Topeka’s Andy McKee will perform a headlining concert at Salina’s Stiefel Theatre on Friday, April 25.
McKee had already had a few albums and garnered acclaim in guitar circles by the time he became one of the earliest YouTube sensations on the then-new platform circa 2005 with his video for the song “Drifting” racking up 60 million views. As impressive as those numbers were, McKee demonstrated through the compositions he performed in YouTube videos and on his albums that he had the compositional prowess to sustain a career.
Within a few years, he had landed dates opening for the progressive metal band Dream Theater in several territories, shared the stage with Prince, and earned the respect of guitar heavyweights such as Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather (Toto), and Lee Ritenour. Drawing from a range of influences that includes fingerstyle masters such as Michael Hedges, Preston Reed and Don Ross, McKee stands as a leading voice of acoustic guitar as he continues to tour global stages, playing major venues globally each year.
McKee will also host his music camp, Andy McKee’s Musicarium, in Lawrence this summer (July 16-20) with Trevor Gordon Hall, Calum Graham, Stephen Bennett, and Greg Koch all scheduled to appear.
McKee recently spoke with KMUW about some of his more unique musical experiences, why he almost never posts YouTube videos anymore, and more.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You have played some big rooms as a headliner but you’ve also played for some large audiences as an opening act as well for a wide range of acts, including Dream Theater. You’re a guy with an acoustic guitar and they’re this five-piece rock band that plays high volume, high-intensity progressive metal.
I’ve been a fan of Dream Theater since I was 14. I saw the video for “Pull Me Under” on MTV back then. I was an instant fan. I had just started playing guitar a couple years before that and was so into how sophisticated the music. Having the opportunity years later to meet those guys and open shows for them in Europe, here in the States and in Mexico was a dream come true.
It all kind of worked because people who are fans of Dream Theater are musically inclined people. They’re into a broad range of things as long as it’s unique or interesting. I did a handful of tunes to open the show with solo acoustic guitar. It went over real well. I couldn’t go out and open for Slayer. That wouldn’t work! [Laughs.]
[Dream Theater guitarist] John Petrucci’s kids [Sami and Reny Petrucci] have a group, Mt. Juliet, and I’ve had them open shows for me now around the States. It’s been a wild ride with the Dream Theater group and particularly with the Petrucci family.
You also did some work with Prince.
My manager had written to me and said, “I got this email and they say it’s Prince’s management and he’s interested in working together.” We were both not sure it was real. My manager dove into and it was all legit. I ended up flying up to [Prince’s studio] Paisley Park and meeting with him and the band. I played him some of my acoustic solo stuff and we jammed a bit and played ping-pong. Prince was an incredible ping-pong player as well.
He asked me what I was doing that year and actually that year I was playing in Asia some with Dream Theater as well as doing my solo stuff. I told him what I was up to and the next I knew he said that he’d booked this tour in Australia that he’d wanted me to be in the band for. I went back one more time to Paisley Park and we came up with a medley of tunes that I would do with the band. Five, six, seven tunes, something like that.
After I finished that tour in Asia, I just went straight down to Australia and met up with Prince and the band down there. We did three shows in Sydney, three in Melbourne and three in Brisbane. He had me open the show playing an acoustic arrangement of “Purple Rain.” Then they would lower me down this elevator in the middle of the stage and I would come back an hour later and do this medley with the band. It was really, really, really nuts. I would never have imagined something like that happening.
He found me on YouTube pretty much like everyone else on Earth who’s aware of who I am. He found my tunes and told me “Rylynn” was his favorite one. It’s this kind of melodic, slower paced tune that I wrote. That’s how it all came together. It was pretty incredible. At the end of the tour I felt a little bit weird … I love doing this solo acoustic thing and I told him, “If you ever want to do an acoustic album of some of your tunes or whatever, let me know.” I figured I’d never hear from him again but in December [2015], about four months before he passed away, I did get another email about doing something together but were just never able to do that.
Certainly one of the most unique moments of my life, doing that tour. I’m really honored that he liked what I did. He was such an incredible musician and songwriter.
You have a lot of music to draw from in live performance. Is there a period that you feel like people probably know better than others that you feel you have to represent within the show?
There was the era where my career took off on YouTube, around 2005-2006. A lot of those tunes are how people got into my stuff. I don’t have a problem playing “Rylynn” and “Drifting” and “For My Father.” I don’t have a problem doing that. People tell me how much those tunes mean to them. If I didn’t play them live it would just be weird. [Laughs.] Over the years those tunes have evolved as I’ve matured and changed as a human being. I play those tunes a bit differently.
It is the twentieth anniversary of my album “Art of Motion” this year, so later, in the fall, I’m releasing a twentieth anniversary edition of that album. I’m re-recording it, kind of playing it how I do now.
I’ve got a bunch of new material as well so I’m going to put out a new album as well. I’m looking at late summer.
Twenty years from that album and you’re still here.
People can forget about you, move on. I’ve worked hard to stay touring. My career took off on YouTube but I wouldn’t say that I’m a YouTube artist. I don’t put stuff up every month or every year sometimes. [Laughs.] If I’ve got a new album I’ll put some videos up but I’m not really a YouTuber. I’ve just been trying to play live for the last 20 years. Fortunately that’s been my main thing. Being able to make that connection in the live setting … there’s something real special about that. I even feel weird playing guitar on Instagram. It’s not really the same.
You were one of the first people to go viral on YouTube before that term was even in the culture. Today there are a lot of players who put their music up on those platforms but it seems to me that that’s just one piece of the puzzle. You’ve still got to have the songs and you’ve still got to have a way to connect with a live audience.
If you’re wanting to be a serious musician I think. There’s certainly people that have careers, completely online, doing videos on Instagram and TikTok. It’s almost like two separate worlds. There is some crossover but to keep an audience entertained for two hours, playing solo acoustic guitar is not the easiest thing in the world maybe. [Laughs.] With the social media stuff you get this quick flash of 30 seconds or a minute and people are, like, “Wow, wow, wow!” But maybe that doesn’t translate into an entire night of something you want to sit through.
For me, this whole guitar thing? It’s about music. Even though I do the solo thing and I don’t sing, sometimes people think, “You must be some sort of a virtuoso. It has to be difficult, blah blah blah.” I really just love music and the way it can make you feel, it can make everybody together. We’re all feeling something at the same time. It’s not so much about the pyrotechnics of it and the crazy, difficultly of something. I got bored with that to be honest. There’s more to the guitar than just that stuff.
