Following the rise of the biopic genre in recent years – spearheaded by Bob Dylan’s A Complete Unknown, the confirmed four-part Beatles movie, and another that’s set to star Lizzo as Sister Rosetta Tharpe – it comes as no surprise that Bruce Springsteen is also receiving the Hollywood treatment.
Starring in the titular role is Jeremy Allen White, and like Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown, the role requires him to sling a guitar or two as the Boss.
To get ready for the role, White worked with session guru J.D. Simo. Having worked with Jack White, Tommy Emmanuel, Samantha Fish, Joe Bonamassa, and on the Baz Luhrmann Elvis biopic, Simo was tasked with teaching White guitar and helping him transform into Springsteen.
“I’ve never taught in my life,” admits J. D. Simo in an interview with Gibson Gear Guide.
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“Once in a blue moon, somebody would ask me to give them a private lesson, and once in a blue moon, I’d be like, ‘You know what? Okay, yeah, sure,’ because it made sense and or I was available.
“But last year, working on the Springsteen movie, they asked me if I would teach Jeremy Allen White to play guitar. And my honest thing was, I have no idea. I think I can, yeah, but I mean, I’ll do my best. I had to really step back, because I understood the pressure of wanting to set him up to win.”
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Once Simo accepted the job and took on the mammoth task, “it just became evident very quickly that there’s just no fast way”.
“I think it was the first week of us working together or something where I was like, ‘Dude, I want to be honest with you and say that it’s all on you and how many hours you’re going to put into it,’” Simo says matter-of-factly.
“Because you will sit as a guitar player, and play a phrase for days like a total lunatic, and then it finally clicks, and finally you can do it.
“And then you gotta move it around and figure out how to apply it to a bunch of different keys and all this stuff. So, the application process of learning one nugget then opens up into a bunch.”
Simo shares that he didn’t “mean to overwhelm” White, but wanted to make the actor aware of the challenges that came with the role.
Of the advice he imparted, Simo continues, “It’s an ocean. Just relax and take it one step at a time, because the better your foundation is – the better your hand strength is and your finger control – the better you know how to use the least amount of vocabulary and be able to actually make music with it. It’s only going to make you that much better.”
In Simo’s own words, “If you start stacking a bunch of stuff on top, you’re just making a shit sandwich. You’re not doing yourself any favors. You’re actually doing yourself a disservice, where, if anything, you’re going to have to unlearn something to be able to right the wrongs of it.”
Speaking of guitar mentors, Chalamet’s guitar tutor for the Bob Dylan biopic, Larry Saltzman, revealed how, despite the movie offering an enviable roster of Gibsons, the actor opted for a budget Yamaha to start his deep dive into all things Dylan.
