David Henriksson - Elektrik Blues Guitar Lessons, Performance, & Interview

David Henriksson talks about his blues electric guitar lessons available on TrueFire, performs, and answers questions. To learn more and watch the video from this live session, please visit truefire.com/live.

About David:

Swedish guitarist David Henriksson moved to Nashville in 2017 and has since played with 12 artists who topped the Billboard charts and 3 Grammy winning artists. He’s performed multiple times at iconic venues such as Ryman Auditorium and Grand Ole Opry House. David also is a featured educator at TrueFire and a writer featured at guitar.com. He’ll tell you more details as you continue to read:

"Born in ’88. Learned how to operate my dad’s vinyl player and started playing violin in ’94. Switched to acoustic guitar in ’97. Got my first electric in ’01. Heard Stevie Ray Vaughan for the first time and more or less decided to dedicate my life to guitar in ’02. I’ve loved music and been fascinated by numbers for as long as I can remember. I suspect you’re more interested in the music though, so I won’t specify every year certain stuff happened from now on. Well, I’ll try at least…

After diggin’ deep into Stevie Ray’s music and blues rock guitar for a couple of years, I studied at Sweden’s biggest music high school called Rytmus. This was a fantastic time to connect with like-minded people and to get some more formal training and a great foundation in music theory that I felt really helped my understanding of music. I played with an original band called The Events and in addition to both regional, national and international gigs we also released 2 full-length albums where I was part of writing all the songs, recording, producing and mixing.

Since playing original music won’t pay the bills quite as easily, I also started two cover bands called Pure Pleasure and Cassius Clay. Around the same time I also studied a Bachelor’s Degree specially for ”Electric Guitar Teaching” at the Stockholm University College of Music Education.

As I was halfway into my 20’s, I realized making a living playing guitar and having some of the finest gear I could imagine didn’t really cut it. I wanted MORE. I felt like music was my job and that my passion was slowly fading away, but I wouldn’t let it happen. Inspiration was what I needed, and I decided to go for a trip somewhere. I sold a bunch of gear, inherited some money from a distant relative and was very grateful to receive the Hagström Award from The Royal Swedish Academy of Music. With a decent budget, I headed to United States of America for an 11 week long trip, this was one of the most important decision I’ve ever made. It changed my life completely.

After a road trip going through amazing cities such as New Orleans, Austin, Dallas and Memphis I finally set my foot in Nashville and everything just felt RIGHT! I loved the music scene and I ended up getting great connections with industry professionals in just a matter of a few weeks. I decided I wanted to try to use all the connections I made in the states and the only way to be able to work legally is to get a work visa. It’s NOT an easy process though…

I left my cover band after the summer of 2015 to widen my resume and at the same time I got in touch with a lawyer to help me with the incredibly tricky visa process. Almost everything I did was with the final goal of moving to Nashville to continue my career over there. I grew new connections, backed up up’n’coming artists, started recording demo videos for different companies and more or less everything that came my way that I thought could help me reach my goal. It sure took longer than I thought it would, but after almost 2 years I finally got my visa approved and a couple of months later I relocated to Nashville.

After 6 weeks in town, I got hired as a lead guitarist for 90’s country icon Tracy Lawrence. Within 4 months, I had made my debut at Grand Ole Opry House, Ryman Auditorium and in national TV. It was a crazy experience, but it was such a great feeling that all the hard work finally paid off. I’ve traveled with my guitar and played in 36 American states, with 12 Billboard topping artists and played guitar solos on cat walks in front of 30.000 people - I’m quite happy I learned how to handle that vinyl player and was drawn to guitar based music when I was 6 years old.

Identify your dream, make up a plan, work hard, be patient and I’m quite sure good stuff will come your way as well. Don’t give up!"