Jayplay:

How did you become a recording artist?

Martin Sexton:

In the 1990s I was busking. I was a kid fresh from off the Amtrak to Boston. I got a job at a café, but I ended up getting canned. I saw an artist in the square busking and making some money. I thought “that’s pretty cool, I want to do that!” Necessity became the mother of invention. I needed rent, so I got myself an amp and a Stratocaster. I ended up making more money busking than I had at my job. After a while, I started recording, and things just grew from there.

JP: What kind of music made you decide you wanted to be a musician?

MS: I think it might have happened as a kid. I was listening to my brother’s records in the attic, and I found “Frampton Comes Alive!” I heard his licks. I heard the crowd, and he just wailed! That’s when the spark was lit. I actually got the chance to play with Frampton once. I know he must hear stories like that all the time, but I still had to tell him just how important his music was to me.

JP: What’s it like to work with people, like Peter Frampton, whose work you admire?

MS: Initially I get nervous, but eventually you just reach this level of mutual respect with the artist you’re working with. I just view it like a dream come true. I have this childlike sense of wonder, this sense of “holy shit” when I get to do things like that. I’m kind of pinching myself.