When Brandon Hagen broke his arm a few years ago, his life changed in an instant. He’d been fronting Boston indie rock outfit Vundabar since 2013, and suddenly, he was unable to do the things he’d built his life around. Recovery came, in part, in the form of a custom guitar prototype built by Mike Baranik of Baranik Guitars. Hagen deconstructed and rehabilitated his relationship to the 6-string on that instrument, an experience that led to Vundabar’s sixth LP, Surgery and Pleasure, released on March 7.
On tour supporting the record, the band appeared at Grimey’s in Nashville for a performance on March 11, and PG’s Chris Kies caught up with Hagen to hear about his journey and learn what tools the guitarist has brought on the road. As Hagen tells it, his setup is less about expertise and received wisdom, and more about “intuitive baby mode”—going with what feels and sounds good in the moment.
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An A1 B4
Hagen’s No. 1 is this Baranik B4, a custom job that he received two days before leaving for tour. Hagen’s arm was broken when Vundabar was playing a festival in California a couple years ago, and Baranik, a fan of the band, stopped in to see them. He offered to send a custom prototype to Hagen—who was new to the field of boutique guitars—and the B4 was born, borrowing from the Baranik B3 design used for Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson and the Hofner 176 played by Jamie Hince of the Kills. The guitar helped Hagen fall back in love with guitar as his arm healed.
Hagen was searching for Strat-style clarity and jangle but with a hotter sound, so Baranik put in Lindy Fralin P-90s in the neck and bridge positions, plus a sliding, unpotted gold-foil pickup in the middle, wound by Baranik himself. A wheel control on the lower bout beside the traditional pickup selector switch lets Hagen blend the pickup signals without outright switching them on or off. Along with traditional master volume and tone controls, the red button beside the bridge activates a Klon clone pedal built into the back of the guitar. Hagen used a Klon on every track on the new Vundabar record, so it made sense to have one at his fingertips, letting him step away from the pedalboard and still create dramatic dynamic differences.
Hagen uses Ernie Ball Slinky strings (.011s), a step up from the .10s he used to use; he was chasing some more low end and low mids in his sound. His guitars stay in standard tuning.
Jazz From Japan
Hagen also loves this 2009 Japan-made Fender Jazzmaster ’62 Reissue JM66, which splits the difference between classic Fender chime and a darker, heavier tone.
Blending Fenders
Hagen’s signal gets sent to both a Fender Hot Rod Deville and a Blues Junior. He likes to crank the Junior’s single 12" speaker for a nastier midrange.
Brandon Hagen's Board
Hagen runs from his guitar into a JHS Colour Box, which adds a bit of dirt and can be used to attenuate high or low frequencies depending on which room Vundabar is playing. From there, the signal hits a Keeley Compressor, EHX 2020 Tuner, EHX Pitch Fork, EHX Micro POG (which is always on with subtle octaves up and down to beef things up), Boss Blues Driver, Way Huge Swollen Pickle, MXR Carbon Copy (which is also always on), and a Boss DD-7—Hagen loves the sound of stacked delays.
Price unveiled her new band and her new signature model at a recent performance at the Gibson Garage in Nashville.
The 6-string was inspired by the J-45 she bought at Nashville’s Carter Vintage Guitars after she was signed to Third Man Records, where she made her 2016 ice-breaker album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. But her affection for Gibson acoustics predates that, going back to when she found a 1956 LG-3 in her grandmother’s home. The guitar had been abandoned there by her songwriter great uncle, Bobby Fischer.
“I played it for years before I found my J-45,” Price recounts. “At Carter Vintage, I tried a lot of guitars, but when I picked up that J-45, I loved that it was a smaller guitar but really cut through, and I was just really drawn to the sound of it. And so I went home with that guitar and I’ve been playing it ever since.”
“Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about.”
Of course, Price was also aware of the model’s history, but her demands for a guitar were rooted in the present—the requirements of the studio and road. The 1965 J-45 she acquired at Carter Vintage, which is also a cherry ’burst, was especially appealing “compared to a Martin D-21 or some of the other things that I was picking up. I have pretty small hands, and it just was so playable all up the neck. It was something that I could easily play barre chords on. I could immediately get everything that I needed out of it.”
If you’ve seen Price on TV, including stops at Saturday Night Live, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, you’ve seen her ’65. And you’ve also seen, over the years, that part of the soundhole’s top has been scraped away by her aggressive strumming. It’s experienced worse wear from an airline, though. After one unfortunate flight, Price found her guitar practically in splinters inside a badly crushed case. “It was like somebody would have had to drive over this case with a truck,” she relates. Luckily, Dave Johnson from Nashville’s Scale Model Guitars was able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
After that, an alternative guitar for the road seemed like a requirement. “Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about,” Price says. Friends in her songwriting circle, including Lukas Nelson and Nathaniel Rateliff, already had them. Four years ago, a tweet asking which women they thought should have signature models appeared, and one of her fans wrote “Margo Price.” Smartly, Price tagged Gibson and retweeted. Codey Allen in Gibson entertainment relations spotted the tweet and agreed.
The double pickguard was chosen for Price’s J-45 because of its symmetry, as a nod to the Hummingbird, and due to her heavy strumming hand.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
“The neck is not quite as small as my J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s fives, and very playable no matter what size hands you have.”
“And so we began our journey of building this guitar,” Price says. “I debated whether it should be the LG-3, which I still have hanging on my wall, or the J-45. I went to Montana and visited their [acoustic] factory and sat down with Robi Johns [senior product development manager at Gibson acoustic], and we ultimately decided that the J-45 was my guitar. Then we started talking about the specs. We did pull from the LG-3 in that the body of this signature guitar is a bit smaller. It still has a really loud, clear sound that rings through. The neck is not quite as small as my 1965 J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s, and very playable no matter what size hands that you have.”
The pickup that Price selected is a L.R. Baggs VTC Element with a preamp, and she took a prototype of the guitar on the road opening for the Tedeschi Trucks Band. “I am used to playing with a really loud band, with drums and sometimes a couple electric guitars, and I wanted to make sure that this guitar just cut through,” she says. “It was really important to me that it be loud, and it cut beautifully. It’s got a mahogany body and scalloped bracing, which makes it very sturdy. This guitar is a workhorse, just like me.”
The Margo Price J-45’s most arresting characteristic, in addition to its warm sunburst finish, is its double-sided pickguard with an etching of a quartet of red-tailed hawks in flight. It’s practical for her strumming style, but it’s also got a deeper significance.
“We talked about all sorts of things that we could put on the pickguard, and I’ve always been a big fan of the Hummingbird, so what we did is a bit of a nod to that,” Price continues. “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks. They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection. I would always count them along the highway as I’d be driving home to see my family in Illinois.”
Birds of a feather: “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks,” says Price. “They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection.”
Photo courtesy of Gibson
With its comfortable neck, slightly thinner body, and serious projection, Price notes, “I wanted my guitar to be something that young girls can pick up and feel comfortable in their hands and inspire songs, but I didn’t want it to be so small that it felt like a toy, and that it didn’t have the volume. This guitar has all of those things.” To get her heavy sound, Price uses D’Addario Phosphor Bronze (.012–.053) strings.
Price says she and her signature J-45, which is street priced at $3,999, have been in the studio a lot lately, “and I have a whole bunch of things I’m excited about.” In mid March, she debuted her new band—which includes Logan Ledger and Sean Thompson on guitars, bassist Alec Newman, Libby Weitnauer on fiddle, and Chris Gelb on drums—in a coming out party for the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 at the Gibson Garage in Nashville. “I’ve been with my previous band, the Price Tags, for more than 10 years, and it’s definitely emotional when a band reaches the end of its life cycle,” she says. “But it’s also really exciting, because now, having a fiddle in the band and incredible harmony singers … it’s a completely different vibe. I’ve got a whole bunch of festivals coming up this year. We’re playing Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and I’m so excited for everyone to hear this new iteration of what we’re doing.”
With its heritage cherry sunburst finish and other appointments, the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 balances classic and modern guitar design.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
