
During a season of adversity, the psychedelic troubadour made his new album, Topaz, entirely on his own, playing all the instruments and teaching himself the ins and outs of recording in his Texas studio.
Israel Nash has crafted a life many artists would do almost anything for, from his successful career to his 15-acre Texas homestead and creative space. But the pointed lyrics on songs like "Pressure," from his new album Topaz, reveal his struggles.
Foremost, perhaps, is the inability to come together and create with other musicians, and to commune with audiences, due to the pandemic. "It's been hard to be disconnected from what's a part of my identity," Nash says. "Performance is something I deeply appreciate. It's human, and it connects people that would never be connected. I mean, when you're in a room of people at a rock show, those are people that will never be assembled in that room again."
That frustration is shared by millions around the world, of course. But just when Nash began seeing glimmers of hope for live music's return, he was hit with another setback. A very un-Texas arctic winter devastated his region, forcing him and his familyāwhom he'd relocated from New York City to rural Dripping Springs a decade agoāto overcome obstacles yet again.
Israel Nash - "Southern Coasts" (Official Video)
"A week ago, I had to learn how to fix our water pump that froze and exploded," he says. "Living out here, you just start buying tools, start getting things, and start doing some things yourself because you can't get anyone out there when you need it."
That self-relianceāNash's ability to adapt and growāinforms every note on Topaz, the first fully self-written, recorded, and produced album of his career. Nash's career started in New York City, when his original mix of psychedelic roots music springboarded from hip clubs like the Living Room and Rockwood Music Hall to catch ears around the world.
But even as his international success grew, the Missouri native was yearning for the slower lifestyle of his youth as well as a place to let his muse run wild.
"The guitar just doesn't feel right until it's up to about 4 on my Fender Bassman. No pedals. Just a hollow-body Gretsch."
"I was just drawn to the country and to live in a place that [my family] could build our own world," Nash says. "I needed to create a space that allows for anything to happen and allows those good things to happen."
The move to Dripping Springs, known as the "Gateway to Hill Country," really paid off. Settling on a 15-acre ranch about 30 minutes west of Austin, Nash found his forever home. He also slowly crafted an HQ for all of his creative endeavors, including hosting an annual music festival called From the Hills with Love. But most importantly, the ranch is where he built his studio, Plum Creek Sound.
Nash sees it as balancing the yin and yang of a musician's life. "You read about how many of our musical heroes had a little country space or home in the country. But music, except for this year, is also such a social thing. I love that. It keeps me alive! I really need that duality."
TIDBIT: Topaz is Israel Nash's sixth studio release, but it's his first entirely self-made album. It was recorded at Nash's own studio, Plum Creek Sound, located on his 15-acre homestead in the gateway to Hill Country, Dripping Springs, Texas. The album was co-produced by fellow Texan Adrian Quesada of the Grammy-nominated Black Pumas.
All of that, along with some urging by his wife, coalesced into Topaz. "Sometimes it takes someone outside of the business to see some of the absurdities of things," Nash says. "My wife saw just how much effort was put into other albums. So she basically encouraged me, saying, 'Hey, you have the studio. Do something different!'"
With that, work on Topaz began. Though it's Nash's first true solo album, it's actually the third album recorded in Plum Creek Sound. His original intent for the studio was to make albums the way he always had. He'd bring in his engineer, have his band join him for a couple of weeks, and hammer it out. But, without realizing it, he began to learn and absorb the recording process. The studio was becoming another instrument to play.
"I'd never thought that stuff that I would record by myself, without the blessing of an engineer, could be a professional, industry-standard album," says Nash. "But I found that the studio and the control room are just like a big guitar pedal. You got things going in and things going out. And you learn how to use it over time."
This realization opened the songwriting floodgates for Nash. Other than help from co-producer Adrian Quesada and some guest musicians, he could now create an unfiltered expression of the music swirling around his head. Nash didn't have to worry about album cycles, other musicians' schedules, or the business. If he heard something in his head, he was free to figure out how to get it to tape.
Israel Nash's Gear
Guitars
- Gretsch White Falcon
- Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster with White Falcon-style appointments and Clapton circuitry
- Les Paul Studio
- Gibson J-200
- Epiphone J-200 for Nashville tuning
Amps
- Fender Deluxe custom clone, made by bandmate Eric Swanson
- Fender '59 Bassman reissue
Effects
- Big Ear n.y.c. Frank Boost
- Roland RE-20 Space Echo
- Electro-Harmonix MEL9
- Vintage A/DA Flanger
- Maestro Rhythm King drum machine
- Jim Dunlop Volume Pedal
- Big Ear Pedals Elle reverb
- Ernie Ball Cobalt (.011 and .012 sets, for electric)
- Ernie Ball Everlast custom sets (.013, .017, .026, .035, .045, .056)
- Jim Dunlop .50 mm
- Jim Dunlop heavy brass slide or glass bottle
"On 'Closer,' I played everything except for the pedal steel," Nash says of Topaz's second song. "I played every instrument at some point on the whole record: piano, lead guitar solos, almost all the harmonies. Except for the ooh ooh, and shalala harmonies, it was just by myself, over time.
"It felt beautifully simple," he says. "I was growing with the space, the environment, and the resources I had. It gave me empowerment, just like the plumbing. That was an unknown. I didn't ever expect that I would do emergency plumbing out of necessity [laughs]."
Nash didn't waste his new-found empowerment. From Sam Cooke-style soul to the fuzzed-out melody driving "Down in the Country," Topaz feels remarkably personal and complete, even while paying tribute to his favorite bands from the 1970s. And it does so while maintaining his trademark troubadour-from-outer-space sound.
"Music is about creating an experience," says Nash. "Albums are like movies for the ears. And songs are like chapters in a book. You shouldn't get everything in one song. You get it in the collection of them. The collection is the experience."
Israel Nash thrives on connecting with live audiences. "Music, except for this year, is also such a social thing," he says. "I love that. It keeps me alive!"
Photo by Matt Condon
Nash's opinion is no doubt influenced by the bands from his favorite decade in music. Influences like Pink Floydāwhich he lovingly refers to as "The Floyd"āpervade the album. "The Floyd is the epitome of headphone records. You put on an album and get locked in," Nash says. "And maybe, on 'Dividing Lines,' someone will hear more of the soul or funk element. But by the end, it's full-on Floyd! There's a massive cacophony of stuff and guitar solos. The Stones did that, too."
Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones DNA doesn't stop there. Nash also makes heavy use of pedal steel and slide guitar throughout Topaz. The way he sees it, it's a key to finding his transcendental sound.
"There's just something so emotional about that instrument," says Nash. "It's like church in a box. I mean, you could just listen to Eric [Swanson, Nash's bandmate] play pedal steel by itself and feel you saw the face of God."
With such a high view of the instrument, it's no surprise that it's often front and center in Nash's music. But keeping with Topaz's DIY ethic, much of the slide you hear on the record is actually Nash running his trusty Gretsch White Falcon through a wash of delay.
"Guitar is pretty much always where a song starts," Nash says. "It's just such a beautiful instrument to find a melody and to find a rhythm. It's a powerful place to start. That's where you write a song. The kick-drum pattern usually comes from a strumming pattern.""When you're in a room of people at a rock show, those are people that will never be assembled in that room again."
From there, Nash begins to build. The first step is marrying his acoustic strumming with a cranked electric. Each tone is carefully crafted for the song at hand, but emanates from a surprisingly small collection of guitars and, usually, one very loud amp.
"Sometimes I like to pick up an electric guitar and just have it fucking cranked," he says. "The guitar just doesn't feel right until it's up to about 4 on my Fender Bassman. No pedals. Just a hollowbody Gretsch. That Gretsch White Falcon is as important to me as my acoustic."
Nash's White Falcon is ever-present. It's also the main guitar you'll see slung around his shoulders onstage. He loves it so much that when the Fender Custom Shop built Nash a one-off Stratocaster, it was decked out in a white body, gold inlays, and gold hardware. Add in a Les Paul Studio for most of his leads, and that's all he needed to craft Topaz's electric soundscapes.
Nash's other main guitar is his time-tested Gibson J-200 acoustic which lays the rhythmic foundation for nearly every song on Topaz. But unlike the White Falcon, the J-200 is generally only used in the studio.
"It's been all over the world," says Nash. "But live, it's only electric. I might have an acoustic and do a song or two. But I just can't get into it on a stage without the electric. I want to feel it in my feet."
"Guitar is pretty much always where a song starts," says Israel Nash. His Gretsch White Falcon is his live companion, as seen here in his performance at the 2018 Hopscotch Music Festival.
Photo by Matt Condon
Though it features Nash's tried-and-true stable of guitars, Topaz broke with previous albums in the amp department. A custom, handwired Fender Deluxe clone (built by Eric Swanson) converted Nash into a bona fide small-amp guy.
"I love big amps! That's what I want onstage," Nash exclaimed. "For years, I wanted only that. But when you start getting into smaller amps, you find the control and the tone that you can get out of them are a pretty big deal."
It was a big enough deal that Swanson's Deluxe clone was the only amp used on Topaz. And whether plugging straight into his Neve console for a Beatles-esque fuzz or pushing his low-gain Big Ear Frank Boost pedal to sound like a trombone, everything else was up to experimentation.
"Lately, I like running two delays together for a nice ambient thing," Nash says. "My favorite has got to be the [Roland] Space Echo. I love the analog stuff. I like to use that also on vocals, on tons of stuff. Just patch it through anything."
Nash's sonic adventures also translate to live performance. Watch his solo YouTube delivery of "Canyonheart" and you'll hear beautiful, ethereal textures not normally associated with acoustic solo acts.YouTube It
With a little creative guitar signal routing, Nash turns a solo acoustic performance of his song "Canyonheart" into an ambient and emotional journey.
"I'm getting tired of just being a guy with an acoustic guitar," Nash explains. "So I split the guitar's signal with an ABY pedal and ran into the Electro-Harmonix MEL9 pedal. I also had a DI and a mic on the acoustic. I used a volume pedal before the MEL9, so I could make little swells and control it."
This sort of sonic experimentation makes it clear that Nash puts the song and the experience first, and finds passion in the process of creation.
"I always looked at myself as a songwriter first. It was one of those things in my whole life that just felt like it was the only option," he says. "Happiness, being creative, using my talents, making a livingāall those things come down to making songs and albums."
Though the past year has been a struggle for everyone, Topaz is what can happen when an artist turns adversity and setbacks into art. But getting the album out into the world is only the first step for Nash. Now, it's about continuing to create and watching his music bring people together.
"I'm just starting to see a world that'll maybe look a little more familiar than it has been," he shares. "And the passions that inspired me and keep growing as I get older are to have fans that want to hear this and put it in their lives. I've had a fan that started playing guitar because he was inspired. Now, he and his dad play guitar every Thursday on the porch. It's beautiful. It's from those songs. They start so private and become collective, and I like that a lot. I like being a part of something."- Gretsch G6636TSL Silver Falcon: The Premier Guitar Review ... āŗ
- Will Ray's Bottom Feeder: Gretsch Streamliner G2420 - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Vintage Vault: 1955 Gretsch 6131 Jet Firebird - Premier Guitar | The ... āŗ
- Gretsch G6636TSL Silver Falcon Review - Premier Guitar āŗ
Lutefish, the real-time music collaboration device and platform, is excited to announce a suite of new features designed to simplify setup, streamline collaboration, and offer more flexible subscription options for Lutefish Stream users. These latest updates, Audio Presets, Automatic Session Recall, Improved Scheduling with Contact Visibility, and a new Yearly Subscription Plan, are all about making it easier than ever for musicians to jam together, no matter where theyāre based.
Save Time and Stay in the Flow with Audio Presets & Session Recall
Musicians can now save and reuse their exact audio settings, reducing setup time and ensuring every session sounds exactly as they want.
- Automatic Session Recall: When users leave a session, their current audio levels are automatically saved and restored when they rejoin.
- User-Defined Audio Presets: Each user can create and name up to five custom presets, like āBand Practice,ā āStudio Mic Setup,ā or āQuick Jam,ā making it effortless to jump back in with the perfect sound.
āThese tools are all about saving time and hassle,ā said Patrick Finn, Business Manager at Lutefish. āMusicians want to make music, not spend time rebalancing levels every session. With presets and recall, weāre giving them time back and helping them sound their best, every time.ā
Smarter Scheduling and Contact Visibility
The latest update to Lutefish also made it easier to find collaborators and book sessions. Users can now:- View all their contacts at a glance when scheduling a session.
- Instantly identify which contacts own a Lutefish Stream deviceāso they will always know whoās ready to jam.
Go Yearly and Save 20%
Lutefish now offers a Yearly Subscription Plan, providing users with the same great access as the monthly plan at a 20% discount.
This option is now available within the Lutefish app and web platform, and current monthly users are eligible for a discount with an upgrade to a yearly subscription.
Lutefishās mission has always been to empower musicians to connect and collaborate without boundaries. With these new updates, Lutefish Stream continues to break down barriersāwhether youāre jamming with a friend across town or collaborating with a bandmate 500 miles away.
For more information and to start jamming today, visitlutefish.com.
The veteran Florida-born metalcore outfit proves that you donāt need humbuckers to pull off high gain.
Last August, metalcore giants Poison the Well gave the world a gift: They announced they were working on their first studio album in 15 years. They unleashed the first taste, single āTrembling Level,ā back in January, and set off on a spring North American tour during which they played their debut record, The Opposite of December⦠A Season of Separation, in full every night.
PGās Perry Bean caught up with guitarists Ryan Primack and Vadim Taver, and bassist Noah Harmon, ahead of the bandās show at Nashvilleās Brooklyn Bowl for this new Rig Rundown.
Brought to you by DāAddario.Not-So-Quiet As a Mouse
Primack started his playing career on Telecasters, then switched to Les Pauls, but when his prized LPs were stolen, he jumped back to Teles, and now owns nine of them.
His No. 1 is this white one (left). Seymour Duncan made him a JB Model pickup in a single-coil size for the bridge position, while the neck is a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Staggered. He ripped out all the electronics, added a Gibson-style toggle switch, flipped the control plate orientation thanks to an obsession with Danny Gatton, and included just one steel knob to control tone. Primack also installed string trees with foam to control extra noise.
This one has Ernie Ball Papa Hetās Hardwired strings, .011ā.050.
Here, Kitty, Kitty
Primack runs both a PRS Archon and a Bad Cat Lynx at the same time, covering both 6L6 and EL34 territories. The Lynx goes into a Friedman 4x12 cab thatās been rebadged in honor of its nickname, āDonkey,ā while the Archon, which is like a ārefined 5150,ā runs through an Orange 4x12.
Ryan Primackās Pedalboard
Primackās board sports a Saturnworks True Bypass Multi Looper, plus two Saturnworks boost pedals. The rest includes a Boss TU-3w, DOD Bifet Boost 410, Caroline Electronics Hawaiian Pizza, Fortin ZUUL +, MXR Phase 100, JHS Series 3 Tremolo, Boss DM-2w, DOD Rubberneck, MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe, Walrus Slo, and SolidGoldFX Surf Rider III.
Taverās Teles
Vadim Taverās go-to is this cherryburst FenderĀ Telecaster, which he scored in the early 2000s and has been upgraded to Seymour Duncan pickups on Primackās recommendation. His white Balaguer T-style has been treated to the same upgrade. The Balaguer is tuned to drop C, and the Fender stays in D standard. Both have DāAddario strings, with a slightly heavier gauge on the Balaguer.
Dual-Channel Chugger
Taver loves his 2-channel Orange Rockerverb 100s, one of which lives in a case made right in Nashville.
Vadim Taverās Pedalboard
Taverās board includes an MXR Joshua, MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe, Empress Tremolo, Walrus ARP-87, Old Blood Noise Endeavors Reflector, MXR Phase 90, Boss CE-2w, and Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-200, all powered by a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus.
Big Duff
Harmonās favorite these days is this Fender Duff McKagan Deluxe Precision Bass, which heās outfitted with a Leo Quan Badass bridge. His backup is a Mexico-made Fender Classic Series ā70s Jazz Bass. This one also sports Primack-picked pickups.
Rental Rockers
Harmon rented this Orange AD200B MK III head, which runs through a 1x15 cab on top and a 4x10 on the bottom.
Noah Harmonās Pedalboard
Harmonās board carries a Boss TU-2, Boss ODB-3, MXR Dyna Comp, Darkglass Electronics Vintage Ultra, and a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus. His signal from the Vintage Ultra runs right to the front-of-house, and Harmon estimates that that signal accounts for about half of what people hear on any given night.
Kiesel Guitars has introduced their newest solid body electric guitar: the Kyber.
With its modern performance specs and competitive pricing, the Kyber is Kiesel's most forward-thinking design yet, engineered for comfort, quick playing, and precision with every note.
Introducing the Kiesel Kyber Guitar
- Engineered with a lightweight body to reduce fatigue during long performances without sacrificing tone. Six-string Kybers, configured with the standard woods and a fixed bridge, weigh in at 6 pounds or under on average
- Unique shape made for ergonomic comfort in any playing position and enhanced classical position
- The Kyber features Kiesel's most extreme arm contour and a uniquely shaped body that enhances classical position support while still excelling in standard position.
- The new minimalist yet aggressive headstock pairs perfectly with the body's sleek lines, giving the Kyber a balanced, modern silhouette.
- Hidden strap buttons mounted on rear for excellent balance while giving a clean, ultra-modern look to the front
- Lower horn cutaway design for maximum access to the upper frets
- Sculpted neck heel for seamless playing
- Available in 6 or 7 strings, fixed or tremolo in both standard and multiscale configurations Choose between fixed bridges, tremolos, or multiscale configurations for your perfect setup.
Pricing for the Kyber starts at $1599 and will vary depending on options and features. Learn more about Kieselās new Kyber model at kieselguitars.com
The Sunset is a fully analog, zero latency bass amplifier simulator. It features a ¼ā input, XLR and ¼ā outputs, gain and volume controls and extensive equalization. Itās intended to replace your bass amp both live and in the studio.
If you need a full sounding amp simulator with a lot of EQ, the Sunset is for you. It features a five band equalizer with Treble, Bass, Parametric Midrange (with frequency and level controls), Resonance (for ultra lows), and Presence (for ultra highs). All are carefully tuned for bass guitar. But donāt let that hold you back if youāre a keyboard player. Pianos and synthesizers sound great with the Sunset!
The Sunset includes Gain and master Volume controls which allow you to add compression and classic tube amp growl. It has both ¼ā phone and balanced XLR outputs - which lets you use it as a high quality active direct box. Finally, the Sunset features zero latency all analog circuitry ā important for the instrument most responsible for the bandās groove.
Introducing the Sunset Bass Amp Simulator
- Zero Latency bass amp simulator.
- Go direct into the PA or DAW.
- Five Band EQ:
- Treble and Bass controls.
- Parametric midrange with level and frequency controls.
- Presence control for extreme highs.
- Resonance control for extreme lows.
- Gain control to add compression and harmonics.
- Master Volume.
- XLR and 1/4" outputs.
- Full bypass.
- 9VDC, 200mA.
Artwork by Aaron Cheney
MAP price: $210 USD ($299 CAD).