Full Transcript
Pete Lane:
Hi, folks. This is Pete Lane. Welcome to Blind Abilities. This is the story of Johnny Hiland.
Pete Lane:
Johnny is an impressive individual.
Pete Lane:
He is a hugely successful and respected country guitarist.
Pete Lane:
One of the world’s fastest chicken pickers.
Pete Lane:
And rock guitarist.
Pete Lane:
And blues guitarist. But that’s not the only story. Johnny is a singer and songwriter.
Pete Lane:
(singing)
Pete Lane:
And aficionado of guitars and guitar-related gear.
Johnny Hiland:
You need a good old tube amp, a good compressor, a good delay panel and some kind of overdrive and a great guitar.
Pete Lane:
And a teacher.
Johnny Hiland:
Again, what is that? We’re just bending on the second fret of the A, kind of bending up the whole tone.
Pete Lane:
And, by the way, Johnny is visually impaired. So today, we will tell you Johnny’s complete story, the story of his life.
Johnny Hiland:
I grew up in a real small town in Baileyville, Maine and my dad was a pipe-fitter for Georgia-Pacific Paper Mill.
Pete Lane:
His education.
Johnny Hiland:
So I went three years at the University of Southern Maine. They helped me with CCTVs and large screen computers.
Pete Lane:
His career.
Johnny Hiland:
And I moved to Nashville and then my touring schedule got bigger.
Pete Lane:
And yes, his visual impairment.
Johnny Hiland:
When I was born with nystagmus, I had reconstructive eye surgery when I was two-and-a-half because I was cross-eyed. My dad’s like, “No, I’m not going to accept that.”
Johnny Hiland:
Well, folks, if you come to the show, you’re going to get some blues and you’re going to get some swing, like you heard earlier and then you’re going to get some of this stuff.
Pete Lane:
Sit back and relax as we bring you the complete story of Johnny Hiland on Blind Abilities. For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindablities.com. We’re on Twitter and we’re on Facebook and download our app free at the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Now we present our guest, Johnny Hiland.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson.
Pete Lane:
And I’m Pete Lane. We have a very special guest with us today. Johnny Hiland is one of the world’s virtuoso guitarists, specializes in country picking. He’s been renowned as one of the fastest guitarists ever and is absolutely the best chicken picking guitarists and we will explore all of those genres.
Pete Lane:
But he also gets into blues. He’s played with the likes of Joe Bonamassa, Ricky Skaggs. My gosh. Everybody we’re going to talk about over the next hour or so.
Pete Lane:
But I want to welcome this special guest to the Blind Abilities podcast this morning. Johnny Hiland, good morning and welcome to Blind Abilities.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, good morning to you guys, man, and thanks for having me on with you.
Pete Lane:
We want to touch on your vision issues, when they came about, how they affected you during your childhood, your schooling and all that. And career-wise, how you adapted. Do you have some vision now, are you totally blind or what?
Johnny Hiland:
No, I have some.
Pete Lane:
Okay.
Johnny Hiland:
People were kind of curious with the form of nystagmus that I have. They say I have two of the three types, which is a pretty rare thing.
Jeff Thompson:
Mmm.
Johnny Hiland:
So they kind of wonder if my eyes are going to get worse, if they’re going to stay the same. But for me, man, my eyes just move back and forth and I really have no focus on things, I guess is the best way to put it.
Pete Lane:
Right.
Johnny Hiland:
But I was born with it. It’s something I’ve grown very used to, but at the same time, man, doctors have said before, “It’s a good thing you’re a big guy, man, because you would’ve broken a lot of bones in your day.”
Jeff Thompson:
I’ve heard that you move so fast on the fret board that not even the sighted can see it work, so …
Pete Lane:
Yeah. It’s a blur to everybody.
Jeff Thompson:
You’re not missing anything.
Pete Lane:
No.
Johnny Hiland:
I type well to say nice stuff like that. That’s all that is.
Pete Lane:
Well, how do you use … Are you on a computer now and you just looking close at the screen? Do you use any kind of adaptive software?
Johnny Hiland:
Just an iPad Pro.
Pete Lane:
Oh, sweet.
Jeff Thompson:
Okay.
Johnny Hiland:
I found that using a laptop or a home computer was just, I had to have my head so close to the screen that it was pretty much impossible.
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
My wife, for Christmas a few years ago go me the new iPad Pro. It’s the big one. I’ve got the print as far as it’ll go on it. It’s huge, man, but I found that I it has been a blessing in my life. It’s made emailing and stuff a lot easier and of course, my wife now, like, “Dadgummit, he’s found Amazon. He’s found, [crosstalk 00:04:44] some stuff.
Pete Lane:
I’m the same way.
Johnny Hiland:
“He’s ordering all this stuff now.”
Jeff Thompson:
Now you can buy your own signature guitars.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, I’m telling you, man. I’ve been blessed. Kiesel sent them to me without me having to buy them, but I’ll tell you what, man, I’m always looking at a new guitar. It never fails. I’m guitarded. I can’t help it.
Pete Lane:
There you go. What are you using now? The Kiesel?
Johnny Hiland:
Yes. Totally a Kiesel, Johnny Hiland model, and, man, it’s the best guitar I’ve ever owned. I have a nice plethora of different Kiesels as well, for the studio and for rockabilly stuff or rock stuff or whatever I need to play. But the Johnny model seems to get her done for me, man, so I’m so proud of that guitar.
Pete Lane:
Well, I’ve heard you run through all the different voices and the different sounds that you can get, the Telecaster and all the different stuff. So it looks like it’s got everything you might ever want all in one guitar.
Johnny Hiland:
Then when they put my pickups and my switching in, the bridge pickup, give you that straight-up good raw Tele. Give you that great Tele tone. And then of course, the second position gives you more of the Strat.
Johnny Hiland:
It is a very, very versatile guitar, man. Like I said, it’s kind of the one-trick pony for anything that you could possibly need. And of course, being legally blind, man, I don’t want to have to switch guitars every song. It just makes it too hard.
Pete Lane:
Sure.
Johnny Hiland:
And on top of that, who wants to lug a bunch?
Jeff Thompson:
Johnny, what was that like to, you’re 10 years old, you win the national contests and stuff and then you get to see Ricky Skaggs. Even my first guitar book was a Mel Bay guitar book, you know, Easy Lesson. Then Ernie Ball strings. Who doesn’t know about them? Then all of a sudden, when I was reading your biography and your stories and listening to other stuff, you’ve like, salt and peppered everything along my path. I’m not very good player, not at all, but I know guitar stuff. You have been everywhere.
Jeff Thompson:
What was it like for you to be introduced to Ricky Skaggs and then the Ernie Ball stuff and then the Mel Bay? You’re there.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, you know, man, it was all a blessing. It truly was. Because I started out just like any normal kid, man, except practicing guitar was always fun for me. It was never a chore because I couldn’t go out and play baseball with my other buddies or chase girls and fast cars when we hit 16. I just wasn’t able to drive or do anything like that. So the guitar really became my best friend, man. So working on the guitar was never a chore. I was just having fun with my best buddy.
Johnny Hiland:
But over time, after seeing Ricky Skaggs when I was 10, I knew that playing bluegrass was fun but yet, I want that electric sound. I want to be just like Ricky. So I started delving into Albert Lee and Brent Mason and a lot of the James Burton, Jimmy Bryant. A lot of the older country guitar legends. Roy Clark, Danny Gatton.
Pete Lane:
Oh, Roy Clark, yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
Buchanan. All kinds of great guys. But then, of course, as a teenager, man, I found that Van Halen and Rush and Metallica, all kinds of heavy bands were out there too.
Johnny Hiland:
What really made me a multi-genre-oriented player was emotions. I found that when I got told I could never drive at 16, man, I went out in my dad’s woodshed with an old 410 custom amp my dad paid 100 bucks for and jammed doing Justice for All for the whole afternoon.
Johnny Hiland:
Heavy metal was when I was mad and Chet Atkins was when I was happy and blues when I’m sad. You know, B.B. King and Stevie Ray. Then it was like all these different genres were emotional outlets for me. Really, that’s how I got it done, man.
Johnny Hiland:
But from the time I was seven years old, I knew that I wanted to move to Nashville and play the Grand Ole Opry and just follow in the footsteps of Roy Clark or any of the country guitar legends. Chet, you know, people like that. Ricky is still is my biggest hero to this day, man.
Johnny Hiland:
He’s just unbeatable on any instrument and that’s exactly what I wanted to do. Early on in my life, when the good Lord gave me the gift of music, I played every instrument I could get my hands on, so I play like 22 instruments. So …
Jeff Thompson:
Twenty-two instruments?
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. Yeah. Sure did.
Jeff Thompson:
All at once.
Johnny Hiland:
No, not that. No.
Pete Lane:
Talk about the one-man band, huh?
Johnny Hiland:
So when I went three years at the University of Southern Maine to please my mom and dad, I realized they weren’t the type of parents that said, “Oh, you can make your own decisions at 18.” They said, “No, you have to wait till you’re 21.” And I’m like, “Oh, I see.”
Johnny Hiland:
So I went three years at the University of Southern Maine, which was really a blessing for me because I worked with the State of Maine. They helped me with CCTVs and large screen computers and stuff like that. So I was finding out, really, what new technology was out there for legally blind and blind people. I was really blessed by that, even though school was quite difficult for me and I had to get all my books on cassette.
Pete Lane:
Oh, yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
Which made college very difficult.
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
And having a day who was like, “If you don’t get your great grades, you’re not playing guitar, so that’s just how it’s going to be.” So I had to please him and I had to please all the folks in the State, but I felt like I went to college virtually for them. It wasn’t really for me.
Johnny Hiland:
So I saved all my money playing in the band I was in on the weekends all through my school years and when I hit 21, man, I said, “I’m moving to Nashville.” In fact, the crazy part, man, is when I withdrew from college, the outreach worker I had from the State of Maine actually bought my plane ticket to Nashville.
Pete Lane:
No kidding.
Johnny Hiland:
And boy, that just put my parents over the edge, man. They were just [inaudible] mad. But from the second day I hit Nashville, man, I had a gig. I’ve spent 22 years there. My wife and I just recently moved to Chatham, Virginia, where her family’s from and, of course, I’ve lost my mom and dad now and of course, going back home to Maine is not the same anymore.
Johnny Hiland:
So we decided to move here to Virginia and getting a lot more fishing in and a lot more outdoors kind of stuff, but loving life, man. You know, I’m hitting 45 next January and it was just time to realize how much we had sacrificed over the years in time with family and nieces and nephews and stuff like that, for my music career and for what Kimmie did in Nashville.
Johnny Hiland:
So we said, “Well, it’s time. Nashville’s changing rapidly.” So we moved up here and we have a very simple country life up here, so it’s great.
Jeff Thompson:
Johnny, can I ask you a question? I am visually impaired. Pete is too. We go through life, but we come into situations where just like going to a hotel or going to other things. But with your touring and all that, how was it to be introduced to people and having to explain your vision to them or a situation that you get stuck up in?
Johnny Hiland:
You know, I’ve never really had anybody seriously just approach me about sitting down and talking about my blindness, because I’ve really been … Most people say, “Gosh, I don’t even realize he’s legally blind,” because I do my best to try to get around without a cane or without too much assistance.
Johnny Hiland:
However, when you’re on the road and you’re in a different town every night, yeah, it was very difficult for me to just venture off. One of the major reasons people say, “Well, how come you didn’t go on the road with artists?” I mean, Mark Chestnut offered me a gig years ago, Merle Haggard, bunch of people offered me gigs to go out with them, but I never wanted to make it hard on the band, having a legally blind guy with them.
Johnny Hiland:
It seems like most bands that are major label artist bands, big-time acts, when they’re out on the road, they all go golfing during the day. They’re out seeing the sights and checking out the towns and all that stuff. I was just never that guy. I learned the hotel and I pretty much stayed there until it was showtime, you know.
Johnny Hiland:
I think, really, the biggest learning curve I had to overcome was when I’m in a different town, do I have panic attacks, do I go through all that kind of thing? Or do I just say, “All right. Let’s take a deep breath and pray to the good Lord I don’t break my neck before the show and learn the hotel quickly and where to go to my room.” Really, that’s pretty much how it was for me.
Johnny Hiland:
But I love people. I love fans. I would rather sit with a couple of fans in the afternoon, spend time with them, than to go sightseeing and all that kind of stuff. So most of the time that’s what I did, man. I just stuck close to the venue or to the hotel.
Pete Lane:
Or the roof of the hotel.
John Bohlinger:
Whoa! Hey. Hey, this John Bohlinger with Premier Guitar. I here with the one and only Johnny Hiland. We are in Nashville, Tennessee. Shortly before …
Johnny Hiland:
Well, now that was a little different, man. That was the Fifth Third Bank Building. We got booked for that show and then my manager made sure that day. He’s like, “I’m making sure that there’s no way that you can fall over the edge if you walk too far.”
Pete Lane:
Yes, stay away from the edge.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. It’s, “Son, just stay right in this area. You’ll be all right.” Yeah, I told my drummer, “No back flips tonight, man.” We could see the whole city of Nashville, so that was pretty scary.
Pete Lane:
Hey, Johnny, I had vision until probably 15, 20 years ago and I found myself trying to hide it. Do you think you were in that situation? You mentioned you chose not to make a big deal of your vision issues, but do you think you unconsciously tried to conceal it because, for whatever reason, embarrassed? I was kind of embarrassed sometimes.
Johnny Hiland:
I was never embarrassed. I wanted people to say, “Oh, well, there’s Johnny.” Not, “Oh, gee, Johnny’s coming. Grab him by both arms and escort him in.”
Pete Lane:
There you go.
Johnny Hiland:
I just didn’t want all that fuss about it. Really what happened to me, man, was I got to the point where my friends that I hung around or the guys in the band, they became really good about saying, “Hey, buddy, there’s a step right here.” Or, “Hey, man, we’re coming up to the stage, brother. You got two steps and then the stage, so just follow me and grab my back of my shirt, whatever you need.” Once they did it two or three times, they always looked out for me without me even asking.
Jeff Thompson:
Right.
Johnny Hiland:
So I was really blessed by that.
Jeff Thompson:
How about when you’re onstage, like sometimes I remember seeing band members point the finger like, “You go next,” or something like when you have a guest on there and you’re switching lead?
Johnny Hiland:
Truly, that’s been one of the biggest … Any time I jump onstage for an all-star guitar night or I’m in Dallas, Texas doing the Dallas Guitar Show and Redd Volkaert and Greg Martin and all the … Like there was one time Redd Volkaert and I and Pete Anderson from the Dwight’s band was all onstage. And sometimes they forget, here again, that I’m legally blind, so they point their finger at me and I missed the cue.
Jeff Thompson:
Ah.
Johnny Hiland:
I remember one time, specifically, man. I got cued at the Ryman Auditorium, believe it or not, and I missed my cue. I just threw my hands up in the air to the audience and said, “For goodness sake, I’m blind.” They all just [inaudible] laughed and it was hilarious.
Johnny Hiland:
I think really what I did was turn it into a humorous thing, because I realized early on, man, I’m a pretty sensitive guy and I guess most musicians are. I never was the type of guy to worry about what people thought of me, but I was always worried about, “Well, man, if someone’s got to hold my hand all day, this is going to just be terrible and it’s going to be a burden to them.”
Johnny Hiland:
So I really tried to, not necessarily conceal it but just try to live normal and live like a normal guy, act like a normal guy. But when it came time for me to feel scared or uneasy about something, I just open my mouth and say, “Hey, man, where’s that step?” “Oh, it’s right there, bro.”
Pete Lane:
Do you read music, Johnny?
Johnny Hiland:
Well, I mean, I learned how to growing up in the high school band and stuff like that. I learned to read music, but I’m not proficient in it anymore at all. I mean, Nashville, you learn how to read number charts. I will admit, man, over the years, I did a lot of sessions and played on a lot of big records without using any charts, just relying on my ears.
Johnny Hiland:
But there were times, man, even in my own writings of some of the stuff from my own albums, I would buy like 11 x 14 paper or posterboards and just cut them up to where I could write huge charts with-
Pete Lane:
Felt-tip pens.
Johnny Hiland:
Big, thick, black Sharpie kind of thing. And I got laughed at a lot, but I didn’t care. I said, “Really, all the engineers, by the time they got to know me, sure they laughed the first couple of times. The funny thing is, they had the big charts all ready for me when I came.”
Jeff Thompson:
That’s cool.
Johnny Hiland:
So I was like, “Man, that’s so cool.” That was literally just something that they did, just, “Oh, man, Johnny can’t see well. Man, we’ve got to get a big chart for him.” They would literally hold the session until they had a big chart for me. So if something was really complex and had four of five parts to it or whatever.
Jeff Thompson:
Johnny, I know some guitar players and they have foot pedals and stuff and a lot of them have gone digital and stuff like that. How do you work around that?
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. I tried a lot of the digital things, man, and I just can’t see them. So I have found that I build my own pedal boards and, of course, I have a lot of different pedal companies that I work with. Most of the time, I will make sure there’s really nice, bright blue LEDs or something in them. Usually, when you turn a pedal on, it lights up, but sometimes the lights just aren’t that good. I either have a buddy of mine change the LED in it without having the company do that for me.
Johnny Hiland:
But I do design my own pedal boards, because I want to know where every cable is run and if I have problems, I’ll know what to do. I have had problems in the past where I didn’t have a tech out with me and the pedal board went down and I was the guy on the floor trying to scramble to figure that out.
Johnny Hiland:
Like I said, over the years, I’ve been blessed to have great bands to work with. The current Johnny Hiland Band right now, my bass player, T.J. Armstrong, he’s like a brother to me. I mean, the minute anything goes wrong, he’s on the floor. “What do you need, brother? Let’s do it.” No muss, no fuss, but he just literally jumps on the floor, “Hey, bud, what can I do?”
Pete Lane:
How much does your Kiesel Johnny Hiland signature guitar take care of some of that sound change and all those changes that might otherwise be done on your boards? Does the Kiesel itself take care of that and is that easy to manage?
Johnny Hiland:
No, unfortunately, the Kiesel basically is what delivers your sound. Most people say, “Well, if Stevie Ray Vaughn would say, ‘If you can’t take a great guitar and a great amp and make it sound great, then you should not add any pedals.'” So I’m using Fat Jimmy amplifiers right now, which I think are the best American amps in the world, and then, of course, my Kiesel guitar.
Johnny Hiland:
So pedals for me are kind of a little tonal characteristics of what makes tone. For an example, like to play rockabilly music, you want to slap delay, you know?
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
Because Scotty Moore used a slap delay back in the oldest days. So there’s just certain things that enable you to do certain things. Sure, could you play it without the pedal? Yeah, of course, but it’s not going to sound the same. Once you get used to the ear candy, man, you don’t want to be without it.
Jeff Thompson:
You know, one of the things that I really liked about listening to your music that you create, it’s very good. I’ve got to tell you.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, thank you.
Jeff Thompson:
I was expecting to hear chicken picking or country, something. I was just getting ready for Buck Owens and Roy Clark, all that stuff. Like a modern-day guy doing all that old stuff. Then all of a sudden, you did the blues and you just tried some blues. You were doing the blues. Then you were doing the rock and stuff. It was like, “Wow. This guy is pretty versatile.” I really like that sound.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, thank you, man. You know, I’ve spent a lot of time in my life, as I told you, man, with having multi-genres being emotional outlets for me. I knew early on that I wanted to be a session player. I wanted to play on records just as much as I wanted to play live for people. I mean, people say, “Gosh, Johnny. Do you get nervous?” I’m like, “How can you get nervous when you can’t see anybody?” You know?
Pete Lane:
Hmm.
Johnny Hiland:
Like this next week, I’m going to play with the 392nd US Army Band for the Fourth of July Celebration and it’s in a stadium. And people are like, “Man, ain’t you scared?” I’m like, “Man, I’m not able to see anybody, so what do I get scared for?”
Johnny Hiland:
But to be honest with you, I knew, though, that I wanted to be a session guy too, and so playing on records was important to me. So having the ability to play multi-genres, in case any producer said, “Hey, man, can you kind of throw like a Jeff Beck solo on this?” Yeah, sure. Or, “Can you play in the style of this guy,” or, “I’m hearing this tone. Can you get that?” Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
So I spent a lot of money buying guitars, Les Pauls and Strats and Teles and guitars with the whammy bars and all kinds of crazy stuff, so that in the studio when a producer asks for something, I had it available to use it.
Johnny Hiland:
But then again, having the tools is great, but if you’re not a good carpenter, so to speak, and you can’t craft the song the proper way, well, then those tools really don’t matter at all.
Pete Lane:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
So I knew that my skill level had to be equally as good as the guitars I was starting to accumulate and the gear I was starting to get. So, yeah, it’s been a constant grind. People say, “Man, you reached a certain level, Johnny. Did you stop?” I’m like, “Shoo, no, man. I’m practicing guitar as hard today as I did when I was a kid.” It’s truly an addiction. You want to practice. You want to stay on top. You want to get better every day.
Pete Lane:
I wanted to ask you, Johnny. I’m curious and this kind of along the same lines about your diverse styles and genres and different music interests. You signed with Steve Vai’s label back in, I guess, ’04, Favored Nations.
Johnny Hiland:
Yes.
Pete Lane:
You played with Joe Bonamassa. You played with Ricky Skaggs. You played with Sammy Hagar. You played with Toby Keith. My goodness, man. Who have you not played with?
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, gosh. There’s two people I have not met. Well, I’ll actually name three that are three big heroes of mine I’ve not met yet. Mark Knopfler being one.
Pete Lane:
Oh, wow.
Johnny Hiland:
Jeff Beck the other and Eric Clapton being the third. But, of course, I love Frampton. I have not Peter Frampton yet. But I think the thing that’s bothering me, guys, is that a lot of these guys are growing old enough where they’re like, “This is my final tour. I’m done.”
Johnny Hiland:
Obviously, some health things get involved with that or they just, “Hey, man, I’m done. I’ve played all my life and I’m ready to start living for the family and that kind of thing,.But, I’m reaching that age now where I’m seeing a lot of my heroes go, “Okay. I’m gray-haired and I’m done.”
Pete Lane:
Well, I think all three of them listen to this podcast so maybe they’ll reach out to you.
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, that’d be awesome.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s like John Kay from Steppenwolf, he just came round for his 50-year tour. I saw his second-to-last concert up here in Minneapolis area. Then he went down to Kansas to do his last one. But it was awesome to see him, to be there and feel that vibe live. It’s so wild to just, well, Wild Thing, you know? And you guys did Wild Thing and you did it with Joe Bonamassa and you guys did a great job.
Johnny Hiland:
Born to Be Wild.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah.
Pete Lane:
Born to Be Wild.
Jeff Thompson:
Joe is like a blues legend in a sense and he plays all the legends’ style of music. He can go back and play the early stuff, Freddie King or all these different guitarists. And you are doing almost the same thing in that country realm. I mean, that’s your pocket, kind of, that chicken picking and Albert Lee and all the others. I think it’s really cool.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, I must say I admire Joe in the respect that blues is as much of an art form as jazz or country or any of the styles and Joe can, virtually like myself, he can play it all. But he is a lot like myself. If you said, “Johnny, I want you to play a Don Rich solo over this country tune I got,” I would very easily do it, no problem.
Johnny Hiland:
I think as a guitar player, you have to pay respect to the guys who paved the way for us to do what we do. I find that Joe has been a major, major source for young guitarists out there now to look at, to say, “Oh, wow, he knows Freddie King, he knows Albert Collins, he knows B.B. King. He knows all these licks and all the songs that they did and he has a strong love and appreciation.”
Johnny Hiland:
So, yeah, Joe and I are friends and I adore him. I think he’s just a force to be reckoned with in this world today. I think he and I are on the path of, and of course a lot of other guitar players out there, not just Joe and I, but we’re on the path to keep guitar alive for the next generation.
Johnny Hiland:
I still teach a lot and I find that now kids are coming to me and, “Mr. Hiland, would you show me how you played this solo in 1999?” I’m going, “Kid, I don’t even remember what I played on that, and it’s not Mr. Hiland. It’s Johnny.” You know, I …
Pete Lane:
Yeah, that’s my dad.
Johnny Hiland:
Weird.
Pete Lane:
Hey, Johnny, talk a little bit more about the lessons, how you give them. Plug that a little bit. I know you do online tutorials. I’ve seen a few and I know you do private lessons as you tour around. Talk a little bit about that for us.
Johnny Hiland:
No, I found, man, as I started my career years ago that I became involved with Mel Bay, as you guys mentioned, and started doing stuff with Jam Track Central in the UK. And then, of course, I’ve done three courses with TrueFire, which to me is the best of the best in the instruction world. Plus, way back in the day, I even did two Hot Licks videos for Arlen Roth. Which was, that was a dream come true.
Pete Lane:
Yeah, I saw that.
Johnny Hiland:
Any guitar player of a certain status has done a Hot Licks video and I happened to do two of them. But the funny thing is, I have always enjoyed the one-on-one interaction, whether it be with a fan or a kid that’s just really dying to learn guitar. I have found that nowadays I’m teaching more advanced players, most of which are fans of mine, which is great.
Johnny Hiland:
Really, I think all in all, man, my lot in life now seems to be showing people that hey, man, you can have fame and you can have success, but number one, it’s not based on money. Because in the music business when you’re the artist, you don’t make a lot of money, because you have a lot of people you’re paying when you’re out on the road. You’ve got a booking agent, a manager, a band. You’re paying for all the expenses. The bus, the crew. So half the time the artist comes home broke.
Johnny Hiland:
But to be frankly honest, it’s not about the money. It’s not about the fame or anything. What I’m really trying to show young kids is I’m still a normal dude just like they are. And my love for learning guitar is still just as tight as theirs is. So, of course, I want to share my knowledge and the fun factor of guitar with everybody.
Johnny Hiland:
So when they come to me for a lesson, if they already have something in mind to learn, I mean, gosh, I’ll talk for days. I just started charging a flat fee for lessons because if it went for two hours or a four hours, it didn’t matter. Of course, my manager and other people are like, “No, no, no, dude. Just do an hour.” I’m like, “I can’t do that, man. If a student gets into it and we’re having fun, we just keep going.”
Pete Lane:
I believe you.
Johnny Hiland:
But then again, I’m a stern teacher as well. I certainly make sure that people learn what I’m teaching them and I’m like, “If you don’t practice, number one, it shows me that you don’t really have the passion or the motivation. But, number two, I’m not going to take your money and waste my time.”
Johnny Hiland:
All right, folks. Now we’re moving on to the four bars of one in the turnaround. What is a turnaround? A turnaround actually happens after the first chorus and usually what it does is it just segues a little bit of instrumentation in between the chorus and the next verse for the singer. Kind of gives him a little breath in there, which is a good thing sometimes.
Johnny Hiland:
I think guys get a kick out of coming to my home and seeing me in a ball cap and sweat pants and flipflops saying, “All right. Play.” But I think that’s the beautiful thing, man, is there is this allure, if you will, or mystique of being an artist that makes you feel untouchable.
Johnny Hiland:
Like, obviously, before I got to know Steve Vai, he was that guy on Crossroads and he was in WhiteSnake and doing all these crazy great things. He has that untouchable, rockstar thing about him.
Pete Lane:
Iconic. Oh.
Johnny Hiland:
So you’re thinking, “I’ll never get close to Steve Vai.” Then you talk to the guy on the phone and he’s just like you and me. He’s just a wonderful guy and very blessed and passionate about what he does. I hats off to people like him.
Jeff Thompson:
He was the devil’s guitar in Crossroads, wasn’t he?
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, man, and that was some scary doings right there, brother. But then again, I mean, obviously playing the role, he certainly did an amazing job in that movie.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s a great movie. I love that movie.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, me too, man. It was one of my favorites. The guitar work they played, between Ry Cooder, Arlen Roth and Vai.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, Ry Cooder, absolutely.
Johnny Hiland:
I love Ry Cooder. Killer.
Jeff Thompson:
My first podcast I put out, I did the Great Mississippi River and I snuck in some Ry Cooder in the back. He has that swampy-sound music, you know, that slide …
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
(singing)
Johnny Hiland:
Tell you who I also became phone buddies with. Les Paul.
Jeff Thompson:
Wow.
Johnny Hiland:
He would call me during the day and just say, “Kid, tell me a dirty joke.” I remember the first time Sammy called my house and Kimmie answered the phone. She just like, pulls the phone out like she couldn’t believe who was on the other end. Of course, my wife is a lot like myself. She doesn’t get starstruck or anything like that. It was just weird hearing that person’s voice on the other end of a phone.
Jeff Thompson:
Sammy Hagar.
Sammy Hagar:
We still got Johnny up here. Johnny and I met in Mill Valley, California. He was like a stocker. I pulled up to the grocery store in one of my fine machines and I come back out and I see him and this other guy looking at my car and they’re like really looking close.
Sammy Hagar:
I’m going, “Hey, hey, hey.” I thought they were going to scratch it. He goes, “Are you Sammy?” I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “I’m Johnny Hiland.” I said, “Oh, my god.”
Sammy Hagar:
He came up to the house. We went to rehearsal. We jammed for days, played a club that night. This man does not need any hype. This is Mr. Johnny Hiland.
Johnny Hiland:
So she just hands me the phone and I was like, “Hey, brother. What’s up?” But I think that’s the beautiful thing about the music business, man. We’ve all become friends. Even the artists I’ve grown to know over the years have just all been so gracious to me.
Johnny Hiland:
I’m not the guy that you would call famous, per se, but I’ve had a blessed career and, like I said, I’ve been real fortunate to be able to have friendships with a lot of my heroes. So I’ve been real blessed by …
Johnny Hiland:
(singing)
Jeff Thompson:
Who do you see coming along? I mean, we’ve been looking in your rear view mirror a little bit here. Who have you seen in your windshield lately that caught your attention, like all of a sudden you took that double look, or like turned your ear a couple times? Like, whoa?
Johnny Hiland:
There’s a couple of kids out there right now, man, that are … Kingfish is one of them. He’s a killer, young blues artist, man. I’m really digging his stuff.
Johnny Hiland:
And Daniel Donato, boy from Nashville, he’s kicking it up pretty good nowadays too, but most people don’t know. I grabbed Daniel when he was just a young boy. I tucked him under my wing. I showed him a lot. I gave that boy lessons for a lot of years and really helped him grow into the player that he is. I knew instantly from the time that boy was 11 years old.
Johnny Hiland:
I’ll put it to you this way. Danny was so small, he couldn’t hold the normal Tele. I gave an Ernie Ball Music Man and said, “This will be a little more comfortable for you,” so it was right around Christmastime, so I said, “Here you go, kid. Take it home.” Of course, he still has it to this day.
Johnny Hiland:
But it’s funny. His career has picked up. He’s been on the road with Pam Tillis. But, you know, he’s got his own solo project going as well and he’s been doing some guitar instruction stuff and showing my licks. But, no … No, he’s such a good kid and he’s really doing great.
Johnny Hiland:
So, yeah. Watching young kids come up, man, it’s amazing. Because in this day and age, you’re thinking, “Man, kids have all this technology and video games. There’s so many other things that kids have their mind on today versus guitar.
Pete Lane:
Right.
Johnny Hiland:
Of course, we’ve always tried to be the folks to pave the way and open the door and show these kids anything they want to know about guitar and just be nice to them and just encourage them to play. Especially like when Guitar Hero came out, the video game came out. You got little plastic guitar. You follow the number patterns on the screen. I’m like, “Gosh, man. That don’t make you a guitar player.”
Pete Lane:
No.
Johnny Hiland:
You know, come one. So the technology of today, gosh, man, how are kids going to be inspired to play guitar? But then again, getting back to my vision problem, I just have grown to find that even when I saw buddies playing video games and stuff, I just could never get involved.
Johnny Hiland:
When I played Sammy Hagar’s Lake Tahoe show, Toby Keith was back there with, like a hunting game that was on the wall. And he and Ted Nugent were having a blast back there, man. Of course, I couldn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t see it.
Johnny Hiland:
There’s a lot of things in my life that I’m like, “Dadgummit, I wished I could do that.” I guess the reason I have that problem, guys, is growing up in the state of Maine. I grew up in in a real small town of Baileyville, Maine and my dad was a pipe-fitter for Georgia-Pacific Paper Mill.
Johnny Hiland:
He was the type of guy, man, that when I was born with nystagmus, I had reconstructive eye surgery when I was two-and-a- half because I was cross-eyed. My dad’s like, “No, I’m not going to accept that. Let’s at least get him cosmetically looking okay.”
Johnny Hiland:
Then the first thing he did, my dad was a dirt bike racer back in the day. He raced doing the motocross and so I had a JR50 Suzuki when I was like four. Man, he was just, “You’re going to get on that bike and you’re going to ride that thing.” I’m petrified of it.
Johnny Hiland:
But through my dad, I overcame a lot of fear of being able to just take the plunge and try something. So I had my own dirt bike. I had my own snowmobile. Of course had to share it with my brother and sister, who were perfectly sighted. They got a kick out of me, man. I just, I’d go to beat the band, man, just go like crazy.
Johnny Hiland:
Of course, as I got into my teen years, I think the thing that helped me have a better understanding of when I got told I could never drive or have a driver’s license, my dad’s like, “Crap, kid. You don’t need no driver’s license. Look, we got an old ’78 Ford SuperCab.” He said, “There’s some old dirt roads up here in Maine.” He said, “You want to drive? Let’s go drive.”
Pete Lane:
There you go.
Johnny Hiland:
So really, as hard as my dad was on me, being hypercritical of me to just have the no-fear mentality, I mean, he was. He was just hard as hell on me as a kid.
Johnny Hiland:
But at the same time, he never was the dad of, “Oh, my gosh. He’s blind. He can’t do it.” My dad was just the opposite. He was like, “You will do that.” And my dad was a very good athlete, weightlifter and stuff like that over the years.
Johnny Hiland:
I remember he coached baseball and basketball through the years for our town. I remember one afternoon I would go fetch foul balls and stuff for him and the team. And I remember he stood there one day and pitched balls with my brother to me until I hit a ball. He said, “I just want you to know what it feels like. I want you to shoot a basketball from the foul line and know what that feels like or get a three-point shot. We’ll stand here until you do it.”
Johnny Hiland:
So really, in essence, man, I had a wonderful dad who was just that type of guy who said, you know …
Pete Lane:
And it was worth is, wasn’t it?
Johnny Hiland:
It was worth it. And I really guess, guys, when you were asking about how hard it was for me to overcome being in a different town and hotels and worrying about falling off stages, I have fallen off a couple of stages. But to be honest with you, man, it was my dad giving me that no-fear mentality of nothing’s going to slow me down. If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it, you know?
Pete Lane:
Kind of a hard-knocks mentality.
Johnny Hiland:
He was very much a hard-knocks guy, man.
Pete Lane:
Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
I mean, if I fell on my dirt bike and got myself up, it’s, “Get up. Get up. Pick it up. Get on that thing. Keep going.”
Pete Lane:
Well, and now you’re better able to deal with things as an adult.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, he really, really … I mean, of course, when I was a kid I thought he was a (beep). I won’t say a word there (beep). As I grew older, I’ve realized now.
Johnny Hiland:
I mean, my wife and I didn’t have kids because I’m on the road all the time and she does a 40-hour-a-week job working six or seven hospitals in Nashville. So our lives were so busy, we just decided not to have children, but we love children.
Johnny Hiland:
I went to college to be an elementary school teacher, because my dad’s dream for me was teach school during the school year and play in a band during the summer. Which I was like, “No. That’s not for me.” Of course, kind of spoiled Dad’s dream on that, but really from my dad’s standpoint, I can really understand where he was coming from. He thought that may be the best route for me to take.
Johnny Hiland:
But really, I have no regrets in my life, man. I just feel like every time I’ve encountered something stressful or scary, I just thought, “Well, you either take the bull by the horns and go for it or just sit and regret and go, ‘Gee, I wished I had a done that 10 years ago or 20 years ago or whatever.'” So I really do thank my dad and mom for that. They were really amazing parents.
Ricky Skaggs:
He said that he saw me play and he begged his dad to go the next show. We was going to be playing in Maine, I believe it was. I may get him to tell you about it, but one of the greatest guitar players I’ve ever heard in my whole life and he lives right here in Nashville. So proud to have him here. A good friend, Mr. Johnny Hiland. Come out, Johnny.
Audience:
Yeah, yay. Yeah, all right.
Pete Lane:
Hey, Johnny. We’re going to be playing clips from lot of your music throughout this podcast and I’m looking now at one, you and Ricky Skaggs’ Brand New Strings at the Nashville Palace. Can you talk a little bit about that gig as we play it in the background?
Ricky Skaggs:
(singing)
Johnny Hiland:
Well, first thing I have to explain to you is the changes technologically in the music business, one of which is they have taken away stage monitors and everybody wears in-ears. Well, growing up, I was always used to Ricky Skaggs having floor wedges, that you hear your music from. I had no idea his band nowadays used in-ears. So at the start of the video, you hear Ricky talking to me. I actually just sound like I’m dumb.
Ricky Skaggs:
It’s cold in here.
Johnny Hiland:
It is cold in here, isn’t it?
Ricky Skaggs:
It’s very cold in here. Yes, it is.
Johnny Hiland:
I think it’s cold enough to hang meat.
Ricky Skaggs:
Well, yeah. There’s a lot of meat hanging in here, so …
Johnny Hiland:
I submit it’s cold enough to hang meat in here. Had nothing to do with what Ricky was talking about. So when I got off the stage, I was just laughing. When I watched the video back, I said, “Oh, my gosh. I sound like I’m deaf and blind.” I had no idea what he was saying to me. I couldn’t hear anything.
Johnny Hiland:
So to be honest with you, playing through that song with him that night, all I heard was my own amplifier and the drummer, who had plexiglass in front of him. That was one of the hardest moments of my life, but yet it was Ricky Skaggs, man, and I could’ve just died and gone to heaven. Playing with my hero like that and on a song we won a Grammy for. I mean, what a dream come true.
Johnny Hiland:
Angels are singing. Johnny made his dream come true. He played with Ricky Skaggs.
Johnny Hiland:
I’d played with Ricky before but it was bluegrass at the Ryman. And gosh, guys, I feel like every time I’ve had a chance to play with Ricky or be around him, I had something go wrong.
Johnny Hiland:
The night at the Ryman, I broke out in hives from seafood. I was just itching that whole gig, man, just driving myself crazy, which I had to go to the doctor next day and all that crazy stuff. But I feel like every time I’ve been around Ricky I just, something has gone completely crazy but I got through it somehow.
Johnny Hiland:
This video’s fun, because I just honestly could not hear anything Ricky was saying to me on the stage until I saw the video back and went, “Duh. What an idiot I am.” I hope everyone gets a [inaudible].
Johnny Hiland:
(singing)
Johnny Hiland:
I always felt a very close connection with Ricky Skaggs. Even with him being a hero and then when I had the chance to meet him in Nashville. One of the local news stations did something on me and Ricky actually went on and said, “Man, Johnny’s just an amazing guitar player and I just love him and he loves the Lord.” He said, “That even makes it better.” He just said some of the nicest things about me, and like I said, I just wanted to call him up and be like, “Bear hug, dude. Love you, man.”
Johnny Hiland:
Even Steve Vai and all the cats, you know, Hagar. Even went out and did four or five days with George Clinton and P.Funk, man. They’re just killer.
Jeff Thompson:
I was going to ask you about George Clinton. I said, “Wow. That’s out of this world.”
Johnny Hiland:
The funny thing is that was the biggest show I’ve ever done. I think it was like in front of 120,000 people in North Carolina for this huge outdoor festival. And Little Feat was on one stage, [crosstalk] on the other and we were on the middle stage.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, wow. Chicken George.
Johnny Hiland:
George actually said, “Boy, I want to hear some chicken funk.” Me and Madonna’s drummer and he made the whole band quite down and just had me chicken pick with the drummer, keeping a groove. The crazy thing is, I guess the other bands literally stopped because they wanted to hear what we were doing. It was pretty freaky, man, but I had such a great time with George Clinton. Here again, any time they come through town, they call me up. “Man, we’re coming your way, brother. Come on out. Bring your guitar.”
Johnny Hiland:
You know, I live a dream every day of my life. My career’s just been so blessed. I have no more regrets. Ever dream I’ve ever dreamed has already come true.
Audience:
Whoo. Whoo.
Jeff Thompson:
Sounds like you’re just following your passion and sticking in the groove.
Johnny Hiland:
That’s it, brother. And, of course, I married my lovely wife, Kimmie, in 2005 and literally lost my dad a month after we were married in a boat accident.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, wow. Sorry to hear that.
Pete Lane:
Wow.
Johnny Hiland:
And then my mom about a year and a half later, in 2007. Dad was 57 and my mom was 50.
Pete Lane:
Way too young.
Johnny Hiland:
Way too young, man. Yeah, it was a very tragic time in my life. People could say, “When did your career kind of fall off?” Well, like anybody else in life, man, when you lose your parents tragically, it affects you, man. It kind of slowed my road stuff down and making records and just, you know, I needed time to heal from all that.
Johnny Hiland:
But then again, man, like I said, I’m still putting records out. I’m still having the most fun I’ve ever had in my life and married my lovely wife, Kimmie. We’ll be celebrating 15 years next April.
Pete Lane:
Congratulations.
Johnny Hiland:
And we got two little dogs that we love as kids, because they are our kids, really.
Jeff Thompson:
I just want to ask this question. I mean, there’s a lot of listeners out there and girlfriends. But when you have visual impairments and stuff like that, what was it like when you first met your wife, your soon-to-be wife, when you explained to her about vision?
Johnny Hiland:
I think she really knew beforehand. She used to come down to Robert’s Western World and watch me play with the Don Kelley Band. I had that gig for five-and-a-half years playing the same show five nights a week.
Johnny Hiland:
It was a gig that I got used to where I didn’t have to worry about the blindness thing. I knew where to set my stuff. I knew how to set up quick. We played the show, tore down and went home. I was never really a partier or a real social guy. I mean, I’d hang out and talk to people, but I’d go home.
Johnny Hiland:
She had come down to Robert’s for years and I just thought she was a fan of the band or she liked somebody else in the band. I had no idea until a friend of mine actually told me, “Kim’s been in love with you for three years and hasn’t dared to say anything.” I’m like, “What?”
Pete Lane:
No kidding.
Johnny Hiland:
I’m like, “Man, I just put out my first record. I’m going on the road and I don’t want to hurt no girl.” He said, “Well, Johnny,” he said, “if you even just gain her as a friend, what do you got to lose?” And honestly, man, by the third date, she was the fisherman, man. She had me hook, line and sinker, man. I was done.
Pete Lane:
Oh.
Johnny Hiland:
But like I said, we’re celebrating 15 years next April and she has been the biggest blessing God’s ever brought me, man. I mean, yes, my career’s been living a dream every day of my life, but to have someone who understands you. We grew together even before we got married.
Johnny Hiland:
I’m not going to say it wasn’t a learning curve for her to understand what it is to live with a guy who’s visually impaired. But she caught on very quickly, I mean, even if we went out somewhere, of course, we’d hold hands or whatever, but she’d go, “Honey, watch this step coming up, you know? Or … “
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
But it was like she just naturally started doing it without me even asking her to. So really a lot of the stuff came natural to her. I think there’s a few times in our marriage where she said, “Honey, there’s some deer out in that field. Do you see those?” “No, baby. Not even close.” She’s like, “Well, is it the color or is the sunlight or what is it?” So she would ask questions.
Johnny Hiland:
Sometimes I would just say, “Baby, I don’t know how to answer that. I’m a guy that has to wear sunglasses on overcast days as much as I do sunny days because of the glare. I don’t understand that myself.”
Pete Lane:
Do you use a smartphone, Johnny?
Johnny Hiland:
Yes, I do. I use an Apple iPhone 8 Plus.
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). There you go.
Johnny Hiland:
I must admit, man. I had to go through bunches and bunches of them at the Verizon store to find out which one I could see.
Jeff Thompson:
Ah, so the 8 Plus, a big screen. Magnify it.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. The 8 Plus, I actually liked it better than the 10. I just offered bigger print for me and of course, you can pinch and pull. Really, I think the biggest thing for me switching to Apple stuff, obviously everyone in the music business uses Apple and Pro tools, but when my wife got me the iPad Pro, I just basically told the guy at the Verizon store, I said, “I’m using an Apple iPad Pro,” and I said, “I’m just loving it.” He said, “Well, son,” he said, “the 10 is a little different but,” he said, “you really might like the 8 Plus. It’s just a smaller version of your iPad.”
Pete Lane:
Pretty much.
Johnny Hiland:
So I said, “Well, as long as I can blow the print up big enough, I’m sure I could make do with it.” So it was just all based on experimentation.
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
Just trying it, seeing if I liked it. That kind of thing. But, yeah, they’ve been huge for my life, really.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. You’ve got to get the Johnny Hiland Apple phone case sewing.
Johnny Hiland:
Wouldn’t that be cool, man?
Pete Lane:
There you go. Signature.
Johnny Hiland:
Have a big old Johnny Hiland Kiesel guitar on the back of a phone case? That would be …
Pete Lane:
Hey.
Johnny Hiland:
Love to call [Autovox], “Make me one.”
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. Well, it’s really neat that even from your days in college using CCTVs or stuff, different things that helped you bridge the gap to succeed, that there’s options out there. Not everything works for everyone, so it’s nice that there’s big pool of stuff to choose from. Whatever works for you, works for you.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, and you know, I have been fortunate to meet a few other friends in the industry who are visually impaired or totally blind. They have let me know under no uncertain terms that I’m way behind the curve on learning actually what’s out there and available for visually impaired people to help you in life.
Johnny Hiland:
They were like, “Gosh, you mean, you didn’t know about this?” Or, “You didn’t know about that?” I’m like, “What is that?” I mean, even like down to a talking calculator. I’m like, “Gosh, I’d love to have one of them.”
Johnny Hiland:
So right now, man, most people are like, “Johnny’s got the fever for guitars and pedals and amps and that.” Yeah, sure. That’s always going to be there. But now I’m at that stage in life where I’m like, “Look, I’m growing older and I would rather have things now or learn about things now that will help me as I grow older, than to be naïve about it and have to find out as I do grow older that I missed out on a lot of things.”
Jeff Thompson:
You know, I went to your web site, johnnyhiland.net and first thing that came up was Pickin’ for the Lord, your new gospel album.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, johnnyhiland.net. Yes. Pickin’ for the Lord is my newest record that actually just got released on Easter Sunday. But I had a lot of great players on that record, man. I had the great Jack Pearson playing on it. Brent Mason, John Jorgenson, Greg Martin from the Kentucky Headhunters, Thom Bresh. Of course, Pig Robbins played on it.
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, Mr. Phil Keaggy.
Johnny Hiland:
So I had a lot of my dear friends in the business playing on that record. Man, it was just a dream come true. Something I’d always wanted to do.
Pete Lane:
Good for you.
Johnny Hiland:
I knew from very early on in my life that the good Lord blessed me with the gift of music. I’ve never been afraid to give him the credit for it and never will. I have always wanted to make a good old gospel record, man, where I could play my guitar the way I do and do the songs Johnny-style but yet give thanks back to the good Lord just for the gift of having music in my life.
Johnny Hiland:
I really don’t know what I would’ve done without it. I really do believe that God gave me a purpose in life through music and like I said, I’m real blessed by it. I really feel it’s the best work I’ve ever done yet.
Pete Lane:
I want to insert something here, Jeffrey. Johnny you heard Jeff say, “Go to your web site johnnyhiland.net. Hiland is how our VoiceOver. We use the iPhone too and it’s got a speech system called VoiceOver and that’s how your name is pronounced with the synthetic speech.
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, it’s pronounced Hiland.
Pete Lane:
Yeah, Hiland. But for our listeners it’s-
Johnny Hiland:
Well, see that’s [crosstalk] correctly. Hiland.
Pete Lane:
… it’s-
Jeff Thompson:
Hiland.
Pete Lane:
Yeah. It’s spelled H-I-L-A-N-D. So it’s johnnyhiland.net.
Jeff Thompson:
Did I say Hiland?
Pete Lane:
Yeah, you did.
Johnny Hiland:
That’s okay, man.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, man.
Pete Lane:
Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
It’s all good.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. Johnnyhiland.net. Johnny, I got a question for you. Lot of people, like the Foo Fighters, they bring up this digital analog. And you said you like your pedals and your tone and everything. You mentioned Stevie Ray about tone. Erik Johnson is a tone guy.
Johnny Hiland:
Yes, he is.
Jeff Thompson:
Do you like the raw analog type of sounds or the digital? Where do you fall?
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, no, man. I’m a traditional tube amp guy with individual pedals and a guitar, man. I mean, really, to me there’s no better … Here again, we’re in the day and age when guys are switching over to [inaudible] amps and amp modeling and digital this and digital that.
Johnny Hiland:
Now, granted, one reason, of course and the main reason is the tone. When you’re a country guitar player, you need a good old tube amp, a good compressor, a good delay pedal and some kind of overdrive and a great guitar. Now, granted, most people would say, “Well, that’s not all that versatile.” But really, if you’re a chicken picker, man, that’s what you need.
Johnny Hiland:
Of course, country guitar is my first love, so that’s the sound I’m reaching for all the time. But to be honest with you, in building my tone, I found out early on that with all the digital stuff out there, I just wasn’t able to see it. And I wasn’t able to use it effectively to where if something went wrong or if a patch changed when you shut it off and I had to go back and pull up presets, I just had a real time with that.
Johnny Hiland:
Now most people would say, “Well, but you never really sat down and learned it.” Well, true, but I’m a guitar player, Johnny on the spot. No pun intended. I need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice and I would rather have a rig that I know is going to sound great to begin with, give me the tone that I need to do my job with.
Johnny Hiland:
At least, engineers in this world and other people can add those things later in the digital realm, if need be. But I’ve never had any issue with a good, raw, tube amp tone, man. It’s just always been the way to go for me.
Jeff Thompson:
How about acoustic?
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, I love acoustic guitar. Yeah, I mean, I’ve had several acoustic guitars and yeah, I mean, any time I do a record, I play an acoustic on it as well.
Pete Lane:
I haven’t seen a lot of acoustic videos on your YouTube channel [crosstalk]
Johnny Hiland:
I don’t play much acoustic live. Obviously, I’m more of an electric guitar player, but any of my records that you’ve heard, it’s been me playing acoustic on all the rhythm pats on and stuff like that.
Johnny Hiland:
One, two, three …
Jeff Thompson:
Now, I heard you talking about one of your albums, you wanted to get back to some vocals. How about microphones? What’s your favorite microphone?
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, Sennheiser, brother, all the way.
Jeff Thompson:
Really?
Johnny Hiland:
Sennheiser 935 is the best vocal mic ever. I actually learned that just out of happenstance. One day I was at a gig locally in Nashville and they had Sennheiser mics. I said, “Man, I’ve got a mid-rangey kind of tenor voice.” I said, “I want something that’ll give me a fatter bottom end.” They said, “Oh, man. Well, try this one.”
Jeff Thompson:
Is that a dynamic or condenser?
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, it’s just a regular vocal mic, dynamic mic.
Jeff Thompson:
Okay.
Johnny Hiland:
I’ll say this though, man. It changed my life. I was like, “Man, I actually enjoy singing more when I’m using this mic,” so I went right out and bought one.
Johnny Hiland:
(singing)
Johnny Hiland:
Then, of course, being a session cat, man, I mean, a lot of times guys have certain ways they like their amps miced. It seems over the years my favorite amp microphone has been a Sennheiser 906. I found that Sennheiser mics just sounded the best on my amps as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Friend of mine does Jerry Lee Lewis tribute. His name is Steve Wickett, from England, and he uses the Sennheiser microphone.
Johnny Hiland:
I’d do anything I needed to do to help my tone, you know?
Speaker 8:
Right.
Johnny Hiland:
With the acrylic fingernails, I was actually able to get the same sound from pick to finger.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, I got a secret to tell you. My daughter had a Mary Kay party and they made me sit in on it. But when I heard that you had acrylic nails on, I don’t feel bad at all.
Johnny Hiland:
You shouldn’t. In fact, you should try some, man. They’re really good if you pick. Man, they’re the bomb.
Jeff Thompson:
I really love that you know your equipment. You know your amps. You know your guitar. When you get into it, you just dig in. That’s really cool. I really like that.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, I think I’ve had a long enough career, man, where people say, “Well, Johnny, how did you learn?” I say, “Gosh, man, I’ve tried about every amp mic there is out there. From being in different studio atmospheres, playing on other people’s records. Even having producers saying, ‘I want this mic on his amp, blah, blah, blah.'”
Johnny Hiland:
Sometimes you go, “Oh, I just don’t like the tone at all,” but if that’s what he wants, he’s paying me for the session. So mic it up, dude. Do whatever you want.
Pete Lane:
Question for our listeners. When you say amp mic, you’re talking about in the studio and this is actually a routine recording method where you actually place the microphone in front of the amplifier speaker, right? Rather than do a line-in or something like that in the studio?
Johnny Hiland:
That’s right. Yeah. Most of the time in Nashville, it’s not uncommon to have guys come in like myself, who rely on an old tube amp that doesn’t have a line-out, so you have to put a mic in front of it.
Pete Lane:
Ah.
Johnny Hiland:
But now there’s different ways and different techniques of doing that. I mean, like for an example, I’m not exactly sure how Stevie Ray Vaughn was miced on his Fender Super Reverbs, but a lot of times, with the old tube amps like that, they will mic the front of the amp, but they’ll also put a mic on the back of the amp, especially if it’s an open-back amp, where you have access to the speaker.
Pete Lane:
Pick up that low end?
Johnny Hiland:
That too.
Pete Lane:
Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
So you find different ways to mic an amplifier to get different tones than what like a direct out would give you. So microphones kind of give you a little bit more flexibility on ambience and how the tone of your amp relates on the record. So it’s, yeah, it’s pretty important.
Pete Lane:
Good insight.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. Danny Gatton has been my biggest guitar influence over the years. I mean, Ricky Skaggs is my biggest musical hero, but when it comes to guitar heroes, I would say Danny Gatton is my biggest guitar hero. I was gifted Danny Gatton’s Shure SM57 that he miced his amp with.
Pete Lane:
Oh, wow.
Johnny Hiland:
And a Shure SM57 is one of the most common used amplifier mics and, of course, people have sang through them. I’ve sang through them through the years. Sometimes you get to the gig and that’s all the sound guy has. Of course, there’s a lot of what I call blow-and-go gigs, where you jump up on the stage, set up your amp and go for it. Whatever PA is there is what you’re running. You’re what you’re using.
Johnny Hiland:
But to be honest with you, really, the gear that I use today, microphones and a lot of things that I had used through the years and tried new things. I was always the guy going to the music store and sitting there in an afternoon trying every dog-it pedal they had because is there some out there than the compressor I’m using? Or is there something out there better than the dirt pedal I’m using? Or …
Johnny Hiland:
And the same way with microphones. My microphone knowledge really came from learning from guys in studios and when you hear a tone that you like the best. For an example, when you’re a recording guitar player, the first thing you have to be concerned with is the guitar tone that I’m delivering in this room translating properly on record? So is my same tone being translated from the room into the record? Is it being captured the proper way to where my tone sounds the same?
Johnny Hiland:
You have to find microphones that enable that to happen. I’ve had a lot from times where it didn’t, but Sennheiser has always been the best for me every time that I had had a chance to record, that I thought my tone was translating the best. So I said, “I need that mic. What is that?” And I would keep asking engineers and they’d go, “Oh, it’s a Sennheiser. It’s 906,” or whatever. And I would go, “Oh.” Then by the time I’d get home, I’d go, “What was that number again?”
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
Then when I went in the studio, I said, “This is what I prefer and I like it two inches from the cone.” Most guys are like, “Oh, no, you have to do the angle microphone thing at the corner of the cone of the speaker and … “
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
I’m just like, “For goodness sakes, man.” The best amp tone really is stick a Sennheiser in the front of the cone of the speaker and turn the amp up. Let it go. I’ve had to earn that.
Pete Lane:
Yeah, your credibility goes a long way.
Johnny Hiland:
(singing)
Johnny Hiland:
Man, I’ll be honest, guys. I’m so thrilled to be a part of this. I’m really want to thank you guys for doing what you do with Blind Abilities. One of the things that I’ve found over the years is even fans of mine have been like, “Dude, you’re legally blind?” I’m like, “Yeah, man. Can’t you see my eyes moving all over the place?”
Johnny Hiland:
I used to get in trouble in school all the time. The teacher’d be like slap the ruler on your desk, “Pay attention, Hiland.” “I am. I’m looking right at you.” “No, your eyes are over there.” You know, my eyeballs look like they’re moving somewhere else, even though I’m looking straight at someone.
Johnny Hiland:
Even when I had to do photo shoots through the years for magazines and stuff, I had to have photographers work with me and find a photographer that would go, “Okay, Johnny. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to count to three. Want you to roll your eyes to the right and then back to the middle and I’ll take the picture.”
Johnny Hiland:
Really, all through the years, my part of my career has had some kind of learning curve for other people to just get used to working with me. Now, when it comes to studio stuff, my ears are pretty sensitive and my ears have always been a blessing to me. People say if you have a loss in one area or one sense, you gain it somewhere else. Well, man, I always tell people I can hear a mouse fart at 50 paces, so I have real sensitive ears.
Johnny Hiland:
But at the same time, throughout my career, I would say it’s been harder on other people to do their jobs with me, per se. Like photographers. Like, “Gosh, I’ve got to get this guy’s eyes to look okay in this picture.”
Johnny Hiland:
So they would find ways to just take a deep breath and say, “Okay, I’m working with a legally blind guy here, so how do I make him feel comfortable and get the best shot of him, but make his eyes do what I need them to do for the perfect shot?” Stuff like that.
Jeff Thompson:
You’re educating him.
Pete Lane:
But a lot more fulfilling for him in the long run. That’s what Jeff and I try to do, Johnny, with our podcast and we try to make our guests shine. I mean, there’s nobody more important on this three-way conversation than you. We want you to sound the best, first of all, from a selfish perspective that makes us look good. But we pride ourselves in making the focus of our interview sound good.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, I will share this with you guys and I mean this wholeheartedly. Anything that I can do to help what you guys do would be an absolutely honor for me. I really feel there needs to be more awareness out there. When there’s something I believe in, like what you guys are doing with Blind Abilities, I mean, I’ll go the extra mile whatever you guys need me to do to raise awareness.
Johnny Hiland:
Because there needs to be more awareness for people to learn about blindness and about what the difference in being visually impaired is versus being totally blind. There’s obviously so many different levels of visual impairments and people just have no awareness of that. They have no idea how to be accepting of that. I think our world is even more chaotic in worrying about other things.
Johnny Hiland:
It’s like when I see a veteran in a wheelchair or if I see anybody in a wheelchair or I mentioned veterans, because I’m working with some in the US Army and I love our veterans. But any time I see anyone’s disability, it don’t means you go, “Oh, god, don’t look sideways at them.” It’s like they always get kind of, “Oh, goodness.” You know?
Johnny Hiland:
No. We don’t want you to act any differently toward us. Just be normal because we’re trying to be as normal as we can be. I think that’s one of the reasons that if you would call it concealing my disability, I don’t necessarily I feel like I’ve concealed it. But in a lot of ways, maybe I have. Maybe it’s something that you’ve even opened me up to, to realize in my own life.
Johnny Hiland:
But then again, here’s another great example. Kimmie’s dad, when we moved back here to Virginia, takes me fishing. Half the time won’t even throw a line in himself, because he’s getting another rod ready for me. He’ll say, “Son, I have more enjoyment watching you fish and getting a rod prepared for you. When you catch a fish, a catfish, you know, the …
Pete Lane:
Oh, you’re fishing on the bottom.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, oh, I love catfishing, man, and crappie fishing and whatever I can do. Man, I love fishing, period. But guys, like, “Man, those catfish can sting you, man,” and you know?
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
“Fact is, I don’t want you getting hurt doing this. I want you to have the best fun you’ve had in years.” And that’s why I call Dad my favorite fishing buddy, because he’s just been so good to me over the years with not having to worry about, “Geez, I’ve got to fish along with him. I’ve got to have fun too.” He’s like, “Son, I have more fun helping you, watching you fish.”
Jeff Thompson:
The advice you’re giving is good for sighted people as well as people who are visually impaired and people who are inspired to play the guitar or anything. You’re well-rounded in giving advice. I can see why your parents wanted you to be a teacher, because you’re still teaching.
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, well, I feel like I teach every day of my life, man. But to be honest with you, here’s a funny thing and I know we’re obviously talking quite heavily about the blindness thing, and rightfully so.
Johnny Hiland:
One of the things I can tell you is this. I’m not as apt to be more nervous about sharing my blindness with people on stage, as I am like last night, we took our niece out for her 17th birthday. It was embarrassing for me to have to ask the waitress, “Yeah, I’d like my steak medium, but can you cut that up for me and remove the bone? I’m legally blind.” Or, “Can you bring me a bigger menu?” I always used to be the guy that would carry one of the pocket magnifiers in my pocket.
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep.
Johnny Hiland:
And try my best to read the menu. Nowadays, man, it’s getting easier for me, but it’s still very embarrassing when you’re at a table and you’re asking the waiter or waitress to do specific things because your disability.
Pete Lane:
Johnny, is that because you’re in a smaller setting with just a few close people or is it because you feel like you’re asking for help?
Johnny Hiland:
I think it’s the second. I think it’s just because I’m having to ask for help. It doesn’t make me feel good when I have to, quote, ask for help. I don’t know. Maybe sitting in a restaurant or maybe just being in a public place where other people are asking for that waiter’s assistance too and you’re taking too much of their time. Or …
Pete Lane:
Well, you said earlier you’re kind of a very sensitive guy. You sound like a people person. You just don’t want to put other people out.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah. I feel like I’m holding up progress for this waiter or waitress because I’m having to ask for them to do something specific. At the end of the day, I think I’m more embarrassed by that than falling off a stage during a show and going, “Oops. I didn’t see that [inaudible].” I mean, when I make a clumsy mistake on my own, I’m very, very quick to own up to, “Doggone, I missed that stuff.”
Johnny Hiland:
But I think when I’m in a restaurant having to ask somebody to do something, that’s when I start getting uncomfortable or a little more embarrassed by it. It’s funny that we’re actually talking about this now, because it’s something that doesn’t get asked a lot. So, you guys have actually kind of made me reach into my own soul and say, “What does bother me about my blindness?” Or, “Are there any things in life that do embarrass me in a way?”
Jeff Thompson:
Johnny, I taught woodworking to blind students.
Johnny Hiland:
Did you?
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, I mean, but it’s like your parents did for you with the Suzuki 50.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, yeah. The JR 50. Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. It’s not that, I’m not producing carpenters. What I’m doing is if they learn to go home and check underneath the table, “Oh, this screw’s loose. Oh, it feels like it needs Phillip’s screwdriver.”
Johnny Hiland:
Right.
Jeff Thompson:
Something of that nature that, hey, instead of just sitting there going, “It’s broke.” They at least dig in, they investigate and stuff and that’s what the woodworking was, to overcome the fear.
Johnny Hiland:
It’s funny that you say that, man. My wife and I just bought this house in Chatham and we have a back deck and I’m the worst man for going out on the back deck with a hammer and making sure there’s no nails sticking up.
Pete Lane:
Oh, yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
Granted, they may not be pounded in perfect, and I’ve pretty much hung every picture on the wall in here with nails. You know?
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
If I hit my finger by accident, yeah, you’ll hear me cuss like a sailor. “Don’t ever … ” But there’s something to be said about doing it yourself.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
And I’m very much the same way with guitars or any … I’ve ripped guitars apart trying to fix them. I remember one time I burned myself really bad with a soldering iron and I said, “All right, I won’t do that again.”
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, yeah. Soldering’s a pain. That’s one of the things that some of the classes do. They teach them how to solder, but they got a situation where they got two wires and one area to do it. But when you’re taking your guard off and digging in, you only got a little area to work with.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, and you got the five or six wires running everything. You’re going, “Oh, no.” But I will say I have really, I guess, in my 44 years have learned my limitations and when it comes to family, I don’t have a problem saying, “Hey, bro, you mind fixing that stair?”
Jeff Thompson:
Right.
Johnny Hiland:
“Because that board right there is loose. If we got to go get another 2 x 6 or whatever and stain it and paint it or whatever and put it on, no problem. But can you fix that one?”
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
I’ve just learned over the years things that I’m able to do and things that I am certainly not. There’s a massive rewarding feeling at the end of that sense of accomplishment that I’ll even tell Kimmie, “It might fall down in three days but I got it together.”
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
But then again, I’ve never had any furniture fall apart on me, so I guess I did all right.
Pete Lane:
Let me switch gears just a bit here. A lot of our audience are transition-age kids, high school, looking up towards either going to college or maybe entering the work force.
Johnny Hiland:
Sure.
Pete Lane:
What advice would you give to visually impaired or blind musicians with are thinking about coming into the music biz in this day and age?
Johnny Hiland:
That is a very hard question, my friend, and I’ll tell you why. The music industry has changed dramatically and drastically. I’ll say it that way. It’s not like it used to be. I am actually scared for our music business right now.
Johnny Hiland:
So what I would tell somebody is, number one, if your love for music is strong and you’re very passionate about it, and obviously in my case I knew God had gifted me with music for my life. It was like that was what I was going to pursue in life. I had such a passion and love for it that it was ongoing. I couldn’t shut it off at any time.
Johnny Hiland:
If it’s like that for you, then by all means, you have to pursue it. But we’re in a day and age now where you have to look at it a lot differently. Back in the day, you went to Nashville, you tried to find a major label deal. You tried to find a record label that would sign you, give you a record deal where you made free records and if you didn’t have a hit you were done. Or you’ve got a hit, a top-10 hit or 40 hit or whatever.
Johnny Hiland:
Nowadays, though, I think you have such a more open-ended way to become an artist in the business today via social media. It’s huge. I do a Facebook Live every Sunday at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time and it’s just me and my wife in our house and I just play guitar and answer questions for people. It’s a Q&A. But I have gained such a bigger fan base by being a real guy to people, to my fans around the world. It’s, “Wow, I can actually reach out and feel like I’m really at Johnny’s house.”
Johnny Hiland:
That’s what I wanted to do. I found that people say Taylor Swift was discovered on Myspace when it was big. Now there’s kids being discovered on Instagram and Twitter and whatever. There’s a bigger, more open-ended way for you to become an artist and there’s an easier way now for everyone to get some kind of a recording device at home.
Johnny Hiland:
The funny thing is, you can make really killer albums out of your house these days. You don’t have to go to a huge studio and pay 100 grand for a record. Nowadays, you can put one single out and become a great success.
Johnny Hiland:
What I would recommend is, learn how to understand the back side of the business. How to understand how to copyright a song properly. How to protect your song so that nobody can steal it and do anything with it. Like anything else in life, protecting yourself is number one. But number two, your music is your property. It’s your work. It comes from your heart, your soul, so of course you want to protect that.
Johnny Hiland:
But you also, I think, really just need to jump on social media, start getting yourself out there, letting people hear who you are. And even if you have a disability, don’t be afraid to take a local gig somewhere, because it’s important to become big in your small town first and then slowly grow your fan base over time and spread yourself out more.
Johnny Hiland:
I did that all through my life as a kid. I started in Maine. Started playing regionally around New England and up in Canada some and when I was in my teen years, my band I was in, we played all over the place around New England. And I moved to Nashville and then my touring schedule got bigger and I was around the country and then I went to Europe. But it grew over time.
Johnny Hiland:
So what I would say, you having to learn how to accept the way of life with your disability, it’s the same way with the music business. Grow it slow. Take your time but know it’s something that you can always pursue. Now, is it always going to be the one big thing that makes your living exactly how you want it to? In this day and age, it’s very hard to make a lot of money in the business.
Johnny Hiland:
I would actually recommend anybody that is of a younger age that’s graduating high school, go to college and get your degree. Don’t do what I did and just jump into Nashville and say, “Well, I have to do it now.” Or find a way to go to Belmont down in Nashville, if that’s where you want to go, and play gigs and go to school at the same time. Grow your fan base at the same time.
Johnny Hiland:
But do not avoid college. Do not avoid getting a better education, because obviously we’re in a technological age where you can’t just have a high school diploma and go out and get a great job. You have to go further.
Jeff Thompson:
Go to school, play your gigs in the summer, like your dad said.
Johnny Hiland:
To go to school and pursue your music career at the same time.
Pete Lane:
Good advice.
Johnny Hiland:
The reason I’d say that is because social media is so open-ended that you can, as long as you get your homework done for college and you got time to do a live Facebook thing at night, do it.
Johnny Hiland:
But people said, “Johnny, why did you move away from Nashville?” Because I realized I can be Johnny Hiland from anywhere. I can fly out of Raleigh, North Carolina anywhere I need to be, grab my band and go on the road. But I can do Facebook Live right from here in Chatham, Virginia. I don’t have to be in Nashville to do that.
Johnny Hiland:
So, in essence, you can live anywhere you want to and still be a part of the music business today because of social media. Because of the fact that you can get around the world easier via social media and still go to college and get your degree and pursue a life that’s going to bring you a good income while you’re pursuing your musical goal.
Johnny Hiland:
But then the other thing I would give for advice is never give up on it. Never allow anyone to say, “Well, you’re legally blind. You can’t do this.” Oh, no? Well, I can do anything I want to do. I really laughed when I was a kid getting into college in the respect that the State of Maine and my mom and dad kind of picked the route I was going to take. It was more of my dad making those decisions. Really, music was in my heart. It was what I intended to follow as a dream and nothing was going to slow me down for that.
Johnny Hiland:
So really, if you have a dream inside of yourself, you have to fulfill it somehow or it’s going to eat your lunch. I think in disability, that drive is even more intense. That’s why when we were talking earlier about me being a sensitive guy. I’m sensitive in that if you tell me I can’t do something, I’m going to show you that I can and I might even do it better than what you think I could.
Pete Lane:
There you go.
Johnny Hiland:
So really, the biggest thing I would give for advice is to continue your education, follow your dream to the best of your ability and never give up on what makes you the happiest in life, even if you have a disability. Nothing is going to slow you down but you. But no one’s going to make your dream any bigger or better than you. Never give up on it.
Johnny Hiland:
I’m 44 years old and people say, “He moved out of Nashville. His career is over.” No, it’s not. I’ve worked more this year than I worked the last five years in Nashville. That’s the thing. I laugh at people when they say, “Ah, man. That’s over for you.” No. It’s not over until I say it’s over.
Pete Lane:
You’re going strong, my friend. What’s in the immediate future for Johnny? What do you got coming up in the next four, six months, maybe 3/20/19, as far a touring, things coming up?
Johnny Hiland:
I’ll say this. I was just talking about how the music business has changed. Touring doesn’t really go on much anymore for guitar players. It does, but it’s on a lesser basis, if you will. I right now am always writing new music. I’m actually putting in my own studio here in Chatham, so I’m actually currently writing stuff for a new album already. I’m doing the thing with the 392nd US Army, man, for the Fourth of July.
Speaker 9:
… nationally acclaimed Nashville recording artist and guitar legend, Johnny Hiland.
Speaker 9:
Let’s hear it for Johnny Hiland and the band.
Audience:
Whoo! All right!
Johnny Hiland:
I am so honored and tickled, man, because I have so many family members who were, you know, my uncle was in the Vietnam war. Kimmie’s dad went to ‘Nam. My grandfather was in the war. My dad was in the Guard. I had a lot of family members who were military, US Army.
Johnny Hiland:
Then from the 10th to the 22nd, I’m going to be in Nashville for the Chet Atkins Appreciation Days.
Pete Lane:
Oh, wow.
Johnny Hiland:
I’m doing my new Christmas record in between there and then I’m doing the NAMM show for Kiesel Guitars. Then when I get back, I’m working for a company called Band-in-the-Box. It’s a studio thing where people can get Johnny Hiland to play on their stuff right on the box. It’s pretty cool. I’m actually doing that in August. September, I’m actually going up for a thumbPicker’s weekend up in Muhlenberg County at the Merle Travis Center. And of course, I’ll be starting my next record.
Johnny Hiland:
So I’m always writing new music and coming up with new record ideas and that kind of thing. But really, man, this last year I have just been enjoying my move to Chatham, Virginia, spending more time with my wife, which is wonderful, because I haven’t really had that. Starting to, I guess what you would say being a man of my middle forties, I’m realizing that life can be simple if you want it to be.
Johnny Hiland:
I always felt like in Nashville, everything was just so thrown in your face all the time and you just had to accept it. Nowadays, it’s like, “I don’t feel like … I think I’m going to go fishing today, just because I need to for me. I need to go fishing today so I’ll put this off until tomorrow.” I find that it’s okay to do that.
Johnny Hiland:
Life has gotten a lot simpler for me, but yet my motivation to my craft is just that much bigger. I’m always looking to teach. I’m writing a new TrueFire course for this time of year. Planning on two new records coming out by mid-2020. Trying to become a member of the ThumbPickers Hall of Fame. I’ve been working on that.
Johnny Hiland:
I’ve got a few more things in the works I’m not quite able to talk about yet, but I will say this. Mr. Jeff Berlin, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with him, but one of the biggest bass players considered in the entire world, just a monster. He came out to one of my recent shows in Nashville and he wants to get together and do something. So who knows where that will lead?
Pete Lane:
Yeah, good stuff.
Johnny Hiland:
They always say, “Well, no one’s ever promised tomorrow,” so I just try to fill every day with as much fun as I can. Honestly, I think anybody out there with a visual impairment or who is totally blind, just know that you got people out there that love you.
Johnny Hiland:
I know Blind Abilities, obviously, you guys doing these podcast shows that anything I can do to help raise awareness for visually impaired and blind people, I’m always going to do that. I’m actually proof positive to everyone listening that you can follow your dreams and pursue it and follow it and achieve it.
Pete Lane:
Yes, you are.
Johnny Hiland:
I just refuse to allow those things to slow me down. Even if I spend the rest of my life being a motivator to others to say, “Yeah, you’re in that spot right now that’s very hard. But you have people standing in your corner who are saying, ‘You can do this. You can get through this and what’s on the other side for you? What’s tomorrow bring?'”
Johnny Hiland:
Because really, man, to be honest with you, I have so many things I’m looking forward to on my career yet that I really don’t even talk to anybody about. They’re just inside of me and just ready to flourish at any time. Do I know when they’re coming? No, but I’m working toward them.
Pete Lane:
Just give you the right opportunity.
Johnny Hiland:
Yeah, just give me the right opportunity and watch me go, man.
Pete Lane:
You know, Johnny, listening to you makes … A thing popped up into my head and I can’t get it out of my mind now. The word “impossible”, if you sound it out, you could say, “I am possible.”
Johnny Hiland:
Absolutely.
Pete Lane:
It’s right there.
Johnny Hiland:
Absolutely, man. I am the first person to hip-hip-hooray to what you just said, brother, because that is the truth. I have been through times in my life where I’ve fought depression. Even just saying, “Gosh, I got in the wrong industry. Music is too hard. It’s too this, it’s too that.” I find that even having a disability, it’s very easy to fall into those traps. Nowadays, I just refuse to be there. I’m like that happy-go-lucky guy all the time that’s like, “No, there’s no such thing as can’t.”
Pete Lane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Johnny Hiland:
Even if you have to say, “I think I can do this,” is better than saying, “I can’t do this.”
Pete Lane:
How can I do this? Yeah.
Johnny Hiland:
Even if you have to say, “Can you help me try to get this done?” I would much rather hear that out of somebody than, “I just can’t do it.” So, really, yeah, I’d like to be that guy that’s a motivator.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, you are. I thought we were going to be talking guitar strings, necks, nuts, guards and amps, tubes and all that and it was going to be hard to talk about the visual impairment with you.
Johnny Hiland:
Oh, no, brother.
Jeff Thompson:
But wow, once we got going on it, this is really educational for people and-
Pete Lane:
Yeah. You are definitely inspiring.
Johnny Hiland:
No, I have actually, guys, it’s living a dream every day and I want every person, legally blind or totally blind, to realize disability will not stop you unless you let it. So don’t allow it to. Life is worth living and it’s worth having fun in.
Johnny Hiland:
One time an old preacher friend of mine said to me, said, “Son, we only got one of these lives to live.”
Pete Lane:
Mmm.
Johnny Hiland:
“Even though your legally blind, does that mean you’re gonna just stop living?” That was really one of the best questions I was ever asked.
Pete Lane:
Once again, Johnny’s web site is …
Jeff Thompson:
Johnnyhiland.net.
Pete Lane:
And you’re all over YouTube, you’re on Facebook, you’re on Twitter, you’re on Instagram. You’re all over social media.
Johnny Hiland:
Yes.
Pete Lane:
There’s a wealth of information on your web site, Johnny, so I would recommend to everybody to go over there and you’re going to find something of interest.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, and I actually want to encourage everybody to join us on Facebook every Sunday at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time on Johnny Hiland Official. That’s H-I-L-A-N-D, like saying hi to the land. Johnny Hiland Official. Tune in every Sunday at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time. We do a Q&A. It’s my wife and I. We welcome you into our house. We play guitar. We have fun.
Johnny Hiland:
Well, hello everybody out there in Facebook Land. It’s your old buddy, Johnny Hiland here on a beautiful, beautiful Sunday afternoon here in Chatham, Virginia. I have to tell y’all I just had the best week hanging out with the US Army Band. It was the last gig for the 392nd US Army Band and the Fourth of July was awesome, except we got rained …
Johnny Hiland:
You can ask me any question except my underwear size. Just won’t give that out.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s good. That’s some we all should take note of.
Pete Lane:
That’s right. TMI, right?
Johnny Hiland:
TMI. That’s right.
Pete Lane:
But we’ve been speaking with Johnny Hiland. Once again, Johnny, it’s been an absolutely pleasure. We got a lot more out of this interview than we expected. As Jeff mentioned earlier, you are not only huge guitarist in the music industry, but you’re a fascinating guest and an inspiring individual and we want to thank you.
Johnny Hiland:
Man, I want to thank you guys too. I really do, in regard to having a podcast of this nature, man. Like I said, raising the awareness is really important and inspiring visually impaired and blind people to follow their dreams is a huge thing, man. So thanks again for having me on with you.
Pete Lane:
Well, you have definitely helped our cause. Thank you.
Jeff Thompson:
Thank you, Johnny.
Johnny Hiland:
Such a pleasure, brother. God bless y’all.
Pete Lane:
You take care, Johnny.
Pete Lane:
Jeff and I want to thank Johnny for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with us. As you heard, he’s busier than ever.
Pete Lane:
We hope you enjoyed the time we spent with Johnny Hiland, hearing about his love for music and the diversity of the genres and musical styles that he engages in. He is clearly one of the highly respected guitarists in Nashville, but is also widely known around the world for his unique talent.
Pete Lane:
Be sure to check him out on his web site at johnnyhiland.net and tune in every Sunday afternoon at 1:00 PM Central, 2:00 PM Eastern, for his Facebook Live presentations with his wife, Kimmie. You can follow Johnny on Facebook at Johnny Hiland Official. Again, that’s spelled J-O-H-N-N-Y H-I-L-A-N-D Official on Facebook.
Pete Lane:
And for all of you who spent the time to listen to this podcast, thanks so much for hanging in there and have a great day.
Pete Lane:
For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindablities.com.
Jeff Thompson:
We’re on Twitter. We’re on Facebook.
Pete Lane:
And be sure to check out our free app.
Jeff Thompson:
In the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
Thanks for listening.
*****
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Transition Coordinator Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361.
To find your State Services in your State you can go to www.AFB.org and search the directory for your agency.
Contact:
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