Sounds | Emi Grace - Known Better (live)
- John Van de Mergel
- 3 dagen geleden
- 2 minuten om te lezen
Eddie Van Halen gereïncarneerd als hyperkinetische pop punker!
De 22-jarige Emi Grace uit L.A. is ondertussen een social media fenomeen en een rising young star. Met haar wekelijkse showcase Trashy Tone Thursday bereikt ze miljoenen volgers. Ze maakt er rauwe, vette gitaar riffs en speelt met genres als pop, punk en electro. Dat allemaal op haar geliefde Fender Stratocaster. Haar solo's - met haar band - zijn echter pure traditionele hard rock. Het was ook Eruption (Van Halen) die haar ertoe aanzette de gitaar ter hand te nemen. De combinatie is soms een knettergekke ADHD electro rock ride waar je al eens nerveus van wordt.
Om het een beetje te duiden heb ik haar 3-song performance voor Jam in the Van eruit gepikt. Het tweede nummer Known Better is haar net officieel uitgebrachte nieuwe single. De intro en solo tijdens Fall Apart zijn adembenemend (mooi). De Van barste ei zo na uit elkaar!
Lees
“I love to push the boundaries, and I love when it sounds crazy!” begins Emi Grace, the self-branded pioneer of Trashy Tone Thursday. What began as a challenge to be more present on social media has become a weekly ritual to showcase frenetic fragments of the 21-year-old wunderkind’s yet-to-be-released material.
“I came up with the name because the sound is so dirty and crunchy, like a trashy junk hi-hat,” she says. Originally dubbed Sidechain Saturday thanks to her penchant for a certain plugin, it was the solo for her track Mystery Man that acted as the real tipping point into a recurring Thursday slot.
Last year’s #FenderFeature clip of Grace slashing on her Stratocaster boasts 10 million views on TikTok. Since her first Sidechain Saturday post, her short-form releases have repeatedly racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
She grew up two hours north of LA in a small beach town where the pace of life was a little more languid, with offbeat reggae rhythms ringing out across the wine country.
Grace recalls her parents encouraging her to pick up violin – she’s now classically trained in it – but she always wanted to practice guitar instead. Her introduction was a white Squire with a rosewood neck that she kept for six years. “I didn't want to get a nicer guitar until I was good enough to play it.”
Another pastime that fast-tracked her. “Skating introduced me to the punk scene, bands like NOFX and also classic rock,” she says. “I heard Eruption by Van Halen and I was like, ‘What is that?!’” She’d sit with her headphones on for hours, figuring out the chord shapes by ear, building up her finger dexterity for lead lines. “I had a Boss loop pedal. I’d lay down four power chords, find the root, and solo for hours and hours.”
Seven years in, she finally deemed her playing worthy of an upgrade, making the transition to a Mexican-made, single-coil HSS Strat. She believes the difference in sound was immediately noticeable. “It was a Player series, nothing that crazy – but even just the neck alone, my mind was blown.”
Since moving to LA she’s also been fortunate enough to land a few discounts with Fender, and now owns a Professional II and an Ultra Stratocaster HSS.
(Bron: Guitar World)
