When Jack White called and wanted me to do a video and play mandolin with The Raconteurs, I didn't know anything about The Raconteurs at that time.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I learned how to play mandolin for 'A Mighty Wind!'
My dad also plays a little banjo and guitar, my mom plays the mandolin.
First concert I ever went to was a group called The Yardbirds. Eric Clapton is the lead guitarist.
There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them.
The Rascals are something else. They're up there with the Beatles, and Stones and Byrds. That level of musicality. They have a real chemistry. It is like magic.
Man, that first Leppard album really jams, and their original guitarist, Pete Willis, was a great player.
Marc Bolan had inspired so many people to pick up a guitar and join a band.
I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.
It couldn't have been more nerdy or bizarre, playing the clarinet. But I studied classical clarinet, went to the high school for music and art in New York City, and then found the guitar and the mandolin after it.
That song has the full extent of my mandolin abilities; I'm not a good mandolin player at all.