Ronnie Montrose
Ronnie Montrose
Ronald Douglas "Ronnie" Montrosewas an American rock guitarist, who led the bands Montroseand Gammaand also performed and did session work with a variety of musicians, including Van Morrison, Herbie Hancock, Beaver & Krause, Boz Scaggs, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, The Beau Brummels, Dan Hartman, Tony Williams, The Neville Brothers, Marc Bonilla, Sammy Hagar, and Johnny Winter. The first Montrose album was often cited as "America's answer to Led Zeppelin" and Ronnie Montrose was often referred to as one of the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth29 November 1947
CountryUnited States of America
What made me pick up a guitar? It weighed a lot less than a piano.
My philosophy is, honestly never collected anything that I don't play. I know a lot of people that collect guitars, but for me, I want instruments that I play. And if I don't play them, I don't' want to have them sitting in a closet collecting dust.
I feel very fortunate to have my ears. I'd share them with everybody but I only have two to go around.
I was producing demos for a band that was called Physical Ed. Out of production of demos I went and did a few jam sessions with then in Northern California clubs, but I never actually toured with them.
Reading and writing music is a wonderful way of getting ideas in your head down to someone else who reads and writes, but if you don't read and write, and the other musician you're playing with are trying to express something who doesn't read and write, than it's a question of "I wrote" so that you must learn from listening and from understanding where that's coming from.
I was too broke to buy a guitar so I more borrowed guitars from friends.
I'm pursuing soundtrack work in the southern California area and down the line I plan to make a moody, intense acoustic album. Not all acoustic, but an acoustic - oriented guitar record that I've already written most of the material for.
I don't recall getting a first guitar.
When I started reaching teenage years, I listened to everything that was on the radio like everyone else did, which was Chuck Berry, Beach Boys and then of course The Beatles, Stones. And of course in the 60's, I was completely blown away like everyone else by Hendrix, Cream, Deep Purple, Jeff Beck and all of that... so those were my influences.
I would say seeing the original Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page at the old Fillmore was a pretty powerful influence on me.
You know, you don't please everybody.
Attempting to write vocal oriented songs to me felt like going through the motions and if you are going to go through the motions you might as well just do any gig that caused you to do repetitive motions like banging a hammer or serving fries.