Tue, 29/07/2008 - 22:24 - Owen Edwards

HOWARD & LES

OE: SO WHEN DID YOU GET THE COURAGE TO ACTUALLY GO AND PLAY TO SOME PEOPLE?

Howard Stern!

OE: FIRST TIME EVER?!

Yeah - I know! He called me up as he'd got wind of it that I was playing ‘Eruption’ the way I do it. I'd done an online guitar lesson thing going: I'd done a couple of audio clips at home and learnt how to send an MP3 over the Internet: I think after a couple of months I got to Number One on this web site Forum, and then they wanted to actually show people how I was doing all of this.

So I swallowed my fear and decided to just throw it up there - and the forum went crazy! No one believed it, and through the power of the Internet Howard Stern got wind of it, and on April 10th 2007 I was on Howard Stern playing ‘Eruption’!

PH: HOW MANY PEOPLE LISTENED TO THAT?

Oh God... I betcha I hit at least 10,000,000 people in one morning! Literally all over the world!

They told me in the morning that it would be a good idea for me to throw up something online on Youtube - I got 80,000 hits on the morning of the Stern show!

OE: THAT’S PRETTY AMAZING!

Yeah - I looked on the Youtube page - they have like the most discussed and watched video - and I was like in the top 3 of everything: within ONE morning!

Then I put up a MySpace page and the digits just went up and up - I couldn't keep up with it: so I took it down again that same night...

OE: WHY?!

Well, I was feeling like: "What is this for?" It was like too much attention for just one shot. But Howard was great: he loved what I did, he supported me - he still does - and then Jackie 'The Jokeman' Martling showed the Youtube ‘Eruption’ clip to Les Paul. Les then invited me down to his club to play live - and that was the first time I ever played a band: sitting in with the Les Paul!!!

OE: NOT QUITE LIKE MOST OF US, DOWN AT THE LOCAL ‘DOG AND DUCK’!!!!

So, now I play there from time to time Monday night at the ‘Iridium Jazz Club’ in New York City - down on Times Square and Broadway - right literally across from where they shoot ‘Late Night With David Letterman’!

It can seem like a Batman movie in downtown New York - giant colours and there I am walking into the ‘Iridium’ through a private door to play with the man who invented the electric guitar! It doesn't seem real, y'know?

I went from fearing this, to thinking "I don't think it’s possible..." to "I wonder what people might think of it..." to Howard Stern embracing it... to PLAYING WITH THE INVENTOR OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR!!Lester William Paul

I can't really get much more credibility or reassurance than that: so now I'm working extra hard!!