by Jason Bloom
Jason: What inspired you to become a guitarist?
Greg: What inspired me to become a guitarist, huh? I guess the whole thing is I wanted to be a rock and roll star when I was a kid. Some guys wanted to be fire fighters, other guys wanted to be, you know, business people and lawyers, I wanted to be a rock star. I started playing guitar mainly back when I was your age and I kinda continued from there, until, well, until today actually. I’m still doing it. What inspired me is I love rock and roll, I love music and I decided, “Man, that is cool. I want to do that.” The further I got into it the harder it was to stop doing it.
J: Who are your musical influences?
G: Oh, boy. Where to start there? I have many influences. I guess the most influential band that I listen to would be like the Grateful Dead. But because of me being a guitar teacher my influences vary widely across the guitar community, I mean I dig Eddie Van Halen, I dig Randy Rhoads, Jerry Garcia, Dickey Betts, Trey Anastasio, tons of them. Tons and tons of musical influences. All guitar players. Maybe a couple of piano players. I really dig Paul McCartney and Elton John and stuff like that. Beatles all the way to Frank Zappa. Plenty of influences.
J: How many years have you been in your band [Cosmic Railroad]?
G: Let me see I started a bad when I was eighteen and I’ve been pretty much going strong since then. What happened is that band changed into the next band, changed the name, and then it turned into the next band and then the next band, and probably in the mid nineties it turned into a band called Strawberry Square and that kind of turned into Cosmic Railroad. We mixed with another band. It was Strawberry Square and Uncle Ray’s Garden. We kind of turned it into Cosmic Railroad which officially was in 2003, so that was maybe four five years ago, something like that. So if you ask how long I’ve been in my band I’m gonna tell you twenty years, because I feel I started it when I was eighteen and it just kept morphing into whatever it is today. As far as our current line-up and our current name and our current direction, then probably around four years.
J: How long have you been teaching?
G: I’ve been teaching probably since ’95. I was in college studying music at Parkside and I started to teach at night for extra income. I’d work and go to school during the day and I’d teach at night, so probably twelve years I’ve been teaching guitar full-time.
J: Why did you start teaching?
G: Why did I start to teach? Well, again, when I was a kid I wanted to be a rock and roll star, right? I was studying music in college, studying guitar and music theory and teaching and all that kind of stuff. Learning how to do all that stuff in school and at the time I was working a regular job like most people and realized that that’s not what I wanted to do with my life. So I decided to bite the bullet, quit all that and just start becoming a musician. There are a lot of people who are musicians. Some guys work during the day and play in a band at night, there’s other guys that have bands that they play in night after night to make money. There’s other guy’s that teach during the day and rock at night. I’m one of teach during the day and rock at night guys. By doing that, I’m able to be a musician, a full-time musician and not have to work any other jobs or anything like that. That’s kind of what made me become a teacher and do that is because I wanted to spend my days doing music as well as my nights, instead of working a regular job during the day and only rocking out at night. I decided to be full-time.
J: When does your new store open and where will it be located?
G: Well, the new store is Kenosha Conservatory of Music. It’s located at 4507 7th Avenue, starting March 1st 2008. It’s mainly based on lessons, with a little bit of retail. We have nine rooms, one big class room. We do rock band classes, jazz band classes, blues band classes. We do intro guitar classes, intro drum classes, music theory classes, live sound and recording classes seminars and all that kind of stuff. Anything that has to do with music or the production of music, we try to teach there. As well as drums, bass, piano, guitar, woodwinds, brass and voice. There you go.
Greg Gierl you have been “exposed”
You can contact Greg through her myspace page, or through the Kenosha Conservatory of Music website.
Jason Bloom is a 7th grader who loves to play guitar and plays viola for his school’s orchestra. Jason is grounded often.
4 comments ↓
Hey Jason, I thought the interview was great. Wondering what kind of guitar music you play: rock? And do you like your teacher? If so, why?
Thanks. I usually play rock- metal and alternative. I like Greg, he’s a good teacher. He teaches you quickly and doesn’t keep you waiting. And he lets me learn the music that I want to learn.
Jason, That was a very interesting interview! He sounds like a Very good teacher.
If someone has an e-mail or contact info for Jason, please send it my way. I’d like to offer him a 45 minute slot at the Bloomin’ Days Festival this year.
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