Andy McKee interview
Andy Mckee is a guitar maestro whose YouTube videos have had more than 80 million views.
For someone who can genuinely be described as a YouTube guitar god, Andy McKee comes across as refreshingly grounded.
I met him in the Young Street Premier Inn in Sheffield just as he was checking in prior to a concert. He was in good form and used the word awesome a lot. His live playing was going well; his new album, Joyland, had been received well. And the hits on YouTube? As we spoke they were already well over 80 million...
We spent several minutes trying to define exactly what kind of a guitarist McKee is. Broadly he falls into the “fingerstyle” category, meaning that he plays without a pick. It’s not classical, it’s not country, it’s not new age and it certainly isn’t Heavy Metal, his first love. He has sometimes been filed under “singer-songwriter” which, given the fact he doesn’t sing, is a bit odd. McKee himself uses the term “modern instrumental acoustic guitar”.
Whatever you call it, it has to be seen – and heard - to be believed. Using specially crafted instruments – a baritone guitar, a fanned fret guitar and his signature harp guitar (with six extra non-fretted base strings), McKee employs a number of techniques and altered tunings to achieve a richly textured, melodic range of sounds.
It was the techniques that catapulted him to YouTube stardom. A few hastily shot videos of him performing towards the end of 2006 were posted on the site and rapidly caught the eyes of guitar aficionados – and lovers of the visually quirky - worldwide. The song “Drifting”, in which McKee brings his left hand over the neck of the guitar to hit the strings from above while simultaneously using his right to tap out drum-like rhythms on the body of the instrument, has to date attracted more than 45 million views; other songs have had well over 10 million apiece.
“People who had never heard of fingerstyle guitar found that once they did they really liked it,” said McKee. “That’s the great thing about YouTube; it’s democratic. Instead of record companies telling fans what’s cool, they can decide for themselves – and be surprised. People leave comments like, ‘I’m normally into rap and Jay Z but, man, I love this acoustic guitar stuff’.”
It was when McKee found himself simultaneously occupying positions one, two and three of most-viewed YouTube clips that he realised he might have to give up the day job teaching guitar in his home town of Topeka, Kansas, and concentrate on performing and writing.
New albums followed – most notably Gates of Gnomeria – and he started headlining at concerts rather than supporting others. That said, this year, he scaled new heights when he was chosen to play guitar alongside Prince for his Welcome 2 Australia tour.
McKee insists that he doesn’t deliberately seek to make his songs technically difficult “just to look cool”. “I experiment with new tunings and then begin to hear melodic ideas,” he said. “Then I try to figure out how I am going to play these parts at the same time – and that’s where the techniques come in. But I like to think that in addition to watching, people like the music as well.”
There is undeniably an emotional depth and harmonic quality to some of McKee’s songs that goes way beyond an ability to play a guitar as if he had two pairs of hands. Those inspired by people (“The Friend I Never Met”, a tribute to the fingerstyle pioneer Michael Hedges; “Rylynn”, written following the death of a friend’s daughter) and places (“Into the
Ocean” – after the Pacific) are particularly powerful.
Ocean” – after the Pacific) are particularly powerful.
There is a playfulness too. On stage in Sheffield, during a lively take on Toto’s 1980s classic “Africa”, he winked as he broke momentarily into Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”. Picking up the harp guitar (“the boomstick”), he joked about an appearance at an international harp guitarists’ convention – “starring all five of us”.
For all the YouTube success, McKee, now 33, remains in touch and personable. He certainly wants to explore further - on Joyland for the first time he introduced other instruments in the form of cello and drums and may develop this further, possibly forming a band.
For now, though, numbers at his concerts are modest (usually just a few hundred) and he likes to make himself available to “meet and greet” fans afterwards.
I spoke to one, Jenny, who like most of those in the Sheffield audience that night had come to McKee via YouTube. “When I watched his videos I thought he must be faking it,” she said. “Well tonight showed me that he wasn’t. It’s for real.”
Bridge.Adrian."Andy Mckee interview." THE TELEGRAPH. Oct, 9th, 2012 WEB May, 11th, 2016
SUMMARY TOPIC SENTENCE : According to the article from 'Andy Mckee interview', Adrian Bridge, Andy Mckee said about affection, technique and sentiment.
PERSUASIVE TOPIC SENTENCE : I heard Andy Mckee's song, 'rylynn', at 17, when I first heard fingerstyle guitar song, After that, I really impressed by that song , it's guitar technique, and background that Mckee compose this sad song.
