John Konesky - Tenacious D Interview
Tell me about growing up in Columbus, OH. When did you first begin to fall in love with music, more specifically the guitar? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first show and what ultimately inspired you to pursue a life in music?
It was a very typical midwestern upbringing. I was born in ’80 and was a teenager in the 90’s so I grew up with smoky malls, 8 bit video games, skinny skateboards with tiny wheels and loose trucks and the rise and fall of hair metal into the grunge era. We saw pagers give way to cell phones and clunky desktop computers running Oregon Trail suddenly have this cool thing called the internet which basically made it easier to talk to girls without being as awkward as we would certainly be in person. I have great parents who loved music and loved to laugh. My Dad listened to a lot of country music and would show me old Laurel and Hardy tapes on VHS. My Mom was all about classic rock and insisted “Stairway to Heaven” be the first rock song I learned on guitar. Neither of them pushed me into sports, or things I wasn’t interested in. They got me a cheap acoustic guitar in ’89 and made me a deal that if I stuck with it for a year, they’d get me an electric. I did, and got my red Squier Strat after that. It was rough. They’re so much better now than they were then. I always loved music, but I was almost more intrigued by being a “musician.” My family didn’t have cable tv so any exposure to music videos was fairly scrambled on a station that barely came in, or at a friend’s house. I saw a Guns and Roses video in ’88 and I saw Slash playing guitar and it looked like the coolest thing I’d ever seen. That was what got me started. But, I also loved to practice. I fell in love with the challenge of it. In those days there was barely a handful of kids that played in my school, so it wasn’t hard to stand out. I loved being one of the kids that played guitar. I wasn’t in band at school, or part of any groups. It was MY thing, and I think that’s what kept pushing me early on. Later I’d have some guitar teachers who would inspire me to take it further, but if I’m being honest, the original drive was that I wanted to do something that at that time was kinda different, for a normal kid in the Midwest. Growing up, I had a tight group of friends, many of whom I keep in touch with.
Most of us were into skateboarding and a few of us knew woodworking from our dads so we’d always be building ramps and hurting ourselves. It was a great time. Coincidentally it was skateboarding that made me take guitar more seriously in high school. I fractured my wrist on a mini ramp I’d built in my basement and decided, then and there, that I would stop skating and focus on guitar. That was actually when I first started playing finger-style because the cast held my right hand in a good position for it, and I couldn’t hold a pick anyway. My earliest musical influences on guitar would have definitely been whatever was popular at the time when I started playing well enough to learn songs, so Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc. Soon after, I started listening to a lot of classic rock and that’s primarily what I’d consider my background to be. My biggest influence though, would have been my guitar teacher at that time. His name is Bob Murnahan and I believe he’s still teaching. He was a guitar player’s guitar player, so to speak, and was into great players of all types. Besides teaching me scales, modes, and improvising, he would also introduce me to a lot of great players and could teach just about anything. The first couple of “real” shows I’d gone to after I’d started playing were probably in ‘93/’94 and I remember seeing Primus and getting squashed in the pit as a frail 14 year old. And the other one was Jesus and Mary Chain. Both shows were at Newport Music Hall in Columbus Ohio. I saw Incubus there in maybe ’97 and I remember that standing out as a pretty inspiring concert. I got to the venue super early and waited by their bus to see if I could catch one of them coming out. Brandon stopped and chatted with us for a while and was incredibly friendly. I’ll never forget what he said when I asked him, as a naive 16/17-year-old guitarist, “what it’s like to ‘make it’” and he said, “it only gets harder.”
How did you initially meet JB and KG? What were your very first impressions of them in those early days of Tenacious D as well as KG’s side project Trainwreck? Tell me about writing and recording the band’s mighty follow up to 2001’s self-titled LP, “The Pick of Destiny” back in ‘05. What was the overall vision and approach to this record as well as working with folks such as Dave Grohl, Failure’s Ken Andrews and Brad Breeck?
This is a question I’ve answered pretty frequently so I’ll keep it brief. My friend Erin Robinson became friends with Kage and I met him through her. At that time he was starting Trainwreck and Spiker and I were also in the process of moving to Los Angeles. The timing worked out and we started playing with Trainwreck in ’02 and then started working with the D in ‘05/’06. The early Trainwreck days were really fun. The chemistry was great because we were all in it to have a good time and make each other laugh. Spiker and I and later our friend Nate on drums, were the new kids, just loving every second of the experience of touring. We didn’t care if people came to the shows or not, we just loved being on the road and learning the business and having fun. You would have to ask Jack and Kyle for that one. I’ve been very fortunate to get to contribute my guitar playing to their albums and to the live show and it’s been the most amazing experience of my life on a number of levels. While I’ve been able to contribute bits here and there creatively, I’m primarily there as a guitarist and I love that. Besides being on the albums with Dave, I wasn’t involved in the recording of his parts. To answer the question, “what was it like?”, any time I get to spend working with anyone in Tenacious D’s orbit is always a pleasure!
Tell me about some of the songs featured on the album such as “Dude (I Totally Miss You)”, “Kickapoo”, and “Master Exploder” to name a few. What were those days in the studio with everyone like as well as the energy of this being the soundtrack to the cult classic film at the time?
My recollection of those days is that every single day I was involved was a gift and it was an incredible experience. Most days when I was called in it was because things had progressed to a point of needing guitar. So, from my perspective, I would come in and a new collection of work had been completed so I’d get to hear things as they progressed in small chunks and then I would contribute guitars, then wait until it was time for guitars again. Sometimes I would be invited in for special days such as, to watch Dave do drum parts, or watch Dio sing his part in “Kickapoo”. The energy was always overwhelmingly positive. There were a lot of firsts for everyone so there was an innocent excitement to it all. It was the first time Jack and Kyle would make a movie together start to finish. It was the first time Liam Lynch wrote and directed a feature film. It was the first time Spiker and I had played on a “major label album.” It was just an exciting time for positive change in a lot of people’s lives.
Between “POD” and the band’s third album “Rize of the Fenix” you had worked on a number of projects including Trainwreck. What was this time like in your life both as a person ad well as a professional musician? I understand you also worked with the legendary John Carptener and his son Cody!
Yeah, there was a significant drop in activity after POD’s touring cycle wrapped. Trainwreck finished the first album and put it out and toured on it but we struggled to make enough of an impact to keep it going. I had a band called Sea of Air. We released one split 7” with another band called Night Horse on Tee Pee Records. My personal life was a shit-show then. I had almost no work and frankly was struggling to make ends meet. On top of that I couldn’t find a gig to save my life. Eventually my buddies in the band Holy Grail had me on to play bass on a tour so I could just get back into the life a bit. It was a much needed reset. It was a long van tour and it was humbling and exciting at the same time. When I got back from that Spiker was playing guitar with Ronnie Vannucci in Big Talk and I was brought on to play bass. It was fun switching roles with Spiker for a bit. Soon after that the guys started working on “Rize of the Fenix” and I was around for a lot of that one and it was probably my favorite record to work on. The John Carpenter gig came later – after Rize tour wrapped. That experience was truly special. John is an incredible man and an absolute joy to get to work with. His godson Daniel Davies is a good friend of mine and he is the one who brought Spiker and I onto that gig. I met Cody on the gig and he’s one of the only people I know who likes Italian Prog Rock as much as me! I’ll cherish those memories for the rest of my life!
Jumping ahead to the band’s 2018 release of “Post-Apocalypto”, tell me about bringing this album to life and what was most important to you guys to achieve and express with this album? What have you got in the works for 2024 as we close out yet another year on this humble marble? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
Once again you’d be better off asking Jack and Kyle about that as I was not involved in any of that creative process. It was an absolute joy to play on and tour though! Yes, please check out my band Crusade and my band Wynchester, both with my creative partner Mike Bray and both putting records out in 2024! Crusade will be opening for TD on a handful of EU dates this Spring.
