{"id":900539,"date":"2026-04-20T17:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/youre-hanging-out-with-your-hero-then-they-go-okay-cool-now-pick-up-the-guitar-and-show-us-what-you-got-prog-virtuoso-luis-kalil-recalls-the-time-he-m\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T17:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:24:17","slug":"youre-hanging-out-with-your-hero-then-they-go-okay-cool-now-pick-up-the-guitar-and-show-us-what-you-got-prog-virtuoso-luis-kalil-recalls-the-time-he-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/youre-hanging-out-with-your-hero-then-they-go-okay-cool-now-pick-up-the-guitar-and-show-us-what-you-got-prog-virtuoso-luis-kalil-recalls-the-time-he-m\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou\u2019re hanging out with your hero, then they go, \u2018Okay, cool. Now pick up the guitar and show us what you got\u2019\u201d: Prog virtuoso Luis Kalil recalls the time he met \u2013 and played for \u2013 Jason Becker, at the shred icon\u2019s house"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Day I Visited and Played for JASON BECKER – YouTube<\/span>
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Jason Becker<\/a> remains an active figure in the guitar community, despite his decades-long struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, which ended his ability to play.<\/p>\n

He regularly welcomes virtuosic visitors to his home, and young progressive titan Luis Kalil \u2013 who grew up idolising the Cacophony<\/a> guitarist \u2013 was one of his most recent guests.<\/p>\n

Viral 11-year-old metal star Maya Neelakantan<\/a> and Sicilian hotshot Matteo Mancuso<\/a> have swung by Becker’s home in recent years, with the shredder still keeping tabs on the scene’s most talked-about players.<\/p>\n

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It turns out Kalil \u2013 who plays in Red Devil Vortex \u2013 has also been on Becker’s radar for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround 2014, I started posting YouTube videos playing Jason Becker and Cacophony songs,\u201d Kalil tells Guitar World<\/em> of how their meet-up came to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen last year, my friend Tony MacAlpine introduced me to someone from Jason\u2019s camp who has been watching my stuff for a long time. I\u2019ve always flown Jason\u2019s flag, talking about him in interviews, playing his music, even at my live shows, and he appreciated that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a few months, this guy calls me up saying that I\u2019ve been invited to Jason\u2019s house to meet the shred lord himself. He said, \u2018…and bring your guitar because you are playing for him!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Becker has brought some of the best of the best to his living room for personal concerts over the years, with Eddie Van Halen famously getting an invite in 1996<\/a>. Kalil’s showing was equally inspirational for all involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt surreal,\u201d he says, looking back on the day. \u201cYou\u2019re hanging out with your hero for one hour, then they go, \u2018Okay, cool, now pick up the guitar and show us what you got,\u2019 and Jason Becker is right there, no warm up, no nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kalil got the nod one week before the trip, and it was a week spent drilling down on his chops.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do him justice and truly convey the strong flow of emotions those songs have,\u201d he says. \u201cEspecially Altitudes<\/em>, I wanted it to sound like a testimony of gratitude for all the inspiration he\u2019s given me throughout the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, \u2018You gave me all of this, and now I\u2019m here to give it back to you.\u2019 He makes me feel a certain way when he plays, and I wanted them to feel that passion and excitement too. That\u2019s what I think music is about.<\/p>\n

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Playing for JASON BECKER a Song I Wrote for Him at 14 – YouTube<\/span>
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\u201cHe\u2019s taught me that it\u2019s all about making people feel something and not about perfection,\u201d Kalil develops. \u201cFast or slow, melody or arpeggios<\/a>, mean what you play, play what you mean, and make it fun!<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus, his life story reminds me that the passion for music can transcend life. When you see him finding a new reason to keep living, it reminds me that you can\u2019t sweat the small stuff and you\u2019re better off appreciating what you have in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite no longer being able to play the electric guitar<\/a>, Becker has continued to write new music via an eye communication system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2018, his record Triumphant Hearts<\/em><\/a> featured a prestigious cast of guest players, including Joe Satriani<\/a>, Steve Vai<\/a>, Neal Schon<\/a>, Steve Morse<\/a>, Paul Gilbert<\/a>, and Joe Bonamassa<\/a>, helping to bring his ideas to life.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2024, he fashioned a new single from an old demo<\/a> and enlisted Nita Strauss<\/a>, Cacophony bandmate Marty Friedman<\/a>, Steve Lukather<\/a>, and more to ignite the seven-minute shredathon.<\/p>\n

Becker is showing no signs of retiring, and Kalil will continue to champion his talents.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil I\u2019m gone,\u201d he concludes, \u201cI will always fly Jason Becker\u2019s flag!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog<\/em>, Guitar World<\/em>, and Total Guitar<\/em> magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis<\/a>, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He’s also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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The Day I Visited and Played for JASON BECKER – YouTube Watch On Jason Becker remains an active figure in the guitar community, despite his decades-long struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, which ended his ability to play. He regularly welcomes virtuosic visitors to his home, and young progressive titan Luis Kalil \u2013 who grew up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":900540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3405,2972,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-900539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hanging","category-youre","category-youtube-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}