I remember watching Steve Vai doing some basic sweep picking in the film crossroads back in the 80’s and wanting to play the guitar so much, I would mime along with the sound track! In fact, it was the film “Back to the future” that really made me want to play the guitar! After watching it at the cinema I had Johnny b good going around in my head for years! (What self respected guitarist didn’t?!)

Although I didn’t start playing the guitar until I was 14, I was around my father who was always rehearsing with his band and recording etc. Despite having injured my Ulna nerve which caused partial paralysis in my left hand my father took the advice from the physiotherapist and started teaching me to play. It was hard enough to hold an apple without dropping it, let alone play the guitar!

Sweep picking wasn’t really a playing style I had heard of when I first started learning the guitar. I started off listening to Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Small Faces and anything else my dad listened to!

Also, my father made me learn the guitar without the aid of distortion, although I had a Boss OD, he insisted that I should learn how to accent the dynamics before saturating with tons of solid state distortion!

Sweep picking was to come much later in the game.

It would be a while before I discovered the joy of sweep picking! The first song I learned how to play was “Shine on you crazy Diamond”

I started with 6 basic chords, 1 hour a day and within 2 weeks, I moved on to lead. I watched Pink Floyd live 1994 Earls Court. I mimicked David Gilmour’s string bending and vibrato style. I obsessed and had nothing else to do (no girlfriend!)

After 2 months I moved on to playing with distortion! So much distortion! But because I had learned without it, I used it quite sparingly.

Most of my playing was done on the neck pick up of my 1979 Vox S25 (USA Dimarzio’s) with a Hendrix style sound. I found it uncomfortable to use the bridge pick up as it always sounded thin to me.

After 6 months I moved out of my dads and into my mums at age 15. My older brother Zeb was heavily into Motly Crew, Wasp, and Skid Row etc. He also played the guitar and made me learn solos to his favourite tracks! (Still no sweep picking) Our first band was born! With my older brother Zeb and Younger brother Robin who is a fantastic keyboard player, Paul Kybert on Bass and Duncan Ruffle on Drums (Duncan has passed away now but his music and memory lives on) we called ourselves “Draw”

We played 80’s style glam rock and although a bit cheesy, we were pretty good!

I still hadn’t started learning sweep picking as my playing style was mainly pentatonic triangles with 3 fingers but the energy was there!

More about me and how I learned the guitar and sweep picking.