Bon Jovi/The Drills guitarist (and Canadian native) Phil X appeared on Side Jams With Bryan Reesman recently. He spoke about his path to success and how he took no shortcuts. It was all about hard work. And he remembered one of his idols who passed away recently.

“Obviously, we've been losing people and artists for years and years, because as we get older, they get older,” said Phil. “Eddie Van Halen was a hit for me. It was devastating. When I was 14, I saw the 1980 [World] Invasion tour. It was [for the album] Women And Children First. It was like four superheroes flying around on stage playing the coolest music ever. So it changed my life. And then I saw ‘81, ‘83, ‘84. And having seen that, and remembering that, I try to tell people what it was like, and there aren't enough words to describe it. Then you see videos and stuff like that, but it's still not the same.”

Looking back on his career and how he reached the heights he did, most notably his current role in Bon Jovi, Phil said it was all about hard work.

“People want to know: How can I be a better musician? How can I be a better guitar player, singer, or even a better mixer or producer?” he remarked. “And it's all hard work. I went halfsies on a Stratocaster when I was 11 with my dad. ‘You wash dishes at the restaurant, you save your money, when you have a certain amount, I’ll match.’ So I saved 175 bucks, and we went and got a secondhand Stratocaster at this weird guy’s apartment. My dad matched my dough – $350, I have a Stratocaster. Then I kept washing dishes, then before I knew it, I had a Marshall head. And now I'm cooking, or now I'm bartending or whatever, and paying for a cabinet. That whole thing. So when I say I put out a pickup that's 150 bucks, or I got this overdrive pedal that I rave about, and some kid comes on and says, ‘Yeah, I wish I could afford that.’ I feel like saying, ‘Cut some lawns, man. Nothing's gonna be handed to you.’ You know, paper route, cut the lawns. I feel like you got to do something.

"The drummer in my band when I was 16 worked at Taco Bell, and he still has the Employee of the Month plaque in his house. That's how he paid for drumsticks. If you want something bad enough, you’ve got to make it happen. It's like people feel more entitled these days. Like, if I can't afford it, it should just be given to me or something like that. I don't understand the mentality because I grew up in a different time. But I think it still applies today. I think if you want to be a faster guitar player, there's no shortcuts. You just got to work. I was working my ass off when I was a kid, playing all the time, and I had a guitar in my hands eight hours a day. And that's how, hey, do you want to be in this band? Hey, do you want to be in that band? And when I was with one band at a Q107 in Toronto, Christmas thing, and Mike Levine from Triumph comes up to me. I'm like, ‘Hey, man, how's it going looking for a guitar player?’ He goes, ‘Well, I've been asking around, and everybody's telling me about you.’ And I'm like, how does this happen? Hard work!

"I still talk to [Triumph drummer] Gil [Moore] all the time. Every time I go visit my mom in Mississauga. He comes and picks me up and we go to Tim Horton’s for coffee.”

Phil’s hard work ethic paid off when he landed his Tommy Lee gig back in 1999.

“You know, as much as people want to say it’s about being at the right place at the right time – what if you're not prepared?” he said. “Then that knock on the door is going to go awry because you weren't prepared. So it's like my experience with Tommy Lee. I was painting the producer’s garage when they were working on Methods of Mayhem. Scott Humphrey, another Canadian, was producing and Tommy was, ‘Hey, we need a guitar player to play on this record.’ And Scott was like, ‘Let's get Phil.’ And Tommy's like, ‘The dude painting the garage?’ So I come in and pick up a Les Paul and start recording guitars, and Tommy's like, ‘Dude, you got to play on the whole record!’ But if I didn't deliver, because I put so many hours into my craft, that wouldn't have went that way. That would have been like, ‘Yeah, here's the paint brush. Go back to the wall.’”