THE (NEW) JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE

NOT YOUR GRANDDAD’S TRIBUTE SHOW, STATELY SOUL HARTS SHREDDER IS SHOOTING A NEW DOSE OF ENERGY INTO A THE CATALOGUE OF TIMELESS FRETBOARD BY WARRIOR.

Cover bands are a dime a dozen these days. For every one dude that once picked up a guitar and managed to make people shake their butts, there are a solid 50 wannabes trying to emulate that dude’s skill. The problem is – quite frankly – none of them have it.

That’s not to say there isn’t value in paying tribute to one’s idols: there is absolutely a tasteful way to step into the role of a guitar great long since past – just look at how Melbourne mind-melter Harts is tackling his approximation of the Jimi Hendrix discography. Harts Plays Hendrix is much more than a ticketed cosplay session – it’s a show of honest love for a guitarist that transcended genres and touched generations of budding shredders. And, most importantly, it’s being done with authentic passion and genuine care.

Before he kicks off his dozen-plus show stint, we caught up with Darren Hart himself to riff on the importance of Hendrix’s legacy, and how he aims to treat it right when he takes to some of the country’s most prodigious stages to show it off.

What are you most looking forward to in bringing the arguably timeless music of Jimi Hendrix to life on this tour?

I’m most looking forward to celebrating his legacy. The show is about him – next year it’ll be 50 years since he died in 1970, so it’s about really paying tribute to the guy that started it all with guitar heroes, and kind of where the guitar ended up today. I’ve always wanted to do a show that specifically pays tribute to the music of Jimi Hendrix, but brings it to life for a new kind of audience and a new demographic. I’m really trying to connect the dots in connecting my audience – the younger generation – with the older generation, and doing that through Jimi Hendrix’s music. I’m excited about it. It’s a fun project, y’know? It’s not too serious, either; it’s a lighthearted celebration of Jimi Hendrix and his music. And it’s not an impersonation of any style – it’s not me trying to be Jimi Hendrix. Obviously, no one can do it the way he did it.

I’m always curious, when an artist does the whole ‘X plays Y’ thing, about the ethos behind it, and what differentiates it from the average tribute show. Are you doing a straightforward performance of songs from Jimi’s catalogue, or are you bringing a sort of Hartsian twist to it?

I’m not trying to recreate a specific performance of Jimi’s or play exactly the way he did; it’s more about digging from the same well as he was, in a way. I feel as though it’s very hard to capture the vibe that Jimi Hendrix had, unless you kind of look at it in the same way he did, as a jazzier, kind of improvisation-type show rather than playing all the licks exactly perfect.

The way we’re structuring the show – and the way we did the two test shows that we did – is completely improvised. We obviously know the songs and we know the structures and things like that, but how we get from point A to point B within a song is going to be different every time. I think that kind of falls in line with Jimi Hendrix, and particularly the really good Hendrix impersonators out there, like Randy Hanson, who have been doing it for years – they’ve got it completely down.

I read a lot of interviews with people like that, just researching how they found the best way to capture the Hendrix vibe. And it’s kind of the same thing that I was thinking in my gut – it’s really hard to try and play something exactly the way he did. Even if we did spend the time to practise the songs down to a T, it wouldn’t feel right... The magic wouldn’t be there. The magic is in the danger of it being improvised – being completely alive – and having that kind of energy to it, where no show is going to be the same as the last.

We’re making it a lot more modern, too; we’re not trying to go back to the ‘60s and recreate that sound. That’s going to shine through anyway, just in the style of playing and the style of the songs, but we’re trying to bridge the gap between what people would expect from a normal Harts show and what they’d expect from a Hendrix show. It’s about finding the balance between what feels natural to me and authentic to myself as a performer and an artist, but also playing the music of someone iconic and not butchering their artistry.

So how did you first discover the music of Jimi Hendrix, and what was it about it that just struck a chord with you?

I used to play the drums – that was my introduction to music. And once I started learning the drums in high school, I started to listen a lot more to music, and listen a lot more to what people were listening to, and how the drums were interacting with different instruments in the songs. I eventually discovered blues music, and I discovered an artist named Buddy Guy, who was just this amazing, phenomenal guitarist. And through delving into Buddy Guy’s career, I found about Jimi Hendrix, who was influenced by Buddy Guy. And when I discovered that whole style of music – both through Buddy Guy and Hendrix – I fell in love with what the guitar was doing in it. I fell in love with that really soulful blues, and that powerful energy when the blues transitioned into rock ’n’ roll.

So I started playing guitar after discovering Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix, but I wasn’t serious about it. I wasn’t really serious about music at all – I was just playing as a fun little hobby, just teaching myself on a cheap nylon-string classical guitar that I’d bought myself. And that went on for a good couple of years, until it kind of just spiralled into a place where I was getting quite comfortable with the guitar, moreso than drums, and moreso than anything else I was into at the time.

So I really kind of knuckled down, and I used to play every day – I used to watch DVDs of Jimi Hendrix and copy everything he was doing. That’s how I learned to play the guitar. I never had a teacher or anything – it was just a matter of going, “Okay, well I really like this style of music, I wonder if I could learn it by ear?” So I always say that Hendrix and Buddy Guy were teachers of mine, because I literally learned to play the guitar from copying videos of them.