From 1942 to ’45, the period known as the “banner era,” Gibson had emblazoned on their headstocks a yellow banner that reads, “Only a Gibson Is Good Enough.” This J-45’s decal has proudly stood the years.
I’ve brought my own guitars to Tom’s shop a few times since then, and when I took on the task of writing this article on the history of the Gibson J-45, I was looking forward to another opportunity to connect.
“Do you know George Gruhn in Nashville? Mark Stutman in Ontario? John Thomas, the guy who wrote Kalamazoo Gals?” I ask in advance of our conversation, listing some of my other interview subjects, previous and planned. Tom knows them all, and they all know each other, as well as the rest of the established names in the vintage business. (It makes it feel small, which it kind of is.)
We gossip a bit, and I feel as though I’ve been welcomed into the coven of vintage-guitar repair pros and historians. Tom shares that, in his current inventory, he has the earliest known J-45 from the Gibson banner era (more on that later). He hands it to me, and with a single strum I feel affirmed in why I’m writing this in the first place. And so, the following is the result of my conversations with two performers, a producer, an author, a documentarian, and three middle-aged and elder statesmen of guitar repair in North America on the story behind one of Gibson’s most beloved and ubiquitous acoustics.
NYC-based luthier Tom Crandall, owner of TR Crandall Guitars on the Lower East Side, has the earliest known J-45 currently in his inventory.
Photo by Kate Koenig
“What fascinates me about the guitars is the evolution in their design, the haphazardness of their build. I’ve become very knowledgeable in the morphology, for lack of a better word, of the J-45,” says vintage-guitar repairman and historian Mark Stutman. We’re talking on the phone as he drives to work at his shop, Folkway Music in Waterloo, Ontario. When it comes to vintage-guitar repairpeople, Mark’s a bit on the younger side—having just turned 50—and he claims that he probably won’t have much to add to what historian George Gruhn, my first interviewee, had to say. He then proceeds to share an encyclopedia’s worth of detail on Gibson guitar history—with remarkable accuracy.
Mark first explains that the J-45, which entered into the Gibson lineup in 1942, was made in the image of its predecessor, the J-35, and that the idea for the J-35 was built upon Gibson’s Jumbo model, introduced in 1934. A 14-fret acoustic with a sunburst on every side and a lower-bout width of just over 16", the Jumbo was about a half-inch wider than the standard dreadnought, and Gibson’s biggest flattop at the time. It had sloped shoulders on its upper bout, with a greater curve than the more squared-off shoulders of a traditional dreadnought. Martin had released the first dreadnought, the Model 222, in 1916, but the body shape didn’t really catch on until their later introduction of the D-18 and D-28 in 1931.
Country singer/songwriter Kacey Musgraves plays a 1957 J-45, which she’s named “Janice,” at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan, in 2019.
Photo by Ken Settle
“I’m sure Gibson introduced their Jumbo guitar to compete directly with Martin’s dreadnoughts,” says Tom, back at his workshop. “I think that’s really what it was. It was starting to take off, and Gibson and Martin were competitors in the flattop world.”
Both brands were racing to move away from the production of the then-more-prevalent smaller-bodied guitars to meet the shifting demands of the zeitgeist. As Stutman says, “[That was what] people wanted, as the whole cowboy-singer, Jimmie Rodgers, railway-switchman-entertainer thing happened in the States. They needed a guitar with a lower-frequency response so that their yodeling could be heard on top of it and not be fighting with the guitar.”
The original Jumbo was listed at $60. “It was just about the height of the Great Depression, so it didn’t sell well, because nobody had 60 bucks to spend on a guitar in 1934,” Stutman comments. In response, Gibson scrapped the Jumbo just over two years later and replaced it with the J-35, which sold for $35. The J-35 had the same outline, scale length, and 14-fret neck design as the Jumbo, but to manage the reduced sale price, Gibson trimmed back the Jumbo’s accents, removing the sunburst from the back, sides, and neck, as well as the pearl headstock inlay, back binding, and high-end tuners.
The interior of a J-45 (left) and a J-35 (right)—the former with two tone bars and the latter with three.
The first J-35s were built with three tone bars—the braces placed at a slant within the bottom half of the X-bracing—which made them powerful and cutting. But because the market was asking for guitars that were more bassy and warm, Gibson decided to reduce the tone bars to two by 1940. And that wasn’t the only adjustment that was made.
“They changed the angles that the X makes under their top,” Stutman says. “And about a year later, they changed that X angle again, and they put scalloped bracing in. They changed the size of their bridge plate. They messed around with how thick they wanted the top to be. As a result, J-35s that we find today vary tremendously from guitar to guitar and very much from year to year.”
Then, in 1942, Gibson debuted the J-45 and J-50, both the same model, but with a sunburst and natural finish, respectively. They priced the J-45 at $45, and charged $5 more for the J-50 (Stutman guesses because they had to use higher quality wood under a natural finish). The original design featured a mahogany neck, back, and sides, a spruce top (first Adirondack, later, Sitka), and a Brazilian rosewood fretboard and bridge. They also kept the same shape as the J-35. “The last of the J-35s were made in the early ’40s,” Stutman shares. “By 1941, a J-35 is kind of the same guitar as the J-45, but most of the world doesn’t know that.
“Even out of necessity, in 1944, they discovered a way to make a guitar that today is one of the most sought-after, great-sounding guitars in the world, out of mostly indigenous hardwoods.” —Mark Stutman, Folkway Music, Waterloo, Ontario
The year of the J-45’s release, Gibson also made a few modifications to their acoustics, replacing the more “lumpy-looking” prewar pickguard with the smaller teardrop pickguard. They designed a new headstock shape, where its sides were concave rather than straight. And, cue the fabled “banner era”: “[Gibson guitars] from ’42 through ’45 have a yellow, silkscreen, script Gibson logo on the peghead and a decal banner that says, ‘Only a Gibson Is Good Enough,’” shares vintage-guitar historian George Gruhn, owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, over the phone. “And there are collectors who pay extra for the guitars from that period.”
This vintage sunburst-finished model displays the classic J-45 look.
The release of the J-45 happened in the midst of global calamity, coinciding with the U.S.’s entry into World War II. A change in ownership occurred later during the war when, in 1944, Gibson was purchased by Chicago Musical Instrument Company (CMI). (Ted McCarty was later appointed president in 1950.) And, as young male luthiers were required to comply with the nation’s draft, several women were instated at Gibson in their place. “I have on the record the president of Gibson at the time testifying in front of the war production board that his company was being run almost entirely by women,” says John Thomas, the author of 2013’s Kalamazoo Gals. Women not only did much of Gibson’s administrative work, but were responsible for producing at least 25,000 guitars—many of which are highly coveted today. That aside, the period also presented manufacturing limitations due to the federal government’s wartime rationing of various materials.
“They had written regulations as to what percentage of metal they could have in proportion to the weight of the instrument,” explains Gruhn. “Musical instruments were very, very highly regulated, as was almost everything in manufacturing during World War II.”
“Epiphone came out with a slogan, ‘Good Enough Is Not Enough’—and Gibson dropped that banner like a hot potato.” —George Gruhn, Gruhn Guitars, Nashville
This meant that Gibson did not have the necessary supplies to make their adjustable truss rods, which they’d been using since 1921 and patented in 1923. The solution was to return to their previous method of installing a triangular wooden block of maple, roughly an inch-and-a-half wide, in the neck near the headstock. “They did that for strength, but it would also make the neck way bigger,” says Stutman.
“It was variable, but many of the necks [from those years] are 1 3/4" wide. And the depth at the first fret—I’ve measured some that are almost 1.1" deep. By comparison, a ‘big’ electric guitar neck, like on a ’59 Les Paul, might be 900 thousandths deep.”
Yet, even more impactful than the shortage of metals was the decreased availability of woods. “It was just hard to get rosewood from Brazil during World War II when there were German U-boats all over the Atlantic,” Stutman points out. “And more importantly, for Gibson, their mahogany supply was running low, ’cause it came from the same place.”
“I think that’s the magic to her sound,” Lucinda Williams’ guitar tech Justin Bricco told Premier Guitarof Williams’ most played J-45 in her 2014 Rig Rundown.
Photo by Ebet Roberts
This led to inconsistencies in J-45 features. During that time, Gibson began using multiple pieces of maple—or even a combination of different woods—to create necks, as it was also harder to acquire individual pieces of a larger size. “It could be a 5-ply neck for strength,” comments Gruhn.
“From 1943 and ’44, sometimes you find fretboards and bridges made out of gumwood instead of Brazilian rosewood,” Stutman elaborates. “So you get these really interesting J-45s from the late banner era. You might find a guitar that has a maple back and sides, a maple neck, a gumwood fretboard and bridge, and a spruce top—that’s almost entirely built of North American woods, which is pretty darn cool. Even out of necessity, in 1944, they discovered a way to make a guitar that today is one of the most sought-after, great-sounding guitars in the world, out of mostly indigenous hardwoods. Anyways, what happens is, the war ends, metal comes online again, Brazilian rosewood, mahogany. It’s all back in 1946-ish.”
The banner era had also come to a close by 1946. Gruhn adds, “I’ve been told that one reason for that was that Epiphone [which wasn’t acquired by Gibson until 1957] came out with a slogan, ‘Good Enough Is Not Enough’—and Gibson dropped that banner like a hot potato.”When the war had ended, “this little blip of really exciting guitars from 1942 to 1946 that have all sorts of unique characteristics and interesting tone and feel and uniqueness and charisma … those go away,” Stutman shares. Gibson standardized their specs across their models, though at first some J-45s were still made with parts left over from the banner era. But by 1947, the design was fully solidified, and the J-45 as we now know it was born. “The sound of a J-45 that we’re all familiar with, that thing that we all love about the J-45, that strummer, singer/songwriter, country guitar kind of thing, is a sum total of how it’s built with that light scalloped bracing of the Sitka top in particular; a 1 11/16" nut; mahogany back and sides; that short scale; and the style of neck carve. All that stuff adds up to having a J-45 be a J-45. Then, from ’47 to ’55, not very much changes with it.”
“This is the tool of the storyteller. This is the tool of the songwriter. You want an acoustic guitar—you hit the J-45 button.” —Ted Wulfers, J-45 documentarian
There was, however, a significant change in 1956—the issuing of the adjustable-height bridge with a ceramic saddle, labeled the J-45ADJ, for “adjustable,” which was sold, at first, as a second option for the consumer. “And then they became a standard feature,” Tom says, showing me one of the J-45ADJs he has in his inventory. “So this is an adjustable bridge. It’s kind of heavy. It’s got big brass pieces underneath. And because of all that weight and this sort of disconnect, you can hear a compressed sound.” (I play it, and, for the record, hear exactly what he’s talking about.)
Then, there was another less-than-desirable modification in the early ’60s, as told by George Gruhn: “Around ’63 is when the J-45 had those horrible, hollow plastic bridges rather than a wood bridge. It didn’t function, but it would look like the actual adjustable bridge was bolted through the bridge plate.” Those bridges ended in 1970—coinciding with when the Panama-based conglomerate Ecuadorian Company Limited (ECL) acquired CMI, then renamed themselves as the Norlin Corporation. “Gibson has not used them since, but now there’s a lot of variations of J-45 historic reissues.”
“It’s a very personal thing,” Aimee Mann said of her J-45 to Paste in 2010. “You want to play a guitar that’s an extension of you.”
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
Most of my conversations with Stutman and Gruhn are focused on the J-45’s early history, so I venture further to fill in the blanks of what happened with the guitar in the decades following. Over a Zoom call, I spend about an hour absorbing J-45 lore and geeking out about guitars in general with Ted Wulfers, a filmmaker who has been putting together a documentary on the history of the J-45 for the past several years. In the process of making the film, he’s interviewed 180 people from 14 countries. “We’re going to be expanding to about six more,” he says.
“In 1968, they switched the J-45 to the square shoulder, and that remained until 1984, through the Norlin era,” Wulfers explains. Gibson added a volute to the neck, to compensate for the weakness of the area where the neck becomes the headstock. But, “People kind of got sick of them, and they went out of fashion in the ’80s.”
Due to waning popularity, Gibson briefly discontinued the J-45 in 1982. But in ’84, they brought it back with the slope shoulder—in very low production. They also introduced some new finishes, including a whiskey burst and an amber burst. Eventually, in the ’90s, as Wulfers shares, Gibson fully restored their production of J-45s, and reinstated the ’40s-style slope shoulder and tuning pegs to the design. “I think that’s one of the reasons why they went out of fashion in the ’70s and ’80s—they weren’t playing as good as the guitars from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. They came back into fashion once they started making the guitar like the older versions,” he laughs.
“A great guitar is the tipping point of being held together and being pulled apart. So, I’ve always had a theory that my favorite guitars are really on a fulcrum’s edge of that.” —John Leventhal
Yet, as Tom suggests, it took a few more years before the J-45 was reinstated to its earlier popularity. “I’ve owned quite a few J-45s, and I was buying them in the ’90s for like $800, $900. I always thought, ‘Wow, these things are so undervalued.’ So I would buy them, fix them up, maybe sell them for 1,200, 1,300 bucks. Then somehow, in the early 2000s, they started to catch on again.”
But what about the J-50, if they’re truly identical models beyond the finish? “I think a lot of the reason why the J-45 has become so popular is because they’re gorgeous,” says Stutman. “Gibson sunbursts, back then, were exquisite. They just got it right. And even though the J-50 was [originally] more expensive, and today it’s a way more rare guitar, the J-45 is still more valuable. That’s simply because people love a good-looking sunburst. And when you pick up a J-45, you feel like you look the part.”
A closer look at the two-tone-bar interior construction of a classic J-45.
Photo courtesy of TR Crandall Guitars
According to Tom, his friend John Leventhal—the six-time-Grammy-award-winning producer, musician, and recording engineer—has long been a fan of J-45s and J-50s. “He just came out with his first solo record at 70 years old, and he used the J-50 that he got from us on a lot of those cuts,” he says.
When I connect with Leventhal on the phone, he strikes me as a straight shooter. “I really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he quips, when I ask him if he has an audio-engineer interpretation of the J-45’s physics (a question inspired by my personal scientific bent).
He offers, instead, “Why Gibsons are different from other guitars, I couldn’t really say. ’Cause basically, the physics of all these things are more or less the same. A great guitar is the tipping point of being held together and being pulled apart. So, I’ve always had a theory that my favorite guitars are really on a fulcrum’s edge of that.
“Whatever it is about the construction of the J-45,” Leventhal continues, “is that really good ones have what I would call a strong fundamental tone in which the overtones don’t really get in the way or don’t confuse the sonic output of the guitar. I have my own recording studio, and I notice everybody’s pretty happy when they play these things.”
❦
“How many guitars do you have?” I ask Steve Earle over Zoom. (Steve is a frequent visitor at TR Crandall; coincidentally, Tom receives several texts from the country-rock guitarist while we’re chatting in his workshop.) Steve’s just labeled himself a “degenerate collector,” saying that among the instruments he owns is every Gibson flattop except for a J-100, an L-2, and a Dove.
“I just did the inventory. I think it’s 187 instruments, counting banjos and mandolins. And I do count ’em.”
Earle’s been playing Martins for several years now, but his time with J-45s and J-50s goes way back. “I hitchhiked up to Nashville when I was 19, you know, to do what I do,” he shares. He had a Martin D-18 at the time, which he traded for an Alvarez Yairi when no one in town could repair the Martin’s bowed neck. “When I got to Nashville, I was the only guy with a Japanese guitar sitting around in a room with a bunch of Gibsons and Martins, and it started to embarrass me. So the very first check I got when I signed my publishing deal, I went down to George Gruhn’s and bought a 1956 J-45 for $250. That’s about what they went for in 1975.” He later traded it to Jerry Jeff Walker for $500 and a ’65 J-50ADJ (whose hollow bridge had been replaced with a solid one). “That was my guitar for years. I recorded part of [1986’s] Guitar Town on it.
“So, the very first check I got when I signed my publishing deal, I went down to George Gruhn’s and bought a 1956 J-45 for $250.” —Steve Earle
“I own one now,” he says. “I’ve got a really good 1950 J-45. I had this belief that that’s like, the perfect year for a J-45, ’cause Ray Kennedy owns one. All my acoustic tracks on [1997’s] El Corázon were recorded on his guitar because when I got outta jail [in1994, after a 60-day stint], I didn’t have anything. The one I have now, I bought from [NYC luthier] Matt Umanov. It belonged to Adam Levy before me.” He says the one he’s used the most, however, is Kennedy’s.
Grace Potter - "Mother Road"
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Country-rock guitarist and songwriter Grace Potter has a signature Gibson Flying V, but she’s also been an ardent J-45 player for years. “A J-45 was actually the first guitar I ever bought,” she tells me, when we connect over the phone after Wulfers points me in her direction.
“I was 19 and I walked in cold to a music shop in upstate New York called Dick’s Gas, Guns, and Guitars. In the back was this incredible guitar shop that felt like a novelty in the moment.”
With $860 to her name, she made a deal with the owner, who let her make a partial down payment on the $900 guitar. “It was a 1999, and I bought it in 2002,” she continues. “The second I picked it up, it transported me to the 1940s and an open window of potential. It sang so beautifully. And I just remember the feeling of the body of the guitar against my chest, curling my body around it, and feeling like I just met a long lost aunt that I didn’t know I had. And that’s when I started writing songs on guitar, immediately.” Naming the first two albums she produced with her band the Nocturnals, she adds, “Every song from Nothing but the Water, and some of the songs on This Is Somewhere, were written on that J-45.”
❦
On my call with Wulfers, we’ve taken a detour from the J-45 subject, and I’m now enthusiastically telling him about the specs on my Washburn and Taylor acoustics. He’s into it, but helpfully brings it back to the main topic—on which he’s clearly, passionately fixated.
“It was fresh off the factory floor, but the second I put it in my hands, it transported me to the 1940s and an open window of potential.” —Grace Potter
“The J-45 has the bass, but that midrange, too; it cuts, but it allows the human voice to shine,” he asserts, “whereas a couple other guitars and styles of the Gibson line, of the Martin lines and others—they cloud the vocal. Sometimes, when I’m working with an artist here in my studio and they have my J-150 or a big Guild or something, I’m just like, try the J-45. And they go, ‘Oh my god, everything sounds better.’ Well, you know, sometimes it isthe guitar.
“This is the tool of the storyteller. This is the tool of the songwriter,” he continues. “If you want delay, you hit a delay pedal. If you want reverb, you hit a reverb. You want an acoustic guitar—you hit the J-45 button.”
Bassist Jesse Keeler and drummer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger came out of the gate swinging in 2004 with their debut LP, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine, a record that proved the band's mix of unexpectedly sparse instrumentation, danceable rhythms, highwire vocals, and grimy, hardcore punk sonics to be a tremendously compelling sound. The duo imploded shortly after that album's release, but the waves created on that record would ripple long after the split as DFA 1979's legend grew.
Death From Above 1979 - One + One (Official Music Video)
When Keeler and Grainger regrouped in 2011 and set about recording their sophomore effort, The Physical World, there was tremendous pressure to nurture and preserve the sound of that first album in order to avoid alienating the fanbase they'd harnessed in their time away. Keeler explains, "When we started playing again in 2011, this idea of Death From Above was an external thing that had lived without us, so we came back to it not wanting to screw that up. We were working in service to this thing that had lived without us. That's exactly how the producers felt, so we had those producers to keep us being that band."
The Physical World, produced by Dave Sardy, made good on the band's intentions to hone the brutal dance-punk sound that made the band's debut such a smash, and the group's 2017 Eric Valentine–produced effort, Outrage! Is Now, opted to stick to a similar program. Rather than tread water for a fourth release, DFA 1979 has returned with a decidedly playful new record entitled Is 4 Lovers, which brings a new, defiant flavor to the band's discography.
"I have riff diarrhea. I have riff IBS and I just can't shut it off!" —Jesse Keeler
Is 4 Lovers takes listeners on a turbulent trip straight to the center of Keeler and Grainger's musical psyche. The record feels not unlike a sweaty, blistering live set as their dancy churn and gritty sonics remain intact, especially on tracks such as "Totally Wiped Out," and the two-part "N.Y.C. Power Elite." Elsewhere, songs like "Glass Homes" and "No War" show a new level of maturity in the band's sound as the combative edge that lined their past efforts has been replaced by a heavier dose of melody and a more thoughtful use of effects and synths.
This time around, Keeler and Grainger decided it was time to take production duties into their own hands. As a result, Is 4 Lovers may be the purest expression of what DFA 1979 is about since their debut.
Jesse Keeler's Dan Armstrong Lucite basses are all outfitted with custom pickups made by Kent Armstrong, son of Dan Armstrong. Keeler also swaps out the original fixed rosewood bridges for custom brass units milled by Canadian luthier Les Godfrey.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Frustrated with how other producers changed their sound in the past, Keeler explains their decision: "We wanted to make it really apparent on this album that you're listening to the band—just the two of us. Part of being in a two-piece 20 years ago was dealing with people in the music business who thought it was a bad idea. They liked the music, but they thought it would need help. Producers always wanted to pad up the sound. It's not a knock to anyone we've worked with in the past, but if you're someone that's mixed all these records where the guitar is a really important thing and we ask them to do the same thing with our sound but without the tools they're used to working with, it can be tough. Doing it all ourselves, we don't have those hang-ups and we never come at it thinking there's this hole we have to fill in our sound."
The duo still makes a hell of a lot of noise on Is 4 Lovers, even without a producer pushing them to pad their sound with additional instrumentation. As longtime fans will expect, Keeler's bass tones kick the listener in the jaw with plenty of the square-wave filth he's reveled in since DFA 1979's inception. However, his rig has changed dramatically for the first time in the band's history. Rather than plugging into his trusted backline of a vintage Peavey Super Festival F-800B and an Acoustic 450 head—a pair of amps which Keeler has always described as defining elements of the band's sound—the bassist tracked his parts with a pair of Orange Bax Bangeetar preamp/EQ pedals that he modified himself.
TIDBIT: Death From Above 1979's fourth studio album, Is 4 Lovers, was entirely written and produced by band members Jesse Keeler and Sebastien Grainger and recorded all in one room.
Why the change after so many years? Part of it was the need to sidestep the isolation headaches of miking loud amps while the duo tracked Is 4 Lovers live, together in one room. But Keeler also found the modded Bax Bangeetars remedied some things he always disliked about his tone."The old rig sounded good through the monitors," he says, "but it had the same issues I've always had with it. I love how all the 300-500 Hz stuff sounds through the amps but recorded it can come out as mud and there's always some loss of clarity, especially when I'm competing with tones in the drums."
The Bax Bangeetars provided an ideal surrogate for the old amps, but not without a bit of tinkering from the tech-savvy bassist, who explains his handiwork: "Those pedals are a very simple circuit, but they have this power pump that takes the 9 volts in and charges up the cap, which slowly releases it at 24 volts. I found at high gain, even with the highest milliamp 9V power supply I could find, it couldn't keep the cap filled up fast enough. I had these science-grade variable power supplies and, if you wire around the pedal's stock power supply so that you can feed that cap directly, then you don't get that headroom loss at all and it sounds really good."
Jesse Keeler's Gear
Basses
- Ampeg Dan Armstrong Lucite basses (modified with custom Kent Armstrong pickups and brass bridges made by luthier Les Godfrey)
Amps
- Orange Bax Bangeetar Guitar Preamp & EQ (modified by Keeler)
Strings and Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Nickel Wound Electric Bass Strings (.050–.105)
- Dunlop .73 mm Tortex Triangle
Effects
- Death By Audio Echo Dream 2
- Death By Audio Fuzz War
- EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander
- FoxRox Octron3
- Ibanez CS9 Stereo Chorus
- MXR Ten Band EQ
- Overstayer Modular Channel Stereo 8755D
Keeler says that increased headroom has long been a special ingredient to his tone and adds, "The secret with my Peavey F-800B head and part of the reason why it's so special is that it's running on 36 volts. The schematic for that Peavey amp says 24 volts, so whenever anyone would clone the circuit, they'd do it to run on 24 volts and, when you try to play it like I do with the distortion cranked up to 10, it starts self-compressing and crapping out!"
Despite the major shakeup in Keeler's amp world, the bassist's primary muse remains his small collection of vintage Ampeg Dan Armstrong Lucite basses. Thanks to their skinny neck profile, short scale length, and easy access to all 24 frets, the bassist credits these instruments with unlocking his unconventionally athletic playing style in which he bends strings and frequently combines droning open notes with guitar-lead-like riffs that he plays simultaneously in the upper frets.
While these basses are a great fit for Keeler, he's found some need for modifications. All of his Dan Armstrong basses have been re-fretted with wider fretwire and outfitted with custom pickups made by Kent Armstrong, son of Dan Armstrong. The most important mod that Keeler does to all of his basses is to swap out the original fixed rosewood bridges for custom brass units milled by Canadian luthier Les Godfrey. Godfrey's bridges have fully adjustable saddles, which makes life a lot easier as Keeler used to struggle with the original bridge's intonation issues.
Jesse Keeler mainly sticks to his modded Dan Armstrong basses, but he also has several custom Rickenbacker 4030 models.
Photo by Jim Bennett
The brass bridges also offer an important tonal benefit. "The overall problem with that bass is that it sounds like talking with your hand over your mouth; it's a very muffled, low/mid sound with not enough brilliance, even with brand new strings on it," Keeler says. "I wanted as much bright attack as I could get out of it. When playing notes in quick succession, I want the initial attack of the note to be very present, so brass saddles and brass nuts really help with that." These modifications take a lot of effort, but he adds, "I did all this work to make them right because I love them so much."
For effects, Keeler pulled his usual pedalboard apart and got experimental in the studio. A pair of Foxrox Octron3 octave pedals appear on nearly every track, with each one sent to their own Bax Bangeetar and set to accentuate slightly different frequencies. The bassist also frequently called upon a Death By Audio Fuzz War but claims to have had the fuzz control barely on, using the pedal more for its powerful filter than its heaps of gain. One of the most vicious tones on Is 4 Lovers can be heard on "N.Y.C. Power Elite Part II," which he happened upon by plugging into an EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander and turning the volume on his bass down to the point where it began to starve the synth box of enough signal to track its multiple octaves properly.
Bassist Jesse Keeler says he and drummer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger no longer have to talk about writing: They simply feel it out and intuitively know when an idea has clicked. Their shared killer instincts are palpable onstage.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Songwriting is a collaborative process for DFA 1979, and something the duo has fine-tuned over the course of their discography. Keeler admits, "I don't really think of myself as a songwriter, I just vomit out riffs," he says. "I have riff diarrhea. I have riff IBS and I just can't shut it off!" He goes on to explain, "I try to distill my ideas down to make things musical enough that Sebastien can sing over, because he wants a melody. I've given him things in the past that became very hard to find a melody for because I would write things that you could only scream over," he says. "Sebastien is the one that moved me towards making songs and not just trying to create a feeling."
On Is 4 Lovers, the writing process came from shared instinct rather than intellect. Keeler says he and Grainger no longer have to talk about writing, they simply feel it out and intuitively know when an idea has clicked. "We made this record entirely within one room," Keeler says. "We'd hit record the minute we got there and play through the day, so a lot of what you hear on the record is the actual creation of those parts the moment they were made up. I'm really into that immediacy."
This method of writing and recording allowed the band to deliver a tight and focused record that totally aligns with how Keeler and Grainger want DFA 1979 to sound. "I think the results are amazing and I think this is the best sounding record we've made," the bassist says. "Not to take anything away from anyone we've worked with in the past, but this one sounds the most right to me because it's all us."
Death From Above 1979 - Holy Books (Live in Toronto)
Jesse Keeler's bass tone will explode from your speakers in this live version of "Holy Books" from Death From Above 1979's Outrage! Is Now. The bassist's heavily distorted riffs pummel along with Sebastien Grainger's hard-hitting grooves throughout the song's main sections, while he conjures a just-on-the-verge-of-feedback tone for the melodic breakdown starting at 2:23.
