Facing a mandatory shelter-in ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 10th video in that format, and we stand behind the final product.
Raising hell in El Paso, Texas for over 30 years, Jim Ward started officially making a mark in music in 1994 when he formed At the Drive-In with vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and indie-guitar giant Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Driven by their frenetic-yet-catchy melodies and volatile tempos, the band tore through seven years of existence by producing five EPs, three LPs, and the chaotic 2000 anthem in “One Armed Scissor.”
The band officially dissolved in the early 2000s creating a split between the quintet. Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez went on to create proggier pandemonium with the Mars Volta and Ward, drummer Tony Hajjar, and bassist (turned lead guitarist) Paul Hinojos formed Sparta with Matt Miller on bassist.
What Ward brought to ATDI—driving rhythm guitar, throaty, commanding backup vocals—was further evolved with Sparta as he became a primary songwriter and lead vocalist. The band built off the abrupt stop-and-go ATDI formula. They carved their own sonic imprint through delay and modulation and incorporating more dulcet harmonies. Tension-and-release punk might’ve still been the band’s heartbeat throughout the 2000s with musical rage in Austere, fist-pumping hooks in Wiretap Scars, but Porcelain embellished their thoughtful, emotional dynamics with electronic drums, piano, and orchestral strings. And 2006’sThrees added a brooding swagger to their expanding locomotion. After that, the band found themselves without a label home and Ward sought out a new batch of Texans to chase his developing love for songwriting in the shape of twangy alt-country Sleepercar that released two albums—2008’s West Texas and 2015’s Breathe & Count.
At the Drive-In saw a revival in 2011 with Ward rejoining his El Paso amigos for a reunion run, but when the band sought to make fresh music, he felt his creativity was best suited for Sparta. He officially bowed out of the ATDI restart in 2016 when starting to write what would become in•ter a•li•a.
Then 2017 Sparta returned with Ward and Miller but now included Gabriel Gonzalez on lead guitar and drummer Cully Symington. Over the course of almost three years, the band created Trust the River that was released in April 2020. The decade-plus break didn’t stop the broadening sounds last felt in Threes. Ward and company dished out a hauntingly sparse West-Texas cowboy ditty with “Spirit Away,” a moody “Dead End Signs” with nothing but piano, keys, and a calming Ward on vocals, and a sensual Jimmy Eat Word-esque “Turquois Dream.” And if you’re worried that Ward lost his piss and vinegar … don’t! He’s still got the fire and it’s heard burning bright on rapid “Cat Scream,” rocking “Graveyard Luck” and the fiery choruses of “No One Can Be Nowhere” (broken up by a piano interlude by Coldplay’s Chris Martin).
On the heels of a releasing their fourth album (Sparta’s first record in 14 years), Ward virtually welcomes PG’s Chris Kies into his home for an open conversation about owning his self-designated role as the “humble workhorse” rhythm guitarist, explains why he needs darkness to write—plus expounds on how the habit of writing guitar parts standing up, in a corner, with an unplugged electric influenced his fretting-hand technique, and finally, he details why a “rhythm singer/songwriter” of so little effects needs three Boss delays.
Ward’s love affair with guitar started in his teens and initially took shape in the form of a crappy department-store Airline. That guitar helped create his first high school band called Self. Playing enough “big” shows opening for nationally-touring acts proved to Jim’s father that his son was doing something the family scratched together enough cash to get him a real guitar—a brand new Fender Tele complete with a case. Through the rest of his teens he’d play “student” models like Fender’s Mustang and Bronco.
Eventually through developing his sonic space and playing style with At the Drive-In, he took a hard left and went into SG land. At the peak of his gear geekery, his main ride for ATDI was an original 1961 Gibson SG Special. The main ingredient in that guitar and others like it he’s played and owned were the P-90s. His middle-of-the-road, pocket-playing rhythm style in ATDI was best suited by the P-90s because he feels they’re “extremely centered, not too trebly, not too gruff—they’re a humble workhorse that has nothing fancy about them”.
But as he says in the interview, he’s part of a “Fender family,” so his return to the Telecaster with Sparta and Sleepercar, and most recently with this Fender Blacktop Jazzmaster HH. He lives exclusively on the bridge pickup and uses Ernie Ball Power Slinky strings.
His hands-down favorite acoustic that’s been making increasing appearances on Sparta records since Threes, a staple for the melancholic, alt-country Sleepercar, and the companion for his current livestreams and podcasts is this Gibson J-45 outfitted with a L.R. Baggs M1 soundhole pickup.
For Sparta’s 2020 record Trust the River, Ward relied solely on Sonic Ranch’s Divided by 13 head. When he was touring with Sparta, he combined a carousel of combos from Vox (AC30s) and Orange (Rockerverbs or AD30s) depending on the venue sizes. He always preferred two stacks, with a 2x12 combo on top of 2x12 extension cab. Ward admits to finding peace in simplicity as he moves forward so most recently, he went with a single 2x12 combo on top of a road case so he could hear it better onstage. For the Rundown and his livestreams, he’s been going with a Vox-style digital amp within Logic (seen above).
His economical board starts with a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner and an Ernie Ball VPJr volume pedal. To excite the combos and fill out and beef up his high-end rhythm sound he goes with the custom Big Crunch Overdrive and to add some movement and swirl to parts he kicks on the MXR Phase 90 (heard on Porcelain’s single “Breaking the Broken” and Trust the River’s “No One Can Be Nowhere”). And where the fun starts, a trio of Boss Digital Delays (starting top left DM-2w, DD-7, and DD-5) that are set for various functions—the DD-5 is set to a fast, super long delay for stutter effect, the DD-7 runs in reverse for trippy string slides and ambient transitions, and the DM-2W dialed for echo-y, slapback sounds.
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Chris Kies has degrees in Journalism and History from the University of Iowa and has been with PG dating back to his days as an intern in 2007. He's now the multimedia manager maintaining the website and social media accounts, coordinating Rig Rundown shoots (also hosting and/or filming them) and product demos, and occasionally writing an artist feature, all while still shooting/editing video for NAMM-show coverage. Other than that, he spends time with his pitbull and enjoys non-guitar-related hobbies.
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