Killa B!!

written by Zarah



"If you really listen to that track, you can hear my mom knockin on my bedroom door. (laughs) You can't be a rock star when you're livin with your moms!"

He laughs as the light turns green and we continue the drive into downtown Seattle. We're in a very comfortable little sports car, looking for his favorite Italian restaurant and talking about everything from music to dating to puppies to politics. He's brought along digital copies of the very first songs that he recorded as a kid using his first guitar and a cheap Casio keyboard. The recording is bad, but the guitar playing, the guitar player, is fierce.



I got a chance to talk to him for a few hours, and although he can be mysterious, frustratingly secretive and cryptic about, well, just about everything personal, I did manage to learn a little bit about the guitarist that everyone refers to simply as "B."



Zarah: This isn't bad, considering that you were, what, 14 years old?



B: Yeah, something like that. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I always knew how good music should sound, you know? I mean, I was just putting a craptastic Radio Shack boom box with a built in mic in front of my amp and hitting the RECORD button. When I got that Casio, I thought I was big pimpin, yo! Yeah, I was a nutty ass kid.



Zarah: And you still have that guitar?



B: Yeah, it's probably my favorite just 'cause there's so much history there, ya know? The first jazz place that I played, the first hip hop club that I played. the first time I played Purple Rain in front of an audience was on that guitar! And it still looks good too.



Zarah: Prince is a big influence on your style. Who else do you think helped shape how you play?



B: Prince, George Lynch, Neal Shon, Chris DeGarmo, Peter White and Ernie Isley are my big six. I mean, a guitar solo should go someplace, it should have a beginning, a middle and an end. You can't just be playin all fast and crazy but have no direction. Who wants to hear that all day? The song has to come first, the melody, the rhythm. after you have that down, then the solo writes itself. I write songs, not solos. The stuff that I did for Nintendo didn't even have any guitar in it. I walked in with ALL my instruments and recording equipment, and they all looked at me like I was gonna do some bigass rock concert, but in the end, the only thing we used were keyboards and drums because that's all that we needed. When you have access to everything, you're tempted to use it all. But, I mean, if you're a chef, are you gonna bake cookies using everything in your kitchen? You can't put no damn tomatoes in cookies! (laughs) You have to be disciplined enough to know what you really need and what you don't.



Zarah: True, true. What about inspiration? What makes you want to create music?



B: Life, really. just livin life. I mean, people that I meet, stories that I hear, things that are going on in the world, relationships that I've had. all those emotions have to come out somewhere. So, it usually comes out in some crazy ass song.



Zarah: A song like "When Your Rainbow Ends?" It has a beautiful but edgy main riff. Wasn't that about.



B: Yeah it was. I mean, she really meant a lot to me, ya know? All that talk about gettin married and all that. You can't go through all that without some left over emotion, or frustration or something. But the problem with the personal songs is that I'm hesitant to play them for anybody. It's like opening up a wound and sayin "hey everybody, look at this!"



Zarah: And you're not really one to open up much, but when I heard that track, I felt really connected to you. It summed up everything that you went through.



B: Yeah, it's all there. Sometimes you just have to read between the lines. I don't know. I mean, even after you stop loving somebody, the memories are still there. And sometimes you look out the window and you wonder where they are and what they're doing. You can get angry and burn all the photos and throw away all the letters, but the memories remain. That song was my way of telling myself that I wasn't going to wait for her. She once told me that she came back here (to Seattle) because I was waiting for her. That song was my way of saying "Go do your thing, but when it's over and you realize that you're not happy, don't come looking for me 'cause I won't be here. The funny thing is that shortly after I wrote that song, she came back to town and she tried to call me and text me and all that. I was like, "we don't even have nothin to talk about. So get ta STEPPIN!" (laughs) But yeah, you know, I wish her the best. or whatever Hey, did you ever see the movie "Crossroads?"



Zarah: You mean the one with Britney Spears?



B: FUCK NO! I should make you walk home for that. (laughs) No, it's a movie about this kid that want's to be a blues guitarist but he just can't seem to play with any emotion. he's all technique, he doesn't feel the music. Then he meets this runaway chick, they fall in love, and then she just leaves his ass for no reason. Only after that does he REALLY know how to play the blues, 'cause now he's felt it. He knows the pain that he's trying to communicate through the song. That's what real music is. it's communication. That's one of my favorite movies. It was the first time that a lot of people saw and heard Steve Vai. One of the coolest ass guitar solos ever put in a movie. I'm sure that scene is all over You Tube.



Zarah: There are a lot of guitarist that try to sound like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, but you're not afraid to change your tone and technique from song to song. And somehow it still sounds consistent.



B: See, thing is, even though I listen to groups like Queensryche, Sevendust, Foo Fighters and all that, I'm also a big fan of The Cure and Portishead and dark moody shit like that. Techno stuff from The Prodigy too. On the other hand, the best concert DVD I have is mufuckin Yanni! His stuff is crazy and it's soooo complex. And don't even let me get started with hip-hop, man. I mean, Jay-Z, Snoop, Luda, Fat Joe, Paris, and especially old school Public Enemy. That's where my heart is. no matter what other crazy shit I'm playing, sooner or later I end up back to a big ass 808 beat. Most jazz musicians are afraid of big ass beats because it overwhelms whatever instrument they're playing, but that leads me back to what I was saying before-- it's not about the solo. It's not necessarily about what I'm doing on the guitar, it's about the SONG. It's about communicating. That's why I listen to so many different kinds of music. If you hit the random button on my stereo right now, it might jump form Mary J. Blige to Iron Maiden to the damn muppets -- it's crazy, but it's music. If it sounds good, I'm into it.



Zarah: And somehow you bring all those influences together and make it work.



B: At least I try to, ya know? That's why I switched over to "B. The Impossible." I mean, in a way, it doesn't matter 'cause everybody just calls me B anyway. But the point of it is to ask the question "why are you limiting yourself?" The point of it is to ask the listener "why are you workin that dead end job? Why are you comin home drunk every night and sleeping all day? Why are you letting other people put restrictions on you and tell you what you can achieve and who you can be?" I mean, what does "impossible" mean? Isn't it really just a word to describe something that hasn't been done before? So who's to say that you can't be the one that does it first? You've gotta admire Obama even if it's just for the fact that early on, nobody thought he had a chance. hell, even Hillary Clinton was tellin him that MAYBE he could be her Vice President. But he didn't listen to any of them. he stayed focused, did his thing, and in the end he won. That's what it's really all about. Be what you want to be. Make your own rules. "B. The Impossible" is about me just as much as it's a message to everybody else.



Zarah: So it's cocky but at the same time, kind of inspirational. I like it.



B: Yup-- there's always a method to the madness. You just gotta read between the lines.



After eating some of the best Italian food I've ever had, B showed me around Seattle and took me to a few of his favorite places. We talked a lot more about music and art and movies, but there always seemed to be layers below the words that he would say. He can be very guarded, and he always found a way to turn the conversation back to me, but maybe that's what he was saying all along. He's not looking for a spotlight or the cover of a magazine. It's not about what a great guitarist he is. It's about communication. And for that, he just needs to do his part.



And he does it extremely well.



1/24/09