I was a chubby 9-year-old kid. Growing up in San Diego, my main interests were the Beatles, Louis Armstrong, “Star Wars,” baseball cards and drawing. I’m the youngest of three boys, and my oldest brother was super into Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and played guitar. I wanted to be like him, so I asked for a guitar of my own for Christmas in ’93. I was a fast learner and still have some of the classics down: “House of the Rising Sun,” “Iron Man,” “Brain Stew.”

On the last day of third grade, I asked the teacher if I could play for the class, and crushed with a simple 12-bar blues. My friend Tom started a chant for “Encore!,” and I think I played pretty much the exact same thing and got just as much love.

My best friend was a kid named Jason. He was cool, kind of like the real-life version of Max from “Goof Troop.” Like most best friends, we shared similar interests. And not long after I got a guitar, he got one, too. Mine was a little classical acoustic guitar, but his was way more rad: this black electric with a built-in amp. It was probably the most metal thing I’d laid my eyes and ears on at that point in my life.

With his sick new ax in tow, and my developing virtuosity (mostly thanks to Rob, the chill 20-something guitar teacher who gave lessons in the local mini-mall), Jason and I were heading toward a fruitful collaboration. I took it upon myself to bestow the shred knowledge I’d acquired. I walked Jason through “Sunshine of Your Love,” showed him the chords for “Wild Thing.” His little sister would watch in awe as we hung at his house and jammed. One time she asked if I knew “Blackbird,” and because that Beatles song is superhard, I came up with some lame excuse about how I was tired of playing it, but I knew some other really good songs with “bird” in the title.