On his solo work, Fertita channels the inspiration he gets from his various projects, from Dead Weather and Queens of the Stone Age, of which he’s a member, to projects with artists such as Karen O and Iggy Pop.
In that interim, the guitarist has had a lot to keep him busy. Since the mid ’00s, he’s been a part of a number of ongoing projects: He plays guitar and keys in Queens of the Stone Age, has been a touring member of the Raconteurs—whose lineup includes Fertita’s high school friend, multi-instrumentalist Brendan Benson—and formed the Dead Weather with the Kills’ vocalist Alison Mosshart and Jack White. Between touring, writing, and recording with these groups, Fertita also manages to squeeze in session work with artists such as Karen O and Iggy Pop.
Where There is Water
The trippy Tropical Gothclub was recorded during Fertita’s pandemic-era touring downtime and is made up of songs he’d been collecting for over a decade.
That sheer volume of work is a full-time creative effort. It’s a constant cycle, and for Fertita, the genesis of “what’s next” usually emerges just as another undertaking is winding down. But then came March 2020, and—like everyone else—he found himself in a pandemic break with time to focus on his solo projects again.
“In early 2020, we just finished the Raconteurs run,” Fertita says. “I didn’t know what was going on for the next few months for work, but I knew that in the not-so-distant future, we were planning on getting back together for Queens [of the Stone Age]. Alison Mosshart and I were talking about how we were both home for a while. We both had a few songs, and we started sending demos back and forth to each other. That got the wheels turning for me. A month later, we were locked down. But I was already in this mode of working through songs and arrangements and things that might work if we did a Dead Weather record.”
“The entire record was making sense of 10 years of fragmented ideas.”
“We were operating under the illusion [that the lockdown wouldn’t last very long],” Fertita laughs. “We decided to go through our ideas so we could be sharp and ready to go. I just kept recording my ideas. There was nothing else going on. I also had so many fragments of songs that had been laying around for years. In my mind, I was putting them in these different aisles: ‘This one would go good in Queens, and this one would work over here.…’ I just kept working, and at the end of that process I had a record’s worth of material and nowhere that it was immediately going to go. Jack encouraged me just to release it as it is, even though that was not even something I was considering at the time.”
Intentional or not, that collection of bits and bobs became Tropical Gothclub. In a sense, it sounds like what you’d expect from an artist immersed in the Third Man and Queens of the Stone Age universes—a heaping mass of abrasive, pedal-generated fuzz tones—except that Fertita, with his decades of experience, pushes that to another level entirely. Barnburners like “No Wonder,” with its intricate harmonized leads, and the call-and-response-heavy “Death Rattle” ooze enough of a guitar-orchestra vibe that they could almost be outtakes from Physical Graffiti. Others, like “Needles,” “Wheels Within Wheels,” and “Uniform Looks,” combine strong hooks, propulsive energy, and a seemingly endless variety of tones. The album also features more trippy moments—tempered with the occasional acoustic track—on songs like “Where There Is Water” and “Double Blind.”
Dean Fertita radiates the hazy surrealism of Tropical Gothclub.
Photo by Angelina Castillo
Fertita recorded much of Tropical Gothclub in a small A-frame house he built in his backyard, reassembling sections taken from lengthier jam sessions and working with snippets collected over the years. “The entire record was making sense of 10 years of fragmented ideas,” he says. “Sometimes, it was a 15-minute jam that I did with a drummer that we would arrange and figure out what it was. Some things I revisited and tightened up because they were recorded on GarageBand and then put into a Logic session.”
At some point in the process, Fertita brought Detroit-area engineer Dave Feeny (The White Stripes, Josh Ritter, Mule) on board to help sort through the clutter. “I’ve known Dave for a very long time,” he says. “I did another record in a similar way with him, which means he totally understands the various degrees of ‘done’ of the things that are sent to him. He just knew what I was going for and we could talk quickly. He was able to move it at a quick enough speed that it would be interesting. I’d get it back in a day and think, ‘I can do this now. I can play bass to this song now that we have a drum arrangement figured out’—or whatever it was.”
“This record—Tropical Gothclub—became a culmination of all my split personalities.”
Fertita is a connoisseur of tones, and he’s sensitive to subtle tweaks and changes. Different instruments, situations, and especially pedals affect his playing and approach. “Pedals always instantly change a frame of reference for me,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll hear a sound, and you’ll write to that sound immediately. I am always looking for character, and maybe even the weird thing that you’re not supposed to use—something that’s just going to be interesting sounding and different from the get-go.”
Working with so many different musicians inspires and triggers different chemical impulses as well. He points out that in QOTSA, “there are these two incredible guitar players,” and adds, “In Dead Weather, Jack predominantly plays drums, but we do play a lot of guitar together as well, and the stuff that he plays on those records is insane.”
Dean Fertita’s Gear
Fertita and his matching Gretsch White Falcon.
Photo by Andreas Neumann
Guitars
- Troy Van Leeuwen Fender Jazzmaster
- Goya Rangemaster
- Echopark Esperanto Z (Custom 9-string)
- Gretsch White Falcon
Amps
- No-name “magnetic” amplifier
- Fender Deluxe Reverb
- Supro Reissue Amp
- Silvertone Amp
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball .010s
- Fender Mediums
Pedals
- Binson Echorec 2 T7E
- Death By Audio Deep Animation Envelope Filter
- Death By Audio Supersonic Fuzz Gun
- Dunlop Fuzz Face Distortion
- EarthQuaker Devices Park Fuzz Sound
- Eventide H9 Max Harmonizer
- Fulltone Tube Tape Echo
- Gamechanger Audio Third Man Records Plasma Coil Distortion
- Ibanez AW7 Tone-Lok Autowah
- Mu-Tron Bi-Phase
- MXR Poly Blue Octave Pedal
- Old Blood Noise Reflector Chorus
- Third Man Records Bumble Buzz octave fuzz
- UREI Universal Audio Cooper Time Cube
- Way Huge Atreides Analog Weirding Module
Each band and project that Fertita participates in informs what he’s put into his solo music. “There’s no shortage of insane inspiration to try and fit in and complement what’s going on [in the album] already,” he says. “This record—Tropical Gothclub—became a culmination of all my split personalities. One idea I struggled with after making this record was: Shouldn’t I have made a stronger effort to make it totally different from the other things that I do, to show a completely different side? But there are different sides to my personality that get drawn out more, depending on the project that I am in. You probably can hear examples of how I would play if I were playing with Queens on this album.”
Fertita is not only flexible and productive as a guitarist and songwriter, he’s also a keyboardist, and that multi-instrumentalism helped connect some dots in his professional live.
“In Dead Weather, Jack predominantly plays drums, but we do play a lot of guitar together as well, and the stuff that he plays on those records is insane.”
“In 2005,” he explains, “I was on tour with Brendon Benson, and the first thing we did was an acoustic run in the U.K. As we were rehearsing, we thought it might be more interesting to break it up and have some songs on guitar and others on keys. I started to relearn them at that point.”
He had taken piano lessons as a child but put it aside as a teen. “I was stumbling through it but doing that led to the Raconteurs [Editor’s note: He plays both guitar and keys in that band when they’re on the road]. Our front-of-house engineer for that first tour was this guy Hutch, who had been with Queens since the beginning. He introduced me to the Queens guys, and 14 years later I am still doing that, too.”
As a multi-instrumentalist, Dean Fertita is an in-demand touring musician. He plays both guitar and keys for the Raconteurs on the road.
Photo by Andreas Neumann
What was it like to suddenly go pro on a less-familiar instrument? Did he get the jitters, or suffer from impostor syndrome? “I could keep up,” he laughs. “I was still holding my breath a little bit, but I felt like I could do what I had to do in that scenario. I wasn’t pushing boundaries. I was playing at the edge of my abilities most days.”
Fertita mostly reserves his limit-pushing for his work as a guitarist and songwriter. And one thing left to do is to play “Double Blind” for his daughter. “I have not played it for her yet,” he says. “I don’t want to embarrass her. She is aware that it exists, and I think she’ll listen to it alone. Maybe she’ll never tell me she’s heard it.”
The Dead Weather "I Feel Love" - Live on The Late Show
Dean Fertita is in his element, delivering blazing riffs on his Gretsch White Falcon with Alison Mosshart and Jack White as the Dead Weather on The Late Show.
Polyphia (L to R): Bassist Clay Gober, guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage, and drummer Clay Aeschliman.
Remember That You Will Die, Polyphia’s latest release, features a varied cast of guests including Steve Vai, Sophia Black, $not, Killstation, Lil West, and Deftones’ Chino Moreno, among others. “When we were making this album, we were just collaborating with everybody, and we probably made two albums,” says Henson. “There’s a lot of things that didn’t make it to this album that will most likely make it to the next or some other thing. It was kind of just picking the songs that were ready or the songs that were legally able to come out. The collaborations were with lots of people from different genres who have large teams, and it’s kind of a process to put out music with people like that. The people that made it to this album were the ones that pretty much made it the easiest on us, in terms of finishing the song and then getting their teams to clear it legally.”
Polyphia - Playing God (Official Music Video)
Vai’s cameo on the six-minute album-closer, “Ego Death,” in some ways represents a symbolic passing of the torch. “I fuckin’ love Steve, dude. It’s like a dream come true. It feels like our idol is rooting for us,” says Henson. “We went to his house just to visit, just to hang out. We showed him the song then, and asked him to do it, and then he did it. When he sent the thing, he was like, ‘Oh by the way, I just did an interview about which guitar players I find the most exciting and I listed you as number one.’ I was like, ‘Oh, that’s fuckin’ awesome.’ That was such a crazy thing to read, and to have to wait like six weeks for that article to come out.”
Both Polyphia guitarists agree that “Ego Death” is their favorite track on the album. LePage says, “I’m really proud of that one. I don’t know how this is going to sound, but seldom do I ever tear up listening to my own music because that’s just fuckin’ weird, but I’m very proud of myself, I’m very proud of Tim, I’m very proud of Clay [Aeschliman, drums] and Clay [Gober, bass]. I think that we really all came together and created the shit out of this song. And for it to be the closer on the record, especially this record that we tried to make as badass and cohesive and collective as we could, it takes me to that emotional level. I think the song came out wonderful, and I’m not even saying this with a biased opinion. I think that it is our best creation ever.”
Polyphia - Ego Death feat. Steve Vai (Official Music Video)
Remember That You Will Die features several hard-to-classify vocal tracks. “ABC” is a standout, featuring Sophia Black’s jaw-dropping vocal performance. It’s a hyper-catchy, J-pop style track that references modern R&B and is chock full of tight, caffeinated shred riffing. “It’s funny, when we were writing that song, we were like, ‘This is going to be the album outlier for sure,’ in terms of difference from the other songs,” says LePage. “But creatively, it’s one of our coolest ones, just because we really served the song. I don’t want to say that we intentionally held back guitars or anything, but we just did what we thought was right for the song. The talent is the vocals on the song, and we let it be like that. Our focus with that one was to just write a badass song.”
“We like to make easy-sounding things complicated.” —Scott LePage
When Henson summoned Black for a collaboration, the guitarist was going through a major transition in his life. After a four-year stint living in L.A., last year he decided to move. During his last three months in L.A., he booked sessions with people he needed to do sessions with before he left town. Black was one of them. “I’ve known Sophia for a while, and I’ve known that she’s very talented. I didn’t know that she could do that,” he recalls. “I’d done this TikTok of a Vocaloid song where I kind of just played the Vocaloid part on guitar, and it went viral and was, like, a big TikTok moment. And I wanted to recreate that with my own song, so I started the guitar riff inspired by that, and brought it to the session because I knew that Sophia speaks Japanese. The Vocaloid is really fast, like it’s programmed vocals—you could make it say whatever you want, and you can make it ungodly fast.” So, Henson asked Black to sing every note of the 26-note riff, and the singer suggested simply singing the alphabet. “I was like, ‘Yeah, try it.’ She hit (sings alphabet from A to Z), and we slowed it down so we could hear how it fit. She was like, ‘We’re making an alphabet song,’ and wrote the song in like two hours.”
The band tapped a crew of collaborators to come onboard for Remember That You Will Die—so many that they already have tracks in store for their next project as well. Both guitarists agree that their favorite song on the record is “Ego Death,” which features Steve Vai.
As much as the band are committed to their guitars, Henson and LePage look beyond their shared instrument to draw on diverse influences that come together like a breath of fresh air. Henson tries to make his guitar sound like a rapper, and he name checks Kanye West as an influence. You’ll hear trap music, EDM, hip-hop, djent, and flamenco influences, all blended into something that incorporates virtuosic guitar playing to create sounds that are completely new, yet completely right.
“I found I was getting stuck in my box. And in order to get out of my box, I needed to move to an instrument that I don’t know how to play.” —Tim Henson
“I find that there’s so much more to music than guitar. The guitar is just a means to an end,” says Henson. “It’s a tool to create music with. I just happened to play guitar my whole life, so that’s why I do play guitar now.” Other instruments help him find his unique sounds and get away from guitar-based writing. “I found I was getting stuck in my box. And in order to get out of my box, I needed to move to an instrument that I don’t know how to play,” he explains. “The muscle memory is causing the guitar to play me rather than me play the guitar. I don’t know how to play the piano. I have no idea, so at this point, I’m just feeling out where this note is in relationship to this note. And because I have no knowledge of the keyboard, no muscle memory, everything that’s in my head can come out easier, rather than it having to filter through my hands. The keyboard is allowing the composing muscles to work better, rather than the playing muscles.”
Polyphia's Gear
Scott LePage explains that when he and guitarist Tim Henson formed Polyphia as teenagers, they sought to combine pop songwriting with technical death-metal guitar playing, asking themselves, “How do we create songs with structure like that out of the things we know how to do on guitar?”
Photo by Paige Margulies
Guitars
- Ibanez AZ Custom Signature Models
- Ibanez Nylon-string TOD10N Tim Henson Signature
- Ibanez Meshuggah Fredrik Thordendal FTM33
- Ibanez Xiphos 7-string
- Ibanez J Custom 7-string
- Custom Ibanez 8-strings
Pickups
- Fishman Custom Signature Pickups
Modelers
- Neural DSP Archetype: Tim Henson
- Neural DSP Quad Cortex
Cabs
- Orange cabs
Effects (Plug-ins)
- Native Instruments Replika
- Native Instruments Substance
- Native Instruments Analog Brass/Winds
- Native Instruments Analog Strings
- Native Instruments Valhalla
- Native Instruments Kontakt
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere
- Splice samples
- Cradle: The Prince
- iZotope Neutron 2 and 3
- FabFilter
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Titanium Coated (.009–.046, .009–.052, .010–.052)
- Dunlop Tortex Sharp 1.12 mm
Both Henson and LePage initially learned how to play guitar from their dads (Henson also played violin seriously and says he started practicing two hours a day at the age of 3) and grew up on classic hard rock. LePage recalls that the first thing he learned was the pentatonic scale, which he calls “the best scale in the world,” before moving on to Black Sabbath songs. “I later started figuring out shit by ear. After my dad taught me pretty much everything that he knew, I started wanting to learn arpeggios and all that because I found out who Yngwie Malmsteen was. And I was like, ‘Holy shit, what’s that?’ My dad was like, ‘Alright, we’re gonna get you a guitar teacher.’ So, there was this dude named Earl Bailey who lived a couple of streets down. I’d go to his house once a week, every Wednesday for a couple of years, and he taught me the modes, and arpeggios, and triads, and a bunch of theoretical stuff.’”
In their teen years, LePage and Henson digested the music of technical death-metal bands like Job for a Cowboy and As Blood Runs Black. “Fast stuff like that,” LePage recalls as he sings a blur of notes. They were both in their late teens when they formed Polyphia, so these were fresh influences at the time.
“The first impression, if you were to listen to us and never heard of us, you might be overwhelmed.” —Tim Henson
“When we first started writing music together, we implemented a lot of shit like that. So, it was like, ‘Let’s take this and apply it to pop structure songs,’ and that’s when we did Muse, our first album. And we kinda just took it from there—‘How do we create songs with structure like that out of the things we know how to do on guitar?’”
In addition to their mind-boggling, hyper-speed licks, Polyphia’s use of harmonics and open strings adds a unique flavor to their sound. LePage says, “Personally, it kind of started as ‘how do I make it sound different?’ And one thing—and I think I can vouch for everyone who’s ever tried to play a Polyphia song when I say this—we like to make easy-sounding things complicated. To put it in layman’s terms, because it sounds cooler and looks cooler when you play it like that. Using an open string and a harmonic in a spot that you wouldn’t really have to is kind of what takes it ‘there,’ to that special, unique place.”
Rig Rundown - Polyphia's Scott LePage
They’ve made a conscious effort to go beyond just nailing the notes, but also matching every single detail of their unison and harmony parts. This creates a level of detail that is a key to the Polyphia formula. Henson says, “On this last tour we wanted to fix a lot of things in that regard. In the past we’ve had a hands-off approach where I learn the part my way, he learns the part his way, and we just go on tour without much thought. What we wanted to do for this tour was kind of pick apart each unison section or each harmony section, and be like, ‘You’re sliding like this, you’re bending like this, I’m bending like this, let’s do the same thing.’ For the new music, we’re kind of just like sticking to what the record is. So, that means when I’m learning Scott’s parts for the new music, I need to sit there and listen to every single inflection that he’s making, whether he’s sliding downwards or sliding upwards, or he’s slightly behind the beat, or anything.”
LePage adds, “Recently we’ve tried to lock in on it together. But even before that, we have a pretty similar style of playing because we pretty much grew up together playing guitar.”
Polyphia’s sound owes a lot to the two guitarists’ abilities to sync every articulation and inflection of their playing for unison parts and harmonized leads. Tim Henson explains, “I need to sit there and listen to every single inflection that he’s [Scott LePage] making, whether he’s sliding downwards or sliding upwards, or he’s slightly behind the beat, or anything.”
Photo by Timothy Alsbrooks
With so much refined technique at the ready, Polyphia has mastered the balance of “flexing” and the essentials. Henson says, “The first impression, if you were to listen to us and never heard of us, you might be overwhelmed. There’s a lot happening. The cool thing about that is the more you listen, the more you will find. The layers of the music on top are really flashy, proficient technique things. Under all of that is where the meat is. I think a lot of our diehard fans would agree that the more that they listen to it, the more they appreciate it.”
LePage adds, “The guitar riff should be able to stand by itself and still sound good. Like if you picked up an acoustic guitar at a campfire, people should be able to keep the tempo in their heads and be able to bob their heads to it.”Polyphia - Live at The Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO, 8/18/2022
Guitarists Scott LePage and Tim Henson flank the rhythm section onstage in Denver for a super-tight set full of synchronized shredding, and deep, slamming grooves.