INQUIRER
ALEX SKOLNICK
THE GENRE-HOPPING TESTAMENT GUITARIST TALKS FIRST GUITARS, FIRST GIGS AND ONE PARTICULARLY EMBARRASSING ON-STAGE MOMENT
What was your first guitar?
It was a classical guitar that I got very cheap at a garage sale. It was very difficult and challenging to play. I was about 10 when I got it, and it lasted about two years. Then I got an electric guitar that looked like an imitation of a Teisco Del Rey, and which was so thin, you could probably break it with one hand!
What was the first song you learned to play on the guitar?
The first full song I learned was “Act Naturally” by the Beatles, as sung by Ringo Starr, which is almost a country song. Before that, the first thing I learned on a guitar was the riff to “Day Tripper,” also by the Beatles. I learned how to play the notes by figuring out how to play it down by the bridge of the guitar, which gave it that surf quality. That was one of the first experiences that gave me the confidence to think that playing guitar was something I could do and potentially be good at. But at the time, I still didn’t know the chords to “Day Tripper.”