Taj Farrant explains how he got so good at guitar at 15 that Nuno Bettencourt called him “SRV and EVH reincarnated into one body”
The guitar world loves itself a prodigy. And in the social media age, it seems barely a month passes without some precociously talented young shredder setting the feed ablaze with their skills… but some are a little bit different.
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In the last few years, there’s been one young guitarist whose skills have been blowing minds around the rock and blues community, and earning some serious fans along the way. No less than Nuno Bettencourt himself was so astounded: “It’s as if God was doing his weekly reincarnations, but on this day enjoying a bit of a drink [and] just to fuck with us convinced SRV and EVH to be reincarnated into one body. And just for fun he threw in Michael Jordan’s fingers.” The person he was talking about is a 15-year-old guitar phenom named Taj Farrant.
Farrant was born in Australia and made his first waves as a guitar player via an appearance on Australia’s Got Talent. From there his YouTube channel blew up and he has since moved to the United States, becoming the youngest person to ever be endorsed by Gibson, and sharing the stage with Carlos Santana and another guitarist who first gained attention as a very young man, Joe Bonamassa. His playing has been described as a tasteful mixture of shred and emotion in the vein of one of his idols, Gary Moore.
But how did this kid get to be so good at such a young age? Well, the answer is simple enough.
“I practised probably eight to nine hours a day from when I was like seven to when I was probably 13, 14,” Farrant explains. “I’ve cut back on practicing now because I am doing a lot more touring. But really, it was just a lot of practice with dad in my bedroom all those years.”
Image: Press
Putting In the Hours
Woodshedding guitar seemed to come quite naturally to young Taj from the moment he saw Angus Young take the stage at an AC/DC show that his father brought him to – that planted the desire to learn to play guitar, and he pursued it with all the fervor and ambition that kids normally display for certain sports of their liking. But while other kids were working on their footy skills, Farrant was in his room diligently getting better and better at the guitar.
It’s often been said that practice makes perfect, which often entails running scales until your fingers bleed. This is where, for many of us, those big dreams of becoming a great guitarist crash headfirst into a wall of reality. Let’s face it, running scales is boring. So how did Farrant overcome this common hurdle early on in his sonic journey?
To answer that, you have to get to know Taj Farrant. From the moment you start talking about guitar, either technique or nerdy gear-related stuff, Farrant’s face lights up – for him, playing the guitar was seldom a chore; it was a labor of love that he naturally threw himself into from a very young age.
Regarding playing those boring scales, Farrant explains that he would simply play them while watching television. This helped commit the scales to muscle memory and learn where each note lands on the fretboard, greatly aiding in sculpting a skill that many have lauded Farrant for – his ability to improvise when playing live.
Next Chapter
When he is not on tour, he has been busy recording a follow-up album to his blues chart-topping debut album, Chapter One. While we don’t know many details about the upcoming album, it promises to pick up where the debut left off, as the constant touring has only helped to sharpen his skills. Farrant did reveal that it would have several guest appearances from some pretty big names
“This next album is full of guests on pretty much every song,” he enthuses. “We’ve got Kingfish [Christone Ingram] for one, maybe Andy Timmons for another, Eric Steckel…” Based on those names it would seem that the album will be a powerful statement for the blues community, combining established blues artists as well as the exciting crop of young guitarists lending their talents to the storied genre.
Given his remarkable technical ability, it’s easy to assume that he ascribes to the “more is more” school of musicianship, but even at this young age, he’s worked out that more notes doesn’t always translate to more feeling.
“It’s cool when you can play a thousand notes,” he says. “But it’s way cooler when you can hold one note and it can captivate what all of those thousand notes could have done.”
Image: Press
One good exercise for those looking to hone their melodic skills would be to explore ways of interpreting the vocal melodies of a song on the guitar. This is something that Paul Gilbert has been doing for a while now and Taj Farrant has also been doing a lot when covering legends in his live shows.
“Sometimes with some of the Prince songs like Purple Rain or even some Gary Moore songs like Parisian Walkways I won’t sing them just out of respect because obviously it’s their song,” he affirms. “But I will still do what I love to do, which is the guitar part. I keep their iconic parts, but I still make it my own by interpreting the vocal parts.”
There is no question that Taj Farrant is one of the guitar talents in the blues-rock world, but it’s also clear that he has something beyond shredding – he can connect with people on an emotional level through his music. So if you’re really looking for the secret to his young success, it’s probably the best advice he can offer – find your feeling and let it flow through your fingers.
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