The most impressive thing about Gearwire MVP Candidate EvilSoup is his age. At 18 years old, EvilSoup is not only a respected and renowned member of the Harmony-Central FX forums, but he's also already a huge gear-head, and his recordings (please do checkout his MySpace) show an amazing knack for atmospheric music.

What is your background?

Being a young forumite of 18, I don't really have much of a background compared to some of the other experienced musicians on the forum.

However I hope to one day have a background I'm proud of, but as it is I'll give you the basics: I'm 18, I've been playing guitar for five years, drumming for three, and singing for two. I've been playing in my high school band for 4 years, however we split paths as I believe most high school bands do.

As of right now I'm in sort of a hiatus with my music as I don't have a band nor a good way of recording my music. I do have some recordings on my MySpace though, using my Fusion synth and an outdated version of Sound Forge.

The web address is http://www.myspace.com/thetomshine.

The name is a joke really, my band was called The Bad Shine, and my band mates always kid me about going off and starting my own solo project called The Tom Shine.

How did you get started in music and what advice would you give to someone who just started?

I wasn't into music really until about the 7th or 8th grade. Before then, the only music I listened to was probably Weird Al Yankovic. But then I took a general music course and ended up learning the guitar. I would see another kid who was a guitarist come into the class and play songs like Sweet Home Alabama and Stairway to Heaven while everyone ooh'd and ahh'd. I wanted to have the ability to play things like that at will, so I started learning the guitar as well.

I found I had a gift with improvising, and I would rent the guitar on weekends and spend hours practicing. I remember getting a Mexi Strat and a Marshall practice amp for Christmas and a Yamaha DG multieffects pedal. I would record every terrible attempt at making new sounds and use the Yamaha to record them straight to my computer. I was quite frustrated the first year as I didn't feel comfortable with the guitar neck, and chords would buzz. It clicked to me eventually though and I started to exponentially grow as a guitarist. I also met my band mates in that same general music class. I remember having a argument with my to be drummer on who would be able to do a report on Jimi Hendrix for class, and he ended up making a report on The Beatles to which it became one of his favorite bands and mine too.

As for advice I would say when you are learning an instrument such as the guitar or even singing, give it a year or so just to get used to it. It won't feel comfortable at first, but you will get used to it over time and it will click and become natural.

Who are your musical influences and what genre do you listen to most?

I'll give you my top 30 in order of most influential/favorite:

• 1. Radiohead
• 2. Coldplay
• 3. The Beatles
• 4. The Flaming Lips
• 5. Death Cab for Cutie
• 6. The Smashing Pumpkins
• 7. Jeff Buckley
• 8. Muse
• 9. The Shins
• 10. The Cure
• 11. Pink Floyd
• 12. The Pixies
• 13. Explosions in the Sky
• 14. John Mayer
• 15. KT Tunstall
• 16. Aphex Twin
• 17. Air
• 18. The Beach Boys
• 19. The Strokes
• 20. Sigur Ros
• 21. The Verve
• 22. Mogwai
• 23. Nirvana
• 24. Pearl Jam
• 25. Rush
• 26. Frank Zappa
• 27. Steve Miller Band
• 28. Jimi Hendrix
• 29. Queen
• 30. Eric Johnson

As you can see, I'm mostly into 90's alternative rock with some classic influences too.

Also my favorite...

• Singer: Jeff Buckley
• Lyricist: Ben Gibbard
• Guitarist: Eric Johnson
• Drummer: Thomas Lang
• Bassist: Les Claypool

What's your inspiration?

My inspiration is learning to be the best musician I can be by reaching my potential.

What's your motivation for helping people out on forums?

I help people out because I hope that they will one day help me out with a question that I have. I believe forums should provide helpful information to the community, and if I can help out then I'm doing my part to create a better forum.

What's your favorite piece of gear and why? What gear do you use?

Right now it would have to be my Boss DD20.

Delay is my favorite effect, and the bit of looping capabilities help out the songwriting a lot as well as allow me to add extra atmosphere or just a background to play over. A very creative tool. It always amazes a crowd that's for sure.

I use a Fender Tele Thin-line 72' Reissue. I also have a broken Fender Twin that blew a transformer about a month ago so I don't have an amp at the moment.

I have a very big pedal board, and you can tell that I come from none other than the Harmony Central Effects Forum.

Foxrox Octron > Boss PS5 > Tonefactor 440 Analog Filter > Zvex Fuzz Probe > Skreddy Mayo > Foxrox ZIM > M.I. Audio Tube Zone > Foxrox TZF > Tonefactor Nebula > EHX Small Stone > Guyatone MD3 > Boss DD20 > Line 6 Verbzilla

Mr. Munky's website. He's a great player and also a TZF fan.

What's the best music related advice you've ever given?

I've given a few friends that have asked me guitar lessons and I taught them things like how to solo over a key and muting techniques.

One notable one was I taught my bassist my method of playing which is without a pick. I don't use picks and I don't play in a regular finger-style method. I play with the flesh of my thumb and come back with the thumbnail and I use that like alternate picking. However when I strum, I play down with my fingernails and up with my thumbnail. It's a different sound, and it allows me to really feel the strings for a natural feel. It helps string skipping and I combine it with a bit of finger-style. Lots of things you can do with this method even though it has some downsides of being hard to mute with your right hand. I do all of my muting with my left hand instead.

I play quite uniquely. That's what happens when you are self taught.

What's the best music related advice you've ever received?

Well there was one time where my drummer commented that my singing needed more emotion in it. At the time I had been reading too many books to step back and think about that. So the very next day at practice everyone was surprised that my singing sounded twice as good. However I still have a long way to go to being a great singer.

Oh yeah and I once got a lesson from a guy I met in a music shop, he showed me the 12 bar blues on a side of a street in the city. That was pretty cool and I still use what he showed me to this day.

What's the best and worst thing about being a musician?

The best thing is feeling I get when I finish recording a piece of original music I'm proud of and I listen to it over and over again. It's like finding a new favorite song, it's great.

However, when you are have writer's block or when you doubt yourself it can be nerve wrecking.

What is the best and worst thing about online forums?

The best thing in my opinion is how you can take your time to write a response without being rushed. It makes forums a lot funnier as people can take their time to come up with witty responses. Also you can revise your posts and make them as useful and readable as you like. Searching is a big plus as well.

The worst thing is when the forums are down! Also when the search is down.

What music-related topic do you think is most neglected on forums?

Vocals, there isn't really a good forum to talk about that and there really should be.

A lot of people I think are getting bad information about singing, and one of the worst ones being that you have to be born with a gift to be able to sing.

That's simply not true.

What are the 5 forum posts/threads where you are most proud of your contributions? (Give actual URLs)

• Secret Effects Recipe
• Finding The Key
Finding The Key (Pt. 2)
• Underground Effect Makers
• What else should I get?

Anything else you would like voters to know? Any interesting music related stories?

In my senior year I finally joined choir after teaching myself how to sing a little, and I got voice lessons and I went from being in the bottom choir to the top choir to being in the select choir which the best of the best so to speak. All though I never went on to state choir because I joined too late, it was a fun experience and I learned a lot. During that time I made a SATB with piano acc. choir piece dedicated to my late Grandma who passed away from cancer. I have yet to get it performed, but I do have a finale version which sounds very glitchy but you can imagine what it would sound like sung by a real choir. There are words as well, here is the soundclick link to ""What Comes Next"

Thanks to Gearwire for this chance at winning some gear! I could really use it right now.

Also a shout out to HCFX for being the best damn forum there is.

Editor's Note: All opinions displayed in the last sentence of this interview do not represent the views of Gearwire staff or Gearwire.com :)