Nick Jonas reflects on “traumatic” failed guitar solo that sent him to therapy
Going blank during a solo is every guitarist’s worst nightmare, and Nick Jonas has recalled the time it happened to him.
Image: Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty
Pop artist Nick Jonas has recalled the infamous failed live guitar solo incident from the 2016 ACM Awards, revealing it caused him to go to therapy.
Jonas rose to fame as one of the Jonas Brothers, a pop trio that also included his siblings Joe and Kevin Jonas. The three of them dominated Disney channel in the ‘00s before rising to pop stardom collectively, and as individual artists.
Jonas, who has since released solo material of his own and regularly plays guitar on stage, has recalled evaluating the pressure he put on himself as an artist following a solo gone wrong.
Joining country pop singer Kelsea Ballerini on stage in 2016, Jonas’ solo started off smoothly, before he drew a blank. “There was another time during a really tragic guitar solo debacle that happened on live TV,” he said on the Armchair Expert podcast.
“In retrospect, I can kind of laugh about how big I thought it was. But it did travel more than I wish it would have, and it did cause me to go to therapy.”
He continued to explain, “I’m feeling really confident about it, not even really thinking about it like it’s a thing that’s going to be problematic. I started off, it was fine and as I walked towards her, I just went completely blank and I hit a wrong note and blacked out basically and clocked that it was wrong and I couldn’t stop.
“I was rushed to a car and rushed to a plane right after it,” Jonas said. “I looked at my manager and said, ‘I think that was bad.’ I was in shock. It was a really traumatic moment that shaped the pressure I put on myself to be perfect and to always be on.”
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