On their new album, Judas Priest brandish an Invincible Shield of righteous heavy metal.
When people talk about Judas Priest, the band’s biggest hits easily spring to mind, and rightfully so. “Breaking the Law,” “Living After Midnight,” “Heading Out to the Highway,” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” were the songs that made the iconic British metal band a household name in the ’80s. But long before such MTV-friendly anthems catapulted them into superstardom, and more recently, earned them a nod from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence category, Judas Priest cut a more progressive rug.
Their ’70s-era albums, like Stained Class and Sin After Sin (the latter featuring session drummer extraordinaire Simon Phillips), are masterworks of early progressive metal. Songs like “Victim of Changes,” “Sinner,” and “Beyond the Realms of Death” exude a stylistic depth and structural breadth that was mostly shed during their ’80s heyday. The rhythms—bass and drums in particular—were more adventurous, and the arrangements more intricate. It’s a style of music that would subsequently evolve through bands like Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, and others who have since come to define and expand the genre.
On their new album Invincible Shield, Judas Priest is retrieving a bit of that musical heritage. “I said a long time ago, when we were writing these songs, that they came out a bit more progressive,” says lead guitarist Richie Faulkner. “It’s not progressive like Dream Theater or Rush, but there are a few more twists and turns musically.” Indeed, the songs on Invincible Shield are definitely more complex than one might expect from the band, with many of the arrangements more akin to their ’70s period than the following decade’s crowd-pleasers. Songs like “Panic Attack” and “Trial By Fire” are either built around, or feature significantly, odd-time riffs, a far cry from the 4/4 time signatures Judas Priest built their global success around. Throw in a heaping cup of Screaming for Vengeance-era ferocity in terms of delivery on songs like “Gates of Hell” and “Crown of Horns,” and you have the basic ingredients of Invincible Shield. Bass player Ian Hill, who has been going through the set list for the upcoming tour, is also connecting the musical dots to past works. “The things I’m running through, like ‘Victim of Changes,’ ‘Sinner,’ and ‘The Sentinel,’ are all in the same mold,” the bassist explains. “There are lots of different parts—light and shade—it’s not just all one thing or another. And Invincible Shield is very much like that.”
Judas Priest - Crown of Horns
Originally formed in Birmingham, England, in 1969, Judas Priest has been through an unusually long list of lineup changes, with the core of the band evolving to include guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton, bassist Ian Hill, and singer Rob Halford by the release of their debut LP, Rocka Rolla, in 1974. A revolving cast of drummers, including Les Binks and the aforementioned Phillips, mostly ended when Dave Holland joined in 1979, occupying the position for 10 years. Following his departure, Scott Travis joined and has been with the band ever since. Downing left the band in 2011, replaced by Faulkner. Tipton remains an official member of Judas Priest, but his touring activities have been limited since 2018 due to Parkinson’s disease, with Firepower and Invincible Shield producer Andy Sneap filling in for him on the road.
“There are lots of different parts—light and shade—it’s not just all one thing or another.” —Ian Hill
The elements of early Judas Priest’s sound, including Halford’s operatic vocal style and the twin-guitar power of Downing and Tipton, forged a template that would help define the heavy metal genre. Their 1977 release Sin After Sin was their first under a major label, and the first of 10 consecutive records to be certified Gold or Platinum. Then, 1980’s British Steel brought them notable mainstream attention with hits “Breaking the Law” and “Living After Midnight.” A decline in exposure during the mid 1990s, coinciding with Halford leaving and being replaced by Tim “Ripper” Owens, seems a distant memory, as the 2000s saw the band once again become a major force within the metal community. They were inaugural inductees into the VH1 Rock Honors in 2006, received a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2010, and had their songs featured in popular video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. 2018’s Firepower was the highest-charting album of the band’s career, and in 2022, Judas Priest were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Judas Priest caused quite a stir online when they announced the title and artwork for their 19th studio record, but Richie Faulkner says it’ll all make sense in the end.
Priest’s musical renaissance on Invincible Shield certainly adds greater dimension to their signature sound, but it isn’t really about taking a trip down memory lane. The nod to the past is mostly tangential. The real impetus was wanting to scratch a particular collective itch. “It’s a question of, ‘What can we do different? How can we make this more satisfying as a piece of art?’ If that doesn’t sound too pompous,” explains Faulkner. “You want to challenge yourself and you want to build upon what you’ve done already.”
“It’s a question of, ‘What can we do different? How can we make this more satisfying as a piece of art?’” —Richie Faulkner
Priest has never really been a band to repeat themselves too often. Yes, they’ve followed trends and exhausted songwriting formulas, but they’ve always adapted to changing times and band members. Between Andy Sneap’s fiery, modern production, Faulkner’s youthful and aggressive influence, and the underlying DNA—four of the guys in the band have been there for decades—Judas Priest pull off a pretty compelling hat trick on Invincible Shield. “You want to do something that’s going to be challenging, but also satisfying to us as creative people, and hopefully ticks the boxes for the fans as well,” says Faulkner.
There was, however, a bit of backlash from fans on social media over the album’s title and artwork when it was first announced—commenters felt it was boring and “cheesy”—but Faulkner says context will hopefully bring it all together. “I saw the comments,” he says. “I don’t stick my head in the sand. It’s heavy metal, it’s the shield that we all fly proudly and get behind, and it’s the thing that binds us together.” When the name, the artwork, and ultimately the music all come together, it will make sense, he says.
Glenn Tipton's Gear
Illness has forced veteran lead guitarist Glenn Tipton, pictured here in 2001, to step back slightly from his duties in Judas Priest, but it didn’t stop him from shredding on Invincible Shield.
Photo by Frank White
Guitars
- ESP GT-600 Signature Model with Glenn Tipton Signature EMG GT Vengeance Pickup Set
- Hamer Phantom GT Signature Model
Amps
- Engl Invader II E642II
- Engl E412VGB 4x12
Effects
- dbx 166A 2-Channel Compressor/Limiter
- DOD FX40B Equalizer
- Dunlop DCR-2SR Cry Baby Rack Module
- Mike Hill Services A-B Both Amp Switcher
- Rocktron Intellifex 24-Bit Digital Effects Processor
- Yamaha SPX90II Digital Multi-Effects Processor
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Custom Gauge (.009–.038)
- Ernie Ball .46 mm picks
With Tipton sidelined and Downing out of the fold for more than a decade now, much of the writing and recording on Invincible Shield fell on Faulkner’s shoulders. Tipton is still contributing from the bench, but it’s Faulkner’s show now. When asked about the musical direction on Invincible Shield, Tipton adds, “It is definitely a case of Richie joining the writing team with his own individual ideas and going at it from slightly different angles.”
“It’s a question of, ‘What can we do different? How can we make this more satisfying as a piece of art?’” —Richie Faulkner
One noticeable difference wrought by those writing angles is the standout performance on Invincible Shield from Ian Hill. Though he’s been historically overlooked in the annals of great metal bassists, Hill has been the foundation of Judas Priest from the beginning, and is, in fact, the band’s only full-time original member. On Invincible Shield, he proves to be more than a root-note-pumping low-ender. Songs like “Panic Attack,” “The Serpent and the King,” and “Giants in the Sky” feature what Hill would call “busy bass work.” There are a lot of unison riffs between the bass and guitars, more along the lines of what you might expect from Iron Maiden, for example, or Stained Class Priest, even. Yet Hill’s approach remains simply focused on the songs. “I’ve always not done much more than what’s necessary,” he explains. “If you’re putting too much on it, you’re actually detracting from the song. This time around, the songs are busier and called for a little more movement.”
Richie Faulkner's Gear
Richie Faulkner has been a member of Priest since 2011, but he still gets nervous showing song ideas to his bandmates.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Guitars
- Gibson Flying V Signature Custom with Richie Faulkner Signature EMG 57/66 Pickup Set
- Gibson Custom Shop Flying V with Floyd Rose
- Gibson Custom Shop Flying V
- Gibson Custom Shop Explorer
- 1983 Gibson Les Paul Custom
- 1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom
Amps
- Marshall JCM800 2203
- Wizard Modern Classic II
- Wizard GCL 4x12 with Celestion G12H-150 Redback speakers
Effects
- Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
- Boss SL-2 Slicer
- Dunlop JC95B Jerry Cantrell Signature Rainer Fog Cry Baby Wah
- Dunlop JD4S Rotovibe Chorus/Vibrato
- Dunlop DCR-2SR Cry Baby Rack Module
- MXR Micro Chorus
- Wampler Tumnus Deluxe
- Wizard Gate Minder
- RJM Music Technology Effect Gizmo Audio Loop Switcher
- Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus
Strings & Picks
Unlike Firepower, an album they had the luxury of recording together, Invincible Shield was done remotely, largely due to the pandemic. “The bare bones of these songs have been around since 2020, just before the lockdowns happened,” recalls Faulkner. After the lockdowns were lifted, the band went back out on the road for their 50th Anniversary tour, and scheduling conflicts ensued. Not to be deterred, and with enough experience to know there’s never a perfect time to do something, the band decided they were going to record the new album however they could, rather than wait for the perfect moment. “Sometimes you just have to do what you can do with the tools that you have,” says Faulkner. “So, I recorded the guitars in my studio at home. The drums were recorded in Nashville, and Rob’s vocals in Phoenix.” Hill actually put most of his bass lines down in hotel rooms on the last tour. “Andy is with us anyway, and he’s got his laptop,” Hill explains. “And you get these days off where you’re sitting around doing nothing, so we figured we might as well be productive. It was a great way to do it, just me and Andy. You’ve got another pair of eyes and you can try different things for the same part.”
“I’ve always not done much more than what’s necessary.” —Ian Hill
Invincible Shield is also a testament to how technology has revolutionized the process of making records, even for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. Faulkner tracked his guitars at home using the Neural DSP Quad Cortex on a Marshall plexi-like setting. He then sent Sneap that sound along with a clean DI, so he could reamp it. “I think it was a Marshall JCM800 that he used. It’s a new combination—I’m joking,” he laughs, citing the holy grail of rock guitar amps. Faulkner says Sneap also put some gain boost in the front. “He’s a fan of the EVH 5150III and he had some plexis that he was using as well, so I’m not sure how he blended them, but that’s what he usually uses.”
Ian Hill's Gear
This year mark’s Judas Priest’s 55th year as a band, but they’re still chasing artistic and musical goals. “There’s always a challenge in making art,” says Faulkner, “and that’s what makes it special.”
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Basses
- Four Spector Limited Edition Euro4 Ian Hill basses, two tuned to D#–G#–C#–F#, and two tuned to A#–D#–G#–C#
Amps
- SWR SM-1500
- SWR Triad 3-Way Bass Speaker System
Effects
- Boss ME-50B Bass Multiple Effects
- Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor
- Mike Hill Services ABCD Guitar Switcher
- Mike Hill Services Earth Loop - Ground Hum Eliminator
- Shure AD4D Two-Channel Digital Wireless Receiver
Strings & Picks
- DR Black Beauties BKB-50 K3 Black Coated Bass Strings
- Dunlop Nylon Standard .73 mm picks
- Signature InTune plectrums
Tipton says the rhythm guitars are put down to create a certain sound throughout the album, but for lead breaks, they will try anything to create the sound they want. “I’ll tweak [my sound] with different mikes and effects,” he explains. “Andy is very good with shaping the guitar sounds, and he knows what he needs to do to get it to sound like Priest.” The bass runs clean, direct to a laptop via an interface. Hill says this has been his approach for some time. “You need a clean bass sound—one that cuts through the two distorted guitars,” he says. “Anything that needs to be changed, or any effect that needs to go on, is put on afterwards.”
As for the actual songwriting process, Tipton says it remains more or less the same, whereby he, Halford, and Faulkner all produce ideas separately then pool them together. But Faulkner has a slightly more nuanced take on the songwriting process, one that you might expect from someone who grew up a fan of the band.
“It’s heavy metal, it’s the shield that we all fly proudly and get behind, and it’s the thing that binds us together.” —Richie Faulkner
“It’s the scariest thing,” he admits. “Let’s say you take fifteen ideas, they’re not complete—they’re just ideas that you think are winners. Then, it’s your turn to put your stuff on and show the room. You think it’s good, but then you put it on in front of Glenn Tipton and Rob Halford, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my god, what have I done here?’ Because all of a sudden, all your stuff sounds like shit,” he laughs. “I think that’s just the insecurities, and then you realize, they put ideas forward and they’re thinking the same thing.” One of the things Faulkner appreciates about this process is that it challenges him to think differently about his own ideas. “Glenn might say, ‘Turn that bit around,’ or ‘Change the feel in that bit.’ And then I do it and it’s like, ‘Ah, that’s actually unique. I wouldn’t have thought of that.’ And that’s when having three creative minds in the room makes the end result a lot better.”
When it comes to crafting and tracking his guitar solos, Faulkner says about 75 percent of it is improvised. “We press record and let it rip,” he explains. “You do that three or four times and a couple of things become constant, subconsciously, and they stick, and so you build around that.” There are a few songs he worked out before recording, including “Panic Attack,” “Invincible Shield,” and “As God Is My Witness.”
“It’s your turn to put your stuff on and show the room. You think it’s good, but then you put it on in front of Glenn Tipton and Rob Halford, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my god, what have I done here?’” —Richie Faulkner
Circling back around to the way Invincible Shield was pieced together remotely, Faulkner says there are always challenges when you record music. “Whether it’s Jaws and the shark is not working, or it’s our situation, there’s always a challenge in making art and that’s what makes it special,” he says. “The challenge for us was getting Invincible Shield to sound cohesive while recording it separately. By overcoming those challenges, it arms you for the next one, and you do it again and hopefully grow.”
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At their 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Judas Priest unleashed a three-guitar attack with K.K. Downing, Glenn Tipton, and Richie Faulkner.
Words of wisdom from the legendary engineer, proprietor of Chicago’s Electrical Audio, World Series of Poker champion, and, in the band Shellac, the compass for brutal guitar aesthetics.
“All day every day, we’re grinding it out,” says engineer Steve Albini of his team at Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio he built and has run since 1997. “We’re constantly in session, constantly under fire.”
While it might be tempting to geek out and ask Albini about all the iconic albums that he’s recorded with the utmost finesse—and surely, there would be value in rapping about recording some of the biggest names in guitar music—that’s all been done.
What’s much more interesting is the work that goes on every single day at the studio. So, when he tells me, “My colleagues at Electrical Audio and I are constantly having to interrogate our methods and validate the things that we’re doing and come up with arguments for why we should do things this way or that,” that’s the stuff I want to know about. If you want to learn about how he recorded In Utero, go listen to Conan’s podcast. (Albini was a guest, along with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, on the October 23, 2023 episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and it’s a thorough discussion that is totally worth checking out.)
The fact is, Albini has recorded countless records. I’m sure he has a tally in his books somewhere, but it would be exceedingly difficult to know for sure how many albums he’s engineered. That’s because, as extensive as his credits are in various record-collecting resources, he’s also impressively accessible as a for-hire engineer. All levels of artists—from superstars to harder-to-track, mostly unknown road dogs—have carved out their time with him. Plus, he’s been at it since he started renting four-track demo packages on the weekends during his high school years in Missoula, Montana.
The body of engineering work that Albini has amassed is monumental not just in size, but also in musical scope, which extends further than from Sunn O))) to Magnolia Electric Company, Cheap Trick to Neurosis, or Low to The Thing. And with those artists, he often helps capture a landmark album, or at least the record that fans refer to as “the one they recorded with Albini.”
Aside from his day job, there’s also his guitar playing. Albini serves as the compass for cutting, brutal tone in the punk and underground rock scenes. Since his early days in the hard-hitting Big Black through his continuing work alongside bassist Bob Weston and drummer Todd Trainer in the band Shellac—whose soon-to-be six (no info yet, but a new one is confirmed to be on the way) full-length albums and some other recorded odds and ends are maybe the purest documents of his overall sonic aesthetic—he’s used a fairly concise rig of well-suited esoteric gear to shape his incisive, metallic, and esoterically personal guitar sound in the creation of angular riffage and gnarly feedback.
Albini’s sonic mastery seems to know no bounds: He’s probably the most-cited proponent of analog recording. His live-band-in-a-room sound is unparalleled. And his drum sounds are peerless. But, while it’s not as if he never talks about guitar, it’s rare to see him dive deep on his guitar-specific processes.
So, we called up Electrical Audio and had a chat about his methods on recording guitars and how they’ve evolved, his take on modern guitar culture, and the definitive details of his sound.
In addition to his gear collection, Albini is also a good-bandname-T-shirt collector. (If this isn’t proof enough, go look up a photo from when he won his first gold bracelet in the World Series of Poker.)
Photo by Daniel Bergeron
When you’re going to record a guitarist, what’s your process of deciding how you’re going to choose a microphone, and how you’re going to mic their amp or cabinet?
Steve Albini: You have a conversation—what kind of sound are they shooting for? Who are some guitarists whose sound would be appropriate for their music? That sort of thing. And sometimes that’ll give you a clue about how to get started.
If they like a thick, bass-y, chewy, distorted sound, you want to make sure you’re using mics that capture that low-frequency stuff with good definition and not get muddy or soft. If the kind of guitar sound they’re shooting for is very bright and very crisp and dry, you’ll want to make sure to avoid using mics that can have some resonance or bloom to them that will soften that sort of precision.
I think it’s a bad idea to have a standard method where when whatever guitarist walks in you stick an SM57 on it and call it good. A lot of people do that as a default just because it resolves the issue quickly, and they can get on with their day and do more fancy stuff. But I think it’s absolutely critical to pair the microphone with the actual sound that’s coming out of the amp.
After having a conversation with the guitar player, understanding what their aesthetic is, I have them set up their gear and just play a bit, to get a feel what their playing style is like. Are they using a lot of feedback and sustain or are they hopping on a bunch of different pedals all the time? Is the sound derived from their playing style or from particular layering of pedals? Getting intimate with the exact specifics of the guitar style and sound and aesthetic guides you on what microphones to use and physically where to put them.
The main thing is not to have a preconceived notion about what mics are good for guitar. I’ve used everything from vocal-caliber condenser microphones to quite limited electret microphones to high-quality ribbon microphones to pawnshop junk microphones—I’ve used absolutely everything you can imagine on a guitar amp, and that selection is always based on the aesthetic of the person playing and then the actual sound that’s coming out of the cabinet. In your mind, you might have an idealized notion of what a heavy guitar sounds like or what a clean guitar sounds like, but until you get down on all fours and listen to the sound coming out of the speakers, you don’t really know what you’re dealing with.
“When you listen to the speaker when the guitar player is playing, the sound that’s coming off—you should consider that the goal. What you’re trying to do is you’re trying to make that sound happen in people’s homes.”
How do you interpret what you’re hearing then?
Albini: When you’re down on all fours listening, you need to be forming a mental image of what that sound is like. Are there spikes and dips in the frequency response? Is there a lot of granular treble detail? Is it a really smooth sound? Does it have a sort of billowing quality, like a trombone-like fundamental, or is it really dry and raspy? Even using wine-tasting words like that, it helps you form an internal image of what that guitar is supposed to sound like when you hear it on playback, and from your experience with your mic collection, you’ll know what microphones are best suited to sounds like that, or you’ll know where to start anyway.
When you listen to the speaker when the guitar player is playing, the sound that’s coming off—you should consider that the goal. What you’re trying to do is you’re trying to make that sound happen in people’s homes.
Steve Albini's Gear
Hands on faders, Albini and his team at Electrical Audio are “constantly in session, constantly under fire.”
Photo by Kevin Tiongson
Guitars
- Travis Bean TB500
Amps
- Tapco/Intersound IVP Preamp
- Fender Bassman
- Custom homemade speaker enclosure based on Electro-Voice TL Series plans with 10" and 12" Celestion Greenbacks
Effects
- Interfax Harmonic Percolator
- MXR Smartgate
Strings and Picks
- Ice picks with the points cut off
- D’Addario XLs (.012–.016–.020w–.028–.038–.048)
Once you’ve chosen a mic, what’s next in the decision-making process?
Albini: One thing that I do that I think is probably distinctly different from what a lot of other engineers do, I tend to have whatever microphone I’m using on the guitar in the middle of the speaker cone, and I don’t generally use microphones pressed up close to the grille cloth right next to the speaker. I tend to use microphones at a working distance of between eight and 14 inches from the cabinet.
A lot of engineers made their bones as live engineers, where they’re trying to get isolation on stage, so they have the mics as close as possible to the speaker cabinet, and that practice translated into the studio. I experimented with that technique because I saw everybody else doing it, but I just never got good results with it. It always sounded slightly tweaked and muffled and weird. I found that when I put the microphone dead center on the speaker, then the sound hitting the microphone sounded more like what I heard when I was down on all fours listening to the speaker myself.
Working distance has a big effect on the sound quality. If the microphone is choked up tight on the speaker, you get a lot more low-frequency energy. You get a lot more muscular pumping low end from the proximity effect of the microphone, and, especially with ribbon microphones that are bi-directional and have a fairly exaggerated proximity effect, you can really use that to tune the response of the microphone. So, I say that I use a working distance of between eight and 14 inches. If I’m in the closer part of that range, six to eight inches from the speaker, there’s going to be a lot more of the sub low end emphasized in a bi-directional ribbon microphone, and that can be great to add weight and heaviness to a heavy guitar.
Then, if the microphone is backed off more like 12 to 14 inches, then you get much more of an overall picture of the sound of the cabinet, where it’s not emphasizing any particular region, for lack of a better word. It’s a flatter representation of the sound coming off the speaker. Being able to tune the behavior of the microphone by moving the microphone in and out just by a matter of inches can make a noticeable difference in the sound quality.
At this point in your career, do you know what mic to use as soon as you listen to someone’s playing?
Albini: It’s really rare for me to listen to a speaker, listen to somebody playing guitar, grab a microphone, put it up, and have it be right in the first instance. When that does happen sometimes, you feel like a fucking genius. That’s really satisfying. That means the first 30 years of your career weren’t wasted, but it doesn’t happen often.
Often, you have to move the microphone, or sometimes you have to swap the microphone out completely, like this microphone just can’t handle that much high end, it sounds too raspy, it’s just too midrange forward, it starts to sound nasal and different parts of the playing vocabulary can sound different as well. Sometimes, you’ll have a setup that sounds amazing when the guitarist is just playing rhythm stuff, but then when they go up the strip and start showing off, it can be too piercing or too woolly sounding, so it’s often a good idea to have a complement microphone.
“It’s really rare for me to listen to a speaker, listen to somebody playing guitar, grab a microphone, put it up, and have it be right in the first instance. When that does happen sometimes, you feel like a fucking genius.”
You’ll have a couple of microphones in the same position, one that is maybe a brighter, drier sound and one that’s maybe a fatter, darker sound. And that way you can either balance those microphones against each other for a composite sound or use them in stereo to synthesize a stereo image. Or when the lead kicks in, you can nudge the brighter microphone for a little bit more bite and attack.
I think having an ambient character available on the recording often helps with the sense of realism. If you’re just using a single guitar, for example, then having an ambient microphone that you can use to create a stereo image helps add to the sensation of hearing the sound in a room, even if it’s a very dry room. Having close mics on the amp and then also having a distant mic out in the room eight or 10 feet away gives you a little bit of air on that secondary mic, which you can then use to create a stereo image to help localize the guitar in the stereo image of the whole thing.
All of those little things, if you don’t have it set up so you have those kinds of options available, then you can’t make those choices down the road. I have been in sessions where some engineers have an array of microphones around a speaker cabinet. They’ll have eight or 10 microphones in a sort of swarm around a speaker cabinet. And that, to me, just speaks of really poor decision making. If you’re recording eight or 10 microphones at once and with the idea that you’ll sort it all out later, that just puts all your critical decisions off until the last minute and means that you’re going to make those decisions poorly. I think it’s much, much better to listen to it on the first playback and decide if you are on the right track or not. And if you’re not, just stop and fix it. Don’t just carry on with the plan to deal with it later, because when you get to later, you just have way too much shit to deal with.
Onstage with Shellac, Albini wields “Old Ironsides,” his Travis Bean TB500. Behind the guitarist lurks his customized amp head, which contains a Tapco/Intersound IVP Preamp and Fender Bassman, and his homemade speaker cabs.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
It’s like it creates option anxiety, and at that point, you’re just making the mix all that much longer.
Albini: Yeah, it’s not even the amount of effort that it takes. I don’t think it’s possible to make 10,000 critical decisions simultaneously and have them all be as valid as if you were to make those decisions one at a time as they came up with all your attention and full consideration. So, while you’re setting up the guitar, figure out which microphones you want to use and commit to them, and once you’ve committed to them, then that decision is made, and you can just get on with your day and you don’t ever need to re-litigate those decisions.
I also feel like over the course of working on a record, you get acclimated to the sound that you’re listening to, and then that becomes the basis on which you make other decisions. If you pull the plug on that by changing the sound around at the last minute, then all of those predicate decisions that were made based on that original place keeper have somewhat been invalidated. And I think that’s a dangerous thing as well.
In one of the videos on the Electrical Audio YouTube page, you talk about developing your practices through an iterative process of trial and error. Is experimentation still a part of your process?
Albini: I actively question myself and verify my preconceptions or challenge my preconceptions. One nice way to do that in a kind of a programmatic way is something I stole from Bob Weston, the bass player in the band Shellac that I’m in. He’s also a fine recording engineer and mastering engineer. I read an interview with him maybe 15 years ago where he said that on every session he does, he tries to do just one thing that he’s never done before. It might be the choice of microphone or positioning a microphone or a processing choice or a routing, just something, and that seemed brilliant to me. Just a very simple way to make sure that you’re always expanding your repertoire and always expanding your knowledge base. You don’t get set in your habits. And so, I stole that, and I do that to this day.
“While you’re setting up the guitar, figure out which microphones you want to use and commit to them, and once you’ve committed to them, then that decision is made, and you can just get on with your day and you don’t ever need to re-litigate those decisions.”
Also, microphones come in over the transom. There are microphones being designed and invented every day, and we get a chance to hear a lot of those either as trial or because people want our opinions on them. They’ll send them to us to put them in use for a while and play around with them. So, I get to play around with stuff that I’ve never heard before pretty regularly, and I like to try microphones I’ve never heard before.
This has proven enormously valuable over the course of the last 15 or 20 years. My routine behaviors have changed quite a bit as a result of these little, tiny experiments that I’ve done one at a time.
With Shellac bandmates Todd Trainer (drums) and Bob Weston (bass) in view, the most legendary Harmonic Percolator is at Steve’s feet, next to his MXR Smart Gate. If you’re wondering, Albini uses a waist strap for his guitar.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
I would imagine that, making as many records as you do, that’s like constant revision.
Albini: I promise you, the moment you get complacent about how you do things, someone will show up with a rig that’s freakish in a way you’ve never encountered before.
I did an album with the group Sunn O))). Their music is really slow-moving, impossibly heavy riffs, but the sound is really minimal. It’s just two guitars most of the time. In the studio, they added a few guests. One of is Hildur Guðnadóttir; she plays the cello.
There’s an instrument that was invented for her by a friend of hers called the halldorophone. It’s an electric cello that has built into it an amplifier and loudspeaker, so it’s a self-resonating, self-feeding-back, infinite-sustain cello. It’s a super bizarre thing, but she’s an expert. There’s one in the world and I’m staring at it and I have to figure out how to record it.
The fact that I am confronted with these new and different things all the time means that my vocabulary and my skillset and my facilities are constantly being tested and improved. And that’s one of the great joys, for me anyway, of doing what I do for a living, that I do get to do these freakish things once in a while.
You use a small pedal setup as a player, but you’re engaging with different kinds of players all the time. What do you think about modern pedal technology?
Albini: The stage that we are at now, where every player in every band has a pedalboard and have this sort of a curated collection of sounds that they come up with, I actually got a preview of that in the late ’80s. The first time I went to Japan, most guitarists that I worked with had a pedalboard with a half a dozen pedals on it, and that’s how they would craft their sound. They could bring that anywhere and plug it into any amp and they’d be happy.
Something very similar is happening now in the U.S. where a lot of people are doing demo recording at home through modeling amps or through interfaces, and rather than using an amplifier for its inherent qualities, they’re kind of defeating the amplifier by using pedals as the principal source of their sound. It’s a trend. I don’t really have an opinion about it.
“I promise you, the moment you get complacent about how you do things, someone will show up with a rig that’s freakish in a way you’ve never encountered before.”
There are some people who are more adept at it than others, but it’s absolutely the case that most players in most bands now have multiple pedals that they’re using, and the songs are arranged in a way where you use this combination for this part and this combination for this part. And nothing about it seems bad to me. It’s a little more cumbersome, especially when you’re in the studio and you’re trying to track down problems. But when you see somebody who’s really put some thought and attention into it and they’re really using the pedals in an expressive way….
I did a session with Reba Myers from Code Orange. She has this really expansive pedal setup where she’s got a main soundboard where the general tone for a given song comes from, and then she’s got a kind of an expression board, which is just all the crazy shit, and she’s constantly going back and forth. She’s an example of someone who’s put a lot of thought and attention into the specifics of the pedalboard and is using it as a creative tool. I’ve seen other people where it’s kind of pro forma—like, Kiss wore funny outfits on stage, and so for a while a lot of bands felt obliged to wear funny outfits on stage.
I know some old school guys are like, ‘Plug the guitar straight into the amp, and if you can’t get it done with that, you’re not a real musician,’ or whatever. That’s horse shit. That’s just boomer shit. I’m not into that at all.
How Steve Albini Gets His Guitar Sound
How did your personal guitar sound develop over the years?
Albini: When I was in Big Black, that band was predicated on the do-it-cheap, do-it-quick, take-no-prisoners approach. That was very much the cornerstone of the behavior in the punk rock scene. Don’t try to get it perfect, just get it. So, everything about that band was done sort of extemporaneously. I made the first Big Black record on my own in my apartment, so I needed an amplifier that I could use for either guitar or bass. I stumbled onto this bizarre preamp called the Tapco/Intersound IVP. It had a clean channel and a distorted channel. I didn’t find much use for the clean channel, but the distorted channel sounded great on either bass or guitar—or great toward my aesthetic at the moment, which was a pretty brutal one.
When Shellac started, I was looking for a fatter, fuller sound than the scrabble-scratchy sound I had with Big Black. I eventually gravitated toward the Fender Bassman as the perfect tube amp for me. But when I would play just the Bassman, I missed a little bit of the bite and the sizzle from the old transistor days. So, I ended up making a hybrid setup with the Tapco IVP preamp, typically recorded direct. And then on stage, I’ll have a monitor cabinet for it that has a horn in it, so it’s like a full-range speaker, and the Fender Bassman going into a fairly bass-y cabinet, typically a 4x12 when we’re on tour in Europe and we’re using backline.
The cabinets that Bob and I made for our amps—I have two Celestion greenbacks in that, a 10" and a 12"—are based on the TL series cabinet that are the published plans that Electro-Voice made available for using their speakers in an enclosure. If you just built a cabinet along those published plans, you would end up with exactly what Bob and I use for our speaker setups.
When you record yourself for a Shellac album, do you always use the same gear?
Albini: No, it has been different on literally every session. I often use the amp that I use on stage. Often, I do not. Often, I’ll use some other transistor amp and some other tube amp as the two complement signals. It’s essentially always two amplifiers, a transistor amp and a tube amp. The transistor amp is typically being recorded direct, and the tube amp is always recorded acoustically through a speaker cabinet with microphones and stuff.
But I have used an Orange OR80. There’s an amp that was made by a company called Sam Amp, and I believe there are very few of them in the world, but I ended up with one of them, and I’ve used the Sam Amp. I’ve used the Traynor YBA-3, Traynor YBA-1, a Marshall JTM-45. I’ve used a lot of different amplifiers for the studio recordings.
The Travis Bean that I use is such an indestructible sound. It’s weird that I’m so fussy about my amp because I’ve demonstrated myself that it kind of doesn’t matter what amp I play through, I can always get something that I like out of it.
We did a tour of Japan very early in the band’s tenure, right after we started. In Japan, it’s normal practice for the venue to have a backline. Every night it was a different, quite crappy by our standards, amplifier on stage. One night, it was a Roland Jazz Chorus. I used a Guyatone amplifier several times, and other Japanese brand names that I was unfamiliar with. Every night sounded fine. As specific as I am about what I like and don’t like, I have sort of taught myself that it’s not that important and that I can zero in on what I like and don’t like about even an imperfect setup.
For pedals, do you use anything other than the Harmonic Percolator, which you’re most known for using?
Albini: I’ve used a noise gate since I first started playing on stage. For many, many years it was just one of the original old-school MXR noise gates. They’ve all crapped out and been repaired and crapped out again many times. There’s an updated version of that MXR called the Smart Gate. I switched over to that. It’s set so that I can just touch the guitar and it opens up, but if I’m not actively playing it, it doesn’t open.
The output of the noise gate goes into the fuzz tone. And the fuzz tone has been a Harmonic Percolator [made by Interfax] since, I want to say, 1986. My friend Jay Tiller from Milwaukee worked at a head shop, record shop, and pawn shop combo in Milwaukee called Record Head. When I was there one time, he said, ‘We have this cool fuzz tone this guy made here. You should try it out.’ And I loved it. So, I bought one from him, and then over the years, I’ve bought a couple more when he stumbled across them at record swap or whatever, or at guitar fairs or whatever, he’s picked them up and I got ’em from him.
I’ve referred to the Percolator as a labor-saving device, because as soon as you hit the switch, the guitar just starts playing. I don’t even need to tell it what notes or anything. It just goes, and that’s my favorite thing about the Percolator, how it’s completely unhinged using it for feedback or whatever. It will choose little melodies that it wants to play, and it’ll just whistle them for you. But you kind of need to be physically moving. I’ve noticed that if you stand in one spot, it just squeals. But if you’re moving around, if the distance between you and your amplifier changes, then the fundamental frequency changes from the physical distance, and you get these really great psychedelic melodies that it creates.
Have you played any of the Percolator clones?
Albini: They all sound very slightly different, but they’re all basically the same. Chuck Collins made a complete, meticulous resurrection of the Harmonic Percolator [through his company, Theremaniacs] a few years ago—those are absolutely perfect. They respond exactly the same way. They sound the same. Almost all the others that I have seen—people send them to me because they feel like I should pass my hands over their Percolator or whatever, I’ve had maybe six or eight others—I can’t use any of ’em. They all behave differently somehow.
I think one of the perversions of my setup is that coming out of the noise gate, the signal into the Percolator is buffered, so it sounds different if you just plug your guitar straight into it, and I never do that.
How this storied player’s self-taught, nose-to-the-grindstone journey brought on one success after the next, and soon blossomed into an illustrious, historic career.
David Rorick, better known as Dave Roe, still isn’t sure how he got here. It’s been about 43 years since he left Hawaii and moved to Nashville to work as a bassist. He didn’t have any training or remarkable expertise—just enthusiasm, a work ethic, and a love for the open road. Over the next four decades, Roe parlayed those qualities into a legendary career, playing with some of the world’s greatest folk, Americana, blues, and country music stars.
On a Tuesday morning in early May, while taking a break from mowing the lawn of his home just outside Nashville, Roe almost sounds puzzled retracing his steps: touring and recording with Johnny Cash and Charlie Louvin, backing up Dwight Yoakam and Loretta Lynn, working as the in-house bassist for Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound and as a coveted hired-gun session musician and mainstay in the Nashville gig circuit. “A jack-of-all-trades and an expert at none,” he quips.
That aside, Roe’s self-taught and intuitive upbringing on bass have made him a stylistic chameleon, with perhaps a deeper connection to the rhythms and feel of each genre he plays. His playing evidences a seamless quilting-together of his teachers—’50s, ’60s, and ’70s radio-pop sweetness, the swagger of his mother’s country records, the calm confidence of West Coast Americana, the flair and bravado of funk and disco. His bass parts are classic and unimpeachable, witness marks of a player who learned, with his body and spirit alongside his brain, how to play the bass in a way that people will want to hear.
Dave Roe lays down a track at his Nashville Home Studio, which he named Seven Deadly Sins.
Photo courtesy of Dave Roe
Roe’s path from cover-band grinder in island tourist bars to one of the country’s most sought-after bass players might not make technical sense on paper. Thousands of others have started out the same way and never advanced beyond their hometowns. It doesn’t fit into the tidy algorithmic churn of modern life. But music isn’t about algorithms and optimization—not all of it, not yet. It’s still about feel and soul and heart, and a bit of luck.
Roe’s father was a military man, whose service eventually took him and his family to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He was stationed in a small town called EwaBeach about 40 miles outside of Honolulu on Hawaii’s third-largest island, Oahu. This is where Roe grew up. He was a drummer before he ever picked up a bass, but in high school, without any local bass players, Roe’s friends elected him to take up the instrument. His first bass wasn’t a bass at all: It was a 6-string Silvertone electric guitar, which Roe restrung with bass strings. “That didn’t last very long,” he says.
Roe didn’t have the money to buy a proper bass, so in 1969, his high-school sweetheart’s father went with him to a music store in Honolulu and signed for a Fender Jazz Bass and an old Guild amp for Roe. “That’s when I got my first really good gear,” he remembers.
Getting a real bass was one thing. Learning to play it was another. And Roe did it all himself—he’s still never taken a single formal lesson. “I sat down with records and taught myself,” he says. “I was a big Top 40 enthusiast. I loved anything that was on the radio.” That included the usual suspects: Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Cream, the Rolling Stones. “That’s really where I cut my teeth,” Roe continues, “just playing the blues and hippie rock and stuff like that.” Roe’s first band, a power trio playing covers by Chuck Berry and other early rock ’n’ roll pioneers, worked its way up to opening for Grand Funk Railroad in Honolulu.
Roe rips it up with guitarist Chris Casello at Robert’s Western World on Nashville’s Broadway entertainment strip.
Photo by Elise Casello
Roe moved east off Oahu to Maui in 1971 and joined a country outfit at a critical moment. Due to its relative proximity, the West Coast scene had an outsized impact on the island’s cultural imports, and once the hippie-country and Laurel Canyon folk waves swept over California in the late ’60s and early ’70s, it didn’t take long for it to reach Roe’s radio. His mother was a country fan and imparted some early affection for the genre, and, later, Roe would catch Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Burrito Brothers when they toured Hawaii.
Roe didn’t sit still for long. After the country stint, he moved back to downtown Honolulu and played in a rhythm and blues band. In the mid ’70s, he went through a “real heavy” disco and funk phase, and dabbled in prog rock and jazz, too. “I was a working Top 40 musician,” says Roe. “When you work in a tourist town, you have to learn how to play a bunch of different stuff.” His learning technique was the same as ever: “I just would listen and play and try to pick up stuff and copy people. That’s all I did.”
But by the final years of that decade, the magic feeling was getting harder to find. There weren’t enough opportunities to create and live on playing original music, and after a decade of playing covers for tourists, it was time for something new. He settled on Nashville. “I just put my socks in a bag and took off,” says Roe.
Luckily, Roe had an insider in Music City. His cousin, a comedian and professional entertainer, lived in Nashville and let Roe crash with him when he arrived. More than that, he set Roe up with his first gig. His cousin knew folks at the Grand Ole Opry, and took Roe along to a show one evening. Roe was introduced to country artist Charlie Louvin that night, and as fate would have it, Louvin was looking for a bassist. Roe expected to be asked to audition, but Louvin simply told him when the bus was leaving for the tour. “That was a really good gig at the time, a highly respected gig,” says Roe. “That was really beneficial to me.”
Dave Roe's Gear
Roe gets ready for a take, with one of his Fender electrics along for the session.
Photo courtesy of Dave Roe
Basses
- 1964 Fender Jazz Bass
- Alien Audio 5-string bass
- Lemur Music Jupiter upright bass (in studio)
- Blast Cult upright bass (live)
Amps
- Ampeg B4 Head and 410 Cabinet
Strings
- Dunlop .045–.105 flatwound strings for electric
- Pirastro Evah’s for upright
It can be hard to tell sometimes when a moment is the beginning of something, or if it started even before. Both things can be true, but playing with Louvin certainly seems like a critical moment in Roe’s career. After playing with Louvin for three months, Roe was recommended to Jerry Reed, who hired him for his live band. He says gigging with Reed and his band took things to another level. Reed’s musicians, including Kerry Marx and the Blackmon Brothers, were aces, and playing alongside them meant Roe was, too.
Roe says from then on, his career had “a movement to it.” After working with Reed, he joined Chet Atkins for a short stint (“It doesn’t even feel like I was really there,” he admits), and for the next 20 years, he worked the road with a rotating cast of country greats: Mel Tillis, Dottie West, Vince Gill, and Faith Hill all tapped Roe for touring. By the early ’90s, he’d begun doing session work in addition to touring gigs.
Roe was on a break from touring with Vern Gosdin in 1992 when he got a phone call at home that changed his life. On the other end of the line was an unmistakable voice. It was Johnny Cash. Cash’s publicist had jammed with Roe around town and mentioned him to Cash, who wanted Roe to play with him. “He just said, ‘I want you to come and play in my band, and you’re gonna have to play upright bass,’” recalls Roe, who accepted immediately. There was one problem: He had never played upright bass.
“I think it was sort of understood that I would know the style, but I didn’t,” laughs Roe. He did what he’d always done. He figured it out on his own. He borrowed an upright bass and started to teach himself the slap-bass rhythms and plucking styles of Cash’s rockabilly-leaning repertoire. “I had to pull my bootstraps up and get after it,” Roe chuckles. As that first call was winding down, Roe told Cash that he’d see him at rehearsal. “He said, ‘Well, we don’t really rehearse,’” says Roe. “Then I said, ‘I guess I’ll see you at soundcheck.’ He goes, ‘I really don’t do soundchecks, either, so I’ll just see you there.’”
Roe was encouraged to play the upright bass by a call from none other than Johnny Cash. Here, he cuts a track at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville. He is a frequent contributor to Auerbach-produced albums, including Auerbach’s own Waiting on a Song and the Pretenders’ Alone.
Photo courtesy of Dave Roe
Roe describes the first gig with Cash, around a week later in Charleston, West Virginia, as “completely flying by the seat of my pants, with my ear. I didn’t feel good at all. I just felt like I wasn’t the right guy.” But Roe kept working at it. He credits Cash with giving him a shot even though he wasn’t experienced. “He was very patient with me, and the rest of the guys in the band helped me along to develop that style,” says Roe. “There were other guys here [in Nashville] that were already doing that [style]. They could have easily got them. I can’t tell you to this day why they hung in there with me, but they did.”
Roe played bass with Cash until the Man in Black’s retirement from live performances in the late ’90s, and did session work on the singer’s intimate American records. For the first of the series, 1994’s American Recordings, Roe joined Cash and producer Rick Rubin to rehearse and feel out the songs before Cash ultimately recorded them solo. They practiced and recorded at Cash’s cabin studio near Hendersonville, Tennessee, and Roe joined them later when they did overdubs at Rubin’s Hollywood studio. The working relationship was one of the most profound and important of Roe’s career. “Johnny was sort of a Buddha to me, man,” says Roe. “He’s the nicest man I’ve ever had in my life. I learned a lot.”
Working with Cash marked another important transition period for Roe. Back in those days, he says, a professional musician moved to Nashville with the understanding that they’d work the road until they could land a studio gig and settle in one spot for a while. For Roe, that happened after he was hired by Cash and country singer Dwight Yoakam, with whom Roe played for four years. Given Yoakam’s and Cash’s high profiles and the proportionate pay for their musicians, Roe had more time to himself and less need to get back out on the road for another paycheck. Not that he didn’t like the road, though. “To be honest with you, if I had been offered another good road gig, I probably would’ve taken it,” says Roe. “But it just worked out this way.”
Dave Roe and his frequent collaborator Kenny Vaughan at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in Madison, Tennessee, with their band, the SloBeats.
Photo courtesy of Dave Roe
Full-time session work required yet another pivot. Studio players in the city communicated and played with the Nashville Number System, a method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built, and thanks to his time in Hawaii, Roe was prepared. Some of the older jazz players back home had introduced him to the system when he was starting out, so he hit the ground running.
Roe spent the next 10 years doing session work and around-town gigs when his next “big break” came. The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach called him up in 2015 and asked Roe to join a crew of veterans to back him up on his Easy Eye Sound recordings. It turned out that Cash’s engineer, Dave Ferguson, had recommended Roe to Auerbach. Roe became part of Auerbach’s in-house band at his downtown Nashville studio, where he got to work with a lot of the “old-timers”—like Bobby Woods, Russ Pahl, and Billy Sanford. Before long, though, he had joined their ranks. “I’m an old-timer now,” he laughs. And Roe considers his performance on Auerbach’s “Shine on Me,” from the Waiting on a Song album, among his best recorded performances.
Like most musicians, Roe has spent the last few years off the road. He’s focused on demo and custom tracks via work at his own studio, Seven Deadly Sins, and remote collaborations on platforms like AirGigs. He played on Brian Setzer’s 2021 solo record, Gotta Have The Rumble, and his long-time Nashville outfit the SloBeats, with guitarist Kenny Vaughan and Average White Band drummer Pete Abbott, is stirring from its hiatus. His son, drummer Jerry Roe, has worked his way into becoming a coveted Nashville session player. The apple didn’t fall far.
Like all great Nashville session bass players, Roe has the ability to learn tunes and adapt to different styles quickly, whether it’s blues, rock, country, R&B, or even improvised music.
Photo by Anthony Scarlati
Thinking back on his career, Roe is quiet, almost confused, like it’s all a dream he’s just woken up from. “I find myself always being in a state of awe, you know?” says Roe. He’s toured the world and made friends with the biggest names in American music. (He names CeeLo Green—whose track “Lead Me” is one of Roe’s favorite recordings—as the most talented artist he ever worked with, and Chrissie Hynde, Faith Hill, Ray LaMontagne, Carrie Underwood, Kurt Vile, Bahamas, and many others are also on his session resume.) Roe has come a long way from his makeshift Silvertone bass back in Ewa Beach, but that same do-it-yourself, fake-it-’til-you-make-it ethic has guided his career to soaring highs.“It always felt totally lucky and serendipitous to end up in those positions,” he says. “There’s always been people around that could have played those gigs better than me when I was doing them. But somehow, I ended up there. I just did the best I could.”
Marty Party 1995 - Johnny Cash & The Tennessee Three
Dave Roe’s experience of playing with Johnny Cash in the ’90s was just one of many remarkable successes in his long and fulfilling career.
Titan tonal technician Kurt Ballou and sledgehammering bassist Nate Newton detail the chiseling tools they use to carve their colossal sound.
Kurt Ballou takes tone very seriously. He’s been on the leading edge of aggressive guitar sounds since 1990, and Converge’s fourth album, 2001’s Jane Doe, is still seen as a game-changing release, with its ferocious performances and masterful production. His sonic temple, God City Studio, is the destination for artists looking to make their rawest, heaviest, brutalist work. Ballou has even developed a gear brand (God City Instruments) that includes guitars, pedals, and pickups, all in the pursuit of turning ideas into art.
During our conversation before Converge’s sold-out performance at Nashville’s Basement East on May 22nd, Ballou dove into his Line 6 Helix spice rack and shared how 30 plus years as a guitarist and in-demand producer have informed his guitar-design philosophy. Plus, he detailed why his goal is to get to a place where “gear doesn’t matter.” And then, longtime bassist Nate Newton joined the fun by showing off his “Riffblaster” setup and how a special P-Bass helps him honor a dear friend.
Brought to you by D’Addario String Finder.
Construction Zone
For this headlining Converge run, Kurt took to the road with a pair of his own God City Instruments shred sticks. This one is the Constructivist model that has a body shape Kurt has been employing for over a decade. This current iteration has an ash body, roasted maple neck (with bolt-on assembly and C profile), ebony fretboard with cream binding, a Graph Tech nut, and comes loaded with a set of GCI’s Soap Jammers that are stacked alnico 5 humbuckers (10k bridge output/7k neck output). Ballou describes the Soap Jammers as “being high-output humbuckers that have the midrange push of a P-90 that still chugga chuggas like a humbucker.” He’s been using D’Addario strings for over 20 years and has been loyal to the NYXLs since they came out. He currently prefers the Medium Top/Extra Heavy Bottom set (.011–.056) and bludgeons them with D’Addario Duragrip Yellow (light/medium) picks.
Rock 'n' Roll Machine
Here is Kurt’s single-pickup GCI Craftsman that has a chambered mahogany body paired with a wenge top, a maple neck with set-neck construction, wenge fretboard with cream binding, Graph Tech nut and PM-8593 bridge, and it screams—thanks to the high-output GCI Slug Jammer humbucker that has a ceramic magnet and 13k resistance.
Ballou adds that “It’s a beautiful guitar that I just love to play. This is my favorite—just a basic rock ’n’ roll machine, and I use it the most for writing and recording Converge stuff.”
A Floor Smorgasbord
Converge would love to tour with stacks of gear, but they also live in the real world. They understand the compromise a modern hardcore band must make to pull off shows to their high standard, while also staying in the black, so for a few years Kurt has turned to the Line 6 Helix. He says it gives him a consistent, reliable sound each night that can be stored as a carry-on. Another perk is that his setup is in a stereo configuration, and the Helix’s direct-out function allows him to run front-of-house a stereo signal without having to worry about miking cabs (and possible phasing issues) that inevitably happen when mics and cabs get bumped and moved during Converge’s chaotic performances.
For these “Converge Classic”** headlining shows, Ballou operates the Helix in stompbox mode with a “Kvrt Preset V6.” Some of the pieces of the puzzle include a Centaur-style distortion, two separate noise gates, a Tycoctavia Fuzz, a Dual Pitch setting, Ping Pong (turning on stereo delay and reverb at the same time), and a Searchlights reverb patch. All of these are engaged and omitted by Ballou as if they were pedals on a standard board. He does use a phase looper for the song “Eye of the Quarrel” that allows him to play both guitar parts featured on it. His amps are based on modelings chasing a Diezel (Das Benzin Mega) and PRS Archon.
Worth noting that Ballou's grievances on the Helix were addressed by Ben Adrian of Line 6. Here's what he had to say: The gripes Kurt had with the unit can be resolved by issuing an update a while back, the tuner got a "Trails on/off" control, which allows delay, reverb, and looper audio to pass when the tuner is engaged. Also, with an update, "Command Center" was implemented a while back.This allows almost any function to be assigned to any switch in stomp mode. This includes all the controls for the looper.
(**Converge did an album with Chelsea Wolfe in 2021 called Bloodmoon: I. That included the standard four-piece Converge lineup but then added Wolfe, Stephen Brodsky, and Ben Chisholm. They toured as a seven-piece band, then Ballou had his Helix in snapshot mode that had several changes and settings moved automatically by the unit. The band now jokingly refers to their regular quartet as “Converge Classic.”)
Mighty Minis
Rather than employ the Helix’s IR technology, Ballou runs out of the Helix to a pair of Quilter Overdrive 202 heads.
Cat Power
Those Quilters then power a couple of Bad Cat 4x12s filled with Celestion Vintage 30s, giving Kurt all the stage volume he can handle.
Meet Mr. Riffblaster
Nate Newton has been the Converge bassist since 1998, and has always stayed true to the Fender Precision bass. He was gifted this green P from Fender, and modded it by adding in his signature Lace Riffblaster that the company says utilizes “the power of ceramic magnets to create the perfect balance of extreme power and articulation.” He uses Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Bass strings and green D’Addario Duralin Precision picks (medium).
In the Stream of Caleb Scofield
Newton’s other main gig since 2018 has been filling the void of Cave In bassist Caleb Scofield who tragically passed away five years ago. To honor their fallen brother, Cave In has kept Scofield’s P in their gear collection for Newton to use on Cave In recordings and tours. He has it with him on the Converge tour because once their run ended, he met the Cave In crew out in Colorado for their tour behind 2022’s Heavy Pendulum. Newton put in a set of his Lace Riffblaster pickups and noted during the Rundown that “it’s the best-sounding P-Bass” he’s ever played, and, for what it means to play this bass in Scofield’s spot: “It’s a weird thing, especially playing the older songs and using this bass. In a twisted way, it kind of feels like hanging out with Caleb. It feels like he’s there with us, and it’s an honor to play this bass in that band. I cherish it.”
Slim and Husky
For years Newton has plugged into this Orange AD200B Mk3 that pumps out 200 watts, thanks to four KT88 power tubes. It runs into an old Ampeg 8x10 cabinet. A Quilter Bass Block 802 rides as a backup for Converge, but takes the spotlight when he plays with Cave In.
Nate Newton's Pedalboard
The condensed stompbox station still shifts tectonic plates, in large part because of the Nunez Tetra-Fet Drive always being on with Converge. It takes the AD200 from a rumbler to molten-lava erupter. Both the Dunlop CBM105Q Cry Baby Bass Mini Wah and DOD Rubberneck Analog Delay are rarely used with Converge, but both get plenty of usage for Cave In sets. The Shift-Line A+ CabZone Bass sends the signal to front-of-house and offers 10 power amp emulations for additional shaping. The TC Electronic PolyTune keeps his Ps in check, and everything rides tight and tidy on a Pedaltrain Nano+ platform.
Shop Converge's Rig
- Quilter Labs Overdrive 202 200-watt Head
- Line 6 Helix Guitar Multi-effects Floor Processor
- Fender American Professional II Precision Bass V
- Orange AD200B MK 3 200-watt Bass Head
- DOD Rubberneck Analog Delay Pedal with Tap Tempo
- Dunlop CBM105Q Cry Baby Mini Bass Wah Pedal
- TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Polyphonic LED Guitar Tuner Pedal with Buffer
The Toronto bassist talks inspiration and influence.
One of my favorite bassists is also the one person on earth that I have the most bass gigs in common with. He has played in more bands that I have also played in than anybody else, and most of these bands—from Dapp Theory to Rudresh Mahanthappa to Steve Coleman—were not easy situations to step into. However, in every single case, I have listened to him and thought, “Damn … he sounds great!”
Rich Brown is an all-around bass virtuoso who is everybody's first call across the Canadian border. I had the great honor of chatting with Rich recently. This interview features excerpts from that conversation:
When did you first start playing music, and in particular, when and why did you take up the bass?
I took guitar lessons when I was around eight, and I dreaded going to those lessons every single week. But my dear mom urged me to keep at it. She would make me practice for 15 minutes before I could go outside and play with the other kids.
My interest in the guitar waned until one day at the age of 13 when I turned the TV on and saw a video on MTV called "Unchained" by Van Halen. When I saw how much fun those guys were having on stage and realized how good the music made me feel, I knew I wanted to be a musician.
I taught myself to play by listening to Van Halen, Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Mark Knopfler. But years later, in high school, I found that there were a million guitar players and zero bass players. So I made the switch thinking, “How hard can it be to play bass?” The answer was, VERY!
I started by playing along with albums by the Police, and I would spend my days playing along to the songs on the radio, most of which were simple pop tunes. One night when I was 17, I tuned into a jazz program that had announced that a bass player named Jaco Pastorius had just died. I had never heard of Jaco, and the two hours that followed completely changed my life. The first song they played was “Continuum,” and by the end, I realized there was a higher level of musicality on the bass. So, I made it my mission to get to that level, and to this day, I'm still on that mission.We are all the sum of our influences. I've found that learning from as many sources as possible makes me a more multifaceted player.
Jaco has been a common denominator for many bass interviews! Almost everybody has had a Jaco moment. However, you don't just sound like Jaco. What are some experiences that contributed to you developing your own sound?
One of my first important musical experiences was playing in a Rush cover band in high school. I had so much fun working with those different rhythmic cycles. It was my introduction into playing so-called "odd-time" signatures. But I live in Toronto. A city that the UN once recognized as the most multicultural city in the world. I've been blessed with many incredible opportunities to work with amazing musicians from disparate parts of the globe. Over the years, these experiences helped to shape my sound and broaden my perspective as a bass player.
One of the most formative experiences has to be my time with Dapp Theory, led by pianist and composer Andy Milne. I was very inexperienced when I joined, and I learned a lot about my tone and the various bass sounds required to play that music. I had to get a good slap tone together and a solid, well-defined bass tone with enough warmth in the high register for melodic solos. Just having those three sounds available to me on one instrument allowed me to feel comfortable within any project.
How did all that exposure prepare you for some of the musical situations that you play in today?
I feel like certain aspects of my playing have truly benefited from working with musicians of different cultural backgrounds. I got into bands that played a lot of Brazilian and West African music back in the ’90s. Playing with those projects taught me a great deal about time, groove, note placement, and note length. I also worked with bands that played Egyptian, Turkish, and South Asian music. With those groups, I learned a lot about melody and note ornamentation. There are beautiful melodic inflections unique to each of those cultures that floor me to this day. These inflections are subtle but deeply effective, and I try to learn and incorporate them as much as I can.
We are all the sum of our influences. I've found that learning from as many sources as possible makes me a more multifaceted player. Gaining a deeper understanding of the different styles around the world gives me some new insights into my approach to all forms of Western music.
YouTube It
There’s a wealth of content on Rich’s YouTube page, but his cover of Floating Points and Pharaoh Sanders’ “Promises” on an 18" bass might be the most eye-catching.