No one would ever accuse Warren Ellis
of being an average guitarist. In fact,
Ellis—who is best known as a highly animated
violinist, bouzouki slinger, maraca shaker,
and all-around multi-instrumentalist for Nick
Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman, and the
Dirty Three—might take offense if you called
him a guitarist at all.
As a member of Grinderman, Cave’s most
straight-ahead and hard-rocking project
in years, Ellis has thrashed at both Fender
Musicmasters and Fender electric mandolins.
Doubtless, it was a love of these two
instruments—plus a dose of Ellis’ irreverent,
free, and Frankenstein-ian musical sensibilities—that led him to develop his signature
Eastwood. The result is a most uncommon
electric 4-string tenor electric that not only
suits Eastwood’s reputation for embracing
oddball instruments and Ellis’ unorthodox
approach to guitar, but also opens sonic frontiers
typically ignored by 6-string acolytes.
It ain’t no banjo!
The tenor guitar has a muddled history at
best. Its rise in popularity in the first third
of the 20th century is probably attributable
to the popularity of the similarly strung
and tuned tenor banjo, which had enormous
appeal in early jazz circles because of
its cutting timbre. While the 6-string guitar
ultimately eclipsed banjo and tenor guitar
in popularity, major builders kept the tenor
guitar alive. Gibson and Martin were both
big tenor builders. And when the guitar
went electric, Guild, Gretsch, Gibson, and
Rickenbacker made electric tenor or tenorinspired
instruments. Today, Ellis—along
with a few other high-profile tenor freaks
like Neko Case—is helping to keep the
instrument alive and in the public eye.
The 23"-scale Warren Ellis Signature
Tenor is a cool-looking little guitar. It’s
flawlessly built, too. The alder body is cut
into a shapely Musicmaster-/Mustang-/Duo-
Sonic-style profile, only in more compact
dimensions. The pickguard and chrome
control-cavity cover are almost identical to
those on a Mustang. And the body, neck,
and headstock are all painted in a glossy
vintage crème color—which looks fantastic
with the faux-tortoiseshell pickguard. The
chrome bridge is a hybrid of Telecaster and
Mustang design philosophies, with four
barrel-style saddles that are adjustable for
height and intonation. Kluson-style tuners
look very cool and well proportioned on
the compact headstock, which is adorned
with Ellis’ signature and karate-kick logo.
And the rosewood fretboard is capped with
narrow-profile vintage fretwire.
Burly Little Beast
I tested the Ellis tenor through a Fender
Champ and a Vox Pathfinder, and it yielded
a world of surprises right off the bat. First,
the guitar was shipped tuned to proper
tenor tuning—a set of fifths, C-G-D-A.
The string spacing is also much wider than
what you feel under hand on a 6-string, and
the neck is slightly wider than your average
tenor—a design that Ellis felt would better
suit modern bass players and guitarists.
But string spacing accounts for only part
of the odd feel. Unlike the fourth string on
a 6-string—which is typically around .025
mm—the lowest string on a tenor is a .042,
and on a short scale tends that tends to
have a very elastic feel and perceptible sonic
heaviness. The rest of the strings are on
the heavier side too—with a .013 on top,
and .017 and .030 on the second and third
string, respectively.
Toying around with the few banjo chords
in my vocabulary and using the C-G-D-A
tuning, I immediately tapped into the
unique merits of a tenor guitar. The string
spacing makes fingerpicking this thing a
delight. And adapting clawhammer banjo
techniques to electric guitar tones resulted
in some very interesting approaches to both
composition and cool-sounding versions of
old folk and country standards. Needless to
say, it’s a real kick to lend a new feel to an
old log like Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway”
by playing it banjo style through an electric-
guitar pickup and Vox amp.
Tuning the Ellis to D-G-B-E—the same
as the highest four strings of a guitar in
concert tuning—gave the guitar a unique
and interesting sonic signature that would
sound very cool as an overdub or accompaniment
to a 6-string. The heavier D
string lent a basic, first-position D chord
an unmistakable girth and an extended
frequency range. It’s not as easy to move
from chord to chord, given the wide string
spacing—and you’re not going to use this
axe to do any lightning-quick pentatonic
runs—but with a little practice I was able
to flatpick arpeggios at a pretty aggressive
tempo and could keep up with a buddy’s
flattop accompaniment.
I got my favorite sounds from the
Eastwood when I toyed with alternate tunings.
Ellis has been known to tinker with
amplified bouzouki, so I thought I’d try
some Middle Eastern-tinged tunings with
drones, doubles, and fifths, which really
brought the little Eastwood to life, particularly
with a little delay in the signal.
The surprisingly hot single-coil positively
bloomed with the muscular drone of the
thick fourth string and the overtones from
the sympathetically tuned first and third
strings. It’s a potentially massive sound. And
it’s easy to see why Ellis, who often embraces
a sort of anti-technique involving clanging
chords and single-note lead lines, would
embrace this little guitar’s articulation and
impressive resonance in the low midrange.
The Verdict
Not every player will find a use for the
Eastwood Warren Ellis Tenor. But that
doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a million
potential sounds for imaginative and adventurous
players to work with. It’s easy to
imagine this guitar becoming an X factor
in the studio because of its ability to lend
such harmonic richness to say, an ordinary
C chord. It’s also well designed to take
advantage of the intrinsic advantages of
tenor guitar, with a pickup that brilliantly
highlights the huge harmonic and overtone
potential of the heavier fourth and third
strings, and the biting first and second
strings. Despite its no-frills appearance, this
is a guitar of remarkable versatility—one
that can lend thrilling new flavors to roots
music, Americana, and internationally flavored
jams, as well as worlds of texture to
the music of boundary-obliterating experimentalists
(like its namesake). The tenor
guitar may be an old concept, but this particular
take on the form, and the collaboration
between Eastwood and Warren Ellis,
are truly inspired.
Buy if...
you’re fearlessly intrigued by new
techniques and styles, or want to
create unusual textures in the studio.
Skip if...
unknowns freak you out or you
prefer sticking to standard 6-string
tones and techniques.
Rating...
