The Best Guitar Player I Ever Knew (A Letter to Shredder)

Prognosis Negative outside a gig in San Francisco

The best guitar player I ever knew was Shredder Hernandez.  You have to be pretty good, if you’re going to call yourself Shredder.

                I met him back when I lived in L.A. and was playing in a band.  Our drummer brought him around one day and introduced him as Jason.  He wore all black, had long black hair, and had eyes that whispered hidden talents.  He said he was from El Paso, in his soft, clipped way of speaking, and before long, he plugged in the guitar he brought slung across his back, and we started playing. 

                The guy had talent.  It was obvious.  I don’t know how he got the name Shredder.  If he gave it to himself, or if people just started calling him that.  But it’s the name he went by, and it wasn’t pretentious if knew him.  He earned the name, and he lived the name.  He was a real guitar player.  Could play anything, could listen to anything and appreciate its musical worth. 

                Shredder stuck with the band.  When the drummer quit, it was just me, my brother, and Shredder, making noise with our guitars in the rehearsal space, still writing songs, still dreaming the big dream. 

                It was Shredder who brought us our next drummer.  A guy he met on the bus, squatting in an abandoned office in North Hollywood.  The drummer fit us perfectly, because we were all homeless, or had been at some point, squatting somewhere.  It was sort of a bond we had between us all.  We had a song called “Sink Shower”, and it became something of a theme song for us.

                Shredder had a problem.  Shredder liked to drink, and when he drank, he drank to much.  He was a sweet guy.  Even drunk, he was a sweet guy.  But he hung with a crowd who liked to drink and who weren’t sweet guys.  He brought them around to a party we had, and they busted it up, got into fights and just being big drunk assholes.  Shredder tried to stop them, but he couldn’t.  I think he only tried to stop them for our sakes, but either way, the party was over, and we had to march those guys out of there.    

                Shredder said those guys were his brothers, but they weren’t his brothers.  They were just drunks. 

                The party was over, those guys left, and we hear bottles breaking outside the rehearsal space.  It’s Shredder, drunkenly throwing beer bottles over the fence into the parking lot next door.  It was a last straw for us, and we did something I regret to this day.   We kicked Shredder out of the band.  It wasn’t an easy thing to do.  It was hard, and the look on his face made it even harder.  But he accepted it, and we moved on, and he moved on, and our band was never the same. 

                After that, I saw Shredder a couple of times.  Once, I found him walking on Sunset Boulevard.  I picked him up and gave him a ride.  It was about ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, and he was drunk off his ass.  I don’t think he knew who I was at first, and I don’t think he remembered the ride. 

                The last time I saw Shredder Hernandez was on Hollywood Boulevard.  We ran into each other and he told me about his new band.  He was decently sober, and seemed excited about it.  I was glad for him.  We made plans to jam again, and I told him I’d go see his new bands gig.

Shredder Hernandez

          I walked away feeling good.  We were friends and we both knew it.  I went to see his band, but they didn’t show up to the gig, so I didn’t see him after that.  I heard stories about him.  Most of them were like the story of me finding him on Sunset Boulevard.  Or worse.  But I always pulled for Shredder.  He lived life the way he wanted, or the way he said he wanted.  He called himself a Gutter Rat, and said it with a pride I couldn’t really understand, and still don’t.  I feel like he surrounded himself with people who lived the same way, but for different reasons.  And I don’t think he realized, or maybe he didn’t care, when those people would take advantage of him and his talents.

                Shredder Hernandez died.  He fell off a bridge.  An overpass he was living under.  It was a strange, mysterious death, and there were a few different versions of it.  But it doesn’t really matter how Shredder died.  I’m just glad I got to live with him, jam with him, play on stages with him.  There was so much more we could have done together.  Man, we had some good times. Mistakes were made on both sides, but that’s life.  You live, react, and move on, carried by the unstoppable currents of life. 

I’m glad I got to see him on the Boulevard that last night.  We walked away friends, and friends we will always be. Rest in peace, Shredder.