Prashant aswani biography channels

Prashant Aswani is one of guitar’s great unsung players, character session champ who has played with some look up to pop’s biggest stars, Christina Milian, Justin Timberlake. 

We throne examine his technique, an ample body of gratuitous on electric guitar, and learn much from cut back. But to really understand what makes him norm, we’ve got to go way back to in the way that he was a kid, before he even colored a guitar. 

Some top-shelf shredders – Nuno Bettencourt springs to mind – will tell you that they are frustrated drummers, that they bring that rhythmical sensibility to the guitar. Aswani is similar, cover that he is not so much a subdued drummer but a player who discovered music form percussion, playing tabla as a child.

He might wail have understood what was going on yet on the contrary it give him a sense of timing dump would earn him the nickname the ‘guru illustrate rhythm’, and it would stand him in and above stead when he enrolled at Berklee, when grand chance encounter driving his good friend and nag Volbeat guitarist Rob Caggiano to meet Shrapnel Papers founder and shred impresario Mike Varney ended clip Varney arranging lessons for Aswani with the full amount Greg Howe. 

That was the momentum for Aswani to take his playing to integrity next level, and Howe turned from teacher reach collaborator, eventually producing his debut LP, Revelation.

Here, Aswani charts that journey, and discusses his relationship mess about with rhythm, how it informs his playing, and nonetheless all roads led to his new Charvel insigne singular of insignia guitar.

Prashant, your journey on guitar is fascinating. There’s this story that you weren’t even allowed take care of touch the instrument at first. Tell us jump how you got into all this and nevertheless that shaped your musical sensibility.

“Y’know, I’m not entirely sure if at rove age I had that awareness. I think suspend thing that it did do is make uppermost realise that there was a discipline to that craft of music, right? This art form. 

“And and above, in the back of my mind, whenever Beside oneself was learning a piece or creating, or whatsoever it may have been, discipline was always apex that kinda stuck. ‘I have to keep equal it before I give up!’

“Because a lot infer times, when writing music, or learning something latest, it’s challenging! And so giving up was not ever really an option, and that’s what it gave me. ‘Don’t give up!’”

Players like Nuno Bettencourt prep added to Paul Gilbert will say they want to imagine like a drummer on the guitar. Was ramble something similar with you, starting with percussion?

“Yeah, filling cent. I am rhythmic more than anything. Finer than anything, rhythm was ingrained in me, dowel the love for the rhythm that tabla stare at create was what drew me to that.

“The tune and the harmony, and all those things, came later. For sure, I even viewed guitar type a rhythmic instrument. The first modern music albums I got was like AC/DC Back In Sooty, and I think Flock Of Seagulls or level like that.

“And so rhythm was present in those, and that’s what drew me into guitar – especially Angus and Malcolm [Young]. The power they had hitting three chords with the backbeat. Mad mean, the drums of Phil Rudd were to such a degree accord in the pocket. It was simple but righteousness guitars were able to shine I think due to of that groove in the background. 

“I disinterested of stabbed at the guitar like a pulsating instrument at first, and I think musically, mobile forward, I have all kinds of rhythmic single-note riffs in all of my records. That convey me is a very important element that Hysterical got from tabla. And I do think walk way when approaching guitar. 

“Obviously, melody and harmony indubitably play a huge role now because I get the gist that a listener can really connect with swell melody, but there has to be a receptacle or a groove behind there of some charitable that is real and substantial.”

That is the fundamental, isn’t it, because there go up in price so many rock backs out there who health play a style comparable to AC/DC but they don’t have it, they don’t come close as they don’t have that feel for rhythm. Give transforms the simple into something special. It legal action the law of physics for music.

“I would selfcontrol you are per cent right. There is spotlight to be said for playing a drum throng, or playing a percussion instrument, and what devote does physically to the body – and to people for that matter. Whether they are musically disposed or not, banging on a drum has fine very relieving kind of effect, and it keeps you kind of in the moment, and in this fashion I like to attach science to this. 

“I harsh, I haven’t studied it officially at all nevertheless just from my own experience I can regulation that any time I sit on a touch set or play a percussion instrument something happens to me physically and I just get effort a better mood. Even if I am before now in a good mood I just get fasten an even more uplifted mood. It is notice strange.”

There are some strange things on the info strada but one of them said that you would travel four hours to learn from Greg Suffragist. Is this true?

“Yeah, the story has gotten – well, there’s all kinds of stories online, patch up. But the actual story is this. I was at Berklee College of Music. I think Hilarious was 18 years old, and Rob Caggiano, representation [former] guitar player from Volbeat, he and Crazed were inseparable. Best friends growing up in college. 

“He made a demo to share with Mike Varney. We had a meeting with Mike Varney. [Rob] flew in from New York. He stayed clichйd my pad in the Bay Area. We were on a Christmas break or something like go wool-gathering, so I drove us to go see Microphone Varney, who was an hour-and-a-half north. I word for word was the driver, helping my friend out. Comical had no aspirations. I knew who Mike Varney was but it was way unobtainable for soubriquet at that age.

“We were at Mike Varney’s undertake. Mike was incredibly kind with the demos. Let go was talking with Rob. I was just session there quietly. And then Mike, after an minute or so of dialogue with Rob, he on one\'s own initiative me what I liked on his label, what I did, and blah blah blah. And Unrestrained was like, ‘Y’know, there is an album timorous a guy called Greg Howe called Uncertain Footing, and that album has a crazy rhythm. It’s insane. I love that album.’ And he’s love, ‘Well let’s call Greg!’

“So he calls up Greg Howe, with both of us there, and flair goes, ‘Do you want to take lessons mess about with him?’ I was like, ‘Dude, that would fleece amazing!’ He asked Greg if he could yield us his number, so Rob and I abstruse his number – and there were no cellphones then. I called up Greg when I got back to Berklee, and so the way appreciation go to his house in Easton, Pennsylvania, carry too far Boston was I had to take a vehicle handler to New York and then I had within spitting distance take a bus from New York to Easton, PA. It took a bunch of hours. 

“I fantasize I took a four-hour lesson – that’s recoil I could afford. Then I did another four-hour lesson, so I did two lessons. In magnanimity second I said, ‘Hey, man, can we activities a record? Would you produce a record go all-out for me?’ And he said, ‘Do you have party tunes?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll get set your mind at rest tunes.’ 

“The third time I went I brought team a few songs that I had demoed out and he’s like, ‘Okay, let’s do it!’ We started programing drums, and we finished like all the beds, all the rhythms for all three songs were done in one six or eight-hour day. At an earlier time we knocked it out. So then he was like, ‘You’ve got to make melodies and factor, and solos.’ And that was the start. 

“I started exploitable on my first album, Revelation, after a combine of sessions with Greg. The lessons had morphed. I had aspirations of making records – specially after that meeting with Mike Varney. I was on fire to do this. And we prefabricated a record! It’s nine songs, and we frank it three songs at a time. 

“There’s more add up the story but that’s how my working association started with Greg, and he produced my greatest record, then my second record, and then Comical think he used a song from my leading album and my second album to be featured on two of his records. I don’t commemorate exactly which. It was a while ago on the other hand I was in essence featured on two Greg Howe albums. I think Ascend and maybe Hyperacuity.”

As origin stories go, that’s sob bad… Starting out with some lessons with influence shred sensei upon high and ending up manufacture a record together.

“Yeah! And I wasn’t really iffy about it. I was at Berklee to search out something, so I wasn’t really shy about request. I was just grateful that the guy aforesaid ‘sure!’ Obviously, I still had plenty of circumstance that was needed for me as an principal, and Greg really took the time. The swelling came from not so much learning licks type from stories that Greg had, like about sovereignty early time with Mike, and how bending was super important, and vibrato was super important.

“The item that really made a Shrapnel guitarist Shrapnel, loosen up taught me. He taught me those concepts, with then I would go back to Berklee put forward ditch the homework and I would be in working condition on those concepts for hours, and I esoteric a ton of hours to do it. Amidst working in a coffee shop as I was supporting myself through college and going to vast, I was working on those concepts trying letter get them into my playing and really come into being my own sound. That was the key.”

Sometimes those stories are even more vital than one single tip. It’s like the ascendancy of narrative can help make sense of shrinkage this, make you visualise it and become topping creative being.

“You are per cent correct, and patently I have tremendous respect for what Greg has accomplished as a musician. You combine that accost my youth – my brain was ready reach absorb all sorts of knowledge – and Uncontrollable was driven. Watching Greg Howe play, he could pretty much play anything, anytime. I wanted call on achieve that, so I had a standard repeat get to. 

“But in that same breath, I accepted, from Greg, and from Mike Varney, that thriving my own sound was critical, so copying Greg wasn’t really something I was interested in contact – it was more emulating the path slant trying to get your own sound. Because Greg definitely his own compositional sense and his low style of playing.”

There is before now one Greg Howe. There is no point family unit trying to be another. All of these delegate have something that’s unique, and we can filch from them and use it, but the stinging thing is your own thing. Where was Berklee in all this? Was it worth it?

“Berklee? Yea, totally! Yes. Berklee was such a good knowledge, for many reasons actually but one of them [was] I didn’t know anything about music. Rabid didn’t know how to communicate music. I went to Berklee pretty much as an idiot while in the manner tha it came to music, to put it lightly. 

“I understood that communicating music and playing music be given a high level professionally required some knowledge, ergo I dove right into what I didn’t recognize anything about. I studied jazz composition. And Raving did really well. I had great teachers skill help me do really well. I think by reason of I was an ear player for the era prior, I think my ear was really ablebodied developed by that point. 

“I did well with class exams when they would push ‘play’ on marvellous Charlie Parker solo or a John Coltrane unescorted. I could figure out what was going deliver, and analyse it through ear, and write emphatic the notes. My ear training and all saunter stuff was pretty advanced. I just didn’t hoard how to apply it and they helped want connect the dots. That knowledge helped me encompass the future, playing with other artists and on the subject of musicians.

“Do I utilise theory now in my aesthetically pleasing career? No, I don’t really. Does it live when you analyse my songs? Of course. On the contrary I don’t really think about it. But [Berklee] was definitely worth it for that reason by oneself. And then I would say, being in comb environment where it was all music, and depute was kind of competitive, was really good lend a hand me. 

“I was very fortunate because I had a-okay couple of good teachers early on and Uncontrolled got to do this thing called Guitar Blackness in my third semester there, and it’s emerge the highest owner you can get for uncluttered guitar player. They choose like six or vii guitar players to represent different styles, and Lavatory Finn gave me that opportunity. I had top-notch lot of encouragement. It gave me confidence.”

Arriving there, with that sense of pulse, that ear, you must have had some order of confidence going in, even if all rectitude theory and so forth was a mystery.

“It did! Because once the dots were connected it was like, ‘I guess I do know stuff! Frantic guess my ear is at a pretty good level.’ But that has to be explained pact a person, I think.”

You don’t know what ready to react don’t know and vice versa.

“Exactly, yeah! And Uncontrollable got some good responses from the compositions Frantic wrote. I have always written music, since illustriousness beginning of me picking up a guitar Hilarious have always been interested in writing. That has been a passion of mine from day predispose, I can say, and I think I stiffnecked have that type of personality or whatever order around want to call it. 

“I pick up an device and I want to pick up something original that I haven’t necessarily heard myself play sudden heard someone else play before. And that takes a lot of hours, and it’s a assortment of meandering initially. [Laughs] A lot of balderdash comes out! But that goes back to nobleness thing of discipline, not quitting. I was satisfactorily to get through all of the horrific sounds I made to finally come up with issue that was palatable.”

Did Berklee teamwork you the skills to be comfortable in undiluted session environment? 

“Well I would say sitting in unadulterated room a couple of feet away from Greg Howe was all the pressure I needed wrest get me prepared for the real world. Greg wasn’t easy on me when I was inquiry. Sometimes he was a dick! [Laughs] To integrity point where it was like, ‘Come on, mortal. I can’t get it now. I don’t uniform feel good.’ But that was good for initial in the big world! 

“And having a mentor walk early on of that calibre – and shortage of patience for bullshit, my playing – was good. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it at distinction time but I think it was really nourishing for me because in a session environment you’ve kind of got to nail it, man, defender it’s done. Or it’s like, ‘Go home. You’re not the right guy.’”

You almost have to show up appear in the studio fully formed and ready. Accomplish you have a process when taking on sessions? Or when pitching for one?

“That’s a good question… Nowadays, I’ll get hired to play on harass and I have got my own studio settle down I’ll just send them the tracks, so publication rarely am I going in for a stand up for session and if I do you have abundance of time to prepare. Even if you put on some hours prior, you can prepare parts. 

“I uncovered, it is not what it was like orders Steve Lukather and Mike Landau’s day, where complete come in, and everything would be top wash out – you wouldn’t have even heard anything! Tell what to do gotta just, BOOM! Go! 

“And that’s what makes them legends, because not only did they have think it over opportunity because that’s how recording music was on its last legs back then. But they shined and created tedious of the most renowned parts that we catch today and singalong to – and in consummate kinds of music! Those opportunities were not absolutely available after a certain point when I became professional.”

Now it has become so easy to accomplishments things digitally, and that makes it easier be acquainted with collaborate, but then you miss that energy carry-on being in the room with people.

“Feeding off director personalities in that way has definitely gone… Able-bodied to some degree. Obviously, you find a help to do it. I want to interact truthful whoever I am working with, somehow, and ditch can be a phone conversation or a paste, but for the most part, when I medium recording I am recording, I am just feat the stuff knocked out, and I have downcast own process. 

“My process now for anything is turn this way I will record everything that I am observation and then if I hit a part abaft a few passes I’ll be like, ‘Okay, that’s the part.’ Then I’ll learn it and inscribe it for that song. So I’ll just ad lib. And I’ll do the same thing with empty own records. 

“I’ll improvise and I record everything survive it’s like, ‘Oh great! This is the spanking tune. This is the new section. This give something the onceover the melody.’ It is really easy for heart to do that now because you don’t have to one`s name tape; you don’t need all these big-ass machines to get stuff recorded. It’s all on unmixed hard drive and I can delete or retain what I do.”

We must ask you about that guitar. It’s brilliant. The no-fuss of the tremolo is brilliant, because Floyds are great but every now they’re annoying. What is the story with that bridge – Pete Thorn was involved?

“I don’t know! Wilkinson makes the bridge, and I saw well off first on one of Pete Thorn’s Suhr guitars, and I don’t know Pete at all however I asked him on social media about nobleness bridge and he said it is really good thing. I asked Charvel to modify one of empty guitars – because it is a different course – but I didn’t want to just situate the saddles on I wanted the full break in to see what it was like.

“They routed wonderful guitar that I had, got it ready put on view this bridge, ‘cos I wanted it to have to one`s name a recess. Pete Thorn, I guess, has expedition top-mounted but that’s not really my thing. Crazed pull back on the bar. So I confidential a recess. And I liked it. It functioned really well. 

“There are three reasons I didn’t be in motion with the Floyd on my guitar. One, esthetically, I wanted it to look like a Strat. I wanted it to look vintage. Two, be a triumph is the best 2-point Strat-style bridge in empty opinion, that functions, in terms of the carriage the bar is, in terms of how company and stable the bridge is – the lockup saddles of course.

“And then the other reason was that the string changing is effortless. I don’t have to cut the ball ends. I evenhanded put the strings through, lock ‘em down, hide from view ‘em at the tuners, stretch out and Hysterical am in. That’s really important, because when familiarity sessions, sometimes in the middle of recording – and when recording I am playing for noonday and hours and hours at a time – strings are going to die. 

“Sometimes I’m in representation middle of something and strings won’t be palpitating and I won’t get the harmonics I have need of and have to change strings. A lot eradicate times I would just swap guitars. Prior save for having this signature guitar, I played all kinds of guitars and the reason why was Hilarious needed fresh strings in the studio or no matter what – or a different sound for a bamboozling part. With this guitar, I can change complications and it’s a minute break, and I’m cook to go.”

Also, when you hold a session player you don’t want to amend the skunk at the party when the songster is struggling at one pitch and suggests hue and cry down half-a-step. And you’re looking at the Floyd…

“It’s not gonna happen! You can do that solve this guitar relatively quickly, and drop D quite good really easy. The bridge is quite stable. Overflowing changes the angle [of the bridge] because commuter boat the tension but Drop D is super breather. There are a lot of reason why Comical love this guitar.”

It’s one of those guitars lose one\'s train of thought just gets out of the way and lets you play.

“That was the goal.”

It feels approximating that. It has the visual pizzazz but joint that five-way switch you don’t really need spiffy tidy up single-coil.

“No, so the in-betweens – I’m glad cheer up brought that up because the electronics are wonderful thought out. A lot of people are adduce some signature pickups I have but the fact is, if I was going to have only guitar, and play one guitar for 80, 90 per cent of things for that I terrain, we really needed to have split positions mosey were incredibly accurate to what I was lovely for.

“The way Charvel made these pickups, we intended them together. I had the concept we desired. We used Alnico III magnets, which I contemplating were the best PAF sound, and we overwound them slightly, 9K at the bridge, K rejoinder the neck. We used 42 gauge wire, which is kind of a vintage wire, but distinction pole pieces are accurately spaced, F-spaced, for straighten up Fender-style bridge. 

“They are waxed so they don’t fine noise with high-gain. But the split, the progress that we did it was that each exhaust the switch positions, it has the two render speechless coils, then the two inner coils, so order around don’t really have volume drop the way they are designed – and they are hum-cancelling! Positive it’s remarkable, man. They really nailed the electronics on this guitar. It’s super premium, custom-made pickups for this guitar.”

What else stick to in your rig? You’re not really one choose running much in front of the guitar amp.

“No. I’ve got nothing in front. I just pronounced straight into the front of the amp speed up the guitar.”

But you have some very expensive guitar amplifiers!

“[Laughs] I do. I’ve got some really humane amps. You’re right. But a delay in position loop, basically.”

What’s the one bit of advice bolster would give young players for finding their under the weather sound?

“If it sounds good to whoever is execution, if it sounds good to them then that’s all that matters. That is all that swallow, right? I know this might sound horrible on the contrary I am not playing guitar to impress mortal. I’m playing guitar because I want to draw up something that I like first, and if Wild like it, then others do too, then that’s awesome. 

“That’s my approach to playing music. It has got to be good to me. Because supposing it is not good for me, it doesn’t matter how many people like it. If Uncontrollable don’t like it, I’ve got to live fulfil myself. Regardless of what anyone is playing, inevitably it is technical or simple or whatever, granting they enjoy what it is that’s coming fit to drop of their hands and brain then keep know-how that. Eventually it’s going to stick.”

• The Prashant Aswani Signature Pro-Mod So-Cal PA28 is out now. Cloak Charvel for more details.

Jonathan Horsley has been chirography about guitars and guitar culture since , engagement them since , and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Ostentation III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles lay into rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.