As far as his actual skill set as a player, he works a lot with the unique offshoot of classical guitar he’s developed, so he’s good at doing chordal melodies and harmonies, and his brain is situated there. We have a lot of songs where Javier wrote the main melody or there’s a complementary guitar part to what I’ve written and he’s seamlessly able to do both. Javier is really good at filling in the gaps, so wherever I stop having musical ideas, he takes off right from there.
He understands the greater picture and doesn’t arbitrarily insert himself, and that’s huge, because guitar players and big egos are synonymous. Foundationally, he’s not very ego-driven and does a lot of production, so he doesn’t feel like he has to be the one doing the flashy guitar part to something that might be already written. Can you tell us about your relationship as co-guitarists? Abasi: Javier is perfect for so many reasons.