ESPN.com: When did you pick up your first guitar?
Bamburg: First time was when I was in eighth grade. I took a basic guitar class at my school but I didn't have a guitar of my own. It wasn't until my 16th birthday that I got my own guitar. It was a Memphis brand Stratocaster copy with a little Squier practice amp.

What is it about playing your guitars you like so much?
I just love music. It's a really cool feeling to be able to play the music you like or even just make up stuff. It's sort of a release or an escape from everything else, to just sit there and make all the pieces of a song fit together and flow smoothly.

Chris TedescoIt's not all Guitar Hero for Bamburg just yet -- he still likes to ride.

Are you in a band?
No. I haven't had a band since high school. A couple friends and I got together in the mid '90s during the height of the whole Seattle grunge thing, threw on some flannel and jammed all of the Alice In Chains tunes. We played a couple of talent shows and school assemblies but that's about as far as it went. I need to get something going again though. It's funny because some of the local club and bar owners around here that see me play the anthem always offer me a spot to come jam at their bar, but I'm like "What do you want me to play? The Anthem and Eruption is about all I got by myself. I'm not singing."

I saw on the Nuclear Cowboyz rehearsal in Fla., you and Adam Jones, Mike Mason jammed in between riding sessions. Do you guys always bring your guitars?
Someone always has one with them. Last year we had acoustics on tour but those guys really stepped up their game this year. Needless to say there's a lot of metal being shredded in the rider's room in between practice and the show.

You've got to play some national anthems, can you tell me which ones?
The first time I was ever asked to do it was the Dew tour in Denver. Opening up for the bands that played those nights. I had a sponsorship with Fender at the time so we all thought that it would be a good way to get them more involved with action sports and also for me to live out my rockstar fantasies. I got to go out on stage with all these real musicians so it was kind of scary but really cool at the same time. I pulled it off, so I did the rest of the Dew Tour stops that year and also most of the IFMAs that I rode the next year. Pretty soon I was getting calls to do the anthem at other sporting events that I had nothing to do with. I had known Matt Lindland for a while, so he asked me to play the anthem at his and Randy Couture's MMA promotion up here in the northwest called Sportfight. I have actually opened the broadcast for Sportfight on the HD Net channel. Last year was definitely the highlight for my anthem career though -- I got to play at Quest field in Seattle for the Supercross. It was ridiculous to hear my amp cranked up through the sound system in a 60,000 seat football stadium. There were around 45,000 people there when I played, so it was a pretty cool feeling to hear that applause and know that that many people dug it. Since we were in Seattle I even threw in a tribute to my old Alice In Chains cover band days at the end. I guess the people liked it too, so they had me do the Monster Energy cup in Vegas in October.

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Courtesy of Beau BamburgBamburg performs the national anthem at last year's Seattle Supercross event.

What was that like to play in front of that many people?
Its a crazy feeling to get up there in front of that many people with everything dark except a spotlight on you. Everyone knows the song you're playing and you have only one shot to do it and with no backing band to hide any mistakes you make. Have you ever seen any of those anthem screw up videos? People get so madwomen you mess up our country's national anthem, and I don't want to be one of those guys. Some of those bigger arenas hold close to 20,000 people and the stadiums hold 50 to 60,000, so it's pretty intense to be everyone's main focus for that two minutes. It's actually better to play in a huge stadium because the crowd is so far away it just becomes this big "thing" out there with no faces or voices. It's when there's 60 people in a room and you can hear everyone whispering and making eye contact with everyone that it gets kind of weird for me.

Do you get a adrenaline rush similar to riding a FMX show in front of a good crowd?
Yeah, I think even more so playing guitar since I'm sort of out of my element out there. Riding FMX, I feel like there is a costume I can hide behind and if I screw up, I can do something else to make up for it. But playing guitar, I always think "Damn, I better pull this off because what if Eddie Van Halen or Zakk Wylde is in the crowd?" Like I said though. I get to be a rockstar for about two minutes a weekend, so it's a pretty cool feeling.

Are you going to play anymore national anthems?
For sure! I love doing it and will do as many as I'm asked to do. I hope to do Seattle Supercross again this year and whatever else comes up. I think I might put out an album this year. One song, two minutes.