Justin Sandercoe

Featured Artist of the Month

January 2010

Justin Sandercoe

"Justin Guitar"

Our December Track of the Month winner, rising star Justin Sandercoe (otherwise known as Justin Guitar) is due to release his debut album Small Town Eyes on 28 February 2010. Justin made a name for himself over the Internet, when his free guitar lessons received more than 55 million hits on Youtube, teaching the world how to play guitar completely for free in these cash strapped times.

Having taught artists such as Katie Melua and Cathy Dennis to play guitar on tour (and even touring with Katie for 3 years), Justin certainly knows what he’s talking about.

Now the spotlight has turned, and Justin is releasing his first album ‘Small Town Eyes’, which is a mixture of heartfelt chilled guitar tunes, to more upbeat contemporary tracks, taking influence from Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Justin is one talented man – not only does he write and sing his own tunes, as well as the guitar, he also plays the mandolin, bass guitar, harmonica, lap steel and percussion.

The album is something to kick back and relax to with lyrics that are poetic, written to get you thinking and reflecting. A limited edition of Small Town Eyes was released in December 2009 and included a DVD “The making of…”, with only 2009 copies available and each one signed and numbered it sold out in less than 3 weeks!

Just so that you know Justin has kindly given a copy of the limited edition album to us at wohomusic and it will be offered as a prize in the near future, following a full review of the album itself. For now though, we have an interview with Justin himself for you to read . . .

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INTERVIEW

By Luke Blackall

LB: You’re best known for your hugely popular website justinguitar.com, how did that come about?

JS: My website started years ago when I was playing all of London’s toilets and pubs in a band. In my time off I started to learn about the internet and making websites for the bands I played in. I made one of my own to advertise myself as a teacher and started putting a few lessons. My big break came in 2003 when YouTube started to kick off. I put video lessons on there and I went from having 400 visitors a month to my site to 4,000 a day. Now my videos have had over 50 million views and the site gets well over 25,000 unique visitors every day.

LB: What’s it like being able to reach that many people?

JS: It’s amazing to have that audience. When I was on tour with Katie Melua we were often playing to audiences of 10,000, but having more than double that many people visit the site every day without me being there is a massive audience, the internet is amazing.

LB: Do you get recognised much?

JS: It always seems to be somewhere like my local Sainsbury’s. I’ll be looking at the selection of pasta trying to decide what to go for and people will come up to me. I don’t mind at all. I once had to give out an autograph in Sainsbury’s, which was fine, but as soon as people saw me give one out, others came over to ask me to sign their receipts or brochures, not even knowing who I am! That was very weird.

I just did a scuba diving course and the instructor asked what I did. When I said I played guitar she looked down at the sheet again and then asked if I do stuff on YouTube. Turned out that her ex-boyfriend used the site all the time and was a big fan. It’s a small world after all…

LB: You’re site’s run from donations alone. Are people generous in their giving?

JS: Only something like 0.02% of people who use the site make a donation, but the ones that do can be pretty generous. But there are lots of people who use it because they can’t afford guitar lessons anyway. I can make a living from it, so that’s great and I think the site will come out better in the end if I keep it free. I think my site is better than any of the sites you have to sign up to and pay 20 dollars a month.

But I worked out that if everyone who used my site paid a dollar a month, that would mean I’d be getting over 700,000 dollars a month. It’s always a carrot of temptation but I’m not too concerned by money. Sure it would be nice to have a Ferrari or a six-bedroom house in Chiswick, but it’s not what is important to me right now!

But overall the site has been a whole adventure full of serendipity.

But you can live off it?

JS: Yes, combined with DVD sales, the proceeds from the site have helped in financing my album. People don’t realise how much it costs to make a record, with the production, distribution and the million others things that you have to do.

LB: Tell us about the album, how did it come about?

JS: I write all the time, and a lot of the album was written while I was on tour. After I finished touring with Katie Melua I took a year off with no private lessons or session to finish writing and making the record.

LB: Did you have a strict discipline to writing?

JS: When we were working on it, we’d spend the whole day recording and playing around with it. Because I’m financing the record I have an extra reason not to take too much time over it. I’m not the Kings of Leon getting put up in a residential studio on a tropical island somewhere where you can take your time doing it. Plus, because it’s my first album I was also able to pick the best songs that I’d written from the last few years.

My philosophy was always, let’s get it done and let’s get it done properly, but without too much playing around!

LB: But you enjoyed yourself doing it?

JS: Of course. They were really fun days. My producer was really creative, we were taping mics to the floor and recording the sounds. Then we came up with this amazing sound that we got from putting a mic on a drum skin and using that sound for reverb. I’m also a vintage effects pedal collector so we spent quite a lot of time playing with electric guitar effects, old tape machines and stuff.

LB: So once the album comes out, do you hope to move away from the stuff you were doing before?

I hope now not to have to go back to session’s music stuff, or teaching classes – though I’ll keep the site going, because I love developing it and helping so many people!

LB: You taught Katie Melua to play guitar, was she a fast learner?

JS: Katie’s a hard worker and a fast learner. She gets a hard press, but she’s a fantastic singer and she worked really hard. She went from being not being able to really play at to fronting concerts in just 6-8 months.

LB: You’ve taught a few celebrities how to play guitar, any other highlights?

Cathy Dennis was great. She’s really funny. What was amazing was that people like the Spice Girls, Simon Cowell and Katy Perry would be on the phone to her during lessons and that was normal life for her.

LB: Who would you like to have your music compared to?

Well my biggest influence of all time in Neil Young. But my music wouldn’t be a callus on his big toe! But my aim would be to try to make music that connects with people, the way he connects to me. I’ve had a couple of friends tell me that my song Turn to Tell has made them cry. And then a few people have told me they connect with songs in ways that I couldn’t have imagined before.

LB: Did you see Neil Young when he was last in town?

No! I had two tickets, but we were recording that I day and I couldn’t get away. I ended up giving the tickets to my girlfriend and her friend, but the worst thing was, they hated it!

LB: Do you ever look at artists now and think, they could do with guitar lessons?

Not really... well sometimes. Learning theory or technical guitar stuff doesn’t make you a good musician, but I occasionally see guys that could use a few tips on tone or help them play something easier. I’m sure Neil Young doesn’t know any scales but that doesn’t stop him being brilliant.

LB: Who else do you like at the moment?

Well they’re not particularly new, but Wilco, Neil Finn and I think my friend Polly Scattergood is amazing. And I love Jeff Beck and Tommy Emmanuel, even though I don’t write music like that, I love playing challenging guitar stuff.

LB: What was your first break in music when you moved to the UK?

JS: I was living in a cockroach-infested p**shole and working in a pub. I was there for about 6 weeks when one of the regulars asked what I really wanted to do and I said play guitar. The next day he brought in a copy of the Stage magazine with all the jobs for guitarists circled. I called one of the ads and ended up working in a Butlins holiday camp in Somerset for eight months. That was an eye opener.

LB: So pop stardom isn’t what you’re after?

JS: I could have written more pop stuff, I’ve written more of that stuff with other people in the past. If you want to write a radio hit it’s about sitting down and working to a set formula. But I didn’t really want to do that! Plus, I’ve seen the effects of it. There’s so much more bull*hit that comes with being a popstar. It’s not good for the soul.

LB: You’re hoping to tour with a band when the album’s out, who’s going to be lining up behind you?

JS: It’s been fun putting the band together. Svetlana Vassileva’s going to come in on bass, she’s this fantastic looking 6 foot blonde musician who plays with Moby, and a friend of mine Dario Cortese who’s a brilliant Italian guitarist will be joining as well. I’m working on a drummer now, though can’t talk about it yet and I’m yet to decide whether to take a keyboard player as well.

LB: As an artist funding it himself, what’s your approach to tying in with brands and getting sponsorship?

JS: It’s really tough out there, so often you need it. The only rule that I’ve got is that I will not endorse things that I don’t like. I played with a band once who had a guitar string deal, they would send over boxes and boxes of strings. But the problem was, all the string were crap, they kept breaking. So from that moment I decided it couldn’t only be brands that I respected. But all of the companies that I’ve worked with since have been the ones that I really liked. And they were all really helpful.

LB: And you don’t want to mislead fans?

No way, on the forum on my site there are over 13,000 members. I feel that I know a lot of them personally from there and from coming to the gigs. I would never want to spring any bull*hit endorsements on them!

LB: Are you worried that if the album’s as big a success as the website that it’ll all go to your head?

No, I’ve got some great friends and none of us tolerate any ego inflation. And my girlfriend wouldn’t even put up with it slightly. She’s a great critic; she’s really blunt and tells me when she doesn’t like something.

LB: Have you ever had to deal with any over-excited fans?

One girl used to come to every gig with her boyfriend. Every show she’d bake a cake or make biscuits and hand them out at the show, in exchange for email addresses so that I could keep in touch with the people at the show. Generally I have really nice fans!

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To visit his Justin's wohomusic profile page - click the link on the left.

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Justin's winning track 'Pity the Rose' as well as another one of his beautiful songs, 'Imperfect', can be heard on the player below: