Andy Wood – My Magic Bullet

Andy Wood is one of the hottest guitarists on the music scene today. Andy is not only an amazing guitarist but also a delightful person with a vivacious personality, and he’s full of ideas. I had the chance to sit down with him and chat about his childhood, how he started playing guitar, and his sources of inspiration. Just a few weeks later I joined Andy at his annual Woodshed Guitar Experience and hung out with a lineup of guitar headliners including Steve Morse, Andy Timmons, Brent Mason, Jake Workman, Ariel Posen, and more.

Andy’s new record, Charisma, came out the same day we sat down for this interview, so we started there. After working on it for years, finally letting other people hear it was forefront on his mind. Did I mention it features a cameo by Brent Mason, who Andy considers “the greatest Tele player of all time,” burning a solo on “Free Range Chicken”? Here’s a great video introduction to Andy’s talent if you’re not yet familiar.

About Andy’s New Record, Charisma

Fuston: So, when does your new record come out?

Wood: Today! It’s out today. I’m excited. I’m so excited. I’m nervous. This record is different than playing on somebody else’s stuff, and it’s even different than my other solo records because I started on it when COVID and the lockdown happened. When I say it started, it didn’t. But we were all off the road, so I just started writing a lot.

Oh, like four years ago?

Yeah. Then, fast-forward a couple of years, I lost my dad. And then I lost my granddad, all in the course of 13 months. My granddad was the one who taught me how to play music. I’m a mandolin player. He taught me how to play bluegrass when I was a little kid, and my dad was my best friend.

In 13 months, I lost both of them. I know now that I probably should have been an adult and gotten a therapist, but instead I just funneled all that emotion into some songs. It was like, “I don’t know how to deal with it.” There’s a tune on the record, “Cherry Blossoms,” it’s the thank-you, the dedication, or whatever you want to call it — the emotions I had are in that.

Another interesting thing, I did this record the hardest way possible: I didn’t use a single plug-in or anything. “Cherry Blossoms” is three electric guitars and strings, and it’s got 102 tracks. It was Eli Bishop from Nashville who did the string arranging and performing. Eli’s incredible. He did all the strings — violas, violins, everything. Incredible.

Andy’s Guitar Inspirations

Who were your guitar heroes?

I grew up worshipping at the altar of Brent Mason, and he was kind enough to do a guest solo on this record. It was really cool because, when I was 16 or 17, I got Mark O’Connor’s The New Nashville Cats record with the song “Pick It Apart” on it.

It had the song “Restless” on it, and that tune, “Pick It Apart,” was on there. I bought the record because of the Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas bluegrass stuff that was on there.

But I heard that song, and Brent was the reason I wanted to start playing electric guitar. I wrote him a letter — a fan letter — and he wrote me back! To this day, I still have that letter on my wall. Now he’s playing on my record and comes to my shows. Talk about full circle!

Last year, we were doing a show at The Cannery, and I hit him up. I was like, “Man, you want to come sit in on a few?” And we played “Blowin’ Smoke” together, played it right off the cuff.

I was just like, man, I mean, he’s the greatest Tele player of all time, man.

How fun.

Yeah. So, just to have him tolerate me, much less give me some sort of stamp of approval is outstanding. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff on this record. I’m excited for people to hear it, but I’m also anxious. This is not just me trying to play songs, not just me trying to get a good tone, not just me trying to play a good lick. This is my statement.

Putting it all out there.

Yeah. So, we’ll see if people like it or not. I don’t know. It is up to the people, like taking it in front of Rome. You’re in the Colosseum and let the people judge. That’s all you can do. Hopefully they don’t throw tomatoes. That’s all you can do.

If you don’t like it, that’s me.

Yeah. Yeah, man. But it’s got some cool stuff on it, great players all over it. Mike Hicks is playing some great stuff. Jim Riley, Andy Campbell, Ben Eller, Daniel Kimbro who plays with Jerry Douglas. Joe Bonamassa did a guest solo. It’s stacked, man. It’s got it. When I was sending stuff around, everybody was like, “Man, this is cool.” Everyone was kind of happy to throw in on it. So, we’ll see.

That’s exciting. I guess you’ll see when the reviews come out.

Yeah. I mean, that’s all you can do. Just let it go now.

What Was Your Aha Moment?

Was there a performer, a piece of gear, or something that sort of flipped a switch or inspired you?

I’ve got several of those. I mean, as a kid, my granddad, Grampsy, was the first aha moment because he was the one putting instruments in my hands — me and my cousin Brian’s hands. Brian Arrowood, he’s a fiddle player and plays for Travis Tritt. He has for 13 years.

Brian and I are the same age. We started playing as something to do with our granddad. So, that’s a very honest aha thing that started when we were six.

What instruments did he hand you?

Mandolin and fiddle. We didn’t have a lot of money, so nothing was beginner size, so I couldn’t play the guitar. I couldn’t get around on it physically, but the mandolin, that was a good size for me as a six-year-old.

So, it was good for a beginner.

Except for pressing the strings. You got two strings per note. It built the calluses in a hurry. (Laughs.) And the fiddle, that stuff was always around.

I remember hearing Sam Bush for the first time as a kid. I was like, yeah, that guy...

Did you hear him live, or was it records or TV?

Kind of both. I mean, of course, Grampsy had the records, and American Music Shop was on TV at the time. I was getting it all at the same time, so I can’t pinpoint one thing. Grampsy had the mandolin, it was Homespun where Sam Bush was teaching fiddle tunes. Grampsy had that video. And then seeing Sam Bush live at MerleFest. I was at that really iconic show where it was Mark O’Connor, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, and Bela Fleck. It’s the one on YouTube — the big one. That was back when MerleFest had 12,000 people at it, and now it’s up to 80,000, now that bluegrass is in fashion. (Laughs.) It’s the hot flavor right now.

I was always surrounded by great players. I was 16 or 17 and working in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, playing acoustic guitar and mandolin at one of the theaters, and that’s when I heard that Brent solo and decided to pick up electric guitar. One of the guys I was working with would make me mixtapes, and he would put Steve Morse’s High Tension Wires, Eric Johnson’s Ah Via Musicom, and Steve Vai’s Passion and Warfare on there — all the things that I should have heard by then but hadn’t. It seemed like every other day he was coming in with new stuff. “All right, now this is Racer X. All right, now this is StressFest by Steve Morse. Okay, this is Eric Johnson’s ‘Manhattan.’” It was a great education.

I was from a very musical family, so that was always kind of rolling around. Next aha moment was getting out. I was 21 years old, and we were touring, and that’s when I decided I really wanted to be a career player. I guess I kind of already was, but you know what I mean? Playing guitar wasn’t something I was going to hang up. I was like, all right, I’m in it to win it.

So, that was when you decided, “This is my path”?

Yeah, I’m not doing this for fun. This is not a hobby. This is a really good one.

On “Winning It” and Getting His Big Break

I’d been playing guitar for about four or five years. And Guitarmageddon was a big, nationwide contest, and three or four thousand people would enter this thing all over the country. Then, if you scored high enough to win your store, and then your region, you’d go to the finals in Las Vegas. I was lucky enough to win and got to go out there and play, and I was lucky enough to win it all.

At that point, there were seven other guys playing electric guitar, and they were all great. Everybody’s great at that point. It’s just different colors. What color do you like? Because all the colors are pretty.

And this was when?

2003, 2004, something like that. I was 20 or 21.

What did you play?

You got to choose a backing track, one of the 20 backing tracks that they had. A lot of ’em, it was basic blue shuffles or stuff that anybody could navigate on.

Then the advanced players would really navigate, and then you had two minutes to just do your own thing. Now keep in mind, I hadn’t been into electric guitar, so I didn’t know about effects and gear. So, I took a black Telecaster and a cord and plugged into whatever they had onstage. I didn’t know about the electric stuff. They had some Line 6 amp, and it had some reverb and clean and dirty. I was like, “That’ll do.”

I made it to the finals, and these other players had these loopers and Eventides doing harmonies, and I looked at my friend Bub, Bubba Casey, and I was like, “What am I supposed to do?” And he said, “Man, you should just play your acoustic.” So, I played my acoustic, did an acoustic improv and based it around the old fiddle tune called “Say Old Man, Do You Play the Fiddle,” a Dan Curry-kind of arrangement and just improvised it — and I won the whole thing! I totally went the other direction. Everybody was leaning into the gear thing, and I was like, “I’m just going to play on an acoustic.” It had a pickup in it, like an old Takamine or something.

As a kid, I never had good gear. My dad always made the joke, “Where were all these companies when you didn’t have anything? Now that you can buy what you want, everybody wants to give it to you.” Oh, the irony.

You’re not the first person to say that. Nathan East said exactly the same thing yesterday when I interviewed him.

On Musical Oversaturation

These days, it feels like we’re at the point of oversaturation, so now the only thing that stands out is your own identity and your own statement. That’s all you’ve got. You’ve got to be the best you can be. And that goes back to if your you is special and you’ve put in the time and it shows, plus the reaction from the people. If the people love it, the gear will take care of itself, right?

Pinnacle Moments

Where do you draw your inspiration? Are there particular records that stand out?

There are pinnacle moments in the past 20 years of guitar. I think Guthrie Govan’s Erotic Cakes will be one. It’ll be on that roundtable of the elite of instrumental records. I think Andy Timmons’s Resolution, that’s a modern record. I still consider that a modern record in the echelon of the timeline of the guitar. And it’s a full statement.

It’s not up to you or me to say, “I don’t like it,” or “I love it.” It’s good. It’s up to people to decide if they love it or not. The artists know who they are, and they’re going out there and making a statement, and I think that’s what needs to be championed. Oftentimes, these days it becomes a bit of a competition. Everybody’s got to post in the YouTube comments and say how much better they could do it and throw in their two cents. But the reality is these artists are out there doing it, and they’ve got a statement, and that doesn’t clash. With someone like that young girl, Grace Bowers, she’s making her statement, and there’s Blu DeTiger, who’s over in the [Sweetwater] studio right now. She’s doing her thing. The table for artists, the dining-room table, has an infinite number of seats. Nobody’s not going to get in because somebody else got in.

Finding Your Place at the Table

I used to tell people, when I went to Nashville back in the ’70s to make a career in the music business, you know what? Nashville did not need another recording engineer. Even today, do you think Nashville needs another guitar player? Yeah, right. But...

I was waiting for the “but.”

There was a time when Brent Mason wasn’t there. There was a time when Dann Huff wasn’t there. When I started out, Dann was a teenager doing janitor work at the studio where I worked.

Yeah, but you can move it forward. That’s a holy-grail era for me because, Brent and Dann, those are my guys. You can always move that ball forward. Bryan Sutton showed up. Tom Bukovac showed up.

And folks like Reggie Young showed up.

That ties back to the table. There’s always room for another chair.

Right? It’s like if someone shows up and says, “I want your chair.” Sorry, I got my chair!

Right. My chair is full. I am stealing that. Can I have it? I’m definitely stealing that.

Because there’s always room for another chair, but my chair is full. The world doesn’t need me to be Steve Vai. Or else I wouldn’t be sitting here having this interview. This is just a blessing, right? To be sitting here and you caring about my opinion enough to have this interview. If I was trying to be John Petrucci? His chair is full. And nobody wants John to leave that chair. Especially John. [Laughs.]

I’m only here because I took my bluegrass background, my Van Halen fanboy, two years of UT jazz school, and fusion records, and I wadded it all up and came up with a thing that’s mine. Now, if you like it, great. If you don’t like it, that’s also great, but I’m not trying to wear my dad’s shoes.

There are always influences. It’s not like you can’t hear the influences. When I listen to Brent, I hear George Benson. I sure hear Jerry Reed everywhere any time Brent starts — those double-stops. You listen to Guthrie; and you can’t hear Guthrie and not hear a little Vai living in there somewhere. You can’t not hear some bebop living in there. You can always hear pieces of the equation, but they made it their own. They took all the elements and made their own dish. They made their own thing, and I think that’s part of the game. I think there’s a Geddy Lee quote about how you have to go down the buffet line of music and take little bites of everything you like, and then at the end of it, that’s your statement.

For more info about Andy Wood and to hear and buy his music, check out:

Andy Wood Music

Andy Wood Music on YouTube

Andy Wood Music on Instagram

Woodshed Guitar Experience

According to Tim Pierce: “He Might Be The BEST Guitar Player Alive Today.”

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