
Julian Lage's new Collings signature model has DynaSonic pickups and is fully hollow, with a trestle block, a solid Honduran mahogany body, a maple laminate top, and a Bigsby B3 vibrato tailpiece.
The jazz virtuoso used a new Collings signature model and his stunning command of technique, tone, and composition to craft his new album, Squint, but reflection and intention helped him find its soul.
Getting signed to Blue Note Records—the onetime home of John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell, and many, many other greats—is a high honor in the jazz world. "It's just incredible," says Julian Lage, whose new album, Squint, is his debut for the famed label. "It's thrilling and inspiring and absolutely makes me want to be a better musician." But sometimes, simply being a better musician in a technical sense isn't enough. In the period between when the COVID lockdown began and the start of Squint's sessions with his trio in August, Lage had an epiphany during the "months of playing these songs, hours on end by myself. I wanted to write songs that would be restorative to play.
"Way beyond the shutdown was a global reckoning of racial injustice, systemic racism, social injustice, gender inequality, and all of these things that are ever-present, but now, here, on a very large scale, there's a discussion," he observes.
So Lage determined to craft an album that could be transformative for both himself and his listeners. "Is this positive music that's pretty for the sake of being pretty," he asked himself, "or is it music that holds a space for a little more fuzziness or emotional complexity? And in addition to just shutting up and listening and learning and saying, 'Wow, this is the work of our lifetime,' I think in not making the record [when we expected to], I developed a real appreciation for the role of sound in music and art with regard to healing. It's a method of transmission, and 'What are you transmitting?' became the question … You make music because you need to make it, you play it because you need to play it," he says. "Then it's by the grace of much higher powers that it ever sees the light of day. Squint is about the unknown, but is also celebrating deep gratitude."
Julian Lage - Saint Rose (Visualizer)
The 33-year-old virtuoso's perspective isn't a surprise to anyone who's met him. Lage has earned a reputation for being genuine and humble, and exuding gratitude is part of his way of experiencing life. He lives up to the Zen adage: The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
But let's rewind to early 2020: Lage and his trio, which includes bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, were ready to go into the studio when their plans were abruptly upended—and Lage's deep immersion into the nine original compositions for the 11-track Squint began. The results of Lage's reflection reveal a depth not always heard on instrumental albums. Starting with a sharp, delicate solo performance of "Etude" and closing with a cover of Billy Hill's 1940 classic "Call of the Canyon," the pieces are edgy, gentle, smart, and experimental—each an iteration of the album's greater musical personality. Lage notes, "We're putting improvisation right next to composition. These aren't songs that we just take a solo on—you could not hear the melody and just hear the solos. The goal is for you to be able to understand the sentiment."
The Art of Emulating Speech
On Lage's 12th album as leader, there's also the jumpy, swinging title track and the cool, drum-groove-driven "Saint Rose," named after Lage's hometown of Santa Rosa, California. On the quietly chaotic "Familiar Flower," the band members are all "playing different tempos by a few degrees in one direction or another," offers Lage. And the umbral, apprehensive "Quiet Like a Fuse" uses dynamics and varying sections for emotional chiaroscuro. It's not just Lage's guitar that ties them all together, but the feeling that the spirit behind each beat is shared by all three musicians. Surprisingly, part of what guided Lage's process on a technical level were speeches by figures like the poet Nikki Giovanni and novelist James Baldwin. Lage improvised to their words as a way to gain insight into the mode of soloing he envisioned.
TIDBIT: Lage used just two amps to record his Blue Note debut: his Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe, which is based on a mid-'60s black-panel Deluxe Reverb, and a 1959 tweed Fender Champ.
"I think that the way people speak is often more unfettered. There's an urgency which is really striking about speech. There might not be an obvious correlation between the way people speak in a lecture and the notes on the guitar. But it's just a little stretch of the imagination to see that those are pitches, those are rhythms, those are phrases." Lage adds that a seven-to-10-minute lecture might be seen as a correlation to a song's central melody. "The musical version of that is Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things.' It's communication from the second it starts to the second it ends. Lectures help me break it down. And also just recording my own voice talking about something very mundane, then learning the rhythms I use to speak and applying those to the guitar, is really helpful, too.
"Jazz music is abstract art. And for that reason I love taking something that might feel more literal—like influences from singer-songwriters or lectures or spoken-word things—and just saying, 'Okay, my job is to find how notes and rhythms and tone alone represent in an abstract form what these people are saying with words.'"
Not the What, But the How
Lage spent six months both playing and contemplating the intention of the performances that made their way onto his new album, Squint. "I developed a real appreciation for the role of sound in music and art with regard to healing," he says.
Photo by Alysse Gafkjen
The team for the sessions included singer-songwriter (and Lage's partner) Margaret Glaspy, and multi-instrumentalist/producer Armand Hirsch, as well as Roeder and King. Lage says he's been playing with Roeder, "an extension of his musical world," for all of his adult career, whereas his musical relationship with King has been just for a few years. "Jorge's really able to listen so beautifully to what's going on, and what he contributes is so supportive and adventurous and risky."
Lage explains that what he learns from his bandmates comes less from what they play together and more from how they play together. "The way Dave looks at time in a band is not selfish at all," the guitarist says. "He shares the responsibility with everybody but has a way of influencing it through a virtuosic lens that never feels macho or overbearing."
In addition to being his favorite songwriter, Glaspy is also one of Lage's most relied-upon critics. "She'll offer very specific help, always," he says, "from the microscopic to the macroscopic. We have a nice mutual rapport, where I do it for her and she does it for me." Lage shares how the band went into the studio on the first day without her, and when he later reviewed the session at home, he told Glaspy, "yeah, you need to come to the studio."
One of Hirsch's contributions was offering his breadth of knowledge on the history of guitar tones. "I could be like, 'the guitar tone on this song … it sounds good, but I want it to be more George Barnes and a little more of the reverb from '70s Jim Hall,' and he would be able to translate that to Mark Goodell, who's our longtime engineer."
Julian Lage’s Gear
Guitars
- Collings 470 JL
- 1955 Gibson Les Paul
- Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe
- 1959 Fender Champ
- Strymon Flint Tremolo & Reverb
- Shin-ei B1G 1
- D'Addario NYXL (.011–.049 sets)
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm picks
Calling on Collings
Lage's signature Collings is fully hollow with a trestle block, a solid Honduran mahogany body, a maple-laminate top, and a Bigsby B3 vibrato tailpiece. It also has a custom hybrid C/V neck profile, and a narrower fretboard in the upper-fret range. Lage says it's "as at home with jazz as with early '50s rock 'n' roll tone, Bo Diddley, early John Lee Hooker, early B.B. King." Collings' luthier Aaron Huff, director of engineering Clint Watson, and manager of artist relations Mark Althans were also involved in creating the 6-string. "The 470 JL is like a blues machine that's used for jazz," Lage sums up. "That's my favorite sound."
For the album's sessions, the guitar was run through two different amplifiers. Most tracks were cut with a Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe, which is based on a mid-'60s black-panel Fender Deluxe Reverb, while the rest feature Lage's '59 tweed Fender Champ. A Strymon Flint Tremolo and Reverb and a Shin-ei B1G 1 Gain Booster completed the signal chain. The result is a lush, old-school tone with crunch when necessary.
Lage's latest batch of tones are largely the product of a collaboration with Collings Guitars. The primary instrument featured on Squint is his new Collings 470 JL signature electric, which was introduced in February 2021. (He also used a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for three songs.) The development of the 470 JL was, Lage explains, centered on Ron Ellis, the great pickup master—and specifically his take on the DynaSonic-style pickup. "DynaSonic pickups are always fascinating to me, because I like playing on the neck pickup primarily for everything. A Tele pickup obviously has pole pieces that are covered by a metal cover and there's that kind of fuzziness that's nice, but I wanted the directness of having no cover, kind of like Stratocaster pickups, but with a much larger diameter. That led us down the road of DynaSonics and all of the complications that go with those pickups—the good, the bad, and the ugly."
With a Little Help from His Friends
Julian Lage plays his prized 1939 Martin 000-18 acoustic at NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge in 2016.
Photo by Peter Gannushkin
Lage's interest in making music from an informed perspective often leads him to seek the counsel of musicians he respects. He shares an anecdote about learning from composer and performer Gabriel Kahane that songs need "terms of engagement, reasons to exist." He also relates flying from his New York City base to Chicago to ask for feedback from Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on a slew of new music he'd written. Tweedy explained that, on an album, you "have to tell the listener's ear where to focus and when to focus" through subtle instrumental cues. But it was on a pre-pandemic tour with Bill Frisell that Lage embraced the concept of bringing both attention and intention to music before performing it—which helped fuel his strategy for Squint.
He and Frisell sat down to rehearse Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer's "Emily," one of the two covers that ended up on the album, for four nights in a row before Frisell finally approved of playing it in their set. The first night, it was for 10 minutes. The second, 20. The third, 40. And the fourth, a full hour. "No talking, just play the tune and don't look up for an hour. And he's like, 'Okay, we're ready to play it.'
I think it was on the last day of recording—we were about to pack up—and it was like, 'Can we record one more, just in case we need an extra track?' I showed it to Jorge really fast and we played it and that's the one take of 'Emily.' It kind of sums everything up, in a way."
YouTube It
Even before the lockdown, Julian Lage exhibited a talent for turning melodies into conversations. For evidence, check out his 2016 live performance of "Nocturne" by Spike Hughes, Britain's earliest jazz composer. Lage is playing his 1954 Telecaster, which was his No. 1 before the new Collings signature 470 JL.
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Genuine, dynamic Vox sound and feel. Plenty of different tone-sweetening applications. Receives other pedals as nicely as a real amp.
Can get icy quick. Preamp tube presents risk for damage.
$299
Tubesteader Roy
tubesteader.com
The Roy is an exceedingly faithful Vox box that brings genuine tube dynamics to your pedalboard.
This is an interesting moment for amp-in-a-box pedals. It used to be novel to have a little box that approximated the tone signature of an iconic amp. Nowadays, though, modeling pedals and profilers can give you many digital emulations in one package. Nevertheless, there are still worlds of possibility in pedals that copy amp topology in discrete form—particularly when you add a real preamp tube to that mix.
That’s what Montreal builder Tubesteader did with the Roy, their entry in the Vox-Top-Boost-AC30-in-a-box race. The Roy is a 2-channel preamp and overdrive built around a 12AX7 vacuum tube—a design gambit that is relatively uncommon if not totally unique. The tube makes the Roy look much more vintage in spirit at a time when sleek, black Helixes and Fractals are overtaking stages. In some ways, it looks like an antique. It can sound like one in the best way too.
Riding the Tube
The Roy comes in a handsome brownish-red enclosure, with an unsurprising control layout. The rightmost footswitch turns the pedal on and off, and the one at left switches between the identical channels. Each channel has an output volume and gain knob; the controls on the right are assigned to the default channel, and when you tap the left footswitch, you engage the left-side control tandem. The treble and bass controls between the two volume and gain knobs are shared by the two channels, but a post-EQ master tone cut control, which rolls off additional treble frequencies, is mounted on the crown of the pedal beside the power input. The input and output jacks occupy the left and right sides, along with a 3.5 mm jack for external operation. The Roy runs at 12 volts and draws 350 mA, and the included power supply can be reconfigured easily for a range of international outlets.
Tubesteader’s literature says the pedal’s tones are generated via a high-voltage transistor in the first gain stage coupled with the 12AX7, which operates at 260 volts. That preamp tube is nested at the top of the enclosure’s face, underneath a protective metal “roll bar”. Trusty as it looks, when there is a glass element on the exterior of a pedal’s housing, there’s an element of vulnerability, and transporting and using the Roy probably requires a more conscientious approach than a standard stompbox.
Royal Tones
Compared to the Vox's own Mystic Edge, an AC30-in-a-box from Vox powered by Korg’s NuTube vacuum fluorescent display technology, the Roy feels warmer, and more dynamic, proving that the 12AX7 isn’t just there for looks. The Mystic Edge could sound positively icy compared to the Roy’s smooth, even breakup. The Roy is very happy at aggressive settings, and in my estimation, it sounds best with output volumes driving an amp hard and the pedal’s gain around 3 o’clock. That recipe sounds good with single-coil guitars, but with a P-90-loaded Les Paul Junior, it achieves roaring classic-rock greatness. I’ve always felt Voxes, rather than Marshalls, are better vehicles for dirty punk chording. The Roy did nothing to dissuade me from that belief. And the pedals' midrange punch and bark in power-chord contexts lent authority and balance that makes such chords hit extra hard.
Though the Roy creates many of its own tasty drive tones, it really comes to life when pushed by a boost or overdrive, much like a real amp. When I punched it with a Fish Circuits Model One overdrive, the Roy was smoother and less spiky than a cranked AC30, yet there was plenty of note definition, attack, and the harmonic riches you’d turn to an AC for in the first place. A JFET SuperCool Caffeine Boost also brought additional depth and color to the output and broadened the pedal’s voice.
If you’re most comfortable with a real Vox amp, the Roy is a reliable and familiar-feeling stand-in when managing a different backline amp. In at least one way, though, the Roy is, perhaps, a bit toofaithful to its influence’s design: There’s a lot of treble on tap, and it’s easy to cook up tinnitus-inducing frequencies if you get too aggressive with the treble control. Noon positions on the cut/boost tone knobs sound pretty neutral. But I found it difficult to push the treble much past 2 o’clock without wincing—even with the tone cut control set at its darkest. (This quality, of course, may make the Roy a good match for squishier Fender-style designs). The relationship between the Roy’s treble and bass controls also takes time to master. The two don’t just add or boost their respective frequencies, but also add or subtract midrange, which can result in intense and sudden gain-response changes. As a general guideline, a light touch goes a long way when fine tuning these frequencies.The Verdict
The Roy isn’t exactly a bargain at $299. Then again, this Vox-in-a-box can stand in for real-deal Top Boost tones and the 2-channel design means you can move between an AC’s chimey cleans and ripping cranked sounds in a flash. If you’re squarely in the Vox amp camp, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more authentic means of achieving that range of clean-to-crunchy sounds.
Some names you’ve heard, others maybe not. But they all have a unique voice on the instrument.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Open your ears to new influences.
• Understand how to create interlocking rhythm parts.
• Develop a new appreciate for the rhythmic complexity of Wayne Krantz, the effortless bebop of Biréli Lagrène, and the driving force that is David Williams.
The guitar has been a major factor in so many styles of music over the last 70 years, and any experienced musician can tell you that playing any one of those styles with authenticity takes countless hours of dedication. As we learn the instrument, we seek out music that we find inspiring to help guide us toward our voice. The legends we all know in the guitar pantheon have inspired millions of players. In my musical journey over the years, I’ve always been thrilled to discover unique musicians who never attained the same recognition as their more famous counterparts. With so much music at our disposal these days, I thought this group of guitarists deserved a little more spotlight. The inspiration and knowledge they have provided me were paramount in my development, and I wouldn’t be the player I am without them.
Biréli Lagrène’s Bombastic Bop
Standards was the first jazz guitar record I really listened to, and his playing on this entire album is devastating. There is so much groove, joy, and ferocity in every note. The way he lays ideas out on the fretboard made a lot of sense to me, his rhythms were intentional and clear, and it was surprisingly easy to dig into as a rock guitarist at the time. He has an extensive catalog of jazz, gypsy jazz, and fusion records with some of the best in the world, and he’s also a killer bass player who can sing just like Frank Sinatra! Ex. 1 is over the first eight measures of “Stella by Starlight.” I stole so much vocabulary from this solo that I can still play bits from memory 20 years later. Lagrène’s treatment of two-measure chunks to play his ideas was significantly helpful. Whether it was an engaging rhythmic phrase, constant eighth-notes, or just cramming in as much as he could, I stopped worrying so much about catching every chord change after I learned this one.
Ex. 1
Stella by Starlight
Old-School Swing!
George Barnes is a unique jazz guitarist who was a contemporary of Charlie Christian, Johnny Smith, and Django. A significant part of his early work was writing and arranging for radio and television, for NBC, and he also wrote the very first electric guitar method book in 1942. A friend in Austin gave me two CDs of his: a collection of his playing from the Plantation Party radio show and an overview of his octet recordings. The octet recordings sound like unhinged cartoon music with guitar and orchestral instruments and are highly enjoyable. Ex. 2 is a line I lifted from a recording of him playing “Ain’t Misbehavin.” It was one of the hippest endings I have ever heard on a jazz tune, and although I can’t find the recording anywhere, I still use it all the time. I love the intention in George Barnes’ playing. Swinging and mischievous, he always sounds like he was having fun.
Ex. 2
The George Barnes Sextet - Lover, Come Back to Me
“Thrilling” Rhythm Solos
David Williams is one of the greatest rhythm players of all time. He is responsible for most of the memorable guitar moments on Michael Jackson’s records, and all his parts have an infectious nature. He is the primary reason I got interested in rhythm guitar, and he is still an inspiration on that front. One of my favorite examples of his playing is the breakdown in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (where Vincent Price does the rap). His signature thunderous right-hand approach to single-note rhythm parts is in full effect, and the natural accents between the two rhythm parts are infectious on their own but weave perfectly together. Ex. 3 is my interpretation of two interlocking parts in this style. He’s said in interviews that his concept as a player was to develop “rhythm solos” that could stand out front in a song, and this is a perfect example of that.
Ex. 3
Thriller
(Better than) Average Riffs
Though Hamish Stuart is most known for being an original member of the Average White Band, the singer/guitarist/composer/producer also did extensive work with heavyweights such as George Benson, Paul McCartney, Chaka Khan, and Aretha Franklin. Though AWB was still working until 1983, Hamish was doing sessions with various artists as a sideman in the early ’80s, including this excerpt from “Move Me No Mountain” off Chaka Khan’s Naughty from 1980 (Ex. 4). I’ve always loved the interplay between these two parts, range-wise and rhythmically. The lower pick line hits some unusual 16th-note placements, and the higher dyads have a churn to them that is amazing. Both parts together feel different rhythmically from anything I have ever heard but sound so cool and unique.
Ex. 4
Chaka Khan - Move Me No Mountain
Wayne Krantz
Wayne Krantz is one of those guys that hit me like a lightning bolt. Upon hearing him, I felt like I had “permission” to play more with the fingers of my right hand, use jagged and intentional rhythms, and above all, to play more naturally. Wayne has always played like himself. His control over rhythm and articulation alone is legendary, not to mention the vast body of unique work he has created. Ex. 5 is an excerpt from the only solo I ever learned of his, from “Infinity Split” off 1999’s Greenwich Mean. I love this solo because it is incredibly engaging rhythmically and melodically, but almost 100 percent inside the harmony. This solo taught me more about rhythmic placement and articulation than anything.
Ex. 5
Wayne Krantz - Infinity Split
Though I could only grab a certain percentage of these guys’ “vocabulary,” learning these parts over the years helped me find my sound. The result was an attempt to emulate some of their musicality in my way, rather than outright imitating them. Anything you hear that grabs your interest is probably worth sitting down and figuring out. While we might not mention the guitarists above alongside Hendrix or Van Halen, they have all done their part to put a brick in the cathedral, furthering music, and the instrument.
What if you could have the best of both—or multiple—worlds? Our columnist investigates.
This column is a fun and educational thought experiment: What if I took inspiration from the well-known Fender amps out there, combined the best from them, and applied a few of my own twists? After all, this is how amps developed. I read somewhere that “Fender made the first Marshall, and Marshall made the first reissue Fender.” It's funny, because it's true: The Marshall JTM45 was based on the narrow-panel tweed Fender Bassman 5F6-A.
Before we start, I’d like to share my respect for the real entrepreneurs who get into the gear industry. The financial and commercial challenges are of existential magnitude, and I can only imagine the complexity of scaling up production lines. For now, let’s start with the easy part: designing the amps of our dreams.
The Smarter Deluxe Reverb
The idea behind this amp is to enhance the black-panel Deluxe Reverb by making it simpler, yet more versatile. First, we’d need an extra 2 cm of cabinet height for better clearance between the output transformer and the magnet of a heavy-duty 12" speaker. The extra ambience and fullness from the slightly larger cabinet would be appreciated by many who find the Deluxe too small on larger stages. I’d offer both 2x10 and 1x12 speaker baffles of birch plywood that are more durable than MDF particle boards.
For the 2x10 version, there would be simple on/off switches on the lower back plate to disconnect the speaker wires. That way, players could disable one speaker to easily reduce volume and headroom, or select between two different sounding speakers. Also, these switches will enable super-easy speaker comparisons at home. There would be a 4- and 8-ohm impedance selector based on a multi-tap output transformer that is the size of a Vibrolux Reverb 125A6A transformer—one size bigger than the Deluxe´s 125A1A. This would tighten up the low-end response to accommodate the bigger cabinet.
Like the Princeton Reverb, the amp would be single-channel with reverb and tremolo, but with only one input jack. I would keep the Deluxe’s tone stack, and add a bright switch and a mid-control with a larger 20-25K mid-pot value instead of the Fender-default 10K. This would enable players to dial in many more tones between a scooped American sound and a British growl. The power amp section is 100 percent Deluxe Reverb, which would allow 6L6 tube swaps without the need to change anything else. The full power of the 6L6 will not be utilized due to the lower 6V6 plate voltages, but it gives you some extra headroom. To reduce costs and complexity, I would use a diode rectifier and transistors in the reverb circuitry, like the modern Blues Junior. This saves two tubes and creates less trouble down the road. The tremolo would be based on the Princeton Reverb’s bias-based tremolo circuit, since it sweeps deeper than the Deluxe Reverb’s optoisolator tremolo.
The Bassman Pro Reverb
My second amp would be a large, warm-sounding amp with preamp distortion abilities. I really like the Vibro-King and tweed Bassman 5F6-A circuit designs, where the volume control is placed alone before a 12AX7 preamp tube stage and then followed by the EQ section. This means that a high volume-knob setting allows a strong signal to enter the 12AX7, creating a distorted signal at the tube’s output. This distorted signal then enters the bass, mid, and treble pots afterward, which can lower the still-distorted signal amplitude before the phase inverter and power amp section. With this preamp design, you can achieve a heavily cranked tone at low volumes based on preamp distortion and clean power amp operation. This trick is not possible with the typical AB763 amps, where the volume and EQ work together at the same stage. If you set the volume high and the bass, mids, and treble low, they cancel each other before hitting the next tube stage.
“This amp could do it all: pleasant cleans and distortion at both moderate and loud levels.”
I would use a Pro Reverb-sized 2x12 cabinet for this amp, with the output impedance selector and speaker switches I mentioned earlier. The amp would have dual 6L6s in push/pull, and a Super Reverb-sized 125A9A output transformer for a firm low end at 40-watt power output. I would go for cathode bias in this amp, for a compressed, low-wattage, tweed-style response, to add even more dirt next after the hot preamp section. There is only one jack input into the single channel, with reverb, tremolo, and full EQ controls (bright switch, bass, mid, and treble). Since this would be a more costly amp, I’d use a tube rectifier and tube-driven reverb. This amp could do it all: pleasant cleans and distortion at both moderate and loud levels. It wouldn’t stay loud and clean, though. For that, we would need a third amp, which we will maybe get back to later.
I’d be excited to hear your thoughts about these amps, and if I should follow my dreams to build themI would use a Pro Reverb-sized 2x12 cabinet for this amp, with the output impedance selector and speaker switches I mentioned earlier. The amp would have dual 6L6s in push/pull, and a Super Reverb-sized 125A9A output transformer for a firm low end at 40-watt power output. I would go for cathode bias in this amp, for a compressed, low-wattage, tweed-style response, to add even more dirt next after the hot preamp section. There is only one jack input into the single channel, with reverb, tremolo, and full EQ controls (bright switch, bass, mid, and treble). Since this would be a more costly amp, I’d use a tube rectifier and tube-driven reverb. This amp could do it all: pleasant cleans and distortion at both moderate and loud levels. It wouldn’t stay loud and clean, though. For that, we would need a third amp, which we will maybe get back to later.
I’d be excited to hear your thoughts about these amps, and if I should follow my dreams to build them!
After surviving a near-death aortic dissection onstage, Richie Faulkner shredder has endured some health challenges. In this exclusive video, he opens up about how the cardiac event impacted his mental health both on- and offstage.
During Judas Priest's the Louder Than Life 2021 performance at the Louisville-based festival, lead shredder Richie Faulkner suffered an aortic dissection onstage. (It's worth noting, the steadfast professional finished the "Painkiller" solo before ending the set—an amazing feat.) He was rushed to the nearby University of Louisville hospital that saved his life. (Serendipitously, the hospital was only a few miles from the festival grounds.)
Faulkner fully recovered from the near-death experience but has endured other health setback stemming from the aortic dissection resulting in several issues including his right-hand coordination and strength. He's powered through the last 3+ years of performances and only now is open to talking about the difficulties he has playing the technical rhythm parts and how that's impacted his mental health both on- and offstage with the massive metal band.