1. When did you think about a career in music and what were your first steps into it?
I can’t remember thinking about 'a career' in music. I was only ever concerned with the music. It didn't really cross my mind to worry about anything beyond living well within the currency of music itself.
2. Best gigs you’ve been to?
Wes Montgomery at the Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1968; Herbie Hancock Sextet at Kansas City in 1971 and Tristan und Isolde, Metropolitan Opera under Simon Rattle in 2016.
3. Fantasy wedding/birthday party band?
Played too many bad wedding gigs to comment here.
4. The record you’d take to a desert island?
None. Silence is my favourite thing.
5. And the book you’d take to a desert island?
Whatever the greatest book that has ever been written about how to survive on desert island is.
6. Top three films?
Cinema Paradiso, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Wall-E.
7. Worst film you’ve seen and why?
I am a pretty generous audience member. I always try to appreciate the effort.
8. Favourite authors?
Julian Barnes, Phillip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates.
9. Sport you most enjoy and top team?
Baseball, and the New York Yankees are my team.
10. Ideal holiday destination?
Staying at home, because most of my life I'm out travelling.
11. Pet hate?
None.
12. What’s your favourite
Dinner? Anything that includes mashed potatoes.
Dessert? Kind of whatever is good. I'm not too picky.
Drink? Water.
13. Who is your best friend and how do you know each other?
My wife. We know each other because I got really lucky and met her.
14. Is there a God?
See the book The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch.
:: An Evening With Pat Metheny takes place at Belfast's Waterfront Hall on Tuesday November 14. The 20-time Grammy-winning guitarist will be joined by pianist Gwilym Simcock, bassist Linda Oh and long-time Metheny drummer and composer of the score for the movie Birdman, Antonio Sanchez.
