Bon Jovi Guitarist Explains How He Got Better Than Most Guitarists

Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X sat down with Guitar Summit for a public interview and revealed how he got better at playing guitar. The guitarist didn’t shy away from giving tips and sharing mistakes to avoid.

“My ear training was learning Aerosmith and AC/DC and ‘Back In Black’ without help. I think that’s more important,” he explained. “There’s a kid I know and he’s been playing for six years but sounds like he’s been playing for two months, and he took lessons. So that teacher sucks and maybe he doesn’t practice, so he sucks. But the bottom line is you see other people that have been playing for 6 months and sound they’ve been playing for like 20 years, they’re amazing.”

The rocker mentioned what’s more important while learning how to play guitar, and named one thing that guitarists shouldn’t do: “It’s not how long you’ve been playing, it’s how much you put into it in that length of time. And again the ear training thing is learning on your own and not watching a video because it’s funny. Somebody put up a video of playing the solo to Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ like Eddie’s solo incorrectly. Now there’s a whole slew of people playing it incorrectly because they learned it from that guy. F*ck that guy.”

The guitarist notes that it’s important to practice to improve your playing, but there are apparently a few more things people don’t pay attention to and put enough effort into. “I had this thing called ‘conquer the lick’ where I would try to come up with really crazy, abnormal licks that my fingers weren’t accustomed to and I wouldn’t put down the guitar until I had nailed it,” he told Guitar Skills, “and that not only helped me gather my vocabulary of personal favorites of my own licks but it also developed my technique.”

He added, “It got my fingers doing stuff that they couldn’t do prior: left hand, right hand, talking to each other, and the communication between left and right hand is almost like an art that is lost to some players. Like, you can see them picking and you can see them fingering with the left hand but you can see that they are not joined. You can see that they are not talking to each other, and that’s where sloppiness comes from… I don’t think a lot of people put enough effort into that.”

In other news, Bon Jovi recently appeared on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart with their song ‘Now or Never,’ debuting at number 13. The track features the chorus from Bon Jovi’s hit ‘It’s My Life.’