{"id":68535,"date":"2018-06-26T14:58:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T19:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=68535"},"modified":"2018-06-26T14:58:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T19:58:48","slug":"a-conversation-w-alex-guthrie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2018\/06\/26\/a-conversation-w-alex-guthrie\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation w\/ Alex Guthrie"},"content":{"rendered":"

In preparation for his show at The Bottleneck on Thursday, June 28th, we asked Atlanta Folk musician Alex Guthrie some questions about Atlanta, his tour and Lawrence! Check it!<\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of the Chattanooga Times Free Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Be sure to tune in for Part 2, live on-air at KJHK tomorrow (Wednesday, June 27th) at 6pm. We’ll chatting with Alex, discussing some of the same topics and more!<\/p>\n

Question: What was it like coming up in Atlanta and being around a lot of different musical cultures? <\/span><\/p>\n

Alex Guthrie: Growing up around so many different genres of music has made it difficult to describe the kind of music that I\u2019ve come to make. For me that\u2019s a good thing! It seems to me that very few artists in Atlanta fit neatly into a box labeled with just one genre. We\u2019ve all just reached into the grab bag of influences and picked the parts of each style that work with what we\u2019re doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: Who would you say your biggest influences are?<\/span><\/p>\n

AG: Is there one that stands out in your mind?\u00a0<\/span>My biggest influences are The Allman Brothers, Marvin Gaye, John Mayer, Vulfpeck. It\u2019s super hard to pick a favorite but I\u2019d say that John Mayer\u2019s music has helped me find my own voice and style more than most.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q:Your bio on your website calls you \u201cthe guy from the Jennifer Hudson commercial\u201d. For the uninitiated, that\u2019s a crazy story, what happened with that commercial and what was it like?<\/span><\/p>\n

AG:I had no idea what I was getting into when I answered a Facebook ad looking for \u201ca guy in his early 20\u2019s with a soulful voice for a live performance\u201d. I auditioned, got the part, and showed up to find a whole camera crew waiting for me. The crew told me to start playing and the rest is what you see in the ad. Completely a surprise to me. A wonderful surprise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q:What opportunities has that kind of exposure opened up for you and the band? Do you get more recognized in general or just as \u201cthat guy from the Jennifer Hudson commercial?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/span>This has all been a crazy, amazing roller coaster. More opportunities have come my way since than I\u2019ve been able to accept. Right now I\u2019m on a 2 month summer tour with my band thanks in part to the commercial. Fall of 2017 is when being recognized as \u201cthat guy from the Jennifer Hudson commercial\u201d peaked, especially in cities where American Family Insurance had put up billboards with my face on them. Since then, people are knowing my name and recognizing me \u201cas is\u201d more and more often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q:Do you have a \u201ccraziest show\/fan\u201d? <\/span><\/p>\n

AG:I\u2019ve had a fan or two go through seemingly the entirety of my Facebook profile and like nearly all my pictures. It gets weirder. One such person found some drawing of mine from high school and actually asked me to draw her \u201clike one of my French girls\u201d. As weird as she was, I can respect the Titanic reference.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q:What sort of unique challenges has the tour presented? <\/span><\/p>\n

AG:Touring hasn\u2019t presented us too many challenges yet (knock on wood). So far the biggest hurdle I\u2019ve had to jump over has been buying a van last minute. Our rental fell through 4 days before heading back on the road for a 3 week run.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had to spend nearly every waking second researching vans for rent or for sale in a 200 mile radius from Atlanta. Long story short, I\u2019m the proud owner of a new, well new to me, tour van.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q:Have you ever been in Kansas or even Lawrence before or will this be a new experience for you and the band?<\/span><\/p>\n

AG:\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019ve only passed through Kansas on the way to visit family in Colorado. The band and I are so excited get to spend some time in Lawrence. The other day, we were talking with another band on tour through the Midwest and one of the first things they asked was if were we going to pass through Lawrence. They sang your praises to say the least.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In preparation for his show at The Bottleneck on Thursday, June 28th, we asked Atlanta Folk musician Alex Guthrie some questions about Atlanta, his tour and Lawrence! Check it! Be sure to tune in for Part 2, live on-air at KJHK tomorrow (Wednesday, June 27th) at 6pm. We’ll chatting with Alex, discussing some of the same topics and more! Question: What was it like coming up in Atlanta and being around a lot of different musical cultures? Alex Guthrie: Growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4332,"featured_media":68537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3231,4,3234],"tags":[8140,2292,1018,2059,839],"class_list":["post-68535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-on-kjhk","category-multimedia","category-music","category-music-interviews","tag-alex-guthrie","tag-folk","tag-interview","tag-live-music","tag-the-bottleneck"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/alex-guthrie.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}