LR: The guitar experienced a deep and resonant cultural mytho-poetic meaning in the 20th century. As someone who's been recording since the 70's can you tell us your view of the guitar's role in the 20th century artistically and culturally? What do you see as its role in the 21st?
MT: The guitar jabbed it's way to the front of all other instruments in the late '50's early '60's due to it's electrification and then the fact that it resembles a penis as much or more than the Freudian cigar.
It's ability to communicate an exciting and electrifying feeling is the reason it went so well with the very electrified, crazy and rapidly changing culture of the times. Being an instrument that one straps on, it gave the player a sense of being a warrior with a weapon of dramatic proportions. There was a sense a war was being waged with the establishment back then and the guitar was the weapon of choice to make a stand against that establishment.
LR: Do you feel like the guitar is more or less relevant today?
As for the 21st century, the guitar will never again rise to the level of popular attention as it did in the 2nd half of the 20th century. The walls of sexuality and censorship have been torn down to the point that the guitar is less relevant as a weapon against those censorships. Now, you don't need a guitar to import sexuality to the music, it's done with direct human sexuality and lyrics are no longer allegory of some hidden deeper truth in society, now the lyrics are more direct as the repealed censors allow.
LR: When evolving as a guitarist, or evolving what the guitar can be, do you feel like it's important to incorporate the past? Meaning tapping into older rock n' roll, blues, noise, punk, folk etc -- or does moving forward mean forgetting the past?
MT: It's impossible to forget the past. No matter how clever, stoned, or new one might imagine their ideas, music or expression to be, it's all been felt and expressed similarly before. The now is made up of the past and future. It can't be avoided, it doesn't need to be considered, it is always there. The more one is aware of the past, the more capacity one has to manipulate the now. But it is not necessary.
LR: When working alongside Captain Beefheart, were there ever conscious talks about deconstructing, or destroying, genres in order to create something new or pure? Or was it all just on a gut instinct level?
MT: All gut instinct level.
LR: Was being in that sort of band about technical proficiency or raw intent?
MT: It was both. Don Van Vliet's music was embroiled and complicated and just to play it, one needed to have a great deal of technical proficiency. But he chose his players as an artist chooses his brushes. You sometimes go for the brush you like and have an emotional connection to over the one that might give you a more accurate line.
LR: Where do you see the future of guitar these days? In the players, subcultures, sounds…:
MT: Writing code for apps! There will always be a place for the music of the past in the present. It's hard to kill romance. I'm a romantic, I still like hearing the jangely tones of a Stratocaster being strangled correctly! It's hard to see any future right now…Trump is gaining on us, polar bears are dying in vast numbers!