Starr, whom Shifty credits with owning one of the finest vintage guitar collections he’s ever seen, discusses how he got into guitar at age 6 thanks to the impact of his daddy, who was a bluegrass rhythm gamer.
But he turned to his mum, the rocker in the household, to assistance him get his veryfirst electrical guitar: a Mosrite copy which he played through his sibling’s stereo with some old-school technical finessing. (He ultimately blew the stereo, which didn’t go over well with his brotherorsister.) Starr and Shifty swap stories about getting their kids into guitar—Starr’s boy wasn’t interested upuntil he played guitar hero, when he found Allman Brothers and Van Halen.
Starr states his playing has neverever been too bogged down in theory—“I understand what sounds excellent to me and what feels great to me,” he states—and he information how he came to his hybrid selecting, middle-finger “crutch” design of lead-playing. For the sweltering solo on “Waiting for the Thunder,” off their 2016 record Like An Arrow, Starr messed around till he discovered the right shape and noise. He utilized a 50-watt 1976 Mars