Guitarist Jason Becker, who suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) - also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease - is featured in a new interview with Guitar World. It covers the making of his critically acclaimed Triumphant Hearts album from 2018, working with Marty Friedman for Cacophany albums, and his audition demos for David Lee Roth. An excerpt is available below.

Q: The overall feel of the album is quite some way from the days of Cacophony - what do you think when you listen to the old stuff?

Becker: "I don't listen to the old stuff much, but when I do, I am always pretty happy with it. You know, the first album, Speed Metal Symphony, was mostly Marty’s vision. He was so kind to make me a big part of it. It was all so much fun. We constantly cracked up making that album. Same with Go Off! - but with that one, I was more of an equal with Marty. I had more ideas and Marty dug them. We weren’t into many guitar players at the time. We were totally focused on our own music and doing what we wanted, not thinking about how the world would take it. Mike Varney made that possible, as he totally believed in what we were doing."

Q: There’s a clip on YouTube which purports to be your audition demo for DLR playing "Yankee Rose". Is that you? Assuming it was, how much time did you take woodshedding to get it so spot-on?

Becker: "It is me, and I also did 'Hot For Teacher' and 'Skyscraper'. Those three four-tracks were done in one night. I was already a fan of those songs, so I sort of knew how I would play them. It isn’t like I had to learn them out of the blue, is what I mean. All I had to do was put my own spin and feel on them."

Read the complete interview here.

Becker recently issued the following personal update:

"I felt like it was a time for update and guess what, I have some very EXCITING news to share! The following Grammy submissions for Triumphant Hearts are available for your Grammy voting consideration. This is the first round of voting, the final nominations will be announced November 20th.

Album Of The Year: Triumphant Hearts
Contemporary Instrumental Album: Triumphant Hearts
Rock Song: "We Are One"
R&B Song: "Hold On To Love"
Instrumental Composition: "Valley Of Fire"

"I am now recovering from two cataract surgeries I had last week. My vision is still funky, but slowly getting better. With my eye sight as it is, hopefully I won’t accidentally vote for Justin Bieber.”    

Triumphant Hearts was released back in December 2018. Order here.

Tracklisting:

"Triumphant Heart" (feat. Marty Friedman, Glauco Bertagnin, Hiyori Okuda)
"Hold On To Love" (feat. Codany Holiday)
"Fantasy Weaver" (feat. Jake Shimabukuro)
"Once Upon A Melody"
"We Are One" (feat. Steve Knight)
"Magic Woman" (feat. Uli Jon Roth & Chris Broderick)
"Blowin' In The Wind" (feat. Gary Rosenberg)
"River Of Longing" (feat. Joe Satriani, Aleks Sever, Guthrie Govan, Steve Morse)
"Valley Of Fire" (feat. Michael Lee Firkins, Steve Vai, Joe Bonamassa, Paul Gilbert, Neal Schon, Mattias IA Eklundh, Marty Friedman, Greg Howe, Jeff Loomis, Richie Kotzen, Gus G., Steve Hunter, Ben Woods)
"River Of Longing" (feat. Trevor Rabin)
"Taking Me Back"
"Tell Me No Lies"
"Hold On To Love" (feat. Codany Holiday) [Chuck Zwicky Remix]
"You Do It"

"Hold On To Love" video:

"Valley Of Fire" video: