In high school I was a jazz nerd, listened to a lot of Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk and stuff like that. Maybe in Harry Pussy I was listening to more horn players.
I had opportunities to play with other people and give my self some sort of security, but for some reason I wanted to play solo and just put it out there.
I was working at eBay, so I would just troll the vintage categories, find old amps and what have you. I was buying a fair amount of stuff and playing with it and then selling it back.
There’s a difference between music that’s original and music that’s retro. A lot of bands now are kind of retro 70s whether it’s Kraut-rock or… I’ve heard people suggest that we’re kind of retro 80s.
It’s hard to go out in front of people with an acoustic guitar and improvise for 30 or 40 minutes, but I had a compulsion to do it. I just had to in a way that I can’t really explain.
I’m uptight in general, and it’s hard for me to play in a situation where I’m not rehearsed or I feel like I’m not prepared. So it’s always hard for me to come away from those and think it was the best thing I could do.
I definitely have a different perspective on music in general. But once I actually have a guitar in my hands, I think I disappear into the same black hole that I was disappearing into when I was 15.
So a lot of traditional rock sounds, you can’t play them. But to be honest, there was no particular intention when I started playing with four strings. It just worked out that way and it sounded cool.
