Goose, from left: Trevor Weeks, Peter Anspach, Rick Mitarotonda, Jeff Arevalo (standing), and Ben Atkind (seated).
“What I love the most about it is the magic and the lore,” says Rick Mitarotonda, discussing his passion for jamming. “It’s a rabbit hole, and you can go as deep as you want. And you never really reach the end of it. It speaks to that magical dream quality, the way the shows travel to these different places.”
As guitarist and vocalist for Goose, Mitarotonda has spent his time in the improvisational trenches. Founded in 2014 in Norwalk, Connecticut, the band—which also includes guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Peter Anspach, bassist Trevor Weeks, drummer Ben Atkind, and percussionist Jeff Arevalo—has ascended in the jam-band scene. Like other groups in the genre, the quintet has built their following on their performances, where they dive deep into improvisational jams. In 2019, they got their first taste of widespread success, when the video of their set at the Peach Music Festival in Scranton, Pennsylvania, racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
Goose - Dripfield (Official Music Video)
“The thing about this genre is you don’t bat a thousand, whatsoever,” Mitarotonda continues. “It’s not feasible. You can’t be ‘on’ every night when you’re improvising in a very intense and constant way. But when it’s there, when the magic strikes, there’s nothing like it.”
On their third full-length studio album, Dripfield, Goose channel their vibrant live energy and transforms it into a new iteration of their sound. This time around, they headed into the studio with exploratory ears to collaborate with producer D. James Goodwin, whose influence largely shaped the sonics of the record.
“We wanted to find a producer who was on the same wavelength, but also was going to take our music to a different place sonically.” —Peter Anspach
Dripfield is addictive. The band’s stellar musicianship, infectious enthusiasm, and songwriting, which bursts with funk but is woven together with indie rock threads, form a joyous syzygy that demands repetition. The title track sets a cosmic stage, with an arpeggiated synthesizer backed by a simple, powerful drum pattern, which leads into a sweeping, reverb-laden vocal. “Arrow” shifts seamlessly between a pumping, horn-driven groove and softer, atmospheric passages, while “Moonrise” takes on a more traditional acoustic-ballad format. The album radiates influences from across the more creative ends of rock, including My Morning Jacket, the Grateful Dead, Fleet Foxes, and a bit of Pink Floyd. But mixed with the band’s improvisational language, it becomes a sound all their own.
In the wake of the release of their 2021 studio album, Shenanigans Nite Club, the band was feeling a bit drained. The production process had been long, taking several years to complete. Despite how it captures the band’s live dynamic, there was a lot that went into it behind the scenes to achieve that effect. “Shenanigans is very much a jam-band record,” says Mitarotonda. “But there’s a real irony to that record, in that I spent an absurd amount of hours editing and tinkering with it.”
For Dripfield, Goose called on producer D. James Goodwin to help them approach the studio with fresh ears. “I think he was actively trying to subvert the typical jam-band song,” says Mitarotonda.
Understandably, Goose was ready to find a new approach for their next album. As Anspach shares, they were thinking that collaborating with a producer might be the solution. “I was watching that Taylor Swift documentary [Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions] where she worked on those folkier albums, and you see the collaborations going on in the studio that allowed her to get to that place,” Anspach says. “There’s a lot of interesting parallels there between a lot of our favorite albums. We wanted to find a producer who was on the same wavelength, but also was going to take our music to a different place sonically.”
After talking to a few different producers, Goose connected with D. James Goodwin, whose credits include Bob Weir, Devo, Kaki King, and Murder by Death. Creative trust was established almost immediately. “The first conversation we had with Dan, I was like, ‘Oh, this is the guy,’” says Mitarotonda. “I was very much at a point where I felt like I didn’t have the right ideas to break us out of the box. You establish a box and then you become claustrophobic in it. And he was the right person to basically light the box on fire in the studio.”
Rick Mitarotonda’s Gear
Rick Mitarotonda, seen here with his PRS Hollowbody II Piezo, feels like the band has become the organic rock improvisational ensemble he’s long aspired for them to be. “When the downbeat of a new phrase is approaching,” he says, “I can cue, without looking at anyone, if I want it to resolve or not. It’s fun stuff.”
Guitars
- PRS Hollowbody II Piezo
- Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster
Amplifier
- Mesa/Boogie Express 5:50 50-watt 2x12 combo
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.010 sets)
- Dawg Mandolin Pick by David Grisman
Effects
TC Helicon Play Electric vocal and guitar effects processor
TC Electronic PolyTune
Dunlop Cry Baby
DigiTech Whammy 5
Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV
Strymon OB.1 Compressor
Love Pedal Eternity overdrive
MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe
Strymon Deco Tape Saturation & Doubletracker
MXR Analog Chorus
Strymon El Capistan
Strymon TimeLine
Strymon NightSky
Strymon Flint
TC Electronic Ditto X4 Looper
“We went back and forth with him, sending him a bunch of live recordings of the songs,” Anspach elaborates. “As he was going through, he was telling us, ‘I see a way into that song,’ or, ‘I don’t really see a way into this one.’ He was looking at it through the lens of, ‘How can I reconceptualize this song and put it in an interesting style that would take it to a new place.’ He ended up coming back like, ‘This is what the strongest 10 songs are; this should be an album.’”
Once they hit the studio, the band took a new approach to much of that material, experimenting with new arrangements and instrumentation under Goodwin’s guidance. “He had a lot of ideas about just crafting the things and pushing them in different directions,” says Mitarotonda, “which was really exciting for us.”
One song that went through a significant shift is the seven-minute blues-funk jammer “Hot Tea.” “When we play it live, it’s fast, disco funk. And he was like, ‘I can’t listen to that for eight minutes straight. I just can’t do it. We have to slow it down,’” says Anspach, laughing. “But we had an open mind. And as soon as we heard the drum sounds coming through, we were like, ‘Yeah, this is legit.’
Rig Rundown: Goose's Peter Anspach and Rick Mitarotonda
Goose tracked the song, then did a full-band overdub on top “doing different things. At one point he [Goodwin] was like, ‘Everybody play this rhythm,’” Anspach describes, clapping out the idea. “We played it through the whole track on our different instruments, and then he kept the clavichord and a cowbell for various parts and got rid of the rest.”
“I think he was actively trying to subvert the typical jam-band song,” adds Mitarotonda. “If you listen to the way we play ‘Arrow’ live—and we still do play it live that way because it works, it’s fun—it sounds like a jam-band song. And he heard that song for the first time, and I think all he heard was its clothes. He wasn’t interested in it at first, and then he listened to it more, and then I guess heard the song within the clothes and became interested in it. There’s that section in 7/4, and he had the idea of pursuing the Afrobeat, horn-driven thing. Dripfield doesn’t sound like a jam-band record—it’s not like what we do live. But at the same time, there was a lot of improvising in the studio in a different way, which was a lot of fun.”
“You can’t be ‘on’ every night when you’re improvising in a very intense and constant way.” —Rick Mitarotonda
Both guitarists take different approaches to their gear, and particularly how they apply effects. Mitarotonda plays his PRS Hollowbody II Piezo through a Mesa/Boogie Express 5:50 50-watt 2x12 combo and two pedalboards, but says, “Often I don’t have a lot of patience for gear. I see the effects almost as a way to open up new doors improvising, but sometimes it feels like a crutch. Sometimes [during a jam], when I feel like I’m hitting a wall, I’m like, ‘Kick on an effect; maybe that’ll juice things up.’ Then I think, ‘No, figure it out. Keep trying to find something that is unique musically instead of just falling back on effects because you can.
“But that’s not exclusively true,” he acknowledges. “It’s a different means of exploration than just searching for things musically. It makes me think of Radiohead, where so much of what makes up the substance of that band is sonics: searching and discovering strange instruments and sounds and crafting songs around that, as opposed to songs being driven purely by melody and harmony and lyrics. I see them as different pursuits.”
Peter Anspach’s Gear
Goose goes big! Ever since 2019’s Peach Festival, the band has found itself in a much larger spotlight. “It’s something to get used to,” says guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Peter Anspach.
Photo by Adam Berta
Guitars
- Suhr Mateus Asato Signature Classic
- Fender American Vintage ’62 StratocasterCustom T-style thinline built by Goose percussionist Jeff Arevalo
Amplifiers
- Fender ’64 Custom Deluxe Reverb
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.010 sets)
- D’Addario 1mm (medium/heavy)
Effects
- TC Electronic PolyTune 2
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- Keeley Compressor Plus
- Chase Bliss Mood
- Moog Moogerfooger MF-101
- Electro-Harmonix Small Stone
- Ibanez TS9 w/Analog Man mod
- Analog Man King of Tone
- Chase Bliss Tonal Recall
- Strymon TimeLine
- Strymon Flint
- Chase Bliss Dark World
Anspach, who plays a Suhr Mateus Asato Signature Classic with a humbucker bridge pickup through a Fender ’64 Custom Deluxe Reverb, has a different take on effects. “I try to keep my pedalboard as consolidated as possible. But I think I have 10 or 11 stompboxes,” he explains. “Since I got into Tame Impala early on, I’ve had way more effects on my board in the past than I do now,” he elaborates. “But I love delay. I’ve written songs where delay is part of the main riff. Without the delay there, there is no song. Effects are definitely important to my sound.”
While each guitarist fills his board with options, neither is overly lavish about their effects, which may help them stay focused on what seems to matter most: being responsive, sensitive collaborators. And over their eight years as a band, Goose have gotten so used to playing with one another that they can communicate through musical cues alone. “One of the coolest parts about this, just from doing it for a bunch of years, is how many things are communicated when we’re improvising without any sort of visual cue at all,” Mitarotonda shares. “The whole tension and release thing is something I’ve wanted for years to figure out. And now it’s really pretty easy: When the downbeat of a new phrase is approaching, I can cue, without looking at anyone, if I want it to resolve or not. It’s fun stuff.”
“I think he was actively trying to subvert the typical jam-band song.” —Rick Mitarotonda
The best jamming, arguably, happens when the performers are taking risks. Inevitably, however, that involves making mistakes—so what do you do when you play a phrase you’re not happy with? “Be like a goldfish,” says Anspach, laughing. “I have been thinking a lot about this recently. If you mess up and you get in your head about it, you end up affecting the rest of your performance. But if people in the crowd are having a great time, and you look out and you realize this is a really special moment for them, you get over [your mistakes] pretty fast.”
Although it’s been a few years since the famous Peach Music Festival video launched Goose into a bigger spotlight, the fame that the guitarists have been experiencing is still fresh, and they agree that it can be existentially jarring. “It’s something to get used to,” says Anspach. “Relationships change with other people in your life, and that’s weird. It’s something I’ve been dealing a lot with recently. It’s incredible and I wouldn’t change it for anything, but life is different. People look at you a different way and you’re a different person to them, but you’re the same person to yourself.”
The band’s close dynamic makes a massive difference in coping with those stresses. As Anspach shares, “It definitely helps everything off-stage, dealing with life and whatever else, when you have this brotherhood of people who are able to get on the same page in a musical way. Everything else in life becomes a little bit easier. I can handle anything at that point.”
Goose - Hot Tea - 11/19/21 Aspen, CO
Seen here in Colorado, Goose perform “Hot Tea” in its upbeat disco-funk live form, which underwent significant arrangement changes for its appearance on Dripfield.
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Keith Urban’s first instrument was a ukulele at age 4. When he started learning guitar two years later, he complained that it made his fingers hurt. Eventually, he came around. As did the world.
He’s in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s won 13 Country Music Association Awards, nine CMT video awards, eight ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Awards, four American Music Awards, and racked up BMI Country Awards for 25 different singles.
He’s been a judge on American Idol and The Voice. In conjunction with Yamaha, he has his own brand of affordably priced Urban guitars and amps, and he has posted beginner guitar lessons on YouTube. His 2014 Academy of Country Music Award-winning video for “Highways Don’t Care” featured Tim McGraw and Keith’s former opening act, Taylor Swift. Add his marriage to fellow Aussie, the actress Nicole Kidman, and he’s seen enough red carpet to cover a football field.
Significantly, his four Grammys were all for Country Male Vocal Performance. A constant refrain among newcomers is, “and he’s a really good guitar player,” as if by surprise or an afterthought. Especially onstage, his chops are in full force. There are country elements, to be sure, but rock, blues, and pop influences like Mark Knopfler are front and center.
Unafraid to push the envelope, 2020’s The Speed of Now Part 1 mixed drum machines, processed vocals, and a duet with Pink with his “ganjo”—an instrument constructed of a 6-string guitar neck on a banjo body—and even a didgeridoo. It, too, shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart and climbed to No. 7 on the Pop chart.
His new release, High, is more down-to-earth, but is not without a few wrinkles. He employs an EBow on “Messed Up As Me” and, on “Wildfire,” makes use of a sequencerreminiscent of ZZ Top’s “Legs.” Background vocals in “Straight Lines” imitate a horn section, and this time out he duets on “Go Home W U” with rising country star Lainey Wilson. The video for “Heart Like a Hometown” is full of home movies and family photos of a young Urban dwarfed by even a 3/4-size Suzuki nylon-string.
Born Keith Urbahn (his surname’s original spelling) in New Zealand, his family moved to Queensland, Australia, when he was 2. He took up guitar at 6, two years after receiving his beloved ukulele. He released his self-titled debut album in 1991 for the Australian-only market, and moved to Nashville two years later. It wasn’t until ’97 that he put out a group effort, fronting the Ranch, and another self-titled album marked his American debut as a leader, in ’99. It eventually went platinum—a pattern that’s become almost routine.
The 57-year-old’s celebrity and wealth were hard-earned and certainly a far cry from his humble beginnings. “Australia is a very working-class country, certainly when I was growing up, and I definitely come from working-class parents,” he details. “My dad loved all the American country artists, like Johnny Cash, Haggard, Waylon. He didn’t play professionally, but before he got married he played drums in a band, and my grandfather and uncles all played instruments.
One of Urban’s biggest influences as a young guitar player was Mark Knopfler, but he was also mesmerized by lesser-known session musicians such as Albert Lee, Ian Bairnson, Reggie Young, and Ray Flacke. Here, he’s playing a 1950 Broadcaster once owned by Waylon Jennings that was a gift from Nicole Kidman, his wife.
“For me, it was a mix of that and Top 40 radio, which at the time was much more diverse than it is now. You would just hear way more genres, and Australia itself had its own, what they call Aussie pub rock—very blue-collar, hard-driving music for the testosterone-fueled teenager. Grimy, sweaty, kind of raw themes.”
A memorable event happened when he was 7. “My dad got tickets for the whole family to see Johnny Cash. He even bought us little Western shirts and bolo ties. It was amazing.”
But the ukulele he was gifted a few years earlier, at the age of 4, became a constant companion. “I think to some degree it was my version of the stuffed animal, something that was mine, and I felt safe with it. My dad said I would strum it in time to all the songs on the radio, and he told my mom, ‘He’s got rhythm. I wonder what a good age is for him to learn chords.’ My mom and dad ran a little corner store, and a lady named Sue McCarthy asked if she could put an ad in the window offering guitar lessons. They said, ‘If you teach our kid for free, we’ll put your ad in the window.’”
Yet, guitar didn’t come without problems. “With the guitar, my fingers hurt like hell,” he laughs, “and I started conveniently leaving the house whenever the guitar teacher would show up. Typical kid. I don’t wanna learn, I just wanna be able to do it. It didn’t feel like any fun. My dad called me in and went, ‘What the hell? The teacher comes here for lessons. What’s the problem?’ I said I didn’t want to do it anymore. He just said, ‘Okay, then don’t do it.’ Kind of reverse psychology, right? So I just stayed with it and persevered. Once I learned a few chords, it was the same feeling when any of us learn how to be moving on a bike with two wheels and nobody holding us up. That’s what those first chords felt like in my hands.”
Keith Urban's Gear
Urban has 13 Country Music Association Awards, nine CMT video awards, eight ARIA Awards, and four Grammys to his name—the last of which are all for Best Country Male Vocal Performance.
Guitars
For touring:
- Maton Diesel Special
- Maton EBG808TE Tommy Emmanuel Signature
- 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior, TV yellow
- 1959 Gibson ES-345 (with Varitone turned into a master volume)
- Fender 40th Anniversary Tele, “Clarence”
- Two first-generation Fender Eric Clapton Stratocasters (One is black with DiMarzio Area ’67 pickups, standard tuning. The other is pewter gray, loaded with Fralin “real ’54” pickups, tuned down a half-step.)
- John Bolin Telecaster (has a Babicz bridge with a single humbucker and a single volume control. Standard tuning.)
- PRS Paul’s Guitar (with two of their narrowfield humbuckers. Standard tuning.)
- Yamaha Keith Urban Acoustic Guitar (with EMG ACS soundhole pickups)
- Deering “ganjo”
Amps
- Mid-’60s black-panel Fender Showman (modified by Chris Miller, with oversized transformers to power 6550 tubes; 130 watts)
- 100-watt Dumble Overdrive Special (built with reverb included)
- Two Pacific Woodworks 1x12 ported cabinets (Both are loaded with EV BlackLabel Zakk Wylde signature speakers and can handle 300 watts each.)
Effects
- Two Boss SD-1W Waza Craft Super Overdrives with different settings
- Mr. Black SuperMoon Chrome
- FXengineering RAF Mirage Compressor
- Ibanez TS9 with Tamura Mod
- Boss BD-2 Blues Driver
- J. Rockett Audio .45 Caliber Overdrive
- Pro Co RAT 2
- Radial Engineering JX44 (for guitar distribution)
- Fractal Audio Axe-Fx XL+ (for acoustic guitars)
- Two Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III (one for electric guitar, one for bass)
- Bricasti Design Model 7 Stereo Reverb Processor
- RJM Effect Gizmo (for pedal loops)
(Note: All delays, reverb, chorus, etc. is done post amp. The signal is captured with microphones first then processed by Axe-Fx and other gear.)
- Shure Axient Digital Wireless Microphone System
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.011–.049; electric)
- D’Addario EJ16 (.012–.053; acoustics)
- D’Addario EJ16, for ganjo (.012–.053; much thicker than a typical banjo strings)
- D’Addario 1.0 mm signature picks
He vividly remembers the first song he was able to play after “corny songs like ‘Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.’” He recalls, “There was a song I loved by the Stylistics, ‘You Make Me Feel Brand New.’ My guitar teacher brought in the sheet music, so not only did I have the words, but above them were the chords. I strummed the first chord, and went, [sings E to Am] ‘My love,’ and then minor, ‘I'll never find the words, my,’ back to the original chord, ‘love.’ Even now, I get covered in chills thinking what it felt like to sing and put that chord sequence together.”
After the nylon-string Suzuki, he got his first electric at 9. “It was an Ibanez copy of a Telecaster Custom—the classic dark walnut with the mother-of-pearl pickguard. My first Fender was a Stratocaster. I wanted one so badly. I’d just discovered Mark Knopfler, and I only wanted a red Strat, because that’s what Knopfler had. And he had a red Strat because of Hank Marvin. All roads lead to Hank!”
He clarifies, “Remember a short-lived run of guitar that Fender did around 1980–’81, simply called ‘the Strat’? I got talked into buying one of those, and the thing weighed a ton. Ridiculously heavy. But I was just smitten when it arrived. ‘Sultans of Swing’ was the first thing I played on it. ‘Oh my god! I sound a bit like Mark.’”
“Messed Up As Me” has some licks reminiscent of Knopfler. “I think he influenced a huge amount of my fingerpicking and melodic choices. I devoured those records more than any other guitar player. ‘Tunnel of Love,’ ‘Love over Gold,’ ‘Telegraph Road,’ the first Dire Straits album, and Communique. I was spellbound by Mark’s touch, tone, and melodic choice every time.”
Other influences are more obscure. “There were lots of session guitar players whose solos I was loving, but had no clue who they were,” he explains. “A good example was Ian Bairnson in the Scottish band Pilot and the Alan Parsons Project. It was only in the last handful of years that I stumbled upon him and did a deep dive, and realized he played the solo on ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush, ‘Eye in the Sky’ by Alan Parsons, ‘It’s Magic’ and ‘January’ by Pilot’—all these songs that spoke to me growing up. I also feel like a lot of local-band guitar players are inspirations—they certainly were to me. They didn’t have a name, the band wasn’t famous, but when you’re 12 or 13, watching Barry Clough and guys in cover bands, it’s, ‘Man, I wish I could play like that.’”
On High, Urban keeps things song-oriented, playing short and economical solos.
In terms of country guitarists, he nods, “Again, a lot of session players whose names I didn’t know, like Reggie Young. The first names I think would be Albert Lee and Ray Flacke, whose chicken pickin’ stuff on the Ricky Skaggs records became a big influence. ‘How is he doing that?’”
Flacke played a role in a humorous juxtaposition. “I camped out to see Iron Maiden,” Urban recounts. “They’d just put out Number of the Beast, and I was a big fan. I was 15, so my hormones were raging. I’d been playing country since I was 6, 7, 8 years old. But this new heavy-metal thing is totally speaking to me. So I joined a heavy metal band called Fractured Mirror, just as their guitar player. At the same time, I also discovered Ricky Skaggs and Highways and Heartaches. What is this chicken pickin’ thing? One night I was in the metal band, doing a Judas Priest song or Saxon. They threw me a solo, and through my red Strat, plugged into a Marshall stack that belonged to the lead singer, I shredded this high-distortion, chicken pickin’ solo. The lead singer looked at me like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I got fired from the band.”
Although at 15 he “floated around different kinds of music and bands,” when he was 21 he saw John Mellencamp. “He’d just put out Lonesome Jubilee. I’d been in bands covering ‘Hurts So Good,' ‘Jack & Diane,’ and all the early shit. This record had fiddle and mandolin and acoustic guitars, wall of electrics, drums—the most amazing fusion of things. I saw that concert, and this epiphany happened so profoundly. I looked at the stage and thought, ‘Whoa! I get it. You take all your influences and make your own thing. That’s what John did. I’m not gonna think about genre; I’m gonna take all the things I love and find my way.’
“Of course, getting to Nashville with that recipe wasn’t going to fly in 1993,” he laughs. “Took me another seven-plus years to really start getting some traction in that town.”
Urban’s main amp today is a Dumble Overdrive Reverb, which used to belong to John Mayer. He also owns a bass amp that Alexander Dumble built for himself.
Photo by Jim Summaria
When it comes to “crossover” in country music, one thinks of Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, and Dolly Parton’s more commercial singles like “Two Doors Down.” Regarding the often polarizing subject and, indeed, what constitutes country music, it’s obvious that Urban has thought a lot—and probably been asked a lot—about the syndrome. The Speed of Now Part 1 blurs so many lines, it makes Shania Twain sound like Mother Maybelle Carter. Well, almost.
“I can’t speak for any other artists, but to me, it’s always organic,” he begins. “Anybody that’s ever seen me play live would notice that I cover a huge stylistic field of music, incorporating my influences, from country, Top 40, rock, pop, soft rock, bluegrass, real country. That’s how you get songs like ‘Kiss a Girl’—maybe more ’70s influence than anything else.”
“I think [Mark Knopfler] influenced a huge amount of my fingerpicking and melodic choices. I devoured those records more than any other guitar player.”
Citing ’50s producers Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley, who moved the genre from hillbilly to the more sophisticated countrypolitan, Keith argues, “In the history of country music, this is exactly the same as it has always been. Patsy Cline doing ‘Walking After Midnight’ or ‘Crazy’; it ain’t Bob Wills. It ain’t Hank Williams. It’s a new sound, drawing on pop elements. That’s the 1950s, and it has never changed. I’ve always seen country like a lung, that expands outwards because it embraces new sounds, new artists, new fusions, to find a bigger audience. Then it feels, ‘We’ve lost our way. Holy crap, I don’t even know who we are,’ and it shrinks back down again. Because a purist in the traditional sense comes along, whether it be Ricky Skaggs or Randy Travis. The only thing that I think has changed is there’s portals now for everything, which didn’t used to exist. There isn’t one central control area that would yell at everybody, ‘You’ve got to bring it back to the center.’ I don’t know that we have that center anymore.”
Stating his position regarding the current crop of talent, he reflects, “To someone who says, ‘That’s not country music,’ I always go, “‘It’s not your country music; it’s somebody else’s country music.’ I don’t believe anybody has a right to say something’s not anything. It’s been amazing watching this generation actually say, ‘Can we get back to a bit of purity? Can we get real guitars and real storytelling?’ So you’ve seen the explosion of Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers who are way purer than the previous generation of country music.”
Seen performing here in 2003, Urban is celebrated mostly for his songwriting, but is also an excellent guitarist.
Photo by Steve Trager/Frank White Photo Agency
As for the actual recording process, he notes, “This always shocks people, but ‘Chattahoochee’ by Alan Jackson is all drum machine. I write songs on acoustic guitar and drum machine, or drum machine and banjo. Of course, you go into the studio and replace that with a drummer. But my very first official single, in 1999, was ‘It’s a Love Thing,’ and it literally opens with a drum loop and an acoustic guitar riff. Then the drummer comes in. But the loop never goes away, and you hear it crystal clear. I haven’t changed much about that approach.”
On the road, Urban utilizes different electrics “almost always because of different pickups—single-coil, humbucker, P-90. And then one that’s tuned down a half-step for a few songs in half-keys. Tele, Strat, Les Paul, a couple of others for color. I’ve got a John Bolin guitar that I love—the feel of it. It’s a Tele design with just one PAF, one volume knob, no tone control. It’s very light, beautifully balanced—every string, every fret, all the way up the neck. It doesn’t have a lot of tonal character of its own, so it lets my fingers do the coloring. You can feel the fingerprints of Billy Gibbons on this guitar. It’s very Billy.”
“I looked at the stage and thought, ‘Whoa! I get it. You take all your influences and make your own thing. I’m gonna take all the things I love and find my way.’”
Addressing his role as the collector, “or acquirer,” as he says, some pieces have quite a history. “I haven’t gone out specifically thinking, ‘I’m missing this from the collection.’ I feel really lucky to have a couple of very special guitars. I got Waylon Jennings’ guitar in an auction. It was one he had all through the ’70s, wrapped in the leather and the whole thing. In the ’80s, he gave it to Reggie Young, who owned it for 25 years or so and eventually put it up for auction. My wife wanted to give it to me for my birthday. I was trying to bid on it, and she made sure that I couldn’t get registered! When it arrived, I discovered it’s a 1950 Broadcaster—which is insane. I had no idea. I just wanted it because I’m a massive Waylon fan, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that guitar disappearing overseas under somebody’s bed, when it should be played.
“I also have a 1951 Nocaster, which used to belong to Tom Keifer in Cinderella. It’s the best Telecaster I’ve ever played, hands down. It has the loudest, most ferocious pickup, and the wood is amazing.”
YouTube
Urban plays a Gibson SG here at the 2023 CMT Music Awards. Wait until the end to see him show off his shred abilities.
Other favorites include “a first-year Strat, ’54, that I love, and a ’58 goldtop. I also own a ’58 ’burst, but prefer the goldtop; it’s just a bit more spanky and lively. I feel abundantly blessed with the guitars I’ve been able to own and play. And I think every guitar should be played, literally. There’s no guitar that’s too precious to be played.”
Speaking of precious, there are also a few Dumble amps that elicit “oohs” and “aahs.” “Around 2008, John Mayer had a few of them, and he wanted to part with this particular Overdrive Special head. When he told me the price, I said, ‘That sounds ludicrous.’ He said, ‘How much is your most expensive guitar?’ It was three times the value of the amp. He said, ‘So that’s one guitar. What amp are you plugging all these expensive guitars into?’ I was like, ‘Sold. I guess when you look at it that way.’ It’s just glorious. It actually highlighted some limitations in some guitars I never noticed before.”
“It’s just glorious. It actually highlighted some limitations in some guitars I never noticed before.”
Keith also developed a relationship with the late Alexander Dumble. “We emailed back and forth, a lot of just life stuff and the beautifully eccentric stuff he was known for. His vocabulary was as interesting as his tubes and harmonic understanding. My one regret is that he invited me out to the ranch many times, and I was never able to go. Right now, my main amp is an Overdrive Reverb that also used to belong to John when he was doing the John Mayer Trio. I got it years later. And I have an Odyssey, which was Alexander’s personal bass amp that he built for himself. I sent all the details to him, and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s my amp.’”
The gearhead in Keith doesn’t even mind minutiae like picks and strings. “I’ve never held picks with the pointy bit hitting the string. I have custom picks that D’Addario makes for me. They have little grippy ridges like on Dunlops and Hercos, but I have that section just placed in one corner. I can use a little bit of it on the string, or I can flip it over. During the pandemic, I decided to go down a couple of string gauges. I was getting comfortable on .009s, and I thought, ‘Great. I’ve lightened up my playing.’ Then the very first gig, I was bending the crap out of them. So I went to .010s, except for a couple of guitars that are .011s.”
As with his best albums, High is song-oriented; thus, solos are short and economical. “Growing up, I listened to songs where the guitar was just in support of that song,” he reasons. “If the song needs a two-bar break, and then you want to hear the next vocal section, that’s what it needs. If it sounds like it needs a longer guitar section, then that’s what it needs. There’s even a track called ‘Love Is Hard’ that doesn’t have any solo. It’s the first thing I’ve ever recorded in my life where I literally don’t play one instrument. Eren Cannata co-wrote it [with Shane McAnally and Justin Tranter], and I really loved the demo with him playing all the instruments. I loved it so much I just went with his acoustic guitar. I’m that much in service of the song.”
The new AD200 is still designed on the premise that the best tone comes from the shortest signal path from bass to speaker. Whatever type of bass, playing style, or genre of music, the AD200 faithfully retains the tone of that instrument.
The addition of a new clean switch, in combination with a powerful three-band EQ, gives AD200 players an even broader frequency spectrum to dial into their amp. In addition, a brand new output transformer, with 3 inches of laminations, harnesses double the power at 30Hz, offering better response at low frequencies. ‘It now pushes more air, flaps more trouser leg — simple as that,’ explains Orange Amps Technical Director Ade Emsley. From mellow hues to heavy, percussive growl and even slap bass, the ultimate incarnation of the AD200, has just become even more versatile.
Internal changes make the amp easier to service and maintain. Each output valve now has its own 12 turn bias pot, so unmatched valves can sit side by side. ‘Now, any tech with a multimeter can bias the amp and match the valves into the amp,’ explains Emsley. ‘So, if you’re on the road with a band, you can go swap a worn valve for a new one, dial it in and you’re good to go.’ Whilst the four KT88 output valves push 200 Watts of power, the amp will run equally as well on 6550s or a combination of the two.
‘It’s a big improvement on the previous version,’ says Ade Emsley, of his work on the updated AD200. ‘It still does everything the old one does, it’s still the industry standard, but it’s now simpler, easier to use, easier to service and futureproof.’
The new, decluttered front panel design is reminiscent of the company’s iconic 1970’s amps with its original ‘bubble-writing’ Orange logo and the ‘pics-only’ hieroglyphs, all wrapped in the company’s distinctive orange Tolex covering.
Over the last forty years, the Orange Bass Cabinets have become an undeniable industry standard. They have been remodelled to use Celestion Pulse XL bass speakers across the OBC810C, OBC410HC, and OBC115C cabs. The upgrade delivers a tight, punchy low-end with a warm mid-range that’s full of presence. The premium build of these cabinets remains, delivering players, bands and techs the road-worthy dependability they demand. In addition, the popular OBC410HC has been modified by removing one vertical partition and strengthening the horizontal one to be lighter and tighten up low-end response.
For more information, please visit orangeamps.com.
