have kept in touch over all these years shows that they have a tremendous amount of respect for each other and were always interested in each other's development.

Bumblefoot's music is one of those either-you-love-it-or-you-don't-care-for-it kind of deals. Personally, it really isn't my bag but I still have the solo albums around and will pop it in the car CD player when I'm in the mood. BF definitely plays some of the most intense OTT lines that make you go, "Whoa, how the hell did he do that?" Even Guthrie says BF will have him scratching his head.

There's a lot of that offbeat Zappa-type humor in BF's music and playing. He is an iconoclast for sure - mixing campy lounge music and humor with some serious rock musicianship and jaw-dropping 6-string virtuosity. And, again, it's the ideas that BF comes up with that need to be appreciated, not what he executes on the fingerboard. Guthrie is certainly the type that's open to unconventional ideas and no one is a better source for that than Bumblefoot in the world of contemporary guitar these days.

Richie Kotzen - Richie has been around a long time and someone I've followed off and on since his self-titled debut album on the Shrapnel label at the peak of its notoriety and influence. His career is a peculiar one in how it has evolved over 20 years or so. He started out as one of the those latest-and-greatest shredders on Shrapnel and sort of fell off the face of the earth when grunge arrived in the early-90's. He resurfaced as the guitarist in the 80's glam-rock band Poison (a gig which I can't imagine that he would have enjoyed) and made some news for the wrong reasons.

After that Poison episode, he made a couple of respectable fusion albums with Greg Howe and showed the world that he's a lot more than a pretty-boy shred/rock hired gun. It didn't surprise me as his talent was obvious. Then he seemed to disappear again and it was only much later that I found out that he's gone onto making vocal solo albums and that he had become a big star in Japan and South America, mainly Brazil. Apparently, Richie had changed course from being a mega-shredder into a much more well-rounded songwriter, singer and all-around player, mixing soulful pop, earthy blues-rock, aggressive hard-rock and occasional OTT playing mixed in with sophisticated tasty phrasing.

Richie no longer sounds like the latest young hot shot shredder of the Shrapnel days. He sounds more like a blues-rock virtuoso with a huge tone and seems more focused on the mood of the songs than showing off his considerable chops. As Guthrie once noted, Richie has that ability to stun you with a carefully placed note at the right time during a solo. Obviously, Guthrie's a big fan. Richie's got a style of his own. It may or may not be your cup of tea (and I can't honestly say it's mine), but you can't deny that he's a great player.

Mattias IA Eklundh - Now here's another iconoclast of sorts. IA is definitely one of the most interesting players in the crazy world of virtuosic rock guitar these days. He takes some of the harmonics/whammy abuse concepts of guys like Vai and Satch and takes them to a whole new realm. And, once again, there's the hilarious sense of humor that pervades what IA does - both musically and in the guitar playing. The ideas are ingenious and you can't help but smile when you hear IA play. I'm sure that's what Guthrie gets out of someone like IA - humor, ideas, creativity, and "out-of-the-box" concepts executed with brilliant precision.

Buckethead - I can't say for sure to what extent Guthrie's been influenced by this enigmatic figure of modern shred-rock guitar. Buckethead remains a force as an underground guitar hero and is very much respected, admired and even loved by his hardcore following all around the world. I can say that I was one of those hardcore fans for a while as I started getting bored with the output from the G3 guys in the late-90's and the earlier part of this decade.

The Praxis' Transmutation album from '91 is certainly a landmark guitar album that remains one of my all-time favorites. That was a scary album and I eagerly looked forward to anything new from this weird character and monster shredmeister. At one point, my BH collection must have exceeded 30 CD's, but kinda like Yngwie, my patience finally started running thin as I waited for him to put it altogether - both musically in terms of composition and as a player.

Guthrie also mentioned to me that a lot of his albums sound like it took the amount of time he played on them to put together. I guess BH gets a kick out of making an album sound amateurish and difficult to find for that totally avant-garde "underground" flavor, but it started getting old real fast - to me, at least. He certainly has his thing as a player, which often gets overshadowed by his bizarre image and schtick. I certainly think that Guthrie was influenced by BH to a degree - both technically and from the type of lines that he plays. He's an amazing technician and a fine musician, but he always leaves me thinking that something's not quite complete and hanging in the air... like a body... Well, if that's the case, I've moved on.

Mike Landau - It was only recently that Guthrie told me that he finally "got" what Mike Landau was all about. We all know that he's a long-time LA studio legend and a top touring pro, but it's kind of hard to tell from his solo projects and recordings what all the fuss is about. I did get Guthrie a copy of Landau's 2006 Live CD album and we saw Mike play at the Baked Potato while Guthrie was in LA a few years ago, so I do think that Landau's music and style has finally made its way into Guthrie's musical consciousness recently. To what degree, I don't know and I wouldn't hazard to guess.

Landau is a giant of contemporary guitar and it takes some effort and time to really "get" him to understand what his hardcore fans have been raving about for so long. Seeing him live can make one a convert fairly easily. The raw intense energy, the sublime guitar sounds, the heavenly and jaw-dropping phrasing all seem to come through so much better in a live environment than on his records - both studio and live. To me, he's like a more modern and refined version of Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix.

What would Guthrie get out of someone like Landau? I think the way Mike shapes his tone, the unexpected phrasing, the rhythmic loopiness while maintaining a perfect sense of time, the sense of abandon in the improvisations, and all those other subtle things that you don't read about in theory books, etc. are what Guthrie would probably find very interesting and to learn from. Now, Landau, I absolutely love. I didn't get him for a long time either but when I finally saw him live, he hit me like Guthrie did but in a totally different manner. For me, the ultimate would be to see Guthrie and Landau play together someday. Someday...

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Well, those are the only "contemporary" guys I could really think of who would have influenced Guthrie in any significant manner. I'm sure there are more and I asked Guthrie if there are any others that I may have overlooked because he and I don't really talk that much about all the players out there. And it isn't like he has done a ton of interviews either. Also, there are just so many players that Guthrie admires and enjoys that it's really hard to list them all. Well, I'll try to address them on Part 4's "Honorable Mentions" and that should be a lot of fun.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[van hellion]

landau and govan together would be amazing! mike was one of my first guitar heros!

A Wood
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[physion]

Nice one, Ed! This thread is making for a very interesting read

I might be getting a little ahead of myself here... but once this thread on guitar influences is wrapped up, might there be any chance of a thread on his non-guitar-based influences? Clearly Guthrie has a lot of respect for his fellow guitarists and has absorbed a lot of various people's playing into his own, but what always stuns me is how he just seems to absorb music regardless of instrument, whether it's Stravinsky, Scott Henderson, Coltrane... or Nokia themes (Not that we need a thread on his ringtone influences!! )

[ShadyDavey]

Honourable Mentions or Guilty Secrets?

Really awesome set of posts so thanks again for those.

[alexkhan]

[alexkhan]

[ShadyDavey]

Of course

I think one of the interesting things to note is that while some people are the sum of their influences, Guthrie has managed to go beyond that to the point where's an an influence with his own style. Definately more than the sum of the parts!

[alexkhan]

Now it's time to talk about whom I'd consider "Honorable Mentions" but it's very possible that some of the following great players were main influences of Guthrie's early-middle or latter-middle years of development. I've so far just listed players who were obvious for me to list based on what I know of his style, the interviews I've read and the on-and-off discussions I've had with Guthrie over the years. I think the really cool thing is the sheer diversity of styles and genres of the players we're talking about here and the following group of players will be no different. I'm going to start out with two who couldn't be any more different but who, I feel, have had a great deal of influence on Guthrie without him really trying to sound like them in his own style. So here we go. BTW, I have a feeling that this will be a multi-part series of its own.

Honorable Mentions - Part 1

Allan Holdsworth - It can be argued that Allan is the most influential guitar player of the past quarter of a century or so. Most of the general public wouldn't know who he is, but there is no denying that Allan influenced guys ranging from mega rock guitar heroes like EVH and Yngwie, Satch and Vai to great fusion artists like Scott Henderson and Brett Garsed and a whole lot more in the world of jazz. Allan is the one who sits on the very top of that stylistic no-man's land. And that's a shame, but that's just how it is. He was the guru who inspired and informed hundreds of legitimate well-known guitar heroes. And Guthrie would be one of 'em.

I don't think Guthrie was ever really interested in playing this brand of cerebral fusion, but I'm sure Guthrie learned a lot from it. Guthrie's legato soloing technique is certainly one of the best out there and it's difficult to imagine Guthrie not being influenced by Allan to a certain degree. I do think Guthrie studied a lot of what Allan did, but then took those ideas and techniques and developed something of his own, mixing them in with other techniques from various other players to the point that they wouldn't be recognizable as being derived from Allan.

And this could apply to virtually any other player that Guthrie's been influenced by. He absorbs them to the point where they become a part of his musical subconsciousness. You learn and then you forget, but those things you learned come out of you later in your style without you even thinking about it. Still, you strive to find your own sound and try to discard those heroes that you've tried to emulate for so many years. I believe that becomes the big struggle and I tend to think most of the 90's was spent by Guthrie to find his own thing.

It's a lot harder these days for one to develop a distinctive style. It would certainly take a lot longer and I think Guthrie is a good example of that. You've got all this amazing technique and stunning versatility, but it's like - now what? What are you going to say now that you've learned all this vocabulary and developed the good fluency to talk or write? And Allan represents a certain type of vocabulary and language that he pioneered. Guthrie has absorbed this vocabulary and language and he's now busy creating his own.

Stevie Ray Vaughn - Yes, talk about going from one end of the world to the other... While Allan is decidedly cutting-edge high-tech, Stevie represents the exact antipode - down-home and old world, dirty and sweaty. Even the gear they use(d) couldn't be any more different - Allan with his space age Synth Axe or synthetic headless Steinberger or digital modeling amps and Stevie with his beat-up mongrel Strat and a hodge-podge of old tube amps and analog pedals. Stevie defined rough-and-tumble Texas blues with blood, feel and guts like nobody else ever did. And, oh yeah, he was also a monster player.

As mentioned earlier, Guthrie is a blues-based player with some jazz vocabulary thrown in and that's what he was schooled on before the likes of Yngwie and Vai came along. Guthrie has a genuine love of the blues. Some people won't hear it or feel it, but I always felt and heard it. Maybe some people think he's just too precise and that he should be sloppier, but does precision and being on the money mean that one can't have feel or play the blues? I've certainly seen my share of SRV clones and wannabes (hey, I worked at Fender for 10+ years and he was/is a virtual god over there), but I've only seen very few who could imitate him with the conviction and feel that Guthrie does.

SRV's style and tone may not be very evident in GG's style or music to date, but I think a lot of you guys will agree it's there, even if in a subtle manner. There's that raw earthiness and non-compressed openness in Guthrie's tone as well as the rhythmic flair to go with the fiery blistering pentatonic runs that are trademarks of SRV's style. During product clinics (whether that's for Cornford or Suhr), Guthrie always demonstrates that SRV-type sound and style because it's a veritable genre in itself. And you can tell Guthrie clearly has absorbed what SRV did deep into his bones. We may not have heard much of someone like SRV in Guthrie's style, but I get the sense that we'll be hearing more of that type of influence in the future.

Gary Moore - Gary Moore is one of those guys who has been around forever, it seems, but can never seem to crack that upper echelon of elite acknowledged masters. GM is surely a great all-around player - fiery rock, sophisticated fusion, intense blues, lyrical pop ballads - but it's like he's always a bit lacking in comparison to other great players in the genres that he has tried to cover. Gary's got chops, but no one would mistake him for Yngwie and the G3 guys. He was no McLaughlin, DiMeola or Holdsworth in fusion. He was no catchy riffmeister like Page, Blackmore or EVH. He was no Albert King, Albert Collins, Clapton or SRV in blues. And as much as we love 'Parisienne Walkways' and 'The Loner,' he's not quite in the category of Jeff Beck in that realm either.

Still, Gary has always been one of the favorites of a whole generation of serious players who appreciated his fiery style, lyricism, and versatility. I've always had a soft spot for Gary and have always kept up with his career. I kind of lost interest after he kept going on and on with the blues thing which I really didn't think was his main strength, but I still love to dig out his old stuff in my iPod every now and then. I love his rock style; as Guthrie mentioned at the recent GIT clinic, he has that "angry" voice that seems to hit you in the guts. And I think that's why I thought his style and tone didn't suit his foray into the blues very well. To me, the guy's rocker who has a nice combination of chops, style, tone and all-around musicianship.

I don't know to what degree Guthrie absorbed Gary or was influenced by him, but I hear a lot of him in attitude, so to speak. Maybe it's a certain type of British thing (although Gary is actually Irish); I don't know... There's something that's aggressive in Gary's style that I can relate to in Guthrie's style. It's a totally rock kind of thing and, to me, a defining characteristic that makes us think of Guthrie as, first and foremost, a rock player. The main guy to Guthrie must have been Jimi, but I feel that guys like Page, Blackmore and Moore would have influenced Guthrie a lot as a rock player in the classic sense.

John McLaughlin - I've followed McLaughlin since the early-80's in my late teens. I was smitten by DiMeola first when I first heard that landmark acoustic album 'Friday Night in San Francisco,' but I quickly came to really dislike DiMeola and appreciate what Johnny Mac was doing. Still, he wasn't an easy guy to follow at all - especially during the mid-to-late 80's. And I tried to piece together his career from his days in Miles' seminal jazz-fusion bands in the 60's and as the leader of the trail-blazing Mahavishnu Orchestra, but I just thought his stuff was just too all over the place.

I can definitely appreciate his creative restlessness and that desire to always seek out new musical worlds to conquer, but, to me, it often sounded like he lacked a coherent musical vision. And I always thought he was a much better acoustic guitarist than an electric player. It seemed that was more of comfort zone for him. Nonetheless, he wasn't someone who could be ignored and I've always kept pace with what he's been doing all these years. The guy's a giant in contemporary music.

I know that Guthrie has a great deal of respect for McLaughlin, so that has to mean that Guthrie's checked out a lot of McLaughlin's music and playing. Whether he personally digs him or not, I don't know. I did get Guthrie a copy of McLaughlin's instructional DVD set several years ago and I reckon he learned a good deal from it. I always try to send Guthrie stuff that I think will help him in some way and that DVD set definitely fit the bill (the Garsed DVD was another). I like to think that McLaughlin was a significant but subtle influence on Guthrie's development over a long period of time - in a more cerebral manner of how McLaughlin approaches his art than trying to do what he did. Just my take...

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Well, that's part 1 of part 4. There's still a bunch, that's for sure. I guess I'm just trying to highlight how stylistically vast and musically deep Guthrie's influences are and how they affected his development as a player and musician. When you think about it, these are a lot of great players to study, enjoy and absorb, but Guthrie has done that. It's what makes him so fascinating. It's like, "Where did you find the time?!?" But, ultimately, what's more mind-blowing is that he isn't just a jack of all trades who does a little (or even a lot) of this and a little of that. He took all of this and that and developed a style and a sound that we now see (or hear) as his very own. And, yes, he will continue to get better and more original and that's what makes the future so exciting for us GG fans.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[alexkhan]

And now, I'll get into a rather eclectic selection of players whom Guthrie enjoys and/or has had positive comments on, which means that they would have had some sort of influence on his style as well.

Honorable Mentions - Part 2

Mark Knopfler - I don't think Guthrie and I've ever talked about Knopfler, but it's clear his influence shows in Guthrie's playing and style. Guthrie certainly enjoys soloing with a clean Stratty single-coil tone and no one epitomizes that sound better than Mark Knopfler. I can't say I was ever a big Dire Straits fan or that I've really followed Knopfler's career closely, but he's truly one of the greats. Guthrie's clean tone solos - like the recent 'Orange Jam' solo on YT and the solos on tunes like 'Waves' and 'Ner Ner' on the 'EC' album - are very distinctive yet will certainly be compared to the benchmark that Knopfler established with 'Sultans of Swing.'

B.B. King - Taste, feel, economy and that unmistakable fluttering yet beautifully controlled vibrato - these traits make up that trademark B.B. King sound and style. I can't say that I've got many B.B. King albums and that I've listened to a whole of B.B., but I know it's him when I hear him. Guthrie must surely have played along to a good number of B.B.'s songs as I can hear that trademark phrasing every now and then in what Guthrie does.

Paco DeLucia - Paco is truly one of the wonders of the guitar world - acoustic or electric. I remember mentioning Paco to Guthrie once and he just shook his head, whistling, "Wheeeew..." Some will say that Paco is the greatest guitar player in the world, period. Now, such "greatest" or "best" comment may be deemed subjective and something that will just invite endless arguments like you see on many guitar forums, but when it applies to Paco, I'd have no qualms about it. This amazing musician has to be considered the one flamenco player who expanded the boundaries of flamenco and introduced it to a whole new generation of open-minded music fans around the world.

And Guthrie did mention on this forum a long time ago that on the 'Friday Night in SF' album, Paco was the clear "winner" as far as he was concerned - not that it was really a competition. And I don't think you could argue with that. It's pretty clear to me as well that Paco's degree of control and musicality stand out above those fusion luminaries. Besides the mind-boggling chops, it's really the profound musicality and the creative ideas he employs outside of the traditional flamenco realm that Paco has to be commended for. I suspect that this aspect of Paco's artistry is what Guthrie would find the most admirable as well.

Reb Beach - Now, some of you may go, "Reb Beach?!?" , but Reb really is a great player who is sadly underrated and under-appreciated due to his association with the Winger of the 80's, where they became the poster child for pop-glam-metal ridicule - especially after the band name appearing on the T-shirt of a nerd appearing on MTV's 'Beavis & Butthead' program. Oh, well, it is what it is. The thing is, Reb is an amazing player and all the guys on Winger are great musicians. It's too bad they get the rap they do, but I suppose those 80's vids of Kip Winger dancing and preening make it hard to back them up.

Well, the truth is that Guthrie owns those 80's Winger albums because of Reb's playing and overall musicianship of the band and Guthrie has a high level respect for Reb as a guitar player. Perhaps Reb isn't the most original stylist from that era but he is certainly one of the most accomplished and that's why he has consistently stayed busy as a hired gun for bands such as Whitesnake, Dokken, and Night Ranger as well as Winger. And, yes, Reb also plays some mean fusion as well.

Reb is a natural who has not lost one iota of his chops from his 80's heydays and his tone, phrasing and musicality have continued to improve throughout the years. I saw him do a couple of clinics at Tone Merchants last year during NAMM and I was damn impressed. He plays with a heavy gained-out 80's tone, but it still sounded full and organic and his clarity and sense of time were simply impeccable. I loved his rhythm playing as well. Call him a "guilty pleasure" if you'd like, but Reb is a great player and a consummate pro.

Tuck Andress - I can't say I've listened to a lot of Tuck, but Guthrie is apparently very intrigued by what Tuck does and has even done his own rendition of Tuck's version of Michael Jackson's 'Man In The Mirror' on an acoustic. People often forget what a great fingerstylist that Guthrie is and Guthrie draws from masters like Joe Pass, Martin Taylor, Tuck, and other post-Hedges acoustic popping-slapping-tapping stylists like the late Eric Roche, Preston Reed, and Thomas Leeb. Here's hoping that we will get to hear more of this aspect of Guthrie's all-encompassing style in the next album and in the future in general.

Angus Young - Angus is the quintessential classic hard rock guitarist. If you can't appreciate what he does, you're probably not a real rock guy. I don't know if it's even appropriate to try to describe what he does. It just all speaks for itself - balls-to-the-wall rock guitar. Now I'm not the type who'll pop in 'Back to Black' or 'Highway to Hell' in the car CD player very often, but their stuff comes up everywhere all the time anyway and their music always puts a smile on my face. The stuff is timeless and never sounds dated.

Angus is another guy Guthrie mentioned at the recent GIT clinic as one who has that "angry" mid-heavy tone that cuts through the mix like a hot knife through butter. Guthrie was talking about the tonal characteristics of Mahogany on his new Signature guitar to the audience and how it had this nasally and honky tone which was ideally suited for that angry rock sound. And he's absolutely right. Mahogany has it - from Gary Moore's Les Paul to Angus Young's SG, you hear that barking aggression.

Someone like Angus Young rounds out who Guthrie is as a player in a very nice way and also defines who Guthie is as a musician. Once again, it's that rock attitude: rebelliousness and aggression. Yeah, Guthrie can play breathtakingly fast with ease and grace and play all these beautiful sophisticated lines and improvise like the most advanced jazz/fusion players, but at heart, Guthrie is still a blues-based rocker who's just having fun and letting it all hang out with attitude and lots of emotion. What makes Guthrie so much fun is that he's so open-minded and absorbs every style of music imaginable like a sponge and assimilates them into his own unique playing style and musical identity.

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You know, I think this pretty much wraps it up. There are some other greats I could mention like Albert Lee, Frank Gambale, Billy Gibbons, The Edge, Robin Trower, Leslie West, Steve Stevens, and many more, but I don't really know what more commentary I could add. Maybe during this upcoming clinic tour in the summer, I'll get some more insights into who else Guthrie is into, but I think I covered a bunch pretty well - at least from my perspective. If you guys have anyone else you want to mention that you hear in Guthrie's playing, please do so.

I'll add more if I can think of others and if Guthrie mentions some players I may have overlooked. Thanks for reading and I'm glad to know that you guys have been enjoying my ramblings.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[ShadyDavey]

Thoroughly enjoyed that indeed - thanks for taking the time to write such a clear and concise article. Reminds me in some ways of the clarity of Guthrie's writing in Creative Guitar by being visceral and intellectual at the same time.

Which is I suppose great rock guitar in a nutshell

[MAXtheGuitarlover]

Wow! This is truely a cool post!
Enjoyed reading it! Thanks A LOT for taking the time for doing this, Ed!

[chelmsford123]

This post makes entertaining reading, but it is generally fiction. Here's what really happened in the Shred years and just after.

The 'Shred' years - 1987-1989 (signature guitar - Ibanez RG550)

Steve Vai
Guthrie was a huge Steve Vai fan. 'Eat ‘Em And Smile' was a breakthrough album because it introduced Guthrie the Zappa weirdo kid to the Van Halen influenced would-be shredders in the local guitar community.

Joe Satriani
Guthrie was the one who discovered Satch. I still have my copy-of-a-copy tape of Not of This Earth (complete with a purple penned track list). We bought Surfing With The Alien the day it came out. This is how Guthrie was introduced to the joys of the Floyd Rose.

Yngwie J Malmsteen
One of the kids we used to hang around with really 'got' the Malmsteen thing way more than Guthrie did. It is well documented that this scared him into practicing so he could keep up. The first four YJM albums were in constant rotation in those days. Guthrie liked the following few YJM albums more than the rest of us did.

Tony Macalpine
The first two Tony Macalpine albums were hugely influential. Some of you Chelmsfordians may remember Guthrie and Seth performing Autumn Lords at a school music show.

Cacophony
Speed metal was all around us, and Cacophony was the first band who really took shred to the thrash metal extreme. Guthrie always, from day one, preferred Jason Becker to Marty Friedman, but both Cacophony and both solo albums were big influences.

Ronnie Le Tekro
If you ask Guthrie to name his favorite albums of all time, he will tell you about TNT's Tell No Tales. At one point he used to rave about other albums by saying they were, quote, “up there with Tell No Tales”. The combination of an in your face guitar sound, with decent melody and (way) over the top shredding was just perfect.

Billy Sheehan and Stu Hamm
Guthrie is a pretty good bass player. However, he was interested in Billy and Stu from a musician's point of view. Billy Sheehan not only played on two of Guthrie's favorite albums of the time, but he introduced us to crazy tapping techniques. Stu Hamm took the tapping to the next level and introduced us to slap. The track 'Rhode Island Shred' was actually written in response to Stu Hamm's 'Country Music'.

Paul Gilbert/Racer X
Guthrie was the first of us to discover Paul Gilbert, but Street Lethal was not really a favorite album. It was when Scarified appeared on a Shrapnel compilation that interest in Racer X grew. The double guitar thing was interesting to Guthrie because (a) he was never really that into Iron Maiden or Judas Priest and (b) although Cacophony was cool it was really just two independent guitarists.

Alan Holdsworth
Most of us did not really understand Alan Holdsworth, but Guthrie was attracted to his weirdness. The first Stu Hamm album, the Level 42 stuff and the fact that Eddie Van Halen rated him drew in Guthrie.

Other
We all listened to Metallica (but Guthrie only really listened to the first three albums and then only for Cliff and James). Testament (Alex Skolnick) were another thrash favorite. Iron Maiden was omnipresent - most notably for Guthrie due to his sister being a big Maiden fan. All of the Shrapnel stuff made its way onto our walkmans (walkmen ?) but the two that really stood out at the tail end of the shred era were Richie Kotzen and Greg Howe.

The 'Post-Shred' years - 1990-1994 (signature guitar - Paul Reed Smith)

Dream Theatre
By this time, Guthrie had grown weary of Metallica. He was the first of us to discover Dream Theatre. The combination of digital effects, metal, shred and melody was a big influence - but most importantly we learned that a band where every member can keep up is superior to a band which has only a good guitar player.

Frank Gambale
It wasn't so much the technique that drew Guthrie to Frank Gambale as the style of music. This was the point that Guthrie became aware that shredding had a place outside of rock and metal.

Van Halen
For some reason, Guthrie really connected with For Unlawful.. He was, by then, familiar with all of the previous VH material, but he never really got into it until now.

Eric Johnson
By now, the whole neoclassical thing was over as was the speed-metal thing. Eric Johnson allowed Guthrie to see that great guitar playing could be applied to many different styles of music, from country to pop. Ah Via Musicom and Tones were faves of the time.

Jan Cyrka
When Jan Cyrka came out with 'Beyond the Common Ground' it brought a dose of reality. Here was someone local who had put together a band and recorded an album of instrumental music. Guthrie was a little jealous of his band, but this motivated him to get his own thing started (he scored Pete Riley in the end !).

Paul Gilbert/Mr Big
Guthrie was always a huge Billy Sheehan fan, and when he teamed up with Paul Gilbert the results were unexpected. I think the first Mr Big album effectively brought the neoclassical era to a close for many people - and Guthrie welcomed this new sound.

Nuno Bettencourt
Of the post-shred players, Nuno was probably the 'biggest' in the UK at the time. He was hard to avoid. Guthrie mastered his string-skipping and tapping techniques, but he also got sucked into the 'acoustic' pop thing for a brief period. The first time Guthrie met Phil Hilbourne, he showed him the correct way to play Get The Funk Out.

Ron Thal
Mike Varney found Ron at about the same time as he found Guthrie. The first we heard of Ron was Chopin Fantasie from Ominous Guitarists From the Unknown. Clearly his style, prowess and technique stood out from the other Shrapnel people. The rest of the story is legend ....

Other
The Infectious Grooves, RHCP and Primus were of interest, but primarily for the bass playing. At this time Seth and Tom Jenkinson were taking turns playing in funk/metal bands and Guthrie was exposed to this. Given that the alternative at the time was generally anti-guitar rock, funk/metal was somewhat of a safe haven.

[alexkhan]

That's interesting to get the insights from someone who grew up with Guthrie. Thanks for the post! As I said, my posts are my own perceptions (i.e., speculations) based on the few interviews I've read and some spotty conversations I've had with him over the past 5 years or so. And, what I hear in Guthrie's playing and music, which needs no factual basis... Overall, based on what you're saying, I don't think I'm very far off in regards to the shred years and someone like EJ. I certainly wouldn't have known about Ronnie Le Tekro and I never heard Guthrie mention DT or Nuno. Kind of surprised that Lane isn't mentioned in the 'Post-Shred' years. BTW, any insights on 1994-present?
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[alexkhan]

I want to add that, regarding Vai, I don't have any doubts that he was a major influence when Guthrie was in his mid-teens, but it's 20+ years later now. The same for Yngwie, MacAlpine, Racer X, Cacophony and all those other Shrapnel shredders. I was really into all that stuff as well in the 80's but I doubt I'll ever listen to that stuff again. We all evolve, mature, and our tastes change. To me, Guthrie doesn't sound like Vai at all. Perhaps he did some 15~20 years ago or even as recently as 5~10 years ago, but he certainly doesn't sound like Vai now. That's mainly what I was getting at.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[sumis]

ronni le tekro was way ahead of most of the pack on the two first tnt albums. extremeley inventive playing, great sound and conviction. i listened to his solos and riffs for days on end.

i heard a recent solo album of his, which was awful ...

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