Fresh from headlining a sold-out London show at the celebrated Camden Underworld, Sophie Lloyd was approached to play LA’s Whiskey A-go-go. Her US debut will take place at the fabled venue on January 16, joined by guest vocalists Lauren Babic, Cole Rolland and Nathan James.
“It’s just the home of rock and roll,” Lloyd says. “So for that to be my first US show is awesome. I saw Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple there, and it was phenomenal. It really is a legendary place.”
The Whiskey gig cements Lloyd’s arrival as an artist, capping a journey from social media personality to Machine Gun Kelly session guitarist to solo headliner in just three years.
In that time, Kiesel has launched her signature model, her YouTube and Instagram follower counts have passed 1.2m each, and she’s released duets with Trivium’s Matt Heafy, Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, and Black Stone Cherry’s Chris Robertson.
Sophie took time out to tell us about the players who have shaped her melodic and technical approach.
1. Edward Van Halen
“Eddie’s probably on everyone’s list, but I can’t have this top 10 without him. That’s mainly because of his tapping techniques and his stylistic flair. He could pick up any guitar and sound like Eddie. Eruption was the first tapping lick I learned, and I carry that a lot – I like to do a lot of two-handed stuff in my playing as well.
“I stumbled upon Van Halen when I was 14 or 15 and just getting into guitar, discovering everyone. The first song I heard was Hot for Teacher. Just that riff at the beginning was absolutely incredible.
“Eruption was my phone alarm for a while – so we have a love-hate relationship because it woke me up every morning. Although I love it, it slightly traumatizes me when I hear it!”
2. David Gilmour
“I was never really into Pink Floyd growing up. I knew Another Brick in the Wall and stuff, but I never really delved into them until I decided I wanted to do a shred version of Comfortably Numb on my YouTube channel.
“Before studying David Gilmour’s playing, I was doing a lot of like, ‘Look at all the notes I can play – look how fast I can play!’ and there wasn’t that much feel behind my music.
“It was a really pivotal point in my playing where I switched from wanting to play all the notes to show what I can do to, ‘No, I want to serve the song. I want to create an emotion and a feeling and a story.’ That really came from David Gilmour. Now I try to allow breathing space like he does.”
3. Slash
“I admire the way Slash built his career. Obviously he was in this massive band, and then he went solo. Slash [2010] was with a bunch of artists from all different genres. That album really inspired my Imposter Syndrome album.
“He wasn't the singer, but you could tell it was his album. I tried to emulate that. Imposter Syndrome had vocalists from different genres – but it had my playing, my solos, my tone connecting all of these different songs together.
“I love the way Slash composes his solos. They always have a beginning, middle and end, and they build. I love his tone as well – it’s really cool how he flips between the bridge pickup and neck pickup. I’m not that good at it yet… I’m very uncoordinated; I always end up flipping the wrong way!”
4. Joe Bonamassa
“When my dad drove to school he'd always have Joe Bonamassa on. I think his playing is just so beautiful and moving, and really tells a story. People might not see the connections, because a lot of time I do more shred rock stuff, but I always try and end things with a cool blues lick, or put bluesy licks in there. It’s what everyone can grab onto. Joe just embodies that whole bluesy cool vibe.
“When I saw Glenn Hughes at the Whiskey, Joe Bonamassa was there playing a few songs. I got to go backstage and Joe knew who I was! I took a picture and texted it to my dad: ‘Look who I met!’ It shows that posting videos and all of that, you can reach these people. You never know what eyes are on you.
“Joe uses the pentatonic scale in a really creative way. He’s really making it something you’ve never heard before, just by doing intervallic playing and bends and different techniques. That’s something I’ve definitely looked into.”
5. Joe Satriani
“When I was 13 or 14 I bought Surfing with the Alien in HMV. I didn’t know who Joe Satriani was – I just liked the artwork! Then I played it, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is fate!’ Being fully instrumental but still telling a story was so cool to me.
“He made it sound like you’re in space just by using instruments. With a lot of instrumental music, people can get bored quite quickly. But this was one of the first albums I could listen to front-to-back and always be excited and moved.
“Since I've got my Kiesel signature guitar with a whammy bar, I’ve been looking into how he uses that, which has been fun. His legato licks are really cool. The way he navigates through scales, it’s not just like a little box – it’s like a diagonal scale across the whole fretboard. It lets you do super-long legato runs, which has become a massive part of my playing.”
6. Orianthi
“My mom took me to see the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It. That was the first time I’d seen a female guitarist, who looked kind of like me, completely crush it on stage and kind of steal the show.
“She has cool fashion as well, and brings this really cool vibe to the stage. I became obsessed with her; I got into all of her original music as well. Highly Strung, with Steve Vai, was my favorite song for so long.
“I love her tone. It’s a very warm, rounded tone. I love her PRS. I’ve tried to emulate that a little bit with with my Kiesel guitars. I use black limba. I think hers are mahogany, but they're very similar woods tonally.
“She combines those bluesy licks with that crazy shred style. She can do both things so well, and she just really has a lot of swag. As a woman, it was really cool to see another woman absolutely kill it like that.”
7. Guthrie Govan
“I went to a music university in London. A lot of my friends were just obsessed with Guthrie Govan. A big one for me was his song Waves – I remember learning that lick. It’s this really intervallic lick with a bunch of slides, and it goes every which way. It’s a proper twister for your fingers. I was like, ‘How does a brain think of this?’
“Trying to learn that was a moment where my playing kind of stepped up. His stuff really engages my mind. I have to think about, ‘What scale am I in now? What interval is this?’ When I got that Waves lick I was ecstatic. It got me thinking about intervallic playing. You can make a simple scale sound completely crazy. Guthrie does that really, really well.”
8. John 5
“I’m kind of ashamed to say I discovered John 5 relatively recently. I’m a Mötley Crüe fan and when I saw he’d joined I started researching him. Last year with Machine Gun Kelly, we were doing a lot of festival dates with Mötley Crüe. I got to watch so many of their performances from the side of the stage. He’s one of the most phenomenal live guitarists I’ve ever heard.
“His showmanship is something I really took from him. A lot of people can play guitar really, really well, but he knows the showmanship is also important; your fashion is important.
“He’s got this crazy light-up guitar. Things like that do make a difference in that live space, because there’s something that people will go home and tell their friends about. And the fun he injects into it – everything is so much fun!”
9. Synyster Gates
![Avenged Sevenfold - Beast And The Harlot [Official Music Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/7bDg7n-chhU/maxresdefault.jpg)
“When I was went through my emo phase, Avenged Sevenfold were a big part. I used to say, ‘If I can play The Beast and the Harlot solo, I’ll think I’m a good guitarist.’ I can’t play it now, but I did play it back then, and I put that on YouTube.
“He influenced me a lot. He uses a lot of chromatic playing. I think Bat Country was the first time I was like, ‘Oh, you don't have to play within a scale! You can venture from scales!’
“He introduced me to the chromatic scale and the harmonic minor. He has a jazz background, and I think that really shows in his playing, the scales and the note choices. I try to use a little bit of that: making things sound really dark.”
10. Zakk Wylde
“A lot of what I got from him is silly sounds! He wears a silver ring, and he does this cool thing where he goes down the string, tapping the ring against it, and it makes these kind of spacey sounds. If you look at my earlier videos, I rinse that so much! You can do it with a pick, but it sounds cooler with a ring – or I used to use a lip gloss!
“I’m trying to work on my alternate picking now. I always find legato easier; I struggle with really fast alternate picking. I’m looking at a lot of Zakk’s exercises to try and get that into my playing,.
“He’s the player that my vibrato comes from. He kind of hangs on the note and then does it really, really wide. That’s definitely something I try to emulate.”
- Sophie Lloyd plays Whisky A-Go-Go on January 16.
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