ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What inspires you to write such beautiful music ?
what advice would you like to share with aspiring artists?

Stevens: Well, you know in the case of my solo record, a lot of it's inspired by film and art and a lot of unrelated things in my life that I draw on for inspiration. In the case of this one track on my record, it was inspired by just a photograph. Then, one was a homage to the film director Federico Fellini. So, you know, I think for any aspiring artist, I think you just have to put yourself in a position to be aware of things and kind of open yourself up to seeing the beauty in many different things.
 

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What was the photograph, just out of curiosity?

Stevens: The track on the record is called, "Twilight In Your Hands," it was actually a photograph in an architectural book on strangely enough - airports. There was just a photograph of this empty airport and it just conjured up this kind of imagery in my mind of maybe someone leaving to go on a long trip or someone having just left someone.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Have you have always been interested in flamenco guitar?

Stevens: Yeah, I've always been interested. I'm primarily known as a rock guitarist, but I would always bring a flamenco instrument with me to the studio, but not a lot of times would it get used. But, yeah, one of my first guitar teachers was a flamenco guitarist. Then, when I went to the High School for the Performing Arts, one of the students was Mario Escodero, Jr. and his father Sr., was the guitarist for the Jose Greco Dance Company and around the same time I started to become aware of Paco De Lucia. I was a John McLaughlin fan and then John did the trio with Paco and Al Di Meola. I knew the other two guys, but I didn't know who this Paco De Lucia guy was. And also through listening to one my favorite guitarists growing up Steve Howe from "Yes" and he was someone who always employed classical guitar in their music. I just always loved the sound of nylon string guitar. I think it was from being a kid and hearing Classical Gas on the radio. It's just something inviting about the sound of a nylon string guitar.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Where did you grow up and how did you get into guitar playing?

Stevens: I grew up in New York and in our neighborhood, Rockaway Beach, there was a well-known folk musician that came from there called Phil Och and in the 60s he was as well known as Bob Dylan. So we had our kind of local hero and everyone in my neighborhood played guitar. I mean, you couldn't go to the beach without seeing tons of people, hippies with their guitars, you know. I have an older brother and all his friends played. So, one day, my dad brought home like a little practice guitar that came with a record I think it was like The Burl Ives guitar. I was like, 'Wow'. This was my thing, I always thought it was really cool to play guitar.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: How did you start?

Stevens: For me, I was young, I was six and a half -years-old. I mean, not that I was good at that age. But, you know, from what I can remember, by the time I was eight, I could actually play, you know like Beatles songs. Fortunately, my parents were really supportive and sent me to a music camp.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Did you like the high school and music camp?

Stevens: I did like the camp, this was like a day camp out in Long Island, I really liked that. High school for me, was kind of a realization that what I wanted to do, what I needed to learn wasn't going to be taught in the classroom. It was my first exposure to being in Manhattan, I was accepted into the school for playing guitar and due to the fact that the guitar's not a symphonic instrument, they asked me to pick up another instrument and you know, I mean, I'm not very good at any other instrument. I play guitar. So, I kind of like lost interest there, although, I kind of like music history. I enjoyed learning about the lives of famous composers. But I didn't see a way for me to apply what I knew to this curriculum they were teaching and around the same time was when a lot of the clubs in New York were starting to happen, it was a really good scene for music and I wanted to get in there.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: In the beginning of the enhanced CD, its cool to see you up there on stage, it looks really exciting and it looks like you're really connecting with your audience. Do you enjoy playing live?

Stevens: Yeah, I mean, I enjoy all music actually, every aspect of it is all good... When I was younger, you're sort of overtaken by the adrenaline of the live performance, nerves and a combination of all that.
But now, I guess because I'm a veteran musician, I'm more in the moment now when I perform live. I'm more aware of the audience and I'm more aware of kind of relaxing. I warm up before I play and there's a sort of calmness of being in the moment. Basically, what I'm saying is I'm really enjoying it more now.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Has it changed?

Stevens: Totally. I just really enjoy being a musician and being more mature about it. I enjoy it more. You really kind of take on a responsibility to your craft, you know. You feel like . . . I've been given a gift and I respect it and I want to present it in a really good way. I recently went to see Jeff Beck play, I totally got that feeling that he was a guy who was given an incredible gift, he was there to share it with people and he has such amazing control over his guitar playing that I think no matter whether you play classical, flamenco, country -- that's really what you aspire to.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: You know how you mentioned with "Twilight In Your Hands" you had seen the photo, is there a story behind any of your other songs? A story of what they mean to you?

Stevens: Yeah, each track is different. The second track is called, "Cinecitta". That's the film studio in Italy where Federico Fellini made most of his movies. He had passed away and soon after, his wife passed away. It was sort of my homage to the influence of his movies. Like I remember seeing "Juliet of the Spirits" when I was young, I was just a big fan of Fellini's. The third track is "Our Man In Istanbul," and that, I was kind of imagining if I was given a spy film in like the mid-1960s to score with that sort of Eastern intrigue.
The next track is a "Letter To A Memory." My best friend growing up was a Puerto Rican guy that was kind of crazy, but a really cool guy. We both shared a love at that time of early progressive rock music like Genesis, King Crimson, and here was this Puerto Rican guy with a huge afro into progressive rock - I mean, people were like 'What?' And I've kind of lost track with him and with this track, I was kind of remembering all the good times that we spent and the influence he turned me on to, going to stay with his Mom and Dad his Dad turned me on to Tito Puente records. I was kind of writing, basically, a thank you letter to a friend that I haven't spoken to or seen in twenty years.
I mean for probably every track on the record, there's some story behind it.
As I've said, "Twilight In Your Hands," was inspired by this photograph.
Oh, "Riviera '68" was another track, there was a scene where these two absolutely stunningly beautiful people were driving a sports car in the French Riviera up the mountains and I thought this music really worked well against this scene.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Was it fun to work on 'Top Gun'?

Stevens: Yeah, I only spent an afternoon doing that track. So, the composer, the film score composer, Hal Fultemeyer had come into work on the Billy Idol record. He was working on "Top Gun" at the moment and he kind of said: "Hey, you wanna help me out with this?"
"Yeah, sure."
It's pretty funny that we ended up winning a Grammy - because it was like an easy kind of thing to do, it was like one afternoon, kind of lucky I guess.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you have a definition for"Flamenco A Go-Go," you know something that would calm some of the guys out there who are practically fighting over what it means?

Stevens: Oh really, (Steve chuckles) about what it means? Well. Yeah, I mean, the misconception is A, number one: I'm not a traditional flamenco musician. It's not a flamenco record. I mean, by flamenco, is for me, it's meant that was the instrument that I used, flamenco guitar that was used on the record, not that I'm a flamenco guitarist because I've seen some people say oh well he's not a traditional flamenco guitarist, yeah of course I'm not a traditional flamenco guitarist. Its the fact that the only guitar I used on the record happened to be a flamenco instrument.
And the "A Go-Go" part was obviously the fact that there is this whole other side to the record, which is this kind of slightly electronic, 60s, kind of cool groovy kind of atmosphere that I put the guitar into, so I wanted to let people know. ... if I had given it some serious kind of title, ah you know, "Moods Of My Inner Being" or something like that, there's a lot of new age-y people doing that. I didn't want to be part of that.
I wanted people to know just by the title that this record's going to be fun and that it was some kind of weird kind of slant on Flamenco guitar playing.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: It's a great, beautiful CD. If people didn't create new stuff, everything would be the same, there's a purpose.

Stevens: That's exactly it. I think maybe someone, you know, who listens to my record will go out and buy a Paco De Lucia record or something. I mean, I was exposed to classical music through progressive rock bands, like you know Yes, Genesis and that made me go out and buy classical music. I wasn't going to do it looking at my Dad's record collection.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you have a favorite pick for nylon string guitar?

Stevens: I found this company in Japan that makes picks. Basically, it's like a standard size pick but, it's slightly heavier and it's extremely pointy. The standard guitar picks are too rounded for me to get any precision out of them. I was in town, in Japan and I went into a department store, music department, music section and I found these picks and they had this Japanese group's name on them. So, the guitar technicist at the time said, "I'll get you some with your name on it."
I mean, more and more I'm finding that when I'm playing nylon guitar, I'm playing more with my fingers, expecially for rhythm stuff. The first track I think I attempted to do that on my record was "Hanina" and Greg Ellis whose the precussionist on my record, really kind of inspired me to play that rhythm in traditional style without using a pick. It's a totally different sound. And with a pick, it tends to get very sharp and doesn't have the kind of depth - that sound of the flesh on your finger on the string has, there's so much more kind of resonance and bodyment.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: How did you practice to get so perfect? You know, you play so fast and it's all crisp.

Stevens: Practice, I guess is the only word. The key for me was that if I was inspired by a lot of guitarists with a right hand picking technique and I just never understood why muscians played like hammer-on. I mean the guys that I liked were Steve Howe from Yes, John McLaughlin, Robert Fripp, to a certain extent Al Di Meola -- these were all guys who had that kind of rapid fire right hand picking technique, where you pick every note. I still practice, that's predominantly what I practice to this day on my guitar. I love to see guitar players who can really pick. You can tell in an instant the guys who can do that. It's the whole other side of guitar playing for me. It's not just what's going on on the left hand.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you have anything upcoming?

Stevens: Let's see, in April we have a "Greatest Hits" record coming out for Billy Idol, and we're shooting an hour long concert for VH1. Yeah, it should be good. We're going to do primarily acoustic version, like an unplugged. Then we're doing some shows, we're doing the "Bottom Line" in New York. Then, I think in May . . . The record label that I'm on which is Ark21, which is run by Miles Copeland, Sting's manager, so every year, he has a castle in France where he brings musicians together there. And it's like 20 musicians, we all write and hangout. Last year I went and got to hang out with Jeff Beck, Stuart Copeland, so I think in May, I'm going to go back and do it this year.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you enjoy traveling?

Stevens: I love traveling. I spent three months in Japan this year, October, November, December, there. Yeah, I really love traveling. I think it gives a whole other perspective to the world. I love Europe and I love the history and learning about things, kind of what life is there for.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you have a favorite concert or was somewhere you ever played that was just like, 'Wow.'

Stevens: Yeah, in Colorado with Billy, we played at Red Rocks and the amphitheater was built right into the side of a cliff and that's pretty stunning. That's pretty amazing. I really like that feeling of being the journey-man musician where you just kind of go to another country and present your music and it gives you a really good feeling about what you do. As I said before, you are given a gift and in some way you inspire them and help them enjoy their life. That's an incredible thing to be able to do.

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Thanks for taking the time to do the interview.

Stevens: Not a problem

ClassicalGuitarShop.com: It's been really fun talking to you

Stevens: Okay, thanks.