The Peter Bernstein Interview

So I know that you got to travel quite a bit that time because of your dad's work and, and you were in Israel for a while, lived-

We lived in Israel as a family for three years.

I guess I started there s- fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, so I was still pretty young.

But my last year there, I started playing the guitar.

That was when I got-

How did that shape you to travel around and start over getting-

Uh, well, I gotta say that was, that was, that was nice.

I mean, I have to say living, growing up in New York City, living in Israel was, was more of just kind of like a non-urban experience, like more living in a kind of a suburban, you know-

Right

... skateboarding around and riding bikes and stuff like that and just kind of not living in the city.

And also New York City is its own little world, which is very diverse.

But when I went to school in Israel, I met...

It was an international school, so I met kids from Denmark [chuckles] and, and, and everywhere and, and also different parts of the States.

Like I had a friend from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

That was exotic.

So somehow leaving New York City opened, opened my mind to, like, different people.

There's people from Cape Town in the school and Tehran and every...

It was just, it was really interesting to see that.

Whereas New York is an interesting place, of course, but the people I went to school with for first, second, and third grade were just New Yorkers.

Right.

And you-

Like these-

... talked a little bit about your influences, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery.

Who would you say was the first guy when you listened to him and you go like, "Wow, I wanna play like him"?

Uh, well, I mean, back, I mean, when I started playing the guitar, it was Jimi Hendrix.