ION INDIE MAGAZINE August 2014, Volume 3 | Page 58

When we talk about the difference of how he learned his craft, compared to the way the kids today learn,
he had some great words of wisdom to impart on the future generation of guitar wizards: “So I’ve learned
from many, many great guitar players, either directly or indirectly. You can just listen to their recordings
and learn a lot from them, but you need to get the stuff explained to you. That’s the part these student
today are missing…a lot of kids are Youtubing and everything else, but they’re not getting the true
explanation of what’d happening. Some of them are getting technically pretty good, but they don’t have
the expression, they don’t have the connection to their, you know, to their heart, basically. You might be
a pretty great player, but you’re not expressing YOUR self. So when I play, my goal with The Russello
Project is that I want to fully express myself through the music. I have a lot of emotional things I want to
say, but it’s going to come through the music, and I’m hoping that peoples can get connected to that.
And apparently, it’s working, because I’ve had—and this is the biggest compliment I could possibly
have—several times after a show after certain songs, I’ve had people come up to me crying. And they
would tell me why—and what—it brought back for them. Which is the whole point. Music touches you-not necessarily because of the music, I would love to take that credit, but it’s because of your
memories.”
Charlie thinks of himself now with The Russello Project, as a “thematic type of player”