Guitarist John Lee Shannon and bassist Dan Horne explore the sonic space with a mix of vintage amps, DIY cabs, and plenty of pedals.
Founded by the late Neal Casal, this instrumental band of sonic explorers was born out of a request for set-break music during the Grateful Deadās final run of shows in San Francisco and Chicago during 2015. Originally, CATS was going to be a one-off project, but fan feedback pushed Casal and company to release it as Interludes for the Dead. This wasnāt simply wordless Dead covers, but new creations formed in essence and spirt of the Dead.
In 2018, the group released their second double album, Let it Wander, and followed it up with a completely improvised EP featuring drummer Joe Russo. Sadly, a week after tracking their self-titled album Casal took his own life. Casal urged the group to carry on without him. The group recruited Eric Krasno and Scott Metzger for various tours before settling in with John Lee Shannon in July of 2021. Shortly before a gig at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, John Bohlinger caught up with Shannon and bassist Dan Horne to talk gear.
[Brought to you by DāAddario XS Strings: https://www.daddario.com/XSRR]
The Lone Ranger
John Lee Shannon tours with a single guitar: a 2017 Fender Custom Shop 1969 Journeyman Relic Strat. Itās outfitted with handwound ā69 pickups in the neck and middle with a Texas Special in the bridge. āItās really barky,ā mentions Shannon. āItās not a ātameā Strat,ā He puts DāAddario NYXL (.010ā.046) strings on it and uses Pick Boy Vintage Celluloid Rainbow .75 mm picks.
Amp on the Run
Due to somewhat complicated logistics, Shannon had been looking online at various Nashville guitar shops for an amp he could pick up at the last minute and use on this run. After flying in from Brooklyn the morning of the show, he headed straight for Rumble Seat Music to check out this 1968 Sunn 100S and matching 2x15 cabinet. Shannon put down a deposit before getting to town hoping the amp would work for him. Obviously, it did. Later he found out this amp was on consignment from Nashville session king Tom Bukovac.
The Mothership!
After experimenting with various pedals on the bandās West coast run, Shannon shifted some things around and even took inspiration from Casalās board to form this mothership. The centerpiece is the Road Rage true bypass looper which allows Shannon to individually bring each pedal in and out of the signal flow. Right before the looper is a JAM Pedals Wahcko, which was custom ordered solely based on the finish. Other highlights include a Greer Amps Super Hornet, Strymon Lex, a trio of Catalinbread stomps (Belle Epoch, Echorec, and Topanga), a Walrus Audio Monument, Lovepedal Rubber Chicken and a pair of BearFoot FX (Pale Green and Honey Beest OD).
Vintage Vibes
Circles Around the Sun take plenty of musical risks, but that fearlessness stretches over into their gear choices as bassist Dan Horne also takes a single bass on the road. This 1978 Alembic Series 1 has an unusual setup. Although you can power the active pickups with batteries, Horne uses an Alembic DS5 power supply to provide power via the cable. (The DS5 also has dual outputs, but Horne only uses the bass output.)
Tower of Doom
The Grateful Deadās āWall of Soundā-era speakers served as the inspiration for Horneās triple-cabinet tower. The top cabinet was built by Bag End while the bottom two were DIY affairs created by a friend. All three cabinets feature a Weber speaker.
Under the Hood
The engine behind Horneās sound is this rack, which includes an Alembic F-1X tube preampāpowered by a 12AX7āand a Crown XLS 1502 power amp. All of Horneās effects are behind him on the pedal drawer and he controls them via a Voodoo Lab PX-8 Plus.
Horne's Tone Zone
Horneās pedal rack includes a Sonic Research ST-300 tuner, Boss BF-2 Flanger, MXR Carbon Copy, MXR 10-Band EQ, a vintage Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Phase Shifter, MXR Bass Envelope Filter, and a BearFoot FX Pale Green compressor. He wrangles them all with a Voodoo Lab HEX loop switcher thatās controlled by a PX-8 Plus.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Josh Klinghoffer, Living Colour's Doug Wimbish, Neal Casal, and others show off their stomp stations.
Mental health issues affect millions of people. Letās talk about how we can help each other before itās too late.
Neal Casal and I met in 2010 on the set of the movie Country Strong, an age-old portrait of a train-wreck musician (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) spiraling toward her tragic demise. The director wanted realism, so she hired real musicians (Neal on guitar, me on bass) for Gwyneth's band. In between takes, Neal and I jammed, traded dry jokes, and shared a lot of laughs. After the movie wrapped, we stayed in contact, hung when he was in Nashville, and Neal contributed photos to my column. Two years ago, we filmed a Rig Rundown with his band, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. It appeared that Neal was thriving ... then he killed himself last August.
Neal's suicide was shocking, but sadly it's an epidemic. Worldwide, there are roughly 800,000 suicides per year, which translates to about one every 40 seconds. If that's not grim enough, Rolling Stone recently cited a 2018 study by the Music Industry Research Association, which found that 50 percent of musicians reported symptoms of depression. Studies tell us that mental health struggles are more prevalent among creative types, but if you are one, or have spent your life surrounded by artists, you've probably seen it firsthand.
Adam MacDougall (Black Crowes) probably knew Neal best. They toured together for nine years in the Chris Robinson Brotherhood and formed their own band, Circles Around the Sun, which was just getting its legs when Neal checked out. I asked Adam if he saw Neal's depression issues.
"I saw it in him, as he probably saw it in me. Poets, writers, musicians through the ages have always been the sensitive ones looking for an outlet for this beautiful sadness. Neal and I tended to turn that into macabre humor. But I've been listening to his back catalogue of songs. It's surprising how often it was alluded to. Artists wear their hearts on their sleeves, so it wasn't a red flag, but listening to it now is just chilling. But honestly, every musician I've talked to, particularly after Neal, not one of them hasn't considered [suicide] at least once."
Mental health, especially depression, is the most dangerous thing that we're afraid to talk about, probably because it carries an embarrassing stigma and is easily misunderstood. People have plenty of reasons to be sad, be it bad luck or bad choices, but the clinically depressed have inherent issues that are often biological and can't be fixed with a Band-Aid of sheer willpower alone.
For those struggling with mental illness, a risk one takes in talking about one's problems is being perceived as an overly dramatic complainer. Some people may need to hear, "you have no reason to be depressed, be strong, man up," but to a depressed person, those platitudes make them feel unworthy of what they're feeling. So, they try to work it out themselves or disguise pain as humor. I know a lot of musicians who joke about suicide, but few who open up about it.
Rig Rundown - Chris Robinson Brotherhood
In retrospect, you could see all of that in Neal, which leads to the inevitable question: Who's next? This is a musician mag so, statistically speaking, half of us, including myself, have issues.
I was diagnosed as manic depressive when I was 22. (A few years later, the DSM-IIIāthe Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disordersā changed the term to bipolar, thinking the term "manic" might offend the nuts, but I prefer it, thanks to Hendrix's hardest rocking 6/8 song ever.) I disagreed with the diagnosis, but over the past 30 years I've checked off nearly everything on the bipolar brochure. I've been involuntarily hospitalized, medicated, incarcerated, twice divorced, and had five other psychiatrists and psychologists label me bipolar II. Combine that evidence with all the crazy shit I'd never tell you, and my tendency to run naked down the street or break into long, uncontrollable crying jags, and I concede the doctors may be onto something.
My glitches don't define me. I love my life and, although the lows are ass-kickers, the highs make it totally worth it. (Nobody talks about it, but for me the upswings of mania are truly, deeply, fabulously, furiously fun.) I'm outing myself because Neal's suicide makes everyone who knew him wonder if there was some way they could've shown support and love while encouraging him to get help.
I keep my glitches under control by fighting the lows like a person fighting cancer. I limit booze, exercise daily, do yoga, acupuncture, meditate, pray, try to get enough sleep, see the shrink when I must, play music as often as possible, and make a mindful choice to look for the good in this whole beautiful catastrophe. So far, this has worked for me, but everyone is different.
If you think you might need help, you probably do. Here are some places to start:
ā¢ MusiCares
ā¢ Backline
ā¢ Tour Support
ā¢ NuƧi's Space
ā¢ RecoveryFest Nashville
You don't have to white-knuckle it. There are more support and help options now than everāmany offering free treatment for musicians with mental health issues. Don't wait, get help.
[Updated 7/27/21]