May 20, 2009 5:00 PM
- Text
No Stopping The World Air Guitar Champion
(CBS)
It's safe to say that Craig Billmeier will never get to Carnegie Hall But as the reigning world champion of air guitar, he practices as much the professionals who play real instruments do, as CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.
When Craig Billmeier is at his day job, you would never guess - "Right now," he said, "there's no stopping it - but like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly he goes through a nightly metamorphosis emerges as Hott Lixx Hulahan.
What many of us do only in private, playing air guitar, Hott Lixx revels in doing publicly.
He is the American air guitar champion. And, yes, there is a competition for that.
Hott Lixx has an air guitar workout room at home in Alameda, Calif. He demonstrates his moves, at one point seeming to play on a tiny guitar and then declaring, "I don't like the tiny guitar. Get rid of it!" and tossing the invisible instrument.
He say this is much like interpretive dance. An art form - seriously.
"You kind of want to embody what you're hearing and your body interprets it in a way," he says. Then, laughing a bit at himself, he says "This is totally nerdy," before continuing, "It's all about a faux persona being taken to some sort of stage."
It's on the world stage where the faux persona, Hott Lixx, is now playing, at the world air guitar championships held annually in Finland.
It's a contest, where there's plenty of hot air… guitar
But Hot Lixx's big finish blew away the competition. At 34, he became the air guitar world champion plucking victory right out of thin air.
When Craig Billmeier is at his day job, you would never guess - "Right now," he said, "there's no stopping it - but like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly he goes through a nightly metamorphosis emerges as Hott Lixx Hulahan.
What many of us do only in private, playing air guitar, Hott Lixx revels in doing publicly.
He is the American air guitar champion. And, yes, there is a competition for that.
Hott Lixx has an air guitar workout room at home in Alameda, Calif. He demonstrates his moves, at one point seeming to play on a tiny guitar and then declaring, "I don't like the tiny guitar. Get rid of it!" and tossing the invisible instrument.
He say this is much like interpretive dance. An art form - seriously.
"You kind of want to embody what you're hearing and your body interprets it in a way," he says. Then, laughing a bit at himself, he says "This is totally nerdy," before continuing, "It's all about a faux persona being taken to some sort of stage."
It's on the world stage where the faux persona, Hott Lixx, is now playing, at the world air guitar championships held annually in Finland.
It's a contest, where there's plenty of hot air… guitar
But Hot Lixx's big finish blew away the competition. At 34, he became the air guitar world champion plucking victory right out of thin air.
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