Although the Fogerty brothers share almost all of the guitar and studio gear they've acquired, they both have personal instruments. Tyler's is a Vox Starstream, while Shane, at right, favors his Rickenbacker 370.
From the Everly Brothers to the Beach Boys, sibling harmony is a well-documented phenomenon. The sound created by genetically similar voices resonates in such a special way that it can make even the most callous spine tingle. But what's it called when a pair of brothers tap into some kind of higher frequency that only close siblings can access in order to create a unified vision of guitar playing, songwriting, and production? Whatever it is, Shane and Tyler Fogerty—sons of John Fogerty—have dialed it in.
Under the name Hearty Har, the Fogertys work as a unit, complementing each other in all aspects of their music-making. On their debut album, Radio Astro, the brothers move between roles so seamlessly that it would be virtually impossible to know who is doing what on each of the 11 tracks without following along with the liner notes.
Radio Astro kicks off with the arpeggiated 12-string sparkle of "Radio Man '56," a tune so sunny it can provide your daily dose of vitamin D. The song is a straight-ahead rock 'n' roll jam with a bouncy but driving groove provided by bassist Marcus Högsta and drummer Will Van Santen. Fuzzy guitar leads poke through warm, jangly strumming, enveloped by modular synth bubbles that make the song a swirling sonic rainbow, bound to lift any mood.
If "Radio Man '56" is the brightest song on Radio Astro, closing track "Boogie Man" is the darkest. Its reverb-soaked riffage outlines a minor-key progression drenched with Mellotron and harpsichord pads that make it sound as if recorded by a gang of werewolves at midnight on Friday the 13th. There's so much to take in that it might be the fourth or fifth spin before you notice just how cool the guitar part is, but the detail-oriented listening required of these tunes is definitely part of the fun.
"We just ran off in every direction looking for stuff we liked, and, as it turns out, we like a lot of the stuff that our dad likes, too."—Tyler Fogerty
Elsewhere on the album, the Fogertys prove they've inherited the choogle from their dad, but they always manage to put their own spin on it. Each song seems to open a new bag of tricks and use them to their fullest potential, referencing everything from classic rock to dub and reggae to AM gold. And while the Fogertys used so much drool-worthy vintage gear that it's tempting to talk about the album's throwback vibe, the final product draws from so many eras that it could only exist in the modern one, when every sound and style is on the table.
It's no surprise that Shane and Tyler—29 and 28 years old, respectively—grew up surrounded by music. But while they play with their dad alongside their 19-year-old sister Kelsey as the humorously titled Fogerty's Factory, their formative years were not, in fact, a Creedence Clearwater Revival boot camp. Rather, the two brothers say John and their mom, Julie Fogerty, took a hands-off approach, allowing them to find their own way in music.
Shane Fogerty plays a 1964 Hoffner Galaxie—part of the brothers' collection, which also includes instruments by Gold Tone, Framus, Eastwood, Vox, Rickenbacker, and Fender.
Photo by Nikki Neumann
Shane says that his elementary school music teacher, Paul Cuneo, "left an impression at an early age that made us want to do music and planted one of the seeds." In sixth and seventh grade, the brothers started taking private piano lessons with Cuneo. After about a year or two studying piano, they got stoked about the guitar, so their parents took them to Guitar Center to pick out instruments. "Tyler was the first one who was interested, and he went and got a B.C. Rich, and I hated it," explains Shane, who picked out a blue Squier Strat.
Tyler sees something fundamental in their choice of guitars and adds, "Knowing nothing about guitars or anything, a B.C. Rich looks way different than anything else in Guitar Center, so I'm gonna go for that one. Now I play the Vox teardrop, so that's kind of the roots of that. It's just a strange-looking guitar."
TIDBIT: Building their own studio helped the Fogerty brothers define the sound of Radio Astro, which includes electric sitar, tanpura, and tubular bells.
The brothers made an earlier album they've now renounced and buried. "It turned out not how we wanted," says Tyler. "After that I was like, 'We gotta figure out a different way to do this. I know that we can do it on our own.'" Shane adds, "We decided, 'Let's try and [record] something ourselves. We really were interested in the recording process—using the studio like an instrument. That was how we transitioned out of the college band into what we are now."
They decided they needed to build a studio of their own, and Tyler cites his decision to buy a console as the tipping point. "One day, I found this console desk that was really massive, and I took a van down [to get it] and it was sticking out of the back with ropes and rusty nails, and everybody was like, 'Why are you getting that?' I was just disillusioned with playing in L.A. at the same places, and I thought, 'Something has to change; something has to be hyper-focused.' I feel like the only thing you can control is the music, so let's build the studio we want to build and be able to do all of the ideas we couldn't do last time. And over the course of five years, it happened."
Shane and Tyler Fogerty's Gear
Guitars
• 2011 Eastwood Sidejack Baritone
• 1966 Fender Stratocaster
• Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster
• 1967 Framus Atlantik Bass
• Gibson ES-335 Memphis
• Gold Tone Lap Steel
• 1973 Höfner 500/1 bass
• 1964 Höfner Galaxie
• 2012 Martin Custom Shop D-28
• 2007 Rickenbacker 370
• 1968 Vox Starstream VI
• 1968 Vox Starstream XII
Strings & Picks
• Various gauges from Ernie Ball, Pyramid, D'Addario, Martin
• Fender Medium/Light strings
• Dunlop Tortex .73 mm picks
Amps
• 1960s Ampeg B-15N
• Ampeg SR-212RT Super Rocket
• 1950s Califone Turntable Tube Amp
• 1960 Fender Concert
• Fender Deluxe Reverb
• 1962 Fender Vibrolux
• 1950s Gibson Clavioline Amplifier
• Hammond Leslie 3300
• 1960s Magnatone 260
• 1960s Silvertone 1484
• Orange AD30
Effects
• Binson Echorec 2 Super Special
• Fender Reverb Unit
• Fisher Spacexpander Tube Spring Reverb
• Gretsch Oil Can Reverb
• Ibanez Fuzz Machine
• Lovetone Cheese Source
• Maestro Echoplex EP-4
• Maestro PS-1A Phase Shifter
• Maestro Rhythm King
• Morley Power Wah
• Oberheim DX Drum Machine
• Univox Super-Fuzz
Like all developing musicians, the Fogertys went through various musical phases. After Shane and Tyler had been playing together in bands for years, Hearty Har began as a way for Tyler to perform some songs he'd written that were inspired by Leonard Cohen as well as the freak-folk scene they discovered while studying at CalArts. The original version of the band's instrumentation included charango, harmonium, and djembe, but they soon electrified, fully embracing rock 'n' roll. Vestiges of their initial wide-eyed aesthetic can still be heard on Radio Astro in their use of electric sitar, tanpura, and tubular bells.
The brothers started out playing riffs from Offspring and Green Day—Shane reminisces about John teaching him how to play "American Idiot"—but soon began digging into the classic-rock canon, and they cite a lot of their father's peers, such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. While John would help decode sounds on their favorite records, pointing out tidbits about guitar pedals and instruments, they studied with a guitar teacher at school and developed their tastes on their own. Tyler says, "When you let people discover it themselves, they get a deeper love for it, if they're gonna love it. We just ran off in every direction looking for stuff we liked, and, as it turns out, we like a lot of the stuff that our dad likes, too."
Tyler Fogerty digs into his Vox 12-string, one of his pair of favored teardrop guitars, but both brothers also have access to their father's collection of nearly 200 stringed instruments, from Les Pauls to resonators.
Photo by Steph Port
The brothers assembled a studio in a room in their parents' house and compiled a deep collection of gear. According to Shane, Tyler was "the main acquirer" and would endlessly seek out deals. They learned to use each piece they added via embarking on their own recordings as well as music for friends such as Guy Blakeslee and Franky Flowers, developing their skills and turning their studio into a well-oiled machine.
"I think it started with keyboards," says Tyler. "There's a lot of records I really like that feature really bizarre sounds, and a lot of them are keyboards. It's all about unique textures and how they can fit and enhance a song." That isn't to say that they haven't spent time building up a guitar collection. While Shane mostly sticks with his 2007 Rickenbacker 370 and Tyler with his Vox Starstream—he plays both 6- and 12-string models with onboard effects rebuilt by AcidFuzz—they share a wealth of amps, effects, and other 6-strings, and, when necessary, can borrow guitars from their dad, whose 1966 Stratocaster made it onto Radio Astro.
Through the process of making Radio Astro, the Fogertys seem to have explored all the sonic possibilities of their studio. "Canyon of the Banshee," the centerpiece, covers serious musical ground and exemplifies how far the brothers can take things. "We were trying to do the spaghetti Western thing, but also to do a little Pink Floyd 'Echoes,' especially in the beginning with the reverse toms and the descending suspended chords," says Shane. He adds, "It was probably the most fun one on the album to make."
Although their enthusiasm for playing live is obvious, the brothers were disillusioned with playing in L.A. at the same places. "I thought, 'Something has to change; something has to be hyper-focused,'" says Tyler. "I feel like the only thing you can control is the music, so let's build the studio."
Photo by Yegor Mackey
Now that Radio Astro is finished and released, the Fogertys are already working on new material. In the meantime, they're hanging out with their family and playing music with their dad, which can be seen in YouTube videos shot at John and Julie's house—where Tyler also lives—and in their appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts.
Hearty Har may be their creative focus, but the music they play with their family holds a special place for both Shane and Tyler. "It's nice to be open and free to express ourselves, be a little more experimental with things and a little more out there, but the family stuff is great. I feel like that's a totally different realm, a different space for my creativity and input," says Shane.
Tyler adds, "It's this special feeling that I don't know if I can describe. I'm just grateful that I can be a part of this. Especially playing with Kelsey, it just seems so natural and happy. Me and Shane have played in bands before and there usually comes a point where somebody who hasn't grown up with a musical life gets nasty or weird and it becomes about something other than the music. Because we've grown up with it. We really treasure it and want to keep it alive."YouTube It: Hearty Har on Scenes Live Sessions
Hearty Har rip through a rockin' set of tunes live from the Fogertys' home studio, including Radio Astro's "Radio Man '56," "Can't Keep Waiting," and the epic instrumental "Canyon of the Banshee." That's Tyler on the Vox, at left, and Shane wielding a Les Paul.
Versatile guitarist Nathaniel Murphy can be seen and heard on YouTube and Instagram, where he has over 450,000 followers, and demos for Chicago Music Exchange.
Guest Picker - Nathaniel Murphy
A: My signature pedal wouldn’t even really be my sound. It would have all of The Edge’s exact sounds and settings in one pedal as presets. No messing with switches or dialing in tones, just cycle through presets and it sounds exactly like “Pride (In the Name of Love),” “Mysterious Ways,” or “Where the Streets Have no Name.” It would be purely just for fun to jam at home. My own pedal would probably just be a reverb!
While recovering from a hand injury, Nathaniel Murphy “really got into picado technique and would watch Paco De Lucia and in particular Matteo Mancuso (above) vids and lessons.
Obsession: Well, I’ve just spent six weeks in a cast after a wrist fracture—very scary. During that time I couldn’t use my fretting hand so I worked on my picking hand. I really got into picado technique and would watch Paco De Lucia and in particular Matteo Mancuso vids and lessons. It’s been really refreshing and also fun working on a new technique for me, even though it’s incredibly tricky and progress is slow. But I love the challenge of it.
Reader of the Month - Steve Eisenberg
A: My signature pedal would be simple to use, have the capability of being shaped with iPhone-app based effects, and expand features as my guitar adventure grows in scope. I’m very much in the experimentation stage with my pedal work, and having direction and guidance available on an iPhone has helped me navigate in a way that ensures I’m meeting some of my guitar-adventure goals.
Obsession: Through the guidance of my instructor, I am exploring fingerstyle guitar, as it has motivated me away from just chord shapes and scale work. I was feeling a little stuck, and using the fingers of the right hand has allowed me to increase my dexterity and coordination, and motivated me to practice more often.
Gear Editor - Charles Saufley
Mr. Saufley, represented by a mallard.
A: The foundation of my signature pedal is the guts of a 1968 Vox Starstream guitar, which is made up of a Vox Distortion Booster fuzz, a Vox Repeat Percussion tremolo, and Vox Treble Booster. Sonically speaking, this is like donning a psych-punk freakbeat cape. Just before the Distortion Booster there is a Grampian 636 reverb preamp circuit to fatten up and color the works. After the freakbeat section, there will be a de- and re-constructed Roland RE-201 Space Echo. Most of the pedal enclosure will be made up of clear Lucite (illuminated by alternating-color lamps), so I can observe the tape swirling within. The RE-201’s spring reverb, meanwhile, will be suspended in its own flip-up Lucite case which will sit on dampers to insulate it from floor vibration. Hopefully, it will sound like Lee “Scratch” Perry producing Love’s “7 and 7 Is”.
Obsession: The first sounds and green and gold flashes of early spring—and the wakeful energy, ideas, and inspiration it brings.
Giving some love to Love!
Art Director - Naomi Rose
A: The enclosure would be hex color #00b4c1—branded as NAOMI blue—checkerboarded with alternating boxes of NAOMI blue glitter flock and matte NAOMI blue. The footswitch would be a bulbous orange rubber material so it’d feel squishy when stepping on it whilst playing barefoot. It would have a kick-out stand in the back like a picture frame, so when it's not in use, it could stand angled on a shelf to be admired. It would be called Ruckus because that's my middle name. What would it DO? That's a secret I will not be sharing at this time.
Our graphic designer’s dream pedal brought to life.
Obsession: Silence. I hardly listen to music or podcasts these days. When I don’t have outside noise, I tend to self-narrate in my head, which leads to making ridiculous little made-up songs throughout the day. These will oftentimes spark cool ideas and manifest into actual songs that I end up recording and producing. Even in the mundane, inspiration is everywhere. Sometimes getting rid of distractions helps you notice it more.
After eight years, New Orleans artist Benjamin Booker returns with a new album and a redefined relationship to the guitar.
That evening, Booker played a release celebration show at Euclid Records in New Orleans, which has become the musician’s adopted hometown. He spent a few years in Los Angeles, and then in Australia, where his partner gave birth to their child, but when he moved back to the U.S. in December 2023, it was the only place he could imagine coming back to. “I just like that the city has kind of a magic quality to it,” he says. “It just feels kind of like you’re walking around a movie set all the time.”
Witness was a ruminative, lonesome record, an interpretation of the writer James Baldwin’s concept of bearing witness to atrocity and injustice in the United States. Mavis Staples sang on the title track, which addressed the centuries-old crisis of police killings and brutality carried out against black Americans. It was a significant change from the twitchy, bluesy garage-rock of Booker’s self-titled 2014 debut, the sort of tunes that put him on the map as a scrappy guitar-slinging hero. But Booker never planned on heroism; he had no interest in becoming some neatly packaged industry archetype. After Witness, and years of touring, including supporting the likes of Jack White and Neil Young, Booker withdrew.
He was searching for a sound. “I was just trying to find the things that I liked,” he explains. L.A. was a good place for his hunt. He went cratedigging at Stellaremnant for electronic records, and at Artform Studio in Highland Park for obscure jazz releases. It took a long time to put together the music he was chasing. “For a while, I left guitar, and was just trying to figure out what I was going to do,” says Booker. “I just wasn’t interested in it anymore. I hadn’t heard really that much guitar stuff that had really spoke to me.”
“For a while, I left guitar, and was just trying to figure out what I was going to do. I just wasn’t interested in it anymore.”
LOWER is Booker’s most sensitive and challenging record yet.
Among the few exceptions were Tortoise’s Jeff Parker and Dave Harrington from Darkside, players who moved Booker to focus more on creating ambient and abstract textures instead of riffs. Other sources of inspiration came from Nicolas Jaar, Loveliescrushing, Kevin Shields, Sophie, and JPEGMAFIA. When it came to make LOWER (which released on Booker’s own Fire Next Time Records, another nod to Baldwin), he took the influences that he picked up and put them onto guitar—more atmosphere, less “noodly stuff”: “This album, I was working a lot more with images, trying to get images that could get to the emotion that I was trying to get to.”
The result is a scraping, aching, exploratory album that demonstrates that Booker’s creative analysis of the world is sharper and more potent than ever. Opener “Black Opps” is a throbbing, metallic, garage-electronic thrill, running back decades of state surveillance, murder, and sabotage against Black community organizing. “LWA in the Trailer Park” is brighter by a slim margin, but just as simultaneously discordant and groovy. The looped fingerpicking of “Pompeii Statues” sets a grounding for Booker to narrate scenes of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. Even the acoustic strums of “Heavy on the Mind” are warped and stretched into something deeply affecting; ditto the sunny, garbage-smeared ’60s pop of “Show and Tell.” But LOWER is also breathtakingly beautiful and moving. “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar” and “Hope for the Night Time” intermingle moments of joy and lightness amid desperation and loneliness.
Booker worked with L.A.-based hip-hop and electronic producer Kenny Segal, trading stems endlessly over email to build the record. While he was surrounded by vintage guitars and amps to create Witness, Booker didn’t use a single amplifier in the process of making LOWER: He recorded all his guitars direct through an interface to his DAW. “It’s just me plugging my old Epiphone Olympic into the computer and then using software plugins to manipulate the sounds,” says Booker. For him, working digitally and “in the box” is the new frontier of guitar music, no different than how Hendrix and Clapton used never-heard-before fuzz pedals to blow people’s minds. “When I look at guitar players who are my favorites, a lot of [their playing] is related to the technology at the time,” he adds.
“When I look at guitar players who are my favorites, a lot of [their playing] is related to the technology at the time.”
Benjamin Booker's Gear
Booker didn’t use any amps on LOWER. He recorded his old Epiphone Olympic direct into his DAW.
Photo by Trenity Thomas
Guitars
- 1960s Epiphone Olympic
Effects
- Soundtoys Little AlterBoy
- Soundtoys Decapitator
- Soundtoys Devil-Loc Deluxe
- Soundtoys Little Plate
“I guess I have a problem with anything being too sugary. I wanted a little bit of ugliness.”
Inspired by a black metal documentary in which an artist asks for the cheapest mic possible, Booker used only basic plugins by Soundtoys, like the Decapitator, Little AlterBoy, and Little Plate, but the Devil-Loc Deluxe was the key for he and Segal to unlock the distorted, “three-dimensional world” they were seeking. “Because I was listening to more electronic music where there’s more of a focus on mixing than I would say in rock music, I think that I felt more inspired to go in and be surgical about it,” says Booker.
Part of that precision meant capturing the chaos of our world in all its terror and splendor. When he was younger, Booker spent a lot of time going to the Library of Congress and listening to archival interviews. On LOWER, he carries out his own archival sound research. “I like the idea of being able to put things like that in the music, for people to just hear it,” says Booker. “Even if they don’t know what it is, they’re catching a glimpse of life that happened at that time.”
On “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar,” there are birds chirping that he captured while living in Australia. Closer “Hope for the Night Time” features sounds from Los Angeles’ Grand Central Market. “Same Kind of Lonely” features audio of Booker’s baby laughing just after a clip from a school shooting. “I guess I have a problem with anything being too sugary,” says Booker. “I wanted a little bit of ugliness. We all have our regular lives that are just kind of interrupted constantly by insane acts of violence.”
That dichotomy is often difficult to compute, but Booker has made peace with it. “You hear people talking about, ‘I don’t want to have kids because the world is falling apart,’” he says. “But I mean, I feel like it’s always falling apart and building itself back up. Nothing lasts forever, even bad times.”
YouTube It
To go along with the record, Booker produced a string of music videos influenced by the work of director Paul Schrader and his fascination with “a troubled character on the edge, reaching for transcendence.” That vision is present in the video for lead single “LWA in the Trailer Park.”
