The playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht once observed that āart is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.ā If thatās true, then perhaps Boris, with its blend of experimental, stoner, sludge, doom, and hardcore sounds, is such a hammerāat least among the cognoscenti of unrestrained, cutting-edge rock.
The band was named and, originally, sonically styled after an epic eight-minute Melvins jam. Three decades later, Borisā sound has evolved into a furious emotional tumult thatāduring a time of pandemic, worldwide social unrest, and devastating climate eventsāseems to capture the anxiety, fear, anger, hatred, and uncertainty that is reverberating.
Itās in the DNA of songs like āGenesis,ā the primordial, unsettling opening instrumental track of their latest album, NO. Is it cueing the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? Is it a dirge or an anthem? The visceral response this overture evokes sets the tone for the rest of NO. That Boris is able to convey such a cathartic experience with their music is no small feat. That kind of transcendence only happens when the message meets the moment. And for Boris, NO is the message, and 2020 is the moment.
Formed in Tokyo in 1992 as a four-piece, Boris quickly transformed into a genre-blending, avant-garde power trio after their 1996 debut, Absolutego, on the Fangs Anal Satan label, when singer Atsuo Mizuno took over on drums for their original drummer, Nagata. Absolutego was an exercise in Melvins-inspired drone rock and featured a single 60-minute track. The 1998 follow-up, Amplifier Worship, diverted sharply into psychedelic and jam-band territory. In 2005, Pink, arguably Borisā commercial breakthrough, featured mostly short, concise songs in a shoegaze and post-rock style. Pink met with considerable critical praise, with both Blender and SPIN magazines naming it one of 2006ās best albums.
Collaborations with other experimental musicians and artists, like Keiji Haino, have also been a hallmark of Borisā career, and in 2009 they appeared on the avant-metal soundtrack to Jim Jarmuschās film The Limits of Control. Just last year they released their 25th studio album, LĻVE & EVĻL.
Borisā musical journey has been guided by a faith in the deep interpersonal conversations that playing music in a band offersāan important core value of their DIY ethos. In the studio, they record themselves: placing their own microphones, mixing their albums, prompting their own sonic experiments. Their focus and genuine curiosity about craft propels a deep commitment to process, rather than results. They are invested in the work that their explorations demand, not the fame they may ultimately derive from it. And much like jazz musicians, theyāre most committed to the musical conversations that happenāamong themselves and with their audience, live and in the momentāso rarely do they ever play the same composition the same way.
It shouldnāt be surprising that this band with almost 100 releases to their creditāincluding EPs, reissues, singles, live albums, and collaborationsāwas able to create NO in a matter of weeks. āWe reserved our room and rehearsed and recorded there after the lockdown,ā says guitarist/bassist Takeshi. āWe began on March 24 and completed recording three weeks later.ā If anything, a global pandemic only served to make their mission more urgent and focusedāor at least fueled their apocalyptic aesthetic.
NO, like Pink, features shorter, more terse up-tempo numbers than the long, droning jams that have been Borisā most recognizable trademark. Only three of NOās 11 songs are over five minutes. (Opener āGenesisā is among those three.) Song length, however, is basically where the comparison to Pink ends, as NO is a much heavier album. Entries like āAnti-Gone,ā āLust,ā and āLovelessā feature fierce, fast-paced riffs that wouldnāt sound out-of-place on a Motƶrhead album. According to Takeshi, this is the result of interacting and sharing bills with Japanese hardcore/punk legends, including Gastunk, the Genbaku Onanies, and Narasaki (of Coaltar of the Deepers), during the Japan tour for LĻVE & EVĻL in February.
āI was able to reaffirm my roots with music that was hugely influential when I was a teen,ā Takeshi explains. āAfter that tour, the world gradually became terrible due to the new coronavirus, and, not being able to tour or perform live, the only option we had was to create an album to deliver to listeners. During the studio sessions, the sound imagery became fast and noisy according to the manners of hardcore punk. We usually do not set any rules for recording, but just like listening to hardcore punk healed my anxiety, hatred, anger, and sadness when I was young, and hope was born, weāre hoping that NO, as an extreme music, will heal listeners who live under the threat of the coronavirus.ā
In addition to Takeshi and Atsuo (who also serves as the bandās recording and mixing engineer), Boris features the mighty Wata on guitar and keyboards. Wata might be the most introverted of the group, but her gargantuan tone, deft melodicism, and kinetic riffs entrench her in the same conversation as High on Fireās Matt Pike or Gojiraās Joe Duplantierātogether, a triumvirate of doom/stoner-era guitar gods. But Wata rarely speaks publicly about her work.
PG recently caught up with Takeshi and Wata, who were at home in Tokyo. With the help of translator Kasumi Billington, they both opened up about their creative processes, guitar interplay, gear, influences, and much more.
How integral are jam sessions to Borisā creative process? Were the songs on NO born strictly out of jams, or did any of you bring fleshed-out songs into the studio?
Wata: Borisā songwriting and recording is generally in the form of jam sessions. We rarely compose in advance. Itās rock ānā roll, so itās not interesting unless the sound rolls on the spot and unpredictable events occur. Amp settings and volumes are also important elements to our compositions. A song wonāt reach completion unless itās actually played in the studio with loud volume. There are songs that are born because they are loud.
TIDBIT: Although Wata also plays keyboards in Boris, their new album is guitar-only, crafted from practice-space jams spearheaded by her and Takeshi. āItās rock ānā roll, so itās not interesting unless the sound rolls on the spot and unpredictable events occur,ā she explains.
Takeshi: There are times when we write songs in advance, but itās mainly like a memo of an idea [for a song]. As usual, NO started from jam sessions at the studio.
What elements of a jam are you listening for, or cultivating, to help guide the formation of a new song?
Takeshi: We are guided by phrases and melodies that are born from our jam sessions. Rather than composing, itās more like the sensation of drawing, but guided by sound. Thatās the method that feels natural for us, to be able to create work comfortably. The important thing when recording is to keep an environment free of stress for the membersāto be able to see each otherās faces, and to be able to resonate sound in the same space and atmosphere.
Boris has been around long enough to make albums using both analog and digital recording. What is your preference?
Wata: Equipment-wise, I like analog, but recording is easier with Pro Tools. Sometimes rehearsing while we adjust the monitors ends up sounding better than the actual recording during the main production. We have taken that into consideration recently, and now record during rehearsals as well. There are many times when the recordings taken during rehearsals are used instead. Since thereās no recording cost, digital recording is suitable for this type of productionāone that has a strong documentary element.
Boris employs drop-tuning to great effect. Do you have a preferred tuning to write and play in?
Wata: In general, we tune three steps down. I also like tuning where we drop the 6th string to D#. The expression of choking and vibrato changes when you play the 5th and 6th strings together. When playing riffs with Takeshi in unison, each playing style creates different waves, and adds depth to the sound. There are restrictions when using various tunings, but there are also songs that can only be created with that tuning. I want to keep trying various things.
Boris has a very DIY ethos. What was the studio set-up like for NO, including your signal chain?
Takeshi: The place where we always record is a rehearsal studio weāve been using for years. Thereās no mixing booth. We self-record by bringing recording equipment to that same room. We set up the microphone stands ourselves, and everything is DIY. We try not to increase the number of tracks we record, but, for the guitar recording, we simultaneously record signals from both a mic (Sennheiser E606) and a DI (Countryman Type 85). When we mix, we have options to combine the two or use either alone. Weāre always sure to record the sound of shaking air with the microphone.
Wata and Takeshi both play guitar in this live video from 2017, with plenty of banshee-wail EBow and the distinctive, guttural howl of low-tuned axes overdriven to the max.
With his First Act guitar/bass hybrid, Takeshi can cover the sometimes rapid tonal and dynamic shifts in Borisā musicāor simply stay in the heavy zone with a combination of low tunings, pedals, and high-headroom amps. Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
What guitars and amps did you mostly use?
Takeshi: On this recording, I used the tremolo arm heavily, so my main guitar was the B.C. Rich Warbeast. To record the bass, I used my First Act Doubleneck bass/guitar. For the guitar amp head, I used my Sunn Model T with an Orange PPC412 cabinet during recording. To record the overdubs with noise guitar, I used a Roland JC-120, which produces a flat range, from low to high frequencies.
What about bass?
Takeshi: I used the Orange Terror Bass for the bass amp head and an Ampeg 810E cabinet. The pedal used this time for the [core tone] guitar was a Dwarfcraft Devices Baby Thunder fuzz, and, for the bass, a Death By Audio Apocalypse fuzz was mainly used, with reverb slightly added, and additional fluctuations with an EarthQuaker Devices Aqueduct vibrato.
Wata, what was your signal chain in the studio while recording NO?
Wata: In the last few years, weāve used the Sennheiser E606 microphone on the cabinet. According to Atsuo, heās able to capture finer dynamics than the standard SM57. We tune three steps down from regular tuning, and the sound is extremely distorted with fuzz, so this mic, that captures fine nuances, seems to be a good match. I always use Countrymanās DI Box to record direct signals. During the mixing, we may use an amp simulator for the DI signal. In general, with the pedal effects applied, we also make sure to ring the amp when recording. Atsuo says that recording without feedback takes away the purpose of using an electric guitar.
Takeshi, what is the origin of your doubleneck bass/guitar?
Takeshi: I initially bought one around 2001. We released a 70-minute, single-song album called Flood around the same time, and I had to switch between guitar and bass when playing. It was troublesome to switch and lose time, so I got an SG-style doubleneck made by Starfield [an Ibanez brand]. But since it was a short scale, it didnāt produce much low sound, and since the body itself was heavy and big, I didnāt like it much. It was also difficult to carry around on tours, so I later bought a Spirit, by Steinberger. It was compact and suitable for tours, and the sound was solid and pretty good, but I still didnāt like the shape much. My favorite bassistsāGeddy Lee from Rush, Chris Squire from Yes, Cliff Burton from Metallica, and Lemmy Kilmister from Motƶrheadāgenerally used Rickenbackers, so I was hoping I could get a custom one someday that was similar to the Rickenbacker shape. My friend from college had been to a musical instrument making school, so I had him create a basic drawing.
How did you hook up with First Act, for the Boris signature double-neck?
Takeshi: At some point, [bassist] Nate Newton from Converge introduced me to First Act. Weāve been friends for many years. He had a Mosrite-shaped custom bass created through First Act. During a Boris U.S. tour, I went to First Actās office in New York City and met [artist relations director] Jimmy Archey.
He enthusiastically listened to my difficult request and was willing to accept the production of this custom doubleneck. Heās now left First Act and runs an amazing guitar shop called 30th Street Guitars in New York. He still comes to Borisā live shows. If I didnāt have this relationship and encounter with Nate and Jimmy, my double-neck may not have existed.When I first started playing a double-neck, it felt strange, but now Iāve gotten used to it.
[Editorās note: Takeshiās custom First Act bass and guitar doubleneck has a mahogany body with a maple top, two maple necks with rosewood fretboards, a Badass bridge, and Gotoh GB707 bass tuners and Sperzel 3x3 Trimlok guitar tuners. The bass side has a Seymour Duncan SJB-3 Quarter Pound J bass pickup in the bridge and a Duncan SPB-1 Vintage P bass neck pickup. The 6-string side sports two Seymour Duncan ā59 Model SH-1 pickups.]
Since you play bass and rhythm guitar, how do you decide which one to apply to a song or a section of a song?
Takeshi: I originally played the guitar, so even during jam sessions itās easier to come up with ideas when playing the guitar rather than the bass. When I begin to make a song, most of the time Iām using the guitar. Whenever there are songwriting sessions, we play through the guitar amp along with a bass amp, so the guitar covers the bass-frequency range. Boris tunes three steps down, so Wata and I could be called a twin baritone guitar formation. As the riffs and melodies are built, the song will tell me if I should add the bass.
Can you please clarify which songs on NO feature bass?
Takeshi: The songs I played bass on are āAnti-Gone,ā āHxCxHxC -Perforation Line-,ā āKikinoue,ā and āLust.ā On āLoveless,ā I only play the guitar, but, by dropping the 6th and 5th strings, I created a sound image where it seems like Iām back and forth between the bass range and the baritone guitar range. I canāt create that kind of ambience just by playing the bass normally. Interesting effects were born when I tried this out in jam sessions, so this song ended up without a bass.
Wata, the EBow has become a signature component of your style. How did you discover that tool and what makes it a go-to part of your musical arsenal?
Wata: I started using it during Absolutego. I brought it in because I could get the drone pitch without being bothered by howling. Once I began using it, I was impressed that the EBow not only produces a continuous sound, but also allows a very wide range of expression by moving it closer to, or further from, the strings, and also by changing position, adjusting the left hand, and by using effects. Itās a simple but extremely profound, organic piece of equipment.
How do you decide between guitar or keyboards on a particular song?
Wata: Iām the only one who plays keyboards, so there are times when I may be in charge of the keyboard and accordion, based on the showās color.
Since we sing as we perform, there are times when the instrument Iām in charge of changes for the song. We didnāt use the keyboard for NO.
Photos by Miki Matsushima
To create their new album Purple, Baroness' new line-up relied on collaborative songwriting and a determination to forge a personal sound from spare chord forms, low-wattage amps, and scores of stompboxes.
Left with half a band, Baizley and Adams faced a fight or flight situation. But if broken bones hadn't stopped them, this sure as hell wouldn't. They recruited bassist/keyboardist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson solely on recommendations from friends like Mastodon's Brann Dailorāno auditions were heldāand the current incarnation of Baroness was born. On the surface, it's an unlikely pairing. Jost has a master's degree in jazz composition and Thomson is renowned for his work in the electronic music scene, in addition to founding the rock band Trans Am. The new rhythm section was immediately thrown into the fire when Baroness embarked on a nearly yearlong world tour.
When it came time to write Purple, a fresh dynamic came into play. āI think the challenge was, 'How are we going to do this without killing each other?'" says Adams. āWe're all sitting in a room trying to write music together and, for me, it was very frustrating at first, with the new members. Trying to write as a four-pieceāI think a lot of bands probably share the same opinionāis difficult."
The songwriting process ended up taking about a year, with a chunk of the time spent trying to connect musically. āWe wanted it to happen immediately, but it took a month," Baizley recalls. āOnce we clicked and could feel the energy surge and sense the connectivity in the rehearsals, then the writing took on its own flavor and we let it happen."
Purple, produced by Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, MGMT), is the band's most personal release to date, as well as another free-ranging addition to their distinctive musical cannon. Songs like āChlorine & Wine," āIf I Have to Wake Up (Would You Stop the Rain)," and āThe Iron Bell" draw on their brutal recovery period. But Purple also showcases Baroness' unique ability to create an almost orchestral flavorāexploiting their two-guitar texture in colorful sounding, harmonically adept, rhythmically risky, and hauntingly melodic ways too rarely heard in modern metal. Baizley and Adams spoke with Premier Guitar about all of the aboveāand more.
Do you twist things to make your songs more complicated?
Baizley: We're trying to be slightly progressive without crossing the boundary into prog too much. I don't like repetition, even when the structure is literally the same. Say there are four phrases that comprise the verse in a song. Each one of those phrases will have slight differences. It's like, āSebastian, why don't you try playing 4 and we'll try to ignore you so we can play this thing that's got an odd phrase length on top."
Lead guitarist Pete Adams embodies the explosive energy of Baroness' free-ranging sound when he takes the stage with his late-'60s Les Paul Classic.
We kind of drove him crazy at first, because he's very mathematical. He maps things out the way that they're supposed to be mapped out. There's a lot of times on the record when we'll move rhythmically from 3 to 4, 7 to 4, or 5 to 4āwhatever, for a moment. If the drummer is changing his feel, it's the responsibility of the guitar player or bass player to keep the rhythm very, very tight.
As complex as the music gets, it sounds quite organic.
Baizley: It's got to feel good. I want to play music that's challenging and that musos, or whatever you want to call them, can find those layers in. But at the end of the day, a good song is a good song. Who cares how simple or complicated it is? There's got to be moments where average listenersāsomebody who doesn't even understand 90 percent of this conversation we're havingācan enjoy it on their own terms.
What challenges did you have writing with Nick and Sebastian?
Adams: The first challenge was to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the new musicians, who are both actually very strong. We tried writing as a band, and I don't know if it worked for anybody. So John and I would come up with ideas, and John would sit down with the new dudes, throw out those ideas, and let them chew on them for a little bit to see if something came out of that. I would rejoin once they knew what the hell was going on with the songs. You take the good stuff and see if you can't capitalize on it. That seemed to work.
Why did you choose to write as a band instead of you and Pete writing and telling the new rhythm section what to play?
Baizley: Really simply put, we're just not that kind of band. It has always been of the utmost importance to us that we avoid that kind of songwriting process. It's got to be a collaborative effort.
Adams: I want everybody to have his two cents. I really do. I don't desire to be in a band where you have a primary songwriter. That doesn't appeal to John and me.
John Baizley recalls, āOnce we clicked and could feel the energy surge and sense the connectivity in the rehearsals, then the writing took on its own flavor and we let it happen." Photo by Jimmy Hubbard
How do you communicate honestly without offending the other members?
Adams: If you're wondering who does the checking in this band, it's totally me. I'm like quality control sometimes. I gotta get in there and go, āHell no. We don't do that. That's not how this shit works." And I don't mind saying it. Because John and I both have a vision for Baronessāand even between John and I, we might have two different visions.
Was it awkward dealing with Nick's drastically different background in jazz?
Baizley: I think one of the important things to do from time to time is to engage in a little awkwardness. How can you make a breakthrough if you don't go outside your comfort zone? It's through an understanding of how to do that correctly that you can discover things. Nick would not have joined the band if he had that really, really orthodox, hardheaded approach I'm sure some of his peers and companions in the jazz scene do.
Adams: When I first met Nick, the first thing he asked me was, āCould you turn me on to some new music that really influences you?" He wanted to know where we were coming from and he wanted to try to meld into it the best he could. That was pretty incredible. He really wanted to do the right thing, and Seb did too. Neither of these guys was terribly familiar with Baroness, and to top it off, neither of them comes from a hard rock background in any way. Seb went from writing dance beats on a computer to playing this. He's an incredible drummer.
John Baizley's Gear
GuitarsG&L ASAT Special
G&L ASAT Alnico S-series
G&L Legacy Series S-Style
1962 Gibson ES-330
Rockbridge 00 acoustic
First Act Custom
Amps
Fender reissue'65 Twin Reverb
Fender reissue'68 Custom Princeton Reverb
Premier B-160 Club Bass
Roland JC-120
Vox AC30
Effects
Tym ODP/666 overdrive
MXR Super Badass Distortion
Philly Fuzz Klon Centaur clone
Philly Fuzz Heretic Fuzz
Philly Fuzz Martyr Fuzz
Strymon TimeLine delay
Strymon Mobius modulation pedal
Mu-Tron II Phasor
MXR Custom Shop Phase 99
Retro-Sonic Compressor
Mr. Black Thunderclaw overdrive
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi (bubble front)
Electro-Harmonix Memory Man
Death By Audio Echo Dream
Tym Big Mudd (Ramshead series)
Spaceman Spacerocket Fuzz
Schumann PLL analog harmonizer
Knas Ekdahl Moisturizer reverb
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
Dunlop Fuzz Face
MXR Blue Box
Electro-Harmonix Pog II
GigRig G2 switching system
Strings and Picks
D'Addario custom (.010-.049)
Dunlop Orange Tortex .60 mm
Pete Adams' Gear
GuitarsGibson Les Paul Classic
First Act Custom āGreen" Matamp
Budda Superdrive-80 Series II
Effects
Fulltone OCD
Maxon AD-999 analog delay
MXR Phase 90
Dunlop volume pedal
CMAT analog chorus
Strings and Picks
D'Addario custom (.010-.052)
Dunlop Nylon .88 mm
āIf I Have to Wake Up (Would You Stop the Rain)" uses some diminished chord voicings in the intro. How did you come up with those?
Adams: That song was largely conceived by Nick. The voicings were one of Nick's things. He was messing around with an idea that he brought into the rehearsal space, and threw it at John. John dug what he was doing, and they started to build something out of that.
The intro vaguely resembles the jazz standard āMy Funny Valentine."
Adams: There you go. Now we've gone from being a band that's influenced by the same bands to four dudes in a band who are wildly influenced by everything out there.
There are also a lot of other sonorities, like fingerpicked tenths, in your music that aren't common in metal.
Baizley: I didn't really learn those intervals. I have no real formal training. From a very early stage in my musical career, I had a desire to push back against conventions. As we started Baroness and realized what the format was at the timeāhigh volume, high energy, very low tuningāwe wanted to try to find new things that, on paper, theoretically, shouldn't or wouldn't work. But because we've got our own sensibilities, we'll figure out how to make certain things work. I would stumble upon these strange sounds.
Pete and I spent a lot of time developing this system of playing guitar whereby I would play a strange two-note chordālike you said, a tenth or a ninthāand Pete would find a similarly shaped chord, but with different notes. We realized that rather than have each one of us try to build these dense chords, we could kind of create them in a stereo format.
So you'd play two notes and he'd play two different notes of the same chord?
Adams: That's exactly what we do. We always want the two guitars to have their own voice in the band. If one of us writes something on guitarāand it almost doesn't even matter what it isāthe first thing the other person is doing is looking for the piece to accompany that. When we write a riff, verse, chorus, or whatever, we're like, āHere's the part. Throw your two cents on it." We have two guitars, so that's 12 strings between two dudes. Let's use all 12 strings.
Baizley: If you were to hear just the chord I was playing, you'd recognize it as sort of a major 7. If I were playing the rest of the notes, that's what it would eventually be. If you listen to what he's playing and what I'm playing, you'd hear two very dissimilar feels, but when you mesh them together, there's a sort of forgiveness that you get for some of the contradictory notes. Through that, we're inverting all of our chords all the time and coming up with this sonic bed on which, vocally or melodically, you could choose several different pathways.
That's refreshing, because many bands just have two guitarists doubling the same parts.
Adams: That makes zero sense. Fire that dude, you don't need him [laughs]. Every band's got its own thing and that's fine. We always liked the two guitar bands that play off of each other. Like Dickey Betts and Duane Allmanāthat's my shit, man. I grew up on that sound and that feel.
Baizley: Pete and I have always been very interested in melody and harmony. We try to create different types of harmonies and melodies that work, have a familiarity to them, and pay respect to music that we like. But that also have a newness and a playfulness. Because the important thing is that sometimes we don't understand what we're playing. It has a sound that we like and seems to lead us in a direction.
āFrom a very early stage in my musical career, I had a desire to push back against conventions," says frontman John Baizley. āAs we started Baroness and realized what the format was at the timeāhigh volume, high energy, very low tuningāwe wanted to try to find new things."
But āChlorine and Wine" exhibits a clear, sophisticated harmonic sense. There's a cadential harmony at the end of the intro that has an almost classical sound.
Baizley: It's AmāCāAmāFāAmāGāa really classic set of chord forms. That song is downtuned a whole-step. I always have to transcribe stuff because we play a whole-step down and we have a jazz bass player who won't tune down. And I have to tell him what the actual notes are, but to me, they just are what they are on the neck.
Primarily we keep our guitars tuned in what we call D standard, but we also do a drop tuning. Very frequentlyāin the past, not so much on this recordāthe 6th string is tuned down to a C. So it's basically a whole-step down from dropped D. So barring is easy, and if you take the root note on the D string and add a second to it, and a third, and a fourth, and you just move your pinky up from that root, you can start to build these chords. I'll play a strange sounding power chord with a minor or major inflection on it. Pete will then play a reverse version. A lot of times we won't use the root note as the lowest noteāwe'll use the 3 instead.
So you're playing inversions of the chords?
Baizley: Yeah, inversions. It's fun because half of the time we stumble into it. We don't intentionally do it.
John, you use guitars uncommon in metalāa Tele-style G&L with P-90s and a 335-typeāwhile Pete, you use a Les Paul. Are you doing that to get contrasting tones?
Adams: Once again, we've got two guitars and 12 strings. So we went for different sounds. My sound is a Les Paul with a pair of '57 Classics. I like a slim-taper neck on my Les Pauls.
Baizley: I mostly play G&Ls, so it's almost all single-coils and P-90s. Pete's sort of the definitive Les Paul player. That sound works so well for his playing and it's so obvious to me that he's comfortable in that range. I used to play one, too, and we used to have a similar rig, but I started to get uncomfortable about how similar we sounded. Even though we have vastly different musical personalities. When we need to be synchronized, surely we'll be synchronizedālike when we're both playing rhythmābut at the end of the day we really should have two different instruments.
YouTube It
Baroness lays down the smart 'n' heavy at England's Live at Leeds festival in August 2015, delivering an early taste of the Purple album with the song āChlorine and Wine." Check out John Baizley's and Pete Adams' signature harmony leads at 2:22, as well as Baizley's trippy vibrato
John, since you're not using humbuckers, do you use a lot of gain to get that massive tone?
Baizley: Neither Pete nor I really enjoy using that much gain, which sounds funny, but it's true. We stopped playing the Marshall-y kind of amps early on in our career. Our gain or drive sound is entirely pedal based. I have somewhere between 250 and 300 pedals and each one has its own specific color. We use our amps on very clean settings.
Adams: The āGreen" Matamp has the best, booming clean. [Editor's note: Matamp founder Matt Mathias worked with Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac in the company's early years, and designed the amp used on āAlbatross" and other Green compositions.] I'll use either that or the Buddas for cleans.
Baizley: Right now my main amp is a '65 reissue Fender Twin. I also use a Princeton, which is absolutely one of my favorites. I just need to figure out how to make it work on the road. It'll be difficult because it's not very loud. One of my hidden weapons is a Premier B-160. It's a company that was around in the '60s. The tubes and speakers are original and it is absolutely on the verge of blowing. I've never heard an amp that sounds this good.
| Click here to see a photo gallery of some of First Act's wildest custom guitars. |
Based in Boston, the First Act Custom Shop has been in business since 2002. Headed by industry-veterans Jimmy Archey [Director of Artist Relations] and John McGuire [Chief Luthier], their little shop of rockers has a very extensive build resume for some of the biggest names in rock, both mainstream and underground. The duo, along with their team of builders, have constructed pieces for artists as varied as The Cure, Maroon 5, Paul McCartney, Drive-By Truckers, Mastodon, Ministry, Aerosmith, and Bon Jovi. I caught up with both Jimmy and John to discuss their build process, the growing interest in their custom creations, and the joys of being able to design custom guitars for lesser-known acts.
How did the First Act Custom Shop get off of the ground?
McGuire: Back in 2002, the company came up with the plan to start an actual luthier shop, initially for more of a marketing focus. They wanted to get some artists playing guitars with the First Act name. They approached Kelly Butler, who was the Chief Luthier up until three years ago, and he started putting together the shop one or two pieces at a time. Initially, Kelly took on apprentices from the Roberto Venn Luthiery School to build the team. Jimmy came on board not too long after that.
Archey: Yeah, I came on in 2003. Essentially what they said was that they wanted to use the shop as a marketing tool for brand awareness, and get some cool artists playing some cool guitars. It was a great way to just get the name out, for people that may not know the name, and to get a buzz running.
McGuire: The hope was that if the younger crowd saw some of their favorite bands playing the guitars, that it would help get them involved in playing music, as well.
It seems like there are two divisions of First Act: one that produces the entry-level, department store guitars, and another for what you guys do in the Custom Shop. Are you guys pretty much given free reign to take on projects that you want to do?
McGuire: For the most part, they pretty much leave us alone. There's still the prototyping element that we have to do now and again, but they're been really good to us in letting us move in whatever direction that we've wanted to. I wouldn't say we're two separate entities, because we're always a part of them.
Archey: I'll essentially get artists and compile an artist spec sheet, and send it in to the shop when I feel like we're done with it. They really trust what we're doing, because we've proven to them that the people that we're going after and the people that we've gotten are hitting a mark. I get so many phone calls and emails saying, "Dude, I saw so-and-so with a custom First Act, I love that guitar." There's a lot of interaction from the public to us that is kind of reinforcing what we're doing, you know? We're getting out to a younger crowd, which is exactly what we wanted to do.
At the same time, we designed a guitar with Adam [Levine] from Maroon 5, and he was totally integral in designing that guitar that he's playing, then it turns around and becomes the basis for a line at Target. We do have a crossover, but mostly this little thing that we're doing allows us to move on our own.
Adam Levine's Custom Double Cutaway with First Act high-output humbuckers and flame maple top.
So, how did the both of you get into the luthier business?
McGuire: I was basically born into the business. My dad owned Valley Arts Guitars. Eventually, we ended up moving to Tennessee, where he worked for Gibson. Once I finished high school, I followed suit by going to work for Gibson and attending school for CAD layout and design. After school, I started working at the engineering department in the Gibson Custom Shop. I worked there at Gibson for a total of 10 years, with about four of those years in the engineering side. I eventually became the Special Projects Manager at the Custom Shop and was in charge of all of the Fortune 500 guitars, NASCAR trophy guitars--stuff like that. Around 2004, I made it up to Boston and got started with First Act's Custom Shop.
Archey: I got my start as a sound man out in the Philadelphia area. Eventually, I made my way out to New York City, where I got offered a consultant job for Gibson. It was one day a week, bringing bands in. It turned into a full-time job, and I was there from 1989 to 2003 as the artist relations guy in the New York City office. For about 14 years, I worked with Les Paul, Joe Perry, and BB King, to name a few. I took a job thinking that I was going to go back out on the road, and then it just stuck. Around 2003, I was up in Boston and Kelly called me up, asking me if I wanted to come by and check out his shop. I swung by that day, and a couple of weeks later I started working with him.
(left) Robert White, (middle) John McGuire, (right) Chris Moncada
How many luthiers work at the Custom Shop?
McGuire: Our build team includes four other guys. Bill Jancr and Christopher Moncada both went to the Bryan Galloup Guitar School in Michigan, and Bill also worked at Gibson for a couple of years. Eric Dueset basically came to us off of the street--he had built a couple of custom basses that were really cool. He came from a carpenter background and just wowed us. Robert White came to us from Roberto Venn.
What's the process with artist models? Do you apply any of the design principles from your previous work?
McGuire: Well, what we make, in the end, is really upon artist request. The one thing that we're still doing that's very important to us is that everything is all hand made. Obviously, a lot of us came from Gibson, but there are things that are different, such as the neck pitch. Again, it really does depend on what the artist wants, but they usually request the standard mahogany body with a maple cap. We do a lot of that. That hasn't stopped us from trying different things, though. Several of our carved top solidbodies have ended up being all ash, ash with maple, and other combinations of woods. We have also built with more exotic woods, like koa, zebrawood, you name it.
Nick McCarthy's Custom First Act
Archey: Artist requests are really fun to work with. When we first started, we didn't have any models or designs to work from. Nick [McCarthy] from Franz Ferdinand essentially went to pawn shops, saying, "I dig this body, I dig the way this and that looks," and we would then piece all of the ideas together. He wanted it covered in white vinyl cobra skin, so Bill figured out a way to do it without the material shrinking and showing the edges, and it turned out pretty crazy.
McGuire: It's actually a really cool guitar. Pictures really don't do it justice--it's really a sight to behold.
Archey: Another really cool one was one we built for Brad Rice, who plays in Keith Urban's band. It's a Delia LS with a Lollar P90 in the bridge and a Lollar Charlie Christian in the neck. He handed us a stack of hotel keycards, and Bill cut up all of the keycards to form a mosaic on the top of the guitar and on the headstock. It took forever, but ended up being really cool looking. Bill hand to hand-cut every single little hotel key.
Brad Rice's Hotel Key Delia LS
There aren't a lot of limits to what you guys build.
McGuire: We really have a pretty broad scope of artist guitars, ranging from the untraditional look and appeal of Matt Pike's 9-string [a double-cutaway where the top three strings are doubled like a 12-string], to stuff that's more reminiscent of traditional instruments.
We have some models that we do every so often that are really true players' guitars, models with multiple pickup selections, no heel construction--features like those. One we call the Session Series Sheena, and the PB5, which is a total rocker guitar. It has a Floyd Rose and a two-humbucker configuration with a coil tap, pretty much all of the bells and whistles that a hard rocker would want.
We give the same treatment to our basses, too. Steve Jenkins [solo artist] just got a Session Series model, kind of a counterpart to the Sheena. We put a video game button on his wired to a kill switch so he could use fast tremolo effects. We're very proud that we work all across the board, making guitars for what anybody thinks is cool.
What pickups are the guitars usually fitted with?
Archey: We like to use Kent Armstrongs, unless the artist is endorsing another product. We'll throw in EMGs or Seymour Duncans in sometimes. If they supply their own pickups, we'll put them in there, too. Some people have their own preferences.
You guys have built several models for bigger profile acts, such as Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Perry Bamonte of The Cure. But at the same time, there's a big underground rock focus as well.
Archey: Absolutely. One of the coolest parts of the job is getting to build guitars for bands that we all really like. When we started out, we went after what we considered to be the hipper, younger bands at the time. With what the main part of the company is making, mostly kids are going to want to buy those guitars, So we figured it was a good idea to go after those bands the younger crowd will go see, and see them playing a First Act.
Also, a lot of what we've been able to do snowballed from the work that we did with bands early on. We got hundreds of bands [interested] because of Kurt Ballow from Converge. He normally doesn't lend his name to too many brands, he plays what he likes, and he usually plays it forever. Steve Pedulla from Thursday and Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were huge, too. Our Delia model is based on the guitar that we designed with Nick.
Nick Zinner's latest guitar, dubbed the Fuzzaxe has a built-in fuzz circuit.
In addition to the Delia, how many different model types do you guys offer?
McGuire: As far as the limited editions go, we actually have five total. The Lola is a pretty straightforward rock guitar, with a beveled mahogany body and a low profile bridge. The Sheena is a single cut, alder-bodied guitar with a six-in-line headstock. The Delia and Delia LS are our semi-hollow models. Finally, there's the Delgada model, which has an offset body style, and is also available in a bass form. Of course, we do numerous body shapes and styles for artists when requested.
Tell us about some of those.
McGuire: The first guitar that we built for Brent Hinds [Mastodon], a double cutaway model with the offset lower horn, is one of them.
Archey: Another one is the dual guitar-bass that we built for Takeshi from Boris. I'm a huge Boris fan, and they wanted to come by when they were in the New York area a while back. I said, "Absolutely!" [laughs] He literally came by with mechanical drawings from a friend of his in Japan of what he roughly wanted.
McGuire: Roughly? I wouldn't say that!
Archey: [laughs] Yeah, they were actually dead-on diagrams. We had to tweak it a little bit, and we also had to downsize the scale slightly. He's like, 5'7" and 100 pounds sopping wet. I think it came out great.
The Boris guitar-bass doubleneck
Out of all of the custom instruments that you guys have had a hand in, what are your personal favorites?
Archey: That's tough, there are so many good ones. Well, as a bass player, I love the Takeshi [Boris] double-neck, and I like the Kelson Louis [Future Of The Left] Delia LS bass. Guitar-wise, I'm kind of leaning towards the recent one that we did for Steve Pedulla [Thursday], which was a hollowbody, offset doublecut monster. Those are my few that stand out right now.
McGuire: For me, I'd have to say the doublecut, 9-string carved top that we did with Matt Pike is one of my favorites. That one in particular is one that will always stick in my head. When he was telling us what he wanted, it was almost surreal. I had always wanted to do something for the guy, and I've been listening to his music since I discovered his old band Sleep in high school. So that whole situation of talking about what he wanted in a guitar, while he's telling us that he's eating a steak with his bare hands, was really strange.
Matt Pike's 9-String Double Cut
I really wanted him to play what we made for him, and I was a little worried that he wouldn't after a while. That guitar, with three doubled high strings, is the kind of thing that some people would try once then put in the closet. We put a lot of work into that one, from redesigning the stop bar and making adjustments to our original doublecut, carved top design. It's also one of those things where, being that we'll build what you want, you've got to be a little careful in what you say. Part of that conversation with him was, "I like a heavy guitar dude...make it real heavy." So, we did. He never did once complain about it, and I've got to hand it to him. He turned it into his main axe.
Archey: I think that we've done so well because we're just having a blast doing it.
McGuire: Oh yeah. I mean, even before we were working with Mastodon and High On Fire, it was great just being asked what artist I wanted to build for.
Archey: That's one of the coolest things about being here, that everyone is pretty involved. Half the time, I'll go up to one of the luthiers and ask them what their favorite band is, or what they're listening to that they're really into right now. After that, we'll go after them and see if they want a guitar. It kind of keeps everything as a little community within our shop, and makes the guys feel really good because they get to build something for somebody that they really like.
How long does one of these custom guitars take, on average?
McGuire: You know, it varies. It's usually anywhere between six weeks and four months, depending on how many artists and customers are already in line for a guitar, and the time we spend prototyping stuff.
Can a non-touring guitarist order a custom build?
Archey: We're totally open to anybody wanting a guitar. Just get in touch with us and we'll talk.
How would one go about doing that?
Archey: If a player is interested, they can contact us through the Customer Service page on our website, and John will work with them to get a price quote out. They can also email me at JArchey@firstact.com if they have any questions.