When you get right down to it, there’s no formula or complex calculus for determining what makes one particular axe-slinger stand out from the crowd. Is it all in your technique, or is it all about that elusive feel? Do you have rock-star swagger, or are you the more cerebral type? Are you a badass riff machine, or can you solo circles around so-and-so?
Whatever the defining mojo really is, one thing we know for sure is that we know it when we hear it. There’s an unmistakable signature to a gritty Keith Richards riff or a kamikaze Jimi Hendrix solo. Strip it down to its basics, and most of what makes it memorable comes from the personal stamp of the guy doing the playing. But there’s something else afoot here. The magic isn’t just in what they’re playing or how they’re playing it—it’s in how all that interacts and intertwines with sonic signatures imparted by the gear they use.
Throughout the history of electric guitar, so much of that magical mojo has been spun from the electric innards of stompboxes—wah-wahs, phasers, flangers, envelope filters, fuzz units, and more. Effects pedals are the great democratizers: Get yourself a distortion box, and you too can be a rock star! But, more importantly, they’re portals to new worlds of tone. Anyone can use them, and anyone, with the right combination of devices, timing, and/or technique can get a sound out of them that no one has ever heard before. Whether that’s a sound worth hearing again is a matter of taste, but when everything clicks, it can be legendary.
That sound can happen instantly, almost by accident, or it can take years of exploration. As Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist for the Mars Volta, will tell you, curiosity does have its payoffs. “I remember when I got my first delay pedal,” he says. “I’ve always used pedals to hide my playing, and now as I’ve been able to evolve as a player, I can remember that the thing I loved most about the delay pedal was that I could use a certain time setting, and it sounded like I was playing way more than I was. It made me want to learn how to play the way the delay sounded. The pedal itself pushed me to learn more about my instrument. I always liked this idea and this part of the process. It’s about learning from your gear, and learning from these little metal boxes that supposedly have no life and no influence, you know?”
There are countless examples of inventive players who’ve redefined how we hear music and guitar because of the unique way they’ve absolutely owned a specific effect pedal. It would be impossible to try to list them all, but here we’ve chosen what we believe are the 10 most historically significant instances of intrepid players who pushed a specific stompbox to its limits and changed the world as we know it.
An example of a first-run FZ-1A Fuzz-Tone. Photos courtesy of Simon Murphy
1. Keith Richards' Gibson Maestro FZ-1A Fuzz-Tone
“I’ve only ever used foot pedals twice,” Keith Richards wrote in Life, his 2010 autobiography. As it turned out, one of those occasions happened to be the recording of the Rolling Stones’ signature hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”—one of the earliest, if not the first, uses of fuzz in modern rock. Richards’ guitar line was supposed to be a scratch track for a horn section, “so I could give a shape to what the horns were supposed to do. But the fuzz tone had never been heard before anywhere, and that’s the sound that caught everybody’s imagination.”
Nashville studio engineer Glen Snoddy had stumbled onto the original fuzz sound in 1960, when an overloaded transformer shorted-out in one of the Langevin tube modules he was using to record an electric 6-string “tic-tac” bass. He designed a transistorized version of the effect and sold it to Gibson in 1962. “At first I was mortified,” Richards says, describing how he felt when he happened to hear “Satisfaction” blaring over a radio station in Minnesota. “We didn’t even know Andrew [Loog Oldham, the Stones’ manager] had put the [expletive] thing out! [But it was] the record of the summer of ’65, so I’m not arguing.”
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An original 1967 Arbiter Fuzz Face. Photo courtesy of Starman1984
2. Jimi Hendrix's Arbiter Fuzz Face
As Frank Zappa told readers of Life magazine’s “The New Rock” issue in June 1968, the only way aspiring guitarists could even hope to sound like Jimi Hendrix was to “buy a Fender Stratocaster, an Arbiter Fuzz Face, a Vox wah-wah pedal, and four Marshall amplifiers”—and even then, of course, nothing was guaranteed. Shaped like the round, cast-iron base of a microphone stand, the Fuzz Face was a simple and durable unit that delivered gain and distortion with a vengeance. It was produced by Arbiter Electronics in London and went to market in the fall of ’66—perfect timing for Hendrix, who had just arrived in England and was wide open to trying the latest gadgets, no matter how experimental (as Roger Mayer, inventor of the famed Octavia pedal, found out when the two met the following spring).
“Love or Confusion,” from the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut Are You Experienced, is the first recorded instance of his use of the Fuzz Face, but the best example on the album is probably “I Don’t Live Today,” where the lower reaches of his tone actually start to break apart into shards of pure, controlled noise, years before anyone even thought to overdrive a guitar to such extremes.
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A pristine specimen of a circa-’66 Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk II. Photo courtesy of Macari’s Musical Instruments
3. Jimmy Pages Sola Sound Tone Bender MK II
In the 2009 documentary It Might Get Loud, Jimmy Page remembers telling Roger Mayer that he was looking to get more sustain out of his guitar, so Mayer went off and invented the Tone Bender. The only thing is, it was actually engineer Gary Hurst who designed the little wedge-shaped box in 1965 (it was almost 50 years ago—so we can give the former Yardbird and Zep man a break!). Hurst licensed his creation to Sola Sound in London, and pretty soon blues-rock bands all over England were getting a deep, juicy sustain out of their solos. As Page told the local fanzine Hit Parader in 1968 (shortly before he founded Led Zeppelin), “I get 75 percent of my sound with [the Tone Bender]. It’s very similar to a fuzz box, but I can sustain notes for several minutes if I want to.”
Page’s guitar on the first Zep album seems to cook from the inside out with a signature Tone Bender sound (speculation says the MK II model), most notably on “Dazed and Confused” and “You Shook Me.” The unit’s appearances became less obvious on subsequent Zep recordings, but its association with Page was etched in stone. “It was this phenomenal thing,” he marvels in It Might Get Loud, “a distortion pedal that could make the guitar sound pretty rude.”
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A clean example of a Vox King wah with a TDK 5103 inductor. Photo courtesy of Guitar Center Vintage Collection
4. Curtis Mayfield and Craig Mullen's VOX King Wah
Even in the late ’60s, when the wah pedal was primarily a blues-rock staple, it was almost inevitable that it would become synonymous with soul music. A well-placed wah could transform even a mundane, two-note riff into a plaintive wail, and that was all it took to draw artists like Curtis Mayfield to its expressive power. Surprisingly though, he preferred the simplicity of an auto-wah, as Craig McMullen, Mayfield’s go-to guitarist and originator of the “Superfly” wah guitar sound, explains: “Curtis never was too much for fooling with the gadgetry, which is cool because he had his own unique sound in the way he played, anyway. So all the wah-wah variations that you hear on those early records, that was me on the Vox.”
What often gets lost in the towering shadow of 1972’s classic Superfly is that Mayfield and McMullen had already etched the wah-wah into the soul-funk firmament the previous year with the sizzling double LP Curtis/Live!. Incredibly, this was the 5-piece band’s first gig together and it remains one of the grittiest, funkiest live performances ever documented. “You figure we’re at least going to do a couple of gigs to get tight,” McMullen quips, “but we were going to go for the jugular vein right now. And I was, like, ‘Okay, well—you lead, and we’ll follow!’”
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A mint-condition Mu-Tron III. Photo courtesy of LosAngelesGuitarShop.com
5. Bootsy Collins' Musitronics Mu-Tron III
Designed by electronics whiz Mike Beigel, the Mu-Tron III debuted in 1972, but with its watery, wavy-sounding sweep, it really belonged in the psychedelic ’60s. Stevie Wonder used it on the Clavinet for his 1973 hit “Higher Ground,” catapulting it to prominence among gear freaks, including Bootsy Collins, who had just joined Parliament-Funkadelic and, at the ripe age of 21, was looking to redefine funk bass for a new generation. He took to the Mu-Tron like it had been custom-designed for him (years later, he adopted the “Boot-Tron” and “Zillatron” aliases in tribute), often using it in tandem with a Big Muff or a Morley Fuzz Wah for distortion.
“I’d Rather Be With You,” from his 1976 breakthrough, Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band, exemplifies Bootsy’s fascination with the dynamics of auto-wah and envelope effects, and how just a whiff of distortion could transform the bass into a lead instrument. Jimi Hendrix exerted a huge influence on Collins, and nowhere is this more dramatic than on the steamy bedroom classic “What’s a Telephone Bill?” (from 1978’s Ahh…the Name Is Bootsy, Baby!), which opens with a prolonged, light-fingered teasing of the Mu-Tron’s envelope filter and builds to a climactic solo drenched in distortion, wah, and Echoplex.
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An early-’70s script-logo Phase 90. Photo by Larry Kent
6. Eddie Van Halen's MXR Phase 90
Whole volumes have been written about how Eddie Van Halen achieved his archetypal “brown sound,” probably because he pretty much demolished the way lead guitar would ever be heard again in a hard-rock setting. Beyond his stupefying technique, it was the brash, hyper-articulated and subtly phased distortion on early Van Halen songs like “Eruption” and “Jamie’s Cryin’” that really changed the game. Amazingly, EVH relied on a combination of pure amplification and voltage reduction—no overdrive pedals—to get his basic distortion tone, using an Ohmite Variac variable transformer so his Marshall Super Lead would run more efficiently at loud volume.
Eddie onstage in 1980 with a Phase 90 in the center of his meager pedalboard. Photo by Neil Zlozower/atlasicons.com
At the heart of his pedal setup, which he connected after the amp via a dummy load box, was an Echoplex EP-3, an MXR Flanger, and the vital MXR Phase 90. Also known as the “little orange box,” the Phase 90 had launched the MXR brand in 1972 and was popular for its simplicity: one knob, labeled “speed,” was all you needed to approach a decent (and inexpensive) simulation of a rotating Leslie speaker. EVH maintained that the unit, set at slow sweep, actually didn’t phase too strongly, and gave his tone a treble boost so his solos could cut through more easily. When your drummer is the heavy-hitting Alex Van Halen, you need every advantage you can get.
A well-used, late-’70s Electric Mistress. Photo courtesy of Alfi e’s Musical Instruments, Brighton, UK
7. Andy Summers' Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress Flanger
One thing Andy Summers picked up during his brief stint in 1968 with prog-rock progenitors the Soft Machine came, ironically, not from the band itself, but the act they were touring with—the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Put simply, Summers was “enthralled,” and although he never cites Hendrix as a direct influence, there’s a definite sense of the shamanistic that permeates the Brit guitarist’s work with the Police.
Summers onstage in 1982. Photo by Neil Zlozower
It started with a Maestro Echoplex EP-3 he acquired in late ’78, just as the band’s Outlandos d’Amour was leaking onto the airwaves, and evolved into a deep fascination with a wide range of phasers, flangers, and guitar synthesizers. The Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress is probably the most recognizable of anything in the Summers arsenal. Incorporated into a pedalboard custom-designed by effects legend Pete Cornish, the unit gives “Walking on the Moon” its otherworldy textural quality, and is one of the stars of the band’s third album, Zenyattà Mondatta, particularly on “Driven to Tears” and the upbeat hit “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.”
A rusted-but-rocking original Deluxe Memory Man. Photo courtesy of JHS Pedals
8. The Edge's Electro-Harmonix Memory Man Deluxe
Knowing when not to play is probably the instinct that saved the Edge a lot of headaches in the early days of U2, because it opened him up to the possibilities of using manipulated sound to further his ideas. Lucky for us, he was polishing his deceptively simple guitar technique during a time—the late ’70s and early ’80s—when new and exotic effects pedals were flooding the market. The Electro-Harmonix Memory Man Deluxe was one of these. It improved on the Memory Man (originally released in ’76) by adding level and chorus-vibrato to the existing delay, feedback, and blend controls, which made for a box that could churn out alien tone bends and echo washed delays seemingly without limit.
“I got this echo unit and I brought it back to rehearsal,” Edge recalls in It Might Get Loud. “I just got totally into listening to the return echo, filling in notes that I’m not playing, like two guitar players rather than one—the exact same thing, but just a little bit off to one side. I could see ways to use it that had never been used. Suddenly everything changed.” The changes came fast and furious. You can hear the Memory Man prominently on “A Day Without Me,” the lead single from U2’s Boy, and for the next decade the Edge honed a richly layered and mutable sound that guitarists young and old are still trying to duplicate.
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A circa-’82 original TS9 Tube Screamer. Photo courtesy of Ibanez
9. Stevie Ray Vaughan's Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
Almost right out of the gate, Stevie Ray Vaughan was touted as the heir apparent to Hendrix—a challenge he took on with disarming reverence, even as it became clear he was mapping out a style all his own. Being steeped in Texas blues had a lot to do with it, but SRV was also a tireless tone hound, and when he sniffed out the first version of the Ibanez Tube Screamer (the TS808), he knew he’d found the midrange bite he’d been looking for. He soon moved on to the grittier TS9, which seemed to shimmer a bit more in the higher registers.
“I use it because of the tone knob,” he told Frank Joseph in 1983. “That way you can vary the distortion and tonal range. You can turn it on slightly to get a Guitar Slim tone, which is how I use it, or wide open so your guitar sounds like it should jump up and bite you.” SRV and Double Trouble’s Texas Flood sports a few notable examples, including the title track, the classic hit “Pride and Joy,” and the instrumental blues boogie “Testify”—all testament not only to his versatility as a player, but to his incomparable ear for crafting a lead tone that perfectly fit the mood of a song. By the time he got to 1984’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather, everyone knew an SRV solo when they heard it.
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A mint-condition original WH-1 Whammy. Photo courtesy of DigiTech
10. Tom Morello's DigiTech WH-1 Whammy
When Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut exploded like a cluster bomb in 1992, the consensus wtf? moment among guitar heads came at about the 3:50 mark in the album’s lead-off single, “Killing in the Name.” Tom Morello’s impossibly elastic solo was the boldest use yet of DigiTech’s WH-1 Whammy pedal, introduced in 1989. The Ferrari-red unit featured pitch-bending and harmonizing technology developed by IVL Audio, and with its expression pedal allowed squeals and dive-bombs that could extend as low (or as high) as three octaves.
For Morello, the Whammy offered an intuitive way, especially in the higher octaves, to emulate the siren-like samples he heard in the southern California gangsta rap sound of Dr. Dre, DJ Quik, and Ice Cube. “I was basically designated to be the band’s DJ,” he said in a 2008 interview, “and I found, with very simple manipulations of a very simple pedal, that all of a sudden the guitar, for me, was finding a lot of very new sonic possibilities.” Morello tapped into the unit’s harmonizing capabilities as well, most notably on the devastatingly funky “Know Your Enemy,” which opens with an infectious stacked-fifths riff and culminates in one of the nuttiest guitar solos of the ’90s.
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Last year, Taylor Guitars capped its 50th Anniversary by introducing a new guitar collection celebrating the contributions of co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug to the guitar world. The Legacy Collection revives five of Bob Taylor’s classic acoustic models, curated by the legendary luthier and innovator himself. “To imagine that we’re doing guitars that harken to our past, our present and our future all at the same time,” Bob says, “I really like that.”
In developing the collection, Bob preserved the essence of his originals while integrating performance and playability upgrades introduced during his tenure as designer-in-chief. “It’s an up-to-date version of what those guitars would be,” Bob explains, “but with the same sound.”
Visually, these guitars feel classic—clean, understated and unmistakably Taylor. While Bob’s original aesthetic preferences are showcased in his Legacy models, the nod to the past runs deeper than trade dress.
From his earliest builds, Bob favored slim-profile necks because he found them easier to play. That preference set a design precedent that established Taylor’s reputation for smooth-playing, comfortable necks. Legacy models feature slim mahogany necks built with Taylor's patented New Technology (NT) design. “My first neck was a bolted-on neck but not an NT neck,” Bob says. “These are NT necks because it’s a better neck.” Introduced in 1999, the NT neck allowed for unprecedented micro-adjustability while offering a consistent, hand-friendly Taylor playing experience.
What makes this collection unique within the Taylor line is Bob’s use of his X-bracing architecture, favoring his time-tested internal voicing framework over more recent Taylor bracing innovations to evoke a distinctive tone profile. Since Andy Powers—Taylor’s current Chief Guitar Designer, President and CEO—debuted his patented V-Class bracing in 2018, V-Class has become a staple in Taylor’s premium-performance guitars. Still, Bob’s X-bracing pattern produces a richly textured sound with pleasing volume, balance and clarity that long defined the Taylor voice. All Legacy models feature LR Baggs VTC Element electronics, which Bob says “harkens back to those days.”
The team at Taylor thought the best way to demonstrate the sound of the Legacy guitars was to ask Andy Powers, Bob’s successor, to play them. A world-class luthier and musician, Andy has spent the past 14 years leading Taylor’s guitar innovation. In addition to V-Class bracing, his contributions include the Grand Pacific body style, the ultra-refined Builder’s Edition Collection, and most recently, the stunning Gold Label Collection.
Below you’ll find a series of videos that feature Powers playing each Legacy model along with information about the guitars.
Legacy 800 Series Models
First launched in 1975, the 800 Series was Taylor’s first official guitar series. Today, it remains home to some of the brand’s most acclaimed instruments, including the flagship 814ce, Builder’s Edition 814ce and new Gold Label 814e.
The Legacy 800 Series features the 810e Dreadnought and two Jumbos: the 6-string 815e and 12-string 855e. Each model serves up a refined version of the Dreadnought and Jumbo body shapes Bob inherited from Sam Radding—the original owner of the American Dream music shop where Bob and Kurt first met. “I was making my guitars in the molds that Sam had made at American Dream,” Bob recalls. “There was a Jumbo and a Dreadnought. That’s all we had.”
All three Legacy 800 Series guitars feature one of Bob’s favorite tonewood combos. Solid Indian rosewood back and sides are paired with a Sitka spruce top, yielding warm lows, clear trebles and a scooped midrange.
Aesthetic appointments include a three-ring abalone rosette, mother-of-pearl Large Diamond inlays, white binding around the body and fretboard, and Bob’s “straight-ear” peghead design. Both Jumbo models also showcase a mustache-style ebony bridge—a nod to Bob’s early Jumbo builds.
Legacy 810e
The 810 Dreadnought holds a special place in Bob Taylor’s heart. “My first 810, the one I made for myself, was a thrilling guitar for me to make,” he says. “It’s the one and only guitar I played. It didn’t matter how many guitars we made at Taylor, that’s the one I took out and played.” The Legacy 810e brings back that bold, room-filling Dreadnought voice along with the easy playability expected from a Taylor.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 810e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 855e
Taylor’s first 12-strings found an audience in 1970s Los Angeles. “I was making guitars that would find their way to McCabe’s in Santa Monica and Westwood Music,” Bob says, “and these guitars were easy to play. Twelve-strings were a popular sound in that music. It was a modern country/folk/rock music genre that was accepting our guitars because they were easy to play. They also liked the sound of them because our guitars were easier to record.” The Legacy 855e, with its resonant Jumbo body, slim neck and gorgeous octave sparkle, carries that tradition forward.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 855e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 815e
The Legacy 815e revives Taylor’s original Jumbo 6-string, delivering a big, lush sound with beautifully blooming overtones.
Legacy Grand Auditoriums
In the early 1990s, Bob Taylor heard a consistent refrain from dealers: “Not everybody wants a dreadnought guitar anymore.” Players were asking for something with comparable volume but different proportions—something more comfortable, yet still powerful. This feedback inspired Bob to design a new body style with more elegant curves, more accommodating proportions and a balanced tonal response. The result was the Grand Auditorium, which Taylor introduced in 1994 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Thanks to its musical versatility and easy playability, Bob’s Grand Auditorium attracted a wide variety of players. “We came into our own with our Grand Auditorium,” he says. “People were describing it as ‘all around.’ It’s a good strummer and good for fingerstyle, but it’s not totally geared toward strumming or totally geared toward fingerstyle.” Also referred to as the “Swiss-Army Knife” of guitars or the “Goldilocks” guitar, the GA quickly became a favorite among guitarists across playing styles, musical genres and different playing applications including recording and live performance. “That guitar made studio work successful,” Bob says. It gained a wider fanbase with the debut of the “ce” version, which introduced a Venetian cutaway and onboard electronics. “That became one of our hallmarks,” says Bob. “If you want to plug in your guitar, buy a Taylor.”
Today, the Grand Auditorium is Taylor’s best-selling body shape.
The Legacy Collection features two cedar-top Grand Auditoriums inspired by past favorites: the mahogany/cedar 514ce and rosewood/cedar 714ce. Both models incorporate Bob’s original X-bracing pattern for a tonal character reminiscent of their 1990s and 2000s counterparts. Shared aesthetic details include a green abalone three-ring rosette, ebony bridge pins with green abalone dots, a faux-tortoiseshell pickguard and Taylor gold tuning machines.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 815e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 514ce
The Legacy 514ce features solid mahogany back and sides paired with a Western Red cedar top, yielding a punchy midrange and dry, woody sonic personality that pairs beautifully with cedar’s soft-touch sensitivity and warmth. It’s a standout choice for fingerstyle players and light strummers who crave nuance and depth. Distinct visual details include faux-tortoise body and fretboard binding, black-and-white top trim, and mother-of-pearl small diamond fretboard inlays.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 514ce | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 714ce
The Legacy 714ce also features a cedar top, this time matched with solid Indian rosewood back and sides. The result is a richly textured sound with deep lows, clear trebles and a warm, mellow response. Inspiring as it is, this specific wood pairing isn’t currently offered in any other standard Taylor model. Additional aesthetic details include green abalone dot fretboard inlays, black body and fretboard binding, and black-and-white “pinstripe” body purfling.
While the Legacy Collection spotlights Taylor’s past, newer models from the Gold Label, Builder’s Edition and Somos Collections show the company’s legacy is always evolving. Explore the Legacy Collection at taylorguitars.com or visit your local authorized Taylor dealer.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 714ce | Playthrough Demo
Taylor’s The Last of Us Replica 314c guitar is based on its best-selling 300 Series and features Taylor’s most popular body style, the Grand Auditorium. Crafted with Taylor’s hallmark playability, pro-level sound and refined workmanship, the guitar showcases a visual aesthetic that matches the guitar featured in the series.
For fans of the show, the guitar’s most recognizable design element is a custom moth inlay at the third fret. The guitar also features a Tobacco Sunburst top finish and grained ivoroid accents, along with a satin-finish body and neck, creating a vintage, well-worn aesthetic that fits seamlessly into the gritty post-pandemic world Joel and Ellie inhabit.
This acoustic-only model features a solid Sitka spruce top and solid sapele back and sides, delivering a clear, warm, balanced voice with appealing midrange presence — an ideal sonic tool for storytelling through song. Additional appointments include grained ivoroid body binding, grained ivoroid fretboard inlays that include the moth and large dot position markers, and a custom double-ring rosette also in grained ivoroid. The Grand Auditorium body features a Venetian cutaway for easy access to upper-register notes. Each guitar comes with a Taylor-built deluxe hardshell case to ensure safe transport, whether across the country or across the quarantine zone.
Built for the Journey Ahead
“The Last of Us is a story of resilience, connection and finding beauty amid harsh realities — themes that resonate with the emotional expression a Taylor guitar offers players,” says Tim O’Brien, Vice President of Marketing at Taylor Guitars. “We’re honored to collaborate with HBO and Sony Pictures Consumer Products to bring this iconic instrument to fans and players alike.”
Availability and Ordering
The Taylor x The Last of Us Replica guitar is available for purchase now via TaylorGuitars.comand select authorized Taylor dealers. Orders are built on demand in Taylor’s Southern California factory, with an expected delivery time of 6–10 weeks. Due to the nature of this release, quantities are limited.
Whether you’re a musician, collector or a devoted fan of the series, this guitar offers a one-of-a kind connection to the legacy of Joel, Ellie and the enduring spirit of survival.
Guest picker Ally Venable
Ally Venable - Guest Picker
By FifthLegend from Eagan, Minnesota, United States of America - Thundercat, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70617212
A: For my late-night show's house band, I’ve assembled a dream team. This ensemble inspires me with their unparalleled musical talents and diverse backgrounds. Chris Layton’s drumming is unmatched and he will provide a solid foundation. I’ll have Jon Batiste on keys. His creativity and energy is boundless. Eric Gales would be on guitar. I love how emotive his music is, and I strive for that type of connection within my playing as well. Finally, I’d have Thundercat on bass. His playing is infused with jazz and funk sensibilities that would tie the whole sound together in an interesting way.
Obsession: My current obsession is shifting my approach to playing—focusing on connection over applause. Instead of chasing technical perfection or crowd reactions, I’m leaning into the emotional and spiritual side of music. It’s about creating moments that resonate deeply, whether it’s with myself, my bandmates, or the audience.
David Saenger - Reader of the Month
A: I love the idea of supergroups and how each of the players would interact. On guitars I would have Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) and Isaiah Sharkey. My drum and bass combo would be Stewart Copeland (The Police) and Mohini Dey. On keys and sax, I would have Herbie Hancock and Joshua Redman. My male and female vocalists would be Corey Glover (Living Colour) and Liv Warfield (Prince). All of these players are fantastic improvisers and really know how to put on an entertaining show in any genre.
Bassist Victor Wooten
Obsession: My current obsession has been bass. My 12-year-old daughter started playing electric and upright bass about two years ago, and it’s been a blast working with her. I’ve been really focusing on having a solid pocket, and it’s forced me to get better at reading bass clef. I’m taking her to see Victor Wooten next week. Can’t wait!
Jason Shadrick - Managing Editor
Jason Shadrick on the SNL stage.
A: The natural move would be to go for a high-energy party band decked out with multiple keyboards, horns, and vocalists. I’d go a different route. I’d go for a more rootsy vibe with Blake Mills leading a band consisting of Jay Bellerose on drums, esperanza spalding on bass, Bob Reynolds on saxophones, and a rotating guest each week. They could cover lo-fi Americana, funky open-tuned blues, and so much more.
Obsession: This month is slightly less obsession and more reflection as this will be my last issue as Managing Editor for PG. Over the last 15 years I’ve worked on 182 issues, which is kinda mind-boggling. I’ve been lucky enough to do some incredible things during my time at PG, including walking through the host door at SNL and spending a few minutes with Brian May. Never could have imagined it. I am very grateful.
Nick Millevoi - Senior Editor
A: I’ve long said that joining one of the late night bands would probably be my absolute top dream gig. So, if I were choosing my own late-night band, from any era, I would go no further than getting a chance to sit with Paul Schaffer and the World’s Most Dangerous Band or G.E. Smith-era Saturday Night Live Band.
Obsession: The late guitarist Jef Lee Johnson, who spent time in Schaffer’s band, had a heavy resume that included stars of all genres from Billy Joel to the Roots to McCoy Tyner. I got to see him play some low-key gigs around Philly, and each rearranged my molecules. It’s only now, years after his 2013 death, that I’ve become obsessed with his discography. Though much of his work was as a high-level sideman, his albums show the broad range of this masterful guitarist, whose tone, feel, and phrasing conveyed the instrument’s deepest emotional capabilities.
