Ron Thal: i heart guitar interview

Let’s hop in the Wayback Machine and jump back to back in the day when you recorded The Adventures Of Bumblefoot.

Let’s see, this was the early 90s – god, can I remember that far back? I was teaching music at a school, every grade from pre-school up to 18 years old, and they didn’t have a music department, so I set up an entire music department for them doing music for children and doing music history, I set up a jazz band, a choir, everything for the whole school. The school ran out of funds and it reached a point where I was just looking at life and I thought, ‘There’s no such thing as job security. You just have to follow what you love.’ And I did love doing that, but I would do that during the day then I would put braids in my hair and jump in the car and go and do some gig out in New York City at night, then get home at 4 in the morning and an hour later get up and teach again. It was at a point where I really needed to make a choice whether I wanted to have the more normal, safe life, or did I want to really be a full-time musician and jump in and learn how to swim. And I took the leap and six months later I had the record deal with Shrapnel Records more