Something
I’ve been thinking about and not really said out loud is that a lot of bands
over that last few years have been playing a specific sub-genre of heavy music,
to me it consists of hardcore punks that want to play heavier; much like when
the dudes in Black Flag grew their hair out and started listening to more Sabbath.
I’m not sure how that became trendy again, probably on the tail end of the
ubiquitous ‘Stoner
Rock’ scene, which itself is a bastardization of early Doom…
there are some amazing bands out there playing this type of heavy.
I’m of
the opinion that Seattle is one of the birthplaces of this (along with Chicago,
the Bay Area and Austin etc). Even more specifically I think a few local bands
led the charge in the new hardcore crossover to heavy: Akimbo and the Ruby
Doe were right there. This is what happens when kids
grow up listening the Sub
Pop and AmRep style gnarliness. It’s not ironic when Nat wears his Nirvana shirt and it’s no coincidence that Akimbo has been on Alternative
Tentacles for most of their career.
Recently,
I had a chance to do a story about Sandrider for Seattle
Passive Aggressive zine and I really
didn’t want to get into the Sci-Fi aspects of Sandrider’s name because the conversation would then
skew into a totally different direction. I’ve known these 3 guys for 15 years
at least and if we started talking Dune we’d never stop! I used the fact that I already had
these guys cornered to interview them about gear, in the past, in the future,
what they’re rocking now… Normally I would give you a rundown of their gear but
as you will see they do a good job of explaining it themselves.
Once
again, all opinions in this blog are just that, opinions. So please don’t sue
or troll! There is a lot of good-natured ribbing amongst friends in this
interview and that’s just fine. If you’d like to comment please do, I’m always
up for being schooled.
Nat Damm:
Drums
Jon
Weiznewski: Guitar
Jesse
Roberts: Bass
Jeffery: Nat, what was your first kit? And then what did it turn into?
Nat: When I was 13, with bar mitzvah money, I went to that place in Bellevue...
Jon: Kenelly
Keys?
Nat: No, there was a carport underneath it, it closed down, and
you went upstairs…
Jon: AmericanMusic?
Nat: No, I can’t remember the name of it but, I had never played
drums before, I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking for I was 13… but I
found this awesome 3 piece kit it was a 22”, 14”, 16”. Later I found out it was
Japanese but the brand was called Thor. (Laughter)
Jeffery: Thor! That’s heavy!
Nat: Yeah it had this rectangle and it just said THOR in super
bold letters with this fist holding a fucking lightning bolt.
Jesse: That sounds awesome!
Jeffery: Yeah it does.
Nat: I paid way too much for it. It was like $400 and it should
have been a hundred but I bought it and that was my first kit and I played in
The Dissidents with Jon, our punk band when we were like 13… and then I
bought a kit off of Matt Leonard actually, that was covered in all these
stickers you know, vegan this, vegan that, blah blah blah (Laughter) Love you
Matt! So what I did was I stripped off the vinyl off of all the drums and my
next door neighbor had these political signs out and I took one and it had
these thin wooden strips holding the signs up and I used them to reinforce
connecting the 2 bass drums together creating-
Jeffery: The Cannon!
Nat: I mean it looked cool to my 14 year old self I don’t know if
it sounded that good.
Jon: I remember it not sounding good.
Jeffery: I remember it looking IMPRESIVE! But I couldn’t tell ya how
it sounded.
Nat: It was a long time ago. Then I went and joined the Tight Bros (Way Back
When) years later and the hallway to get
downstairs to the practice space had a big fridge right by it that came out
past the door jam and the Cannon couldn’t get down the stairs so I found a rock
and I broke it in half and that was the end of that you know? (Laughter)
Jeffery: When you were in the Tight Bros, I remember you were the kid
in that band-
Nat: I was 18.
Jeffery: People were like oh shit this hot drummer kid is in the
band, not to put words in peoples mouths but they (Tight Bros) were kicking ass
and all of a sudden they had this kid in the band!
Nat: And it went downhill from there ha ha big shoes to fill (Justin Olsen).
Jeffery: I totally disagree. I think you guys took it to the next
level but they became a little more classic rocky maybe because of your style-
Nat: I grew a lot on that band and was exposed to a lot of music
(Tight Bros) was influenced by music from the 60’s and 70’s and that has helped
me get to where I am now and I am very grateful to have had that experience.
Jeffery: It helped. You grew, we saw it happen and that’s where you
said, "Oh shit I gotta get a vintage kit now"?
Nat: I DID end up buying an awesome early 60’s Slingerland. Have you seen that Jailbreak video from AC/DC? It’s the same kit that drummer plays (Phil Rudd). It was a beautiful mahogany kit and I ended up selling that
to Marc from the BloodBrothers.
Jeffery: And you started making your own kit?
Nat: Right after that actually, yeah. I used the money to start
building and refinishing a kit and I’ve done 3 now. Jesse’s got my second one,
that maple kit. The first one is actually on Holland it’s with a touring
company that my friend Zabier runs.
Jeffery: I remember for a while the shells were up on the wall here
in the practice space
Nat: Akimbo was going on tour out there and I packed it up in
this big box and I was walking through customs and I was terrified they were
gonna tax the fuck out of it and I walk up and this German woman, I speak a
little German, and I knew what she was asking me but she was like how much is
it worth and I was like, “Zero, Zero. It’s a gift.” and she was like, “Ah fuck
you I can’t understand what you are saying!”
Jeffery: And she let you go? Nice! And didn’t you have it
packed all inside it’s self?
Nat: Yeah I wanted it to be as compact as possible it was a 24”,
14” 18”
Jeffery: Which to me is a pretty badass kit.
Nat: Yeah and I carved ‘play harder’ on the top of the kick drum
there, a little gold leaf… nerdy. My goal was to refinish a drum kit every year
till I die.
Jeffery: That sounds expensive ha ha
Nat: Not really it’s fun and easy.
Jon: I want to go back to the cannon real quick. We took the
cannon on the very first Akimbo tour and we always thought it was this very
cool, original thing. We were the only band I’d ever seen that had made this
insanely long phallic (laughter) thing but we had a show at Mission Street
Records and we didn’t even realize how lucky we scored it was our first
tour and had a show at Mission Records with some band called Artemis Pyle-
Jeffery: No way! That’s some real shit right there!
Nat: We made good friends with ‘em those guys are awesome!
Jon: Artemis Pyle sets up their drums and they’ve got a fucking
cannon too! (Their 1st drummer not Jenson from Iron Lung)
Jeffery: What? Oh shit I’m having a flash back of you telling me this
way back in the day ha ha how did I forget?
Jon: Yeah we showed up and not only does he have a cannon but
that drummer is like-
Nat: He’s insane!
Jon: He’s a cornered dog on meth ha ha it was very vindicating
like, “All right, there is a thing here.” It was sort of a handshake.
Nat: He and I… he like looked at me all weird… he was like a
mystical rabid beast who wouldn’t actually hurt you but…
Jeffery: The Mission scene was very likeminded. Seattle and the Bay Area
were just like (crosses fingers) getting it! It was one of those perfect
fucking moments… Jesse tell me about your first rig when you were a kid and you
were trying to learn how to play.
Jesse: My first electric guitar was a Gibson Marauder that I still own-
Jeffery: Oh shit I’ve always wanted one of those, bolt on neck right?
Jesse: Yeah, I got it and it was like that dark burgundy finish and
it had like these misfits skulls spray-painted on it. (Laughter)
Jeffery: When you bought it, it did? Punk rock!
Jesse: And it had anarchy symbols carved into it. My dad actually
took it and he sanded it down and years ago I had seen a Green Amp and I thought it was so cool but I had no idea where I could
find one so he painted this guitar green so I have a green marauder with a
white pick guard. That and a Peavey
Bandit 1/12, the Mississippi Marshall
ha ha!
Jeffery: Every band I was in until I was 25 had one of those.
Jesse: To me those amps are like rats; they are going to be around
well after the apocalypse.
Jeffery: You’ll whip out it’ll be covered in moss and shit and it’ll
still play-
Jesse: It’ll still shred your ears ha ha.
Jeffery: I used to love those cause if you turn the mids all the way
down you could sound like Celtic Frost like almost exactly (makes Celtic Frost guitar chug sound).
Jesse: Totally,
Nat: (interjects) Band
Aid Music!
Jeffery: Ha ha he remembers now! I can back that up and throw it in
and no one will ever know you forgot. So Jesse here you are starting out on
guitar and you had, what did you call it the Mississippi Marshall? (Huge
laughs) What was the impetus to start playing the bass? Cause you are in my
opinion well known for being an amazing bass player.
Jesse: Oh Thanks! Well the Ruby Doe started off as a 4 piece and I
was playing guitar… originally the way Aaron (Ellh) and I started playing
together was the bass player of the band that I was in at the time in High
School moved away to college and we need a bass player and I had heard of
Aaron-
Jeffery: What town was this?
Jesse: This was in Wenatchee, and he wanted to play guitar too so
for a long time we were both playing guitar and then our bass player decided he
wasn’t into it any more so I just decided to do it. I was playing bass through
my guitar amp…
Jeffery: Ok so once you and Aaron were playing together what was that
set up like?
Jesse: A DualRectifier and that same 4/12. Two Dual Rectifiers so lots of white
noise ha ha.
Jeffery: The Dual Rec is barely passable in my opinion, the Triple…
Nat: I don’t even know what you are talking about.
Jeffery: You don’t have to you’re the drummer ha ha!
Nat: God damn right.
Jon: Sounded great in Botch!
Jeffery: True! We’re talking about guys that didn’t turn the gain all
the way up cause they tuned down and didn’t have to and you know how the more
you tune down the less distortion you need just more volume really?
Jon: Yeah…
Jeffery: Well shit, all the bands I’ve seen playing Mesa and
Marshall, the shit I plug into and can’t figure out how to get my sound and
then I hear them and I’m like “You’re the best band in the world!”… So I dis on
it but, like it matters. Know what I mean?
Nat: Some people just sound good no matter what they are playing.
Jesse: I’ve seen Mastodon use Dual Rectifiers and they sounded great.
Jeffery: Well the Melvins, when they fly in just get all Mesa… throw em up there and
they sound great!
Jon: Mesa 400+ is an awesome bass head!
Jesse: So fuckin loud!
Jeffery: That is in my top 3 bass amps for heavy music, right up
there with the Sunn Coliseum and Ampeg SVT of course.
Jesse: I think the Sunn has a push that the SVT’s don’t have.
Jeffery: SVT’s have a growl.
Jesse: But there is a sag to them…
Jeffery: The 400 watt solid-state ones sound great but you got to
redline them to get enough volume and then they die on you! Where as you can
literally dime a Sunn and it just sounds like you dimed it.
Jon: I’ve found that with my Sunn you get it to 4 or 5 and that’s
as loud as it goes-
Jeffery: Ha ha it just gets more distorted they somehow tuned a solid
state amp so you turn up the amp and it just gets more distorted it doesn’t get
louder…
Jon: Usually it’s on 3 or 4 ha ha-
Jesse: And there is nothing in there. You open it up and it’s
ridiculous, the circuit is really simple.
Jon: The only reason they are heavy is because of the wood they
are made out of! (Laughter)
Jeffery: (turns to Jon) we’ve moved into the Sunn Coliseum. You’ve
rocked that for years…
Nat: I dropped it once. At Mission Street Records. We were
loading in the rain and I was all by myself trying to push it over the curb on
that cab (Sunn 2/15) and it slipped and no one was around and… (Laughter)
Jeffery: The truth comes out!
Nat: We were loading in and I was like-
Jesse: You were all setting up and Nat’s just over hear going… I
hope it plays!
Nat: That’s exactly what I was doin! (Laughter and a
reenactment of the moment ensues) I picked it up and everyone in line to get
into the show was looking at me and Jon comes back out and I’m like, “Oh here’s
your head.” The first band plays and the second band plays and Jon plugs in and
plays and it’s fine and I’m like whew that’s cool!
Jesse: The clouds part ha ha
Jeffery: Solid state. Try doing that with an SVT.
Nat: It hit hard! I was terrified I have to say.
Jon: Funny side note that is very relevant to what we are talking
about but not relevant at all… we were talking about Mission Records Homo Eradicus played there and we put
all the amps and the drums on the stage and Brandon (Nakamura) had this huge
crazy Fender 4/12 with a 4/10 on top and he’d just got his (Sunn)300T so he had that on top. And
the stage was like plywood on top of tires so it’s like a trampoline and there
is this giant bass stack behind me ha ha and I play drums with ‘heart’, I play
them very hard and I guess the whole show, no one in the band noticed but the
whole audience was watching this giant tower rocking back and forth just
waiting for it to topple. But it never did.
Jesse: Must have made for a very exciting show, like watching Charlie Chaplin movie.
Jeffery: Ok Jon so you’ve already told me you started out as a guitar
player and now you are one again…
Jon: Actually my first rig is one that’s actually very special to
me; my dad made himself a guitar when he was like a loser hippie. And it’s a
piece of shit ha ha it’s fucking impossible to play and that’s what I learned
on.
Jeffery: I think the bigger a piece of shit you learn on just makes
you that much better when you get a good guitar…
Jon: That was a huge moment moving on from that, I mean he gave
me that guitar when I was like 10 or 11 and it sat under my bed for a year
until I finally decided to get stoked on playing guitar, and I’m learning and
I’m like this is s fucking hard! Rudimentary pickups and sounded terrible but
it’s very close to my heart and I still have it.
Jeffery: That’s great!
Jon: So the first real guitar I got was for a birthday present a
couple of years later when I was 14 and I got this Mexi Strat and it’s still what I play
now its fucking amazing it just feels so good.
Jesse: Ha ha Mexi Strat…
Jeffery: I’ve been waiting to talk about this Mexi Strat ha ha
Jon: It’s great!
Jeffery: Hey a Mexi Strat is fine but I do want to take a collection
up and get you a hot rail or something ha ha or a humbucker…
Jon: No! (Laughter all around)
Jeffery: That’s why I wanted to start this argument cause I knew you’d
say that. Cause I know you and you stick to your guns, it’s a disagreement but
I know that you are purposely playing this guitar.
Jon: Yep.
Jeffery: I think what you do with it and what you get done, I was
just listening to the record last night in prep for this ad I think it DOES
give you a distinctive sound that if you were just busting out with a Les Paul
you guys would not have, and it does allow room for the bass to growl through.Jon: Absolutely.
Jeffery: And it’s not like you aren’t distorted but it’s my personal
opinion I hate playing single coils ha ha. Ironically I was jamming with Android Hero earlier
and we were playing a space jam and I clicked it up into my middle pickup and I
had this lead going and I was like, “Sweet!” and then like, “God damn
it!” because I knew I was gonna come here and try to give you shit
about playing fucking metal with a single coil! (Laughter) if it was good
enough for Jimi ha
ha and to be fair 80% of the guitars Kurt Cobain played
were shitty surf guitars.
Jon: I love it. There is this frequency you can hit when you are
playing a good overdriven vintage amp when you hit the D and G strings you can
get this magic and fuck with the bar chord a little bit. I use the shit out of
it. It sounds so fucking good! Not one person has told me my guitar sounds like
shit.
Jeffery: I would never say that ha ha. Let’s talk
about your amps; you have the Sunn Beta Lead, which
we are huge fans of obviously, Black Flag, Melvins etc. But you have this, what
could be termed old school Verellen?
Nat: Vintage.
Jeffery: But you’re not playin the Skyhammer.
Jon: I bought that from him before he had ‘lines’.
Jeffery: Exactly so he was kinda doing copies of things he wanted to do.
Jon: So this one is a copy of a Hiwatt; he called
it the HigherWatt, and I think that’s pretty much what it sounds like.
Jeffery: It’s… if any body has ever played a Hiwatt you can’t really
make it break up it’s more like the output tubes that are breaking up…
Jesse: It’s the output. There’s no pregain to it at all, it’s all
volume.
Jeffery: It works well with the Beta Lead because that’s all mids and
you got the Hiwatt pumping out the low end and the chime-
Nat: That’s the one that hurts me!
Jeffery: It sounds good and with the single coils that’s probably
what adds dimension-
Jon: Yeah
Nat: Are they both always on? You A/B them?
Jon: Yeah I A/B them the Verellen is always on and the Sunn comes
on and off when I need the extra balls. And quick shout out to Stacy
Schragg (RIP) I got it from him
Jeffery: (Gasps) Oh shit man I was so jealous of his shit, non stop!
Jon: Yeah.
Jeffery: He was a good friend of ours and he passed away but he had every
piece of Sunn gear that you could ever want. He had the Collection! New and
old.
Jon: He was a Sunn dawg!
Jeffery: Every fucking thing he did was on purpose and he had that
crazy guitar like a see through headstock.
Jesse: Like a TravisBean?
Jeffery: Well not metal but it was the kind of guitar that someone
who played electrical classical guitar would play but he played it jacked all
the way up to his chest and he shredded grind! And he was supposed to sell me-
well, one of those (Beta Lead) and he never did-
Jon: That was probably the one!
Jeffery: And I hope to god when he passed that his shit made it some
place where someone would appreciate it!
Jon: Totally!
Nat: He had it all before it was super popular.
Jesse: Well it sounds so good!
Nat: (To Jesse) We ever talk about him? He played guitar with us
on tour. He had a house in Southern Oregon and we always knew there was a great
place to play on the way to San Francisco.
Jeffery: Medford-
Nat: Great house and they had a big shed in the back yard and
they’d make you food and you’d just play an awesome show to 30 or 40 people and
then there would be a BBQ afterwards…he just took really good care of us.
Jeffery: It was always fun.
Nat: He was an awesome dude. (Moment of Silence)
Jeffery: Way to bring it down Jon!
Jon: Sorry ha ha.
Jeffery: No that was great. It made me remember about what an awesome
guy he was and how rad his gear was and I’m glad it’s living on. OK. Now that
we’ve talked about past let’s talk about future… we can start with you again
Nat, it there any shit you fuckin HAVE to have?
Nat: Yeah I need new snare stands.
Jeffery: What?!? Snare stands?
Jesse: Is this gonna turn into a kick starter pitch?
Nat: No, we haven’t played a show since Neumo’s last
month and I go to unpack my crap and I’m like, “Where the fuck its my snare
stand?” I’ve had that since I was 17 and I’m 32!
Jeffery: Alright, sounds like you needed an new snare stand anyway ha
ha
Nat: That’s all I need! No ah I would love to get a new snare
drum.
Jeffery: What are you playing now?
Nat: It is a LudwigSupersensitive. It’s a Superphonic shell
right? But it has that extra large snare on the bottom that extends out. It’s a
symphonic drum. The original snares that came with it you could adjust the
screws for each wire! It was nuts!
Jeffery: Insane I’ve never ever heard of anything like that! God damn
orchestra geeks are intense! (Nat shows us the snare)
Nat: I do love it but it’s cumbersome.
Jeffery: It got Stolen, but I was big into the RogersPowertone that I had.
Nat: Was it wood?
Jeffery: It was metal. There is something about those, they don’t project
as much as a Superphonic, I play rimshots a lot-
Nat: Me too.
Jeffery: They have this crack, a Powertone it’s almost made for that.
It’s like CAWK!
Jon: I love that! COCK! COCK! COCK! (Laughter) Put that in
your interview!
Jeffery: I am nonplussed! Heh heh
Jon: COCK COCK!
Jeffery: That’ll teach me to use any sort of phallic euphemism around
you!
Anyway, I think it’s the snare sound of
the Dave Clark 5…
and early 70’s Ringo.
That dry crack.
Nat: And I could use a huge 21” crash and I had this vintage pair
of 15” hi hats and one of them cracked. So I have a newer 15” I put on there… I
play my hi hats upside down-
Jeffery: What?!?! OK, see we are learning something here! You
actually put the heavy one on top?
Nat: Fucking love it!
Jeffery: That’s why I love doing this blog right there!
Nat: With the light one on top there is no play off of it. Maybe
it’s because I play them so high up? But yeah I play them upside down I just
love the play out of it. It’s more about the feel of it.
Jeffery: Holy shit do you know anyone else who does that?
Nat: I’ve never really talked about it.
Jesse: I’m totally gonna try that now!
Jeffery: Fair enough. So we got crazy hi hats over here and a single
coil over there ha ha!
Jon: So were talking about single coils…
Jesse: He’s pissed!
Jon: No no no. We all like records that have a lot of bass on
them right?
Jeffery: Of course!
Jon: Not like low end either but like when the bass player,
assuming he can play well and assuming he’s playing something interesting, you
want that to be present. And some punk records, like Dead Kennedy’s or Nomeansno had
some really creative bass playing front and center. With a single coil the
guitars are still very present but you can push the bass a lot further. And we
definitely pushed Matt(Bayles) out of his comfort zone on that record we were like “More
bass, more bass.” And it did not squash the guitars because it had this
frequency that it sits by itself.
Jesse: I’ve always had kinda a weird bass tone so it’s been a
challenge to engineers where they always want to get like an ‘official’ bass
tone but I’ve always been halfway between a bass and guitar.
Jeffery: Well I’ve always been really fond of that, you listen to Black Sabbath and Geezer sounds
all round, it doesn’t sound all low, he has this mid thing and you can hear it.
Most of my favorite bass players have always had a more present tone.
Jon: Me too. I feel like the inverse of that is that when you are
playing bass with a more present tone it makes you play better.
Jesse: You have to.
Jon: You can hear yourself. You have this individual space within
the band and it pushes a musician to be like, “Ok I can try shit!”
Jesse: And it’ll make a difference.
Nat: As a drummer, that makes me play better because I can hear
the parts and I want to be able to accent that. There is a little lick, in the
middle section of that new song I can hear what you are doing and it reminds me
of Karp,
it’s a little fill and I heard that and I was like I gotta figure out what you
are doing there and do it with you.
Jeffery: OK so… Jesse… you have a LOT of gear… (laughter) I’m in your
practice space and there is a wall of bass amps and cabinets.
Nat: And he just got a new one and it’s beautiful!
Jeffery: And I know they aren’t ALL yours…
Jesse: They are actually ha ha.
Jeffery: I’m gonna say 70% of the darkness in this room is yours. I’m
seeing five 8/10’s and four 2/15’s? This is a Hiwatt? And a newer Sunn and this
vintage Sunn is a reflex cab? That’s one of the ones you play in Old Iron? You got your Matamp, which I’m assuming you play
guitar through?
Jesse: I use that for Old Iron. For Sandrider I use the Coliseum
that Jon turned me on to for a long time I was using a Traynor pre into the
power amp type thing-
Jeffery: Sure that’s Bob (Weston) from Shellac’s set up
I think, it’s in a cool box but it’s a classic sound-
Jesse: It’s a good sound but it was broken or whatever and I came
in and used Jon’s Coliseum and I used his Stingray and
I was like, “This is crushing!”
Jeffery: And you’ve since bought 2…
Jesse: Well that one’s Jared’s (Old Iron) as well but I’ve moved
on. So now I use the Rusty Box and that’s something I couldn’t do without-
Jeffery: Funny, cause the only other interview I’ve done so far
is GreatFalls and Shane swears by the Rusty Box. And we had a huge
conversation about the music man how people would be playing Jazz Basses or
whatever and they get to a point in hardcore where they switch to the Music Man
and they just stay there.
Jesse: Oh yeah you can’t like go back, every
other bass just sounds quiet and wimpy after that. It’s like playing a big
fuckin TeslaCoil (laughs) They are engineered so well.
Jon: Full circle moment! The reason I bought a Stingray is
because PlayingEnemy (Shane’s previous band) sounded so amazing! (Laughter) then
I bought one and the reason Jesse bought one is cause I had one and now were
here talking about this!
Jeffery: I just want to point out that you said the Rusty Box was
indispensible…
Jesse: Indispensible. It’s the pre amp out of a Traynor TS50? Its advantages because I can put it at the beginning of my signal
chain and when I was using the Traynor it was like if I used distortion box it
ended up all compressed so now I can just boost it.
Jeffery: I did not know that.
Jesse: If you look at it it’s the same controls as the Traynor.
This thing is a Prunesand Custard it’s made by this company Crowther in
New Zealand I got turned on to this pedal it’s a sub harmonic generator and
like a distortion.
Jeffery: Ashdown has
that built in to their pres right?
Jesse: Yeah in their amps. Ruby Doe played the last show McKlusky played
in Seattle and his bass tone was so crushing and I totally scoped his pedal
board and I noticed he played Hot Cakes, also by
Crowther and their bass player, it was Prunes and Custard.
Jeffery: Which by the way, Future of the Left,
their new bass player who shreds, she also plays the Crowther. I leaned in and
checked it out. Ok, Is there anything anybody else really wants?
Jon: I’d actually LOVE a Model T. I’d be very
tempted to swap out the Beta Lead if I had one and here you go Jeff, I prefer
the new Fender model
to the vintage one.
Jeffery: Really?
Jon: Yeah like the silver ones, those ones sound better. I base
that one two things: Akimbo, Burke played with that amp forever and it sounded
fantastic. And RussianCircles also played one of those for a long time and they sound
great.
Jeffery: Playing Brandon’s Model T, I always needed a distortion box
in front of it. They are one of the top tube amps of all time but maybe it’s
from playing solid state my whole life, but I just need that grit.
Jon: I don’t do any palm muting.
Jeffery: You don’t do any palm muting. I never thought about it!
Jesse: I’m terrible, when I play guitar I love to palm mute! Guilty
pleasure!
Jon: I remember when I first learned to palm mute; it changed my
life.
Jeffery: I was just remarking today about how there was a time I
didn’t know how to play pinch harmonics-
Jon: I cant.
Jeffery: Well that’s cause you play a single coil! (Laughter all
around)
Jon: It’s true!
Jeffery: Full circle once again!
