Andy McKee Interview: Part One

You may hear Andy McKee describe himself as “just a guy from Topeka,” but put a guitar into his hands and you immediately know he hasn’t told you the whole story. His percussive style sounds a bit reminiscent of Michael Hedges, with his use of altered tunings and (occasionally) a harp guitar. Nonetheless his approach is unique, with carefully crafted melodies and tightly structured compositions. He's carried the tradition to a new level. The 28 year old Kansas native's masterful acoustic guitar performances have become the most popular guitar videos on YouTube, we think as much for his composing skills as his phenomenal technique.  Andy released his first CD Nocturne in 2001. His latest, The Gates of Gnomeria is available on CandyRat records. Guitar.net’s Gawain Reifsnyder caught up with Andy just before Christmas. This is part one of our interview.

Gawain: I read you were once a bit of a metalhead... What can you tell us about your early development as a player, and what eventually drew you to the acoustic guitar?

Andy: I had a few lessons with instructors. It was kind of like learning to read music. Mel Bay book one, and stuff like that. I was just kind of bored with it, honestly. Then I hooked up with another teacher and took about a year and a half of lessons with him. With him, I would bring in music I wanted to learn. He always had a pretty good ear. He would transcribe the music that I wanted to learn and show me how to play it. He helped me develop my ear too. I was learning a lot of Metallica and Megadeth and I got into the electric guitar and a lot of the “guitar heros.” Actually I had started listening to Eric Johnson before I started playing the guitar and I started listening to him, and also Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci from Dream Theater. By the time I was sixteen I had dropped out of high school and was sort of playing guitar a lot! (laughs) I’d get some of the transcription books of Dream Theater and Eric Johnson and just play along.

It was when I was about sixteen or seventeen that I saw an acoustic guitar player named Preston Reed and that was when I really got into the acoustic guitar.

Gawain: And so from there you just got sucked into the world of instrumental acoustic music...

Andy: Yeah pretty much! When I saw him he was doing a guitar workshop for Washburn guitars. My cousin took me to go see him. I didn’t have any idea what to expect. My cousin is about eight years older than I am and had been playing for a long time and he said I should check this guy out. So we went to see Preston, and he was doing solo instrumental acoustic guitar music. He was tuning the guitar in unusual ways, doing percussive stuff and tapping and it just blew my mind. I loved how with just one guy and one guitar he had a full song with melody and harmony and rhythm going at once. He really changed my mind and everything. I ended up getting an instructional video he had and learned a few of his tunes from there. Like I mentioned before I had developed my ear some, so I started to learn some of his stuff from the albums. I also got into Michael Hedges shortly after that and was totally blown away by his music too.

Gawain: Did you study theory and chord construction on your own?

Andy: Yeah, I did. I actually started teaching guitar when I was about seventeen or eighteen. As I went through that I started learning a lot of that on my own so I could teach it to my students. I learned about chord construction and the various scales and modes. I learned it all on my own, so maybe I have different ways of thinking about it than traditional ways. I don’t really know.

Gawain: Your pieces can be quite intricate. What’s your approach to writing?

Andy: When I compose music, I love altered tunings and I get a lot of inspiration from those. It’s kind of a backwards way I guess! (laughs) As I mentioned before, I had learned a bit about chord construction and scales but I don’t use any of that when I’m writing. Mainly, I just throw the guitar into these unusual tunings and then find sounds and chord voicings that I like and that might otherwise be impossible in a standard tuning. I just start to build ideas and just play around with this cool tuning that maybe I’ve just discovered or just thrown the guitar into and build on things from there. I actually don’t write it down or record it. I’ll eventually record it when it’s ready to go, or write it down when people want a transcription. Normally, it’s just kind of in my head, and I keep it pretty well there.

Gawain: Your popularity has come through YouTube, social media and sharing. I know you’ve been very critical of “fans” sharing your music on bittorrent and elsewhere. For artists, sharing can be a double-eged sword. Can you give me some thoughts on how this equation has worked out for you... Sharing helping your popularity or sharing taking away your income?

Andy: Right. Well, the whole YouTube thing is obviously free and it’s there for anyone to check out at any time. That was the whole idea from the start. The idea of people taking the CD and Mp3s and just throwing them out there for anyone to download is theft, pretty much. It’s kind of unfortunate that it goes on. I’ve kind of made it clear that that’s where I stand on some of the blogs I do on MySpace. It’s been kind of cool. I’ve had some people actually PayPal me money because they said that they downloaded it at one point and they wanted to feel right about it.

Gawain: That’s great. It does seem to cut both ways and a lot of artists (especially smaller artists) are struggling with what it means for them. Does it help us? Does it hurt us? In my experience if people know they are supporting the artist, and not some giant faceless corporation, they’re more than willing to support music that they love and artists that they love...

Andy: Right, yeah. I’m on an independent label and I’ve got a really great deal with them. It’s not like they’re taking all the money when someone buys a CD. A fair amount of the money goes to me, and between the CDs and transcriptions it’s a big percentage of my income. So I really appreciate it when people pay for it!

Gawain: You’ve obviously got some serious chops, but your approach to your compositions is very mature and measured. Do you intentionally hold back from “throwing in the kitchen sink” as far as ideas go when writing a song?

Andy: When I’m writing it’s really just what I hear in my head. I don’t really have this desire to make things really difficult. But I do like to do something different with each tune, because it makes it interesting for me and I think for the listener too. If I can attack a string in a different way or whatever... So yeah, I’m really not interested in being some kind of guitar hero! (laughs) I think there are probably a lot of guitar players that are way better than me on YouTube. Maybe when I was younger I had sort of a different take on it. You know “the more difficult something is, the better it is” but since I’ve gotten a little bit older and started writing more music, it’s really like I just want to write good music.

Gawain: Yeah. I’m sure that’s what has really resonated with people as far as your popularity on YouTube. You are really playing for the song all the time and it comes across really well. When you’re playing live do you elaborate or improvise on the tunes or do you stick pretty close to the way it is on the recording?

Andy: I’ve noticed as time goes by that I’ll make some variations of things. Or sometimes on the spot I’ll vary things rhythmically a bit. But I won’t change the melodies or the overall theme of the tune. I guess that’s not the kind of player that I am. I’m OK at improvising but I don’t think it’s really my strong suit, so I don’t get too crazy with it.

To be continued...

Listen to Andy play “Rylynn” from his CD Art of Motion