Guitar Villains
Guitar Villains
Tim Henson on Hendrix Inventing Rap, Bad Instagram Guitarists, and Acid Trip Art
Today’s guitar villain is Tim Henson. An innovator of the guitar and a no-nonsense straight-shooter, Tim has cemented himself in the guitar world as a cutting edge riff-writer, combining elements of tapping, slapping, harmonics, and rhythmic displays second to none. Fronting his instrumental prog outfit Polyphia, Tim has produced some of the most unique and fun guitar moments to fill your eardrums with, and the only thing more refreshing than his music is his no-bullshit demeanor. You’re gonna enjoy this one, so let’s kick off this episode of Guitar Villains. WARNING: Explicit content.
Intro and Tim Henson's supervillain alter-ego: 0:00
Burning Questions: 17:03
Tim's Guitar Approach – Hooks and Flexes: 19:35
Blending rap and instrumental music: 23:50
A bad acid trip yields a great music video: 26:20
Name Those Notes: 30:00
Tim's love of Jimi Hendrix: 37:27
New Polyphia music: 41:06
Tim's unique guitar technique: 44:46
The hardest and easiest thing about guitar: 49:29
Tim's favorite airplane album: 54:34
Tim's dream band: 55:20
Tim's supervillain advice: 1:00:05
Follow Polyphia on YouTube: http://bit.ly/Polyphia_GV
Follow Tim on YouTube: http://bit.ly/Tim_GV
Sign up for Guitar Super System, the most popular independent guitar learning platform on the internet: http://bit.ly/GVTH003
attention this episode of guitar villains contains strong profanity and some drug references you've been warned welcome to guitar villains i'm your host tyler larson why guitar villains you ask because villains are cooler than heroes it's just a fact this is podcast by guitar players for guitar players and throughout this series we will talk to some of the most creative and innovative minds in the guitar community find out what makes them tick while all the while becoming better guitar players ourselves thank you for watching the video podcast here on youtube and you can also listen to the podcast on spotify itunes or wherever else you get your podcasts today's guitar villain is tim henson an innovator of the guitar and a no-nonsense straight shooter tim has cemented himself in the guitar world as a cutting edge riff rider that combines elements of tapping slapping harmonics and rhythmic devices second to none fronting his instrumental prague outfit politia tim has produced some of the most unique and fun guitar moments to fill your eardrums with and the only thing more refreshing than his music is his no [ __ ] demeanor you're gonna enjoy this one so let's kick off this episode of guitar[Music] villains[Music][Applause] welcome to guitar villains the show where we deconstruct and decode the guitar and tim the first thing i want to know is i know you don't have a drink right now but what is your drink of choice at the bar or in the studio um i i'm a red wine guy um i haven't actually been drinking too much during the pandemic for i don't know why i think it's just i'm not like leaving the house so like i don't but i used to drink all the time before the pandemic you know because i always be on tour and what else is there to do other than drink so um but yeah yeah red wine would be would be by drink of choice i saw you drinking some red wine in your uh dimarzio pickup video and i think a lot of people didn't realize i think you might have been joking in that video the entire time oh dude i was drunk as hell i was very[ __ ] up for that video wow okay makes that i mean you're playing sounded great so maybe that was like the the guys people wouldn't get it well we kind of shot a bit of the playing before we started drinking but then like um we just did our best after that i got you i tried hennessy the other night um for the first time oh really yeah like i i i guess it's like a staple um in like hip-hop sessions um and uh i just figured like when in rome and so um yeah it wasn't it wasn't great i wouldn't recommend it oh goodness but um you know it'll sure get you [ __ ] up yeah like a cognac i i had a hennessy manhattan once have you had a manhattan before uh it's uh it's primarily a whiskey drink and they call it a manhattan because of the area code 212. it's two shots of whiskey one shot of sweet vermouth two dashes of bitters i had it with hennessy and yeah just like you're saying i guess the rappers have you know the secrets out but like if you really want to feel numb then yeah it kind of burns a bit um it's definitely uh it's definitely a pretty like manly drink i guess just because like they just they were just shooting it just drinking from the bottle you know and i was like yeah i certainly couldn't couldn't do that um but uh yeah i like to drink wine because it's an easy way to get drunk because i don't care for drinking you know like that's i actually hate it i just like being drunk you know and um and it's pretty easy to gauge like where you are with the wine so that you don't get like too drunk but i i guess that's like my choice of uh choice of drink there got you well we do things a little bit differently on this show we're gonna play some games i'm gonna try to get to the bottom of what makes you tick as a musician and hopefully you'll have a great time and maybe the next time you guys roll through nashville you can swing by the studio and we can do this in person over a glass of wine yeah that sounds dope i actually don't know anybody in nashville so oh hit me up next time you're through we i was gonna see you guys uh before the [ __ ] pandemic cancelled life um you guys we were gonna actually stop by i was talking to your um your manager or whoever but uh anyway we'll we'll table that for next time yeah uh so the show's called guitar villains because i think villains are cooler than heroes and i've always found the villain characters are deeper and more memorable so the first thing i want to ask is out of all movie or comic book or video game villains out there who would you say you identify with the most that could be something as simple as appearance or as nuanced as character trait and i can give you my answer for which villain i think you're most like and you can respond with a different choice or agree yeah let's go let's start with that okay so i think that you are most like the lich king from world of warcraft because the lich king is a he's hell-bent on extinguishing all life and correct me if i'm wrong but you were on the record tim saying you hope guitar music dies a slow painful death do i have that right yeah okay so the thing about the lich king too is that dying would actually be a welcome end because otherwise the reanimated corpse of your followers would be standing by your side as your soulless undead champions and they would be destroying everything in their path and i think that kind of describes your fans like an army of undead zombies waiting to see what you do next i i'm looking at the art of this guy and he definitely looks like a badass so um that's that's pretty cool i guess i'll address that um thing uh i guess what i meant by that i'll just kind of give some backstory there um so we're like on tour in the uk and this interview happens and uh i have no idea who this interview is with nor do i really like i just don't care for the interviews you know okay and um it's right after soundcheck and i wake up for soundcheck and then i go back to sleep for nap time you know that's like my routine and because there was a surprise interview i guess it wasn't a surprise but it was a surprise to me um i was pretty grumpy um i had a case of the grumpys um and uh you know because that's like my nap right and um so it's me scott and evette young because she's on tour with us and she's a good friend of ours and uh she's taking the interview very seriously which is great because i don't have to right at least one person is taking the interview seriously um and i'm kind of saying like whatever which i realize now is not a great idea because one i don't even think this like mag i think it was total guitar what was one of the guitar magazines yeah i don't remember yeah i had no idea like if that's like a uk thing or what but like it's not something that i'm familiar with but once one publishes it then guitar world and ultimate guitar and all the other ones that i do know will run with it so um i guess that clarify obviously like that's a pretty like click baby headline yeah i'll say and like obviously i i enjoy guitar music and and the key word there is this is kind of just me like being a snob is the music part of it yeah yeah i enjoyed the music part of it like so for example let's take an album like three goblins erotic cakes um this incredible [ __ ] out it serves a purpose it's like the guitar is you know playing music um i guess what i meant by that quote was i hope that like guitar nonsense dies painful death um which by nonsense i mean like no i i mean you don't even have to clarify it it makes sense and yeah like it's not like i mean there's so many people just like posting [ __ ] it's you're just not playing any you're not really playing anything you know like just like take take a step back and realize that like you know like the guitar is a means to an end it's the end is music right the guitar is a tool and so many people are treating it like it's not you know like they're forgetting about the music part entirely yeah the way i interpreted it is you hope the riffraff dies out and just it becomes less about a competition of creating the most amazing guitar flurry and actually using because you know guys like guthrie or steve vi or people like that they wield the power but they don't constantly overuse it and you're saying maybe the[ __ ] that's over playing can go away and that's yeah yeah and you know it's like a pretty subjective thing you know there's there's people that are going to watch this and say well well tim you played the most [ __ ] music of all music music of all um and and i can't disagree with you there you know like it's that's your opinion and uh you know people just got really mad at mine and of course like you know that was my fault for not like really clarifying and not taking that interview seriously and um you know just after all this time you know i think um are you familiar with the rapper six nine sure okay so i i was just talking about this with herman on herman lee on his stream and um i think he's like a good example of like what not to do uh in terms of like you know he kind of for so long like his like rise to people knowing about him was to be hated you know to be disliked right um he was like the most dislikable person you could dislike right and that was kind of like his shtick and i think that only works for so long i think it only works to like be noticed you know and you know at some point in time you continue that and um you're just a dislikable person and and that kind of was evident just recently when he dropped his most recent album and he was competing with big sean for the number one album and it was projected that big sean was gonna do about a hundred and six nine was supposed to do 150 000 sales first week and what happened was big sean did like 103 got number one and six nine did like 50 which you know 50 000 first week is still a very large number don't get me wrong yeah but it wasn't what it was one third of what was projected you know i mean um his last album did way better and i think people just like kind of got tired of his [ __ ] you know so to that i say uh you know it's not the best thing to be dislikable um for that long uh yeah i i feel you on that one that's for sure it's it's back to your question i definitely like this lich king character just aesthetically he looks super cool um i think the the villains i identify with the most would be and this is not to say that i like share any of these like ideals or like anything these are all positive qualities of the villains on this show yes yeah yeah um have you seen are you an anime watcher yeah okay have you seen berserk berserk i i definitely here's the thing i used to draw like sketch a lot and that's what actually got me into anime so i i would probably recognize and that name sounds familiar but fill me in okay so in berserk there's a villain by the name of griffith um and then there's another anime called devilman crybaby um or just devilman is like the original one from the 80s and the villain in that one his name is rio and they both play the same kind of villain where um i guess they're like supposed to be like super pretty boy whatever the [ __ ] but just like almost angelic um and you know i'm gonna i'm gonna spoil it here so if you haven't seen any of these just like i don't know skip like a minute or two from now um rio and devilman crybaby is actually satan um he just turns out to be satan like they just reveal that at the end um and he's you know satan is an angel um and so he's like very beautiful in that way and actually you know he he become you know like angels are like genderless um and in the show i guess they gave him two genders uh like towards the end there where he had both boobs and the dick yeah it was just like a really cool thing to see that kind of like a trans representation like in an anime but um yeah the whole angel thing and then and then like griffith is like i guess part of the god hand which would make him like the fifth fallen angel or some [ __ ] but um it's pretty dark they both do like really [ __ ] [ __ ] because uh you know they're they're like one is satan and the other one is kind of like satan um in the sense where they like just destroy the whole world and [ __ ] but um they just have like an era like a an aura of like coolness to them that i admire you know like obviously none of the bad things like killing the entire world and stuff like that um no human sacrifices for you yeah none of the like super demonic stuff but like you know that like when they walk around like like before like griffith goes into like super like demon angel mode like he's like a very well respected like character in the show like everyone like very much wants to be around him um they're like drawn to him same thing with like rio um that just very smart very i guess likeable and like charismatic you know yeah i like and then they try [ __ ][ __ ] asses but yeah well i i definitely that makes sense with the imagery that you kind of convey i don't know if you do the artwork or the this this right here is just rio as satan on my arm um i just i [ __ ] with that character so much and it's like that and then this right here actually kind of this is skull king he kind of looks like um lich king okay yeah a lot so yeah i do i i do [ __ ] with your comparison so that's manage you imagery wise at least you know i just had um i think you're probably friends with jason richardson he's played with you guys um yeah he's a good homie he was shown he was talking about his tattoos as well it's becoming a theme on this show the tattoo is showing yeah man it's cool i can't give too much away i haven't even done that on my own channel and i know i know the kids are asking oh yeah dude i mean i'm sure i'm sure everyone's curious so we got we got a little sneak preview there for the full gamut so i want to play a little uh a little segment here i call this burning questions[Music] these are rapid fire questions that if you were to conduct some sort of live master class or a live stream where anybody could ask you anything they want regarding music these are the questions that they would ask you instead of asking you like about guitar playing or secrets and wisdom or anything else that could help them become a better guitar player they would no doubt spam you with these questions which don't totally matter but for some reason must be answered okay got it i'll do my best all right what gauge pick do you use uh 1.14 point one four what gauge strings do you use uh 10 to 52 on a sixth string and then whatever the equivalent of that is on a seventh and an eighth what's your number one guitar uh the thbb-10 my signature guitar makes sense what's your favorite amp i don't know i've never actually played an ant like that like owned an amp like a i guess the only amp i've ever owned was like a pd ultra like way back in the day and then i i think we like we're playing like 50 150 combo amps for a little bit but then after that it was just like right now like we play orange but it's the axe effects running through the orange so it's all right what's your favorite guitar pedal um the whammy pedal is pretty cool oh yeah the digi technology i'm gonna say the wall pedal the wah pedal yeah those are two great choices um can you can you lean forward tiny bit it's sort of glitching out yeah yeah you want me oh yeah there you go there you go that's the perfect spot oh word so the the camera is doing something like weird[ __ ] like uh yeah okay so i i'm not gonna try and get into the same [ __ ] i feel like everyone asks you where like where's the guitar going tim why aren't there more guitar heroes uh why isn't the guitar the same instrument as it was in the 80s i just think that whole conversation is kind of tired and maybe you do too um but what i think is very interesting about your approach from what i've gathered is you're not really like you're an excellent guitar player but i don't necessarily know if you're a guitar player first you're more of like a hook writer and i feel like the basis of your playing and it's it's really interesting and unique uh it lies like a very simple catchy motif underneath all of your cool riffs uh would you say that's your approach most of the time or am i just imagining things yeah i mean i definitely would you know like there to be something to latch on to you know and that's what a hook is it hooks you in um in music that i create and uh you know that's not to say that all of it is like that but in the in the ones where i specifically you know like intended to be catchy like i try and make it catchy um but yeah i mean like being a guitar player kind of just like that's kind of my fallback right um in terms of like writing music it's like okay well i'm like feeling a dry spell of creation and creativity i take time to get better at guitar and learn new things to kind of re-spark the imagination if that makes sense um and then you know first and foremost like yeah i try and like start simple and then expand so if you can make a melody and a chord progression sound good on like the stock omnisphere preset which is just like a saw synth or some [ __ ] like it's just the most basic stock sounding thing if you can make a melody and chord progression sound good on that when it's translated to a guitar it's going to sound incredible you know and then like all you have to do from there is just flex a little bit here and there like to kind of add flair if that makes sense um like to to keep obviously like a a lot a very large portion of polyps fan bases guitar players you know so they're very easily entertained with the flexing parts so as long as like the meat of the hook is there the flexing parts are kind of like the cherry on top if that makes sense are the flexing parts as satisfying or do you feel like sometimes you are like i need to flex a little bit more here to cater or do you not even think about your fans when you write music just sounds like the way you're describing it you're like analyzing how your fans feel about the move the music that uh that's kind of an afterthought it's more so how do i feel about it yeah you know and sometimes like yeah i mean like the the ideally the the flexes should be very satisfying in terms of like okay all i need to do is like take this two bars out here and replace it with very like a very creative fill per se you know um so that like when it when you lose like the familiarity it's just oh my god what's happening and then it [ __ ] lands like very satisfyingly yeah you know um or like it lands in a place that you don't expect a lot of the times what i like to do is like have [ __ ] like come like hit on like the two instead of the one um so that like it just throws you off but like it still like catches itself back in the pocket um and uh yeah you know things like that like just like creative surprises that are like pl like pleasant surprises you know totally and it seems interesting you sort of um are kind of like the rapper of the guitar community um you know it's it seems like some of that influence i assume you listen to a lot of rap uh that's mostly what i said mostly it's it feels like that kind of informs the the riffs that you write in a way um and i think blending genres has been like an inevitable part of musical evolution forever um but what's interesting about politia is not many instrumental bands have awesome music videos they're usually just like a huge jack fest of like a guitar player standing in a dark room or like uh some hell asylum with smoke and fans blowing everywhere um which as far as i'm concerned only steve is allowed to do that but you guys have a really cool blend not just with your music but also the visual elements like that i think makes hip-hop so attractive is that something that is is drawn for that are you just creative in that way you see instrumental music videos in a different lens um yeah like this there's definitely a lot of hip-hop influence like visually uh right now it's kind of we're like in between albums right now where we're like just kind of finishing up this new one so everything prior to this kind of feels like i'm not so proud of it anymore as i once was when it first came out you know yeah like looking back on like a lot of um just everything uh somehow kind of feels a bit cringe but um you know like yeah like visually you know i'm more proud of like the the last three singles that we put out from the last album we put out um not so much look but don't touch because that was kind of just like a hey we need to drop some [ __ ] and let's just throw this together in a month and we'll have fun with it and like drop it on april fools so the video was like super wild and just nonsensical before that there was definitely like a theme to it like for example our song od um it's like the term comes from like i guess new york where they say od a lot um which basically just means like very i like or it's just a lot and that song has extra a lot of notes yes there's so many notes in that song um but we didn't spell it like odee which is like i guess how they do that but we just called it od for like overdose because like just prior to that i had like a [ __ ] insane as a trip that was like just really bad um and i i don't know i don't think you can overdose on acid but i think it just can just make you do things that are insane yeah yeah i mean that's i felt like i thought i was going to die like very you know in a not good way it was not a good trip at all like i just remember like the next day when i was like okay thinking how grateful i am to just be alive because like my mind was just not in a good spot the day before like of just thinking like you know things that aren't okay like yeah yeah yeah you know but like at the time it just seemed like a good idea um but you know thankfully everything was fine the next day but i just remember like just that was like one of the lowest points of my life was that acid trip and so i kind of like based the like od music video off of that trip where you know there's like a scene where i'm standing in a room filled with like butcher knives and like like there's that sounds horrifying just like splattered all over the room um and i'm just like playing guitar in this room that like is it's you know kind of just like all the like scenes from that video were just like [ __ ] i was tripping on really bad um [ __ ] so do you ever even want to watch that music video i mean yeah it's cool it's like the way we did it was cool and artistic so like it's you know yeah and i i often remind myself like yeah don't uh you know trip if you're not like in a good head space in general you know from that video so it's a good thing but um yeah you know it's it's definitely hip-hop inspired um in terms of just doing like doing things a bit different than like you normally would see in our kind of scene of music i guess totally today's episode of guitar villains is brought to you by guitar super system are you tired of youtube ads telling you that youtube guitar lessons suck me too i don't know about you but somebody setting an acoustic guitar on fire or teaching crappy cover songs in front of a musty black curtain feels a little disingenuous to me i'll get straight to the point join tens of thousands of other guitar players and visit guitarsupersystem.com to join the most popular independent guitar learning platform on the internet if you're a beginner there's an entire curriculum called a beginner's corner just for you if you're an expert the music theory and technique curriculums reach the highest levels of mastery and are based on industry standard learning methods i've used since graduating berkeley college of music if you're somewhere in the middle you're actually the perfect candidate the choose your destiny approach allows you to cater your learning experience to exactly what you want to accomplish whether that's improving your improvising ear training learning new techniques songwriting and more you'll also have access to private live streams lesson comments and a community forum for feedback as well as exclusive giveaways and new curriculum releases the best part is everything that i just mentioned is included in one monthly subscription and you can cancel any time or like a lot of people do upgrade your subscription to a yearly pass of course you can also just learn guitar right on youtube for free because youtube guitar lessons don't suck if you know where to look so check out guitarsupersystem.com now back to guitar villains[Music] well speaking of your music i want to transition into a little game and i call it name those notes[Music] so the concept here yeah high production value on this podcast tim um the concept of name those notes is pretty simple i'll play you a quick sequence of guitar notes from music that you have recorded over the years and you have to tell me what song those notes come from okay word we'll see we'll see if we can do this because there's like 50 plus songs that we have out well you may surprise yourself we're gonna see how well you know your catalog and how well you can recognize your guitar playing and it'll spur a little conversation about the music too so we're gonna start with something easy that i think you'll get and then we'll get progressively harder sound good cool all right here we go that is the worst that is indeed the worst from your album the most hated this is difficult you're like taking like snippets of licks that i could have just reused in any song well do you got it right away though so that's that's the thing about this it's uh it's it's interesting um but this album is actually my favorite politia album uh yeah it's kind of like if uh if ratatat had sex with drake and then somehow guthrie govind had an alien love child that nobody knew about and that alien love child had sex with the rattata drake baby word yeah that was definitely our most like experimental time and uh some some of like my favorite music as well i thought you were gonna say that's what we were going for yeah man that's it you nailed it yeah i i really like that but i i've read a couple you know you guys were afraid that maybe people wouldn't like it or something i thought it i thought it was very first it really wasn't it was really not well received i remember people just like kind of writing it off when we dropped it like there was absolutely zero like um i think maybe because it was an ep that people just didn't give a [ __ ] but like there was a lot of like non-interest you know and it took like a year and a half of like touring on it for people to start really [ __ ] with those songs um and it it kind of caught up super late because at the time you know it's like guitars and beats essentially that that record you know there's not too much real drums happening there you know right and at the time there just wasn't like a lot of kind of progressive guitar playing over beats and you fast forward to you know three years later to 2020 and like if you look on instagram that's all it is yeah it's great i mean you guys we're definitely of forerunners in that way i think really influential it's a little ahead of its time um but you know i'm proud of it i like that record a lot okay awesome let's go on to the next one you ready here we go[Applause] that's lit that was easier ah lit i love that that little hook um a lot of this earlier stuff and this is this isn't your is this your first prolific release or there was something before our second full-length a remix that we remixed ourselves with the help of like low file um from our second album a lot of this earlier stuff was like major oriented like major key and really slippery in like a reflection of the moment in time when it was released and i don't know i've i don't know if you guys have purposely moved a little bit away from this style uh as far as like the the kind of happier major tonality or what the thought process there was like we used to be like very death or death metal in the sense that we had a shitload of blast beats this is like even before we were jammed right um in like 2013 like and when i was still in high school like it was like we were abandoning like we were playing like death metal um and so there was a lot of like like this[ __ ] going on you know yeah um and just a lot of atonal stuff and so we wanted to move so far away from that that we cut out all the atonal things and only kept the melodic things and then eventually we wanted to remove the blast beats and the double bass and the like any kind of heaviness so we started just kind of focusing like on on like pop structure and pop sensibility and with that came you know like oh we can't really do any like dark sounding stuff because it's going to be like metal it's going to be like heavy you know and we didn't really want to like be in that you know and then as we like got better at what we were doing we realized we can make dark sounding [ __ ] without it being metal um and like goat was kind of the first thing like that where it was like dark without being metal because it was mostly like trap influenced you know right and it was just a difficult thing for me to kind of figure out how we were going to like implement like technical guitar playing into like dark not as melodic trap because like it's easy to um you know play anything with like lots of chords and lots of like melody to latch onto like with guitar like if you're just playing along to like a radio song it's very easy to do that when there's lots of chords to latch on to but when you only have like one or two to bounce back off of and they're not very melodic sounding it's super difficult so um once we realized we can do that then we started switching to more like of just different vibes that we wanted to hit because we realized it didn't have to be categorized into oh this is metal sounding or whatever totally yeah that restriction of the harmony kind of blooms some interesting results that you guys just like you outlined is uh that's really interesting thought process i didn't think of it that way all right let's move on to another one ready all right let's kill it i thought that would be a nice little segue into uh to talk about uh congrats on the most gawked at riff uh of the guitar community in the past year tim you did it thank you that not that that wasn't really my intention when making that riff no of course not um i'm glad that people gawk at it yeah it it like i mean this tune perfectly captures your guitar playing what i what i think is unique about it um and i want to go out on the limb here even though like it doesn't sonically sound like it in any way are you as into jimi hendrix as i am okay okay i wasn't sure i i didn't really i couldn't find i do research for these shows and i was trying to find i couldn't really find as much stuff on you as as certain other people but um you know some people are like yeah hendrix is great but like i'm really really in to him and you know i just hear a lot of his tendencies in the combination of rhythm and lead work uh in your playing and like where the melodic and harmonic pieces of the phrases fall together um you know it just seems like that's a huge compliment to me i he is my absolute favorite guitar player of all time um and nice i look up to him in every way possible you know he he was pretty much you know like a lot of people will hate me for saying this and this will probably be one of those dumbass headlines but he was pretty much like you know drake back that you know i mean like how drake is now where he headlines [ __ ] everything and just like one of the biggest artists in the world like hendrix was that like as just as big as it gets and he was a guitar player you know like with dope songs like oh yeah i i would take it okay i might actually make some [ __ ] up headlines but i i've been toying with this idea and you just kind of gave me the the means to say it but i have been thinking about how hendricks maybe is responsible in part or in entirely for hip-hop because i never heard somebody talk over like rock songs you know like how he would kind of sing talk like talk saying whatever i don't know if that existed before him in a mo in a worldwide way you know what i mean absolutely dude and i think i think like the embodiment of hendrix was just like i'm sorry just hendrix was like the embodiment of like cool yeah like the word cool like all of its connotations like it was just cool as[ __ ] like the coolest thing you could eat was like hendrix you know and then like i think like hip-hop has taken you know like that's that's kind of how i view hip-hop is like it's just one of the coolest things like you know um vibe wise and everything and like hendrix just i just love hendrix so much man like i i think about him in that way of like he was like the rappers back then yeah you know what the rappers are now is like what hendrix was back then just a [ __ ] like the coolest superstar you could be because like it wasn't like bubble gum i mean like it wasn't like the the most like it was raw i mean easy to tell [ __ ] it was like are you experienced like you know what i mean like once you listen to it it's like oh [ __ ] i'm experienced now you know it was it was just the coolest [ __ ] thing i admire hendrix so much yeah i can't wait for the uh the hawaii concert to come out that have you seen that the um the maui live in maui concert that's coming out in october um yeah it's all this like super high definition unreleased footage of a concert that he played um i'm really looking forward to that all right man one more uh one more song here and this will this will close out this segment you ready here we go[Music] off the new album i think i i think i'm actually like no arc catalog way too well for anything to trick me up yeah man you got that right so i don't know what that's called i just found it on your youtube channel and it's like a teaser for for the fourth album that's all i have what what it let's let's use this as a transition to talk about uh whatever you can with your uh with what you guys are working on currently so that song is done um i i like wrote an email the other day to our team talking about maybe we should just drop it like and give the fans something to like chew on while we're finishing the rest of the album um i think we're gonna be a little a little more strategic than that but um just yeah that song is really cool you can drop it in my inbox that's fine word i might um yeah so wes houck uh is on that song a bit um he helps with with some of the writing there uh it it takes a turn like halfway through into like a vibe we haven't really hit before which is um i don't know the the term for it's almost like it's not tango and it's not like i don't know there's it's like a specific chord progression that's like we have not like hit that kind of vibe before and it gets really cool um but i'm incredibly stoked on that song and i think people i think our fans are going to dig it quite a bit um well it had kind of like a latin like bossa nova feel yes bossa nova is the word so so like it gets really bossa nova like in the second half it kind of like beat switches a bit right on up and it gets really bossa nova um and it like gets hard bossing over to where you're like while also still bossa nova in you know there's that genre blending that's cool i can't wait to hear that is there a name for it can you say or it's just the the bossanova we can leave it at that so currently it's just called batch that like that's a working title it's not like at all what we're going to call it but um the reason it's called batch is because i started that riff um in a session with uh happy mellow and i'm not sure if you're familiar with him but he's a guitarist producer who um who was it what was the name heavy mellow heavy mellow he like plays with melanie faye a lot um and uh like he's he's done like a lot of cool things he did like a bunch of stuff on my calls these badlands um and just plays like he plays guitar and produces like really well so like we're doing this session together and we're not really you know making art making anything for any particular artist and um like i like we sat down i'm like you want to give me some chords because he has like the coolest chord ideas ever um and he just like he gave me like four chords and then i um i was like okay those are fire and then i added some more chords to it and then just like built that riff kind of just right there um and because i was doing it on the nylon um i was like damn this is kind of like bach a little bit um but not really at all but i was just like i need to like hit save and call it something so that like my files don't end up just on my desktop right you know like after every take of this um so i just like called it batch uh as like a shitty way of saying bach so that's the working title story there all right well we'll see what it's called uh whenever this thing drops um i want to talk a little bit about your technique my audience is starving to get a little peek uh inside your mind when it comes to some of the really cool guitar work you've done over the years i know you were forced by your parents to play violin as a very young child which i've heard you mentioned you hated but i think it's interesting the sort of orchestral tendencies that you exhibit and i you know you're very much a fingerstyle player with some hybrid picking and traditional picking woven in but it's almost like a like a violin a piano and a bass had sex and then that offspring had sex with an eight-string guitar and your your skills were born there's a lot of sex in this podcast i don't know why um yeah i don't know i don't know is this is this something that you think about like your your playing style like how would you describe it um see it's a hard question uh but i i don't necessarily think of it in in like a classical sense like that um i kind of have had a very hard time bridging the two instruments in terms of like i guess really the only thing that kind of like i benefited from from the violin was just general finger dexterity um but in terms of like any cross over there you know i like i'm able to like sight read violin music like very well um i have no idea how to [ __ ] do that on a guitar and i have i can't even tell you like what the hell what note that is like unless i was like like that's [ __ ] b and then counting down you know what i mean like so i have absolutely no knowledge of what the hell i'm doing on a guitar so you know i kind of approach it almost like if i had to like do like a comparison like that to like a classical instrument i'd say piano is like the closest thing um because like a lot of the way that i build my riffs are starting with chords so the left hand and then the right hand would be the melody and then playing both things at the same time like a piano a pianist would yeah um so yeah i guess that's the like closest thing but i do try and like incorporate you know because when you do things like that it ends up being like pretty mathy um when you think about it that's not a genre that i necessarily identify with is math rock because everything that we do is in 4 4 um and there's no odd time to anything that we do uh but just by sheer like doing that it's kind of math rocky in that way but i try and implement like classic guitars playing into it like the hendrix type stuff um into those kind of riffs to like make them less like pegable into like a a thing you know yeah i don't know who said it i think it was frank zappa i could be wrong but i think he said the most complicated time signature is 4-4 because of what all the all the different uh things can do with foreign when i was in school i took an ear training class and every class my teacher would try uh and make us you know guess what the not guess but determine what the the time signature was and every time he would [ __ ] us up with a 4-4 you know something or other and uh yeah so just writing music in 4-4 isn't any sort of like knock you can do so much with that especially if you're just feeling it you know i was super surprised to learn um you know like just just recently like a few months ago on toast and a boss he taught me how to thumb and uh like i'm like learning this technique from him and like we're kind of like going over like examples of like animal songs um and i was super surprised to learn that like a lot of those are in 4 4 you know and and just they just have like odd meters and things like that i don't even know what the [ __ ] i'm talking about to be honest but you know it just makes it sound crazier than it is you know yeah so not common um i have uh i have a couple of wind down questions as we as we near the end here tim uh what is the hardest thing about the guitar and what is the easiest thing about the guitar the hardest thing about guitar i'm just playing good is a finger tone it's something that like you have to have years and years in your hands or like not years but like time time spent and it's the only instrument that has you can do finger tone with both hands you know what i mean because like um you know piano is like a percussive type instrument and violin is you can do finger tongue you know like when you vibrato like this on a violin um but there's you know when you're like plucking it you're really not getting like like a pizzicato you're really not getting too much of your finger tone there but on a guitar you know depending on like how how you pluck it or like how you you know use these fingers or even tapping you can vibrato like with your right hand so many things you know i'm like there's a lot of something that i am actively thinking about when i play and i'm just trying to improve on like so much is just like kind of closing my eyes and listening as i'm playing and it's just like if i didn't see a visual like would this be good you know what i mean um and just kind of try and listen to just like make sure that like my tone in my hands like not not anything to do with the guitar the pickups of the actual tone that i'm playing through but like the tone in my hands um is it's does it sound sweet does it sound pleasant like you know um and i i'd always try and play on like a tone that is fairly revealing um so that i can like kind of keep track of like that um and then the easiest thing about guitar uh i guess it's like a fairly like easy beginner instrument you know like if you wanted to just like pick up an instrument like for whatever reason and like you had like a month to like prepare like you could play a full song by the end of the month and like it would be fine you know like depending on if you're just gonna play chords or like whatever you know just some like basic[ __ ] like maybe like sing along like it's a pretty you know good beginner instrument and in the same way that like piano is too i guess like if you're just going to be playing some like very simple things you know totally that's interesting what you said about um playing with a revealing tone like not hiding behind any any uh walls of delay and reverb or distortion that's uh that's good discipline that's a good disciplinary tactic to employ for any guitar player yeah and even like you know playing without a tongue just unplugged or like with an acoustic or just anything you know like this doesn't sound good does it sound pleasing like um and and with fingertone comes like you know like vibrato and and slides and [ __ ] all sorts of things and like so many times i catch myself just being sloppy as all hell um when it comes to those like nuances and it's just you know you look at um like steve for example steve by for example it's just the way he has complete control and mastery of the instrument like and like he can he can make it sing and he can make it [ __ ] squeal and you can make it scream like all within the same 10 seconds yeah five seconds you know um there's so much like emotion that that's you're able to like convey like with your hands and it just comes from time on the neck you know and there's like you know you could be like the fastest player on earth but [ __ ] your your finger tongue could just suck [ __ ] and just sound bad yeah it's all about it's all about the finger tone and honestly vibrato is is my uh my primary technique that i harp on anybody asks me like how do i what's the most important thing to practice it's like bend that note because you can play total total just terrible [ __ ] and then end on this amazing climactic bend and everyone remembers that ben but if you play like the most technically satisfying passage and then you bend this shitty like attitude vibrato it's like oh that guy's not that good yeah that's it's super revealing you know like a like a fast like kind of like you know [ __ ] [ __ ] ass vibrato it's super super revealing and you know like i said i i harp i i catch myself all the time being sloppy as hell it's like dude i'm so much better than this i promise like um but uh like especially when it comes to like i said the slides and the vibratos and the bends you know like it just those are difficult techniques and like you know it requires like extreme mastery of your [ __ ] to like get good at that i guess but um totally what's your uh what's your favorite airplane album you're flying on an airplane what album do you like to listen to dude maybe like there's like a few that i cycled through but like my favorite three would probably be um nothing was the same by drake jesus by kanye and then um the [ __ ] is that one called it's look i think it's rodeo um the travis got album with like the like i guess kind of his like breakout album um but yeah those three i just [ __ ] i absolutely love those delightful uh we got build a band here okay so you are in a band and there are four other people living or dead who would you want in that band you and four others oh man so no singers no it can be a singer too whoever you want it could be a triangle player all right the first and like most important like person i would pick would be a producer okay just to kind of like kind of have a master plan of like what the hell we're gonna be doing you know yeah so producer-wise um i guess i could pick like any legendary producer but i don't really want to i would pick i'll pick leto um and he's not like that you probably don't know who i'm talking about but um i don't know who lito is but you can fill us in yeah he's incredible you see i guess he kind of started like as like i i maybe like on soundcloud as like a future-based kind of producer but then moved like into like doing like pop records and like big records and then kind of just like i don't know he makes like really amazing stuff and i identify with it a lot musically because it's interesting and and you know there's parts where it can get technical but um he keeps it like you know the soul and just the meat of the [ __ ] is just good melody good rhythm good [ __ ] everything is dope so i guess i would pick leto as the first and he's like a multi-instrumentalist too who like kills it on so many things the best producers are yeah so that like you'd be a very strong asset to have and then i guess i could start building the band from there so i would pick a rapper for sure um i think drake just because like i would love to like like have his you know lyricism would be kind of the focal point and then musician wise um who would i pick guitar wise i would love to have someone that could just[ __ ] all over me but would do the things that like me and leto want them to so maybe like maybe like guthrie or somebody just like i was thinking him too just so insane with it you know like no knock on you but like if you said [ __ ] all over and then insert anyone then guthrie's the choice yeah yeah exactly i mean like technically he could do anything yeah i mean and he's also like the most humble dude as far as yeah and and you know like he plays with like khan zimmer and like will do whatever like hans needs him to do for the music you know i mean so i think he would be like a great asset to have in the band um drummer i would pick uh i don't know that many drummers but but maybe like i'm trying to remember names that my drummer likes his favorite drummer i think his favorite known as eric moore um eric moore yeah okay so it's you eric moore leto drake and guthrie govind right but we need a bass player so thundercat thundercat you added okay i'll give you that i'll give you a sixth member of thundercat yeah so you know that that would be like my i guess dream thing but i would love to you know i would love to like sit in the back of the room yeah what i feel like kanye does where he just has like the best people on earth come into a room and he's just like i want you to do this and then it's a kanye song you know like yeah that's what i would love it's just to sit in the back of the room not have to do anything other than say what i want and it happens um and then when i don't know what i want i can rely on everyone else you know to like help me figure out what it is that i want yeah it's like a football coach who's like i just surround myself with people who are smarter than me it's like yeah it's a winning formula for sure that's the dream man is to just like get like you know when you're like kanye famous you could you can have anyone in the world you want like make any kind of music you want them to make and that like you could just it's just the coolest thing so that's that's like my dream i guess finally the lupine uh your guitar super villain alter ego i have one final question for you tim what do you believe about guitar that most guitar players would think is crazy and this could be like a hard truth that guitar players need to hear or something that you know that others don't or maybe a misconception about the instrument or whatever you want what do you believe about the guitar that others wouldn't believe this is that hard i don't know man let me say hearing about this deliver your truth speak the gospel um you don't you don't even have to be good at guitar to make like dope music with a guitar you know it like i see this time and time like with i work with so many producers and a lot of them do not play instruments but like they're like geniuses when you give them a [ __ ] you know keyboard and a dog and um i've seen i've seen them write like incredible guitar riffs just on the [ __ ] keyboard you know and then like if you were to give that to a guitar player and say hey make this like good like it would turn out incredible so yeah i mean like you don't even have to be good at guitar to like make good guitar music you know which is kind of ties in back into that [ __ ] that i said for that [ __ ] interview it's like there's so many people like trying to be good at guitar that aren't making good music you know and it's like you have the whole thing [ __ ] backwards dude like the priorities are flipped yeah it's like again music is the means to the end i'm sorry music is the end guitar is the means you know i mean it's like the tool that is the the car that you're traveling in to get there yeah you know perfect analogy well as we wind down here tim uh i'd like to thank you for taking the time to be on guitar villains it's been a blast to talk to you um we will look forward to what treacherous plots you devise next in your musical endeavors word well i appreciate it and um i don't know i feel like i should do like an evil laugh or something to close it up but i i'm not gonna do that so just pretend like i am all right i'll insert like a lich king noise here[Music][Applause] you