MJ Lenderman, seen here playing his Jazzmaster with Wednesday, first started on guitar at the age of 8, when he was entranced by the music of Jimi Hendrix.
Over the past few years, singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman has had a taste of success with his band Wednesday and his latest solo albums. On his new solo release Manning Fireworks, his artistic depth is on full display in his carefully unwinding, twanging riffs and sage lyrics, informed in part by a sturdy sense of humor.
English actress Glenda Jackson is credited with what’s now become an old performance-art adage: “Comedy is much harder to do than drama.” During my time living in New York City for the last eight-and-a-half years, I spent countless hours in open-mic basement dungeons—where small rodents would occasionally die and pungently decay beneath the floorboards and cellar stairwells—studying amateur standups workshop ideas in two- to seven-minute allotments of stage time.
I observed how each would coalesce their creative germs over the course of months—sometimes years—into solid, reliable bits while whittling down and sharpening their inner clown. And, after eventually trying it myself, with much floundering, I can personally attest that it’s a lot harder than it looks.
Twenty-five-year-old, North Carolina-born songwriter MJ Lenderman tells me that his song ideas “usually start with one line; something that makes me laugh.” Well, on his new album Manning Fireworks, his major-label debut with Anti- Records and fourth studio full-length of his solo career—which has grown alongside his work with the band Wednesday—I can definitely hear the laughter.
On “Wristwatch,” he proclaims that he has “a beach home up in Buffalo,” and “a wristwatch that’s a pocket knife and a megaphone.” On “Rip Torn,” presumably named after the actor by the same name, he sings, “I guess I’ll call you Rip Torn / The way you got tore up / Passed out in your Lucky Charms / Lucky doesn’t mean much,” and, “You said there’s men and then there’s movies / And there’s men in Men in Black / Said there’s milkshakes and there’s smoothies / You always lose me when you talk like that.” (To jog your memory of the ’90s, Rip Torn plays “Zed” in Men in Black.)
Manning Fireworks, Lenderman’s fourth studio full-length, was written and recorded between tours. The title comes from the idea of someone recklessly setting-off the recreational explosives.
Most of the folk-y, country-rock tracks on Manning Fireworks clock in at around three to three-and-a-half minutes, and take that time to unwind without demanding any patience. Lenderman’s main guitar is a 2008 Fender Jazzmaster, which he recently had modded with a Mastery Bridge, and he unassumingly twangs out each straight-ahead riff in a woozy, barebones essence all his own. I first heard the album in its entirety at a listening party at NYC’s Mercury Lounge, where the label folks from Anti- requested that the audience not go on their phones and not talk while the album was playing. I was among a full crowd of people in the 250-capacity room who followed those rules, and Lenderman’s self-actualized storytelling made it easy. As a songwriter, he draws influence from Neil Young, Jason Molina, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley (Drive-By Truckers), and David Berman and Will Oldham (Silver Jews).
The album’s title conjures some unique imagery, I tell him—just the verb “manning,” which I associate with sailors (“Man the ship”), military (“Man the barricades”), or machines (“Man the cash register”). He says the visual for him is “somebody standing too close [to fireworks] who could set off a huge explosion if they’re not careful. I guess that’s kind of the way I was using them. I like the phrase because, on its own, it sounds like the name of a store you would see in South Carolina or something.”
I wonder if he remembers the drastic uptick of unusually loud fireworks being set off in NYC during the pandemic, a phenomenon reported on by Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. (Many speculated that these fireworks were being given out to unwitting kids as a systemic attempt to disrupt the sleep of those organizing Black Lives Matter protests at the time.)
“That’s not what I was writing about,” he laughs, adding, “but I think it was the same summer where somebody set off a firework in my friend Alan’s car and it totaled the car.”
MJ Lenderman's Gear
From the process of making Manning Fireworks, Lenderman took away the lesson that asking for help from his peers (in terms of contributing to his music), can make his life a bit easier.
Photo by Karly Hartzman
Guitars
- 2008 Fender Jazzmaster
- 1979 Gibson Firebrand SG
Effects
- Death By Audio Interstellar Overdriver
- Dunlop Cry Baby Wah
- Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
- Tuner
Amp
- Fender Blues Deluxe with Warehouse speaker
Strings
- Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky (.011–.054)
But his idea of what it means to “man” fireworks reminds me of a Mel Brooks quote: “If I cut my finger, that’s tragedy. Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.” And, I can say that I’ve never heard a songwriter say that their song ideas begin with an inspiring one-liner, let alone a country-rock musician. That’s something that sets Lenderman apart on the creative plane, and offers a lot of information behind why his lyrics are so distinctive.
“Do you like comedy?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he replies, suddenly looking like he’s more interested in speaking on the subject than about his music. “[There are] some newer specials that I’ve been liking. I really am just impressed at the courage it must take to do that, and to fail at it over and over and over again.”
Lenderman’s second guitar is his Gibson Firebrand SG, which he says “feels a little more fragile” than his Jazzmaster.
Photo by Yailene Leyva
Lenderman says that he first fell in love with guitar at the age of 8. He was entranced by Jimi Hendrix at the time, who was “all I listened to for a couple years. Then I got really into Derek Trucks, then slowly into more alternative stuff like J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr., Stephen Malkmus, and Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth. All that stuff’s been super informative to my guitar playing.”
Having seen Lenderman play at Mercury Lounge—he performed a few songs live after we listened to the Manning Fireworks album stream—I can say there’s an intriguing, deceptive reductiveness to his playing. He fingerpicks, but in a seemingly self-taught style; the riffs are simple; but his publicist boasts to me after the show that he can shred, too. He can, and you can hear that more on his heavier, rockier live album, And the Wind (Live and Loose!), released in November 2023.
He’s never been that into gear, and still has stock pickups on his Jazzmaster, but recently had the tech from the band Drop of Sun (members of which facilitated the recording of Manning Fireworks) modify his amps. Aside from that, his spare pedalboard contains a Death By Audio Interstellar Overdriver, a Cry Baby Wah, a Boss DD-7 Digital Delay, and a tuner.
Lenderman’s 13-year-old self was mostly into rap, and while that young teenager might be impressed by how far he’s come today with his music, he says he probably would be confused by the songs.
“How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard it?” I ask.
“I usually just say rock,” he says, laughing, “or country rock.”
“But … if you had to write what makes you different, and the answer will either get you into Heaven or Hell, what would you say to avoid going to Hell?”
“Uhm, I guess.... I don’t know, I would tell whoever to listen to it and maybe go to Hell.”
YouTube It
Performing a song off his 2023 record, And the Wind (Live and Loose!), MJ Lenderman takes the stage at SXSW with his trademark, modest delivery and twanging black Jazzmaster.
Fake Fruit’s Hannah D’Amato takes flight, while the band’s drummer, Miles MacDiarmid, lurks in the background.
Fake Fruit bandleader Hannah D’Amato tells a tale of two Neils as she, PG staff, and reader Kevin Ramsay dig into their songbooks.
Question: Which artist have you learned the most songs by?
Guest Picker: Hannah D’Amato – Fake Fruit
A: Neil Young. I think he’s an incredible human archivist who knows exactly how to distill the highs and lows of being an alive person better than almost anyone. Playing his songs is about as cathartic as it gets. His straight-down-the-barrel soloing is a huge inspiration, too.
The one and only Neil Young.
Obsession: My current obsession is a Karina cover of Neil Sedaka’s “Oh! Carol.” Originally written from the male “Don’t leave me” perspective, the Spanish translation very sneakily urges Carol not to bend to the man’s will and to chase her own happiness without looking back—badass.
Reader of the Month: Kevin Ramsay
Kevin Ramsay, welcome to our pages!
A: I’ve learned the most songs by John Lee Hooker. His raw, hypnotic blues style captivates me. His mastery of the guitar and distinctive voice make his songs unforgettable. Learning his repertoire taught me about blues rhythms, storytelling in music, and the emotional depth that can be conveyed through powerful lyrics.
This album is classic solo Hooker—a live jewel in his catalog.
Obsession: My latest music-related obsession is Maryanne Amacher and otoacoustic emissions. Amacher’s pioneering work with sound and perception, particularly exploring otoacoustic emissions, fascinates me. Her innovative approach to sonic art challenges conventional boundaries, inspiring me to delve deeper into the intersection of science, sound, and human perception in music.
Assistant Editor: Luke Ottenhof
Our man in Montreal, assistant editor Luke Ottenhof.
A: I think it would have to be Weezer. I went through an all-consuming Weezer phase after my older cousins introduced me to them, then binged Blue Album, Pinkerton, and Green Album. I forced my poor, brilliant guitar teacher to show me how to play those songs instead of teaching me stuff that surely would have made me a better player today. Thanks for indulging me, Scott!
Weezer’s 1994 debut album.
Obsession: Creating different types of sonic mayhem through pedals. I always think it’s funny when you get a crazy new pedal that makes your signal virtually unrecognizable and someone says, “That doesn’t sound very useful.” I’m thankful for the imaginative builders who don’t just make what sounds “useful,” and to artists who create sounds beyond the call of capital.
Chief Videographer: Perry Bean
Don’t mess with Perry Bean!
A: If you’re gonna riff, riff with me! At the risk of sounding boring or rudimentary, I probably know the most songs by the Misfits. I discovered them as I was learning guitar, and while not complicated or hard, those barre chords set me up with a foundation to build from. More importantly, learning those songs made guitar an interesting and fun hobby for me. I hated lessons at first because I was forced to learn and play music I had no desire to listen to, let alone play. (Sorry, Elvis!) Besides, guitar is supposed to be fun, right? Long live the Misfits!
The Misfit’s ultra-recognizable logo.
Obsession: Introducing my son to a vast world of good music. Last thing I’d ever want for him is the embarrassment of saying something like, “Dave Matthews is awesome!” in a public setting, for lack of knowing better.
The My Bloody Valentine tone maestro helps design an intricate, complex, but ultimately intuitive source of potent octave fuzz and overtones galore.
Huge swaths of unexpected sounds that can exist well outside the My Bloody Valentine tone sphere. Beautiful, high quality build. Fascinating, organic interactions between controls.
Pedalboard space freaks are going to complain that it’s big.
$299
Fender Shields Blender
fender.com
Kevin Shields tone chasers are a minor cult—sharing insights and discoveries about ways and means to replicate the intoxicating, enveloping sounds of My Bloody Valentine’s LPs, and in particular, their masterwork, Loveless. It’s a curious pursuit, in a way, for it is well documented that Shields created most of that album’s time- and space-bending sheets-of-sound guitar parts via the rather economical combination of reverse reverb and the vibrato on a Fender Jazzmaster.
My Bloody Valentine on stage, however, is quite another matter. Seeing the band live is a little like breathing the atmosphere of another planet. It’s heavy, loud, and sometimes disorienting, which is largely the product of a sea of colliding and intertwining overtones. It’s an almost extra-dimensional extension of the songs on the records. And to build the melodious, swirling, and deafening world of MBV live, Shields relies on an imposing quiver of stompboxes. As it turns out, one of the most critical of these is a vintage Fender Blender, an octave fuzz that went largely unappreciated in its time. With the release of the Fender Shields Blender, a highly modified version of the original, the Blender’s days in the shadows are likely numbered.
Building on a Blend
For those less familiar with Shields’ work, it’s important to know that his ears, mind, and aesthetic fixations dwell, to a significant extent, in the realm of overtones, and the magic made when they interweave to form a more colorful whole. Curiously, one of Shields’ and My Bloody Valentine’s deepest probes into the overtone world is the bludgeoningly loud and sustained onslaught of the song “You Made Me Realise.” Shields’ first investigations of the Blender’s potential occurred during this nightly, set-ending ritual. And the combination of octave-up fuzz, a footswitchable fuzz boost, a tone knob, and a wet/dry blend control made it a perfect vehicle for adding another color to the song’s outro overtone feast. The Shields Blender, however, explodes and expands the feature set—and the available sounds—of the original Blender significantly.
Bigger Blend, Minds Blown
Shields’ and Fender’s design additions profoundly expand the possibilities afforded by the new Blender. First, there’s a new footswitchable, mammoth sub-octave fuzz with dedicated volume control. It can be used with or without the octave up signal from the original, which can now be added or subtracted via a pushbutton. That means you can use the fuzz alone, with one of the octave effects, or both. That flexibility gives you a wagonload of huge, menacing, and mangled textures to work with. But they are just a fraction of the tones you can craft here. The fuzz has its own very range-ful tone knob, which recasts the fuzz’s personality considerably. The expand section, which has a dedicated footswitch (and was called the tone boost on the original) enables you to boost the fuzz output.
The wildest addition to the original Blender, though, is the sag circuit. Shields noted that many sag functions, which starve a circuit of voltage, are a bit subtle. This one is most assuredly not. It’s also not the easiest function to figure out. But practice yields very cool and often unexpected results. While it works in dynamically responsive, rhythmic, almost tremolo-like ways at the right settings (which seems to be Shields’ preferred application), I loved its potential in fingerpicked situations, where its dynamic responsiveness shined. Fingerpicking triads high on the neck with both octave effects engaged yielded melodic, glitchy effects that could be continuously reshaped by touch, and by using mellower trigger levels you can summon a greater degree of dynamic control. It’s important to note that strong octave-down fuzz settings can render the sag control less nuanced. But used together they can also summon the chaotic, tectonic-scale, Earth-cracking tonalities that are part of the live “You Made Me Realise” or Neil Young’s most deranged octave divider and melting tweed Deluxe moments.
The Verdict
While it yields many chaotic results, the Fender Shields Blender is not the product of a chaotic design approach. Shields is known for striving for very specific sonic results and for being uncompromising in those quests. That a Kevin Shields-approved pedal could exist at all is something of a surprise to this longtime fan. But what’s also a surprise is how incredibly varied and full of twists the Shields Blender can be. The addition of the sub-octave fuzz is inspired. So is the tricky-to-wrangle, but ultimately satisfying, sag circuit, which offers unusual tones and interactivity galore. Making the fuzz independently operable from the octave effects also extends the pedal’s flexibility. But it’s the potential interrelationships between all of the controls and functions that ultimately make the Shields Blender such a rich mine of possible sounds. For the intrepid and patient explorer willing to crack the many codes within, fantastic rewards await.