Van Zandtās āNumber Oneā Strat is a vintage-style ā80s-built reissue with a purple paisley pickguard custom-made by Asbury Park luthier Dave Petillo. Van Zandt likes to keep a boost at his fingertips, so itās loaded with an Alembic Stratoblaster circuit.
Van Zandt takes six Rickenbackers on the road. Seen here are his two one-of-a-kind-finish Rickenbacker 1993Plus models in candy apple purple and SVZ blue, a fireglo, and his candy apple green Fab Gear 2024 Limited Edition ā60s Style 360. Also on hand is a fireglo 360/12C63, a gift from guitar dealer and collector Andy Babiuk to Van Zandt that stays in open E.
Next to āNumber Oneā is Stevieās Gretsch Tenessean with a custom Dave Petillo pickguard and a Vox Teardrop thatās on long-term loan from Andy Babiuk. In the background is a Petillo-customized Fender Jaguar.
Like many of Van Zandtās guitars, his Rickenbacker Fab Gear 2023 Limited Edition ā60s Style 360 Model has a Petillo custom pickguard. āThe pickguards that I build for Stevie are all clear acrylic plastic, just like Gretsch did in the old days,ā says Petillo. āTheir pickguards were clear, and they would paint the underside. Itās the same process that I use for Stevieās Rickenbackers.ā Petillo hand draws the artwork using a computer, and then laser prints each design at a facility in North Carolina. He explains that no two Rickenbacker pickguards are ever drilled precisely the same way, so each finished guard must be custom-fitted.
Tech Ben Newberry shows off Van Zandtās Soulfire guitar, custom built by Petillo, which the guitarist mostly uses in his Disciples of Soul band but will occasionally appear on E Street stages.
Van Zandt plays through two Vox AC30 amps housed off-stage at tech Ben Newberryās station, and a pair of Vox cabinets join him on stage.
Van Zandtās pedals are offstage, too, not at his feet. Stevie only gently colors his tone. He uses three Durham Electronics pedals: the Sex Drive, the Mucho Busto, and a Zia Drive. The guitarist learned about Durham pedals years back when he produced guitarists Charlie Sexton and Doyle Bramhall IIās Arc Angels record in 1992. Newberry explains that the Sex Drive is ābasically always on.ā
The pedalboard rounds out with an Ibanez Tube Screamer, a Boss Space Echo, a Boss TR-3 Tremolo, and a Boss Rotary Ensemble to simulate Leslie speaker sounds, and an Electro-Harmonix Satisfaction fuzz.
Just offstage, Newberry follows his pedal-switching script using a Voodoo Labs Ground Control Pro switcher to trigger Van Zandtās effects.
At home in the shop at Gibson USA, where DeCola is R&D manager and master luthier.
Jim DeCola paid for his first guitar with his nose.
āWhen the first wave came, it scooped us all up, and I was tumbling under and something hit me bad,ā he recounts. āSo, Iām in a daze, and my sister runs up to me and says, āOh my god, you have a bloody nose!āā When DeCola looked in the bathroom mirror, his nose was broken and the skin was split. The surf parkās medic sent him to a hospital. āWhatever the bill is, give it to us and weāll double it,ā DeCola recalls being told. āJust please donāt sue.ā When a check for $880 arrived, his mother suggested he use it to buy the electric guitar he was pining for. āI ended up with a Gibson SG, because George Harrison had one, but they didnāt have a cherry red one, so mine was ebony.ā He also got a Roland Cube practice amp because it had a master volume. āI still have both, and itās still a great little amp and a great guitar. And that,ā he says, āset me on my course.ā
Itās been an epic journey in guitar creation: from his apprenticeship at a Lansing, Illinois, shopāwhich led to a dramatic and well-chronicled bridge fix for Randy Rhoadsāto his years with Peavey, Fender, and now Gibson, where he is R&D manager and master luthier. DeCola blanches a bit at the master luthier title, observing that heād prefer, simply, āguitar guy,ā but thatās like calling a tiger a cat. DeCola is an apex builder. Instruments he designed are world-renowned and heās collaborated with an enviable list of greats that includes Eddie Van Halen, Paul McCartney, Slash, Adrian Vandenberg, Rudy Sarzo, Neil Schon, and Randy Jackson.
Jim DeCola at the Gibson USA offices in Nashville. He spearheaded the companyās current two-pronged product orientation, with original and modern instrument lines.
Photo by Ted Drozdowski
In the Beginningā¦
DeColaās family was musical. His dad played many instruments but trumpet was his main squeeze, and his older brother and sister exposed Jim to the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Cream, and other deities of the ā60s guitar-rock canon. Thus fueled, at 15, in his second year of wood shop, he decided to build a guitar. Inspired by a photo of Scorpionsā Matthias Jabs, he settled on an Explorer body shape. A friend who already played guitar detailed where the bridge needed to go and what parts were required, and DeCola reverse engineered from there. He even cut the pickguard from a sheet of gray smoke Mirrorplex. But despite two years of electronics classes, he opted to bring his creation to the Music Lab, that guitar shop in Lansing, where he was taking lessons, for the wiring.
āThe guy who did repairs wired it up for me, and when it was ready he called and said, āHey, I want to talk with you when you come in,ā ā DeCola recounts. āHe asked me to apprentice with him. It was learn while you earn, and while I did learn some stuff from him, really, I was wet sanding guitars and doing that kind of grunt work.ā DeCola was at Music Lab part-time for 18 months, and graduated from high school just as the tech left. The owners of the store asked Jim to take over, and, as Suetonius told Caesar, the die was cast.
In January ā82, a caller made DeCola think he was being prankedāuntil he became convinced it really was Randy Rhoads and Rudy Sarzoās tech Pete Morton. They explained that Bruce Bolen, then at Chicago Musical Instruments, had suggested him to fix Rhoads guitar in time for the nightās Ozzy Osbourne performance. DeCola grabbed his tools and drove through the snow for 50 miles to the Rosemont Horizon arena, where Rhoads was having trouble keeping the vibrato bridge on his polka-dot Sandoval custom V in tune. After a quick round of introductions, DeCola took apart the vibrato bridge and used a technique inspired by G&L guitars, deleting two of its bridgeās four screws and cutting a pivot with a V-file to countersink the bridge plate. Next, he was treated to a soundcheck of āMr. Crowleyā by Rhoads, Sarzo, and drummer Tommy Aldridge. As the opening act played, Rhoads asked DeCola to make the vibrato āa little slinkier,ā and he completed the mod just before Ozzyās downbeat. DeColaāstill in his teensāwas standing just off to the side when the iconic photo of Ozzy carrying Rhoads that appeared on the cover of the 1987-released Tributealbum was taken.
Six years later, DeCola received offers from Kahler and Peavey, and he opted to relocate to Meridian, Mississippi, to work with Hartley Peavey as his R&D tech. āI learned a lot,ā he reflects. āHartley was a great mentor. At any time, Iād have a stack of books and magazines, or just single pages ripped from magazines, a foot high on my desk, and heād expect me to read and give him a report on everything,ā says DeCola. āSometimes it was related to guitars, amps, and effects; sometimes it might be antique radios.ā After a few years, DeCola was promoted to supervisor of guitar engineering and began designing instruments. DeCola minted some of Peaveyās most lauded guitars, including the Tele-like Generation, with dual humbuckers, a mahogany body and neck, and a 5-way switch. That guitar gave the company a toehold in the country music market, but was also embraced by Steve Cropper and Dave Edmunds.
āWe looked at each other and said, āThe decade of the āsuperstratā is over.āā
Every Best Les Paul Sound
Another pivotal experience during his years at Peavey happened at a summer NAMM show in Chicagoās McCormick Place, when a celestial Les Paul tone suddenly emerged from the exhibition hallās PA system. āIt was āSweet Child Oā Mineā by Guns Nā Roses,ā says DeCola, āand weāre looking up thinking, āWho the hell is this?ā It was every best Les Paul sound wrapped up into one. We looked at each other and said, āThe decade of the āsuperstratā is over.ā And it really was.ā
That inspired DeCola to create the Les Paul-Tele-style hybrid Peavey Odyssey. He also worked with Adrian Vandenberg on set-neck and neck-through versions of the Dutch guitaristās signature models, and a host of other artistsāincluding Eddie Van Halen. Peaveyās artist relations head heard that Van Halen had a falling out with Ernie Ball Music Man and sensed opportunity. DeCola quickly made a prototype inspired by Eddieās EBMM signature model and took it to a gig in Florida, where the band was kicking off the Balance tour. āEddie rehearsed with it and said, āOkay, now I know you can do it; letās come up with a design.āā
During the development process, DeCola learned that Eddieās son Wolfgang had a birthday coming. So, as a gift for Wolfie, he decided to make a 3/4-size example of his signature concept for Eddie. Mid-build, Eddie made a surprise visit to Meridian. DeCola invited EVH into his office and showed him Wolfieās guitar.
āI thought this would be the direction weād use for your new model,ā DeCola explained. āHe said, āYeah, I love it! Just make it full size, then.ā And for the headstock, Eddie had done some napkin drawings in the hotel that were like Flying Vās, but smaller.ā That wouldnāt work, thanks to the U.S. Patent Office. More ideas were exchanged. DeCola was coincidentally working on a new build for himself at the time, with a three-to-a-side headstock. He painted that headstock black, and then sanded a scoop in its tip. And that was it. Eddie was happy. DeCola wanted to get a prototype into Van Halenās hands as quickly as possible, so when he found out the virtuoso was leaving Meridian the next day after lunch, he worked through the night.
āWhen he showed up the next morning at 11 a.m., I was just tuning it up,ā DeCola recalls. āIt was raw wood, but he played it and said, āThatās it.āā Thus, the Peavey EVH Wolfgang was born. āAfter that, the engineering took longer than making the guitar, because I had to do the blueprints and totally spec out everything,ā DeCola adds.
Another important encounter he had in Meridian was with the blues historian and record collector Gayle Dean Wardlow, noted for, among other things, finding the death certificate of Robert Johnson. After they met, DeCola started going to Wardlowās home weekly to talk about the roots of the genre heād begun studying as a young player, listen to rare old 78s, and absorb the techniques preserved in their shellac. That study paid off. Hearing DeCola play metal-bodied resonator guitar is a high-order experience, although he also sounds terrific rocking the hell out on a Les Paul. DeCola is humble about his playing, but, really, he doesnāt need to be. āItās a great release, and great therapy,ā he says.
DeColaās tenure at Peavey ran its course. āI was making P-90 and 12-string versions of existing guitars, a 12-string baritone ā¦ and they were turning my operation into a custom shop, which I didnāt want to do, because thatās just low-volume manufacturing. I wanted to stick with designing new stuff,ā he says. āI wanted a change. It was five years with a lot of pressure. I wasnāt getting credit for designing and building Eddie Van Halenās guitars. So, I went to Fender in Nashville, who had what they called the Custom Shop East at the time.ā
āMusicians and skaters have the same kind of soul, the same mindset,ā DeCola says. āIt is something you can do by yourself, as a form of expression, but when youāve got your crew and youāre skating, itās like being with your band.ā
Photo courtesy of Jim DeCola
āI came up with the idea of teaching people how to use things that every guitar player is going to have around the house for toolsācoins or picksāand MacGyver their instruments.ā
On to Gibson
There, he worked with Bruce Bolen and pickup guru Tim Shaw. But after Bolen retired in 2011 and Fender decided to close that Nashville location, DeCola found out about openings at Gibson and applied. In June, he was hired as master luthier.
āGibsonās been a great ride,ā DeCola attests. Although it hasnāt always been easy. When DeCola came onboard, the notoriously controlling, sometimes-volatile Henry Juszkiewicz was CEO. āIt was fine for me, because Henry respected me, but it was an environment where I felt I had to be measured in my responses,ā he says. There were also notorious design gaffes, like ārobot tunersā and the dreadful Firebird Xāboth pet projects of Juszkiewicz that almost literally no one else, especially customers, desired.
āI got blamed for some of that stuff, but I was just the messenger,ā DeCola says. But as James Curleigh and, now, Cesar Gueikian took over Gibsonās leadership, DeCola had an opportunity to proactively get his thoughts on the direction for the companyās products before more receptive CEOs.
āI made a bullet list and at one point had maybe 40 things on there, like going back to a thin binding on certain models and changing features,ā he relates. āBut my main message was, āGive the people what they want; weāre not here to dictate what people want.āā Many of DeColaās ideas were manifested in the roster of guitars at the Gibson display at NAMM 2019āinstruments that honored and built upon the companyās legacy. DeCola also had the idea of splitting Gibsonās model line into original and modern categories. āMy concept was, we have the original models, which weāre determined to improve, and the modern line where we could have locking tuners, push-pull pots, and blueberry burst finishesāfeatures that arenāt rooted in the golden years of the ā50s.ā
Gueikian embraced that practice for Gibson USA and the Custom Shop, and expanded it to the acoustic Custom Shop in Bozeman, Montana, and to the Mesa/Boogie amp line. But DeCola was already on the case with amplification. Before Curleigh stepped down, heād asked DeCola to look at Gibsonās amp line, and, again, DeCola looked back andforward at once. Inspired by his personal collection of vintage Gibson amps, he mapped out a new product line for 10-, 20-, and 40-watters. āI based my thinking off the greatest hits of those classic amps, and focused on the Falcon, because I have a ā62 Falcon, and when I looked into its history, the revelation was that it was the first amp with both reverb and tremolo,ā he says. āSo, I thought that would be a cool amp to make.ā Then Gibson bought Mesa/Boogie under Gueikianās stewardship, and the project went to that companyās Randall Smith, who created a stellar original design. Gibson unveiled the power-switching Falcon 5 (which won PGās coveted Premier Gear Award) and Falcon 20 in January 2024.
DeCola is skilled in every aspect of guitar building, including working in the spray shop, where he is seen here training the gun on a model year 2024 blueberry burst Les Paul Studio.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
Mr. Fix-It
While the profile of most people in the guitar industry went down during the pandemic, DeColaās went up thanks to a series of how-to videos he made for Gibsonās YouTube channel. They cover such topics as how to adjust action and pickup height, and how to do a proper setup. āI wanted to do something for the guitar community when things were shut down, so I came up with the idea of teaching people how to use things that every guitar player is going to have around the house for toolsācoins or picksāand MacGyver their instruments,ā he says. These videos have hundreds of thousands of views, and have given him a kind of celebrity status thatās rare among luthiers.
When asked what makes a great guitar, including the signature models heās worked on at Gibson for Paul McCartney, Slash, and others, DeCola talks about achieving a commonsense, holistic balance of design, materials, and craftsmanship. He adds that there is no shortage of fine instruments now available, and that, moving ahead, he sees the kind of balance between tradition and invention that he has promoted at Gibson remaining its norm. āThere are a lot of boutique builders and trends like 7- and 8-string guitars, fanned frets, and different scale lengths today,ā he notes. āSome of it can be cyclical. There was a period in the ā80s and ā90s, for example, when a lot of people were adopting 7-strings, and now I see a lot of them again.
āGibson was built on innovation,ā he continues. āOrville Gibson, our founder, got his first patent creating a mandolin built completely different than other mandolins. Prior to that, they were typically gourd instruments, but he applied the carved back and top method from the violin and cello. And with the jazz-box electric guitars, there were so many Gibson innovations, like the adjustable neck and bridge, the humbucking pickupā¦. But because weāre a legacy company, we have to tread a bit lighter on some of the innovation, which our previous leadership was too forward on, with features the market wasnāt ready for. But in defense of that, Iāll go back to our heritage instruments. The Flying V and Explorer were all designed out of the space race, but initially commercial flopsātoo ahead of their time. So thatās why I wanted to split the model lineāso we have the latitude to come up with some new things, but can still honor whatās expected of Gibson. Right now, weāre looking at some innovation in electronics and other features we will be bringing to the market.ā
Now in his early 60s, DeCola is also still working on his skateboard moves. He tries to get to Nashvilleās municipal Two Rivers Skatepark and Rocketown once a week. There, heās found a coterie of fellow veteran skatersāmany of whom are also in the music business, as players, producers, and engineers. āIād say musicians and skaters have the same kind of soul, the same mindset,ā he says. āIt is something you can do by yourself, as a form of expression, but when youāve got your crew and youāre skating, itās like being with your band. Itās even more fun, and it inspires you. It can make you better.ā
DeCola performs a neck adjustment on an ES-335.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
Naturally, every recording Eddie Van Halen ever played on has been pored over by legions of guitar players of all styles. It might seem funny, then, to consider EVH solos that might require more attention. But your 100 Guitarists hosts have their picks of solos that they feel merit a little discussion. Some of these are deep cutsāget ready for some instrumental bonus tracks and Van Halen III mentionsāand some are among the biggest radio hits of their time. Just because their hits, though, doesnāt mean we donāt have more to add to the conversation.
We canāt cover everything EVHāJason has already tried while producing the Runninā With the Dweezil podcast. But we cover as much as we can in our longest episode yet. And in the second installment of our current listening segment, weāre talking about new-ish music from Oz Noy and Bill Orcutt.
There are plenty of mighty American rock bands, but relatively few have had as profound an impact on the international musical landscape as X. Along with other select members of punkās original Class of 1977, including Patti Smith, Richard Hell, and Talking Heads, the Los Angeles-based outfit proved that rock ānā roll could be stripped to its bones and still be as literate and allusive as the best work of the songwriters who emerged during the previous decade and were swept up in the corporate-rock tidal wave that punk rebelled against. Xās first three albumsāLos Angles, Wild Gift, and Under the Big Black Sun-were a beautiful and provocative foundation, and rocked like Mt. Rushmore.
Last year, X released a new album, Smoke & Fiction, and, after declaring it would be their last, embarked on what was billed as a goodbye tour, seemingly putting a bow on 47 years of their creative journey. But when PG caught up with X at Memphisās Minglewood Hall in late fall, vocalist and bassist John Doe let us in on a secret: They are going to continue playing select dates and the occasional mini-tour, and will be part of the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas in April 12.
Not-so-secret is that they still rock like Mt. Rushmore, and that the work of all four of the foundersābassist, singer, and songwriter Doe, vocalist and songwriter Exene Cervenka, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer D.J. Bonebreakāremains inspired.
Onstage at Minglewood Hall, Doe talked a bit about his lead role in the film-festival-award-winning 2022 remake of the film noir classic D.O.A. But most important, he and Zoom let us in on their minimalist sonic secrets.Brought to you by DāAddario.
Gretsch A Sketch
Since Xās earliest days, Billy Zoom has played Gretsches. In the beginning, it was a Silver Jet, but in recent years heās preferred the hollowbody G6122T-59 Vintage Select Chet Atkins Country Gentleman. This example roars a little more thanks to the Kent Armstrong P-90 in the neck and a Seymour Duncan DeArmond-style pickup in the bridge. Zoom, who is an electronics wiz, also did some custom wiring and has locking tuners on the guitar.
More DeArmond
Zoomās sole effect is this vintage DeArmond 602 volume pedal. It helps him reign in the feedback that occasionally comes soaring in, since he stations himself right in front of his amp during shows.
It's a Zoom!
Zoomās experience with electronics began as a kid, when he began building items from the famed Heath Kit series and made his own CB radio. And since heās a guitarist, building amps seemed inevitable. This 1x12 was crafted at the request of G&L Guitars, but never came to market. It is switchable between 10 and 30 watts and sports a single Celestion Vintage 30.
Tube Time!
The tube array includes two EL84, 12AX7s in the preamp stage, and a single 12AT7. The rightmost input is for a reverb/tremolo footswitch.
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Big Black Sun
Besides 3-band EQ, reverb, and tremolo, Zoomās custom wiring allows for a mid-boost that pumps up to 14 dB. Not content with 11, it starts there and goes to 20.
Baby Blue
This amp is also a Zoom creation, with just a tone and volume control (the latter with a low boost). It also relies on 12AX7s and EL84s.
Big Bottom
Here is John Doeās rig in full: Ampeg and Fender basses, with his simple stack between them. The red head atop his cabs is a rare bird: an Amber Light Walter Woods from the 1970s. These amps are legendary among bass players for their full tone, and especially good for upright bass and eccentric instruments like Doeās scroll-head Ampeg. āI think they were the first small, solid-state bass amps ever,ā Doe offers. They have channels designated for electric and upright basses (Doe says he uses the upright channel, for a mid-dier tone), plus volume, treble, bass, and master volume controls. One of the switches puts the signal out of phase, but heās not sure what the others do. Then, thereās a Genzler cab with two 12" speakers and four horns, and an Ampeg 4x10.
Scared Scroll
Hereās the headstock of that Ampeg scroll bass, an artifact of the ā60s with a microphone pickup. Doe seems to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this instrument, which has open tuners and through-body f-style holes on its right and left sides. āThe interesting thing,ā he says, āis that you cannot have any treble on the pickup. If you do, it sounds like shit. With a pick, you can sort of get away with it.ā So he mostly rolls off all the treble to shake the earth.
Jazz Bass II
This is the second Fender Jazz Bass that Doe has owned. He bought his first from a friend in Baltimore for $150, and used it to write and record most of Xās early albums. That one no longer leaves home. But this touring instrument came from the Guitar Castle in Salem, Oregon, and was painted to recreate the vintage vibe of Doeās historic bass.
