CG-MayJun16-ISSUU

It was rather intoxicating to just say, “No, this
chord structure is unusual, and it sounds great
in my mind and I know it’s never been done
before. I’m not going to use any convention
of substitute chords or anything. That came
straight from the heart and then my brain
came in with this great “I can do whatever I
want!” attitude because I decided not to seek
commercial acceptance. As you said, that song
expresses an introduction into those attitudes
in a pretty stark and striking way. It’s really fresh
in my mind now because we played it every
single night on stage on this last tour.
CG Your long-time co-producer / engineer
John Cuniberti was kind enough to provide
us with some photos of the vintage amps
you brought in for the Shockwave Supernova
sessions at 25 th Street Recording. Do you tend
to buy these amps based an immediate need,
or do you have them in your arsenal for when
and if a need arises?
JS I would say both is the answer to that, and
maybe there’s a third reason, which is just
gear neurosis. You walk into a vintage store,
or you’re looking at eBay or Reverb and you
see something that for some weird reason
resonates with you. You say, “I always wanted
one of those, I never had it, I heard that soand-so
used this with great success on a
particular record”. You dive
in and pick one up. I think
that Fender Champs are like
that, we hear all these stories
“the whole record was done
with a Fender Champ”. But
ultimately it’s got to resonate
with you. A good reason for
collecting, if you can afford
it, is to recognize that we
change from time to time, even day to day
when you walk in the studio. One day you do
feel like a Champ, the other day you feel like
a Marshall stack. I have found that very often
that’s the case with me, you get in a state when
I think that Fender
Champs are like that,
we hear all these
stories “the whole
record was done with
a Fender Champ”.
you’re working on a particular song about a
particular subject, or person, or something and
all of sudden it comes over you what you really
need to make your performance work. It may
not be the thing you use on stage. It might be
something that is just for this particular part.
Whatever it might be, if you’ve got fifteen,
twenty vintage amps out there, there’s a good
chance that one of them is
going to do the trick. It’s like
what you and I were doing
that day when we were just
plugging into all of them and
listening to the differences.
It’s great to know what they
do because you might be
sitting in the control room,
your hearing a part for a
bridge or something and you go, “I know what
this needs, it needs amp number seven I was
just goofing around with the other day”. Maybe
because it uses 6L6s and the plate voltage
is high, you’ve got more headroom and this
24 May June 2016
CollectibleGuitar.com