Peter Hodgson: jemsite interview!

Peter Hodgson from iheart guitar interviewed... here's a snippet
Who are some of your guitar and music influences?

Aside from the obvious ones like Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Dave Mustaine, Nuno Bettencourt, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert and Eddie Van Halen, my biggest influences are Frank Zappa, Mike Keneally and David Bowie. While the other guys influence my guitar playing to various degrees, Zappa, Keneally and Bowie influence me by giving me inspiration for my entire approach to music.

You’re already a journalist. Why the urge to start a guitar blog?

It started because I realized I had a couple of years worth of reviews and interviews from Mixdown Magazine which weren’t likely to be read by anyone after each issue’s month-long run ended. Mrs I Heart Guitar, an avid blog reader, suggested I put them online. The blog allows me to expand upon articles that were originally written for the magazine, as well as writing fresh new content. Sometimes it works the other way around too, and material from the blog will make its way into Mixdown.

Does actually playing guitar give you an edge in your music journalism?

I guess it gives me a level of insight into my interview subjects that non-playing writers don’t have, and I find that a good way to loosen up an interview is to throw in a particularly geeky guitar question relatively early on. Sometimes you only get 15 or 20 minutes for a phone interview and you’ve really gotta think on your feet to get a connection with the artist in that time. When I interviewed John McLaughlin, it was only a 15 minute chat but I got a lot out of him by being upfront with him that I was just beginning to get into fusion, both as a listener and as a player. He was only too happy to talk about fusion and improvisation from that perspective and I feel it made for a pretty interesting interview
full interview

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