Aspiring musicians and general local music lovers, check this guy out.

I interviewed guitarist/singer/songwriter/Rowan student/extraordinaire Zach Caruso for Rowan University’s newspaper, The Whit. He’s got a really unique, fresh new sound, and he uses several different guitars in his music. I had a great response from Zach, over 2000 words, but I had to cut the Q&A down to 600, which I was really bummed about. His answers are really interesting. Here is the uncut version of the interview.

Check out his music and upcoming gigs at www.ZachCaruso.com

 

1. Your site says that Green Day and The Black Crowes sparked your interest on the guitar, and that you’re self-taught.  Did you start by learning to play their songs by ear?  What I am wondering is how you started writing your own music.

            I remember at the age of 3 or 4, my parents would crank up music in our living room.  Stuff like Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Mellencamp, The Eagles, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Stevie Ray Vaughan.  So those bands really introduced me to music.  I even got to see acts like Ray Charles, Huey Lewis and The News, Bonnie Raitt, Al Jarreau, all in concert when I was a kid. Green Day was the first band to really make me want to play guitar.  I still remember when “Time of Your Life” came out and it was huge.  I was in grade school, probably 7^th grade or so, and I was totally captivated by it.  My goal was to play that song on guitar.  So I ran out and bought the album that song was on, Nimrod,and listened to it start to finish, mesmerized by the energy and power they had going. The first song I learned on guitar was “Brainstew.”  I sat on my bed and worked out that riff and thought I was the man!  From then on, I was hooked on punk music, bands like Operation Ivy, Rancid, and so on. I’m self-taught, mainly because I liked figuring things out on my own, and I didn’t feel like going to lessons!  There’s this great sense of accomplishment when you work something out for yourself, so I would just sit with my guitar in my lap and listen, try to play along, rewind, and do it all over again until I could make it through the song start to finish.  To this day I still can’t read music or anything! The Black Crowes opened my eyes to styles outside of punk because they were the first group that I felt had the same power and energy as Green Day, but they also had a really cool swagger and edge to their music, and I really dug the blues aspect of it. Eventually, there just came a time when I felt like, “Ok, I’m just playing everyone else’s stuff.  I have a voice and I have things I want to say, I should give writing my own music a shot.”

 

2. You pull a lot of different styles of music into your songs. What would you say are your biggest stylistic influences?

            Punk was the first style that introduced me to a musical format.  I studied guys like Green Day, Bad Religion, The Ramones, Rancid, and I tried to use their songs as blueprints.  So no matter how far I may go off onto other styles, my roots will always be there.  I still write songs coming from the mindset of “I need a good chord progression and a melody that’s catchy and has some kind of energy”, and I think that stems from how I learned to write music in the first place. As far as influences on my style, The John Butler Trio made me fall in love with open tunings, and showed me that you can rock just as hard on an acoustic guitar as you can on an electric!  They have such a unique and infectious style, it totally sucked me in from day one of listening to them.  They pushed me to improve my finger picking as well as my lap-slide guitar playing, and broadened my horizons for sure. Ben Harper is another biggie.  He has a really classy, cool way about his stuff and it’s something that I really respect and strive for in my own music.  His early work on Welcome to the Cruel World and Fight For Your Mind, I think, is some of the best music to come out of the early and mid 90’s, and it’s still relevant and interesting music to this day.  Those two albums influenced me a lot, too. When it comes to playing electric guitar, I have my Big Three: Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Joe Bonamassa.  Hendrix was an innovator and really opened the door for all future guitarists.  SRV was just a class act, and the guitar was an extension of his body.  Every time I listen to him play, it seems like he’s speaking and conveying emotion straight through his fingers and into the guitar strings.  His tone and emotion are unbeatable.  Joe Bonamassa is just a sick guitar player. Finger picking, flat picking, slide, standard, the guy can do it all, and he plays almost flawlessly. Aside from that, I’m an Eric Clapton fan, the guy’s just a legend.  He’s gone through so many eras and styles and still managed to be relevant in each one.  Another player I’m a huge fan of is Mark Knopfler.  His work with Dire Straits was great.  I mean, “Sultans of Swing” is timeless, but his solo stuff is awesome too, albums like The Ragpicker’s Dream and Shangri-La.  Knopfler is the classy, in-control kind of guitar player you can’t help but respect and revere. So I try to mimic their playing, but I know I’ll never hit that mark.  That’s the cool part though, by missing my mark of being a dead-on copy of those guys, I actually find my own voice and style, which works out better anyway. Lyrically, I like guys like Ben Harper, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bruce Springsteen, anyone who’s a storyteller and isn’t afraid to take some risks and bring issues to people’s attention.

 

3. If you could be any other musician, alive or dead, who would it be?

            I’d have to say Marc Broussard.  The guy’s got a killer voice that I’d give my right arm for, and he’s a positive force in music, always upbeat and fun.  His newest album, Keep Coming Back, is all 70’s style funk, and I love it!

 

4. You’re going to perform live on the radio!  How do you think this will be different from performing in front of a crowd?

            A crowd is all about energy and interaction.  In front of a group of people, I can have a conversation with them, tell stories, make jokes.  And when a crowd really gets into a song, you feel it and feed off it. The radio will be a completely different monster all together, I think!  The funny thing is, I’m probably going to be heard by more people than at any show so far, but I’m going to be in a quiet studio playing in front of a half dozen family members, friends, and radio DJ’s.  It’s weird, but I’m really excited about it.

 

5. How do you feel before you perform?  Any anxiety or interesting rituals before you go onstage?

            I always get the jitters a few minutes before I start, but usually after the first song, I’m relaxed. As for rituals, I do the same vocal warm up before every show, but I also sing along to the entire Dookie album by Green Day, I drink a glass of hot tea, and I always have a bottle of lukewarm water with me onstage.

 

6. Where and when was your first public performance?  How did it go?

            It was at this dive bar a few towns over from where I live, my freshman year of college, and I was opening for my friend’s band. There was hardly anyone there besides my parents and a few friends, and one drunk guy named O-Dog who told us all ghost stories. I remember when we walked in, it was me and a few of my friends, and the bartender starting hassling us about being too young to be in the bar, so I had to explain the situation.  He ended up being happy that we brought him some business for the night, so he served all of us coffee, tea, sodas, whatever we wanted. I think I played well, I did four or five songs and was so nervous, my hands were shaking. O-Dog liked it though, so that’s all that really matters.

 

7. What CD is playing in your car right now?

            A cycle of Please Come Home by Dustin Kensrue, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings by Citizen Cope, and Presence by Led Zepplin.

 

8. What are your hopes for the future, with both music and journalism?

            I’d love to spend the rest of my life playing music.  I mean, how cool would it be to wake up in the morning, and “going to work” consists of grabbing a guitar and working on new material. That’d be a pretty sweet deal. But journalism wouldn’t be a bad way to spend my days, either.  Well, the right kind of journalism.  I worked at a local paper for almost a year doing sports writing for high schools in the area, and as cool as it was, I don’t know if I could do that forever.  But something like National Geographic, Spin, Rolling Stone, that’s something that I could see myself doing for a long time.

 

9. Where is your favorite place to play?  What about favorite place to write?

            To play, believe it or not, St, Joe’s in Philadelphia.  A bunch of my good friends from high school go there, and I’ve done a bunch of shows there, everyone comes to watch and hangs out, and it’s always a good time, always a good crowd. To write, it’s definitely my basement.  I have a nice little set up down there, recliner, TV, guitars, amps, drums, lots of music stuff.  That’s where I write.  And I almost always write on an acoustic guitar, regardless of the style of the song.  It’s rare that I ever write a song on electric.  I think because I learned how to play on an acoustic, it’s where I feel most comfortable.

 

10. Do you think you have to be in love to write a love song?

            I think so.  I think to write a good solid love song, you have to feel it.  That’s what that type of song is all about, you’re kind of bursting with this emotion and you have to let it out.  If you’re not in love and you try to write a love song, chances are it’ll come off as contrived and bland.

           

11. You play a few different types of guitar (your site says electric, slide, and acoustic).  In a nutshell, what do you like about each type?

            Electric guitar is about energy and fun.  Nothing beats a good rock song, and I love to just crank the volume to 11 sometimes and let loose.  It’s fun to get people to bob their heads or clap their hands. I use the acoustic guitar to tell stories or bring up some issue I want to talk about.  It’s a little more mellow and so I feel like people are more focused on the lyrics as opposed to the guitar.  I have a song called “Jesus Walks” that’s all about the record murder rate in Philadelphia, and I think that song would have had a lot less punch if it were on an electric guitar.  Slide guitar creates a really unique mood.  It’s very vocal and it tends to mirror a human voice.  I love older blues songs that have this weary, tired, almost eerie feeling to them and it’s all done with slide work.  Then you have the John Butler type of slide guitar that’s quick, really pops, and adds a whole different vibe to the song.

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