Interview with Paul Hackett

Bandmo interviews Paul Hackett from http://www.guitarnoise.com

Introduce yourself to our readers. Who are you and what is your background?
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I started playing guitar in high school when I traded my first car for my first guitar. I knew a guy who collected clunkers as well as guitars and it seemed like we had a good trade. He was a really talented painter as well, so I had him paint a Union Jack on the front of the guitar. It looked like something you’d see on a Who album cover. In fact, “Pinball Wizard” was one of the first songs I learned how to play, even if it was a long time before I sounded anything like the Who.

A couple of years later, I started making websites. The first one was for a band that I wanted to start. Later on, I made a guitar lesson website that would eventually become Guitar Noise (www.guitarnoise.com). What started out as a hobby eventually became my regular job – and a cool one at that. To date, Guitar Noise has had millions of visitors, more emails than I can remember, and its fair share of ups and downs. People from all over the world have learned how to play the guitar on a website I made and I’m pretty proud of that. Many of the site’s visitors have also organized meet-ups in the real world and become close friends. I also set up a site called Music Careers (www.musiccareers.net), which met the demand of the online guitar students who wanted to pursue serious careers in music.

I still play guitar every day. I have a ukulele now, too. I enjoy playing all different kinds of music and messing around with different tunings. My biggest thrill still comes from logging onto Guitar Noise every day and seeing how many people are learning guitar right now!.

What relation do you have with music (past-time, passion, a business)?
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Music is much more than a pass time for me. I originally started Guitar Noise as a hobby, but it grew into something much bigger than that. It’s now the home base for a lot of other people’s hobbies. Trying to make them happy keeps me pretty busy. I built the website to be the kind of resource I would want to use. That’s a philosophy that still guides me today. Guitar Noise is a real passion project and I have a lot of fun doing it.

An unexpected advantage to this work is all the relationships I’ve made over the years. I’ve met countless other website owners, musicians (professional and amateur enthusiasts), magazine editors, journalists, bands and their managers, and more recently people who work in music publishing. I never knew I’d be acquainted with such a wide swath of interesting people. Not only do they come from just about every corner on the planet, but we’re all joined by a common interest of making and sharing music. I can’t imagine being in a business more fun than this.

What do you think of the current state of music?
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When I listen to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” I’m struck by the fact that the song doesn’t have to be about the social changes of the 1960s. That song could have been written about any era. Things are always undergoing change, and music is no exception. What’s fantastic about music today, is that there really is something for everybody. The growth of online music hasn’t just made it easier to share music, it’s now easier to find more music you like.

I’ve always been a music fanatic. Nowadays I probably spend more time listening to music than any other time in my life. Cloud music services are starting to carve out an important place in the soundtrack of our lives. I can walk out of the house and the playlist I was listening to while eating breakfast follows me into the car and off to school or wherever it is I’m going. You don’t even have to wait to get home again to start a search for new music.

Where do you think it’s heading?
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More personalization and more choices are inevitable. Copyright laws and music licensing problems used to be a barrier to growth. Rights holders used to drag their feet when it came to new formats and technologies. There’s no longer any doubt that consumption and sharing are intertwined. Listeners are getting better control over their music collections. A back to basics idea of making the customer happy is where we are heading. No more telling the customer what to do with the music they buy.

What are your favorite websites to discover new talent, any tips for our readers?
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With the Internet you can find some pretty interesting music in unconventional ways. Recently, Neil Young had a contest where he invited musicians to submit cover versions of the songs on his latest album. Some of the submissions were really great, and it turned me onto bands that I would never have found otherwise. A lot of the entries really stood out because the musicians didn’t shy away from putting their own unique stamp on the song. That was really refreshing and I found out about it on a Neil Young website.

If like reading music reviews, you can’t do any better than the All Music Guide. It’s a site worth visiting just for Stephen T. Erlewine, a fantastic music writer. I’ve also found great music through videos on Facebook and links people send me on Twitter. I’m open to people tweeting me about their band. Sometimes I’ll even write a review on my site if something really stands out. I also like looking at song stats on Last.fm and music lists at Spotify.

What role will the internet play in the music industry future?
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With the Internet you can find some pretty interesting music in unconventional ways. Recently, Neil Young had a contest where he invited musicians to submit cover versions of the songs on his latest album. Some of the submissions were really great, and it turned me onto bands that I would never have found otherwise. A lot of the entries really stood out because the musicians didn’t shy away from putting their own unique stamp on the song. That was really refreshing and I found out about it on a Neil Young website.

If like reading music reviews, you can’t do any better than the All Music Guide. It’s a site worth visiting just for Stephen T. Erlewine, a fantastic music writer. I’ve also found great music through videos on Facebook and links people send me on Twitter. I’m open to people tweeting me about their band. Sometimes I’ll even write a review on my site if something really stands out. I also like looking at song stats on Last.fm and music lists at Spotify.

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Bandmo would like to thank Paul Hackett for taking the time to participate in this interview. Head to http://www.guitarnoise.com today.

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