I always treasured the two CDs of Jonas Hellborg/Shawn Lane/Selvaganesh that I got. Plus Mattias IA Eklundh(Freak Kitchen/Freak guitar) has been one of my absolute all-time favourites for a while too. Two months back we got to know about Jonas and IA touring India together. That was it, I planned a multi-city tour. I began with Bombay, then back home in Bangalore and then ended it with Goa. Absolutely the best shit ever put on a CD and played live. The bonus was I got to hang out with my musical gods a lot. Some others on kvltsite also witnessed the Bangalore show. No superlatives are good enough to describe how the heavy metal-jazz-carnatic-fusion was. On to the promised transcript of the interview:

About India and the Indian music:

Yes it’s my first visit to India — I've been to Borneo, Malaysia, Japan but never to India. My mom and dad were obsessed with India. They were here for months. I don't want to be arrogant and say I know anything about Indian music because I don't, but I've been listening to it for many years. We had a student of Ravi Shankar living in our house an entire summer, because my brother in law wanted to learn how to play the sitar. So he shipped the guy in — my mom really got of on Indian music. I'm trying to catch up here and there but what I like best is fusion. I love different cultures. You blend stuff in the most inappropriate way and good things will happen. That's why I'm here to play my Swedish guitar in a very strange whiskey kind of environment (Editor: The venue was a 5 Star hotel sponsored by a Whiskey maker)… This for me is vacation time. Come here, get a good diarrhea, and play some decent guitar and just relax. Stay in nice places, talk to people – and I'm getting my fiancé down to Goa. I don't have to worry about being the frontman. I'm really happy to play Jonas's music. We've just jammed our brains out.

Influences:

Kiss to Zappa to McLaughlin to Djano Reinhardt to Slayer to Tom Petty to Meshuggah – it's basically good music, bad music or shit music. I have every one of Zappa's records and then some — all the official LPs and bootlegs. My studio is my Zappa temple.

On Favoured Nations:

Favoured Nations has worked out really good. They contacted me, actually. Steve Vai e-mailed me and I initially didn't answer! I get emails everyday from people with ids like Jimi Hendrix blah blah blah at AOL.com. So I thought it was a joke. Then another email came and it said my kids had a party with your music – I saw them jumping up and down…and I was like 'hey…Jesus, is this Steve Vai?' He was a big influence and a guitar god with David (Lee Roth) and Zappa. We jammed and he recorded and filmed it! 10 years ago I would've freaked out and lost my cool. But now I've done some two million gigs…and met people like John McLaughlin and Steve Vai….there are only two people I'd like to meet now that Zappa is dead….I'd like to shake the hands of David Cronenberg and Howard Shore – that's it. There's no one left who I'd really like to express my gratitude to. They created their own cinematic and musical universe. They don't care about whether it’s commercial or harsh or funny — they are just doing what they are doing. And that inspires me as a guitar player to do what's true to myself and walk the road less traveled.

I'm just fortunate enough to make a living, doing this. I'm living on music — I have my house in the Swedish woods, a studio, a couple of cars, a French dog three cats and a fiancé. Life is good.

Me: So is there money in jazz?(in reference to the song “There is no money in Jazz”)

IA: There is money in jazz indeed believe it or not!

On G3: I'd like to be on something like G3. We had a gig recently with Andy Timmons and a Spanish guitar player Tony Hernando. When I do these things, I'd do them as Freak Kitchen and in spite of the fact that I do solo albums, I'm not a solo guitar guy. We do the Freak Guitar stuff with Freak Kitchen. Bjorn and Chris are cool and make it Freak Kitchen music. I don't want to be a solo artist and go wheedly wheedly wheedly for two hours every night! I'd kill myself before that. I'm a song kinda guy. I like to sing and people to have a good time, dance and hum along. And then every once in a while, you can throw in an instrumental. I'm a band guy. It would be Freak Kitchen not Mattias IA Eklundh.

On collaborations:

We are doing a Freak Foot thing – Bumblefoot and Freak Kitchen. We toured Chile and earlier Switzerland and France. Me and Bumblefoot are close friends — he's an absolutely insane guitar player and like a brother. We were born the same year, just a couple of weeks from each other. We will probably do a Freakfoot album some day, and maybe play one day in India — anything is possible. Like me, he's a song kinda guy and it’s not about how fast or how cool and clean — these are my arpeggios blah blah blah. It's about music. It's about good songs. I get off on a song like Hotel California — I'd rather listen to that than some wheedly wheedly stuff which means nothing! You have to have a point to a guest appearance like bringing in Bumblefoot on Speak When Spoken To. He's doing this (yells) SPEAK WHEN SPOKEN TO bit — something I can't do. If I do that as a Swedish person it would sound very stupid! I try not to embarrass myself too much

On Malmsteen:

He's very fat, Swedish and egoistical but he's such a genuine player. It's just his own style.

On Hank Sherman :

I met Hank Sherman when I was just 19 years old and a big Mercyful Fate fan. And then I replaced him in Fate. A year later, he was my guitar roadie! He said if you show me some cool licks I will be your roadie. I was like 'hey that's scary business' — so we sat in hotel rooms and traded licks.

Favourite music:

I really like John McLaughlin and then playing with Jonas is great since he's done some really cool things with McLaughlin. I'm a huge fan of his playing and arrangements. I had a few bootlegs of McLaughlin and Jonas and it's great to be playing with that guy. Then there's Django Reinhardt. I listen to him everyday. I listen to the same players everyone else does but I'm really not a guitar music fan. I need to make my own freak guitar music since that's the way I want to hear it, but things like humour is a good thing to get your stuff through.

Me: what happened to your gorilla amp? (Referring to the bootleg video of him playing at a music shop in France) Have you brought it along?

IA: The gorilla? Wow! You guys have done your homework. The gorilla is retired – I won't bring it out of my house. It's in a very bad condition in my living room. I used that in a clip you saw? Forgive me for using the amp. It's in a bad condition along with the Russian pedal. The Russians should send me more stuff.

Desert Island discs:

I'd need to keep my chops in order so I'd have to have Jonas's music – I've grown addicted to 'Good people in times of evil'. At least five albums by the man here. I need Frank Zappa's 'Overnight Sensation'. Anything by Django will do. I think I need Kiss's Destroyer. Inner Mounting Flame by Mahavishnu. Jan Johansson's 'Jazz in Swedish', it's a damn fine album.

On music piracy:

Ia:

It's a tricky business. It's very easy to say 'don't do this' – but then you look at yourself and realize you've got cracked versions of stuff. I'd say for a group like us, we have a die hard audience. I get a lot of people who write in to say I downloaded all your albums but am going to buy them at the first opportunity and I say 'yeah right.' But two months later they've done it. I think it's a different thing if you are Madonna – she doesn't need a swimming pool. It's just a reaction that something that costs nothing to produce costs so much in the stores. We have to find new ways. I don't think paying 99 cents per song works. As a human being I want the actual CD. The booklet etc., We need to find ways to lower the price and get it out to you guys. It's an exciting new time. Anything can be done. This was necessary since the record industry got too cocky. I don't encourage people to download my stuff but I can't say you can't do it since that would make me a hypocrite.

Jonas: It's going to exist. Intellectual property is an absurdity in itself. How can you own an idea? Whoever invented anything? Everyone copies everyone else. But at the same time people who create music need to make a living. Downloading is going to be there. I think somehow something will come up which makes sense. Otherwise nobody will make music anymore if you can't make a living out of it.

On the future:

Musicians are lazy. And are afraid to stay true to what they believe is right. I made a living on my freaky guitar playing without doing a single cover band gig. I'm in my mid 30s now. Good things will come if you stay true to yourself. Last 6-7 years been really groovy and things are getting better. I've had to turn things down to be good and to not burn out. I see myself doing the same thing 30 years down the line with an ugly beard, ugly hair, still chopping wood – that's what I do to prevent myself from playing too fast since my hands feel like jellyfish after a couple of hours. On the day I was jamming with Steve Vai I was tearing down this large construction in my house with a sledgehammer. I remember Jonas laughing and saying 'this is not what you usually do on the same day you play with a guy like Vai.' I could feel my hands going numb! I'm still waiting for Eddie Van Halen's revenge. He's a great guitar player but he lost his way. He ceased to be interesting 10 years ago or more, which I why I like John McLaughlin and Jeff Beck. They are moving on. They do try different things. That's what I'd like to do with or without hair, moustache, whatever.

On whether the collaboration with Jonas will lead to any fresh music:

Ia: No studio recording – but maybe some live stuff. We don't know what's going to happen.

Jonas: I stopped making plans 20 years ago.

Next Freak Guitar album:

I’m thinking of an acoustic album next.

(Editor: Then the conversation went on about how dildos can be used in an acoustic setup, how the show needs dragons and flames, a small Stonehenge on stage and a lot more bullshit)