Billy Howerdel sat with Gibson TV for an interview and shared which Alice In Chains album shaped his guitar playing.
The rocker started to talk about his guitar technique and tones, saying:
“So the best place to start with is the first song on the first Perfect Circle record, ‘The Hollow.’ I actually started this song… This is one of the two songs I probably started when I first started playing guitar in the first six months. So I was 16-17 years old, just picked up a guitar, and had a somewhat different version of it. It was much more in the aesthetic of the Cure and much more of an atmospheric thing.”
‘Dirt’ Changed His Guitar Playing
He continued, explaining Jerry Cantrell’s influence on his playing:
“It kind of grew and changed as time went on, and my tuning went from being an E standard and quickly, like two years later, I think when Alice In Chains’ ‘Dirt’ came out, I was trying to figure out some of those songs and seemed like Jerry Cantrell was tuned to C#. So that’s kind of where I stayed and I’ve been ever since pretty much, except for my latest record that just came out.”
Howerdel Further Discusses ‘Dirt’
In a 2018 conversation with Music Radar, Howerdel detailed what Alice In Chains’ ‘Dirt’ means to him with the following words:
“‘Dirt’ was perfect – every song on that record raised the bar for me as an artist or musician. Looking at the energy they had, I really do think [APC’s 2000 debut album] ‘Mer De Noms’ was my best effort to get back to the feeling I had when I heard ‘Dirt’ for the first time. It had heaviness but intimacy to it as well. Jerry Cantrell is amazing… he was and still is.”
The guitarist is currently on the Sessanta Tour with A Perfect Circle to celebrate Maynard James Keenan’s 60th birthday. The tour also features Primus and Puscifer. The US tour started on April 2 and will end on May 4.
You can watch his full interview with Gibson TV below.