Iriondo has been a member of the Italian alt-rock outfit Afterhours since 1992. Here he’s playing a custom Epiphone SG Custom at an Afterhours show in 2015.
“I am half Basque,” Iriondo says. “And these words—like “mahai” and “metak”—come from the Basque language. A metak is when you take the grass that you’re cutting, and you make a mountain of this grass in the garden. In the past, you gave this metak to the cows.” Another traditional Basque practice and type of metak involves shredding and drying corn stalks to use as fodder over the long, cold winter months. So, a metak is a pile of collected things that are preserved for an extended period. In Iriondo’s view, this serves as an analogy for something deeper. “I love this idea, because you can put everything inside the metak,” he says. “It’s like a collection of your emotions. For example, with my shop, Sound Metak, I sold different kinds of things—from old gramophones and vinyl shellac records to fuzz pedals and jukeboxes and guitars and amplifiers—it was a lot of different things. Metak for me is an idea, and my instrument, the Mahai Metak, is the same thing. It’s an energy from my fantasy, which is everything I can put out from my mind.”
Buñuel is a noise-rock quartet named after the legendary Spanish filmmaker, Luis Buñuel. The band formed was formed in 2016 by (from left to right) bassist Andrea Lombardini, drummer Francesco Valente, American vocalist Eugene S. Robinson, and guitarist Xabier Iriondo.
Conceptually, metak also helps to explain Iriondo’s musical diversity. Born in Milan, he started playing the guitar at 17, and became something of an Italian celebrity as part of the alternative band Afterhours, with whom he’s been a member since 1992 (except for hiatus throughout most of the aughts). But Afterhours is about as mainstream as Xabier gets. He’s also made incredible noise with myriad projects, like his recordings and performances with Can’s Damo Suzuki (Damo Suzuki’s Network), collaborations with the cream of Europe’s avant-garde (?Alos, Pleiadees), numerous solo projects, and the list goes on and on.
Xabier Iriondo's pedalboard: “When you’re using some of these destruction pedals on the loud and heavy stuff, the guitar isn’t so important. You destroy everything with these kinds of pedals."
His most recent outing is the abrasive, apocalyptic, noise-rock quartet Buñuel. Named after the legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, the band first came together in 2016 and mixes the talents of a trio of Italian musicians—Iriondo, bassist Andrea Lombardini, and drummer Francesco Valente—plus American vocalist Eugene S. Robinson. Their new release, Killers Like Us, is awash in fuzz and rages between brain-crushing, metal-tinged cuts like “A Prison of Measured Time” and “When God Used a Rope” to slow, doomy dirges like “Hornets” and “When We Talk,” as well as moments of unstructured, free improvisation interspersed throughout the record.
BUNUEL - When God Used A Rope (official video)
“We are three Italian musicians,” Iriondo says about Buñuel’s genesis. “We were a little bit famous here in Italy, and we decided to choose an international singer. We wrote to Eugene Robinson, and he accepted our idea. For our first record, the three of us recorded 10 songs in a studio in Italy. We sent them to Eugene in San Francisco, he sang on them, and then sent the tracks back to us. We did that again for this record.” Not only were the vocals recorded separate from the rest of the band, but Robinson didn’t even get a chance to rehearse with them. The first time the band played together as a quartet was onstage in front of an audience. “We didn’t rehearse with Eugene—we rehearsed ourselves—and we met with him the first day of the first gig. That’s how it started.”
Despite Iriondo’s years of experience with group improvisation, that was not the approach he took with Buñuel. You’d think improv would be helpful when stepping onstage raw with an unrehearsed new singer. Rather, the band’s vibe is through-composed songs that are played the same way—except for planned sections set aside for improvisation—night after night.
“When I want to take a solo, I adjust the Cornish directly with my foot. I open up the volume, and then I arrive in the cosmos.”
“We play the songs like they are on the album,” says Iriondo. “Although we do have some parts, or structures, that can change. For example, on our first tour, we wrote our 10 songs, and that’s all we had. At the end of the show, the audience asked for more. I said, ‘Okay, let’s start with an improv,’ and that improv we used on those gigs from the first tour became a song on the second album [“The Sanction” o 2018'sThe Easy Way Out]. We composed each day, each gig, and the song transformed and arrived at the end of the tour.”
When recording Buñuel, Iriondo harnesses that live feel by taking a minimalist approach to overdubs. Aside from an odd guitar solo or two, the instruments are recorded live, with the band members standing together and looking at each other. “I also play pop rock with other bands, and overdubbing is okay for that kind of music, but the wildness of this project gains a lot when we’re all playing together in the same room,” he says.
For both of Buñuel’s albums, including the new Killers Like Us, the three Italian core band members recorded the songs in Italy and sent them to vocalist Eugene Robinson in San Francisco. Robinson sang over the music and then sent the tracks back to Italy.
“In the past, in the ’90s, I used the VHT head system that people talked about,” he says about the now-rebranded Fryette Pittbull Ultra-Lead. “I bought the second one that arrived in Italy in 1994. But in the last 20-to-25 years, I started using theHiwatt DR103, and I think that’s my sound. When I plugged in for the first time, I said, ‘What the hell is this?’ I can go from high-frequency, crystal-like sounds to really deep grunge sounds with a lot of low frequencies. In general, with Buñuel and also Afterhours, I use the Hiwatt, and then also another amp, a 300-watt SWR California Blonde, which is a transistor amp. I have the headroom also in the clean sounds, but when I engage all my fuzzes and boosters, the gain is incredible, and it’s still in front of you all the time.”
“I love this idea, because you can put everything inside the metak. It’s like a collection of your emotions.”
Iriondo’s tone is wild, too. Considering how mangled, heavy, and distorted his sound gets, it’s interesting how he crafts his tone almost exclusively with pedals, which he uses to drive his amps. He owns more than 20 heads and cabs, and his preference is classic British amps like Hiwatt, Orange, Carlsbro, and Simms Watt—he has a few of each in assorted colors—that have a lot of headroom. He feels those work best with his high-gain pedals.
Xabier Iriondo’s Gear
Xabier Iriondo’s custom-built "Mahai Metak" is a 10-string short-scale table guitar. Six of the strings are tuned to D in different octaves and act as drones. The other four are G, G, F, and A. It has pickups on both ends, plus an onboard oscillator and distortion unit, and controls for volume and tone. "I play it with Chinese sticks, and I create rhythms and special sounds with steel wool—that stuff you use in America to wash your dishes. It sounds great."
Photo courtesy of Xabier Iriondo
Guitars
- Two custom Billy Boy Guitars made by Fabio Ghiribelli (a white model and a purple model used with Buñuel, with a TV Jones pickup in the neck position and a ’52 Tele pickup in the bridge)
- NukeTown Venusian IX Signature 9-string
- Loic Le Page (Mahai Metak Guitar)
- James Trussart Red Star Steelcaster
Amps
- Hiwatt DR504 stack
- Hiwatt DR103 head and 4x12 cab (1970)
- Vox AC30TB (1992 reissue)
- Orange OR120 head with 4x12 cab (1969)
- Orange bass cabinet with 18" speaker (1970)
- Simms Watts AP100 Mk2 (1972)
- Marshall 1959 SLP Purple Limited Edition (1994)
- 300-watt SWR California Blonde
Effects
- Hologram Microcosm Granular Looper
- TC Electronic Ditto X2
- Pete Cornish NB-2
- AC Noises AMA (reverb w/ oscillator + bit crusher)
- Supro Tremolo
- DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
- Death By Audio Waveformer Destroyer
- EarthQuaker Devices Organizer
- EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold
- AC Noises Arpiona Xabier Iriondo signature
- Korg PB-03 Pitchblack
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario .010–.052
- Dunlop Tortex Purple 1 mm
Iriondo has a seemingly endless collection of pedals, too, although his go-to is his signature octave-synth-fuzz-boost Arpiona, made by Italian builders AC Noises. The pedal starts with a gated fuzz circuit inspired by Death By Audio’s Harmonic Transformer, followed by a sub-octave bass synth, more fuzz, and a boost. He uses that in conjunction with an EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold, and a Pete Cornish NB-2 boost that’s always engaged. “When I want to take a solo,” he says, “I adjust the Cornish directly with my foot. I open up the volume, and then I arrive in the cosmos.”
Afterhours - Spreca una vita
They’re Italian, which is probably why this Afterhours video looks like a Federico Fellini film.
Iriondo is also no purist. If an analog circuit will get him the sound he wants, great, but he’s just as happy using a digital device. “I use everything that can give me satisfaction,” he says. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed. He also gets that satisfaction from his guitars. “About 80 percent of my choice in guitars is the feel, and 20 percent is the sound,” he says. “When you’re using some of these destruction pedals on the loud and heavy stuff, the guitar isn’tso important. You destroy everything with these kinds of pedals. They completely destroy your clean sound. Although when I play pop-rock music, I change my guitars a lot.”
Xabier Iriondo bought his James Trussart Red Star Steelcaster directly from the luthier at his L.A. home in 2012. It features a metal front and back perforation body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, and two Arcane Inc. pickups.
Photo by Alberto Mori
But that feel is elusive, which may explain Iriondo’s vast collection of instruments. He has vintage guitars he doesn’t mod at all, but in general he’s an itinerant tinkerer. He usually swaps out pickups, even on his less expensive guitars, and has a significant number of custom-built guitars as well. “I’m not only a collector, I’m a professional, which means guitars are my life,” he says. “I want to have tools that work well with me. In the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to have my dream guitars that I ask luthiers to build for me with my specific specifications. The principal guitar that I used on the Buñuel project is made by Billy Boy Guitars. It has an incredible tremolo, and it’s a light guitar. All the sounds you hear on Buñuel are made with that guitar.”
Perhaps Iriondo’s most unique instrument is his custom-built Mahai Metak. It’s a 10-string, short-scale table guitar. Six of the strings are tuned to D in different octaves and act as drones. The other four are G, G, F, and A. The instrument has pickups on both ends—near the bridge as well as near the nut—plus an onboard oscillator and distortion unit, and controls for volume and tone. He plays it with an assortment of items, including marbles, roach clips, and steel wool. “I play it with Chinese sticks,” he says, “and I create rhythms and special sounds with steel wool—that stuff you use in America to wash your dishes. It sounds great. I use it with the loopers and reverbs and it creates these noisy and bizarre sounds, as well as melodic sounds that create a nice texture.”
Iriondo’s Gibson “Elettra” Explorer was handpainted by Valentina Chiappini
Photo by Matteo Pieroni
It’s that openness and wonder, as exemplified by Iriondo’s voracious appetite for gear, as well as his embrace of disparate genres and styles, that are the ingredients that make up his metak. Call it his esoteric pile of ideas, which gives him permission to explore the endless energies of his imagination. He’ll conjure up sounds that are heavy and dark—or playful and light—and almost always fun, and, maybe, even a little mischievous.
And isn’t that, ultimately, the ideal?
YouTube It
This live performance shows Buñuel from their last tour in 2016, with Xabier Iriondo playing his custom Billy Boy guitar. It takes a while for Iriondo to enter, but it’s worth the wait. Head to 2:45 to hear one of the guitarist’s deliciously mangled solos.
Before their August 30 sold-out show at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, Earle and longtime Dukes' guitarist Chris Masterson took me through their touring rigs.
[Brought to you by D'Addario XS Strings: https://www.daddario.com/XSRR]
Holey Moley!
Steve Earle's current No. 1 touring electric is his James Trussart Black Holey Steelcaster. This metal-bodied T-Style features a B16 Bigsby, an Arcane T-style bridge pickup, and an Arcane humbucker neck pickup. And if you can peek through the f-hole, you'll see the ventilated back that gives the guitar its name. This Trussart stays stung with D'Addario XL Nickel Wound Jazz Lights: .012–.052.
Rara Avis
Earle has a long history with Martin Guitars. They released an M-21 Steve Earle Custom Artist Edition a few years ago. Now Steve is touring with two black, custom M-sized Martins that are all mahogany, for better road durability. These are equipped with Fishman's Aura pickup and run into a Fishman Acoustic Guitar Aura Spectrum pre-amp/DI. These Martin's stays strung with D'Addarios, gauged .012–.053. For some tours, Earl plays up to 15 stringed instruments a night onstage.
Mando-tory Playing
Earle's standard mandolin is a Gilchrist, and he also brings this octave mandolin onstage. They're hand-built in Stephen Gilchrist's shop in Lake Gnotuk, Australia. They both take D'Addario strings and, like his electric guitars, go through the same 1/4" cable into his pedalboard. Steve is able to mute/tune, and direct the signal to the amp or DI. He plays Fred Kelly thumb picks—D5J-L-3 Delrin Bumblebee Jazz Lights.
Model Mando
Here's the other custom-made Gilchrist mandolin that Earle travels the world with.
50/50
Two newish, stock Peavey Classic 50 4x10 combos are his stage amps. Earle uses only one at a time, in the normal channel, with input gain around 7 and output volume about the same. The amps face across stage so it's easier on the audience as well as the live audio engineer.
Steve's Settings
Here's what Steve's cooking with on his main Peavey Classic 50.
The Chairman's Board
His axes hit a Boss TU-3 and run into a pair of MXR Carbon Copy analog delays (one set as a 1-second delay for a pre-song rippling effect, and one as a slapback/Echoplex), and a Fulltone Full-Drive 2 with two levels of gain. A Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 supplies the juice. Special thanks to tech T. G. "Chief" Frahn for his help on gear details.
Tele Time
Chris Masterson's No. 1 electric is his refinished 1958 Telecaster. The Fender pickups have been changed to some unknown model, but the guitar sounds amazing and Chris has not changed anything else. All of his electrics are strung with D'Addario NYXL1150BT medium tension sets, which run .011–.050.
This Guitar Tries Harder
Masterson's No. 2 is this Fender Custom Shop '57 Telecaster with a Parsons/White B-Bender. Note the original Tele-design bridge on this reissue.
Meant To Be Bent
Here's a look at the routing and mechanism of the Parsons/White B-Bender. Using the device fluidly definitely takes practice.
Hey Buck-O
For humbucker tones, Masterson goes with a Gibson Custom Shop '64 SG with ThroBak ESG-102B P.A.F.-style pickups.
Masterson's Waterloo
This Waterloo acoustic, by Collings, features a Fishman Rare Earth Humbucker soundhole pickup and it is strung with D'Addario NYXLs, gauged .012–.053.
The Low-down
For truly deep twang, a baritone is the right guitar for the job, and this Jerry Jones brings the spaghetti-Western tones when the time is right.
Double Jonesing
The other Jerry Jones onstage is a Neptune 12-string that's also stock. Masterson uses D'Addario heavy celluloid picks on his axes.
Piggyback Partners
Here's an oddity. This '64 Deluxe head runs a Fender cab with a Mojotone interior that houses a Celestion Creamback G12H-75.
Just for Effects
First stop: an Analog Man Sun Lion. From there the signal hits a Boss Waza Craft Chromatic Tuner, an Origin Effects Cali76 Compressor, an Analog Man King of Tone, a Strymon Mobius, and a Strymon TimeLine. Strymon's Zuma supplies power and a Radial footswitch turns amps and reverb and tremolo on/off. Masterson uses Divine Noise cables.
If someone mentions the names Leo Fender or Les Paul, there’s a good chance that an image of them will pop into your head. But there are many other “names” in the guitar world that you know but you probably couldn’t pick the individuals out in a crowd. These are people whose guitars, amps, or pedals you might use on a regular basis or, at least, plan to buy as soon as that big lottery win comes your way.
Who? People like Reinhold Bogner, Andy Fuchs, or Dave Friedman (amps). Joe Knaggs, Dennis Fano, or Tom Anderson (guitars). Brian Wampler, Robert Keeley, or Harri Koski of Mad Professor (effects pedals). How about Seymour Duncan? Floyd Rose? Jim Dunlop? Did you know that there is a Rick Shubb behind all of those Shubb capos you see on the wall of your local guitar shop?