Hotline TNT is helmed by Will Anderson (on the right), but the interplay between him and fellow guitarist Olivia Garner (second from right) has come to define the band’s massive, shoegaze-influenced wall of sound.
Hotline TNT singer and guitarist Will Anderson started writing songs as a way to work through personal relationships, so it’s no surprise that the New York band’s second LP, Cartwheel, encapsulates Anderson’s modern-day, bard-like quest for romance—for better and for worse—through heavy fuzz pedals, distorted guitars, and layered sonic textures that cascade over propulsive rhythms. Slick engineering from punk artist Ian Teeple and Aron Kobayashi Ritch lift the record into the sweeping shoegaze stratosphere, that bottomless niche of music where heartbreak and mammoth, verbed-out riffs cry on each other’s shoulders.
Each of the 12 tracks on Cartwheel features enormous guitar sounds from Anderson and guitarist Olivia Garner that, together, comprise a thrashing, muddy, angry, joyful, and howling slurry, as if the instruments were in the thralls of a cathartic musical bender. Above it all, Anderson’s simply written lyrics map out tart terrain—anyone who has experienced the throes of love in all of its messy stages will recognize themselves in his words.
Anderson, who is originally from Wisconsin, launched his music career 10 years ago with the Canadian noise-pop band, Weed, before eventually launching Hotline TNT in 2021 with the project’s debut, Nineteen in Love. Anderson traversed music scenes from coast to coast—New York and North Carolina, Wisconsin and neighboring Minnesota, Vancouver and Seattle—and his DIY dedication helped grow Hotline TNT’s audience until the band caught the attention of Jack White’s Third Man Records. Thanks in part to the label’s support, Cartwheel transcends the band’s 2021 introduction, infusing more engaging, heartfelt melodies without losing any of the band’s trademark grinding urgency.
Hotline TNT - "Protocol"
Inspired by his older brother’s jazz band, Anderson started playing bass towards the end of his time in the fifth grade. Within a few years, he’d picked up the guitar, and by high school, he was playing in cover bands with his brother. His college years marked his first attempts at songwriting, a process which, for Anderson, starts with chords and melodies, then lyrics.
Up until signing with Third Man, Anderson had been supplementing his music work with substitute teaching at a public high school in New York City. One of his colleagues had been in the Scottish rock band Teenage Fanclub, and, knowing the difficulty of being a working musician, covered for Anderson at some points so he could work on Hotline TNT matters.
“Whenever I hold a pick, my wrist gets really tight, and I just think, ‘no.’” —Will Anderson
Garner, meanwhile, started playing guitar in middle school in Louisiana. Her dad’s favorite band was the Smiths, which imprinted heavily on her while growing up. But these days, she’s reaching for Neil Young and Crazy Horse, ’90s material like Red House Painters, or ’80s pop band Beat Happening—one of Kurt Cobain’s favorites, Garner notes, and “a band who every person who picks up the guitar should listen to.” (Her other band, in fact, is named Touch Girl Apple Blossom, inspired by lyrics from the Beat Happening track “Indian Summer.”) It’s a mix that makes sense for Hotline TNT’s woolly, melodic maelstrom.
Hotline TNT's Gear
Anderson and Garner aren’t very particular about their gear—Anderson didn’t know what an amp head was until a few years ago—but they favor the fuzzy balance between a Pro Co RAT and an EHX Big Muff.
Photo by Wes Knoll
Guitars
- Yamaha SG-3
- 1996 MIJ Fender Telecaster with Lollar pickups
- 2014 MIM Fender Strat with Lollar pickups
Amps
- Randall RX120RH
Effects
- Pro Co RAT
- EHX Big Muff Pi
Strings
- Ernie Ball Super Slinky Nickel Wound (.009–.042)
Garner now lives in Austin, where Hotline TNT played at SXSW this year. “Will and I run around in similar circles of music,” she says, “so when Hotline TNT was looking for a guitar player, I came to New York and rehearsed with them. It was a good fit, so I joined. It’s been a wild ride.”
Garner acquired her main guitar—a natural finish, short-scale Peavey T-30—from a former bandmate in an upgrade from her previous Squier. “It’s my baby,” she says. “What I like about it is that it’s really lightweight, so no back problems, and I appreciate the short scale.”
“Despite the fact that this particular guitar has been with me for so long, I’m actually not that precious with it.” —Will Anderson
Anderson’s primary guitar is a vintage Japanese-made Yamaha SG-3 that he bought in Vancouver when he was 19. “These days, Yamaha SG-3s go for $2,500 in the high range, but I bought my guitar for about $788 in Vancouver from a music store called Not Just Another Music Shop,” he says. “At the time, I just thought it looked cool. Because I couldn’t afford to buy it outright, I made payments on it all summer long before I could take it home.” Anderson’s SG-3-driven leads on Cartwheel, by the way, are all straight from his fingers. “I do not play with a pick—never have,” he notes. “I get a lot of comments about this at shows. Whenever I hold a pick, my wrist gets really tight, and I just think, ‘no.’”
All three Hotline TNT guitarists, Will Anderson, Olivia Garner, and Matt Berry, come together on Cartwheel to create an entrancing blend of textural distortion under Anderson’s romance-inspired lyrics.
Despite his allegiance to his Yamaha, Anderson admits that he’s actually not all that sentimental about the instrument. The thing he loves best about the SG-3 doesn’t have to do with tone or playability—it’s that it still performs after years of abuse. “Despite the fact that this particular guitar has been with me for so long, I’m actually not that precious with it,” he says. “If something happened to it, I’d be sad, sure, but I’d also think, ‘Alright, it’s time to find a new one.’”
Still, when it comes to travel, Anderson doesn’t take many chances with his guitar. “Overseas, I usually put my guitar on a gig bag that I carry on my back when I board the plane,” he says. “I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.”
“I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.” —Will Anderson
Anderson’s love for his main axe is about as far as his gear passion goes. Though he feels an increasing sense of responsibility to improve his gear knowledge base, he confesses to being happily clueless. A few years back, he bought a solid-state Randall half-stack, which is still his go-to amp, and it provided an unexpected learning experience. “To show you how little I know about gear, two or three years ago somebody said to me, ‘Can I borrow your amp head for our set?’ I was like, ‘You can. Is it onstage now? Because I don’t know. What is that thing?’ I didn’t know what a head was until recently.”
While Anderson plucks out finer lead parts, Garner says her role is to create a “giant wall of sound” with open chords and thick distortion.
Photo by Jade Amey
Effects-wise, Anderson and Garner strike a warm balance between a Pro Co RAT, a Boss DS-1, and a Big Muff Pi that Anderson bought in high school. The interplay between the three is all over Cartwheel, but is especially prominent on “Protocol” and “BMX,” which both utilize the pedals’ respective distortions as percussive and resonant elements. The blend creates a sort of halo: It extends outward like its own multi-layered cloud strata, enveloping the lyrics in “I Thought You’d Change,” and creating an uplifting effect that counters the descending melodies in “Stump” and “Son in Law.”
The goal, says Garner, is to create “a giant wall of sound with big, giant chords.” “I hold down the big chords while Will will do his leads,” she says. One of Anderson’s oldest friends, Matt Berry, recently joined the band, completing a triple-guitar threat. (Berry serves as de facto guitar tech for the band, even changing Anderson’s strings.)
“I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.” —Will Anderson
Hotline TNT isn’t Anderson’s only outlet. He’s morphed his extracurricular interests into a hydra-esque presence online, which includes hosting both a Twitch stream and an Instagram talk show, and publishing a basketball zine. “It’s all about feeding the same vision and aesthetic,” says Anderson. “People seem to be rocking with it, so that’s cool.”
Will Anderson was teaching at a New York high school before Jack White’s Third Man Records signed Hotline TNT.
Photo by Jade Amey
But his other endeavors might have to be set on the backburner this year, as Hotline TNT’s stock is rising. They spent much of 2023 on the road, but this time out, they had a better van and sleeping accommodations. Even if they didn’t, though, Anderson wouldn’t mind. Touring feels like home—especially if he gets to see the midwest in the fall. Early this year, Hotline TNT is ripping through mainland Europe—including Italy, France, and Germany—and later, they’ll hit Japan, a personal highlight for Anderson. In line with their laissez-faire approach to gear, Anderson says they plan to leave their gear at home, and pick up fill-ins overseas to make sure they don’t run into international voltage variance issues.
Anderson currently has six demos in the hopper toward his next album. Usually, he says he’d already have another record ready to go, but Hotline TNT’s explosion in popularity has kept them busy on the road, and working with Third Man has flooded the band with exciting opportunities. But Anderson does have a shortlist of people to work with for the next release, and a rough sketch of the collection’s themes: relationships, heartbreak, and family.
But don’t expect to learn what the band’s name means any time soon. “It does stand for something, but I cannot reveal publicly what it is because me and the original members of the band from four years ago came up with it,” says Anderson. “It’s our sacred vow to keep that a secret.”
YouTube It
Bathe in colored stage lights and sweet, thick distortion with Hotline TNT’s live performance in Toronto in March 2023.
Bluegrass music is bigger than a genre. It’s become an entire world of ideas and feelings in the popular American imagination. And musician Jerry Douglas has been a key part of its celebration and revival over the past 30 years. “It's an old form of music that came from people in the south playing on the porch and became this juggernaut of a genre,” says Douglas. “It’s a character. It's a physical music.”
Douglas has racked up an impressive cabinet of accolades, including Grammys, American Music Association Awards, and International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. He’s been dubbed the CMA Awards’ Musician of the Year three times, and played with everyone from Allison Krauss and Elvis Costello to Bela Fleck and John Fogerty. He’s an encyclopedic guide to contemporary American roots music, and on this episode of Wong Notes, he walks Cory Wong through the most important moments in his 50-year career.
Tune in to hear Douglas’ assessment of bluegrass’ demanding nature (“Honestly, there's not so many genres nowadays that require as much technical facility as something like bluegrass”), what’s required of roots players (“Get it right, get it fast, make it hook”), and why the O Brother, Where Are Thou? soundtrack connected with so many listeners. Wondering how to get involved with session work? Douglas says there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and what worked for him might not work today. The key is to be dynamic—and know when to keep your mouth shut.
There are plenty of gems in this interview, like Douglas’ thoughts on what makes a good solo, but the most significant might be Douglas’ big takeaway from decades of sitting in on communal roots-music sessions. “We can play in all genres,” says Douglas. “We just have to listen.”
In some respects, the newestLes Paul Studio adheres to that philosophy and shares many trademark elements with its Studio forebears. There’s no body binding and a silkscreened, rather than inlaid mother-of-pearl headstock logo, for instance. But Gibson also carefully and cleverly threaded the needle between economy and luxury with this release, including several desirable Les Paul features that have occasionally been excluded from the budget model over the years.
Classic Contours
Most readers with a cursory knowledge of the Les Paul format will know this guitar’s basic specs already: mahogany body with maple top, mahogany set neck, 24.75" scale length, 12" fingerboard radius, and dual humbuckers. The Les Paul Studio hasn’t always followed the Standard’s, um, standard quite so religiously. Studios from the first few years of the model’s existence, for example, were made with alder bodies and slightly thinner than the usual Les Paul depth. The newest version, too, veers from formula a bit by using Gibson’s Ultra Modern weight relief scheme, which slims the guitar’s weight to about 8 1/2 pounds. The carved maple top, however, is plain and not heavily figured, which keeps costs down. Even so, it looks good under the bright-red gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish on our cherry sunburst example. (Wine red, ebony, and the striking blueberry burst are also available).
While the binding-free body and less-heavily figured top hint at the Studio’s “affordable” status, Gibson didn’t skimp on dressing up the neck. It has a bound rosewood fretboard with trapezoidal pearloid inlays rather than the dots many early versions featured. For many players, though, the fretboard binding is more than cosmetic—the ever-so-slight extra width also lends a more vintage-like feel, so it’s really nice to have it here. The neck itself is carved to Gibson’s familiar and ubiquitous Slim Taper profile, a shape inspired by early-’60s necks that were generally thinner and flatter than the ’50s profiles.
“Gibson carefully and cleverly threaded the needle between economy and luxury with this release.”
Hardware largely adheres to contemporary norms for all but vintage reissue-style Les Pauls: tune-o-matic bridge, aluminum stopbar tailpiece, Kluson-style Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons, and larger strap buttons (yay!). Another feature here that some past Studio models lack is the cream pickguard, which contributes to the ’50s-era aura. There’s also a matching cream toggle switch washer in the included gig bag if you want to add another vintage touch.
Studio Play Date
Under the chrome pickup covers live two wax-potted, alnico 5 Gibson Burstbucker Pros, which are calibrated for their respective positions. The DC resistance for the Burstbucker Pro Rhythm is 7.8k and the Burstbucker Pro Treble 8.3k-ohms. They’re wired with a traditional Gibson four-knob complement and 3-way switch, but the volume knobs are push-pull controls that enable coil tapping, which broadens the tone palette considerably.
Playability is a high point. The fine setup, smooth fret work, and well-executed binding nibs lend a very visible sense of quality, but you can hear the payoff in the form of the well-balanced, resonant ring when you strum the guitar unplugged. When you turn it up, though, it’s classic Les Paul. Whether I paired it with a Vox-style head and 1x12, a Fender Bassman with a 2x12 cab, or numerous presets on a Fractal FM9, the Studio didn’t yield any negative surprises, but plenty of positive ones.
The Burstbucker Pros have plenty of bite. But most impressive for a Les Paul at this price, is the excellent clarity and articulation you hear along with strong hints of PAF-descendent grit and swirling overtones that lend heft and personality in cleaner amp settings. There’s none of the mud or mid-heavy boominess that you hear in some Les Pauls, even though the characteristically beefy Les Paul overdrive is present in abundance, helped, no doubt, by the slightly hotter-than-vintage-spec Burstbucker Pros. The Studio matches up well with a cranked amp or an overdrive. And while to some ears the Studio might not sound as creamy-complex or lush as high-end, vintage-leaning re-creations of a ’59 Standard, it will crunch, wail, and sing with aggression and civilized authority.
As for the coil-tapped tones, they don’t sound quite like genuine single-coil pickups, even though Gibson employs the nifty trick of wiring a capacitor in series with the coil tap—which is voiced to provide a fatter tapped-coil voice and balanced output with full-humbucking operation. It also provides hum-reducing operation when tapped and full-hum canceling operation when both are combined as they are reverse wind/reverse polarity. But generally, they will deliver the lighter jangle and chime that some humbuckers struggle with and lend a lot of versatility.The Verdict
From fit and finish, to playability, to sonic virtue and versatility, the new Les Paul Studio is a genuine Gibson USA-made Les Paul that offers a lot of value. It does just about everything a player working within this price range could want from a Les Paul Standard with a load of style to boot.
Gibson Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar - Cherry Sunburst
