Upon his return, he started working with Grammy-nominated artist Janelle Monae in , their collaboration has led to many successes. Daniel Locke: You were born in New York. Tell me about your view of the NYC music scene? But when I first started performing in NYC the scene was electric and edgy.
I would say it has become even more diverse and somewhat mellowed out. As a child, you sang opera at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Can you tell us any stories about this time? One of the performances that stands out for me was opening night of Cavelleria Rusticana by Piedro Mascagni.
This opera had all these professionally trained exotic animals imported from all over the world. Including elephants.
It was my simple job, while singing, to enter stage right with this brilliant medium sized dog holding a flimsy old rope as her leash. This is all happening live at Lincoln Center! I wanted to write songs, so I begged my parents for an acoustic guitar. Then after some failed lessons with random teachers, I taught myself the basics.
Then learned some licks from some of my favorite guitarists. My first guitar was an acoustic Yamaha. At age 7 the word price meant nothing to me. Good wood. The wood needs to sound and feel alive.
Strings on a good guitar resonate and sustain. Which makes strings sound flat and lifeless. Kiss was the first rock concert I ever attended. I remember my dad making my 8-year-old and I wear our Sunday church clothes because he wanted us to look classy at a concert.
He had never seen Kiss before. The most recent concert I attended was Jonny Swim. They were terrific!! Yes, I do. My first real performance was in High School. My band called The Mixx performed at a huge outdoor festival as special guests with my school choir. I played Jazz in the conservatory. We really only studied classical music history in college. But I love both. Jimi is the father to me on the guitar. He was one of my teachers through his music.
That being said, Slash is amazing! I am a huge fan! He has his own style. I came up with some chords and Janelle had this beautiful melody… it reminds me of a Led Zeppelin moment! It was really simple being an MD Musical director for that kinda band.
South By Southwest was incredible, it felt like we stole the show and the reviews were calling us the greatest band there that year. And it still is a lot of fun! What did you envision when she asked you to oversee her live performances as MD? I wanted to bring all that and more to Janelle. Seeing all of that, learning how to have a strong energy on stage and also maintain her beautiful soulful and luscious voice without screaming too much is what I wanted to bring to the forefront.
I wanted to put it all together in a way that presented her as not just another RnB singer He was super down-to-earth and a very giving person. The first time we met was at his house in LA and he was having a rehearsal in what felt like a living room. He was always generous and sweet. I remember one night, we were hanging backstage after a show in Montreux, Switzerland and he brought Quincy Jones with him.
We were jamming through changes once and damn, he had some great chops. Picking technique is very important. People focus a lot on their left hand when it might be better to keep an eye on both. What I love about Plexis in particular is how they receive distortion pedals with rewarding feedback.
You can really milk it.
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