TOSIN ABASI
Anyone who thinks there’s nothing new left to be done on guitar, watch this space.
Tosin Abasi: you’ll believe a man can fly.
TOSIN ABASI: JEN ROSENSTEIN; STEVE ROTHERY: KEVIN NIXON; NITA STRAUSS: JEREMY SAFFER; MICK TAYLOR: GETTY
Tosin Abasi once observed that “guitar is the skateboard of instruments” – and few young gunslingers have a bigger bag of tricks than him. Coming of age on the Washington DC circuit of the early 90s, the Nigerian-American’s eye-popping technique was forged at the crossroads of hair-metal and grunge; he recalls renting go-faster ‘chop builder’ tuition videos from his local music shop (“There’d be a dude on the front with an Ibanez and big hair”), but fell hard for the angst of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden. “It was the first music I’d listened to that had emotional complexity to it,” he remembered.