“I don’t think we can blame the guitar – I think we’ve got to blame the band!” FINNEAS on artists who claim that guitar music isn’t popular anymore
Is guitar music losing its appeal? Not if you ask Grammy-winning producer and singer-songwriter FINNEAS, who argues that it’s not the instrument that’s the problem but the artist behind it.
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In a new interview with Guitar World, FINNEAS — who recently unveiled his first signature Acoustasonic Telecaster model with Fender — shares his thoughts on the often-heard complaint among musicians that guitar music isn’t popular anymore.
“If you’re making music that’s got guitar on it, and it doesn’t feel like it’s reaching the masses, you might be like, ‘Wow, people just hate guitar music, huh?’ Well, I don’t think we can blame the guitar,” he says. “I think we’ve got to blame the band!”
The producer points to recent hits like Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso, which showcases the electric guitar rather prominently, as evidence that the instrument is still very much alive in pop music.
As FINNEAS explains, most of the time, it’s not even about the gear you’re using but how you’re using it.
“This is going to sound mean, but it’s really about how you play the guitar,” he says. “I can record a shitty guitar with a cheap microphone or a DI. If I just spend a little extra time on the feel of how I’m shaping it and what kind of rhythm I’m hitting, that’s what really matters. The mic and the tech side of it is so secondary to your playing.”
Elsewhere in the chat, FINNEAS reveals how he and his sister, popstar Billie Eilish would sometimes ‘bicker’ about his guitar playing during the making of her new album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT.
“Her number one piece of feedback is to be quieter,” he admits. “She’s a big fan of me thumbing stuff. Oftentimes, it’s not even between an actual pick or me strumming. She’s like, ‘I want the thumb!’ She wants that super, super-tender thing.”
“Then, sometimes, we bicker and maybe I win. With [the track] WILDFLOWER specifically, I remember that was a case where I was strumming a certain way and she wanted it way quieter. I said, ‘I think that this strumming is really effective for this song. We’ll turn it down and it’ll be great, but it has a lot of rhythm in it.’”
The post “I don’t think we can blame the guitar – I think we’ve got to blame the band!” FINNEAS on artists who claim that guitar music isn’t popular anymore appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
