( rooster crowing )
- Oh I know, I know
See if they laid anything.
Oh ya, we got some eggs.
Why are you always so agitated?
Huh?
You just relax.
Eat some pellets.
( groovy guitar playing )
( music continues )
- Well, you know, when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time
with my uncle and my grandfather, my uncle played
in a band that played a lot of rock and roll covers
from the seventies.
My grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher and he played
in church and all his brothers and sisters were musicians
and he had a big family and my granddad would show me how
to play chords and rhythm guitar.
And he would play old gospel songs and I would have to
play the,
( guitar strumming )
you know, all the, all the, strumming that was like
bluegrass rhythm.
( graceful guitar playing )
( playing continues )
My dad's little brother gave me an electric guitar
when I was probably eight years old, it was, it was
from the seventies and, you know,
it was a copy of a copy of an American guitar.
And I definitely liked the feeling,
the sound of something played before,
I get to have this, this piece of art,
which wasn't created as a work of art.
It was created as a tool,
but I get to use it to make more art.
( guitar playing )
( playing continues )
Honestly, I think the Telecaster is probably
the best guitar design of all time.
Just because of how durable it is and how versatile it is
and how, you know,
I just don't know that I've ever played one
that if it was appropriately set up, didn't sound good.
Like I can always find a good tone on a Telecaster.
I feel like my approach
to the instrument changes frequently,
you know because there was a time early on where
like a lot of players, I felt like I had something to prove.
And, and then after that,
I felt like I had to learn how to play with a band.
Then I had to learn how to accompany other singers.
And then I had to learn how to accompany myself.
And now there's this sort
of balance that I'm always trying to find between,
you know playing the guitar a lot in order to satisfy my own
desire to play the guitar.
And, and then also serving the songs.
It's getting harder for me to write songs as I get older
but not because of my life, because of my taste.
I think, I think it's supposed to get harder
if it gets easier.
I think you're relying on some methods that you've used
in the past that, you know, work.
And for me I'm always trying to find things
that I'm not good at or things that I haven't tried before
and figure out how to get those into the song.
( guitar playing )
I think a good song,
is one that makes the listener feel like you know a secret
about their life.
You have opened up the breadth
of the human experience in a way where you've said, okay
this thing that you're feeling
or this thing that's happened to you,
I know what that feels like.
Or at least if I don't know what it feels like
I can pretend I can empathize with you.
And when somebody hears a song like that, they think
you know, a secret about me that you shouldn't know.
And to me, the best songs do that.
( guitar playing )
This is my signature fender Telecaster.
I'm very proud to have this guitar double bound.
It's a, like a tele custom.
And I have one that I got quite a few years ago
that I put a black pick guard on
because I thought that looked cool,
but it sounds fantastic and it plays really, really well.
And a lot of the details of this guitar are
based on guitars that I have.
It's a little bit Relic, like a road worn Telecaster.
So it's got a, you won't feel too bad if you scratch it.
And it looks and feels like something that's been broken in
by hand.
The neck is really, really comfortable.
There's no gloss back here,
it's rubbed off so it plays pretty quickly,
but you can get,
you know the full range of your volume knob on this one.
The tones are great from, from low volume.
( guitar strumming )
You still get a lot of treble.
( guitar playing )
All the way up.
( playing continues )
And that neck pick up sounds a whole lot like
the other famous fender guitar.
( guitar playing )
( playing continues )
( "Something More Than Free" playing )
♪ When I get home from work ♪
♪ I call up all my friends ♪
♪ And we'll go bust up something beautiful ♪
♪ We'll have to build again ♪
♪ When I get home from work ♪
♪ I'll wrestle off my clothes ♪
♪ And leave them right inside the front door ♪
♪ Nobody's home to know ♪
♪ See the hammer finds the nail ♪
♪ And the freight train needs a rail ♪
♪ I guess I'm doing what I'm on this earth to do ♪
When I was a kid my dad, when we pick out a fishing rod,
my dad would,
would put that end of the rod on his Adam's Apple.
And he would have me hold the handle and he would talk.
And if I could feel it in the handle and he would say,
well this is a pretty good fishing rod. You know.
So this one, if you hold it here in here,
and you strum a guitar you should be able to feel it a lot
all the way in the end of the neck.
♪ Sunday morning I'm to tired to go to church ♪
♪ But I thank god for the work ♪
( guitar playing )
Ya know, I didn't want to sign my name on this guitar
because I know a lot of people go in the back of the
headstock or sometimes on the front but,
I really wanted guitar players who had no interest
in me or my music to still be interested in the instrument.
So instead of signing my signature on it,
I opted to put this.
On my wife's 30th birthday, we were in New Zealand
and we got tattoos of this.
And then we wound up using it on,
it's on my pick here actually also, and on all of our gear.
And you know, the Nick plate on a fender is
that's a, that's a very important spot.
It might not seem like it but you know,
with vintage fender guitars you can tell a whole lot about
the guitar by looking right here.
♪When I get my reward my work will all be done ♪
♪ And I will sit back in my chair beside the Father ♪
♪ and the Son ♪
I hope uh, that this guitar will be
one that I can see in a lot of different
levels of players hands, you know.
I get excited when I see a famous guitar player,
play something that I've been involved with
but also get excited when I see a 13 year old girl
on Instagram playing.
♪ And I don't think on why I'm here where it hurts ♪
♪ I'm just lucky to have the work ♪
Because my early years of learning to play the guitar
and the fender name were so closely intertwined
it's sort of a trigger for all the best feelings for me.
I still know like the smell of a new guitar, you know
when I get a guitar and I smell that smell,
I still get excited.
And it's from those strats that I played when I was eight,
nine, 10 years old.
And I try to, I try to think about that too.
I try to think don't ever get too cool
for this kind of stuff.
You should still be excited about it.
And I'm really am, very excited.
( guitar playing )
( playing continues )
( playing fades )