Dhani Harrison's previous experience scoring films and TV series—especially the 2016 film Seattle Road—inspired him to take a more sonically adventurous, cinematic course in sculpting his debut solo album.
Dhani Harrison has recorded with Bob Dylan and Wu-Tang Clan, and is in the trio Fistful of Mercy with Ben Harper. He has created multiple film and TV scores. He's produced live concert albums and accompanying documentary DVDs—most notably 2016's George Fest: A Night to Celebrate the Music of George Harrison. He shared the stage with Prince (and Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne, and Steve Winwood) during one of the Purple One's most iconic guitar performances: the 2004 tribute to his dad at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also graduated from the prestigious Brown University with a degree in industrial design. And he's even been deeply involved with video game design for the popular Rock Band franchise. But right now, Harrison is focusing on the release of his long-awaited solo debut, In Parallel, an album that connects his musical history with his wide-eyed anticipation of his musical future.
From the day he was born, Harrison has been surrounded by a world of exceptional music. The house he was raised in was a bastion for iconic songwriting and songwriters, and through his father's work and extremely close relationships with such legendary artists as Petty and Lynne, Harrison received a stellar education in timeless musical craftsmanship.
“My dad turned our whole house into a studio. So, it's like you start as a tea boy, then you become a tape-op, then you become an engineer, and then you become the composer or the artist, I guess," Harrison explains nonchalantly.
Today, like his father before him, Harrison is the insatiable composer. He has written and recorded albums with his bands Thenewno2 and Fistful of Mercy. He and Grammy-winning musician Paul Hicks, a regular collaborator, have scored 2013's Beautiful Creatures and the TV series The Divide, as well as the 2016 Ryan David film, Seattle Road. Scoring Seattle Road turned out to be a serendipitous experience. “The director really just let us go to town on that one," says Harrison. “I wanted to take that further, so the sound of this record is quite similar to the sound of the stuff that I did on Seattle Road."
In Parallel paints film-like scenes while wrapping them in an accessible frame inspired by the great songs Harrison grew up around. As soon as the opening track, “Never Know," hits your ears, the similarities to a breathtaking film score are apparent. Pulsating ambiance melds with expertly layered Middle Eastern instrumentation, creating a sonic environment more than a typical song arrangement.
That spacious experience continues throughout In Parallel, leading one to ask, “Why am I reading about this in a guitar magazine?" As Harrison explains, even in an album filled with mind-twisting sonics, his guitars are never far away. “A lot of what you would think would be synth programming is, in fact, just guitar parts that are really processed." And so, like his father, Dhani Harrison is also a master of using the guitar to conjure gorgeous musicality, without resorting to the expected.
In our conversation, Harrison gave Premier Guitar readers a peek behind his creative curtain. He showed pride in being the son of a Beatle. He explained what it is to consider Tom Petty family. He dug into what drives him to conjure experimental guitar tones. He waxed about how his metal-at-heart band for In Parallel keeps him in touch with the rocker inside. And, most important, Harrison illustrated how he translated all of this into his debut solo album.
Being the son of a Beatle, your musical upbringing was unique. But what was it that initially attracted you to music?
I grew up in the studio. I always played music since I was a kid: piano, guitar, drums. And I sang a lot too. So I got my 10,000 hours early. Sometimes I'd come home from school and walk right into the middle of a tubular bells recording, and I'd be like, “Oops, I was just going in the kitchen." I'm pretty sure I tried everything possible to not do music. But I knew I was going to come back to it at some point.
What led you to film scoring and media production?
It's just the family business, really. I've always done design work. When it comes to my dad's catalogue, I've always helped him with artwork. Then, obviously, after he passed away, I finished Brainwashed as a producer, kind of taking his place as the artist. Jeff [Lynne] and I were co-producing.
TIDBIT: No guitar amps were used in recording In Parallel. Instead, Harrison exclusively relied on amp plug-ins from the likes of Native Instruments and Universal Audio.
He needed someone to make the decisions that we knew were going to have to be made. And I studied industrial design at Brown University. It comes in handy, especially for all the packaging and all the custom stuff I've been doing. It was just trying to maintain the most amount of control over the quality of the products that we're releasing.
What inspired you to release a solo album now?
I always write by myself. I very rarely write with people, even though I collaborate with people. So I had gone really far down the rabbit hole of making this record before anyone else came in. I tried to get Paul Hicks to collaborate with me, but he was like, “Wow, this is already a fully formed band. This needs to be what it is." And I had Jon Bates from Big Black Delta say the same thing. He was like, “I don't want to change this. I hope you put it out under your name." And I was like, “Okay. Maybe that's what I should do." And the further along I went with it, the more I realized that was the answer.
The harmonies and the chorus on “All About Waiting" and “Admiral of Upside Down" definitely bring the Beatles to mind. Is that intentional or simply a product of who you are?
Purely a product of who I am. I love stacking vocals; I love harmonies. I really wanted to have great harmonies in this record. After doing Fistful of Mercy and having such great singers in the band with me—Ben Harper and Joseph Arthur—I was missing out on the vocals. I really wanted great singers on this record. Jonathan Bates—I came in to sing with him on his Big Black Delta record. So after we'd done that, I was like, “Jon, definitely!"
Female vocalists also play a prominent role throughout the album.
I'm trying to write a story about what's happening right now. What's happening to man and woman alike, and female perspective is so important in the story. They've got to be strong characters like Camila Grey [featured on “All About Waiting"] and Mereki [“London Water," “Poseidon (Keep Me Safe)"]. Cami Grey was singing on [Bates'] record, so she was definitely in. And then the last person to come in was Mereki. She's just got such an interesting sound and she's such a great songwriter. I was playing guitar in her band, so that was a no-brainer. She really nailed it the first day, and it was like, “Oh, okay. We need to make a whole other record now." [Laughs.] It was too quick. So, it's me and Jon with the male characters and Cami and Mereki with the female characters. Everyone knew each other so well, and it was just really natural.
Solidly Surfy
Workmanship on the Doheny is characteristically solid, verging on flawless. The fretwork is perfect and the smooth, contoured ends make the satin neck extra inviting. The “modern classic” profile neck, with its 9 1/2" radius, feels a bit more substantial than most vintage or vintage-inspired offset necks, though G&L offers chunkier and slimmer options via special order.
side of the spectrum.
The 3-way pickup switch is situated on the upper bout in the fashion of a Les Paul or Telecaster Deluxe, which certainly makes access more immediate, but which may feel weird to old-school Jazzmaster players. The control array also marks a deviation from offset tradition. The 3-knob control set is built around G&L’s very versatile and expansive “passive treble bass” circuit, which enables radical or subtle bright-to-dark switches on the fly. It works beautifully with the pickups to summon smoky, mellow jazz tones or stiletto-sharp Jaguar-like bass-cut sounds. It also situates the volume knob closer to the pinky of your picking hand.
Delivering on Deviations
Though Jazzmaster traditionalists may lament the absence of the Jazzmaster/Jaguar variant of synchronized floating tremolo (or Mastery’s excellent re-imagining of the type), the G&L dual fulcrum vibrato feels as good as ever. It also helps establish a distinctly G&L identity for the Doheny. It’s a smooth-feeling, simple, smart, and beautifully machined piece of hardware with individually adjustable saddles that enable buttery string travel. In terms of feel and responsiveness, the vibrato has qualities of both Jazzmaster and Stratocaster units. It’s less elastic and less conducive to slo-mo bends that the former enables, but maintains most of the latter’s twitchy immediacy. The vibrato arm itself, which bends up and away from the body, does, however, sit readily in the palm, which helps facilitate Neil Young- and Kevin Shields-style pitch-happy vibrato techniques. More importantly for Jazzmaster and Jaguar vibrato fans, it permits pitch-up maneuvers as readily as pitch-down bends and stays relatively tuning-stable as you explore the extremities of its range.
Ratings
Pros:Immaculately crafted. Unique and versatile pickups—especially for pedal hounds. Excellent vibrato.
Cons:
Pickups can lack a little rock attitude if you need it.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$1,499
G&L Doheny
glguitars.com
The Doheny’s version of G&L’s “magnetic field design” pickups are brand new. And the wider bobbin aperture, vintage-style Formvar wiring, and exhaustive tinkering to nail the right winds (6,500 turns for the neck pickup, 6,800 for the bridge pickup) translate to many cool, unique voices. They don’t adhere to strict vintage notions of how a Jazzmaster should sound, though they deliver many classic offset tones—especially those on the surfy and jangly side of the spectrum. The bridge and neck pickups are very balanced from note to note, which enhances and higlights the clear-voiced civility and high capacity for detail. I heard hints of Stratocaster and Jazzmaster in the output, though there is more headroom and less overt color than you get from either of those pickup types. It also has some of the concise, airy qualities of a Rickenbacker Hi-Gain, but with more sustain—a tone recipe that will send many shoegazers, dream poppers, and some jazzers into fits of delight. The downside—at least for rockers and more noise-oriented players—is that the bridge pickup lacks some of a Jazzmaster’s rowdier, gnarlier side. But unlike a vintage Jazzmaster, the G&L pickups are exceptionally quiet. Even when using fuzzes and my chronically hissy Boss CS-3 compressor, it was hard to coax much extraneous racket from the bridge settings.
The Verdict
Offset devotees that don’t bother playing the Doheny will probably ask if it isn’t just another ASAT in surfer’s duds. And to be honest, my first impressions weren’t considerably different. My primary electric guitars are Jazzmasters and Jaguars, and I consider each quirk of those designs—from the oddball switching to the vibrato—essential parts of my own bag of tricks. But playing the Doheny is a singular joy. And in many respects, the deviations from the Jazzmaster and Jaguar playbook make the Doheny a much more original-sounding guitar—a quality offset fans can surely respect. The pickups, once you orient yourself to their airy, precise, and rich-but-not-too-thick qualities, are brimming with possibilities. They sound cool with raspy fuzz and effectively communicate playing dynamics in reverb, delay, and modulation-heavy environments, which makes the guitar well suited for modern pedal-happy tonesmiths.
If you’ve always craved the alluring look of a Fender Jazzmaster or Jaguar, but find unorthodox switching, noisy pickups, and unconventional vibrato one concession to weirdness too many, this well-crafted fusion of early ’60s style and G&L’s forward-looking, practical design-think could be the answer you’ve been seeking.
Watch the Review Demo:
A higher feedback resistor value is among the design aspects that make an old-school Marshall amp have more grit or grind than an old-school Fender.
Hi Jeff, First, I want to tell you how much I enjoy your articles. I’m not a technician, but I enjoy learning about electronics and amplifiers, because it‘s helpful to know your gear and tonal options. For example, regarding your column about the Fender DRRI [“Beefing Up a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue,” December 2017], I have a couple of follow-up questions for you:
Hi Mark,
Thanks for reading my columns, and I’m glad you can appreciate them from an “options” perspective. As I’ve told players over the years: You don’t need to know everything about how it works; you just need to be happy with it. That said, let me try to answer your questions, although it will be technical at times. Let’s get started.
No. 1. The answer here is “yes.” The type of construction does not dictate the values of the capacitors in the tone stack. Although there may need to be some changes, deletions, or additions of smaller capacitor values in one type of construction verses another in some amps, these suggested values (2x 0.022 µF in this instance) would remain the same.
No. 2. The answer here is, unfortunately, “no.” The vibrato (tremolo) circuitry is actually post-reverb circuitry, so once the signal from the normal channel is routed into the reverb circuit, the subsequent tremolo circuit will affect both channels. Sorry, but as with most changes (modifications, improvements, etc.) in an amp, there’s generally some degree of trade-off somewhere.
No 3. My initial answer here is “no,” I wouldn’t recommend removing the negative feedback loop. However, we certainly can change the negative feedback loop in a few different ways, so let’s have some fun with this one!
This drawing illustrates all three wiring options Amp Man suggests for modifying a Fender’s negative feedback loop to create more control and alter tone.
First, let’s have a very broad look at what negative feedback actually is. In a nutshell, negative feedback is incorporated in an amp design as a way to minimize distortion in the output stage of an amplifier. This is done by sending an out-of-phase signal into the phase inverter circuit, reducing its gain and, thereby, distortion. This is especially important in hi-fi amps to reduce THD (total harmonic distortion) and possibly other types of distortion as well. But hey, we’re guitarists…. We like distortion. Maybe not in every situation, but at least when one is “rocking out,” as the hipsters say. (Ha-ha!)
So, why not just remove all the negative feedback from your Deluxe Reverb? Well, you certainly can do that, but I find the result to be a bit too “woolly” or uncontrolled for my taste. If we take a look at the feedback resistor in a typical Fender-style amp, we would generally find a value of 820 ohms. Now, looking at a vintage Marshall, we’d find a 47k or 100k ohm value.
WARNING:
All tube amplifiers contain lethal voltages. The most dangerous voltages are stored in electrolytic capacitors, even after the amp has been unplugged from the wall. Before you touch anything inside the amp chassis, it’s imperative that these capacitors are discharged. If you are unsure of this procedure, consult your local amp tech.Definitely a large difference in value, and although there are other aspects of the design that come into play, this is why an old school non-master 50- or 100-watt Marshall amp tends to have more “grit” or “grind” than an old school 40- or 80-watt Fender.
So what do we do? Let’s make the feedback variable. I’ve done this mod to many Fender amps—especially in the early days of my career. It’s a very simple mod I used to call an “output response control.” I would remove the external speaker jack from the rear of a Fender amp, install a 100k pot, remove the feedback lead from the output jack “hot” lug, connect it to the wiper of the pot, and connect a short lead from the CCW lug of the pot back to the hot lug of the output jack. (You can see the schematic for this in Fig. 1.) That’s it! Now you have a variable feedback signal that can go from a stock setting (CCW) to far less feedback, yielding a more aggressive-sounding output stage. Okay, that’s cool—but what if we can tailor the response even further? Let’s examine.
Removing the external speaker output is the first step in making a Fender amp’s negative feedback loop variable.
With the current setup, the signal from the output stage is fed back equally over the full frequency range of the amp, thereby reducing the gain over the entire frequency range. But what if we could be selective about the frequency range? Well, we can, if we add a capacitor in series with the resistor. This will begin to reduce the amount of low frequency signal that is fed back. (See Fig. 2.) The smaller the capacitor value, the less low frequency is fed back. This way we can reduce the gain of the higher frequencies while keeping the low end more full. You can experiment with different capacitor values here, and don’t be too concerned about the voltage rating of the caps. Anything with a 25V or greater rating should work fine.
Start with maybe a 0.1 µF cap and go smaller from there: 0.047, 0.022, 0.01, 0.0047, and all the way to a 0.001 µF. You could also use this cap in place of the small jumper wire that connects the pot to the output jack “hot.” That way both leads are solidly attached. If you want to get more creative, you could even use a multi-position rotary switch to be able to select between values (Fig. 3). If you decide to install both (and drill a hole in your amp), you would then have full control over the frequency and level of your feedback loop.
So Mark, now you can enjoy frequency selectable feedback!