"The fire was my main motivation for trying to get my music out to people," relates Johnson. "My photographic images, my negatives, were gone. But the music was still there, in my head. It was mine, and it was all I had left."
Although Johnson is quick to note that his solo acoustic guitar pieces don't strictly fit into the realm of jazz, his improvisational approach to his instrument reflects his affinity for the genre.
"Nothing I do is written down or thought out ahead of time," he says, adding that Keith Jarrett's purely improvised piano excursions embody "the type of direction I would like to find myself in. When I first heard [Jarrett's] Koln [Germany] concerts [on ECM], where he starts from point zero and improvises entire pieces, I was amazed."
Johnson also professes a connection with Ornette Coleman's harmolodie theory, explaining that "a linear melody is not a real interesting thing to me."
"The first record I heard from Ornette had two guitarists and a rhythm section on it, and everything was kind of moving along at the same time in parallel universes," he adds. "I like the idea of things moving in waves of sound.
"When I make music, I mostly feel a kinship to the harmony, to blocks of chords moving parallel to one another," adds Johnson. "It's all an immediate response to the notes on my instrument."