Oh shit it's not... Ugh...
Goddamn I have to redo everything... no, let's just not do that
I... I hadn't fastened the tremolo bar
Oh... hello
There's also this thing, it's a stop-tail, so you can't go back
I'm used to whe-
I'm used to it when you know, you can dive off this edge
But you can't, because there's a drop... detune right here and some bullshit
Just saying
What's up everyone? And welcome to FAQ 157.
What's up, everyone?
Let's just go
Corey Adamonis
"You mentioned you have only one guitar on your wall at home
"what's the one guitar Ola Englund chooses to have on his wall at home?"
Great question, a lot of you guys speculated
What could it be?
What is the guitar that Ola has in his home?
That one guitar that he keeps, because...
Obviously when I got this office, I just took all of my guitars here
And I keep...
I do guitar stuff and office stuff here
At home, you know...
I completely shut that off
But I do have one guitar at home
If I need to kinda...
What guitar is it?
Let's go check
Yeah, so...
The one guitar I have at home is this
Nothing special, it's just another Solar
You know uh... just like the rest of 'em
I don't know why I picked this one to have at home
It's just one of those that I had over, I mean it's a...
It's a prototype that we wouldn't sell anyways
Uh... we have this guitar but in like bolt-on version
This is like a neck-through version right there
But we never made this guitar a thing, it became more of a...
Uh... it became a bolt-on basically, so...
It's just a proto-
It's just a prototype I've had over, so I took it home
There it is, I can play at home
So there you have it
That's the guitar
Thank you
German_Albin
"Question for the next FAQ
"What the hell is the instrument in the solo of your new song Bluesy McBluesface from the new album? What TF?
That, my little penis friend, is called a harmonica
That is being played through a Mesa Boogie Roadster amplifier
No, it's...
It's actually a member of mine
Uh... Michael James Burns that is playing harmonica on my blues song
And he reamped his harmonica through a Mesa Boogie Roadster
How about that?
I think he did an incredible job on the song and uh...
Thank you
The Tired Horizon: "Haven't watched Ola in a year.
"Come back to discover it takes him 6 minutes to burp."
I'm wondering if he's like 'Ok...'
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
What he's meaning.
I don't know what the meaning of this is
Maybe he wants me to burp even earlier in the videos
Did I burp already in this one? Uh...
I'll let you know when I'm ready, ok?
And I keep...
Bob Kornbrust
"Do you play with real musicians anymore? Or just plug ins?
"Seems to be the way of most guitar players nowadays.
"I spend 90% of my time jamming with real drums and guitar players
"and the other 10% playing on my DAW."
F*** man
That's really cool of you to spend 90% of your time jamming with real drums and guitar players
That's very fortunate, actually, that you get to do that
And kudos to you, man
But in reality...
today is that a lot of people are sitting at home playing through plugins, because...
...of the convenience of playing through plugins
I mean...
There's nothing uncool about playing through plugins
Because you're still... at the end of the day you're playing guitar, you know?
I understand what you're saying
That you might not play with real musicians
Because obviously people are not, they're playing with Superior Drummer or whatever
And I think it's very important to play with real musicians, because that's how you find real groove
And you know, the people aspect
of you jellying together with a drummer or a bass player or whatever
I mean, that is an extra magic
That is very beautiful
And if you can have it, that's great
But not everyone has the choice to jam with other musicians
And you know...
If they're still at home playing guitar through plugins, who cares?
Just saying
"Hey Ola, do you ever be in zone
"in jamming, play a sweet riff, and then immediately forget it?"
Yes, every f***ing day, man
Every f***ing day
It's a daily, daily struggle
But the good thing about this is that I forget everything
So I don't even remember if it was good or not
So that's a great thing
Uh... but yeah, when I write stuff I usually just put everything on record
Uh... in a DAW
And then I record me jamming
And maybe sometimes I catch something that is cool
That's a very good trick for you to find riffs actually, just...
Push record, jam out for an hour
And eventually you're like 'Oh that was good'
You can always stop and go back and listen to it
It's great
It's just a tip
C KodiTemes
"Hey Ola, I love hearing you talk about why you love the album format.
"I am an album guy too.
"What is your favorite album in terms of how it flows together as a cohesive piece?"
Great question
Should I... I'm gonna kick this around a little bit
Oh, let's take it here
Is that better?
Great, look at my hair, man
F***ing... these lights
There's a lot of concept albums that I truly enjoy that I think are...
is ha- are having great flows if you talk about album flow
Scenes From A Memory, Dream Theater
It's one of my favorite concepts albums...
Concept albums
And uh... an album that's not necessarily a concept
But just a really good-flowing album
is Opeth's Blackwater Park uh...
Holy shit man, I think that...
That's just a journey right there, the full album
And uh...
Yeah, I just love the fact when you listen to an album and...
You forget that you're listening to individual songs
That's something I...
That's like a real, true art right there
And that's what I'm trying to do with you know, my albums, obviously it's not working
But I'm trying, ok?
But yeah, I just love forgetting that songs are songs
And you listen to a full... you know, it's...
It's like watching a movie basically
You watch a movie and you enjoy the different parts in a movie
It goes up and down and whatnot
I love that in an album as well
I'd rather listen to an album that is one song going up and down
And you know, feeling that it's just one piece
Other than individual songs
I guess it depends on the band
I mean, I like Slayer for the fact that they're being Slayer
But they can still have a flow in their album
It's just that... you know, individual songs and whatnot, but...
I'm reallly a fan of the cohesive uh... you know, flow
Where a song really makes another song and the song in between...
...makes the song before and the song after complete
I mean, that is some sort of magic right there
And I completely derailed, sorry
Bowen Matheson
"I really appreciate the comments on the significance of a separate work space.
"To those who have flourished working from home during the pandemic
"What's your secret?"
To be honest, I'm probably the last guy to ask this, because for me...
...the pandemic hasn't really done that much
I mean, I was still working in my office and...
You know, I'd go to and from the office
And before the pandemic...
The people that I hung out with was basically Louise and my kids
So... and I'm still hanging out with them in the pandemic
So for me...
There hasn't really been that much of a change to be honest
Other than that I'm actually not out traveling as much, which...
That's a win-win for me, I don't like traveling
And... so I've been home, you know, working
It's not fun seeing other people having a rough year, but...
I haven't been that affected by it, to be honest
I think it's important to kinda cherish the people that you love the absolute most
And try to keep those close to you as much as you can
And maybe that will help...
...with how you cope with this
I don't know, just my honest feeling about this, thank you
How many minutes was that?
Rodrigo Yoshida
"I have a question
"I developed a very light picking technique
"because I always had problems with too much hand tension.
"Being a metal player it feels wrong to pick like that.
"I see many guitar players including you that beat the hell of their guitars
"many of them say that to sound correctly you have to pick hard.
"What is your opinion about that?"
Yes
I think we touched base a little bit on this in the latest FAQ where we talked about...
You know, how manly it is to downpick and all that
You know...
But...
Uh... and how important it is to pick hard
Because...
Through studies and tests, in my opinion...
For rhythm guitar playing, picking hard sounds better
Uh... I...
I don't know why it is, I can't explain it
It might be because of the incredible dynamics of just hitting hard
But that doesn't mean that people that are playing soft sound bad
in any shape or form, it's just a different type of sound
If you're having hand problems...
You should not stress yourself to push harder
Uh... and play harder, I mean, it doesn't make any sense
It already sounds like you have your thing going with playing soft, and that's ok too
Uh... just don't listen to the people that are saying that you have to play hard
You don't have to play hard
If it sounds good, it sounds good, ok?
I mean, I've been trying to pick softer nowadays
Uh... what I have a problem with is that I pick really hard
When I riff and chug
But then, I try to get to a softer side when I'm doing lead, you know...
Because...
You don't really need to pick that hard or you know, fret that hard when you're playing leads
You can actually go pretty soft
The problem for me is going from rhythm to lead
Going from playing hard to suddenly play soft
That's a problem I struggle with a lot
So uh... I mean, it seems like you don't...
You might not have that problem
Because you're playing soft all the time, just saying
So uh... there you go
I also struggle sometimes
J Beers
"Ola Englund, I don't see much about Jackson guitars, why is that?
"Love your channel. TC from Fort Worth, Texas."
F***ing hell man, I've been demoing so many Jackson and Charvel guitars lately, just saying
I did the Jackson Mick Thomson, I did... what-
What else did I do?
Jackson?
I did a Jackson Will It Chug with a smaller guitar
Uh... I also had the Adrian Smith Jackson
Come on, man
I've been doing a lot of Jackson guitars, just saying
McFlurry252
"I know you may not see this comment, but what strings do you use?"
Oh shit, do I have the string pack here?
Uh... no, I do not
Ok
This is a pretty common question I get, what strings do I use?
And uh...
I know this might be very very interesting and sometimes people are like 'Oh he uses...' you know...
About other artists, like ok, you know, Meshuggah uses DR Strings or Doctor Strings and you know, that's...
Ooh you know, there's a lot of mystery around , you know, ok
'Shit, I should get DR strings, f***'
Meshuggah uses them, they have to be cool
For me it's always been like...
You know, whatever strings that are not the absolute cheapest ones
that I have near me, that's the ones that I use
So I... I just mix and match, man
I think the... the most common ones I use are GHS
Because they're uh...
They're not very expensive and...
They have all the type of sets that I need
I know a lot of these brands, like D'Addario and Ernie Ball, they're kinda trying to...
...you know, sell these more exclusive strings that-
Like the NYXL's or whatever
And they're becoming more expensive because of this
Because it's, you know, the top-of-the-line strings
And I just don't like that, because you know...
Strings are strings
And uh... personally I didn't see a benefit of going NYXL
over the regular strings that they had
And... yeah, so I just buy GHS strings
Hey
What's up
Or whatever is, you know, close to me
Whatever I have in my box over there
David Lawson
"Serious question. Why do you even need a label anymore?
"Can't you just build your name without it and hook up with a booking agency?"
Yes
Obviously
If that's what you want, if you wanna go out and tour
Booking agencies is where it's at, man
For sure
I've been talking about this before
I let you guys know what I think about labels
And how much I love them
Uh... but yeah
Obviously you don't need a label in today's day and age
They're basically just a middle... middle-man
Uh... which might be good if you...
Like if you just want to concentrate on the music and being an artist and do...
...do what you're supposed to do, like you know...
...focus on the art
Then a label is great
Because they take care of the other bullshit, so you don't have to worry about it
For that sense yes, labels are great
But if you do have the time and...
Probably, if you're an up and coming band
You wanna work for your band, right? You wanna make it big, you wanna...
You wanna market yourself in the way that you want
And you know...
You wanna have control over things
That's... at least that's how I see about a lot of the things that I do in my albums
If you see it like that and you can put the time and effort in
Then no, you don't need a label
You can do it all by yourself
In the marketing aspect I think labels have a stronger voice
In terms of pushing a band obviously
But that doesn't mean that they would push you more than you would do yourself
Or that the end result will be better
If they push it or you push it
I mean, it's hard to say, but you can definitely do a lot yourself
Getting a booking agency, I mean...
I mean, you can book gigs yourself if you want, if you want to take that route
You can even go without having a booking agency, just saying
You can do everything yourself, you just have to learn how to do it
Ok? Thank you.
Noitron
"Hi Ola, wondering what are your thoughts on bands like Megadeth releasing NFT's.
"There have been a lot of talk about it, bands generating extra income."
Yes, NFT's
Great
You know, I actually like the idea of NFT's, but...
I must be honest
I did not fully understand what it was in the beginning, and...
Just like, I guess, the majority of everyone out there, like...
Wh-
Why?
When I can just take a picture and you know, I save it on my computer, it's just so stupid
But I do understand the concept behind it
But I also think that it's probably a fad just to make Ethereum
Is it... is that the name? Ethereum?
The other cryptocurrency, just to make it a little bit more hip
I would say, so...
Right now we're seeing a lot of people making money off NFT's
And that means that the people below
You know, the non-rich people will... you know...
Want a piece of the cake and you know, that builds up Ethereum
Ethereum... is that what it's called? Ethereum?
I think it is a little bit of a fad
If they want to make extra money, kudos to them, man
I actually sold an NFT
My brother is the guy who told me about this, and we did a test
So we put up the thumbnail for my single Cringy AF as an NFT for...
For 20 bucks, ok? So it's not life-changing money.
I see a lot of bands are doing like, you know, 5 thousand bucks to even like 10 grand
And people are going insane, so...
As a test I just put up one for 20 bucks
And we sold one
It's not gonna change my life, but it was fun, it was a good experience
I'm not completely sold on the idea of NFT's
And maybe I'm sounding like an old...
You know, good ol' Swedish 40 year old guy when I'm saying this
But uh...
Just call me 'traditional', man, just saying
Thank you
s21299f
"At 44, the pilot is still lit, but the flame is out."
"I've given up on any hope of a music career long ago
"although a small part of my brain still holds on
"I guess my question is
"If you were like me and the guy that does SWOLA riff challenge from his laundry room
"would you still have passion like you do?
"Thanks for helping...
"Thanks for helping to keep the pilot lit
"your humble attitude and great vids are an inspiration.
"Stay well, keep the music coming."
Thank you so much for those kind words, ok?
Thank you
I don't know, man
I mean, even where I'm at...
...where I'm having this as a job
You know, I still need to... to...
Uh... you know...
Relight the flame
here and there, I need to keep myself inspired to continue to do this
And obviously because I'm doing it uh...
It's sad to say, but...
It is a job
What I'm doing right now is a job
And even if it's something I've dreamt about doing
I mean, working with music, holy shit man
I'm so happy I'm working with music, I'm releasing albums and whatnot
And that's my job
But at the same time...
Every job becomes a job
And...
If I'm doing it every day...
Sometimes you just need some extra inspiration, let's just say that
On weekdays I don't play any guitar
Shit, I don't even listen to music during weekdays, it's...
It's becoming like a reverse thing
Like, back in the day I was working a desk job, an office job
And all I did in my free time was music, you know?
So uhm...
It's kinda shifted
But I think the problem is the same, I think that...
You know, sometimes we feel that 'Oh shit', you know...
Nothing's happening
And... why am I playing guitar? But...
At the same time...
As soon as I pick up the guitar, man
It's like I forget about those things
You know, because...
There's just a love for the guitar
And I love guitars, I love playing guitars
And sometimes I just forget about it
And then when I pick it up...
You know, it makes me happy
And when I'm thinking about it like this...
That brings me so much inspiration right now
I think you just have to...
...kinda relive the feeling you had when you started playing guitar
And when you felt like a progression in your guitar playing
You know, and rediscover the love for the guitar playing
I think that will keep your flame alive if anything
Good luck, man
All the best to you, ok
And that, my friends, was the last question
I hope you enjoyed this FAQ
If you have any questions, put 'em in the comment section of this video and maybe I'll see you next time, ok?
Thank you, guys