player and is a good buddy of mine . We try to cover everything that is involved in being a guitar player , and I think that every year has been extremely special .
[ Doug ] One of the other things that I loved was you that gave the players a chance to just jam . And that ’ s not something that we normally get to do on Sunday . How did that come about ?
[ Chris ] I wanted to get a bunch of like-minded , crazy guitar players together and take things back to when we were fifteen years old in our garage . To have jam sessions come up with all kinds of random stuff and just go at it like you ’ re a little kid . Realistically speaking , these guys are never going to have a chance to pick a guitar with Nigel Hendroff from Australia . Let ’ s give them these moments that they ’ ll remember until the day they die . I ’ m sure you noticed Doug , that as soon as we started the jam session , the first thing all they did was pull out their phones and start recording , and it just became this super awesome bonding experience . Let ’ s take it back to where we were little kids and guitar was just a hobby for all of us , even us artists , since sometimes music can be a job .
[ Andrés ] Yeah , when I was talking with Chris about this the very first time I thought if we could get these iconic guitar players jamming with the people in the camp it ’ s going to be awesome . We talk to the campers because this could be intimidating . Okay , no worries , let ’ s do our best . What we do is worship to the Lord , so let ’ s do it together and enjoy it ! We want everyone that comes to play . To have Nigel or Stu G in front of you and you are playing with them , it ’ s so amazing . We want to motivate these people to continue to grow with the guitar . To continue playing the guitar , to continue serving the Lord , to continue growing in that world . I think that ’ s the main reason for the camp – to help people grow , give them resources , help them dream that they can do big things with the Lord .
[ Doug ] One of the things I love about Steve Vai ’ s guitar camp is that everybody gets a chance to jam with Mr . Vai . Since your camp is a bit more intimate in size every camper got a chance to come up and jam several times . My big takeaway was watching people unwind and dig in deeper with each go round . What about this part of the camps speaks to you ?
[ Chris ] Like I said before we started playing was , “ There ’ s no competition here !” I don ’ t want dudes coming in thinking they ’ re the bee ’ s knees . Nobody ’ s got time for that . So , it ’ s like , let your hair down , we are all here just to have fun . Hit some bad notes ? Who cares ? Let ’ s just jam like we ’ re little kids just having a blast . At first some of the guys were timid , but after they went once , they realized that even though they might have hit some stupid notes and things were kind of awkward for a split second , nobody cared . We ’ re just there to have a good time . And I think once they realize that they get really excited .
Javier Serrano
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