Irene Ketikidi: Guitar Girl Magazine interview

Irene... "what it's three takes for every solo?!"

Irene: I'm in both places at the moment (Greece and the UK). Where I came from is kind of a small place, a small town I guess. I did my first lesson there. I knew I wanted to move to somewhere bigger to explore new things. When I moved to Athens, I was actually studying computer engineering at the same time. I enrolled in a course in one of the Berklee associated music schools. I had a really great teacher in Jazz Harmony and Theory; he was amazing.

After that I just started thinking at that time in my life, when I was 18, I wanted to learn rock and other stuff; not jazz right now. I never really listened to jazz at home, I do listen to some now. I just needed to do something different and I was doing private lessons with Theodore Ziras; quite popular guy with shreds. He had studied in England and was quite an inspiring figure as far as professionalism where artistry and discography was concerned. I thought that I'd rather go that way.

That period of time was when I didn't have any information about female players. I actually did think when I was 14 that I was the only one, because I didn't see any bands. I know it sounds stupid, but I was like I'll just start something that people don't really do. Then I found out about Jennifer Batten who played for Michael Jackson, which was surprising because I listened to him when I was young. Carina Alfie, who's an Argentinian artist, also inspired me when I was young.

I thought it was a good idea to go to London, because the music scene there is huge. I was sure there would be stuff to do there. I studied at ICMP, which was a great course; it was a bachelor course. That was only part of it, and mostly was playing with different bands, just going out to gigs, jams, seeing great players, and getting information in my ears. That's what really made me want to go to London. Greece is not really famous for it's rock music. I knew I wanted to do a few different things and see where it takes me from there.

Full interview http://www.guitargirlmag.com/interviews/interview-with-irene-ketikidi--guitarist-and-music-aficionado-talks-about-her-different-styles-of-music--influences-and-more