Ladd Smith Named Guitar Player's Guitar Hero 2007

by Michael Shea.

Shred is out and country is in? Well, not exactly, but it might have seemed that way based on the winners of Guitar Player magazine’s Guitar Hero 2007 (GH07) competition, held at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall on Friday, October 12. Ten guitarists, selected from hundreds of entries, played for a panel of judges who decided which guitarist would be named Guitar Hero 2007 (background article).

An enthusiastic congregation was on hand to attend this guitar ritual, anxiously awaiting each performer. The crowd was there, not only to hear the contestants perform, but to see what kind of guitars they played. There were seasoned veterans in the judges’ box, the rising generation of guitar heroes (like last year’s GP06 winner, Trey Alexander, and the ten contestants); industry folks; and potential, future guitar greats, such as the two pre-teen boys standing at the bottom of the stage, who kept pointing to themselves when GH07 host Brendon Small asked, “Do you want to know who the next Guitar Hero is?”

The evening began with introductions by Guitar Player magazine Editor in Chief, Michael Molenda, and Small. During the evening, the audience was treated to performances by the house band, Thud Factor (Ernie Rideout, keyboards, Jonathan Herrera, bass, and Jude Gold, guitar), GP06 winner Trey Alexander who performed the tune he won with at last year's event, and a half-time performance by Nuno Bettencourt. When Bettencourt finished with his solo piece, he talked Greg Howe into coming on stage and jamming with him. In addition to the on-stage show, attendees could try their hand at Activison’s Guitar Hero III game, which was available throughout the event.

Each contestant used his own guitar and pedals, but all played out of the same Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Roadster amp. When it was a contestant’s turn to play, his pedals were set up on stage and Small introduced him. In order of appearance, the contestants were: Curtis Fornadley, Les Robot, Juan Coronado, Chris Peters, Ladd Smith, Jamie Robinson, Casey Harshbarger, Taka Minamino, Danny B. Harvey, and Tony Smotherman. (See photo gallery below.)

After each performance, judges Joe Satriani, Steve Lukather, Nuno Bettencourt, Elliot Easton, Greg Howe, and Shrapnel Records’ Mike Varney – sitting on the second floor balcony overlooking the stage and main floor – rendered their judgment on the act. Once all contestants had played, the judges gave each player a score from one to ten, then, as a group, added up all the scores to determine the winner – Ladd Smith, a 25-year-old picker from Hendersonville, Tennessee.

The first runner-up was Les Robot (real name Cory Melnychuk) from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and the second runner-up was Danny B. Harvey from Echo Park, California. The three winning contestants all shared something in common: their playing was markedly different from the other contestants’ more shred-like style. Ladd and Harvey had a country/rockabilly sound, while Guitar Player’s Jude Gold described Robot’s style as “hypnotic-mutant-country licks.”

Modern Guitars spoke with several of the contestants before the show.

Second runner-up, Danny B. Harvey –

MG: How are you preparing yourself for this gig?

Danny: I’ve been practicing a lot today. But the thing is, the song I’m doing tonight I’ve played like a thousand times live, so I didn’t need too much practice. But I had to make it longer a little bit, so today I’m practicing a lot to I make sure I’m warmed up before I go on. And I’m not drinking. That can be good or bad [laughs]. Normally, I have two drinks before I go on, and I’m thinking I won’t have a drink, but maybe that will be bad!

MG: Are you doing the song that you sent in as an MP3 in the first round?

Danny: I’m doing a variation. The song was recorded six years ago and now it’s changed, it’s evolved. It’s recognizable as the same song, but it has all these other parts to it.

MG: Will your plans for the future change depending on whether you win?

Danny: I’m booked for the rest of the year. I fingerpick, I’m a solo artist like Merle Travis or Tommy Emmanuel or something like that, so I’d like to get a chance to be able to do an album of just me playing guitar with no accompaniment. That’s what I’m doing tonight. I’m going to be the one contestant that doesn’t use the band.

Curtis Fornadley –

MG: How are you preparing yourself for tonight?

Curtis: It’s all mental, so I just try and keep my mental thing up. The usual practice, nothing out of the ordinary, practice-wise, but it’s all mental.

MG: What are you doing to prepare yourself mentally?

Curtis: I guess trying to find my quiet space [laughing, because he’s in a hallway full of people and noise]. I don’t know, breathing and stuff. I played a bunch of shows with a band just to keep playing. It’s an entirely different thing to play in front of people than to play in your room.

Tony Smotherman –

MG: How are you preparing yourself for tonight?

Tony: Well, I think the most important thing is just preparing myself mentally you know, because there’s a bunch of great players here, and I just have to keep myself flowing and know that this feels like a showcase more than a competition of any sort. You know, just hang out with my new guitar friends and play some guitar.

MG: How about your fingers?

Tony: Yeah, I’m warmed up, been practicing awhile. I just put new strings on the guitar, so I’m trying to warm up a little bit.

MG: New strings? Have you stretched them out?

Tony: Oh sure, yeah. I’ve been doing that for a couple of hours. I put them on about 5:00 p.m. and have been stretching them.

MG: Did you guys all bring your own amps?

Tony: No, we’re all playing through a – we had a choice of a Mesa Boogie Stiletto amp and a different kind of Mesa Boogie. I’m not sure what they call the other one. [The Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Roadster amp.]

MG: How about the pedals?

Tony: You are allowed to bring your own pedals.

MG: Will your sound change very much by playing through a different amp?

Tony: Sure, a little bit. You try to get it as close as you can to the sound that you know in your head. Whether it’s asking the sound guy to put a little delay on it or whatever you got to do to get it you know, that’s like the big thing.

Casey Harshbarger –

MG: How are you preparing yourself for tonight?

Casey: Oh man, you know, practiced a lot of the track I'm going to do, and listen to a lot of the guitar players I grew up listening to trying to get inspired. Some of the judges, Satriani and Lukather, are guys I listen to a lot, so it was like getting their stuff out was really inspiring, re-listening to that. Just jamming in general. I’m big on blues so I pull out old blues albums and just try and get myself greased up.

MG: Do you feel your tone has been affected by using their amp rather than your own?

Casey: You know, I play normally play with a couple of Fender amps and I run them clean, and I play with two overdrive pedals and stuff, so I pretty much get my tone as far as the overdrive and stuff from my pedals, so it wasn’t too bad for me. I dialed it in pretty much like I do a Fender and used the clean channel. And I was glad that I brought my pedals. I was considering maybe not, so I was glad that I did.

MG: Did you put new strings on your guitar?

Casey: Yeah, I did last night. I got them stretched out and ready to go!

Future Guitar Hero contestants might want to take note of some of the judges’ comments to the contestants. (We have noted a name when the judge making the comment could be identified.)

To Curtis Fornadley (who during his performance turned his guitar over and ran it across his chest to create a scratching sound) –

“Curtis, that scratching thing went over really well up here…I wanted to make sure I kept focus with: is it in time, is it in tune, is there a direction with a harmony and groove…” (Joe Satriani)

To first runner-up Les Robot –

“Your name alone makes you a guitar hero.”

To Chris Peters (who played a Chellee guitar designed by Peter Taylor) –

“Some people never find the exact right guitar for years and years, but that is the perfect exact right guitar that you should be playing.”

“It was a good groove. I liked it. The guitar, I tell you, it looks great from up here. Beautiful color, very unusual shape.” (Joe Satriani)

“You weren’t as concerned about doing ripping solos, but rhythm playing is a bit of a lost art these days…I think it’s very cool that you focused on that. That’s just great.”(Nuno Bettencourt)

“Nice job, I really liked it. I liked your rhythm playing a lot, I thought it was real in pocket, very funky and at first I was thinking your stage moves were kind of lacking. You might want to so something about that, but now I’m thinking that is your thing – no stage moves!”

“The guitar is close to your heart and your chin” (Greg Howe)

To winner Ladd Smith –

“Amazing. I couldn’t play like that in a million years. That was very entertaining.”

“You can hang with any of those country picker guys in Nashville.”

“I was totally impressed.”

To Jamie Robinson –

“If I could give some constructive criticism I would say, maybe try to find your own style…. The thing about guitar players, unlike horn players, is you don’t have to take a breath to keep playing and I think maybe you should try and breathe a little bit longer.” (Elliot Easton)

To Casey Harshbarger –

“You got a lot of guts to come to a guitar competition and play a song in a major key.” (Joe Satriani)

“I think you’ve got a real strong compositional sense.” (Elliot Easton)

“You’ve got some stage moves there. I’ve got to give you an X for stage performance, that was very cool.”

“I thought the composition was really nice and you threw in some really nice arpeggios.”

To Taka Minamino –

“I wish your guitar had been louder up here, because that display of technique, that technique was really great.” (Joe Satriani)

“One of the coolest things was that you actually stopped and let the keyboard play.”

“I just don’t understand what an endless barrage of notes like that is meant to convey, is it joy, or pain, is it, I mean I don’t know. I’m sure you can feel it, but I don’t get it. It’s just like, look, you know you’re an amazing technical player and faster than anybody, but I just don’t get it on a musical level.” (Elliot Easton)

To second runner-up Danny B. Harvey (who played without the backup band) –

“I think what’s really cool that a lot of people don’t think about how hard it is to play fast and with fluidity – you know, clean, dry, bone dry” (Elliot Easton)

“People tell me that those who play fast, play with no soul, people who play slow, have soul. I disagree. I think people that play fast also have a lot of fine soul.”

“Man, you were funky. You were fast, you were funky and so good.” (Greg Howe)

“Frank Zappa once said, to get ahead in the music business you need a good lawyer and a good haircut. You got a good haircut, so you’re half way there. And you do have a good jacket, that looks really cool, and that piece of music you played was a lot of fun and I like it.” (Joe Satriani)

To Tony Smotherman –

“Freddie Mercury once said, the heaviest note you can play is the space that you leave between the note, and I love that you left so much space, that shows maturity.” (Nuno Bettencourt)

“That intro was awesome, really cool and different.” (Greg Howe)

Photo Gallery

Related Links
Guitar Player Magazine's Michael Molenda Talks about GH07
GH07 on Guitar Player
Guitar Player TV

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