Gibson probably had the best setup at Sweetwater GearFest, and they were sweet enough to let me film. Well, they had Dinesh interview me, which was a wild change of pace.
Transcription
Note: This transcription is auto-generated. So if it’s wonky, that’s why.
Dinesh: Hey everyone Dinesh here from Gibson brands that we’re at Sweetwater gear Fest 2022. And you just heard some lovely soothing sounds from my special guest here. Emily Harris from get offset. How’s it going? It’s
Emily: great. Dinesh. Thanks for having me. You got it. Thanks for joining
Dinesh: us. We, we figured it out. We did.
We did. I I’m sure you guys could hear the sea of notes and chaos behind. But somewhere in gear Fest, we have a little Haven here of safety, right? Yep.
Emily: Yeah. It’s nice in a corner, which is convenient because you’re not getting things on every side
Dinesh: or it’s so pretty straight up simple. I love the shape.
Super classic. It weighs
Emily: nothing. It’s very lightweight, weighs nothing very surprised by that. Honestly
Dinesh: weighs nothing. Got two P 90 S. Yeah, super fun guitar, super lightweight. And I love the double cut thing, so yeah, it was great. Oh yeah. It’s been kind of a, there’s a few people that have picked it up here, so I’m surprised that it got the yeah, it’s definitely a, a sleeper, but I think it’s, it’s in the good hands right now and I heard some of the stuff that you were playing.
Yeah. Super great vibes. Thank you. And I have to go into now how that’s happening, so I know that your channel Tell us a little about, you know, tell us a little bit about what’s going on with you and your channel. Like what you’re, what, what is, what is the whole concept what’s
Emily: going on? Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot of gear demos, but I also like to, I have a podcast, I talk about the music business, performing live, things like that.
I mean, I study music business in Nashville. Okay. And I love to bring that because there, there are a lot of misconceptions there. Yes. Just like there are misconceptions about gear and players. Yeah. And, you know, I thought I saw other people doing it and I thought I would like to, to try it. Yeah. See how far I can get.
And I’m at gear Fest now talking to Gibson. That’s that’s
Dinesh: killer. Yeah. Well, how long did, how long have you had the channel?
Emily: I started, I think the podcast in 2018 or 17, and I started doing demos. And 2019, late 2019. Okay. Mm-hmm
Dinesh: yeah, yeah. That’s funny, you said the music business part you’re right. A lot of people don’t really know that side of it.
Emily: No. And they get bad advice from people who know less.
Dinesh: Yeah. yeah. It’s like, yes. Save your money. And remember that you’re gonna be paying taxes.
Emily: Yes. Remember that you get paid last, right?
Dinesh: That’s yeah. Well, I mean, it, it’s definitely nice to hear that you’re kind of giving a full. You know, well rounded. Yeah.
Educational, not just about the playing and the gear stuff. I, I think that’s really smart. Mm-hmm because people want to hear that. People want to hear that. I think so. You’ve got the background in it. Mm-hmm . What would you say is like the, the bigger ratio of things that are on the channel? Is it more gear demos?
Is it more
Emily: educational? It more gear. Demos. Okay. I mean, that’s fun and that’s my bread and butter, you know? Yeah. I, the podcast is every week. Okay. That typically comes out on Tuesdays as an audio and video. Oh, nice. And so we talk about a wider range of topics there. I’ve done some like talking head videos, like I’ve explained a difference between.
You’re publishing and a P O yeah. And why you need both right. Things like that.
Dinesh: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Now when did this, like, when did you decide, like this was gonna be a thing? Cause I know in the beginning it’s kind of like you make some videos, you’re kind of testing the waters, but like how long was it, you know, when you started.
That just became like a reality kind of thing for you, you know? Well, the first
Emily: demo pretty much immediately got like 5,000 views. I was like, oh, maybe I’m okay at this. Sure. And it’s something that I’ve been trying to do a lot. I’ve done some tutorial videos before that, even for other other MI brands.
I’m a copywriter by trade. So I’m like, okay, Hey, music gear. That’s I think where I should. Focus my attention. Yeah. And it’s just been, it’s been great, but it was pretty quick where I’m like, I wanna keep doing this for as long as I can. Yeah. Until people just bully me off the internet. That’s not an invitation.
also, you can try,
Dinesh: but Hey, it happens, but yeah, I know what you mean. Gotta
Emily: roll it off. I always, I always tell people like, Hey, you can’t say anything worse to me than I say to myself in the mirror in the
Dinesh: morning there you. And if they’re commenting, at least there’s engaging.
Emily: Yeah. Engaging. Yeah. They, they, it only makes me stronger.
Dinesh: Sure, sure. Yeah. now I was listening to what you were playing. Mm-hmm and you threw some shotgun in there. Oh yeah. I love some junior Walker. Give me what, what were some of the influences for you that, that decided to, you know, get you playing the guitar?
Emily: My mom. Okay. And she had an old Epiphone acoustic.
She would actually prefer, I call it a vintage. Yes. I forget the exact model. But as soon as my hands were big enough to like fit around that fretboard, I made her give me lessons. Very cool. And so she taught me a C a G in like an F suspended. Yeah. And I was off to the races. I don’t think she knew how much it would change my life.
And if she knew I’m not entirely sure she would’ve done it, but it was cool. Cause then during the pandemic, she got back into guitar. And just seeing her get good again, right. Has been really, really neat.
Dinesh: Like that’s, that’s awesome in the family, man. You’re right. The. Emerged a ton of new guitarists.
Yeah. Or
Emily: people came, came back to it after she, she probably stopped playing when she was like 18. Wow. Yeah. And then she went back when she was like in
Dinesh: like 58. And you had mentioned the strings earlier. Oh my gosh. We won’t call the strings vintage.
Emily: No. Well, the strings were definitely old. Yeah. I don’t know how I survived it.
You were kinda the same way your first guitar was maybe not like as well as I can care of. You know,
Dinesh: it’s I think what we were talking about earlier was like the accessibility that the instrument. That everyone has to the instrument now. I mean, that’s amazing a lot of us, when we were younger, like, you couldn’t really get a good instrument unless you spent a ton of cash on it.
Yeah. You know,
Emily: but you were showing me that was it Starling? Was that, yeah,
Dinesh: it’s like a hundred, $200 package and you get the whole, you know, package for a beginner like that wasn’t existing before, you know? And yeah. I told
Emily: you about that in the accessibility of lessons too. Just go on YouTube. Find to learn how to play, whatever song you want.
Dinesh: Yeah. For information. Yeah. I know we always had to roll the dice on like. Weird music store teacher might be around the corner or whatnot, but I mean, you know, it’s, it’s one of the things where like I was talking to someone else about this and it’s like, you have a Bluetooth speaker and you might have a guitar yeah.
In your home nowadays. It’s just that, it’s just, it happens to be like part of our culture and society almost, you know?
Emily: Yeah. And YouTube, you can slow those videos down 50%. Yes. Just watch the
Dinesh: fingers if you don’t. I will definitely do that with man Allen videos. That’s for sure.
Emily: But I’m also was really inspired by like Elvis Costello was a big one.
Great prince. Sure. Yeah. I mean, Wendy, Mel’s one of the first like women, I saw playing guitar. Yeah. And being like a shredder, like not shredder, she’s a fantastic, phenomenal rhythm player, especially, but like you watch purple rain. You’re like.
Dinesh: She’s playing that she’s intro,
Emily: she’s playing that. Yeah. She’s playing that.
Yeah. It’s amazing. So huge
Dinesh: impact, huge impact to the sound and like, yeah, during that time too, when she was coming up and when prince was doing his thing. Yeah. That was a huge impact for just like guitar players in general. Also seeing that, and, you know, they were cutting edge anyways, you know, like they pushing.
So yeah, that’s a pretty interesting mix of people and all great
Emily: ones. That’s perfect. You know, I, I, I grew up with jazz lessons. Yeah. Instead of like, Pop or whatever. So you did take lessons. Oh yeah. I, I, I’m more jazz trained. I would, you know, do that all the, a lot. I went to Belmont, so I studied music, but I also took advantage of having some phenomenal teachers.
And I took individualized lessons as part of my, my curriculum, because I had a weird majors music business with a minor in songwriting and an emphasis in business and leadership. Yeah. Was really weird. Now
Dinesh: you had mentioned that you were gonna be playing a gig. When you fly back home, I am, I, you also mentioned that you also get hired to do playing for other people and other artists as well.
Yeah. What’s the brain do when it’s like time to play with an artist versus like, if I’m assuming you’re playing your own stuff too, you know,
Emily: I, I don’t do as much of that as I would like. Okay. But right now my main band is called Sunday crush. Yeah. And we’re writing. And so they hired me after their first album was in the can.
Okay. So it was Nick mastered. Ready to go. Learn the songs similar, you learn the songs. Okay. So I learned the songs, but now we’re going through the next LP two process. And I’m really excited to be able to do a lot more of the composition because I I’ve neglected that a little bit. Mm. Because I’m, I, I study songwriting in college.
So I’m really, it’s really fun to get back into that, but like, otherwise, you know, I am, I don’t have a huge ego when it comes to guitar and gigs. If someone tells me. Playback, like don’t don’t show off too much, right. I’m like, yeah, sure. Okay. You’re the boss. You’re the one who’s paying me.
Dinesh: Yeah. Yeah, totally.
Yeah. It’s that reminds me of something that we had been talking about on this trip out here to Sweetwater. It’s all about the hang. Yeah. It really is. Right. It’s all about the hang. And you just said something that just made sense to me. It was like, yeah. You know, when it’s time to lay back and you know, when it’s time to push it, you’ve learned the tunes.
Yeah. And now they’re like, yeah, help. Like let’s come together. Collaborate on this together. You you’ve paid the dues kind of thing, you know?
Emily: Exactly. And like, I am, I, I get hired to do a lot of country gigs in, in Seattle, which is a dream. Yeah. I live in Nashville for eight years. Oh, wow. Like in July and August, I’m playing two women of country music showcases and it’s been, some of times the lineups are really diverse.
Like the first one it’s. Patsy Klein. Wow. Katie Lang and Nico case tributes. These are very different. These are well, these are all very, very
Dinesh: different, very different. And, and, and,
Emily: and also Nico case. Very great. The killer guitar players. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Not that the, not that the, the session guys, the, with Patsy.
Weren’t on
Dinesh: basis. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, no. That’s great. That’s fantastic. Now does the gear change from gig to gig? Oh yeah. Okay. So you’ve probably got a nice little collection besides demoing the stuff and making videos. Yeah. Are you keep, like, is this stuff staying with you? Is this stuff that like, I mean, I know there’s you probably got a pretty big
Emily: collection.
It’s embarrassing. embarrassingly big. My mom sometimes asks like, how many guitars do you have? I’m like, I don’t wanna talk about it. Oh boy. It’s like that. She’s like, so you don’t know. I’m like, yeah. It’s like that they’re laying around the house like cats, right? No, the, the gear changes and I still, I still buy like a fair mass stuff just because I wanna support, but like, yeah.
A lot, a lot comes to me. And it’s funny when you do demos, people kind of forget cuz they don’t, they don’t always follow every single demo, but they’ll notice the video came out a year ago and they’re like, well, now that you’ve had this for like two years, how do you like that pedal? I don’t have that pedal anymore.
I don’t have that pedal anymore. Yeah. yeah. Like, no, I either sent it back. Sure. Or I loaned it to a friend for forever. Yeah. So I don’t, I don’t tend to sell a lot. I am definitely
Dinesh: victim of the not holding onto stuff very long. It depends. It depends, but like, it is one of those things where like you go through phases and then like, I have been learning more recently.
I shouldn’t have sold that. Oh, I should have kept that. Like, yeah, I wasn’t
Emily: using it. I’m trying not to sell things.
Dinesh: I can’t buy again. Yeah. Yeah. I’m with you on that. When when it’s time to playing and is there time for practice? Is there time to like work on stuff besides the stuff that you’re working on?
I make time. Okay. Yeah. This is where I’m getting at. Yeah. Doing what you guys do, you know, social media, YouTube channels, influencing. that’s a lot of time. Yeah. It’s not just eight hours a day. No, not at all. It’s a, and when I say full time, I don’t mean just regular full-time hours. No, of course not. So where is the, where is the balance?
I mean, you’re already doing it, so I can’t, I can’t ask, you know, it’s hard.
Emily: Yeah. Then I don’t always find the balance in the way that I want to. Sometimes other things kind of fall through the cracks. I have to prioritize my day job. But my day job is very flexible. I work from home, I’m a copywriter and I write about MI stuff.
So that’s always fun. But, you know, I have a it’s a 35 hour work week, which is amazing. So I get extra time during the day in the mornings at night, just sit down, learn it, and then go spend time with my husband on the sofa. Just like running through things. Yeah. With an earbud into a headphone amp or something, but like, I’m, I’m just gonna, I cuz I gotta get that muscle memory.
Yes, yes though. Memorization of songs cost extra. I always, yeah. Always tell people when they hire me. Yes. Not a
Dinesh: lot extra. Well, most of the time. Is spent there.
Emily: Yeah. And it’s like, it’s one gig. Right? I can’t memorize everything for one gig when it’s like essentially two hours of music. Yes.
Dinesh: I mean, it’s a plus if you return that, you do it again, cuz then it’s like, oh cool.
I won’t mess up as bad this next time. Oh yeah. Cause there was just kind of a, you know, we have it down already, you know, but sometimes
Emily: it’s like, if I’m doing a tribute night for John prime, we do that show once. Right. And maybe we do it again next year. Sure. And if we do it again next year, maybe some of the people who are performers will pick the same songs and I can just go back to the, well, they might pick completely different songs.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like this women in country music thing I did. I did it two year, right before the pandemic and some of the Patsy songs they’re the same. And I’m like, oh, I can go back to the, well for walking after midnight. Oh, actually this person’s picking it in a different key. So I kind of have to like, change how I do it a little bit.
But the Katie Lang and Nico stuff is new. Right. And when we do like Loretta and Dolly, I’m sure some people are gonna pick, someone’s gonna play nine to five. And I kept that in my repertoire because it’s awesome. Yeah. But someone’s gonna pick something completely different. Sure. And that’s kind of the joy of it and that’s, and it keeps it exciting.
Yeah. Because with my full-time bands, it’s you know, this, it is the same like 20 songs that you kind of rotate through. But getting challenged. I, I wish I had the time to learn a song a day. Wow. I don’t like
Dinesh: I can see that. Yeah, no, it it’s. You know, and depending on the song too, you know, it depends.
Yeah. Well, you mentioned three genres, you mentioned You mentioned indie. Yeah. Country love it. And you mentioned some jazz.
Emily: Yeah. I mean, jazz is the stuff I play for myself. I sometimes get hired to do like cord melody arrangement, things like I I’ve been hired for open houses to just sit there and like play guitar or whatever.
There you go.
Dinesh: And like whisper by this house, just in, just in the background, buy this
Emily: house, buy it, put the offer in yesterday.
Dinesh: Yes, totally. What, what was the first electric?
Emily: It was a Squire strap. Okay. That was my first like budget guitar. And then I saved up so hard. I, I got my first nice guitar was a Gibson ES 1 35 with the, with the buckers.
Yes. They don’t make ’em anymore. It had the I think it was balsa wood middle block. Okay. Yeah. And I loved that guitar for so, so, so, so long. And eventually it’s I got other things like I’m Tre trading around guitars. I regret that I regret like that one go, but I was told by the shop I sold to that, the person who bought it, she adores it.
Yeah. And it made her day when she got it, I was like, okay. All right. Well, at least it’s, at least it’s being loved the way
Dinesh: it should be loved. Right. It went, it went to a good home. Yeah. It went to a good home.
Emily: No, I hear you. It’s a beautiful glossy finish. Like I think my profile picture for years was me at a show with the guitar, with the guitar bar.
Just grinning you
Dinesh: in the area. Ah, man. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah. What advice would you give to a new player? Just starting off
Emily: Buy a book, I guess, buy a book. I, yeah, I learn a lot. I learn really well from high quality books that have lessons and audio because you, you. Teachers can be a bit of a crapshoot.
Mm. Tabs can be a bit of a crapshoot. And I, I think it’s the best way to learn fundamentals because a lot of times there’s, you know, literature with, it’s not just, here’s the tab and here’s what you play. It’s like, here’s why you’re doing that. Right. Here’s a riff you can take and then you can move into different keys and here’s how you remember it.
So I feel like that is something that you should start with, but the other thing is, you know, practice with intention. Yeah. It’s fun to just screw around and like play the stuff you already know. You, you should be practicing on like making small changes the way like athletes talk about like batterers.
We talk about making small adjustments to their stance to see if it helps them like you know, beat, you know, win the game. Not I was trying what’s the beat, the shift. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. So, yeah. So like, if, if somebody knows, if somebody has your number in baseball, They shift. Yeah. And they know, well, well, this guy always hits it to, right.
Sure, sure. So they’ll all kind of move right towards right field. But if you make small adjustments, you can trick them and you can shoot it left and nobody’s gonna see it coming. You’re gonna get a double. Okay. And sometimes if you’re getting frustrated, Like, I can’t play this riff. Are you trying to play it the same way every time?
Mm. Is that that’s a good point. Yeah. That’s a good point. Try different techniques. If you mostly do flat picking, try hybrid picking, that’s a good point. Try picker, picking and intentionally make yourself a little uncomfortable. Yeah, because you might find that what’s hard at first. Like I, when I started doing hybrid picking, I’m like, what is this?
This is not gonna work. And now it’s all I do.
Dinesh: I think you, it’s funny. You said that. Yeah. When you’re stuck on something, I think you’re like stuck in the mode of also like hitting it every time. Yeah. And you’re right. You may not notice that like your approach on learning a song or a. It’s just not working because of the approach.
Yeah. Not because you can’t do it or because like you physically or mentally can’t are not prepared. It’s just, yeah. Like we get, we might get, I, I always look at referencing video games, like when you’re a kid and you’re trying to get through this one little level and you’re doing like the same move. And then it’s like, maybe you put pause on the controller and then you walk away and like, get a piece pizza or something.
Then you come back and you. You know what? Yeah. Let’s just try something totally different. You’re like, yeah, it worked,
Emily: you know? So you gotta go backwards to go forward. Right. It’s like if you’ve ever lived in New York, sometimes you take, yeah. I gotta go uptown to go downtown. Gotcha.
Dinesh: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Second part of that question that I, that I didn’t phrase the, the way in two parts, but the second part is someone that wants to start off opening up their own channel, being a YouTuber. Yeah. Or, you know, doing what you guys do. Some, some, some advice for, for a beginner. That’s trying to get into that.
Emily: Just do it. You just gotta start, you know, there you go. Is your first thing. There you go. You’re going suck maybe. Right.
Dinesh: Are you gonna have all the equipment you have that you need? No.
Emily: No. You know, no, not at all. And you can start with an iPhone, right? You can start with an iPhone and an okay. Decent.
- And an SM 57. Yeah. Like what, you can get an interface for a hundred bucks. You can get an SM 57 this weekend for $57. Apparently. I don’t know. You can get it used for 75 bucks and then you already have your phone. Yeah,
Dinesh: the phone does. I mean the phone, that’s a game changer
Emily: right there. Yeah. You know, and sometimes you can get like something like an, I rake to put the audio directly
Dinesh: into your something simple phone anyway.
Yeah. A hundred hundred $50,
Emily: whatever. Yeah. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to start. Right. You know? I just recently graduated from using my phone for like the, the shot on me, cuz I do like a split shot. I do pedals. The one side is like my actual nice camera. I finally got a second camera. Oh, cool.
After,
Dinesh: well, you’ve been doing it this whole time without, and nobody
Emily: knows. Nobody noticed that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So that’s like, don’t get in your head. And also people are gonna say mean things and it’s just because they wish they could do it. Let’s be honest. Well,
Dinesh: I mean, everyone’s gonna have an opinion they’re allowed to now it’s like what
Emily: salt pepper said.
yeah,
Dinesh: totally. Yeah. You got it. I got no, that that’s fantastic advice. And I’m glad that you were just able to give us the straight up point about it. I think in a lot of these interviews that we did here, like were, we just really wanted to get your guys’ background and like what it takes, what you, what, how much work is involved and like, you know, You, you got, everyone loves music, you guys do it for the passion of it.
You’re obviously very involved and, and you love what you do. Yeah. And it really comes through on the content. And I think that’s why people just gravitate because yeah, they’re, they’re, they’re there for you, you know, they’re there for the personality, you
Emily: know? Yeah. Cuz they’ll turn it off in
Dinesh: five seconds.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, much appreciated. I, you know, just, it’s great for you to come down here and I really wanna thank you so much for just spending the time with. Playing a little bit out of the gear. It was super fun meeting you. And just talking through like some of the things that like got you to where you are now.
Likewise. Thank you for
Emily: having me. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dinesh: It such a great setup. Oh man. We just happy to be here. Yeah. We’re we’re, we’re just happy to be here and, and you know, make everything nice and easy for you guys. So thank you so much. Yeah. So thank you so much for joining us. Mm-hmm I really appreciate it.
And we’re here Sweetwater gear Fest. I’m Danes from Gibson brands and we got my girl here. Jay Lewis.
Emily: What sure. No, we were
Dinesh: talking about, you were saying the Emmy Lou Harris thing earlier. I, you get the Emmy Lou Harris Harris. So I had to think
Emily: of a different name. Yeah. Emmi Lou is, oh, I would be honored to be mistaken.
Hey, or, I mean, you
Dinesh: know, either way mine, mine doesn’t really rhyme with anything or there’s no other comparison, so it’s fine, you know but thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And yeah. Well, we’ll talk to you soon and, and good luck with everything. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. You too. All right.
Thanks guys. Have a good one. Sweetwater gear Fest 2022