Cathalena E. Burch Cburch@azstarnet.com

Guitarist Scott Huckabay was busking on North Fourth Avenue alongside a violinist in the early 1990s when he struck on a quirky idea.

He turned to the violinist and asked to borrow his bow.

He drew the bow over the guitar strings and created a squealing sound. The more he did it, the more refined the sound.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is cool,’ ” said Huckabay. “I started adapting it into my style of playing.”

Huckabay makes his acoustic guitar sound like a full band.

“I do a lot of live looping, playing a drumbeat on my guitar that comes from special pickups I had installed in the guitar,” he explained during a phone call from his home on Mount Shasta in Northern California.

“I’ll play a beat then loop it with a bass line on top. I stack all these elements, and it ends up becoming a big sound, like a band, even though it’s just me up there.”

Huckabay brings his experimental guitar rock to Solar Culture next Thursday. It will be his first time in Tucson in six or seven years.

“I’m real excited to be coming back,” he said two weeks ago, as a snowstorm moved onto the other side of Mount Shasta.

Huckabay lives off the grid in the mountain community, not far from the Oregon border. He uses solar and windmills to generate electricity and recently dug a well for water.

“I’m out here by myself with all the wild animals and the snakes and the birds,” he said. “It’s pretty awesome to be out here. It helps my creativity. I feel like a hermit out here.”

Huckabay grew up in Tempe. In the late 1980s, when he was in his early 20s, he fell in with a tribe of guys he described as desert rats. He said they spent their days partying, doing drugs and riding motorcycles.

That all ended for him when he crashed his motorcycle into a truck while he was high.

He flew 50 feet in the air, landing on his head, cracking his helmet. He said he had put on the helmet after a voice told him not to get on the bike without it.

When he woke up in the hospital, someone had put a guitar at the foot of his bed. “That’s when I started playing guitar,” he said.

“As soon as I picked up the guitar, there was instant healing,” said Huckabay, who’s self-taught. “I started constantly playing because I didn’t want to be in pain. When I touched the guitar, I didn’t feel [any] pain.”

By Le’a Gleason

The walls of the Honoka’a People’s Theater just might come alive March 9, inspired by the musical vibrations of “guitar alchemist” Scott Huckabay. Huckabay is no ordinary musician. In a recent taping of “State of Profusion,” performed live at a venue in Washington, the artist could be seen whirling around in a colorful outfit on-stage with his eyes closed, clearly taken by the music. Noisemaking instruments were strapped to his ankles, and he danced around creating his own rhythm as interesting and unusual sounding guitar loops wove into a mass of intertwining melodies.

Huckabay’s unusual story dates back to an accident that changed his life forever. Huckabay was not previously musically inclined, but recalls enjoying listening to music at an early age. He’d been lonely as a youngster, and later fell in with a motorcycle gang.

“A couple of years before the motorcycle accident in 1987, I was hooked on a lot of bad drugs and drinking hard liquor. I did not have any friends when I was younger. A motorcycle group brought me into their tribe and accepted me for who I was but unfortunately I was influenced by what they happened to be doing…those were some crazy times in my life,” recalled Huckabay.

As his motorcycle sped at full speed toward an oncoming truck, Huckabay recalls making a “pact with god.”

“I experienced this epiphany in my mind that I was going to die or something terrible was about to happen to me so I let go of the handle bars while surrendering to god [or our] creator knowing I was not alone. It was so surreal,” said Huckabay.

“I remember floating through some kind of vacuum tunnel of different shades of colors, almost like flying through different colored clouds in a tunnel at warp speed. All of a sudden, I came to a halt and there was this opening that looked like some kind of a doorway just for a moment…then I rapidly went in reverse mode through that vacuum tunnel,” said Huckabay.

In the next moment, he awoke in a hospital bed in intense pain, but with a “new perspective of a life path.” A guitar sat at the foot of his bed, something Huckabay says to this day he cannot explain.

“Every time I picked up the guitar, all the pain would dissolve. From then on, I never put the guitar down. Since then, I have no need to take up that lifestyle of doing drugs or drinking alcohol ever again. The accident was a blessing in disguise,” said Huckabay.

Three years later, he moved to Hawaii, where he lived in a tent on the beach for a year and befriended a pod of spinner dolphins which he swam with every day.

“I gained their trust and was accepted into their pod,” said Huckabay. “They were teaching me all about sounds and I was learning to go deeper into my thought patterns and forms. When it was time to leave the pod, I knew I had a mission to explore and experiment deeper in what the guitar was capable of creating.”

Incredibly, Huckabay’s arm and leg which were said to “never work again” had begun to heal.

In 2006, Huckabay encountered another musical concept that lead to the creation of his unique style.

“I met Dr. Len Horowitz who taught me [on] a technical level [about] the frequencies I was tapping into through music which [are] based off the Solfeggio scale. According to Horowitz’s research from his latest book, “The Book of 528,” it is an ancient scale from the renaissance era that produces instant healing and miracles for humanity,” said Huckabay.

“There are seven tones or frequencies measured in hertz form that represents each of the body’s energy system. I resonate particularly with 528hz which is connected to the heart center energy. Eventually, I will explore the other six frequencies. My mission is to help bring these tones out to the world in a non-evasive positive way,” said Huckabay.

Huckabay has performed all over the world, playing with big names Chicago, Steve Morse, Joe Satriani, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Albert Lee, Buffy Saint-Marie, Shadowfax, Jackson Browne, John Trudell, Toni Childs, Sarah McLachlan, Pierre Bensusan, Ram Das, Hapa, Bob Weir, and Randy Hanson. But he is particularly thrilled to be back in Hawaii.

“Hawaii always lives in my heart wherever I travel in the world, it is my home. The Hawaiian people are truly amazing and inspiring. The ‘aina and aloha is strong here. I am very honored and excited to perform for the people here in Hawaii,” Huckabay said.

Equally excited is Honoka’a People’s Theater manager Phaethon Keeney.

“I love life-affirming good vibes and positive creativity and this guy has it. I guess you could say in a nutshell he has an eclectic and innovative style in creating joyful multi-textured musical landscapes. People dig his music, he’s fun and energetic and…I’m excited to see where the music takes him on stage and share in that wild ride too,” Keeney said.

Huckabay maintains a positive outlook on life and practices yoga and deep breathing daily, as well as eating a balanced raw and vegan diet. This kind of preparation is necessary to deliver performances that are not only physically demanding but spiritually resonant for his audiences as well.

“I feel my purpose that God/Creator gave me is a rare opportunity to turn around my life and to help assist others in their awakening or inspirations through the frequencies of music. My intention behind the music is only with pure love, Huckabay said.”
Scott Huckabay performs Saturday, March 9 at the Honoka’a People’s Theater. Tickets are $15 at the door. For more information about the concert visit https://honokaapeople.com, or visit www.scotthuckabay.com for more information about the performer.