My Pop Five
My Pop Five
Zack Quintana: Dark Side of The Moon, Be Here Now, Europe '72, Are You Experienced, and Purple Rain
Guitar prodigy Zack Quintana takes us through his remarkable musical journey, from picking up the guitar at age four to fronting bands by eight years old. With footage showing him shredding Hendrix solos as a child, it's no wonder the podcast host introduces him as "one of the best guitarists I ever met."
During this intimate conversation, Quintana reveals the profound impact of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on his approach to guitar playing. Rather than focusing on technical prowess, he learned to appreciate David Gilmour's "simple but powerful and tasteful" style where "every note is perfectly placed." This watershed moment coincided with his discovery of synesthesia – a condition that allows him to "hear colors" – making the album particularly significant in his development.
The spiritual dimension of Quintana's artistry emerges through his discussion of Ram Dass's "Be Here Now," which helped him navigate the tension between artistic expression and ego-driven validation. "Creating for me is now almost meditative than trying to get a hit record," he explains, offering valuable perspective on maintaining authenticity in an industry often focused on external metrics of success.
Live performance holds special significance for Quintana, inspired by the Grateful Dead's legendary Europe '72 recordings. He champions the idea that each performance should be unique, a philosophy that extends to his recording approach – prioritizing live energy even in studio settings. With influences ranging from Hendrix's revolutionary guitar techniques to Prince's commanding stage presence, Quintana continues crafting his distinctive musical identity with new releases on the horizon.
Follow Zack on Instagram @ZackQuintanaOfficial and don't miss his upcoming projects – a Valentine's Day single and two albums dropping this spring!
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We'll see you next time. But until then, what's your Pop Five?
Hello, hello and welcome back. It's another episode of my Pop 5. Some of my favorite episodes that we've done are the ones that are personal connections, that I have friends or people that I've met along my life journey, and today's is one of those and I'm so excited to share it with you. Today we get to meet with Zach Quintana. Zach is one of the first musicians that I met at a very young age, that I saw him playing and I'm like I know this guy is going to have a career in music and probably one of the first people that I'd met that I'd say is definitely a prodigy. So let's get into today's episode with Zach Quintana. Okay, everyone, we are back.
Speaker 1:It's another episode of my Pop Five and Daniel and I have the absolute pleasure of interviewing the incredible Zach Quintana. Zach is such a phenomenal musician, guitarist and, in my eyes, prodigy, one of the best guitarists I ever met. And, in my eyes, prodigy, one of the best guitarists I ever met you know, even seeing recordings of him shredding as young as like eight, nine, 10 years old, and has been one of the biggest, best guitarists I've ever met. So, zach, thanks so much for gracing us with your presence and being on the show. Heck, yeah, thanks for having me. Man, I'm excited to be here, of course, you know, as I've, you know, admired you from afar, I still am just so mind blown by the generosity that your kind of family presented and what allowed us to introduce each other. For the audience.
Speaker 1:I had a chance to tour with my band, great States, for a while back in like 2016 or so Zach's family when we were kind of coming through Boise, idaho. Just let us stay with them for days and opened up their home and you know I love your family so much. Your mom and dad are such special people. Your sister's awesome and you're awesome too, man, so you guys have such a great family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks man. I appreciate that, I'm sure they'll appreciate that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's been a long time since I've seen you. I think you know at that time you were probably, you know, middle school, maybe entering high school at that point.
Speaker 3:So I was definitely still in high school then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, crazy stuff, man. But anyway, you know, I'm curious, you know, to kind of learn more of your story formally because, like I mentioned, admired you and your musicianship from afar. But before we do, we ask all our guests to list their pop five, with no comment, no context. So, zach, what is your pop five?
Speaker 3:Okay. So, starting at the top of the list, we got Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, and then we've got the book Be here Now by Baba Ram Dass, and then another album, europe 72, by the Grateful Dead. Are you experienced Jimi Hendrix? And Purple Rain by the artist forever known as Prince yeah, man, you know that one. I kind of want to talk about the album and the movie. But we'll get there, we'll get into it.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things that I find so awesome about this show is, you know, there's different ways people approach it. You know, sometimes it's like they they try to something they want to do a TV show and a movie and music or some are like very all in in one way. And this one, like I, was so excited to just listen to all these records and while there's one thing that's not music, there's so much of it that I'm like fuck yeah, I get to listen to these records. These aren't something I'm just throwing on regularly, and so to go back and revisit some of this stuff is really awesome. But before we get into the specifics of these, why don't you give people just kind of overall quick rundown of your story? When did you kind of start playing music and tell them a bit about Zach?
Speaker 3:at a high level. Well, I started playing music as soon as I could hold a guitar, pretty much about four or five years old, started fronting a band by myself at eight. That's you know, pretty much all I've ever known. I've just been singing and playing as long as I've been walking and talking. So now it's mostly just trying to get got a single coming out on Valentine's Day, a couple albums coming out in the spring, I don't know. Other than that I like to, I like to garden, I like to hang out with my cats and my wife and make rock and roll for the people.
Speaker 1:That's amazing yeah. And what's crazy is you know when, when people hear yeah, you know, I, I, I started playing guitar at four they're they're thinking like, oh my gosh, he could play a chord, or you know twinkle twinkle little star.
Speaker 1:But you, you were. You were fronting a band at eight and shredding your fucking ass off and I'm gonna play, play a clip here, because it's like not only me, I'm not only just like trying to sing your praises by saying prodigy, but it's like this is the jacob collier level shit that like, oh my god, this dude is literally playing hendrix tunes and stuff like that at eight years old.
Speaker 5:I'm zach kington. I from Boise, idaho, and I started playing guitar.
Speaker 1:Some of my main influences are Stevie Ray Vaughan, jimi Hendrix, jeff Beck, eric Clapton all the old blues guys, just because I, like the, you were capable of and continue to be capable of at such a young age. But you know, let's go ahead and get straight into it because I I'm sure there'll be kind of influences and questions that come through it. But so the first thing you listed here was dark side of the moon, pink floyd. Tell me about the introduction of that record to you and why it's so impactful for you.
Speaker 3:This record was introduced to me early in life, like as a really young child. I remember my grandpa listening to Pink Floyd a lot as a kid. And then, as I got a little older, one of my guitar teachers his name was Russ Martin, rest in peace, but he was a big Pink Floyd guy and I remember being 10, 11 years old and going in there wanting to learn how to just play the guitar, like all these guitar gods I had seen and heard growing up.
Speaker 3:Finally he was like you ever listen to Pink Floyd man? And I was like no, not really. And then he was like you got to check this record out and he gave me a copy of Dark Side of the moon and it just changed my whole perspective on guitar playing forever. Just blew my little child to me.
Speaker 3:Dark side of the moon is is just a perfect record, like there's not a single thing about it that I would change yeah not that I could ever if fathom changing anything about it in a realistic sense, but it's just one of those that like every note you hear, every transition on the song, like it's just also perfect. Yeah, like the way it came to be is pretty neat, like with cause. You know, you got, of course, david Gilmour and fucking Roger Waters and Rick writes, and so you had Alan Parsons engineering that one, which was the cool part Cause he was just such a crazy experimental engineer on top of the musical genius of Pink Floyd All of it.
Speaker 3:One thing that I find really interesting is the way the tracks all flow together.
Speaker 1:It's like one song almost.
Speaker 3:It's like one song. The only break on the album is between the A side and the B side, and the crazy part is Alan Parsons assembled all the tapes together as they were recording it and not in the mixing phase. Wow, so from rough cut all the way through mastering, the whole thing was playable like it is on the vinyl that's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the perfect.
Speaker 2:Like I'm sorry, zach, go ahead. We're just gonna say it's like the perfect, it's like the. It's almost like a quintessential vinyl experience too, I think because of that, you know totally, and there's not a whole lot of albums like that anymore.
Speaker 3:Like listening to an album used to be an experience of like sitting down and listening to it front to back, and nobody does that anymore, at least not that I'm hip to, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in listening, you know, luckily, you know my Apple music, or whatever you know, was high enough buffering that I had the experience, you know. But then I was relistening a bit this morning and put it on YouTube and there was breaks in between the songs, you know, because of needing to buffer, and it's just like it totally kills it.
Speaker 3:You know, you need that continuous play through, or they put ads in the middle and all that bullshit. But yeah, I have a copy of that record on vinyl that I got from my grandpa. That is 73, like first pressing it's wow paper thin, now it's. It's so worn down but, like once a year, I'll still spin it that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sucks when you get like a record that's so important to you and then there's like a skip or you know something that's wobbly and it's just it doesn't have any skips on it.
Speaker 1:Fortunately, knock on wood, it's just paper thin, so the audio level is like really quiet and uh yeah uh, well, you know, I'm curious you mentioned that when you kind of heard this for the first time, that it, you know, completely changed the way you view music and guitar. What were some of the things that you were maybe like listening to at that time and and how you know how did it contrast?
Speaker 3:I mean, as an eight-year-old kid learning to play guitar, I was really influenced by Murray from the Wiggles and I listened to a lot of like Stevie Ray, vaughan, of course, and that was kind of my biggest early influence as a kid was Stevie Ray and all the blues greats, you know, blake, shepard and people like that. And then listening to Pink Floyd for the first time just was honestly one of the first times I realized in my life that I have synesthesia, which I have been diagnosed with since which is if you're not familiar, it's the blending of senses in its basic definition, but the form of synesthesia I have is basically hearing colors.
Speaker 3:So, like with soundscapes and music and frequencies are all associated with like a different color on a spectrum, like around me in my field of vision, and pink dark side of the moon was the first album that I was like whoa, what is happening around me right now? Yeah, and that really I think was what changed it all it is so contrast.
Speaker 1:You know the, the. There are moments that you know you hear shredding or whatever in this record, but it's not blues guitar.
Speaker 3:No, it's not. And even the shreddy bits like David Gilmour's playing. It's so simple but powerful and tasteful and tasteful and every note is just perfectly placed and it's not a bunch of look at me fast stuff. It's like he's playing to the song, more so than just playing to play which I appreciate Like a big change mentally for me as a guitar player, which is like you could just play to the song and just you know vibe out and it's not all about how many notes you can fit into how small of a space.
Speaker 2:I'm a guitar player as well. I didn't hear the album until I was older it was probably like 17, 16, 17, and kind of just became, or kind of just became aware of it just through pop culture and kind of just being around it. But even then I think was very unique and I think there's almost a level of difficulty to david gilmore's playing, even though it is simple.
Speaker 3:It's it's so sneaky, it's really sneaky because try and play you know, the first.
Speaker 2:You know, try and play, breathe or something like that, and it's like it's not as you know, it's not, it's, it's uh, what's the word? I think it would be. It's like a it's kind of it's kind of like a hidden in plain sight that's what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it's sneaky.
Speaker 1:It's it's it's simple, powerful, but it's sneaky in the way that it sounds simple but it's really kind of hard to play, for sure daniel, you mentioned the pop culture elements and I'm remembering that I I don't know if it's the first time I thought of it, but, like the thing that sticks to me most is people who are like played alongside wizard of oz and it matches perfectly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dark side of oz totally yeah, have you ever tried it?
Speaker 1:have you ever like?
Speaker 3:I have, yeah, I have. I have done the dark side of oz thing. It's pretty crazy, but like and I can't attest to that it does line up pretty close.
Speaker 1:But I will also say if you're high enough, any movie will line up with any album yeah that's true gosh yeah, I've tried it paul blart, mall cop and listen to the right, yeah, we're doing revolver and paul blart mall cop next now I'm actually wondering exactly because, as a dark side of the moon, was the first pink floyd album I have and I would consider myself a big pink floyd fan as well.
Speaker 2:Would you say that it's their best album?
Speaker 3:In my opinion I would say it's my favorite album. But I couldn't really pick a best Pink Floyd album because they're all very different in their own rights, Like they're all different eras and you know they're all kind of.
Speaker 3:It's hard to judge one against the other in my sort of like mindset with music, I guess, because it is just such a natural progression of the band and I feel like those albums just kind of stand for that moment in time that they were created and it's hard, to hard for me at least, to try and pick one over the other in that sense.
Speaker 2:Other than Dark Side of the Moon being your favorite.
Speaker 3:Other than Dark Side of the Moon, just being the most influential for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:Just in the sense that it was the first Pink Floyd record I heard.
Speaker 1:When we're talking influence, Zach, you know, I think some people can take that to mean a couple of different things. You know, what ways do you think it has directly impacted your playing, or where do you see stuff from this record kind of showing up in the way you create or the music that you're making now?
Speaker 3:Totally In the ways that it affects the music I'm making now. It's definitely a lot of ways, especially in the engineering aspects and the ways they would play with equipment and modify equipment and use certain pieces of gear that wouldn't normally be used to make those sounds, to make those sounds and just inspiring me to be more outside of the box when it comes to being in a studio and making records and stuff.
Speaker 3:And then the fun part with that is you know you have all this fun with what you have in the studio, making all these crazy noises for the record, and then it becomes even more of a fun puzzle and a challenge to be like okay, well, now how do we do it live?
Speaker 1:and yeah, yes, yeah, that's I mean which is? Even more crazy too, because, like now, you know the default answer for most tour managers, or whatever would be like, just throw it in track you know, throw it in track, you know. But like back then, they were having to recreate this stuff almost every night.
Speaker 3:You know my live performances, I guess you could say like I'm not a big fan of playing to a click track or with a laptop or tracks or anything. I've played in lots of bands with that sort of vibe and it has its place and I appreciate it and it's like a really revolutionary thing in modern music. But in my own weird psychedelic visions that I like to create, it just feels kind of intrusive.
Speaker 1:No, that's one of the things like I love about your playing. I remember watching, you know, a clip from you playing at Treefort, you know, and you have probably nine people or something in the band you know to be able to kind of create all those cool sounds. And so, yeah, I'm such an advocate for, like, if I hear something, I want to see it on stage somewhere.
Speaker 3:Totally, totally. It's like the Boston complex. You know, boston released that Spaceship album and then they couldn't tour for three, four years after because they couldn't recreate it on a stage.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I also think is interesting is like the transition from being like a really strong instrumentalist into, like also exploring song writing and lyricism. And one of the things with this record that I think is really cool is it's very much like a has a theme and a concept in that, like you know, their viewpoint was like the passage of time through life, you know like what are the things that you would encounter conflict, greed, time, money, death, all of those things. And so there's a lot that I take from it in listening about like, oh, perfecting, like the idea of like a concept record, and so how, if at all, has this record kind of impacted the way you think about like the actual storytelling in the work that you do.
Speaker 3:It has inspired me to make a concept record. Yeah, that's for sure, and one of my cause. I, like I said, I have two records in the can that are set for release this spring, hopefully, and the latter of the two is definitely a concept record in the sense of. Pink Floyd-ism yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, speaking of the concept of a concept album, I remember, as a matter of fact, jogging my memory, it reminds me that the reason why I went back and finally listened to Dark Side of the Moon was because I was reading it may have been an interview or maybe the liner notes of Random Access Memories, the Daft Punk album they kind of just listed. You know, hey, here are some albums that kind of inspired the way that we made this album and I remember that going back and listening to Dark Side of the Moon then it made like so many concept albums kind of click for me that they don't necessarily have to be like a straightforward story, something like Good Kid Mad City, which I was kind of. That's like what I was kind of used to at the time. It was more so like a concept album can be kind of like sprawling and maybe in ways abstract. Even if it is, you know, it can be very straightforward totally.
Speaker 3:One of the things I appreciate about dark side of the moon too is like not only in you know like what the songs are about is it a concept album? But just the like in a classical composition aspect, like the motifs they use throughout the album that they repeat and the melodies and things they come back to in different songs throughout the record to reference earlier parts in the piece. It like truly makes it for me like the perfect blend of like a rock and roll album but like the most beautiful classical score as well, and that it's thought out in the way of like a rock and roll album, but like the most beautiful classical score as well, and that it's thought out in the way of like having those motifs and those harmonies and those callbacks to earlier parts in the symphony yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 2:I think that's actually a very solid point, that something that pink floyd does in a lot of their albums that is like a carryover from classical music, that like you don't really see that in pop music, yet it's still to this day everywhere in like film scores right, yeah, it's those.
Speaker 3:It's those little motifs that they put in throughout, that you're like oh, I remember that melody from three songs ago yeah.
Speaker 1:One of the things that always got me was when the band I was touring with when we met you, zach Great States yeah, I still don't know that I buy it, but I guess in listening through I heard it a little bit more the number one thing that people would come and tell us was be like you guys sound like ping floyd and I'm like I did not get it. You know, the rest of the time we're not being floyd. But like when I think about it, it's like we did a lot of like vocal harmony stuff and stuff like that, and so I'm like that's the, I guess, the correlation there.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's just funny that like that band is also like sticks there for me, because that's the one that we were told all the time that we sounded like. But yeah, all right, what? What is a song that, if we have to do a needle drop for the audience, what's the song that you'd like us to play for them?
Speaker 3:a needle drop from this record from dark side of the moon, any color you like any color you like, all right, yep, perfect, all right.
Speaker 1:Transitioning now here into your next one, here, zach. Of all the things that we get to experience today, talking about in terms of music and shredding, this is the one that kind of pivots a bit for us, and that's Be here Now. Baba Ram Dass, the book. Tell us about your kind of introduction to this book and how it's changed your life.
Speaker 3:So this book, similar to the last album I found through my grandparents, who are a couple of old hippies that I love and adore very much.
Speaker 1:Is this your mom's parents or your dad's? My?
Speaker 3:mom's parents? Yeah, they still live in New Mexico.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but they are. You know, they're my grandparents. That's all I got to say.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, sure.
Speaker 3:But this book and I'll show you the cover because it's just so enticing was just always sitting on their bookshelf in there and I remember always seeing it as a kid just sitting there and I would always look through it and when you flip through it there's a lot of crazy artwork and stuff. Have you guys read this book or looked through it at all ever?
Speaker 1:I've read some digital chapters from it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you kind of know the vibe of what's going on inside. And so like as a kid, it's just really enticing. You know, it just seems really intriguing. And then, but I never read it. And then one day I was probably 20 years old and I say that like it was not four years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I was back at my grandparents house me and my girlfriend at the time, now wife were staying there and I was working on my concept record. I was talking about it's called it's all the same at the space saloon. I was in albuquerque working on that with one of our mutual friends, marco, and then we were staying at my grandparents house and I remember marco had given me a mushroom chocolate bar and so me and my wife split it in half and ate the whole thing and then that book was just staring at me in the face because we were staying in my grandparents' office where that bookshelf was and has been my whole life, and that book was just staring at us. And so we pulled it off the shelf and read the whole thing in one night, just flipped through and read the entire book and it was just like aside from the psychedelic experience which I have had lots of and had had lots of at that point, it was just like and one of the lines in the book I wanted to talk about is it's like one of the very first pages when you get past the, because the first part of the book is just Baba Ram Dass talking about his transmutation and his journey from being Dr Richard Albert and and becoming baba ram das.
Speaker 3:This essence and. But once you get into the baba ram das part of the book, one of the first things it says is you can't receive what you aren't ready to receive. And for me that was just like such an eye-opening moment in just the sense that, like, you can really want something but if you're not ready for it, it's not going to happen until you're ready for it.
Speaker 3:And like you, know, things happen for a reason and it just kind of changed, and especially with this book in specific, like it was just such a roundabout moment with like looking at that book my whole life and never really reading it, and then one of the first things I see being you can't receive what you aren't ready to receive.
Speaker 3:Just kind of clicked that I was like oh, the reason I've never read this book is because it would have just gone straight over my head and it wouldn't have done anything for me. The whole thinking on the world and just my whole perception of reality was shattered reading this book.
Speaker 1:There's so much about. You know the things that find you when you need to find them. You know that same idea. One of the things that I remember from having read this is like the biggest thing that I took from it is like there's big like focus on the ego versus the true self right and ego being like the self-driven identity type of mentality versus like having a deeper awareness to detach from the validation that you might receive, or feeling like you have control, and that's really like special and I think that centeredness and that presentness is like so important and needed for people today. At the same time, what I'm curious about is some ways that's contrary to the artist experience. You know there is a tension between self-expression and you know external validation. How have you navigated that tension between wanting to express and wanting to grow in this art form, while also knowing, potentially, some of the downsides of that?
Speaker 3:That's a great fucking question, ryan, and that's why I put this book in here is because I wanted to bring up the fact that being an artist is totally the opposite of of that, like you mentioned.
Speaker 3:like it is yeah like such an ego inflated industry and for me, you know, music has never really been about that at its core for me. And it started to become that for me in a lot of ways. Where I started, you know, I was starting to get a big head and trying to be a rock star and party all the time and do all of this. And then I, you know, I slowly realized I was just kind of killing myself slowly but very quickly at a young age and I was like, wait, no, we've seen this story time and time again.
Speaker 3:And this book really kind of changed all of that for me, where it was like it doesn't have to be, that it can be an expression of the self and not an expression of the ego, in the sense that, you know, creating for me is now just almost meditative than it is like oh, I'm going to write this song because I'm trying to get a hit record. It's like I'm going to write this song because I want to hear it. Maybe other people will too. Maybe they won't, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2:There's something about just kind of needing those reminders to enjoy, enjoy the moment, enjoy it for what it is. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Because, like that's a big part of of creating the art, right like it's cathartic to just get it out and of course right to just enjoy it while you're doing it being in the studio and not do it for any other reason other than pure bliss and I think even more now we're struggling so much against that.
Speaker 2:Artists are, like Ryan mentioned, there being this tension between, like, the external validation and kind of like the internal gratification because of the internet. You know what I mean. So it's like it makes it even. It was already there and now it's even worse because it's just like coming at you all the time. You want to get your voice out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we, sometimes we do need a reminder like that to just like, hey, enjoy yourself absolutely, and this book still inspires me in a lot of ways, you know, even after reading it so many times I mean a few times, all the way through in one sitting. But but, like now, I feel like I've, you know, read bits and pieces of it enough, cause I use it almost in the sense of, like you know you do, like a card of the day, pull from a tarot deck or like an Oracle deck, where, like, if I'm feeling lackluster, like uninspired, I'll open it to a random page and just kind of see what it has to offer for me in that moment, as sort of like just a little, you know, little guiding phrase that you open it up to and you're like, oh okay.
Speaker 1:Very cool and and it makes so much sense. I I've always had such a struggle with, with like, for example, in trying to explain I think there's a huge correlation between I don't know mindfulness and spirituality and music. You know Absolutely, and you know, trying to convey, like you know, the moments of like, what I've always referred to as just like a flow or like locking in, like when I'm in a rhythm section and I'm playing and I'm like everyone's locked in, it's like I'm gone for a second, like I'm out of my body, and it's just like I I'm trying to explain it to my wife, who's not a musician or something I'm like I don't know how to explain it it's just like I you're you're locked in there, the ego disappears.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody's just in the moment, here, now, together, making music, and the ego is gone.
Speaker 1:Yep yeah, and you're just, you're not thinking, you're just you're in, you know and that's just like that's yep, it's like one of those special things and I think you know being able to remind yourself of of those moments being part of it as well, but I still struggle and it's something that I continue to work on all the time. Is that like, even if I don't want to? You know, I think of like the standup comic who goes up there and tells a joke? If there's laughter, there's a feeling that comes with that. And if there's laughter, there's a feeling that comes with that. And if there's not, there's also a feeling that comes with that. And while it's not as direct live performance, does that too. People respond or they don't respond, and as much as I want to say this is me and my expression, and I want to be locked in in this moment.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, if it's you know, if you're seeing someone talking or you know watching sports at the bar that you're playing at or you know you're kind of like hey yo, what the fuck you know? I'm shredding. So, it's like I do want to let go of that, but at the same time I feel like I'm also, like I'm human though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, totally, totally and it's, it's a lot, it's. You know, it's like a tightrope you got to walk on as a human. You know that is the human experience.
Speaker 1:Is is walking that line between the ego and the self constantly when we were touring, though, too, like it was also a matter of like do I get to eat tonight or do I get to get to? The next city of that, like I need people to buy the records or buy the merch or whatever the case is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's that's the really the biggest, the hardest part for me is like selling yourself in that way where it's like, hey, buy my shit so I can eat yeah, we gotta get some gas to get to the next town exactly honestly.
Speaker 2:No, this conversation reminds me of something I saw recently of. You guys may or may not have seen it. There was there's this ai app called suno, and I guess it was. There was a lot of conversation lately because the CEO was in a podcast interview talking about how, like I always love making music, but I never enjoyed. Like I, you know, I want to get to the point where the music is made. I don't even you know I would want to skip past the actual making of the music, and so people started talking about it because people were like, well, but that's the whole point. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I would want to ask you, Zach, what are your thoughts on that? And I guess, like, do you worry about AI and its influence on what you do, or could it influence what you do? Like, what do you think about that?
Speaker 3:I don't like AI, Not a big fan of AI, Mostly because of the climate terror effects that AI is having on the world. We don't got to get into that. But I don't think AI can take what the human experience brings to live music on a stage Same. It's not possible. You know AI can't sweat in a stinky van with five other dudes for four weeks and bring that energy to a stage for crowds of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's culture, that's what the? Life of a musician is you know what I mean? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't think robots can do that.
Speaker 1:I've always felt that people respond and it's not exclusive to music but to art, because of the connection to the artist. People care about. Taylor Swift's music, because they can create the stories surrounding what led up to those songs, yeah, and it's like. Without that, I think like, well, I mean sure there might be a bop that AI comes up with, and I might shoot.
Speaker 3:This hits a little bit. You know It'll bop for a few months and then people will forget about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be, Gangnam Style or whatever yeah. Sorry, Psy yeah Sorry whatever, yeah, yeah, sorry sigh, yeah, last thing before we kind of move on.
Speaker 1:You know one of the things that I think should be the, you know, one of the other key takeaways from this book, um, and it's something that I have found so much success in in in my life specifically and and not to sound preachy, but like so much of this, the key aspects of the book is also like just what service and love as the foundation for your life can be. You know Absolutely and people have asked me again, not that I'm like the expert on relationships, but just like you know, when people are going through relationship struggle, like so much of my advice is like is it the things that you're doing in service of your partner? Is it in regards to lifting them up, and that's not exclusive to romantic relationships, but your friendships? Like, are you doing?
Speaker 3:things in service and love of that person or is it selfish?
Speaker 1:And if it's selfish, it's not going to flourish in the way that it needs to.
Speaker 3:It's got to be mutually beneficial or it won't work. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for this. It was awesome to kind of revisit.
Speaker 3:Everybody out there listening to this. Go read that book if you haven't. Yes.
Speaker 1:Maybe with a half a chocolate bar a mushroom chocolate bar too. All right, let's move on to the next one here. You know I love live performance and this is one of the best live bands to ever do it Europe 72, grateful Dead. Talk to us about the impact of this record and why it's here for you.
Speaker 3:This record is here for me because I mean, it's the dead, but also it was just another one that mostly you know as far as like influence on me as a musician. It just you know the dead definitely and I'm sure this is true for a lot of musicians out there but it was just a huge influence on, like, the performance aspect of music for me and that there is no boundaries when it comes to music on a stage or you know, whereas like Pink Floyd was kind of like, oh, you can do whatever you want in the studio, grateful Dead was like fuck the studio, do whatever you want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it just really was. The biggest thing for me was having that just experience of just realizing that the live show is a magical experience and that no one experience is the same as any other. And the reason I picked Europe 72 is, I mean, it was like the first major live record release, I think for the Dead. But if you really dig into it, like the version that everybody you know, the one that was remastered, and all that is a compilation from that whole tour. There's like 30 different volumes of.
Speaker 3:Europe 72 from every single night of that tour. So, like, my personal favorite is volume four, which is at the I think it's the Tivoli concert hall. It's in Copenhagen, denmark. That one is supreme. There's like a 29-minute long version of Dark Star on there.
Speaker 1:I think people lose sight of the fact that, you know, with bands like the Dead, no one concert, like you mentioned, is the same, like everyone there is like, hey, we're the only one that get to experience the exact same night as it is.
Speaker 1:And some people can say that you know, I think back. Sorry, I know this is sacrilege for a lot of people who listen to the show. But, like when Taylor Swift did the Heirsress tour, most of that is cut copy paste. You know, maybe her vocal performance changes slightly, but for the most part it's the same show, same shit, yeah these are not. Every song is going to be slightly different in length. People are going to have different things. Melodically, things are going to happen.
Speaker 3:Arrangement wise, it's right and it's, and it's a group of guys that are so guys and gals that are just so in tune with each other. And going back to the book, just that lack of ego between all of them and just being this essence that is the Grateful Dead, making music as just a universal being, almost allowed them to be able to create these monster, completely improvised compositions. Almost in the same way Pink Floyd had that classical sort of aspect to their songs, the Grateful Dead was coming up with that level of pieces, just live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things that I don't want to lose sight of for the audience, though, as well like this isn't? You know cold trains, you know free form, random sounds, you know like there is structure and there is melody, and there's vocals, and so it's a. It's just like what surrounds.
Speaker 3:That is when the improvisation comes in, you know yeah it's not the interplanetary coltrane album, for sure. No exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, although that's pretty sick too, but I mean it's very different. You know, like there's very good songs, there's good songwriting, there's really good melody, and it really just balances that. Like, how can we be structured? And really just explore what these songs can be on a nightly basis. Yeah, have you seen it.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know like you know the members have changed. I have not gotten to see Dead Company or any of those I did. I did see Bobby Weir walk by one time in LA somewhere, I can't remember where we were at.
Speaker 1:Justin got to go see the Dead Co at the Sphere.
Speaker 3:He's a big John Mayer guy, so he went and saw them at the Sphere.
Speaker 1:It's cool that John Mayer plays with them. But yeah, one other thing with this that I actually didn't even realize is that prior to this time period, Jerry Garcia was primarily Gibson SG guy, and this was the transition to the strat was yeah, yeah, the.
Speaker 3:The 70, 71 was the, the yeah, 71, 72, 73 was the when he switched to the strat and it was also his first like heavily modded guitar as well, the alligator strat, which is also, you know, jerry, has been a huge inspiration for me in the realm of tone and modifying my guitars to, you know, be able to do things that guitars don't normally do, and just, you know, just experimenting with, you know, combining different parts of amps.
Speaker 3:Because he was, you know, he had main rig around that time was like a twin reverb preamp with a macintosh power amp, and so he would completely bypass the power amp circuit on the twin route out to a macintosh power amp. That was just crazy amounts of fucking power boosting all of these because he was running a bunch of jbl e120s and so those are all running eight ohms each and he's got, you know, 50 of them. I mean, I think Europe 72 was pre-Wall of Sound era. Sure sure, because around, yeah, you know, but he was still probably pushing, you know, six or eight of those things at once. Yeah, definitely took a note out of Jerry's book when it comes to the amp setup.
Speaker 2:I'm curious in a lot of ways. You know, something like Dark Side of the Moon versus this Grateful Dead live album and most you know of all Grateful Dead live albums can be so different in terms of ethos, in terms of, even, like, you know what is like the journey, the goal of the music making, like how, when you were in the studio, or even when you're performing, like what is your thought process about? Like you know, how do these, these, how do you approach the studio with that kind of mentality? How do you approach live performance?
Speaker 3:you know these two being so influential for you live performance for me is always the the higher priority, for sure, and for me, being in the studio is more so about capturing that, that live energy sound, you know, because I feel like there's a lot of bands I've heard that like you see them live and you're like wow, that was fucking incredible. And then you buy their record and you're like what happened, what happened in the studio, you know? Or vice versa, you buy, you hear a record that's really great and then you see them live and it's not up to par.
Speaker 3:So for me, I feel like my biggest goal in the studio is trying to capture a little bit of that energy as much as you can. You know which is that's hard, but I always try and record. You know, at least the bass, guitar, bass, drums trio of the of the song live together in one room, you know, even if it means doing the guitar and the bass direct and then re-amping them later, you know, but those performances all play together at the same time as, like the foundation of the track is, is the way to go for me nice, yeah, I think it kind of.
Speaker 1:I mean, a lot of what we've been talking about kind of correlates. Right, we were talking about like marrying, the, like, the egocentricity and the internal mind and, like some, of this too is like marrying the improvisation and free form with structure and always like balance, trying to find that perfect balance, for sure. Well, let's move on. You know I want to be mindful of time here for you, zach. Let's get into the Hendrix experience with. Are you Experienced? Yeah, debut Jimmy record.
Speaker 1:Debut Jimmy record, one of the greatest records ever made, not only according to me, but like even Rolling Stone had it, and it's like top 30.
Speaker 3:It's number 30 on the greatest hundred records of all time on Rolling Stone's list.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unreal. Tell me about your introduction to it and what you love about it.
Speaker 3:This was a record another record that was introduced to me by my guitar teacher and mentor, just, you know, as every guitar player's got to know, who Jimi Hendrix is. It might be a little cliche as a guitar player, but it was just Hendrix was the first guy to do that. Nobody had made a guitar sound like that until Jimi Hendrix released. Are you Experienced? And you know thatrix released. Are you experienced? And you know that's the crazy? And he, you know he played guitar for for a couple you know pretty big names in the before he had got his big break as a solo guy. One of my favorite stories is the fact that the engineer that worked on this record was just upset the entire time about trying to record his guitar because it was just too loud, and that was like the whole constant argument going on the whole time they were making this record is that Jimmy's guitar was just too fucking loud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know you started this by saying it's kind of cliche, but you know it wasn't at this time.
Speaker 3:It wasn't at that time. Yeah, it was very just mind blowing to some people.
Speaker 1:You know it was the devil and it was, you know, gonna melt your brain it's so heartbreaking when stuff like that happens too, because, like, um, you know, I was just explaining this to a friend of mine like there was a movie that I really loved garden state but it was just like I shared that with him. He's like, this just feels like a cliche indie movie, like like all the indie movies have this kind of soundtrack yeah, but this was the first one exactly and so it's like same thing with this.
Speaker 1:It's just like appreciate that like this didn't exist before.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, you've heard a bunch of copycats or people trying to emulate, but like no, this was the thing yeah, nobody was doing hendrix until hendrix did hendrix yeah exactly I think, even as a guitar player, because, like I didn't really grow up with Hendrix, it just wasn't something that was around, it was something that I kind of had to seek out later, same same with, like Pink Floyd. And so I think that even as a guitar player I didn't even quite understand that, like what is this? You know, this love for Hendrix, until it's like, oh wait, no, there was like a clear, like there's a clear delineation, like the way that he made his guitar sound like actually nobody was doing that right like yeah, and so I think it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like you can't even stress that enough. Like, as much as it does sound cliche, it's really like no, but this time I'm being serious like he was the first one to do it like sure, yeah. And then you have so much you know it's like became what we know. The electric guitar we know today is, because of that, exactly the feedback the effects.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fuzz face, you know right, the wah pedal, all of it, it's just yeah the thing that that breaks my heart about this record is um and just jimmy hendrix in general. It's just like we're talking about the impact he had on music and guitar and the world and it's like absolutely his entire life and career.
Speaker 1:That like people when, in terms of when he was prominent was only like three years until he passed, it's like right, such a short period that he was active and it's like heartbreaking yeah yeah yeah, you know, a shooting star that bright can only burn for so long, you know yeah, I mean, and that's why the 27 club is like a thing, you know, that's like jimmy hendrix, kurt cobain, amy winehouse, like all dying.
Speaker 3:At 27 they changed the game and then that's it yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy it is. Yeah, yeah, that's, hendrix was also go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah sorry, hendrix was also just like such a loud, emotional performer in terms of the way he moved and sang and such a presence yeah yeah, how do you destroying guitars on?
Speaker 2:stage like destroying instruments.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, how do you channel that intensity when you perform, if at all?
Speaker 3:I have been told that I I have a certain presence on stage that's hilarious I've always. You know the zach that you're talking to now in the zach queue that's on stage every weekend is is not the same guy sometimes.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I see videos of me on stage and I'm like how my body doesn't move like that it's so funny when you see stuff like that and you're like, if I even tried to recreate doing that, I couldn't.
Speaker 3:I couldn't do that if I was trying to do that, but I did it.
Speaker 1:Similar to you talked about with Jerry Garcia. I imagine there was probably an impact for guitar tones, techniques, things like that.
Speaker 3:What are some things you've learned?
Speaker 1:from Jimmy.
Speaker 3:How to show off Confidence was really the biggest thing that Jimi Hendrix kind of offered me as an artist was just how to just be confidently yourself, regardless of what people say or people think of you. If you're confident in who you are, people will respect you for what you do. I've found most of the time and that confidence is for me. Confidence was not always an easy thing for me you know it was definitely a learned thing charisma.
Speaker 3:But you know through, you know watching people like jimmy hendrix and you know we're about to talk about prince, who is the ultimate charismatic sex God. But you know, for me it was. You know Jimi Hendrix was a big style influence for me as well. You know, like you know, like let's wear big feathery boas on stage and shop in the women's section and find big, you know, flaring velvet pants if we want to, because it's fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. You know this is true for Prince. You know I haven't heard stories about this with Jimmy, but I know like confidence to the outside observer may not be always even what you feel internally.
Speaker 3:You know and so I know Prince was very self conscious you know, yeah, I am, and it's kind of the style part of it and the clothes, and you know, dressing myself up for the shows and stuff is sort of a mask in that sense of you know, it was something like if you're going to do something like the way you can exude confidence.
Speaker 1:It's just like act like whatever that thing is. That you're going to do is the most normal thing in the world, because your fears are just that people are going to be like that's weird or that's not normal.
Speaker 3:But if you go do the thing, if it's normal it's going to come off like you're.
Speaker 1:You're confident. And so like just switching my mind to, instead of say you need to be confident, instead being like, hey, this thing that you're doing is completely normal, Like I. Just it helps me at least kind of break.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. But yeah, it is totally it can be. You know a learned thing, curly, you know charisma and confidence and being a charming person is not, you know, a genetic thing. Totally it can be.
Speaker 1:it can be like a little bit of a mental shift in that sense, even just that simple like yeah, what I'm doing right now is completely normal in that like mental perspective of yeah, but like we talked about earlier, um, you know, with an audience or, like I mentioned, the comedian analogy, you know, if you walk out and someone's like what the fuck are you doing, you can very easily be like, oh shoot, I I'm kind of cowering back into myself right, but if someone goes, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 2:you're like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing you know, and they're like oh yes okay, my bad yeah yeah, yeah, honestly, this whole, this whole conversation, speaking of prince, it reminds me of, like the story of the, while my guitar gently weeps, performance at, like the Rock and Roll Hall of.
Speaker 3:Fame, yeah, when he walks on stage and throws his guitar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, apparently that was, that was the situation. Like here's Prince in front of all these guitar greats and made magic, you know, because he's fucking Prince and that's just what he does. But I think it's like it's that same thing, right, like he was just like I have to do, you know, I have to, I have to just kind of show out and it's, you know, it's a magical moment because you can just feel like I'm just talking about it, like kind of gives me chills, because it's just like such a musical moment.
Speaker 3:You brought up that clip yeah.
Speaker 2:From the from the hall of fame induction ceremony that's like honor of George Harrison.
Speaker 1:I'm a guy I have guitar players all playing at once and he takes like four choruses or something. Yeah, and even over, when tom petty starts singing again, he just keeps going, keeps going well, we're talking about the legend already, so let's transition to the purple rain by prince and the Talk to me about this introduction for you and what you love about the artist formerly known as Prince.
Speaker 3:The artist forever known as Prince. True, I love that I heard that on some clip I saw recently and I've just been saying it a lot because it's it's great, it's great. Purple Rain is a record I have been listening to my whole life, my dad is a huge Prince fan always has been I also like. A big thing for me is, like you mentioned, your band always gets compared to got compared to Pink Floyd and all that. Like I'd say, the biggest like celebrity lookalike I get is Prince.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But this record, I don't know it's just, it's been around my whole life and it's always been such a prominent, just nostalgic, you know, influential record for me, and the movie too, the fact that it got made into a movie and just Prince's sassy little bitchiness about the whole production and rewriting the script.
Speaker 3:And cause he? It's like I don't know if y'all know this, but he gave the director of the movie a hundred songs to pick from to use in the movie. Purple Rain was not on that list of a hundred songs and so the director picked when Doves Cry was the song he picked off the list.
Speaker 3:But then Prince's manager was like no, that can't be the song. There's no bass line. But then it became the only song to ever hit the top 10 billboard with no bass line what I my understanding is, he recorded one too, but like was right after they did it he was like fuck that, remove it. Yeah, yeah, he said take. Yeah.
Speaker 2:He did it like out of spite, took the bass like he hated the bass line so much that he was like take it out.
Speaker 3:No, I think that's the story I always heard too see, I thought I always heard it was like out of spite of the record company, like wanting the song no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I think you're right.
Speaker 3:I think you're right, yeah because then he was like okay, you can have the song, but you can't have this bass line right, right, because I think you're right.
Speaker 2:I think it. I think it was like someone told him it needed a bass line. He's like I'm fucking prince know it, I'm gonna do whatever I want, yeah but it ended up being that.
Speaker 3:And then I guess the director heard prince play like that weekend after they had met up and talked about the song thing, and he played purple rain live and the director was like that's the song that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I, what I love about this record too and I think people just and most people know, but some people don't that, like, prince played almost every fucking instrument on it. Of course he had guys come in and overdub and do some things, but like, yeah, he did a lot of the drum machine programming. He actually played drums, he played guitar bass.
Speaker 3:Saying but as far as the the writing goes, this was the first record that he like kind of co-wrote a little bit with his band. Yeah, with the new power generation.
Speaker 1:Very amazing record when doves cry purple rain. I would die for you. Let's go crazy. Darling Nikki, it's like darling smashes, smashes. Did you know?
Speaker 3:that, darling Nikki, is the reason that the parental advisory sticker was created. Yes, yeah that song is what it led to the creation of that sticker because parents were so mad about that song being on the record and they were like they need. Somebody needs to warn the parents about these sexually explicit songs which it is very sexually explicit.
Speaker 1:I mean even in days today with where we get, like you know, insane explicit hip-hop music or whatever. Like going back and listening to the record, you're like like, yeah, I could see for this time Right To being like people were people were so upset about, like WAP and all this.
Speaker 3:They're like I've never heard such obscene. I'm like nobody listened to Prince back in 84. Like I just love the, the duality of Prince. Also like knowing astrologically too, that he's a Gemini, that he was like such a you know, such a sex God in the eyes of many, but it was also like a Jehovah witness on like complete opposite end of the Gemini spectrum.
Speaker 2:That I was just trying to explain to a friend recently why when Doves Cry was so great and like I just remember getting like overwhelmed, just because I was like I just can't, you just have to listen to it, like I just, and so I just put it on and it was like I can't even explain why. You know why it's so good. But yeah, prince was, yeah, prince had this. Uh, he was like fiery and angry, but also like smooth and sweet and it was just like so many different things.
Speaker 2:He kind of is the blueprint, I think, for like the uh, the artist, who persona is kind of everything right, like we just expect prince to be prince. We don't just see him as like putting on an act, like he's the whole package, you know, like that is him, like he's himself absolutely yeah he also had his.
Speaker 1:You know he very much was true to his that persona too, because I mean we've I mean our mutual friend marco is sad when he worked as like a stage handed his shows, like he had them create like a curtain tunnel to walk through because he didn't want anyone to look at him or he didn't want to make a kind contact with any of the crew. He has his moments, that's for sure, yeah, absolutely, but also it's funny, a fucking legend absolutely and like part of me.
Speaker 3:You know it's like that's how everybody knows him, because that's how he was. But you know like there's got to be a little bit of a character aspect to it when you're you know, that's true the crew and the stage like the mystique like the mystique of it all, yeah, it's like you know, when he was right himself in his house, you know, just hanging out right whoever?
Speaker 2:that's a good point. Like he's brilliant enough to know that, like he needs that mystique, or that it was a, that it was uh, that it was an important part of yeah, and like.
Speaker 3:I think he's definitely smart enough to like have thought out to that level of like this, this mystique, in front of the whole world, as this character, prince, is like one of the people.
Speaker 2:I still can't believe he's gone. Me too. It's just so relevant. His work is just endlessly fascinating. Deep-willed.
Speaker 3:The only celebrity death I cried over was Prince yeah it was a heavy one.
Speaker 1:You have a lot of tragedy here in some of these that I'm seeing with some of these people on here. Well, zach, you know we'll get you out of here, but before we do we have. We asked everyone five rapid fire questions. Okay, so first one here for you, zach what's a favorite pre-show or post-show ritual that you have?
Speaker 3:I'm stretching, okay great, if someone's never experienced any of your pop five, what's one that they should go start with? Be here Now. Okay, what's the strangest or most unexpected moment that you've had during a performance? One time I was 14. I was playing the Pasco County Fair in Oregon and this old Native American man came up to me in the middle of the show. Quite literally, I was in the middle of playing a guitar solo and he reaches up, takes my hand off of the guitar neck, reaches in his satchel and puts a handful of ground up weed into my hand, closes it Like the band's still playing behind me, like I was in the middle of, like a solo and like, puts it in my hand, closes my hand up and like nods at me and then just walked away. And then, the time it took me to look down, realize what was in my hand up and like nods at me and then just walked away. And then, the time it took me to look down, realize what was in my hand and look up, he was gone. What the?
Speaker 1:heck, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:That was the strangest experience I've ever had on stage, for sure, fair.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you could jam with any musician, living or dead, who would it be?
Speaker 3:I'm going to go with Jerry Garcia.
Speaker 1:And what's something, Zach, that you'd tell a past version of yourself?
Speaker 3:I would tell a past version of myself to don't give up and to focus on the now.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. All right, zach, where can people follow you?
Speaker 3:Instagram at Zach Quintana Official. Or you can go to Zach Quintana Linktree. I got all my stuff on there too.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned, you have two albums coming up, but what else is what's next for you? You playing any shows or festivals or anything upcoming?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've got a tree fort 2025 coming up here in Boise. That's going to be a good one. I've got, as you mentioned before, we've got the full eight or nine piece going. Yeah, we've got two drummers and keyboard. Oh yeah. Three guitar players and all sorts of beautiful yeah. After that I'm not sure what's going on. Hopefully a tour this summer, but as of now we've got tree fort and a couple of records coming out in the spring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, zach, thanks so much for doing this. It's been so awesome to see your career from afar, and it's been such a pleasure.
Speaker 3:We're just so stoked for you thanks, man, it's been great to catch up yeah, talk to you soon.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye, we'll see you. That'll do it for today's show. Thank you so much for listening. Big thanks again to zach for coming on the show. Please go check out his music wherever you can. I mean that both streaming but also live. We've mentioned it so many times in this episode, but live music is so special and has such a value and an amazing place in this world. So if you have the chance to see him live, definitely do so. We're heading out with Zach's latest single, mary Jane, and we hope you enjoy it. We'll see you next time, but until then, what's your pop five?
Speaker 4:I might be a dumb, stupid bro, but she takes my troubles up in smoke. I just forgot the words I had spoken. Guess it's time to take another turn.
