AIR GUITAR NATION ROCKS NEW YORK

With the Football season underway Phil Anselmo, former vocalist for Pantera and a huge fan of the National Football League, talked about the state of the NFL…

The battle of the bands had nothing on the air guitar Air-E-Oke contestants swooping and windmilling the air with their imaginary instruments at the New York premiere of Air Guitar Nation at The Cutting Room.

The documentary follows the birth of the US Air Guitar Championships featuring C. Diddy dressed in his kimono finest and his arch nemesis Bjorn Turoque cutting the air to the music of their favorite rock legends. Bjorn was on hand at the premiere to talk about what attracted him to the art of air guitar and preparing to be a champion.

“Like you know like many kids growing up listening to the rock and roll. You just hear a song and you rock out and you find out there’s actually an international competition for such a thing. I heard about it. I signed up and my life has been very strange ever since. In order to prepare for a championship I do a lot of deep breathing exercising, some meditation, heavy drinking. You know practice. Practice makes a better air guitarist, absolutely. And you’re judged on three criteria, technical ability, your performance and charisma, how much of a rock star are you and an airness which is when your performance exceeds the imitation of guitar playing and becomes an art form in and of itself.”

The Air-E-Oke competition was judged by Twisted Sister founding member and virtuoso guitarist Jay Jay French who weighs in on air guitarists using his music.

“This year ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ was used in a PMS commercial so frankly when you ask me how I feel about people using our music for air guitar? I never expected in a million years that one of our songs would be in a PMS commercial. But I think that Viagra if they’re really smart they should license ‘I Wanna Rock.’ I can see that commercial now. I mean sweetheart, come on I mean really. I wanna rock, ah. I mean come on that would be perfect so I support all exploitation of my music free or otherwise.”

The US Air Guitar Championships have taken place in Finland since the early 90s and are judged for 60 second songs on a 6.0 scale. Air Guitar Nation opens today in theaters.