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On the instrumental side, is that coming from
your inspirations with the classical composer Bach? I
was reading that he’s been a big influence on you.
Absolutely. He’s been my first influence because my
father really loves classical music and those were the
first sounds I ever heard in my life when I was really
young. When I heard Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D
Minor when I was really little, that really changed my
life and made me want to be a musician in the first
place. Now, I don’t want to be categorized as one of
those neo-classical shredders – we’ve had so many people that basically say that they like classical music, and
all they do is basically rip off Yngwie Malmsteen! I don’t
want to be one of those Yngwie Malmsteen clones that
– there’s just too many of them out there. Of course, I
love Bach, I love classical music. I do a little bit of it. I
put a little bit of it in my music, but not too much of it.
But yeah, that’s pretty much what I do. Last year, I was
on tour with Yngwie Malmsteen. I was happy to see that
he did not think I was another one of his ripoffs. So that
made me happy.
Now how did that fall into play? Because here
you’re starting off, you’re coming up really quick
through the music scene, someone who’s been inspired
by classical music, and later on you’re intrigued by
bands like Iron Maiden and stuff like that. What was
it that made Mr. Malmsteen say “Okay, I’m liking this
guy, I want him to be on tour with me”?
You know what? A lot of that was just happening behind the scenes with my management, it wasn’t like Yngwie Malmsteen was going around
looking for guitar players – Yngwie
is not that kind of a person. But the
fact that I was on tour with him and
he got to hear me play every night
from his dressing room, and knowing that Yngwie’s out there listening
and just being on tour with him,
and seeing that I really gained his
respect, and him telling me what he
told me back then – for me as a guitar player, that’s something that I’ll
always cherish, and keep it with me.
And then, I realized that what I decided years before, to just stay away
from what Yngwie is doing, and not really touch that
because he’s the best at what he does, no one can touch
him. I just figured, just do something else. Of course
Yngwie influenced me and inspired me, and he still
does. But I tried to take the influence and inspiration
from Yngwie in a different way. Just seeing his approach
and the way he gives 100% every single night, it doesn’t
matter what the turnout is, it’s just once he’s on stage, it’s
full on, all the time, and I get inspiration from that – not
so much going and ripping off every lick that he plays,
you know what I mean?
I was also reading in
your bio that 2009 was a
pretty big year for you.
2009 was the year
that I released my first record, so I don’t remember
it as a “big” year, but it was
when I made a little bit of
a mark just to begin with.
I also got to have George
Lynch and Greg Howe
play on my first record,
which, to me, is amazing.
But that happened before
2009. 2009 was the release
of the record.
Before Burning Heat
and your other side project, did you have any other bands before that?
Yeah, I was in a band
called Angels of Babylon, which was a very
interesting project. It
was started by a drummer named Rhino, who
was the drummer with
ManOWar. He had just
started the band with Dave Ellefson from Megadeth.
He had a singer, David Thefold, who is a great singer.
And by pure coincidence of me seeing that guy Rhino
on MySpace – I didn’t know who he
was, I just saw some guy with long
hair who looked like a metal guy
and I thought, “Ah, maybe I should
add him as a friend”, I didn’t even
think about it, I just added him. He
wrote me right back, I guess he saw
one of my videos, he was like, “Oh
my god, yo ԁ