Interview by Cary Barnhard

HB: Why are there so many great guitar players from Texas?

EJ: Oh! You know, when I was a kid I used to go and listen to a lot of great players, and I think there's just a real melting pot there of different styles, and all the styles that kind of comprise a lot of guitar. You know there's the Blues thing and there's the country thing and with Rock coming in&50 years ago with the inception of the Rock thing, you had all those three idioms that were pretty pronounced on guitar anyhow and it just kind of happened I guess!

HB: Do you think that that environment helped you?

EJ: Oh, I really do! I used to go listen to John Stehaley, and Johnny Richston and Johnny Winters, all these guys were around Texas all the time. Really fine players.

HB: Is that how your perfectionism came about?

EJ: I think the perfectionism trait is me just trying to search for something different on guitar. It gets manifested that way but it's really not my intention or the immediate pursuit. I'm just searching, still am searching, for a way to make the guitar a little different than it is. I listen to the kinds of tones I like, like if I listen to piano or saxophone music or classical music and I really appreciate the awesome sound that you hear from these instruments. And so I'm continually trying to find a way to make my electric guitar have that kind of persona sonically. So yeah, it's just an arduous process of trying this and trying that and trying to make that happen.

HB: For the most part have you been successful at that?

EJ: I think I have had&glimpses of success with that. And I am getting to a place where I'm getting much more, where the consistency is getting more solid. Witch is making me start to let go of being such a perfectionist. I'm not as adhered to that as I used to be because I feel I've created a bit of a platform by which I can be kind of happy with that and let some of that go.

HB: What's inspiring your playing now?

EJ: You know, everything really! I love all types of music, and I feel that now that I'm a little more happy with the platform of my sound and that I can kind of let that go I try to just practice more and listen to all types of music. There's a new box set of all the piano concertos that Mozart did with the symphony that's just amazing! That's inspiring. I'm enjoying doing this Joe Satriani tour now, Joe Sounds great! There's beauty in all music if it's played with feeling.

HB: When you play with another great player like Joe, do you feel competitive?

EJ: I think it's a healthy&it's not a competition, it's more being inspired by each other to do the best you can. And he's just an amazing technician, he's just great! He does a lot of stuff that I can't do or don't do or whatever, and it's really nice to listen to somebody do this stuff and pick up little ideas from him. So it's an opportunity for me to kind of widen my musicality. It's good, I enjoy playing with different styles of music.

HB: Do you work on anything that's way different than what we expect to hear from you?

EJ: Well yeah, I'm kind of dabbling in that. I write a lot of piano music and transpose it to guitar, and some of the stuff is kind of different than the stuff I'd been doing in the past. I'm trying to open up to that and entertain more of that music. I think there is a lot of room for me to grow and kind of widen my aperture of what I do musically, so I'm trying to stay open to that and kind of remain a student. Learn from other people and get a healthy feedback or criticism, for lack of a better word. Kind of put it all in the kit and see where it all can lead to