Gigging 6 Days a Week? - Ask Zac 45

well hello friends and welcome to
0:34
another Ask Zac
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today we're going to talk about uh
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gigging
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six days a week and also uh
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kind of answering of your question about
0:47
you know things that were helpful
0:48
learning resources for me
0:50
so that's we're going to talk about
0:52
today so
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first off if if you've been enjoying the
0:57
show
0:57
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all right so first off answering kind of
1:19
a
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many viewers have asked about good
1:23
learning resources and I'm not
1:26
I I can only speak from my own
1:28
experience
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and one of the greatest uh learning
1:32
tools i had
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besides a good guitar teacher was
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um you know the instructional videos
1:39
that started coming out
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in the 80s and the one
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that that means the most to me and uh
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and i i just remember horribly fondly
1:51
is get that classic fender sound
1:54
by with Jim Wieder and it was uh
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produced by uh homespun entertainment
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homespun
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studios in the uh in the late early 90s
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and it was on vhs and I bought it
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and it showed up and it completely
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hooked me
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um you know one
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he he takes all these different vintage
2:21
guitars and amps and talks about them
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and then he also talks about the players
2:25
that used them
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and he shows off their licks it's an
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amazing video
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it's still available i think you can
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stream it or you can you know from
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homespun and I'll put a I'll put a link
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in the description
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but uh what i played at the beginning of
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the show which of course is
2:41
at Reggie young's part to Memphis soul
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stew
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i learned it from Jim Wieder's get that
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classic fender sound video
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and he used a Harvard of course I've got
2:53
a 59 I think he had a 55
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and he had a real uh esquire custom from
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60. now this is my
3:01
jv tele but uh this is
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you know this is in tribute to Jim and
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uh I'm
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I'm very fortunate that Jim and I uh
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have
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uh gotten to kind of know each other
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some through email and phone calls
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and uh and that means a lot to me
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because
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Jim's a hero I mean Jim you know
3:21
Jim's playing and and that video
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it really got me down the vintage thing
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and also about the players that he
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talked about and so
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he played a guitar like this in an amp
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in an old Harvard
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talking about a r b playing and
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he talked about Steve cropper and
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Cornell Dupree
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and that's where i first learned about
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double stops which i play them
3:48
you know all the time you know
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[Music]
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so many things I learned from that video
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and uh
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it's a great kind of uh
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you know kind of intermediate level
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video and I I
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highly suggest you check it out you know
4:17
by by today's standards
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it doesn't have uh you know amazing
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looking
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you know video but it's it's great the
4:24
licks are great
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the uh the stories he tells are great
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and uh
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anyway I highly recommend you check that
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out and I'll put some more information
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on Jim Wieder
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um on my website so I'll
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you know put together like a playlist
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and uh
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yeah just have some more information
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there'll be a link to that in the
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description
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all right now the other thing that
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people have asked about
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is me telling stories about my uh
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you know some of my gigging days when i
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was you know
4:53
gigging professionally not teching
4:56
professionally
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so i thought what better than uh
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you know when i was playing the most
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and playing in bars you know six nights
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a week
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so got to give a little bit of context
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so
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during my senior year at Belmont
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university
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I had interned at mca records
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and capital records for a guy named
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Johnny rose
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Johnny rose is in the sales department
5:26
at mca and then when he went over to
5:28
capital
5:29
I went with him over there to continue
5:31
my internship and I interned with him
5:33
for uh
5:35
i think two semesters and Johnny was
5:38
great
5:39
and very tolerant of me because at the
5:41
time I was really unemployable
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and because all I wanted to do was play
5:44
guitar and he was trying to
5:47
you know actually you know give me some
5:49
skills
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and try to help me and he even tried to
5:52
give me a job he'd offered me a job
5:55
at capital capital records you know
5:58
would have been an entry level position
6:00
but i would have had a real job and i
6:01
probably would have actually learned
6:02
some real skills
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but one I was just blinded by the fact
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that I wanted to to play music
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and the other was i had a horrible
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tragedy happen and that was
6:14
my cousin named lee
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he uh he died in a uh in a in a car
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accident
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and it was right before graduation uh I
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was right in the middle of finals and I
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got a phone call saying that he had been
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in a car accident he had died
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and uh he was like a brother to me
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and uh I just kind of went in a complete
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tailspin
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and part of it was I had been in a car
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accident just a couple of months before
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and in one of those horrible tricks that
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your mind
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does um I started thinking that
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I should have died in my car accident
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and then maybe he wouldn't have
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I know it's completely messed up but we
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do these kinds of things
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um just out of out of grieving
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and uh and uh yeah and if you're going
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through that
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you know or have something like that
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please you know get some help
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but uh anyway so
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and i tell you this not to you know be
7:19
modeling or anything of that it's just
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to tell you what this was my mindset
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and uh I graduated from Belmont
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still kind of in a tail spin and I had
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no job
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had no gig I had nothing and my parents
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came up of course for graduation
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and we went and they bought me
7:39
a bed and because I'd been living on
7:42
campus the whole time
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and then I got an apartment with some of
7:47
my friends
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and uh all of a sudden there I was
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with an apartment rent to pay and all
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sorts of stuff and i had you know i
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didn't have a job
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well on a Saturday evening about dinner
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time I get a phone call from a drummer
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buddy of mine
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that uh I had done some some you know
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like demo sessions with and some little
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gigs some little recording things with
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and he said
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hey Zac my wife and I are
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you know we have a month's worth of
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dates
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and our guitar player fell through
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and wondering if you want to go and play
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with us
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we need to leave on Monday so that's in
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two days or really a day and a half
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really
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and we're going to be gone for 30 days
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well I don't think I even really thought
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about it I mean I just thought it was
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like well I need money and I need to do
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something so I said yes
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so the next day on Sunday we had a
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rehearsal
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that was more of you know kind of like a
8:49
get to know each other because I didn't
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know
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besides the drummer I didn't know anyone
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I didn't know his wife who was the
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singer
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and uh I won't say her name but I will
8:58
say that the name of the band was
9:00
of course it was her name then hearts of
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fire
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so at one point I was a heart of fire
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so I know I know you're all yeah eating
9:10
this stuff up
9:12
so uh I meet everyone
9:15
and the keyboard player um he had just
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graduated from a religious university
9:22
and he didn't know anything about
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country music and he didn't know how to
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take a solo at all
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so he was not helpful uh he so I had to
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you know so it was a small band it was
9:34
just drums
9:36
bass guitar and keyboards and a lead
9:39
vocalist
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and the piano player couldn't take a
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solo and didn't know
9:43
any of the material at all and so all he
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could do was kind of comp
9:47
some some rhythm so meanwhile i had to
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play
9:51
every intro every every outro and every
9:53
solo
9:56
the bass player uh was was good he was
9:59
competent
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uh but he you know he wore all black
10:02
leather wore black leather chaps had
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white long white hair big you know
10:07
handlebar
10:08
you know mustache good player but it was
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just kind of uh
10:12
you know we didn't really go together at
10:15
all so you had the
10:16
the keyboard player that had graduated
10:18
from a you know
10:19
religious university you had me that was
10:21
a basically a big guitar nerd you know
10:23
kind of a poindexter who was
10:25
you know I had a telly with a b bender
10:27
on it and a bunch of
10:28
stuff you had a a bass player that looks
10:32
like you should have
10:33
either been in a southern rock band or
10:35
the village people
10:37
and then you had a front woman you know
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singer that had only performed
10:41
on cruise ships and she had never you
10:44
know fronted a band you know playing
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country music and then you had her
10:47
husband that played drums
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well you know we went through a couple
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of songs and then we uh
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you know we got some we all you know
10:56
went home got some sleep and the next
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day
10:58
we took off for rallings Wyoming
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and that's like you know at least a
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20-hour drive from Nashville
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so we left Monday morning drove all day
11:09
and all night
11:10
Tuesday morning we get to railings
11:12
Wyoming we have
11:14
to set up our pa we've got a minivan
11:16
with a trailer behind it
11:18
we set up the pa and we set up our gear
11:21
and I guess at this point I'll tell you
11:23
what my gear was I had two
11:24
twin reverbs I had a stock 1969 silver
11:28
face twin reverb and I had a
11:31
a heavily modified blackface twin with a
11:34
15 inch jbl
11:36
that brad paisley had gotten a guy named
11:39
mark Ferguson in Nashville to build for
11:41
me
11:42
and so uh you know this was all due to
11:44
brad he he made the deal
11:46
he told the guy what to do and
11:47
everything this is the kind of guy brad
11:49
paisley
11:50
he's a he's a great dude and uh so
11:53
anyway so I had those amps and then i
11:54
had a telly with a b
11:55
bender and I had a strat and a pedal
11:57
board and I had an ovation 12 string
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that I used as a six string because it
12:02
was only acoustic i had that had a
12:04
pickup on it
12:05
and that was my rig and so we basically
12:08
didn't sleep
12:10
we got there in time to rehearse a
12:12
couple of because we have to play five
12:14
hours that night
12:16
and again we've never really had a
12:17
full-on rehearsal no one knows any of
12:19
the material
12:21
I had not played uh much
12:24
uh what I guess what you would call you
12:26
know you know female
12:28
you know country tunes because
12:31
i had mainly played with male singers
12:34
and so there are a lot of the stuff I
12:35
just didn't know because she was
12:37
doing bonnie raitt and uh
12:40
you know I guess that was more more rock
12:43
or adult contemporary
12:45
and uh you know Shania twain and patty
12:47
loveless
12:48
and you know Trisha Yearwood and and I
12:50
was you know I was more versed in brooks
12:52
and dunn and Alan Jackson and merle
12:54
haggard and George strait and stuff like
12:56
that
12:58
so we're going through these tunes and
12:59
somehow
13:01
we make it through you know the first
13:02
night of playing
13:04
and of course we had to do a bunch of
13:06
blues instrumentals to start off and end
13:08
every set
13:09
just because we only knew a couple of
13:11
tunes and uh
13:13
again this is rallings Wyoming and we
13:15
were staying at the gold
13:17
spike inn and you can
13:20
google it if you want to and uh
13:24
yeah so we basically rehearsed all day
13:27
and we played and you know when we were
13:29
you know because we and we had to play
13:31
five hours every night we started at
13:33
eight and finished at one
13:35
and uh and again you know there was no
13:38
help from the piano player
13:40
you know he was just comping some chords
13:42
otherwise I was playing
13:44
all the fills all the solos you know all
13:46
the intros all the outros
13:48
and it was a workout it was a
13:52
real workout and you know what
13:55
that was probably uh now of course I've
13:58
matured a lot since then with my playing
14:00
but as far as my chops
14:02
and how much I learned from that that
14:04
was amazing it
14:05
really changed me as a player and part
14:07
of what changed me
14:09
was
14:12
i got tired of my licks because you're
14:14
playing five hours a night
14:16
six nights a week you know we had to
14:18
play six nights that week
14:20
and all in the whole month that I was
14:22
out with them we played
14:23
you know six nights a week and uh
14:27
yeah it you get tired of yourself you
14:29
get tired of your licks and so you start
14:31
coming up with new things and so
14:33
even though we had played a bunch i was
14:35
still taking my telly or the acoustic
14:36
back to the room
14:38
which had not been updated since the 70s
14:42
and it had this clown
14:43
vomit looking shag carpet
14:46
and we were staying two to a room but
14:49
yeah anyway I would take my guitar back
14:50
to the room
14:51
and uh and I would be working on
14:53
different you know solos and different
14:55
things I could do
14:56
to try to keep myself interested you
14:58
know because it was like this was
14:59
getting boring
15:01
I mean there was the challenge of not
15:02
making a mistake but also it's like you
15:04
you you know you wanted to keep getting
15:06
better
15:07
so it was it was a great great
15:10
you know adventure and uh there were all
15:13
sorts of uh
15:14
crazy things that happened you know
15:17
you know getting you know some
15:21
American Indian gentleman uh asking for
15:24
a dire straits tune and
15:26
kept insisting on it until finally i
15:28
played sultans of swing by myself
15:31
and then of course he wanted to buy me
15:33
drinks and he wanted to
15:35
go smoke peyote with me and i told him
15:37
it was against the banned policy to uh
15:39
smoke peyote I said it's it you know
15:41
it's
15:41
sorry I can't you know break the banned
15:43
rules I signed a contract and
15:45
anyway he left me alone but uh
15:49
yeah it was a really fun and crazy time
15:53
and
15:53
most the time whether we were three to a
15:55
room
15:57
uh we weren't getting any type of food
15:59
at all so we had to go to the grocery
16:01
store we each bought an ice chest
16:03
and we would fill it with ice from the
16:05
hotel from the ice machine
16:07
and we would get the cheapest bread the
16:09
cheapest bologna and the cheapest
16:11
cheese and the cheapest milk and the
16:13
cheapest cereal and that's what we lived
16:15
on
16:16
and so once a week we would eat we would
16:18
eat out like something
16:19
like it pizza hut when you get the
16:22
little individual pizzas for like
16:24
you know five bucks and a coke and uh
16:27
besides that you know because we were
16:30
the money was terrible
16:31
and uh but it was a great experience and
16:34
i still look back on those days you know
16:36
fondly because uh you know i learned a
16:39
lot
16:40
and it changed me it you know taught me
16:42
things i wanted to do and things i
16:43
didn't want to do
16:44
but uh you know playing those bars and
16:47
entertaining people
16:48
and learning that you know you're there
16:51
to entertain people and sell alcohol
16:53
and you're there to to draw people in
16:55
you're not just there to
16:57
play a hot lick or something like that
16:59
you know not that it
17:00
certainly doesn't hurt but yeah i
17:03
learned a lot
17:04
from those days and i'm uh
17:07
grateful for that time and uh
17:10
and i still think about the fact that i
17:11
had two twins that i had
17:13
blaring you know i probably had you know
17:16
i probably had each of each of them on
17:17
four or five
17:18
and i had them kind of you know in a v
17:22
behind me so i'd be sitting here and
17:23
then i'd have the twin
17:25
you know each twin you know blowing out
17:27
into the audience
17:28
and uh and the reason i did that was
17:32
because they didn't have enough channels
17:33
on the pa
17:35
and uh so originally of course you know
17:37
i had two amps
17:38
as one as a backup but when they said
17:40
they're not going to put me through the
17:41
pa they're not going to mic me up i said
17:42
okay well i'll just use both amps and
17:44
blair won in one direction and the other
17:46
one in another and uh
17:48
everyone heard me so i'm sure i played
17:51
too loud
17:52
but anyway so yeah so those are
17:55
kind of six six nights a week playing
17:59
gigs five hours a night
18:00
there's there's no there's no way around
18:03
it i mean that's the way you learn how
18:04
to get better
18:06
I watched Daniel Donato play
18:09
with you know downtown Nashville
18:12
and when he first started playing you
18:14
know with the don Kelly band
18:16
and he was pretty good i mean he was you
18:18
know it was kind of like it was more of
18:19
a shtick because he was you know because
18:20
he was like
18:21
14 or 15 years old but
18:25
i okay i watched him again a year later
18:28
and again
18:28
he was playing four hours a night at
18:30
least four nights a week
18:32
when i saw him a year later completely
18:34
different player
18:35
completely different player so much more
18:37
mature uh
18:38
so much better so much better execution
18:41
there is no
18:42
way around it playing in front of people
18:44
is how you get better
18:46
and even though those things are hard
18:48
that's what makes you good
18:50
all right i hope you've enjoyed my story
18:52
today and uh
18:54
i'll see you next time thanks bye