DJ Ashba: Guitar World/Examiner/SSMF Red Carpet Interviews

[FunkyMonkey]

Interview: Guitarist DJ Ashba of Guns N' Roses and Sixx:A.M.

08/16/2011

As lead guitarist for Sixx:A.M., DJ Ashba has played for thousands of fans worldwide.

The band?s first album, The Heroin Diaries, launched them to success with ?Life Is Beautiful,? radio?s most-played rock song in 2008. Their recently released sophomore disc, 2011's This Is Gonna Hurt, is likely to surpass its predecessor, having already charted a No. 1 rock single, ?Lies of the Beautiful People.?

Ashba?s road to the stage began in Fairbury, Illinois. Raised in a religious household, he worked in the cornfields to earn enough money to buy his first guitar. A little boy with big dreams, Ashba spent hours woodshedding. As a teenager, he moved to Los Angeles, where he co-founded Beautiful Creatures with Bang Tango vocalist Joe Leste. Signed to Warner Brothers, they opened for Kiss, played Ozzfest and placed songs in movie soundtracks.

Ashba rose to international prominence with Sixx:A.M., but his resume includes a lot of session work, live gigs and a solo album, all of which helped to build his credibility as an A-list musician. On his own, he built Ashbaland, with Ashba Swag, a clothing and accessories line; Ashbaland Studios, his production company; and Ashba Media, the graphic design agency he started in 2003.

He has signature-edition guitars with Gibson and Ovation and has beta tested for Line 6 since the company?s launch. He also plays lead guitar for Guns N? Roses. Ashbaland, it seems, has become Ashbabrand.

GUITAR WORLD: How many projects had you done with Nikki [Sixx] and James [Michael] before Sixx:A.M.?

Quite a few. I worked on Marion Raven with James. With Nikki I wrote for Trapt, Drowning Pool, Motley Crue, things like that. We?ve all worked together in some way. James and I wrote together before I knew that he was a singer. I knew him as a producer and he was really easy to work with. I?d write songs for artists and take them to James to produce.

What made you feel that you could work with them?

After I worked with James a couple of times, I could tell he was a really great, great guy to sit in the studio with. He makes you feel comfortable and brings out the best performance. He has a really good ear. He has also become one of my best friends.

Nikki has more of a twisted mind, a lot like mine ? I have a demented mind! ? and I learned so much from him about the business side of the industry. I?m like a sponge when it comes to Nikki. He took me under his wing as a little brother. He?s a genius when it comes to marketing a product. And he?s so sincere ? he lays his heart on the table, good and bad. He?s the most honest friend I?ve ever had. That kind of honesty is hard to find, and I admire him for it.

Your first instrument was piano, then drums. Do you still play?

Every day. I love playing piano. I have a couple of different ones. All the instruments and orchestral stuff I play on piano. I have an old Alesis that I love and save because it has creepy piano stuff I use for movies. I don?t have a grand piano, but I want one. We grew up with two pianos in the living room. I began playing drums at a very early age and I love them. They?re fun to play and I really enjoy programming them.

You also do session work.

I do. A lot of times it?s kind of a hushed thing. I play on a lot of people?s records.

Can you play everything you hear in your head?

That?s all I do. I can?t read music. I write songs by finding notes on the guitar to match the notes in my head. If I hear something once, I can play it. I didn?t have the patience to learn theory; it didn?t make sense to me. When I saw sheet music, I felt confined. The notes are there and music shouldn?t be that way. I don?t write guitar solos. I say, ?Hit ?record,?? and play five or ten takes immediately. It?s a feel, and you know if it?s good, if you get goose bumps.

Do you consider yourself a disciplined or spontaneous player?

I?ve very disciplined, but it?s hard to describe. Certain things, like a weird chord arrangement, I?ve got to work certain solos out, but the most fun ones are when I can just jam and not follow a guideline.

Onstage, do you concentrate on what you?re playing, or do you free-fall and let it carry you every night?

During the first couple of shows it?s a ?wing it? thing. Then you start doing certain things that stick with you ? you like the way something felt, or the crowd reacted to it. You keep certain things and get rid of others. What?s weird is that I don?t think about what I do when I?m in front of a crowd. I rarely look down at the guitar. You just feel it. The adrenalin takes over and you don?t think so much about what you?re playing. It?s the most amazing feeling in the world.

Your solo album [Addiction to the Friction] received a lot of recognition and awards for your guitar playing. Is there another album in the works?

A lot of people ask me that, and no, not really. There definitely isn?t. OK, I don?t know. I don?t think anytime soon. How?s that? [laughs] Showing off on guitar is not my idea of a great time. I?d rather focus on Sixx:A.M. I love shredding, but at this point I?m all about the song, whether that?s Sixx:A.M., Motley Crue, a film or anyone else. Maybe one day. I?ll definitely never say never.

I have another instrumental record that was never released; I wrote it after the first album with a guitar remake of ?Dueling Banjos.? Learning a banjo song on guitar is really difficult! I remember playing Beethoven?s ?Ode To Joy? at the piano with my guitar, and I remember when my mom would play [sings ?Fur Elise?], and the coolest thing is transferring other instruments to the guitar. You come up with the weirdest chords. Piano chords lay out differently and you come up with weird fingering. It?s the same with ?Dueling Banjos? or ?The Devil Went Down To Georgia.? It?s so cool, the fiddle. It makes you look at the guitar differently.

How does your approach to the guitar change from acoustic to electric?

I prefer writing on acoustic. I always have. The clarity of the notes allows me to hone in on good melodies. It?s not about chords when I write. It?s about melody. People remember the melody, not ?The G chord under that was awesome!? I always choose a great melody and change my parts to create that melody.

I was never the guy saying, ?This riff is bad-ass! Change your melody to go around it!? Without a doubt, I?m the first to change the riff. With an electric guitar, you can put so much passion into a lead and tell the other half of the story. I always admire guitar players. I love the shredders, but if you hit one note with everything you have, you?ll turn every head in the room. People like Slash, who are not necessarily shredders [sings ?Sweet Child O? Mine?] ? the melody is so memorable. That?s the perfect example of writing for a song. The guitarist plays a simple melody that tells the story and sells the song. I love that.

Does that change for you from the studio to the stage?

You find out live what does and doesn?t work. You watch other bands play every night. I study, I watch the crowd, I see what beats get people off the ground. You take mental notes of what feels good live, what sounds good on record. Some songs translate great, some not so much, and you focus on that and hone in. The ultimate goal is to constantly better yourself, your style and your songs. If you do that, you?re headed in the right direction.

http://www.guitarworld.com/interview-guitarist-dj-ashba-sixxam-and-guns-n-roses

[estebanf]

thank you very much FunkeyMonkey, interesting read.

By the way, thank you for all the news you post here everday. 

[Let Me Hear It Now]

By the way, thank you for all the news you post here everday. 

+1.  It's really appreciated.  Especially by people who've been coming here daily for many years (but don't post much  ) looking for new news, videos, pictures, etc.

[jarmo]

Thanks for posting!





/jarmo

[FunkyMonkey]

Another interview with DJ:

Guitarist DJ Ashba on Teamwork, Individuality and the Art of Guitar

August 17, 2011

Musician, songwriter, producer, graphic designer, self-professed gear fanatic and technology addict ? Sixx:A.M. guitarist D.J. Ashba is a tireless workaholic, which makes him a perfect match for his equally driven bandmates, James Michael and Nikki Sixx. Ashba began playing guitar as a child, influenced by innovators like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen, and threw himself into his craft as a form of self-expression, therapy and a labor of love. His passion for the instrument, and most of all for music, led him to start his own bands, try his hand as a solo artist, and eventually find a musical home in Sixx:A.M., all while making a name for himself as a multi-faceted artist inside and beyond the realms of the recording studio.

     The trio recently released their second album, This Is Gonna Hurt, the follow-up to their tremendously successful debut, The Heroin Diaries. In this interview, Ashba discusses the teamwork behind Sixx:A.M. and the ongoing projects in Ashbaland.

You were raised in a religious household. Does your faith play a great part in your life?

It does. I don?t go to church every Sunday, just on Christmas, but I still pray every night and thank God for everything I have, because it could all be gone tomorrow. I?m fortunate. I work very hard and I?m very lucky to have two arms, two legs, two hands, and I don?t take that for granted. I really could get hit by a car and it would all be over. I thank God every night and it makes me feel good. I?m not a Bible thumper, but at the same time, it was instilled in me at such a young age and it has helped me get through a lot.

Nikki and James have talked about the ?old school? way of making records. They?ve both worked in analog and digital, and their recording roots go back further than yours. Are you the balance of old and new, or are they the influences on how you track?

I?m a huge fan of digital. I?m so into technology that it?s sick. I?m the computer nerd of the band. If I don?t have to pull an amp out of storage and mic it up, God bless it! I love technology and I?m never afraid of it. I always want the latest and greatest gear, phones, TVs, everything. I?m getting heavily into movie scoring and I?m really into writing 60-piece orchestral arrangements. I built a scoring studio that?s all USB digital, no MIDI, and I did a lot of the Motley Crue record [Saints of Los Angeles] there. I did albums on 2-inch tape when I was 17 or 18. I hated it. It was a horrible experience and I haven?t done it since. Now, nine out of ten times, it ends up being downloaded on iTunes, which is MP3, and I think, If it sounds great, use it.

How does the creative process work between the three of you?

James and I, our studios run nonstop. We all three get together to write. I go home, and some songs I start from scratch, or James does, and talk about the digital world ? we upload on the server and our studios are in sync. Let?s say he programs drums. He uploads them to the server, I download, lay on guitars and a scratch bass track, upload it, and within an hour he has them back with all the leads. A lot of times we work that way. We did the whole Motley Crue record like that. I get stems, say a programmed drum part, and since we all write the songs, I know how they went, but there are markers for the verse and chorus and I do guitar. Vince [Neil] goes to James? studio and does vocals. I focus on songwriting, programming the guitars, bass and drums if need be, James comes in and addresses different sounds and goes to town on the vocal end. We?re always sending files back and forth. We?ll go to each other?s studios and record acoustics and mic them down. If we?re on a crunch, we?re back and forth. I do all the orchestral stuff and they let me lose my mind and create things. Nikki is good at painting a picture in my head, and I sit in a room and paint it musically on a big open canvas with no rules. Doing orchestral stuff is a blast for me.

How are your work ethics similar?

We?re all workaholics. I went from writing and producing Sixx:A.M. to Motley Crue to touring with Sixx:A.M. to writing for Saliva and working on the new Sixx:A.M. record. I?m working literally around the clock from 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. in the studio. It?s been shocking ? we weren?t going to be a band, we never realized how The Heroin Diaries would touch so many people. It was literally a labor of love. It?s an amazing story, so inspiring, and to this day I get biker dudes hugging me, crying and shaking when they talk about it. It?s a powerful album that has touched so many people. I never thought it would hit radio.

At what point did your playing style develop? When did you progress from imitation to innovation?

Probably when I did my first instrumental record at 19. Nirvana was hitting really big and I was young and thinking, What? No guitar solos? This is lame! I didn?t get where they were coming from at the time. I remember a couple of guitar players back home and the tiny local wars of ?Who is better?? I never got into that. I was in my room practicing. While one guy is saying, ?I?m better than the neighbor,? there?s always somebody better, and that competition is so ridiculous. Be the best you can be. Do your thing. Be an individual and be unique. The hardest thing we had to figure out on the first Sixx:A.M. record was what we sounded like. We needed to create a unique sound for The Heroin Diaries. That was the challenge. The style is there now, so we can take certain elements of it and push the envelope, dive deeper into certain cool elements, and push and twist them harder.

Is there a difference between what you play for the public and play for yourself?

I think so, absolutely. I like to play around with so many styles. I pick up a guitar and it depends on the mood I?m in. I think the public looks at me as this tattooed guy, spitting and jumping off of s--t, but at home it?s just me in bed, watching TV, playing acoustic guitar and writing songs.

What is the difference between playing guitar and being a guitarist?

Wow! These are crazy, great questions! I think the difference is being mature in what you do and in the choices you make. Putting everything into a song and knowing when to go for it and when to pull back.

I respect anybody who wants to be any type of musician and I would never discourage anybody. But there are definitely people out there ? it?s almost like they?re into it for the wrong reasons, and that?s sad. To be a true guitarist isn?t about anything except the art of playing guitar. I didn?t get into this ? I didn?t know I could make money at this. I spent most of my life starving and I didn?t care because I loved what I did. Making money now is the icing on the cake.

I hate bands that literally clone other bands because they?re not original enough to put in the hard work to develop a style. It disgusts me. That?s the difference: they don?t want to put in the many years of hard work and dedication. They?d rather sit back, rip off somebody else?s style and claim it as their own. It makes me cringe. It?s embarrassing.

The answer to that question ? the difference between the two is that being a guitarist means being true to what you do. You can lie to yourself, but others will see through it. Guitar is an art and it takes a lot of years and dedication. It?s not an overnight thing. It?s a super-long road and you?re going to hit the ground, but at the end of the day, what makes you a true guitarist is honing in on a unique style and never giving up.

Full interview here: http://www.examiner.com/music-industry-in-national/sixx-a-m-guitarist-dj-ashba-on-teamwork-individuality-and-the-art-of-guitar

[westcoast_junkie]

Thank u FunkyMonkey.

I too have to say it's always a joy to check out the HTGTH-forum and find interesting news and interviews 

[FunkyMonkey]

Here's a short video interview with DJ conducted on the red carpet at the Sunset Strip Music Festival this past Saturday.

DJ "Come out and see Guns N' Roses on tour, cause we're leaving again in September."

@1:20:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbYVyrqV9dg