TROY REDFERN

A musical awakening courtesy of that famous sequence in Back To The Future led to a lifelong interest in country blues, National Resonators and gnarly, fuzzed-up slide guitar…

- David Mead

As the world slowly opens up to live music once more, few people are more eager to get back on the road than Troy Redfern. With a new album, The Fire Cosmic!, in the shops and an autumn tour with fellow bluesers Robert Jon & The Wreck, plus some summer festival appearances under his belt, his enthusiasm is infectious.

Like so many musicians before him, Troy’s interest in music started early. “When I was six years old I discovered Queen through one of my older brothers and kind of became obsessed,” he tells us, as we settle down in the Guitarist studios. “I got A Night At The Opera and would listen to that incessantly, and then Sheer Heart Attack…”

But it was courtesy of Michael J Fox’s guitar-wielding exploits in Spielberg’s time-traveling fantasy, Back To The Future, and then later on an introduction to country blues by a friend, that really sealed the deal. “I would have been about nine, and I saw the famous Johnny B. Goode scene, and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ Then a friend lent me a Son House album when I was about 13 and he was just completely different to anything I’d ever heard – just his raw, authentic approach. The thing is with those early guitar guys, you can hear that it’s them coming through the strings.”

When did you get your first guitar?