SIXTY SECONDS with...

A minute’s all it takes to discover what makes a great guitarist tick. Before she jumped into her limo for the airport, we grabbed a quick chat with Spain-born, America-raised, Cornwall-living, singer-songwriter Sarah McQuaid.

- Sarah McQuaid

GT: Do you have a type of pick that you can’t live without?

SMcQ: I use a Dunlop thumbpick all the time.

GT: If you had to give up all your pedals but three, what would they be?

SMcQ: I only have four. Two of them are stage tuners - one for the acoustic and the other for the electric. And then I have a tremolo pedal and a Donner Yellow Fall delay pedal that I use for an instrumental piece I wrote called The Day Of Wrath, That Day.

GT: Do you play another instrument well enough to be in a band, and if so have you ever done it?

SMcQ: Well, hilariously, when I was a teenager and living in Washington, DC, I played a Fender Rhodes in a prog-jazz outfit called The Rhinos. I also play keyboard (or preferably a real piano if it’s available) and a floor tom drum as well as acoustic and electric guitars in my live set.

GT: If a music chart were put in front of you, could you read it?

SMcQ: I can read standard notation and tab, but not a chart. I do love the way charts look, though. I have charts of a few of my songs that were written out by a keyboard player who played on one of my albums, and they came in handy when a fantastic keyboard player in the Netherlands sat in on a gig I did there.

GT: Do guitar cables really make a difference? What make are yours?