An interview with USA guitar fingerstyle champion Steven King
by David Klein

From Living Nutrition Magazine vol. 12

It is Living Nutrition’s great honor to interview Steven King, USA National Fingerstyle Guitar Champion. Steven’s original solo acoustic style features walking bass lines simultaneously executed with melodies, rhythms, and chords. Steven performs in concert on acoustic guitar, and also leads The Steven King Ensembles, his variety dance bands and small combos, by private engagement. His CDs have received numerous national press accolades, and his tablature transcriptions are hailed by guitarists worldwide as innovative master arrangements. Steven is also the "acoustic jazz clinician" for Taylor Guitars, conducting his entertaining and educational guitar clinics throughout the USA and abroad, where he combines mini solo guitar concerts with educational presentations of his unique approach to fingerstyle guitar mastery. These presentations, called "workshops" or "clinics", are held nationwide. Check the itinerary on his web site to catch the “Kingster” at one of these shows near you. Steven’s CDs can be ordered online at www.kingofguitar.net.

DK: It’s wonderful to spend some time with you Steven. Are you working on any special projects?

SK: I have added all kinds of options on my web site where people can get not only CDs but instructional videos and tablature arrangements of standards I have produced. When I do my clinic
concerts around the world, I get a lot of interested young and old players who want to get back into the old standards and more modern tunes (like Beatles songs). I’ve arranged many of them for solo guitar and now I have them available on my web site.

DK: I love your CD “ReBeatle-ing”--it’s one of the most relaxing CDs I’ve listened to. Your entire catalog of CDs as well as your instructional videos are all so soothing yet awe inspiring! For those who are not guitar aficionados, I wish they could appreciate what extraordinary skill it takes to play two melodies at once with ten fingers. Your “walking bass line” technique leaves me speechless and smiling from ear to ear! Where did you grow up, and when did you move up to Washington State?

SK: I grew up in different areas of Los Angeles. After I married Connie in 1993 we moved up to Washington. We love it here.

DK: When did you first begin playing a musical instrument? Was it guitar?

SK: When I was 13, my mother forced me to take a guitar lesson during the summer. I wanted to take swimming but no, I had to take the guitar class. After the first class, I knew I’d be playing for life. (Thanks mom!)

DK: What kind of music did you like in the beginning?

SK: Throughout high school I was the typical rock and roll type guitar player. When I got into Pasadena City College, and took a music major I gravitated more towards the old swing, big band
era type tunes. Now I just kind of do everything. In college Eddie Van Halen was in the same class as me. This was right before his band really emerged. We never knew each other--he sat in the back, I sat in the front. After that I went to Dick Grove music school in North Hollywood. After that, I just played a lot of gigs for the rest of the 70’s with great players around LA. In 1980 I developed my solo style which won me fame and acclaim.

DK: When did you realize that you are a specially gifted musician and you could really forge a career?

SK: There was a definite time when I moved up to Washington in 1993 and I left my whole business I had built up in L.A.: contracting music, leading bands, etc. I was going to start over because I was leaving a bad marriage behind and making a new start. It was very hard to find
enough music work and I remember a time one day when I just gave up and said “I’m just going to get a regular eight hour job and be ‘realistic.’” I was on my way to an interview for a minimum pay
delivery job and I was almost there. Then I thought “darn it, no, I’m a musician, I’m going to ‘musish’ or die trying.” From that moment, everything exploded for me. I won the National Fingerstyle Championship in 1994. I built up a tremendous combination of musical projects that all add up to
one pretty good business. One aspect of my career is performing solo guitar concerts and clinics all over the U.S. for Taylor Guitar Company. When I’m not touring, I’m here in Seattle leading bands and combos, doing weddings, private engagements and conventions. Then I have the mail order business for my CDs and tablatures.

DK: That's is so inspiring Steven! When you won the Fingerstyle Championship, was that a competition event?

SK: It’s a competition every year near Wichita, Kansas, in a place called Winfield. It’s the most prestigious competition of its kind. There are 40 competitors each year. It was a particularly good year for me to win because I beat out a former champion and some other very well known players.

DK: Who are some of your guitar heroes?

SK: Currently, there is a handful that stand out: Tommy Emmanuel who knows Chet Atkins moves and then a few...he’s certainly one of the best in the world. Martin Taylor, from Scotland is one of the
best Jazz finger style players in the world. Doyle Dykes, another Taylor Guitar clinician artist is an amazing player. Jim Nichols, from San Francisco is also an amazing jazz finger style player.

DK: When I saw Joe Pass several years ago it blew my mind. Then when I saw your instructional video I had that same reaction: “I thought it was humanly impossible do to that seemingly so easily, with 10 fingers on a guitar!”

SK: Yeah, Joe Pass certainly set a new standard and inspired almost everyone.

DK: What musical projects do you have in the works?

SK: My wife Connie and I also sing. We sound a lot like Simon and Garfunkel. I hope to eventually write and produce some wonderful vocal production tunes

DK: Would you like to share your health situation before you discovered Natural Hygiene?

SK: Oh yes, you’ve probably heard this scenario many times. I ate the typical Standard American Diet for most of my life up into my late 30’s. I kept gaining weight, I got up to 300 pounds with pain in my knees and everything. I remember when my kids were still in school and I would
stop into places like Weinerschitzel and order a dozen kraut dogs and eat them all. I was in trouble and I was getting liver diseases where it wasn’t bad enough for me to be hospitalized but I was “down for the count.” The first thing I did as I slowly got hip to Natural Hygiene around the late 1980’s was to quit dairy products. That very quickly ended the pain in my knees.

DK: Did you find out about Hygiene through the book Fit for Life?

SK: Yes, exactly. My mother had taken a class from the authors, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. This was right around the time their fame was breaking, when Harvey was giving classes around Los
Angeles. My mother turned me onto this information. I later got hip to quitting animal products and that took me to another plateau. Connie and I were both doing this but we were still cooking brown rice and steaming vegetables in the early 90s. I lost quite a bit of weight after this too. Then I finally got hip to T. C. Fry’s Natural Hygiene Course. I read both Fry’s and Shelton’s writings about how only raw food, not cooked dead food, is supportive of health. I’ve been trying to adhere to that and to the extent that I have, the better I get. Of course I go through “withdrawals” and I am still fighting the
cravings. It is a fight I have not yet won. I admit that. It is hardest when I’m touring. At home, it’s easier, since I know the layout of the land and where the food is. Connie has not had the withdrawal problems I have had. She is a very strong follower of truth, strong enough that when she learns facts from T. C. Fry or Herbert Shelton she has no emotional issues preventing her from following that truth. I, however, have emotional baggage to deal with, or eventually pay the price. I know this.

Admittedly, I still even have trouble at home. I miss cooked food sometimes, the old things I grew up with. I try to fill that longing with the least damaging things...maybe a can of lentil soup, maybe a
bit of feta cheese on the salad, maybe some canned beans, or cooked artichoke. I figure,”Well, it’s not cooked grains, it’s not meat, how bad can it be?” But you know, it always does have its consequences. But, good support abounds. I’ve been so inspired by the variety of things that I’ve read, like Paul Nison’s boxing analogy in The Raw Life, and Dr. Doug Graham’s little book Grain Damage, which I recommend to everyone because I think it is very well researched and brilliant. To
me, that cleared up so much in my mind. More than a few times I’ve been right up on stage, (me! master guitarist Steven King!) and I have forgotten how to play all or part of a song -- as Doug says in the book, grains really affect my brain. I really pay for it if I get lax with how I eat on tour.

DK: In addition to mental fatigue, was your your finger agility affected by grains and other SAD foods as well? And did that all clear up as you cleaned up your diet?

SK: Yes. Everything gets better in direct proportion to my commitment to staying raw. I’m approximately 85-90% raw at home, but still considerably lower than that when on tour, I am sorry to report.

DK: What are your favorite raw foods?

SK: I love many kinds of fruits. I’m loving golden kiwis right now. They taste much better than the standard kiwi to me. I tend to like more exotic fruits. I love cherimoya (the ones I ate in Taiwan, I haven't found any that good here) and am still looking forward to my first durian.

DK: How does staying on the raw food diet help your creativity?

SK: Well, after dealing with my former habits of overeating, fighting with the detox, cravings, etc., I’m in that “twilight zone.” Staying raw sharpens my mind, and when my mind is sharpened, my creative abilities are, too. Staying raw is still a big challenge to me though.

DK: Please talk about the challenges of eating and staying fit on the road. Any tips?

SK: Sometimes I fly all night or day and arrive for a gig dead tired. Often I don’t know my way around the places and all I see is McDonald's and other fast food places. Sometimes the best I can do
is hit a McDonald's and hope they have the salad. Sometimes I drive a long way on a tight schedule without time to search out a healthy dining place. I try to bring something healthful from home, such as sunflower seeds, or look up market locations from home before leaving.

DK: how often do you tour?

SK: I’m quite active in the spring and fall

DK: At home it’s obviously easier. Do you and Connie have a garden?

SK: Yes, we actually grew corn here this summer. We barely get enough sun to garden but we love it and we love fresh picked raw corn. We grow tomatoes here. I love peas too!

DK: How does your Baha'i Faith tie into your practice of healthful living?

SK: I dearly love the Baha'i Faith. My understanding is that it’s the fulfillment of prophecies from every religion and it teaches that we accept all the prophets of God, that religion is all from one source. Interestingly, in the Baha'i Faith, even though it doesn’t get into specifics about raw food, it does say that mankind is moving toward eating only fruits, tender vegetables, nuts and seeds! It totally is truth. On my web site’s "Lifestyle” page, I have a link to some beautiful photos of the world center of the Baha'i Faith on Mount Carmel in Israel.

DK: What are your personal goals and your vision for humanity?

SK: I want to be the best I can be and try to be an instrument for good. My goals are, first, to help spread the message of the Baha'i Faith, if only by example rather than preaching, and secondly, elevating the art of guitar playing, motivating my students to play really well. I’m teaching a new style that inspires people, and I’m thrilled to do that.

DK: What do you call the style?

SK: The Kingster Method, informally speaking. It’s my approach to solo fingerstyle guitar. A lot of people enjoy that.

DK: I know they do! Any final words?

SK: Be joyous!

DK: Thank you Steven! I’m glad you are out there helping to spread some joy and I’m looking forward to hearing you play some time soon.

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