Guitar Center recently interviewed Joe Bonamassa. As you’d expect, the interview covers Joe’s influences, his signature Gibson Les Paul, the future of the blues, and his approach to letting people tape his shows:
I don’t understand artists who don’t let people film their concerts and hire a bunch of goons to roam the audience and harass fans. These days people want to check you out before they buy a ticket to one of your shows, and YouTube lets them do that. If they like what they see, they tell their friends or they email it to their friends and it goes viral. It’s a great way to market your band, and it doesn’t cost you that much, if anything at all.”
Read the full interview on Guitar Center’s site. They’ve also provided video coverage from the interview, which I’ve embedded below:
All About the Fans:
American and British Influence:
Learning to Feel the Music:
Snapshots in Time:
I had the great pleasure of seeing Joe Bonamassa perform at the Keith Albee Theater in Huntington, West Virginia this past spring during his Black Rock CD tour. He played several different guitars (mostly Gibson) and his showmanship was excellent. He also had a great sense of humor.
Now, I’m enjoying my fresh copy of the Black Country Communion CD. The music is heavy and the most purely rock oriented CD with Bonamassa to date. Of course, Black Country Communion is a superstar band, which also includes Jason Bonham, Glenn Hughes and Derek Sherinian.
@Ed – Yeah, Joe really knows how to put on a great show. I’ll get to see him for the fourth time in a couple of months. I too have been enjoying the BCC album. Definitely a different vibe than his solo stuff, but very good.
I couldn’t agree more with the comment about letting people video tape concerts. I would be willing to bet that having lots of amateur videos floating around the internet would not divert Bonamassa sales as much as it would just contribute to exposing more people to this great music. The business model for artists to earn a living has changed forever anyway.