In 2012 I started working with Gergo Borlai. It meant a lot to me. I think Gergo is Mozart on drums. In those days I was very fond of guitarists like John Scofield, Scott Henderson and Robben Ford. I released the album Film Soundtracks and Ideas. It was very simple guitar music for short amateur films in which I was both actor and cinematographer and producer.
(With Gergo Borlai and Gergo Baranyi in my Jazz Rock Era)
The album had nothing to do with my jazz rock playing on my 2011 album Equation of Time. Gergo listened to Film Soundtracks and Ideas and said this could be my guitar journey. I was never going to be Scott Henderson, that was clear to me a long time ago.
(I 'm the killer in this movie. All the music is done on electric guitar.)
I started watching Andrei Tarkovsky's films in those years, and it was through him that I began to think about art and its meaning. I started to dabble with the electric guitar. I couldn't move on. I started to look for myself. That's when I met Eivind Aarset. That was fundamental for me. From Eivind I learned about Terje Rypdal. I was very inspired. Someone inside me believed that electric guitar didn't have to be just about guitar heroes, jazz, rock n roll and so on...
(In this video Eivind and the whole band totally amazed me.)
Thanks to Eivind and Terje, I realized that the guitar itself can tell a story. It all fell into place for me. My album Film soundtracks and Ideas, which I was a bit ashamed of in front of musicians, I started to realize as a milestone of my music. In 2013, I recorded the album The Son. After my son's surgeries. It was my first album by "film musician" David Kollar. I started to tell a story through my guitars. Plus I liked the "cinematic form" of the songs. That is, no form. A song doesn't have to have a chorus or a verse, and it doesn't have to have a guitar solo. The important thing is to capture the atmosphere and convey your story. Eivind said in a video that Terje Rypdal was his inspiration. He said that a guitarist doesn't have to sound like an American, he can find his own distinctive style. By being successful he motivated a generation of younger musicians in Norway.
(I LOVE the context in which he got this electric guitar sound and style of playing. )
I love his rock electric guitar sound. He has the sound of a classic rock shredder, but by choosing the right players and fusing different instruments he has put the electric guitar in a completely different context. Eivind Aarset was the new Jimi Hendrix for me. His work with musical surfaces and guitar effects was and of course is incredibly inspiring and original. A few years ago I met the painter Peter Popelka and we spent dozens of hours talking about world painters. Then it all dawned on me. How do you actually compare abstract painting to these two musicians. Why should a painted house be nicely flat and in real colors? Painters express what they feel. They capture the atmosphere. That's what I love about Tarkovsky's film The Mirror. It's a mosaic of his memories, but one that a more attentive viewer can replace with their own.
Tarkovsky publishes letters from disgruntled viewers in his book Time Wasted... They don't understand the film, they have nothing to grasp. They miss the form, the plot, the ending...
Tarkovsky, however, is reasserting himself:
"I can hardly expect more recognition for what I do... My most secret desire has been to express myself in my films with the utmost sincerity and in the fullest possible completeness, without imposing my opinion on anyone... A person who is not interested in art, but judges it because he is not willing and ready to consider the meaning and purpose of his existence from a higher point of view, very often utters vulgar primitive statements like "I don't like it" or "it's uninteresting". Today's man with such an attitude is incapable of thinking about the truth. You cannot argue with him. It's like asking someone who has been blind since birth to describe a rainbow to you. He will simply be indifferent to the suffering the artist had to go through to share the truth with the audience. Because truth is a symbol of beauty, beauty as a journey..."
(Malevich's painting)
I completely agree with Tarkovsky.
Later, I came to know the music of Jon Hassell. It was with his music that I discovered the concept of Pentimento. It's a painting technique in which the painter applies a new layer on top of an older one. But at the same time, he's admitting part of the older layer. I was carried away by the playing and music of Jon Hassell.
Through it, I met guitarist Rick Cox, who invented his own interval system so he wouldn't sound like other guitarists. His processing of the guitar through Ableton live and the effects in Pre faders inspired me a lot.
(The first three trumpet notes at 0:35 say it all :)
I forgot to mention Adrian Belew from King Crimson. His original and very energetic playing influenced me back in my jazz rock years. I was also inspired by Robert Fripp's rhythmic minimalism and, of course, his ambient surfaces. Or Nick Cave's longtime partner Warren Ellis. I LOVE his work. The noise, the different layering of rhythmic layers on top of each other... Eivind and I agreed that the soundtrack to Proposition is very inspiring.
(I love the aleatorically stacked rhythmic passages…)
The mix of all these guitarists and my role models got me to where I am now. Maybe that's why Steven Wilson wants my solos on the albums. I have some of my jazz rock era left in me (at least the technique and phrasing), but I'm looking at the solos through my new lens of abstract art and breaking conventions…
I'll see where my journey goes next.
PS: Finally, I'm adding a track from my album The Son. It is the song Today at 18:00. I got a phone call from the doctor that at 6:00 pm my son has to have a second surgery... I tried to imitate the sound of a morse code from a sinking ship with guitar sounds.