Peter Thorn’s tools include a 1963 Gibson ES-335, a 2011 Suhr Classic S, and a 1964 Fender Stratocaster.
Like most of you, I’m absolutely intrigued by gear and how it’s used in musical contexts. The gear choices we make stem from many things, but my main concerns are tone and functionality: How well does the gear get the job done? Still, aesthetics and ease of use are also important because the guitars we choose are vehicles for our expression. I’m going to walk you through my main guitars, offer some simple advice, and discuss the mods I’ve made to my axes to make them more functional.
Tools of the Trade
First and foremost, guitars are tools to me. I need them to do my job. I do have a real fondness for particular instruments in my collection, but I can honestly say that I’m not afraid to take vintage guitars out on tour, and I don’t get upset if guitars get dinged or scratched. They are meant to be played, and ultimately, it’s all about what you create with the tools, not the tools themselves.
I’m no purist. I like vintage guitars, but I don’t mind if they’re modified for improved tone, playability, or functionality. I also like new instruments that are crafted to high standards and believe they can often match or exceed the tone of the best vintage instruments. If a vintage guitar sounds great, there are quantifiable reasons why, and these things can be measured and ultimately recreated in new instruments. My friend John Suhr once said to me, “They didn’t use magic trees.”
The Well-Rounded Collection
Because I make my living mainly as a sideman and session player, I require a well-rounded guitar collection. I often need to reproduce many distinct tones within one set. When I was touring with Chris Cornell, for example, we would perform material spanning his entire recording career. So within one show, I needed the Hendrix-y Strat tones of Temple of the Dog’s Mike McCready, the somewhat cleaner and sometimes effected tones of Audioslave’s Tom Morello, the varied sounds from Cornell’s three solo albums, and of course the sludgy, dark, and downtuned tones of Soundgarden. My guitar choices are born of necessity.
Fender-Style Guitars
I first started playing around 1981 on a Strat copy. Because of this, Stratocaster-style guitars and their 25 1/2" scale and body contours will always feel like home. I have a terrific 1964 Strat that sounds warm and ballsy, yet also clear and airy. It has a few mods, because again, I view guitars as tools.
My ’64 has been refretted with Dunlop 6105 fretwire and outfitted with a 5-way pickup-selector switch. The bottom tone pot has also been wired to work on the bridge pickup. This is a great mod for Strats because the often ice-picky bridge pickup can be tamed to match well with the neck and middle pickups. I also removed the string tree, which helps the guitar stay in tune, though it requires that I wind the 1st and 2nd strings quite far down the tuner posts.
I’ve toured with the old Strat quite a bit, although I’ve been leaving it at home lately. These days, when I need that Strat tone and feel, I use one of several Suhr Classic S guitars. They play and sound like good vintage Strats, but with all the quirks fixed. My Classic S guitars have floating Gotoh 510 tremolo bridges, compound-radius fretboards with stainless-steel frets, and Suhr’s noiseless system that eliminates 60-cycle hum without changing the tone of the guitars. All this makes for an extremely easy to play and great-sounding Strat-style guitar.
Two of my Classic S guitars have the traditional arrangement of three single-coils using Suhr V60LP pickups, while my sunburst Classic S has a single/single/humbucker setup. I have a push-pull tone pot on this guitar set to switch the Suhr SSH bridge humbucker from standard series operation to parallel. This too is a great mod, since a humbucker in parallel sounds very close to a single-coil. (“Tapping” a humbucker for single-coil operation has always sounded somewhat fake to me, so I much prefer the series/parallel switch.)
My Classic S with the humbucker is probably my most versatile guitar—if I had to bring just one axe to a gig, it would most likely be this one. I recommend that anyone in my line of work own at least one good Strat-style guitar with a single/single/humbucker pickup arrangement. It’s as close to a jack-of-all-trades electric guitar as you can get.
I also have a Suhr Classic T Antique, a ’50s Tele-style guitar. A good Tele-style axe is an absolute necessessity for sideman or session work. They are incredibly versatile for such a simple design, and sometimes you simply have to have that Tele-style tone and look.
Thorn in the studio with the ’59 replica built for him by luthier Gil Yaron. He believes modern instruments made to the highest standards can match or exceed vintage instruments. Photo by Ray Guiterrez.
Gibson-Style Guitars
Getting used to Gibsons and Gibson-style guitars was an adjustment for me. The way they hang on a strap on my body, the increased neck angle, and the height of the Tune-o-matic bridge all took some getting used to. They now generally feel very comfortable, which is great, because I often need to have the thicker midrange and sustain that only a Les Paul can provide. And a 335 or similar semi-hollow axe can be a beautiful thing for certain situations as well. When it comes to three-on-a-side headstocks, rosewood fretboards, humbuckers, and a 24 3/4" scale length, I have three main squeezes.
My 1963 Gibson ES-335 is the real deal. Played by Eric Clapton with Cream, Eric Johnson, and too many other legends to mention, a 335 has warmth and air around the notes—and when plugged into a cranked amp, it screams. A good 335 or similar semi-hollow guitar is a big asset for any touring sideman or session player because these guitars sound wonderful and look great to boot. I sometimes stuff foam or deadening material into the soundholes, which can really help cut down on the feedback that semi-hollow guitars are prone to.
Thorn on tour with Chris Cornell—and the 2002 Les Paul Custom he calls his “rock ’n’ roll machine.”
Photo by Hugo Marcotte.
The black 2002 Les Paul Custom that I call my “rock ’n’ roll machine” is a total road warrior with a deep, powerful, and clear tone. I used it extensively on tour with Chris Cornell, and it was my main guitar for Soundgarden material. When I was on tour with Melissa Etheridge, she often borrowed it, and liked it so much that she eventually bought her own black LP Custom.
My LP Custom has had a headstock break, and the electronics and pickups have been switched out. I often switch out the pots on modern Les Pauls since Gibson usually ships them with 300k linear-taper pots, which I find to be muddy sounding. I prefer 500k audio-taper pots because they open up the tone, and I prefer the audio taper. My LP Custom has a wiring harness from RS Guitarworks, a Seymour Duncan ’59 in the neck, and an old WB Habanero in the bridge. It’s just a solid, versatile Les Paul.
In 2012, Israeli luthier Gil Yaron made me a replica of a very coveted guitar from 1959 (yes, that one). I adore the thing. It plays and feels exactly like a great 60-year-old guitar should. The pickups sound warm, yet they have a beautiful, chimey, open top end—something I find lacking in most modern guitars of this type. Low- or low-to-mid output pickups are the name of the game here, as I find there’s always a way to get more gain, but it’s tough to get that magic, balanced sound once a pickup gets too hot. I’ve played numerous late ’50s bursts and goldtops, so I know what I like about those old guitars, and my Yaron captures that magic.
Thorn’s main acoustic is a 2012 Martin D-28 because of its effortless feel and stellar sound.
Acoustics
I have an absolutely beautiful GA8e-12 Taylor 12-string with their onboard Expression System, and I just can’t say enough about Taylor guitars in general. They sound lush, clear, and natural plugged in, play incredibly well, and are tough as nails. I can drop my GA8e-12 from standard tuning to D—a whole-step down—and it barely flinches. A small tweak of the truss rod is usually all that’s ever required.
My main 6-string acoustic is a 2012 Martin D-28, a gift from Chris Cornell. A D-28 is like the Chevy truck of acoustics: It just gets the job done. It plays effortlessly and has a B-Band A2.2 pickup/preamp system that consistently gets raves from front-of-house engineers. My Martin sounds incredibly natural with a very true acoustic sound—not hyped or typically piezo-like. For all my acoustics, I use an Ultra FBR2 Feedback Buster. It’s a rubber device that fits in the soundhole to stop unwanted feedback. I can’t recommend this easy little trick highly enough.
When on tour, the most important accessory in my guitar vault to keep my axes in top shape (besides strings and truss-rod wrenches) is Big Bends Nut Sauce. It’s a lubricant easily applied to the nut slots and bridge saddles on any guitar. Nut Sauce is an absolute necessity for me because it increases tuning stability dramatically, especially for Gibson-style guitars. I use it every time I change strings.
Well, that’s it. I make my living with the guitars I’ve detailed here 95 percent of the time. As you know now, I firmly believe that simple tweaks or mods can often make a great guitar even better, and I hope you’ve found some of my tips, tricks, and mod details helpful. Until next month, I wish you great tone!
Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
Once the news of the Oasis reunion got out, Sadler Vaden hit YouTube hard on the tour bus, driving his bandmates crazy. The Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit guitarist has been a Noel Gallagher mega-fan since he was a teenager, so he joined us to wax poetic about Oasis’ hooks, Noel’s guitar sound, and the band’s symphonic melodies. What are Sadler’s favorite Oasis jams? And if he ever shares a bill with Oasis and they ask him onstage, what song does he want to join in on?
