Guitarist Vivian Campbell—of Riverdogs[1] and Def Leppard fame—recently sat down for the "eight questions" treatment. It went a little something like this.
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What influencedGuitarist Vivian Campbell—of Riverdogs[1] and Def Leppard fame—recently sat down for the "eight questions" treatment. It went a little something like this.
What influenced you to pick up a guitar?
I was a kid, probably nine or 10 years old. I saw Marc Bolan from T.Rex on Top of the Pops and I just flipped. I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to grow my hair, get a guitar and wear my sister’s clothes. I did two of those things, at least. It was the start of the glam-rock era.
What was the first guitar that you owned?
I had a couple of real cheap toy guitars, because I kept pestering my parents. I kept telling them I wanted a guitar for my birthday, for Christmas, whatever. At first, they didn’t believe me, but I persisted enough that we kinda moved through the toy guitar stage and eventually got some cheap acoustics.
My first actual electric guitar—maybe I was around 12 or 13—was made by a company called Arbiter. It was just some cheap knockoff thing. It was SG-shaped with one single-coil pickup, and it was quite horrible. In fact, I have no idea what it sounded like when it was plugged in, because I never had an amp. I’d be pretty confident it sounded like shit.
What was the first song you learned?
I’m entirely self-taught, so I was just trying to figure things out. I remember I was on summer holiday with my family. I’d learned a few chords at this stage, and I learned how to play “She Loves You.” Beatles songs, that one in particular, have a few pretty rapid chord changes for a kid who doesn’t really know how to play. So I remember