Meeting Your Heroes
- The American Guitar Academy
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
You often hear it said that you should never meet your heroes, and I can only imagine this is because you stand to be thoroughly disheartened if they are not what you expected them to be. There are so many stories online, I will not name anyone specifically but you can find them easily enough, where a celebrity has fallen short of expectations, or just been downright horrible. I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss something not directly related to playing or performing music - meeting your heroes. I will talk about my own experiences, anecdotes from others and some general advice.
Those I Have Met Personally
Guthrie Govan
If you have read any of my blog posts, you will know that Guthrie Govan is one of my all time favorite guitar players. I consider him to not only be one of the best guitarists alive today, but one of the best of all time. To paraphrase the common saying: he is a master of all trades, jack of none - at least in my opinion. I have had the pleasure of meeting Guthrie, and have seen him playing both his solo music, and that of The Aristocrats, numerous times.
He is not only a shining light in the guitar world, but also a simply lovely person. After meeting him, albeit briefly, I was surprised at how appreciative he is of all his fans and how he made time for everyone, and answered my questions thoughtfully. I left that event with a positive feeling, wanting to be as good as I could be on the guitar - this is the optimal result of a scenario where you meet one of your heroes.
Guthrie Govan - Fives
Alex Hutchings
When I was at music college on the Isle of Wight, there were weekly seminars held by figures within the music industry. Some days it would be a musician, others it would be a label representative or engineer… practically anything you could think of that had relevance to the music industry. Every Monday we would walk into the college and check the notice board to see who the week's guest was - you can imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of my favorite guitarists, Alex Hutchings. One of the main figures that ran the college, a legend by the name of Dave Pontin, knew I had been a fan of Alex for a long time, and organized a private meeting and jam session with just the two of us - talk about pressure!
Once again, he was a really lovely person. Great to hang out with, chat about guitars with and to admire his playing in a 1-to-1 setting was a dream come true! I will use part of our discussion as reference material for a point later on in this blog post.
He even gave me a couple of guitar picks - one that he has used, and that turned me on to the Dunlop Tortex sharp picks. I do not think I have ever practiced as feverishly as I did in the weeks that followed our meeting. I have met him since then and he is a joy each time.
Take both of these anecdotes as testimony that meeting your heroes can be a tremendous experience for you!
What Not To Do
Below I will discuss some scenarios where people have done things that you absolutely should not do.
Brian May
When I had my meeting with Alex Hutchings, as described above, we were discussing the very subject of this blog post. He told me that he had recently played at a guitar festival somewhere in Europe, and was lucky enough to see Brian May’s band perform. He bumped into May backstage whilst getting some food and they spoke about music and each other’s performances amongst other things. All of a sudden, a random person pushed Alex out of the way, and started saying how great Freddie Mercury was and he loved Queen - it was described as an endless torrent of words. May’s security stepped in, Brian thanked Alex for his time and immediately withdrew to his dressing room.
Not only was the extra person incredibly rude for pushing Alex out of the way, he also cared more about Brian May for the fact that he was famous, and not who he was as a guitar player and a person.
Robben Ford
I have seen Robben Ford play live a few times, but never have I ever met him personally (although TAGA’s Michael Kaplan interviewed him in a video that you can see here). By all accounts, he is a very nice person but one thing he cannot stand is people taking unsolicited pictures and just being plain annoying - I can’t say I blame him!
I recall a story told by a friend where he was playing a show, and the crowd had been notified prior to the event that photography was not allowed. Despite a few reminders during the show, several patrons continued to take flash photography at which point Robben simply faced the band and finished out the show like that. Again, this is hearsay and I have no proof of the event, but it is common sense to respect the wishes of any person, let alone a star like Robben Ford.
Advice
The most useful piece of advice I can give you would be to treat the artist in question like a human being, because that is what they are. Some fans elevate their idols to godlike status, which is fine, but consider perhaps that they do not want to be fawned over. Think of some interesting questions to ask them about specific points that are relative to them. In an interview recently, I asked YouTube sensation and session musician extraordinaire Pete Thorn about his relationship with Suhr guitar - not only because I play them myself, but also because he is enamored with them and I find that interesting.
A number of years ago, I met a guitar player for coffee. This player is not a household name, but his credits include Justin Timberlake, Barbara Streisand, George Benson, Stevie Wonder and many more. I did not bombard him with questions about George Benson, or what it was like playing with Justin Timberlake - that would value his connections over him as a person. Instead and spoke about one of his early solo albums, where a specific lick he played over a chord change intrigued me and led me on a quest of transcription and discovery. He must have liked that, because then he signed the backplate of my Les Paul, and organized a backstage pass to the Royal Albert Hall that evening.
Final Thoughts
Remember that any famous musician you meet is just a normal person at heart, so connect with them as you would anyone else. By all means, tell them that you are a big fan, but don’t stick on the subject for an eternity. Take a chance on approaching them if you see them in public, but do not be disheartened if it does not go how you dreamed it would. Maybe they have had a bad day, perhaps they have been hounded by other fans already and their social battery has run out. The main thing is this - do not be an idiot.
As a professional musician and educator myself, as well as all of the other teachers at The American Guitar Academy, there is a wealth of experience to draw upon to make relating to a prominent figure in the music industry a bit easier. If you are lucky enough to know in advance that you are going to meet someone, in something like a VIP experience or masterclass, then maybe work with your teacher on some good questions to ask. Do not revert to the classic “How do you go about writing songs?” or “When did you start playing guitar?” - all of that information can be found online very easily. Tailor the questions accordingly.
For example, if I was going to meet Slash then I would ask him the following questions:
“When playing the songs from your recent blues record live, you switch guitars almost every song. If you had to choose just one to play the whole set, which one would it be and why?”
Hopefully this whole blog post is useful for you in some way! I hope that you get to meet some of your heroes in the future!
