Kirk Douglas, looking
happy during the
University of Vermont’s
Springfest 2011.
Despite losing partial
power, the Roots
packed the school’s
gymnasium. Photo by
Jennifer Murtha
Just as you’d expect from such a diverse
band, each member of the Roots has kaleidoscopic musical interests. As a budding
preteen guitarist growing up in New York,
Douglas was simultaneously influenced
by funk forefathers like James Brown and
rock icons like Kiss and Van Halen. The
self-professed Led Zeppelin devotee rocks
a prototype of a Jimmy Page signature
Les Paul—same relic’ing and all. Douglas
performed with the Dave Matthews Band
prior to joining the Roots permanently in
2002. Apart from the Roots, he plays in
a very different vein with his side project,
Hundred Watt Heart.
Douglas is a hard player to explain—
though in the best way, because you can’t
pigeonhole him. His role in the Roots takes
him from picking über-nuanced, barely-there background riffs to cranking out fiery,
10-minute jams and incredible call-and-response solos where he scats phrases into
the mic and then mimics them on guitar.
Between rehearsal sets for a performance
backing Johnny Gill on Fallon, Douglas
recently chatted with Premier Guitar about
the Roots’ first concept album, Undun, his
more rocking Hundred Watt Heart reper-
toire, and what it’s like to be a cutting-edge
funk revivalist with serious chops.
How did you first get into playing guitar?
I had a close friend in the second grade
whose older brother was into a lot of
heavy music, a lot of rock ’n’ roll. A lot
of Kiss and Van Halen. I guess I was
attracted to that because, when you’re 7
or 8, you’re interested in superheroes. And
just the sound of the guitar—it sounded
