On this episode of Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zack are joined by Wales-born guitarist Chris Buck. Buck is gearing up for a string of US tour dates with his fast-rising rock band Cardinal Black, including a date at Nashville’s Basement East after the original venue sold-out within a few hours.
Luke Ottenhof HED: How Chris Buck Went From YouTube to the Royal Albert HallTEASER: From the tough economics of touring to building a personal style without theory, the Welsh guitarist talks about his journey from social media to sold-out shows.On this episode of Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zack are joined by Wales-born guitarist Chris Buck. Buck is gearing up for a string of US tour dates with his fast-rising rock band Cardinal Black, including a date at Nashville’s Basement East after the original venue sold-out within a few hours.Buck starts off digging into the details of his custom Yamaha Revstar and why he chose the versatile guitar over better-known offerings from legacy brands. Buck’s rise has been nearly meteoric: He started off posting videos on Facebook and Instagram before his wife suggested he give YouTube a try. His channel now counts 226,000 subscribers, thanks to his popular Friday Fretworks videos. But as Buck explains, his content is a tool to help fund his original music—a very successful tool.
Still, it’s not all sunshine. Buck details how he and his band navigate the brutal economics of touring, including some horror stories of how they ended up losing money on merch sales. Later, we learn how Buck built his signature playing style—mostly by ear and by accident. “I don’t think anyone has ever ended up sounding like themselves through sitting down and going ‘Right, im gonna try to sound unique,’” he says. “It just happens over time.”
He’s gone from YouTube to the Royal Albert Hall, but Buck reveals a quiet concern that he’s peaked too early. What do Rhett and Zach make of that fear? Tune in.
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After Rhett shares his childhood trauma of riding an immersive horror coaster at Tomorrowland and Zach recovers from the emotional experience of viewing the Millennium Falcon in person on a family vacation, Texas-born guitarist Eric Johnson joins them for a revelatory discussion on tone, gear, and the never-ending hunt for creative inspiration.
Rhett starts by noting that Johnson’s DNA isn’t just in his playing and composition, but his sound, too. How does one sculpt a signature tone? “It starts with your intention and your design of your vision,” Johnson starts. He says that when he was young, he learned that there was great guitar playing to be found in nearly every style of music, and calls his sound a “hodge-podge” of all the styles he loved, name-checking the Beatles, the Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, and Wes Montgomery as stylistic signposts.
Rhett and Zack wonder how important Johnson’s rig is to him nowadays. He’s a classic man—a Stratocaster into an old Marshall is his little slice of paradise—but he warns young guitarists from focusing too much on the sizzle and forgetting about the steak. “I always say to anybody chasing [gear], ‘Don’t go so deep in the rabbit hole that you just analyze too much,’” he says. “It’s part of the thing, but it’s not the main thing.” Plus, Johnson hints that he finds inspiration in instruments’ oddities—and even their defects.
Johnson reveals that he’s experimenting with a Neural DSP, but the new tech might be too polished for his liking. He explains that when he tried designing a signature Fuzz Face with Dunlop, he only got close once they swapped out the high-quality wiring and pots for older, degraded materials. “It’s just a mystery,” he grins.Ultimately, Johnson says it doesn’t matter what tool artists use, they have to learn to “negotiate the medium.” Whether it’s a particular amplifier’s quirks or “the horse hairs on the paintbrush,” Johnson says it’s up to the individual to make something special with what they’ve got.
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On this episode, Rhett and Zach discuss the relationship that they each have with the guitar at this point in their careers. Making a living doing the thing you love is great—in fact, it’s something that so many players aspire to. But it changes the relationship between player and instrument when the instrument is a source of work. How do they stay excited about their work? And how do they get excited when they’re in a lull? What keeps their creativity flowing? These are big questions, but our hosts are both having their own renaissances with their guitars. And—surprise!—it’s because they’ve both come into some new key pieces of gear.
Zach reports that he has been rippin’ totally sweet Metallica licks on his sick new ESP LTD Kirk Hammett Signature Series KH-602. He’s a longtime fan of the band—and has conveniently fallen back in love with Kill ’Em All and Ride the Lightning—and says he’s wanted a Hammett signature guitar for his entire guitar-playing life. When he saw this one at Nashville’s Guitars To Be Played, he fell in love with everything, from the skull and crossbones fret markers to the Floyd Rose. And you know what? The Floyd Rose isn’t hard to set up. This guitar, Zach says, is kickstarting his “love of the guitar again.”
Meanwhile, Rhett has been enjoying his new Soldano SLO-100head and matching 4x12 cabinet, even if he does keep the cab a few flights below his control room. He’s stoked about the story of Soldano, who he admires for being one of the early boutique amp builders, and has been playing this new 100-watter all week.When it’s time to dip a rig, it’s hard to find any faults. No spoilers, but it’s a nice one (and an easy gig load).And in the shill zone, Zach talks about the importance of running a brown box for owners of older amps and talks briefly about the difference between the Brown Box and a Variac.