On Tuesday the 15th of March 2007, Guitar-X welcomed the very skilled contemporary
player by the name of Brett Garsed. This prodigious guitarist covers slide playing, rock,
fusion in addition to various other styles. He has released instructional videos and was
one of the top instructors at G.I.T.

Brett Garsed was born in Victoria, Australia and began playing the guitar at the tender age of 12. According to the man himself he started playing the guitar after he heard Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore play the tune “Speed King”. The main influences on his playing were Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page. As he progressed, Rory Gallagher and Eddie Van Halen were added to the list.

Left hand legato has been a big part of his playing since the beginning and after a few years of playing he even took classical guitar lessons to develop his right hand finger picking technique. The legato thing led him to Allan Holdsworth and this in turn led him to pay interest to fusion players like Larry Carlton and Scott Henderson.

A spot in Guitar Player magazine made him rethink his career, going from licensed plumber to professional musician. One of his first musical projects after this event was with John Farnham. This cooperation led to the recording of the album “Whispering Jack”. This album became the best selling albums in Australia ever, leading to tours in Europe and Australia.

Later on he played with the band “Nelson” featuring the sons of Ricky Nelson. As before with John Farnham this cooperation yielded success with the album “After The Rain”. Other
successful projects include: MVP- Centrifugal Funk, (for this he collaborated with Frank
Gambale and Shawn Lane) and Mojo, formed by drummer Kofi Baker (son of Ginger Baker)
which yielded the album “Tapestry”. Also, a collaboration with fellow guitarist TJ Helmerich
produced a number of albums including: “Uncle Moe’s Space Ranch”. One of his more recent efforts is the release of his first solo album on an independent label: “Big Sky”.

Some of the guitars Brett likes to use include a ESP horizon, an ESP custom (shaped like a
Fender telecaster) and a Steinberger GS. He uses glass slides with .11-.50 strings with a
higher action on the guitar for the slide playing. Influences for his slide playing are Rory
Gallagher and David Lindley (a lapsteel player). According to him, he was always more
attracted to non-blues slide players, as the blues thing has been done to death. He also uses the back pick-up mostly and plays in standard tuning, as this has the benefit of not having to relearn the fret board.

Brett played some of his songs which made extensive use of slide playing. He also talked a bit of how he started playing, answered some questions and ended the session with another performance.

Kim De Cap. Marshall Scholarship Winner 2006