"If You Haven't Been On Stage for 10,000 Hours... Shut the F* Up." Joe Bonamassa on Social Media, Blues & What Makes a Great Guitarist

Photo credit: Marcus Bird

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Joe Bonamassa has spent more than three decades treating the guitar as a calling rather than a hobby, a conviction that took root the moment he opened for B.B. King at twelve years old. In this conversation with Sam Bell, Bonamassa traces that arc with characteristic candour, from the wide-eyed kid who couldn't yet grasp the weight of sharing a stage with a titan, to one of blues-rock's most outspoken elder statesmen.

Much of the conversation turns on what's been lost, and gained, as guitar culture has migrated online. Bonamassa is unsparing about the comment-section culture that's turned musical exchange into blood sport, where strangers who've never logged 10,000 hours on a stage feel entitled to crown winners and losers out of a two-minute jam. At the same time, he's clear-eyed about social media's upside: the democratisation of discovery that let a kid playing acoustic guitar in Iowa or Nebraska find a global audience overnight, something his own generation never had. His verdict isn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake; it's a pointed argument that technique tutorials and gear breakdowns can't substitute for stage time, in-person mentorship, and simply watching another player up close to realise the trick was always simpler than it looked.

The conversation closes on more personal ground: Bonamassa's new live album, The Spirit of Rory Live from Cork, a tribute to Rory Gallagher recorded at the request of the Gallagher family. He talks through the pressure of doing justice to a hero without chasing note-for-note imitation, landing instead on a guiding principle that runs through the whole interview: play it like yourself, with conviction, and let the music speak for itself.

So I'd like to start off with a fairly simple question, might be not so simple, but you've been playing all your life, and I was curious to whether or not you can remember a transition point from it being something you did into having a kind of realisation that it was more than that. Is there a distinction?

I always wanted to do this for a living. It was pretty much right off the bat. I never had a B plan. It was always I wanted to do this.

Would you say that no plan B is part of what keeps you going at that early age into your early career?

Oh yeah, I mean, you know, when you're, when you're in that kind of stage, it's, you know, when you're, when your back's against a brick wall, you have no other option other than to go forward, and it's, it's when you're at that stage in your life when nobody wants to help you, and you, you have a manager and a dream, and you know that's it, and then you just go, okay. Well, we're going to go take it, and just by sheer attrition, did it. You know,

I understand that you opened for BB King, and I was curious about, was it 12 years old?

Yeah, about 12, yeah, about to turn 13.

I've been playing guitar since I was six, but I can't imagine what the 12 year old me would have thought or felt at that time having had a similar opportunity. Can you remember what it was like for the 12 year old Joe? 

You know, it's very difficult to grasp the gravity of that when you're 12, you know? You know, BB King carried such weight, and he, he was such a, just a titan in music. At 12, you don't have the ability to grasp the how important that is, you know, and you're just like you're just up there playing, having fun.

I take it, that was what was prevalent for you then at that age was just the joy of doing it? 

In a lot of ways was a lot better than it is now, because you know, you know now you can't just go on stage, okay? You can't. Like with someone like BB King or Warren Haynes, or whoever, certain name, and have fun, have a musical exchange with guitar, and not have some assholes go, “who's better?”

You know, in my, in my response to that is, fuck you, you kill joys, because you weren't there, and if you want to sit on Instagram and comment on something you weren't at, and if you want to sit online and judge someone's complete career or complete commitment to music over a two minute exchange on a guitar, you're a loser. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but nobody was invited on that, though they were not invited on that stage. So, why, why, what are you going to get from that? You know what I mean. It's, it's this. So, when you're 12 and you're playing with BB King, and there's no cameras, there's no people are just enjoying stuff in the moment, is the point of that, and there's nobody thinking, well “so and so is better because it's BB King, he's better than you” or “it's Buddy Guy, he's better than you” You just assume you know what I mean. It's this nonsense that plagues this genre, plagues this instrument of people that are either despondent, bitter, or just you know, trying to make their reputation on the backs of others, and it's become woefully not fun for me, woefully to see it go down, and it's not just with myself, it's others, it's, it's like it's needless negativity, you know, everybody's fighting over the same nickel. You know, trying to make a living at this, and it's extraordinarily hard to do. I've been very lucky,

But there's so many people that are just trying to go out and entertain folks, and there's people online on a daily basis, try to tear it down. It's just, it just makes no sense to me. It makes no sense, and that's why I say, when I was 12 years old, it was a lot more enjoyable than it is now. You know, this, this, this notion of people are experts, they're not. You're not. I'm just telling you, I tell you, if you've not been on a stage for 10,000 hours. Shut the fuck up, serious.

I think we can all afford that humility. 

Right? I mean, you're not blind, you see it. You see these folks, and how they treat people, females in the industry, you know and people just trying to make something, and it's like, again, not every style is for me, not every player, I go, "Oh my god, you know, it's like I keep my opinions to myself, okay, and I applaud and help and try to bring up people that are, you know, that that are just working hard, our cruises, our foundation, it's all what it's about, letting people get out there and make it, make a go at it, you know.

I was going to ask about your feelings around the future of guitar and music, and I've noticed it as I teach guitar and lots of generations are coming up through the Instagram, YouTube thing, and it's a whole different ball game to even when I was young, learning on stage, like you say, playing songs, but you're clearly hopeful about some of the future of the potential that is out there.

Well, the reality is how people consume it, right? Like when I was a kid, if you, your, if your name was printed in Guitar Player magazine, holy, cut it out, cut the page out, frame it, put it on the wall. Okay, that's big leagues, you know. And now it's anybody with a, with a podcasting kit can get involved, which is great, because you discover a lot of, I think, what, who's the first guitar player it got discovered by, was it, was it the acoustic guy from Iowa, Andy McKee, was he that guy, I think he was the first, like, person I had heard of to come out of the YouTube ranks. You're like, oh my god, here's this guy shredding the hell out of an acoustic guitar, and he lives in Nebraska or Iowa, and you know, so now. You get a lot of, you're discovering a lot of people you know through social media, and I think it's a good thing, because it's, you know, it's free, it's a source of free marketing. What conversely is, I don't want to hear anybody's opinions about how they do it, and how that's the, it, the, the, the end all be all, meaning like this is my signal chain, and this is how it's done. No, it's not. It's not, because anybody could do it differently and achieve the same results, you know. It's Pontificus Maximus, and it, you know, but again, it's, it's all, it's all about content, it's about seeing stuff through the lens of others, and the biggest thing is nobody, nobody really understands is, is, is, it doesn't matter, it's these that's the sound, and, albeit, it's that's the sound, and and I just saw Robin Ford last night, kill it, right? No Dumble, no nothing. He had a little Walter amp, you know what he sounded like, fucking Robin Ford, really, you know, and it's like it's his hands, it's his style. It's 50 years, 60 years being on a stage, you know. He's been, he's been doing it his whole life. And you go, that's that's Robin Ford. He didn't need the tumble, he didn't need anything. He just played great, saying great, you know, and that's a, that's a huge, that's a huge lesson that no influencer could tell you is, is, is by just creating your own lane and not listening to the chatter on each side, what you should be doing, just do it, and you will absolutely, you'll, you'll achieve, you'll achieve what you want, you know.

I think one of the curses of the social media con, you said the word content, and it's all “top five ways to play”, “top five ways to get this sound”, and actually people are trying to create a map for something which you can't, it has to be your own footstep that is the unique marker, because there's no point in being like anybody else. Its tricky when some people are learning guitar behind a computer screen, they're not maybe getting into venues, they're not getting out and playing the game. 

Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, here's the thing, is, is there's, there's obviously a demand for people that want to learn things, your Martie Schwartz, your Rick Beato, those kind of folks that we all know. Rick has great courses, I mean, like professor level courses that that really move the needle for a player. I've looked at some of these, and he sent me a couple because I was thought I was playing shit, and he's like, try this, and so there's that, and there's those kind of folks that are educators, and then there are the folks that just have this voracious appetite for dopamine that that can't get enough, it's all about clicks and engagements, and they live their life through this lens, and it's their business, I get it, because it generates money, and it generates eyeballs, generate advertising, which generates money, and, and it's just a weird way to live, you know, and, and, and, and kind of be in this, it'd be in the music business, it's just a weird, it just seems, you know, because the traditional stick and rudder approach is go out, do some shows, get a buzz going, come back, step and repeat, and you know, there you go. 

Like you say, the stage is the school as well, it's the stuff that can't be taught happens on stage, the gigs, the playing through gear that you don't want to play through, playing a hard to play guitar, but also another thing I've noticed is what person to person contact, no one's actually sitting down with another guitar player as much, maybe just not even teaching, just having a conversation and playing, having a jam. 

Just have a jam, you know. It's like, I, I've always, I've always learned so much more by just going, "Oh my god, to see what someone's doing, like right in front of you. You're like, "That's how they did it, you know what I mean. And it's always simpler than you think. It's always simpler than you think. You're like doing these big stretch chords, and like, you know, you know, it's like, what's this one? It's this big 80s stretch chords, or you could just play an E chord. It’s the same chord, it’s always a lot simpler than you think. 

Yeah, sitting down with somebody, I would say I was going to ask you as well, it's a bit of a cliche  question, I'm going to ask it, though, and I think you're answering already, especially with blues as the genre that I think associated with, it's obviously a foundational guitar style. I mean, electric guitar and blues are kind of synonymous, like I would say what everyone can learn. You can learn all the licks and riffs, but what's the difference between a technically great blues player and somebody who's actually got something, especially in a genre where there's a lot of, there's a mixture of tradition and people trying to break out.

Oh, I think the ability to get attention, the ability to stand among four or five guitar players on the same stage and go everybody go turn their head, you did that for me when I first saw Marcus King. I was like, there it is same, same cluster of notes. It's the delivery, it's the, it's the bad intentions, nice people, bad intentions. So that you tap into that fire that that gets attention and and the ability to do that and the ability to to, I mean, listen, I mean BB King, one note, you know, it is, you know, and buddy guy, one couple notes clapping, couple of notes, you know, it is, you know, Eddie Van Halen, nice guy, play with bad intentions, you know, and it's, it's, it's all about that, you know, and the delivery vehicle, it's the song, you know, it's having the ability to put all of that playing into a song that makes sense, and it's good, you know, because it's, I mean, I've, I've done it playing in my own career, good playing on average songs, you don't want that, you want good playing on good songs, you know, and that's the heart that's really the hard part, you know. 

What you were saying about players on stage, and somebody plays a note and it's actually in the room. I think it's a whole different ball game, actually hearing these people live than seeing it through a screen, of course, but that note production is something that you can't explain, you can talk, we can talk about it and say it's vibrations and all that, but it seems to be the experience of that is what I think a lot of people might be missing out on.

Well, it's also too, it's, it's, it, I don't know if, in the UK, they have this term, it's called armchair quarterback, meaning I could sit in my chair and say, say to Tom Brady, I could have thrown that ball better than you, no, you can't, but you know, but, but your expertise from your armchair, you know, oh, there's that classic one, I mean, there's that one that it caused this guy to go into therapy was the Joe Jonas from the Jonas Brothers, when he goes out in the Grammys and clamps, we've all done that, everybody's done that, you know, like I don't even know what I was thinking, you know, but it just, but the vitriol, it's like, what do you want him to do? Bernie's guitar and effigy, like, like, like, like, like, you know, go, go for some, you know, like jump off a cliff. Okay, he had to go to therapy. You're like, like, what's wrong with Pete?

It's tragic, because it's meant to be, it's music.  

It's kill joy. It killjoys, it you know. And it's immediately a competition. It's immediately a competition. You cannot do anything. I can't get up, you know. It's like, it's like anybody pulls out Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and I've been on stage a lot together a lot. Yes, five six years, it's comp, it's like it's not a competition. We don't look at like that, you know? I mean, Warren Haynes and I been on stage a lot. We don't look at it like it's fun, we're having fun, you know. And it, but for people to take it, it's like, what do they expect a trophy at the end, you know, a cash prize, a judge that goes, I declare the winner, like a fucking boxing match.

Well, I was gonna ask about, I believe you've got the live album coming out very soon. The Spirit of Rory Live from Cork, and obviously Rory Gallagher is a loved guitar player, and the Gallagher family asked you to do the tribute concert?

They did, which really nice of them, yeah.

What does this concert mean for you on a personal level? 

Oh, it was really a bucket list thing for me, and I, I've always said this, there's like, you know, why don't you call Davey Knowles, that was the gig for him. I said that you call Davey, he's in a band with Jerry, they do Rory shit every single day. They were like, well, we want to do this venue, and we think you could sell enough tickets. I'm like, okay, that's fair enough. So, and because I love Donald and Daniel and the family, I was like, sure, I'll do it. Then I hung up the phone, and I said, oh shit, what did I just sign up for it's like, oh my god, because I love Rory, it's music, you know, and covered him in the past, but not to this extent, you know what I mean, it's to become, you know, we're we did all Rory stuff, and it was, it was a challenge of a lifetime, but it worked out really well, and people loved it. People loved it, and to do it in Cork, it was such a great, it was a great, a great thing. and it was like it just really had it was a lot of fun, and it finally comes out, I think, Friday. (Friday 19th June 2026) 

At this stage in your career, it's still about the music and about the people getting together and getting, having a good time. There's no going back to that non-competition thing. It's about celebrating a legend, paying tribute by just being yourself with what great material is there.

That's what I said. Like, immediately I was like, when we did the rollout, I was like, I'm Joe Bonamassa, playing Rory Gallagher songs. If you want soundalikes, then get someone who does this for a living, who does Rory for a living, because they'll do the anorak stuff, like they'll go down the rabbit hole, going, okay, he missed this note in Cork in 73 and, and the, the 1980 version, he didn't, and it was 10 minutes longer. We're not doing it, it's too much for me. 

I mean, imagine if Rory was asked to do something similar himself when he was alive! 

Rory did Clapton, he would have done Rory plays Clapton, you know what I mean. They would have sounded like Rory Gallagher playing Clapton, you know, I mean, and any one of us interchanged if, if you know, it would sound like them doing someone else, you know, it's really difficult to go down the rabbit hole that deep to where you're, you know, you're, you're sound exactly like, you know, you know, it's that's sort of like Timothy Chalamet could do that in a biopic, but we're not doing that.