On her new solo record, Laura Jane Grace goes back to her two most trusted partners in crime: her voice and her acoustic guitar.
“When things are moving, just keep moving,” she says. “I’m not trying to jinx anything, but I’m really looking forward to this year, and the future.
”Grace, who is best known for fronting iconic punk band Against Me!, has spent a good piece of the past four years trying to get her momentum back—the sort of energy that feels like a trademark for the singer and guitarist. Since she was a teen, her life has revolved around the seasons of music work: writing, recording, promoting, touring, repeat. Against Me! was three shows into a tour leg when the Covid pandemic slammed the brakes on that 20-year routine, and emotionally, Grace went flying through the windshield.
“My world was just completely turned upside down and shaken around,” she says. Since 2012, she had built her off-the-road life in an apartment in Chicago, but a shift in her personal life meant she had to split her time between there and St. Louis. There were some benefits: Grace couldn’t crank her amps in her apartment, and finding spare private space to play and record would be cheaper in St. Louis than Chicago. She found a studio there called Native Sound, which used to belong to Son Volt’s Jay Farrar, nested above a bar in downtown St. Louis. “I was like, ‘Shit, if Jay can make that work, so can I,’” says Grace.
Laura Jane Grace - "Birds Talk Too"
“When things are moving, just keep moving. I’m not trying to jinx anything, but I’m really looking forward to this year, and the future.”
That studio is where Grace recorded Hole in My Head, her third solo record, which was released on February 16. It’s a lean, uncomplicated folk-punk joyride. Though the opening, title track jolts the LP to life with a full-band punk-rock crush of melody, harmony, and abandon, the rest of the album is primarily about Grace’s vocal cords and her acoustic guitar. “I’m Not a Cop,” a fuzzy, crust-punk, doo-wop ditty, mashes together Modern Lovers’ off-kilter tone with a ’50s rock ’n’ roll shuffle. Then, “Dysphoria Hoodie” pares it back to just Grace and her acoustic for an ode to a baggy Adidas sweater—her greatest protector on days when she doesn’t want the world sussing her gender. Drums and a gritty electric check in again on the short, sweet firecracker “Birds Talk Too,” but otherwise, it’s all acoustic, propped up by a handful of bass lines and some good old handclaps, a tambourine, and shakers for percussion. Why did Grace pull back from years of full-band chaos?
“I mean this in the best way possible, but this record’s coming from a place of fear,” Grace explains. “Fear challenges you and makes you grow, and takes you out of your comfort zone. I think artists are most prolific and do their best work when they’re coming from a place of survival.”
Hole in My Head’s cover art, captured by Dave Decker and illustrated by Annie Walter, shows Grace behind the State Theatre in St. Petersburg, Florida. The recognizable cobblestones remind Grace of being a teen, doing “deviant shit” in that very alley with friends.
Entering her 40s in 2020, Grace was back in survival mode, a familiar place for her as a teen in Gainesville, Florida. Longtime fans will know this story well: After moving around the world with her family, Grace landed in the inland college town, a military brat turned anarchist punk. Between benders and doing “deviant shit” with friends, she started performing solo as Against Me!, with just an acoustic and her powerful, pitch-perfect roar. She played alone in dives up and down the panhandle before Against Me! solidified into a band. (Even then, their first recordings were as DIY as you can get: Original drummer Kevin McMahon played a bucket drum on the first two Against Me! EPs, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it makes an appearance on their first full-length, the now-iconic Against Me! Is Reinventing Axl Rose.)
“I think artists are most prolific and do their best work when they’re coming from a place of survival.”
Against Me! went on to sign with a major label and release two hi-fi punk-rock records, both produced by Butch Vig: 2007’s New Wave spawned their biggest hit with “Thrash Unreal,” and 2010’s White Crosses dipped further into arena-rock waters, an anarcho-Springsteen hybrid. This era famously cost Against Me! a good chunk of their earliest supporters, who felt burned by the band’s “selling out.” Their van’s tires were slashed on tour, and Grace was cussed out on plenty of occasions. But the band cut things off with corporate and went independent again for 2014’s scrappy Transgendered Dysphoria Blues, the first Against Me! record that explicitly detailed Grace’s experience as a trans woman.
That was 10 years ago. It’s as if Grace hit some uncanny peak with the major-label signing, and has since been slowly retracing her steps back to her crust-punk origins: After two solo records accompanied by her backing band, the Devouring Mothers, she’s back to just a voice and a guitar.
Laura Jane Grace's Gear
With Against Me!, Grace ascended from crust-punk streetnik to major-label star. But after two corporate records, the band went rogue again.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Guitars
- 1963 Fender Jaguar
- Rickenbacker 370
- Yamaha LJ16
Amps
- Fender Twin Reverb
- Rickenbacker TR7
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Everlast Coated Acoustic (.010–.050)
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046)
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .66 mm picks
Other similarities appeared over the last few years, as if some cosmic clock had been reset and she were back at square one. As a kid, she had spent summers and winters going up to Missouri, where her father lived. She always hated it, and this current era, where that state came back into her life, offered a chance to reconcile with the past. She decided to start working on music again on her own to minimize the risk of greater financial losses—if one week of solo shows got canceled, it would just mean she personally was put out, rather than four band members and five crew. But after decades of touring with a group, going back to just six strings and a voice—something she’d not done on a regular basis since her teens—took some finessing. “You feel afraid in the same ways, but again, a healthy fear,” she says.
“If the whole house burns down, if I can make it out with my acoustic guitar, worst-case scenario I’ll be busking on a street corner and hoping people throw change into the guitar case—but I can feed myself.”
“It’s an exercise in self-reliance,” she continues, “and it’s a comfort to always have that there. That’s what I think is beautiful about the acoustic guitar, is that you’re stripping it down to the bare minimum, and I know, ‘Okay, as long as I have that, I’m okay. If the whole fuckin’ house burns down, if I can make it out with my acoustic guitar, worst-case scenario I’ll be busking on a street corner and hoping people throw change in to the guitar case—but I can feed myself. That’s a comforting feeling. Those barebones tools as an artist; that’s self-reliance and that gives you self-confidence and self-esteem, and then you build from there.
”Plus, just like the modest recordings of early classic rock ’n’ roll songs, Hole in My Head never feels wanting in its simplicity. Grace notes that we don’t listen to Buddy Holly or Dion’s “The Wanderer” and wish there were more modern flourishes or a more discernible kick drum. The aesthetic works, and since she was going it mostly alone, it’s what Grace chased.
When it comes to acoustics, Grace prizes one criterion above all: Does it break strings?
Photo by Travis Shinn
Her coconspirator on the record wound up being Matt Patton, mentioned earlier, who provided bass and backing vocals for six songs. Grace had never met Patton before when he drove from Mississippi up to St. Louis in February 2023 for the sessions—X, then Twitter, brought them together in a moment of “total kismet,” says Grace. The two became fast friends, and Grace says the connection with Patton is her most cherished part of the album. “He took a total chance coming to St. Louis,” she says. “His contribution is immeasurable.” Patton returned the favor last December, hosting Grace for some sessions at his Water Valley, Mississippi studio.
“Those places that people refer to as ‘shithole’ cities, or the places where no one wants to be, I have this natural urge inside of me…. I’m like, ‘I dunno, maybe I want to go there.’”
Grace and Patton worked with engineer David Buzzbee at Native Sound, and Grace brought along four guitars to get the job done. Her all-black Yamaha LJ16 was—and still is—her acoustic of choice, a guitar with which she says she shares “a total soul connection. When it comes down to acoustic guitars, the thing that I’m most concerned about onstage is, ‘Does it stay in tune and does it break strings?’” she says. “That thing does not break strings, so I fucking love that guitar.”
Her 1963 Fender Jaguar and ’70s silver-panel Twin Reverb—both of which she bought off of original Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch—were in regular rotation, as was a handpainted Gretsch gifted to Grace from her longtime tattoo artist. Her signature blackout Rickenbacker 370 can be heard on the record, too. But no pedals at all were used, and the low-rent grit of “Hole in My Head” was coaxed not from Grace’s Twin, but from a Rickenbacker TR7, a dinky solid-state 1x10 amp. Grace remarks that she’s obsessed with making records with tiny amplifiers these days. “Maybe it’s cause the studio was upstairs, and I’m like, ‘Fuck, I don’t wanna carry a big amp upstairs,’” she chuckles.
Grace loves her new part-time homebase of St. Louis, Missouri, even though it’s not exactly a prime destination. That’s part of the appeal.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Over a year on from her introduction to the city, Grace now feels a fairly legitimate affection for St. Louis. Unlike Chicago, which always overwhelmed her, St. Louis is manageable: You can get just about anywhere you need to be in 15 minutes, and rents haven’t spiked to unlivable levels the way they have in other cities. Grace fell in love with the city by bar-hopping, starting with the Whiskey Ring, right under Native Sound. Grace is sober, but that made bar-hopping all the more doable. She could slug nonalcoholic beers, then drive to check out another corner of town.
St. Louis is an underdog city, which endears it to Grace. “Those places that people refer to as ‘shithole’ cities, or the places where no one wants to be, I have this natural urge inside of me that if I hear someone talking about a place like that, I’m like, ‘I dunno, maybe I want to go there,’” she says. “Maybe it’s just a rebellion against the opposite of, that place that everyone else wants to go, I don’t want to go.”
YouTube It
Grace leads a rip-roaring acoustic set last summer in Southern California, captured here in stereo audio by a dedicated fan.
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It's not brain surgery, but … Black Midi, from left to right, drummer Morgan Simpson, guitarist Geordie Greep, and bassist Cameron Picton, have developed a style that extracts maximum dynamics and extreme shades of light and dark from a traditional power-trio line-up.
"I hate stuff which is purposefully ugly or difficult or too obtuse or whatever you want to call it—where there's a conscious avoidance of consonance or melody," says guitarist and lead vocalist Geordie Greep. "We want to do stuff that's interesting and has loads of tension and drama, but also has the sweetness there, so the tension and the drama is much more effective. All the best music has that—where there's this crazy stuff happening, but there's also really nice stuff or conventional things going on. It's about the relativity of those two things."
"We wanted the quiet bits to be even quieter than they were on the first record," bassist Cameron Picton adds. "We wanted the loud bits to be even louder and crazier, and the nice bits to be even sweeter and softer."
So, yes, despite the hype—as well as their now-almost-legendary incendiary 2018 performance at a hostel in Iceland for KEXP—Black Midi has a sweet side. But it's sweetness with purpose that, when juxtaposed with heavier elements, brings out the tension and drama Greep is referring to. Those contrasts permeate their second album, Cavalcade, which follows their 2019 debut long-player, Schlagenheim. The new release's opening track, the fire-breathing "John L"—make sure to check out the song's perfectly choreographed accompanying video—is followed by "Marlene Dietrich," which oozes '70s velvety lounge jazz. And the King Crimson–meets–Man Man sounding "Hogwash and Balderdash" is paired with the breathy and airy "Ascending Forth." That diversity also plays out within the compositions "Slow" and "Dethroned." The upshot is, Black Midi's full-blooded music is not constant yelling. It takes you on a journey, and as you follow along it throws you for loop after loop.
But through-composed music and careful sequencing only tells part of the story, especially since Black Midi's roots are in almost endless jamming. "It just became about jamming, and we got stuck in a bit of a rut," Picton says. "We got the idea that the only way to write songs was through jamming, which was a weird thing. We said it in interviews, so it had to be true, but it wasn't really. We did it to fulfill the thing we said in interviews. Two of the new album's tracks are from a year's worth of jamming ["John L" and "Chondromalacia Patela"], and we were like, 'Oh shit, we've been jamming for a year and we've got two songs out of it.' We needed to think of a more productive way to write songs."
"I use a five-millimeter pick. When I was younger, I tried to play Gypsy jazz, and I heard that Django Reinhardt used a 5-millimeter pick."—Geordie Greep
"We were playing these longform, 20-minute tracks, which weren't even really songs," Greep adds. "They were just sound creations. When we started doing shows, we decided to write proper songs, and there were a few songs that were a lot more traditionally written. But for a while, we made songs by having the Can-style approach, where you jam out for ages and then take the best bits. We did that for the first album for the majority of the tunes. For Cavalcade, we've gone back to the more traditional songwriting approach. We were moving in that direction anyway. Almost half the album was already done before the whole coronavirus thing hit. The coronavirus just accelerated that change, really. It was inevitable."
In addition to taking a more pragmatic approach to songwriting, another big change when preparing for Cavalcade was that second guitarist, Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, took a hiatus from the band for personal reasons. Kwasniewski-Kelvin's departure had a major impact on their sound, as well as their songwriting. (Morgan Simpson remains as drummer.)
Illustration by Anthrox Studio
"When we did the first album—as well as for live performances—I always used a baritone guitar," Greep says. "The idea was that bass was the low end, Matt was on a regular guitar, and then the baritone I played was in the middle. It was an orchestral thing. But because Matt isn't a part of it this time around, I mainly just used a regular guitar. First of all, it was really nice to play the regular guitar again. It's a lot easier, and you're able to play proper chords. On baritone—or on any low instrument—when you play chords, or something like thirds lower down, they get completely lost. They start to sound out of tune or weird. Playing on the regular guitar and being able to do proper chord progressions in songs was refreshing and changed the music completely. On the first album, most of the music is monophonic. It was one chord droning away. We were doing different parts, but all on the one chord. But the music on Cavalcade is much more chord-progression based." Having a single guitarist also makes the music more spacious. "I've always liked bands where there would be a guitar solo without any rhythm guitar underneath, like in Rush. That was cool as well. That space made it interesting."
Geordie Greep's Gear
Guitars
- Reverend Descent baritone
- Yamaha SA-60
- Fender Stratocaster
Amps
- Orange TH30 Combo
Strings and Picks
- Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom (.010–.052)
- Ernie Ball 6-String Baritone Slinky (.013–.072)
- Dunlop Primetone Classic Sharp Tip Pick 5.0 mm
Effects
- Boss GE-7B Bass Equalizer
- Boss CS-2 Compression Sustainer
- Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai
- Source Audio Ultrawave Multiband Processor
- Suhr Riot Distortion
- Keeley Bubble Tron Dynamic Flanger Phaser
Until the new album, Cavalcade, Greep's main stage guitar was his Reverend Descent baritone, so he could claim the space between original-line-up guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin and bassist Cameron Picton, at Greep's left here.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Cameron Picton's Gear
Basses
- Rickenbacker 4003
- Eastwood Sidejack
Amps
- Orange AD30
Strings
- Ernie Ball Slinky (.050–.105)
- Dunlop .77 mm
Effects
- Empress Bass Compressor
- ZVEX Mastotron
- MASF Raptio
- Boss DD-6 Digital Delay
- HomeBrew Electronics THC Chorus
- DOD Meatbox Subsynth
- Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
Space, especially the long breaks in the hyper-tight, polyrhythmic, unison ensemble sections in songs like "John L," is another important tool the band uses to create a sense of tension and release. Although that's not always on purpose, and sometimes they're just doing it to keep the audience on their toes. "That bit in 'John L' … that's like King Crimson with the stops. That was a way to get a rhythm that we'll play that's, like, crazy in every set," Picton says. "A lot of it is loose and jammy, but we want to have one bit that is super-tight and with stupid changes. It's just a crazy rhythm and doing a constant beat."
Black Midi's complex rhythmic feel works in concert with their atonal, albeit accessible, approach to melody. At first listen, some of Greep's leads seem almost random, but that's not the case, and his concept is not as haphazard or avant-garde as you might think.
"I have quite a low concentration when it comes to traditional practice," Greep says about some of the more advanced harmonic concepts he's studied. "Stuff like that, I'll look into it for a few days, but my guitar playing really is just the blues scale—that and the major and minor scale. But I've never really thought of it in terms of scales. It's more that over time I'll slowly figure out what intervals I like, what ones I don't, which kinds of patterns I prefer, and which ones I don't. I've slowly built up a repository of riffs or patterns. In terms of any crazy scales, the only one I can think of that I consciously use is the octatonic scale [an eight-note scale that alternates between half-steps and whole steps]. I used that quite a lot on this album."
Clearly, careful attention to space, stark contrasts, dynamics, and composition were essential to the making of Cavalcade. Another key ingredient was tone, which, for Greep at least, comes from using a graphic EQ as an overdrive.
TIDBIT: Following their new modus operandi for songwriting, only two tunes on the new album grew out of jams. "We needed to think of a more productive way to write songs," says Cameron Picton.
"My main pedal on this album, which I used loads and loads and loads, is a Boss Bass Equalizer GE-7B that I got from eBay," he says. "It is a simple pedal and drives the amp in a nice way. When you hear people try to do an AC/DC or Black Sabbath sound, do you notice how they'll use too much distortion and it'll be too mushy? Yet on the stuff back then, you can hear the chords properly. That's because it is a loud amp, and it's not crazy stuff going on. This pedal retains that so you can play thick crazy chords—you can use a #11 or whatever—and yet you'll still be able to hear all the notes and it still has a nice sound. And that's my main drive sound."
Greep also has another trick up his sleeve. He uses enormous guitar picks. "I use a 5-millimeter pick," he says. Read that again. He doesn't mean a 0.5-millimeter guitar pick. He means a 5-millimeter guitar pick. "When I was younger, I tried to play Gypsy jazz, and I heard that Django Reinhardt used a 5-millimeter pick. I tried it out, and it makes it easier because it is such a bigger thing that you're holding. The dynamics are easier because you're not exerting as much stress between your thumb and finger. You can hold the pick lighter and play harder or lighter with less force. It's one of those things that sounds stupid, and then you try it and it is really cool. You play faster with it, too. It just gives you way more dexterity. I don't know how it works."
But, like seemingly everything else Black Midi does, it is unconventional. And you wouldn't expect it, but it does work.
black midi - bmbmbm (Hyundai Mercury Prize 2019)
Black Midi furiously perform their debut single, "bmbmbm," at the 2019 Mercury Prize awards. This is the earlier, two-guitar lineup, which includes the behatted Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin on Telecaster. Geordie Greep plays his Reverend Baritone.
Although the Fogerty brothers share almost all of the guitar and studio gear they've acquired, they both have personal instruments. Tyler's is a Vox Starstream, while Shane, at right, favors his Rickenbacker 370.
Under the name Hearty Har, the Fogertys work as a unit, complementing each other in all aspects of their music-making. On their debut album, Radio Astro, the brothers move between roles so seamlessly that it would be virtually impossible to know who is doing what on each of the 11 tracks without following along with the liner notes.
Radio Astro kicks off with the arpeggiated 12-string sparkle of "Radio Man '56," a tune so sunny it can provide your daily dose of vitamin D. The song is a straight-ahead rock 'n' roll jam with a bouncy but driving groove provided by bassist Marcus Högsta and drummer Will Van Santen. Fuzzy guitar leads poke through warm, jangly strumming, enveloped by modular synth bubbles that make the song a swirling sonic rainbow, bound to lift any mood.
If "Radio Man '56" is the brightest song on Radio Astro, closing track "Boogie Man" is the darkest. Its reverb-soaked riffage outlines a minor-key progression drenched with Mellotron and harpsichord pads that make it sound as if recorded by a gang of werewolves at midnight on Friday the 13th. There's so much to take in that it might be the fourth or fifth spin before you notice just how cool the guitar part is, but the detail-oriented listening required of these tunes is definitely part of the fun.
"We just ran off in every direction looking for stuff we liked, and, as it turns out, we like a lot of the stuff that our dad likes, too."—Tyler Fogerty
Elsewhere on the album, the Fogertys prove they've inherited the choogle from their dad, but they always manage to put their own spin on it. Each song seems to open a new bag of tricks and use them to their fullest potential, referencing everything from classic rock to dub and reggae to AM gold. And while the Fogertys used so much drool-worthy vintage gear that it's tempting to talk about the album's throwback vibe, the final product draws from so many eras that it could only exist in the modern one, when every sound and style is on the table.
It's no surprise that Shane and Tyler—29 and 28 years old, respectively—grew up surrounded by music. But while they play with their dad alongside their 19-year-old sister Kelsey as the humorously titled Fogerty's Factory, their formative years were not, in fact, a Creedence Clearwater Revival boot camp. Rather, the two brothers say John and their mom, Julie Fogerty, took a hands-off approach, allowing them to find their own way in music.
Shane Fogerty plays a 1964 Hoffner Galaxie—part of the brothers' collection, which also includes instruments by Gold Tone, Framus, Eastwood, Vox, Rickenbacker, and Fender.
Photo by Nikki Neumann
Shane says that his elementary school music teacher, Paul Cuneo, "left an impression at an early age that made us want to do music and planted one of the seeds." In sixth and seventh grade, the brothers started taking private piano lessons with Cuneo. After about a year or two studying piano, they got stoked about the guitar, so their parents took them to Guitar Center to pick out instruments. "Tyler was the first one who was interested, and he went and got a B.C. Rich, and I hated it," explains Shane, who picked out a blue Squier Strat.
Tyler sees something fundamental in their choice of guitars and adds, "Knowing nothing about guitars or anything, a B.C. Rich looks way different than anything else in Guitar Center, so I'm gonna go for that one. Now I play the Vox teardrop, so that's kind of the roots of that. It's just a strange-looking guitar."
TIDBIT: Building their own studio helped the Fogerty brothers define the sound of Radio Astro, which includes electric sitar, tanpura, and tubular bells.
The brothers made an earlier album they've now renounced and buried. "It turned out not how we wanted," says Tyler. "After that I was like, 'We gotta figure out a different way to do this. I know that we can do it on our own.'" Shane adds, "We decided, 'Let's try and [record] something ourselves. We really were interested in the recording process—using the studio like an instrument. That was how we transitioned out of the college band into what we are now."
They decided they needed to build a studio of their own, and Tyler cites his decision to buy a console as the tipping point. "One day, I found this console desk that was really massive, and I took a van down [to get it] and it was sticking out of the back with ropes and rusty nails, and everybody was like, 'Why are you getting that?' I was just disillusioned with playing in L.A. at the same places, and I thought, 'Something has to change; something has to be hyper-focused.' I feel like the only thing you can control is the music, so let's build the studio we want to build and be able to do all of the ideas we couldn't do last time. And over the course of five years, it happened."
Shane and Tyler Fogerty's Gear
Guitars
• 2011 Eastwood Sidejack Baritone
• 1966 Fender Stratocaster
• Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster
• 1967 Framus Atlantik Bass
• Gibson ES-335 Memphis
• Gold Tone Lap Steel
• 1973 Höfner 500/1 bass
• 1964 Höfner Galaxie
• 2012 Martin Custom Shop D-28
• 2007 Rickenbacker 370
• 1968 Vox Starstream VI
• 1968 Vox Starstream XII
Strings & Picks
• Various gauges from Ernie Ball, Pyramid, D'Addario, Martin
• Fender Medium/Light strings
• Dunlop Tortex .73 mm picks
Amps
• 1960s Ampeg B-15N
• Ampeg SR-212RT Super Rocket
• 1950s Califone Turntable Tube Amp
• 1960 Fender Concert
• Fender Deluxe Reverb
• 1962 Fender Vibrolux
• 1950s Gibson Clavioline Amplifier
• Hammond Leslie 3300
• 1960s Magnatone 260
• 1960s Silvertone 1484
• Orange AD30
Effects
• Binson Echorec 2 Super Special
• Fender Reverb Unit
• Fisher Spacexpander Tube Spring Reverb
• Gretsch Oil Can Reverb
• Ibanez Fuzz Machine
• Lovetone Cheese Source
• Maestro Echoplex EP-4
• Maestro PS-1A Phase Shifter
• Maestro Rhythm King
• Morley Power Wah
• Oberheim DX Drum Machine
• Univox Super-Fuzz
Like all developing musicians, the Fogertys went through various musical phases. After Shane and Tyler had been playing together in bands for years, Hearty Har began as a way for Tyler to perform some songs he'd written that were inspired by Leonard Cohen as well as the freak-folk scene they discovered while studying at CalArts. The original version of the band's instrumentation included charango, harmonium, and djembe, but they soon electrified, fully embracing rock 'n' roll. Vestiges of their initial wide-eyed aesthetic can still be heard on Radio Astro in their use of electric sitar, tanpura, and tubular bells.
The brothers started out playing riffs from Offspring and Green Day—Shane reminisces about John teaching him how to play "American Idiot"—but soon began digging into the classic-rock canon, and they cite a lot of their father's peers, such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. While John would help decode sounds on their favorite records, pointing out tidbits about guitar pedals and instruments, they studied with a guitar teacher at school and developed their tastes on their own. Tyler says, "When you let people discover it themselves, they get a deeper love for it, if they're gonna love it. We just ran off in every direction looking for stuff we liked, and, as it turns out, we like a lot of the stuff that our dad likes, too."
Tyler Fogerty digs into his Vox 12-string, one of his pair of favored teardrop guitars, but both brothers also have access to their father's collection of nearly 200 stringed instruments, from Les Pauls to resonators.
Photo by Steph Port
The brothers assembled a studio in a room in their parents' house and compiled a deep collection of gear. According to Shane, Tyler was "the main acquirer" and would endlessly seek out deals. They learned to use each piece they added via embarking on their own recordings as well as music for friends such as Guy Blakeslee and Franky Flowers, developing their skills and turning their studio into a well-oiled machine.
"I think it started with keyboards," says Tyler. "There's a lot of records I really like that feature really bizarre sounds, and a lot of them are keyboards. It's all about unique textures and how they can fit and enhance a song." That isn't to say that they haven't spent time building up a guitar collection. While Shane mostly sticks with his 2007 Rickenbacker 370 and Tyler with his Vox Starstream—he plays both 6- and 12-string models with onboard effects rebuilt by AcidFuzz—they share a wealth of amps, effects, and other 6-strings, and, when necessary, can borrow guitars from their dad, whose 1966 Stratocaster made it onto Radio Astro.
Through the process of making Radio Astro, the Fogertys seem to have explored all the sonic possibilities of their studio. "Canyon of the Banshee," the centerpiece, covers serious musical ground and exemplifies how far the brothers can take things. "We were trying to do the spaghetti Western thing, but also to do a little Pink Floyd 'Echoes,' especially in the beginning with the reverse toms and the descending suspended chords," says Shane. He adds, "It was probably the most fun one on the album to make."
Although their enthusiasm for playing live is obvious, the brothers were disillusioned with playing in L.A. at the same places. "I thought, 'Something has to change; something has to be hyper-focused,'" says Tyler. "I feel like the only thing you can control is the music, so let's build the studio."
Photo by Yegor Mackey
Now that Radio Astro is finished and released, the Fogertys are already working on new material. In the meantime, they're hanging out with their family and playing music with their dad, which can be seen in YouTube videos shot at John and Julie's house—where Tyler also lives—and in their appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts.
Hearty Har may be their creative focus, but the music they play with their family holds a special place for both Shane and Tyler. "It's nice to be open and free to express ourselves, be a little more experimental with things and a little more out there, but the family stuff is great. I feel like that's a totally different realm, a different space for my creativity and input," says Shane.
Tyler adds, "It's this special feeling that I don't know if I can describe. I'm just grateful that I can be a part of this. Especially playing with Kelsey, it just seems so natural and happy. Me and Shane have played in bands before and there usually comes a point where somebody who hasn't grown up with a musical life gets nasty or weird and it becomes about something other than the music. Because we've grown up with it. We really treasure it and want to keep it alive."YouTube It: Hearty Har on Scenes Live Sessions
Hearty Har rip through a rockin' set of tunes live from the Fogertys' home studio, including Radio Astro's "Radio Man '56," "Can't Keep Waiting," and the epic instrumental "Canyon of the Banshee." That's Tyler on the Vox, at left, and Shane wielding a Les Paul.