The first guitar lessons Tristan Avakian took at age 9 were not quite as successful as you might think. “I was being taught to play ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore’ in a room of a church,” he recalls. “And, the whole time, I was worrying about the fat kid outside waiting to beat me up for my lunch money.”
Three years later, after getting a first dose of his older sister’s record collection, Avakian picked up the axe again and has not put it down since. By the time he was 16, he was a fixture of the New York City club scene, playing stages like CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City when he was still too young to be in the crowd. “I learned a lot about music,” says Avakian, “and a lot about life.”
Tristan Avakian
Mentors proved relatively easy for him to find — taking $10-an-hour lessons from the soon-legendary Steve Vai and watching his mentor Steve Stevens ascend to fame in Billy Idol’s band influenced Avakian to follow the same path: “It wasn’t anything specific they showed me as much as who they were, what they were, and the discipline they brought to the task — no matter how glamorous it looked on the outside, seeing their technique is what shaped me as a player.”
From that influence, he racked up the credits for a truly eclectic batch of artists: from Mariah Carey to Jim Carroll to Biohazard, along with teaching guitar to Lauryn Hill and playing on her still-unreleased second solo album, plus a stint with Christmas rock icons the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Several other projects have been theatrical rock: a role off-Broadway in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a movie and stage show created by Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and touring with Cirque de Soleil. All those roads eventually led Avakian to Toronto, where he and his wife decided was better to raise their family, and a job as lead guitarist for the Queen musical We Will Rock You was soon to follow — a transition as natural for him as for the nightly crowd.
“This audience no longer wants to see a concert sitting a mile away from the stage in an arena,” he says. “I’ve kind of moved with them. Plus, I get to sleep in my own bed every single night. And, for any musician, that’s almost unheard of.”
No longer living out of a suitcase has given Avakian the opportunity to focus on teaching others, including a role at Toronto Rock Camp, where he will be providing guitar workshops.
“There’s an aura of being around a working professional that you can’t communicate through a DVD or clips on YouTube,” he says. “From my own experience growing up, I know there’s no substitute, so that’s a role I hope I can also play for some kids.”
Getting to the point where a guitarist can play with the right amount of sizzle demands plenty of focus, though, and Avakian’s background has given him insight into the psychology behind the process.
“You have to go into it knowing there will be peaks and valleys in the long-haul,” he says. “You also never know what can come out of chance meetings, or unexpected circumstances — if you see an opportunity then it makes sense to grab it. But you also have to keep your ego in check.
“The toes you step on today might belong to a person whose you-know-what you’ll end up having to kiss tomorrow.”
