I think the stylistic variety comes from the fact that I love so many different kinds of music and I`ve played with a lot of different kinds of artists. I`ve played with a salsa band, a blues band, numerous pop bands, and an avant-garde jammy classical-jazz band.
I wanted to record this album as a band. The intensity and energy you get from recording as a band is far superior than to that of using hired guns. Being very influenced by bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X etc., I wanted the new material to be more aggressive and somewhat progressive, however still keeping everything very melodic.
All Latin or world music requires a very strong groove even if it is slow. That was a challenge since I am coming from a rock/fusion area. It helped my playing that way. Also when it came to soloing, I could not rely on my legato technique as much since it would not come out as well. Thus I worked on my alternate picking for a few months before the recording.
I have always played because I love the guitar and now since 1994, when I again started being in charge of the projects I was involved in I have felt the freedom to make the music I want to make and that I personally enjoy.
Everyone wants to be loved, and for a musician guitar player that means to be heard and loved with unbiased ears. I want to keep the freedom I`ve attained by being a guitarist. That outlaw time zone I mentioned. It`s an achievement that`s ongoing, you could say I have achieved it, but you have to stay on the case, because things can change on any given day. You can`t let creativity stop.
Actually I started playing flamenco before playing electric guitar. It`s always been a love of mine. Unfortunately, when you`re doing pop records, I`d bring it out. The response I`d get is, `Save it for your own record.` So I have my own flamenco record which came out a couple of months ago.
Well, this a great time for bands and independent record labels. The exposure is endless and the quality is so much better than even 10 years ago. I think bands will get smart and start to depend less on the company to put it in stores and see more of the future music listeners downloading the album. This would cost less for the buyer and give more to the band.
I think that for these great guitar magazines the most important thing is to sell copies, so they are "compelled" to put on covers and dedicate as much space as they can to the most famous guitarists -- in fact, there are always the same names featured! It would be cool to some day see a cover with all the undiscovered ones!
For me it`s the biggest challenge to stand out from the rest of the bands out there. The market is so full of bands out there these days! There must be at least 100 new albums coming out every month, just for metal music. So, imagine how hard it is to make a difference!
If I want to compose neoclassical metal, I would be listening and analyzing all the CDs that I`ve got in my collection. Then I am ready to absorb all these influences into my playing and my compositions. The good thing is that the final result is totally different from the tunes that I listened to for inspiration.
I was on mp3.com for a while, but my opinion of the web is that piracy seems to be the end result of all the freebies, so we are staying with pressings even though they get copied and sent out for free. I`m a professional recording artist, so I`m committed to charging for my work.
I usually will come up with ideas by throwing on my drum machine and just playing riffs, or by sitting in front of the TV and getting inspiration from whatever is on. I wrote the song "The Fugitive" while watching the movie of the same name. All the action was incredible, and the song turned out to be just as intense.
