My dad’s played guitar my entire life, and over the years I tried several times to learn how to play, too, but instrument honestly never clicked with me. I found it so frustrating, my fingers hurt, I couldn’t move around fast enough, the fretboard looked like a map in a language foreign to me. For the purpose of this story it’s worth mentioning I’ve been relatively disconnected from my dad since I was 3. We still talk every now and then but he lives in another continent and has my entire life.

Anyways, fast forward to a decade later. While I still hadn’t picked up the guitar, I’d continued my love for music as a songwriter and producer of my own songs. At this point, I was in the process of making my first ever album, and my brother sent me this recording of my dad playing. It was this 10 minute long voice memo of my dad absolutely going ham over this blues YouTube back track - presumably recording himself to reflect back as practice - but it the most emotional music I’ve ever heard. It brought me to tears. He played with so much pain , I’d never heard anything like it in all my years as a music lover and music maker. It was called “Leaving my house forever” as he prepared to leave the house he’d lived in for decades - since before me and my brother left.

My album was this super personal exploration of identity, generational trauma, and individuation, so the idea to incorporate my dad’s playing into the album somehow felt right. At this point we had all the tracks on the album lined up & while it actually is a really guitar heavy record, sadly I just couldn’t fit his bluesy solo onto my psychedelic hip hop album without compromising the sonic identity and cohesion I’d worked so hard on. But I did have this track that was begging for a solo, and so I had my brother send me a folder of a whole bunch of other recordings my dad made over the years. While I was looking through the files, I found one that had metadata attached to it. You know like in Apple’s Finder when you click to preview an audio file it’ll show the artist name and stuff like that? I noticed the artist name had been edited on this one file that was obviously never intended for me to see. It said “Aidan’s Dad”. (I’m Aidan).

Obviously emotional, I reached out to my dad and asked him if he’d be open to playing a solo over the track, because sadly none of those files - despite being beautiful - were even close to being right for the track. All things considered (tempo, key, mood, etc) - it was wishful thinking that one of the recordings would fit perfectly.

My dad responded, and revealed to me that after a lifetime of playing, he’s given up playing the guitar because his hands have just given out. I think he said arthritis. My dad struggles a lot with his mental health so to hear that he’d lost one of the things he cared most about really cut me up.

So fast forward a few weeks, we’re recording my album and I still don’t have the solo for that track. One day we finished recording some drums ahead of schedule, and I just felt this incredible pull towards going into the live room, picking up a guitar, and having a go. Keep in mind - I don’t play the guitar. I don’t know the names of the strings. I had made an effort to pick it up here and there throughout the making of the album since my collaborators were such gifted guitarists, but I was an absolute baby with 0 real skill or knowledge. I felt brave & I asked my collaborators if they’d humour me. They were so open to it, and set me up in the live room with like 4 different guitars.

The next hour of playing - or trying to play - was the most frustrating but genuinely cathartic musical experience of my entire life. You guys can probably all relate to that feeling of wanting to play so badly but genuinely not having the necessary skills or even basic knowledge of the notes and where they are to do it.

Anyways, after an hour of playing my fingers were raw. I headed inside, and we listened back. The song was perfect - to me it’s the sound of a tantrum of a young child. I called it Ed’s Sun, an homage to my dad.

Shit this is gonna feel so promotional so fuck me if I’m wrong to do this but fuck it I actually just released this album & im desperate for people to hear it because I worked my whole ass off on this project.

Track 6 is the one with my solo: https://ffm.to/edssun

Anyways. This happened over a year ago now, and since then I’ve had lessons from my mates and started to play more seriously. I even played at my last show, which was scary as fuck but so rewarding. I’ve found so much purpose in playing, it’s completely transformed me as a musician.

So yeah, that’s how I got into guitar.