Scotty Johnson of the Gin Blossoms: I came up in the jazz world, where the approach to doing a solo is off the melody. That was always my focus: My guitar parts have to be based off of the melody or the structure of the song. I'm all for that song and what it needs. I am not there to show off.

Michael Staertow (Lou Gramm / The Guess Who): If you're able to take the fans on a journey back to when they first discovered the music and they can escape to a time of a first kiss, a dance, or a date, you've done your job.  

That's our job as musicians: To communicate with people without speaking. The music does the talking. 

Fred LeBlanc of Cowboy Mouth: You're looking to have people leave a show feeling like, not only was their money well spent, but that they got the better end of the deal.

Kryz Reid, guitarist for Third Eye Blind: I started playing guitar when I was like 15. I would just sit on the edge of my bed and just strum chords and just be going, "My God, it works, like they said it would."

​Cris Cohen: And then another bit of great advice that I got from reading through some of your materials online is… you said something along the lines of, “If you don't define success for yourself, you're pretty much lost.”

Chris Fryar of the Zac Brown Band: Well, it's true. In order to achieve anything, you have to set a goal. You can apply this to anything. Not just drumming or music. You have to set a goal. You have to define what it means to be successful.

This is probably my biggest soapbox I always get on, especially with young musicians. People ask me, “What's it like to finally be a successful musician?”

I tell them, “I've been a successful musician since I was about 17 years old.”

And they go, “Well, I've never heard of you before the Zac Brown Band.”
My definition of success and their definition of success are two totally different things. I've always defined success very clearly and concisely as: At the end of my tax forms every year, there's a box where you sign your name. To the right of that box there's another box that says “Occupation.” For me, success has been clearly defined as writing the word “Musician” in that box.

So (for many years) I have been successful, because of the bulk of my living has come from making music.

Congratulations to client Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds on his Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album!

Ben Sesar, drummer for Brad Paisley: Some friends and I were talking about practicing on a pad. I was like, "I've got to work on my chops." My friend Kevin said, "You don't need any more chops!" And we had a laugh. It's true. Of course you want more, but what I generally strive for in my working life… it isn't more power. Because I have hit the apex with that. I don't need more power. I don't need more speed. What I need more of is space. How wide can I make things feel? And sometimes that turns into accuracy. How can I make my margin of error smaller, make my consistency better?

I interviewed singer / songwriter John Hall. Best known for his work with the band Orleans, John has also written songs for his solo projects as well as for / with Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Chet Atkins, and others. In a very different career move for a musician, John was elected to the US House of Representatives, serving from 2006 to 2010. We discussed:
- His new album, "Reclaiming My Time"
- "Every song is a message"
- Co-writing and playing guitar with Steve Wariner
- Recording with people in remote locations during the pandemic
- His smooth approach to the guitar
- And more

Cris Cohen: You said in one of your interviews, “The consistency of a groove, a pulse, it’s inherent in our souls like a heartbeat,” which I thought was a great way of expressing it. As a teacher, how do you get students to tap into that?

Sandy Gennaro: There is a natural ability that's called “feel” that you really can't teach. You can teach somebody to play the drums, technically speaking. But it's very hard to teach that natural feel. 

I have taught seven year olds and I have taught 87 year olds to play a beat, to play drums. I could do that with anybody on a technical level, on the ingredients… right hand does this, left hand does this, right foot, left foot, etc. I can teach anybody how to do that. 

Listen, you've heard a song like “When The Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin. You learn that's not a difficult drum beat to play. Fifty drummers play it, no one will sound like John Bonham. 

It's like, how do you describe love? How do you describe when you love your wife? How do you describe how you feel? You can't. It's one of those esoteric things that you can't describe. You know it when you hear it and you know it when it's not there. But you can't put into words what you feel.

Fred LeBlanc of Cowboy Mouth: The challenge of writing songs, playing with my band, playing to a different audience every night… I still find it thrilling. I am still as excited before a show now as I was when I first started doing this 158 years ago.