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THE BiTS INTERVIEw: Bad Temper Joe

Bad Temper Joe is a German artist from Bielefeld, East

Westphalia-Lippe. He plays a Weissenborn guitar. He has
released eight studio albums since 2014 and was the only

European finalist of the International Blues Challenge 2020

in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the winner of the 12th

German Blues Challenge 2022. His new album “The Acoustic

Blues Guitar Revue” is an outstanding production and is

reviewed in this issue of BiTS.

BiTS: Let’s make a start if you're okay.

BTJ: Yeah, I'm fine.

BiTS: Okay, I want to talk to
you in the end about the
absolutely terrific music that
you produced with your

Weissenborn guitar. But tell
me, first of all, how did you get

into music? Did you start when
you were a kid, or what?

BTJ: Well, I was always
interested in music already as

a kid, but I think I started
playing guitar when I was a
teenager, maybe 14. I started

to play acoustic guitar with the
music of Bob Dylan, I learned.
A lot of Bob Dylan songs. And

after a year or two, I was really
into playing guitar. And then I Bad Temper Joe
started to learn electric guitar
with the music of B. B. King, and that's how it started, I think.

BiTS: Did you have guitar lessons ? Were you taught by somebody?

BTJ: I was taught by my brothers. They showed me a few chords, the A minor chord

or the G chord, and then I pretty much learned it all by myself.

BiTS: Okay. How old were you when you started actually playing blues then?