From Pop to Bop

TO HEAR NIR Felder, you wouldn’t imagine the first players to excite him were Clapton, Hendrix and Page. His minimal string bending and long, high-speed, harmonically complex lines make it hard to trace his roots to that rock triumvirate. It’s only his almost exclusive use of a Fender Stratocaster and decidedly non-bebop attack that provide some hint.

“Those were the guitar heroes who brought me to the blues,” Felder says. “That was a road map for how the guitar could express things in a way I had been unable to. I didn’t have the language for it. Playing blues was cathartic.” It’s also the reason he still plays the ’95 Tex-Mex Strat he has had since he was 13 years old. “I wanted to play a Strat, like Stevie Ray,” he says.

Felder’s path ultimately led him away from blues and rock toward, as a member of his band.