The last time we heard from Davis Guggenheim he was winning an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth (which turned itself into “Al Gore won an Oscar.”) There is no mistaking the director behind this project, however. Guggenheim sat down recently for press alongside Jimmy Page and Jack White — the other guitarist in the film, The Edge, wasn’t there. These dudes are phenomenal, as Jeff Spicoli might say.
Q: Jack and Jimmy, both of you have discussed doing solo albums. What can we expect, musically, from those albums, and would you want to guest on each other’s albums?
Jack: (Joking) I think Jimmy needs to practice a little more, before something like that happens.
Q: Do you think today’s audience is more interested in the personality of the musician or the musicality of the performer?
Jack: Lines are getting a little bit blurred. People are famous for being famous, in this decade. You have to make a choice. There are distractions, all around. There’s so much media now, for a young kid to battle against, to get to something soulful. You have to make a decision, on your own, what you can take from these people, if you can dig deeper. It’s nice to be able to let people dig deeper. This film is letting people dig deeper into the music, let alone the personalities. It doesn’t matter what high school Jimmy or I, or The Edge, went to. But, there are things you can dig into with the music and where it comes from.
It Might Get Loud is among the high profile docs in the race this year and, for the most part, it reaches across generations, always a good thing for Oscar voters. Originally discovered on ONTD, where they provide pictures and a youtube vid.
14 Responses for "Rock Gods: It Might Get Loud"
The Edge and Rock God don’t go together. They should have gotten someone better.
If The Edge doesn’t qualify, then Jack White doesn’t either. U2 is arguably the biggest band on the planet right now and were huge in the 80s-early 90s… he qualifies as a bridge between Page and White.
That’s like having Paul McCartney on a doc about greatest bassists. Just because you’re in the biggest band doesn’t make you an icon/rock god. If they wanted to get a guitarist from the 80’s they should have gotten Eddie Van Halen or Slash….if Stevie Ray Vaughn or Duane Allmann were alive they would be perfect candidates.
Jack White and The Edge can’t go in the same level as Jimmy Page. There are a million beter guitarist. From David Gilmour to James Hetfield or even Billy Corgan.
Ha…I’m guessing you haven’t seen Jack White and Billy Corgan play live if you think Corgan’s better on guitar.
And ChrisW, it’s funny you mention Paul on bass because Paul is often credited as being one of the most influential bassists of the past 50 years. Take some time to listen to John Lennon bootlegs, and the number one thing that comes across is John bitching at every bassist to play more like Paul.
Harry, I’m a big fan of both The Beatles and u2, and it’s undeniable how influential Paul is, but he wasn’t great. He was very steady and reliable, like how Ringo was on drums….not spectacular, but never messes up. Also, Paul is a great producer and has such a great ear….I just don’t think his bass playing is like a John Paul Jones or and Entwhistle. That’s all. That’s just the problem I have with the Edge in this…there are better guitarists of his era and they are just as popular.
Sorry for the grammatical errors, I’m usually very picky, but I’m at work.
Jack White is comparable to all the greatest guitar players. Wacth a live performance and your comparrison to Billy Corgan will be blown away. In time he will become one of the all time greats. Very excited to see him in a doc along side Jimmy Page.
I saw It Might Get Loud at Sundance and it is an excellent film. I saw it in the library theater, and can’t wait to see it again in a real theater with a good sound system.
I am not an electric guitar fan, per se, and went because this was the film my husband most wanted to see. It Might Get Loud ended up being one of the films I enjoyed most at the festival, and we were lucky in that Jack White attended our screening and did the Q&A.
When Davis Guggenheim was asked at the Q&A why these three, he just said that Jimmy Hendrix was not available. Whether these three are the best is not really what the film is about. It’s a movie dedicated to the electric guitar, and each musician tells how he bought his first one, and what led them into music. I think picking these three covered three generations of music, in a way. It was very cool to see them all jam together, too.
Every music fan, I’m sure, has their own dream “roundtable” of guitarists (mine might include David Gilmour, Eddie Van Halen, and Billy Corgan, or many others). But all three of them are worthy of discussion, and I haven’t read many interviews with these three, so I think it’ll be interesting. I do hope they spend an equal time on mechanics and on the feeling behind it.
I’m not a big fan of White or for that matter the Edge either. He certainly has a certain distinctive tone.
But what I think the film is doing is just bringing together 3 generations of players and picking their brains. You could flip flop Page with Clapton or Jeff Beck, take somebody like Eddie Van Halen for the next generation and then for the newer generation someone like Adam Jones or Tom Morello. It just so happens to be these 3 people, and I’m OK with that. It could have been worse.
In terms of composition and tone, Edge is the most influential guitarist of the last couple decades, bands of all styles are filled with guitar players trying to either sound like him with his sparse composition or chiming-delay. He’s much more a song-writer and audio-artist than your typical ‘guitar-hero’ who shreds off solos at the expense of the overall song. He deserves to be here for sure, each of them do, for various different reasons, technically Jack White is quite a compelling player and he does so many bizarre things, he’s an interesting personality to profile.
I think what some people here might be missing is this is a documentary of the guitar, not guitarists, so I don’t think shredding was the top qualification?, more likely sounds, influence, styles ect. All 3 are innovators of sound, style, and have had major influence on other guitarists as well as music as a whole. I’m a guitarist and have had this discussion with other guitarists and we’ve all come to the same conclusion. And yeah, it’s too bad Hendrix wasn’t available
The Edge is a ROCK GOD….tonnes of bands from Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls, The Killers to even dare I say this….Bob Dyland and Springsteen have acknowledged the Edge’s fantastic skills…
You dont see these accomplished musicians slagging of the Edge becos these musicians should know a Rock God when they see one..
when people like us slag off The Edge, its like a pebble telling a human being how to live
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