BACK BEFORE COMPUTERS, THE WAY A MUSICIAN BECAME KNOWN WAS EITHER THROUGH CONSTANT TOURING, GETTING A SONG PLAYED ON THE RADIO, OR HAVING SOME MAGAZINE DO AN ARTICLE ABOUT YOU. IN THIS PRESENT DAY, FOR VARIOUS REASONS, MOST OF THESE MEANS ARE OBSOLETE. SO WHAT’S AN ARTIST TO DO? GUITARIST ANDY MCKEE HAS MADE A NAME FOR HIMSELF BY JUMPING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY AND USING MODERN TECHNOLOGY TO REACH MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. HIS UNIQUE GUITAR PICKING STYLE ON HIS SONG “DRIFTING” HAS RECEIVED TENS OF MILLIONS OF “HITS” AND HIS CONCERTS ARE INTERACTED VIA FACEBOOK.
WHILE NOT TECHNICALLY A “JAZZ” ARTIST, MCKEE HAS LOTS OF IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR ASPIRING MUSICIANS OF ALL GENRES. PAY ATTENTION AND LEARN!
WHILE YOU’VE MADE A NAME FOR YOURSELF WITH THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR, YOUR LATEST EP “MYTHMAKER” FEATURES YOU ON DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS-WHY THE SWITCH TO PIANO AND ELECTRIC GUITAR THIS TIME AROUND?
I actually started out playing electric guitar more than acoustic guitar, and I’ve always played piano a little bit. I’m not really a pianist, I would say, but I know my way around it a little bit. I’ve always love the sound of piano, such as by guys like Bruce Hornsby. It’s just that sometimes I hear music that isn’t necessarily acoustic guitar in my head, or I just want to make certain other sounds on a record, so I decided to do that on this ep. I did it a little bit on my last album; I had some bass guitar and other things on a couple of tracks, just to change the sound a little bit.
WHO INITIALLY INSPIRED YOU TO PLAY GUITAR?
Eric Johnson. He had a record called “The Cliffs of Dover” on the radio back when I was 12 in 1991, I guess. The way his guitar was tuned just blew me away; I just loved the sound of his guitar on the instrumentals. His songs didn’t have to have lyrics. I just connected with his sound. He just made me want to play guitar. Then there were other rock guitar groups that featured an electric guitar; stuff like Metallica and things like that. I spent a few years with that, and then I just got an acoustic guitar when I was about 16.
The first guy that made me look at the acoustic guitar was Preston Reed. He was doing alternate tunings and different things on the guitar. He sort of tries to cover all aspects of music on one guitar rather than as on an electric guitar you might just play chords and then maybe a guitar solo. But this kind of approach you try to have melodic, rhythmic and harmonic ideas all going together at once really quickly. Sort of like a piano, where you can cover all of the elements on one instrument. I was really fascinated by that concept.
SO, IT’S SIMILAR TO WHAT STANLEY JORDAN DOES.
Yes, with his tapping. I checked him out too, but the acoustic sound resonated more with me and made me want to dive into it.
YOU’VE ALSO BEEN LINKED TO THE BLUEGRASS FIELD
(Laughs) Yeah, and I don’t really listen to bluegrass that much. I do play steel string acoustic guitar, so I guess that’s why they put me in that category. I’m not really into it, though. Some of it I like, but I don’t think I fit in with them, as I’m a bit more of a different genre.
WHAT WAS INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR SHOW AT PEPPERDINE IS THAT YOU USE THINGS IN THIS DAY AND AGE TO GET YOUR NAME OUT THAT DIDN’T EVEN EXIST 10-15 YEARS AGO. HOW DOES AN INSTRUMENTALIST GET KNOWN IN THE 21ST CENTURY?
Well, first, like anyone else I was just playing a lot of gigs around my home town and then heard about certain guitar competitions which I did pretty well in. That sort of started things for me. Not that I necessarily won anything, but I was able to meet people who had careers and they helped me make some connections and get into some guitar competitions. From there I’d meet guys like (fingerpicker) Don Ross, and then a guy in Taiwan heard about me and brought me out there to tour. Through that I was able to tour with two Japanese guitar players and a Belgian guitar player. These guys had never heard of me, but they liked my music and said, “Hey, why don’t you come to Belgium and do a show with me? Come to Japan for a week or two.” Just little things like that would start opening up.
But, even at that time, I was still mostly a guitar teacher for as my major job. Then, in 2005, I joined this new independent label that was focused on acoustic guitar, called Candyrat Records. That was neat to be able to get onto a label that was interested in this kind of music, and it was the owner of the label’s idea to put the music onto Youtube. That’s when things really kind of changed for me; having these videos that went “viral” as they say. It brought my music to people all over the planet that way.
I really had no expectations of having that sort of exposure so quickly. It felt like things were starting to pick up for me, and I had more opportunities to play with other guitar players. Suddenly, though, this Youtube thing felt like a Fast Forward button. All of a sudden, “Hey, you want to come and play in England? And here? And here?” It was like, “WOW.” Like a lot of musicians also say, “there’s a lot of talent and skill and all these things you can do, but there’s also a certain amount of luck where it sort of feels like it’s something just happens. I just felt like I got in onto this Youtube thing early enough where it was easy enough for me to stand out a bit more. I guess now there are so many guitar players on Youtube now and so many videos that the timing back then definitely helped me get more exposure.
I don’t know if it will help anyone else nowadays because there are so many guitar videos, but that’s how it unfolded for me anyway. Now, it’s just a matter of turning that into an actual career of p laying guitar and doing performances.
WHEN YOU PUT YOURSELF ON YOUTUBE, DID SOMEONE PROMOTE THE YOUTUBE FOR YOU, OR DID PEOPLE JUST ‘DISCOVER’ YOU BY SCROLLING AROUND? WHY DID THIS ONE GO VIRAL AND MAKE SUCH A BIG SPASH?
It was late 2006 when those videos came out. We didn’t know how to promote it or to do anything, really. We just put the videos on at that time, and at the same time I was selling sheet music from my web site. That was kind of an edge for me because that enabled me to see that things were changing. I would sell maybe 10 transcriptions of my music in a month, and then suddenly I’d get 30 orders in one day and ask “What is going on?!?” So, that is when I saw that Youtube had featured in on their front page, my video for “Drifting.”
Back then, Youtube had a bit of a different format where they’d have 7 different videos that were featured on their front page and a search bar, which was pretty much what Youtube looked like back then. So, if anyone went to Youtube, they would have seen me there, as my video was on the front page that week. I think that helped a lot. Now, they have it tailored to tracking what kind of music you like and then they put up stuff for you.
People then just started linking it. There were other web sites where they’d say “Hey, you’ve got to see this video” and then it just started going viral where people all over started re-posting it. It then got on the front page of Yahoo, and it just went off like that. There was really no extra effort on our part at the time; it was just picked up by people sharing it.
THE SECOND THING THAT IS FOREIGN TO PEOPLE FROM MY GENERATION IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE ON STAGE FOR YOUR LATEST SHOW AT PEPPERDINE YOU TOLD THE AUDIENCE THAT “WE GET A LOT OF REQUESTS ON FACEBOOK FOR THIS NEXT SONG.” HOW DOES FACEBOOK, ETC. FIT INTO YOUR CAREER?
I run my own Facebook page, or fan page, and it’s a lot of fun. I get to interact with the fans there. Unfortunately a lot of times people are unable to communicate with the musicians that they like, so I like to provide that opportunity for them. I think back to when I was a big fan of a certain guitarist that I would have loved it if I could have sent him a message of thanks or something . Keeping that in mind I like to run my own fan page, and sometimes before I go out on tour I’ll just ask people on the page if there’s a certain song they’d like to hear. I’ll take those requests and put them in my set list for the show. It keeps the show interesting and it keeps me remembering some of my older songs that I haven’t played for a few years.
IT’S QUITE DIFFERENT FROM THE DAYS OF PRINTING VINYL RECORDS AND PASSING THEM OUT WHILE ON TOUR.
My whole plan before any sort of Youtube was to just start playing locally, then try to branch out into Kansas City. I’m from Topeka, Kansas, so I just wanted to do a regional thing and try to play more and more places, but suddenly having the Youtube thing helped a lot. With the social media stuff, I’d recommend any musician to get into that and try to get into Facebook and Youtube.Of course, you still have to do the shows and perform live. I mean, some people think that you can just make a Youtube video and you’ll suddenly be rich and famous, but it doesn’t work that way. There’s still the old fashioned stuff of getting out there on tour, doing shows and meeting with the fans, so it still keeps you busy.
ON A DIFFERENT NOTE-WHAT IS IT ABOUT ALL GUITARISTS THAT THEY LIKE TELLING STORIES ON STAGE?
For me in particular, I can say that it’s because I do so many different tunings on the guitar, I figured out “If I’m going to do so many performances, I can’t just perform and sit there and tune for five minutes” so I realized I had to fill up the time with some stories. You just have to start feeling comfortable on stage, get relaxed and think about some things that have been happening to you lately. Funny things that happen on the road that you can share. For a guy like me that’s playing in front of a lot of students, it’s like you have to get comfortable with telling a story or a joke, because otherwise the silence can be quite awkward.
YOU’VE BEEN LISTED AS A “GUITAR MASTER.” WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF A GUITAR MASTER?
I really don’t like that title! I think it’s a bit ridiculous. If forced to, I’d have to say that it would be someone who is genuinely creative on the guitar as well as technically proficient at it. But I don’t think that there’s anyone who’s “mastered” the guitar. There’s always more to learn or to do, either creatively or technically, so the idea that someone is a Master Of The Guitar, is an idea that I don’t necessarily agree with .
HOW ABOUT WORKING ON MORE IMPROVISATION
I work on it, but I’m much more of a composer. When I’m starting to write some of my own songs it’s a form of improvising to see what I can come up with. But doing things on the spot with my guitar, I just haven’t got the hang of it yet.
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR INSPIRATION TO KEEP YOU GOING?
I get inspired by my family. When I’m on tour, we stay in touch with Video Chat, but it’s obviously not the same as being there. It’s always a joyous moment when I come home and we’re all united again. We’ve spent every minute together the last few weeks. After this, I’ll be gone in India for a few weeks.
I also get inspired by books by Carl Sagan. A book like Pale Blue Dot is a very humbling at how small we all actually are in the grand scheme of things in the universe. It can really center you when you start getting too big for your britches.
SO, THERE ARE LOTS OF LESSONS TO LEARN FROM THE YOUNGER GENERATION OF MUSICIANS. THIS IS WHY COLEMAN HAWKINS LOVED HIRING MUSICIANS THAT COULD HAVE PASSED FOR HIS KIDS. IT KEPT THE BEAN STIMULATED. A GOOD LESSON FOR THE INNER GEEZER IN ALL OF US.