Even her playing style is at odds with itself. "I prefer fingerpicking. I like playing really crunchy, loud, aggressive stuff in the styling of a classical player. And when it comes time to play big power chords, honestly, I just make my fingers bleed," she says. Those divergent personalities and approaches result in singular musical snapshots rather than a predictable path through each performance, song, and album.
Sprinter, from 2015, was angsty, urgent, and erratic. And 2017's Three Futures stripped back the guitar barrage for an electronic bent, centered around stark beats and cold synths. Last year's self-produced Silver Tongue twisted the previous albums' makeup into an unusual two-step that often made the guitars pretty and the synths wicked. (Don't worry, guitar loyalists. There's still some 6-string fire.) And now Thirstier is a concise blast of catchy, power pop numbers that are heavier and shinier.
Out in support of her new album, Torres' October 14 Nashville show had her headlining the Exit/In. Before soundcheck Scott introduced PG to her Tele companions, explained why she'd rather play with bloody fingers than use a pick, and showed how seven stomps cover all the shades of traditional rock guitar and much more.
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When Torres first hit PG's radar back in 2015, she was predominately raging onstage with a new-ish stock Fender Jazzmaster. She's still in the Fender family, but she remembers 2016 as the year she first flirted with the Telecaster, and she hasn't since looked back. Her current main squeeze is this Fender American Vintage '72 Telecaster Thinline.
"I'm in every way obsessed with this guitar," gushes Scott in a recent Big 5 video with PG. Some of the reasons she hasn't strayed too far from this particular T is its comfy neck profile, lightweight body, and rounder, more aggressive pickups than her aforementioned Jazzmaster or the ES-335 that was a collective Christmas gift from her family.
She typically plays on Ernie Ball Power Slinkys (.011 –.048), but this run she opted for Regular Slinky .010s. However, that experiment appears to be fleeting as she mentions in the Rundown that she's been breaking a lot more strings with the lighter gauge. And most of the set is in standard tuning, but there is a rare moment or two she'll go down to drop d.
This T has a Fender Tele Custom makeup, but it's actually a parts guitar. (The dead giveaway being its naked headstock.) If all goes well with the Thinline, this yellow bird stays caged on the sidelines.
Scott has plugged into Blues Juniors and Twin Reverbs, but she feels the sweet spot for her live sound and volume considerations is the Fender Deluxe Reverb. The reissue is completely stock, including its Jensen C-12K speaker with a ceramic magnet.
"Transparent" is a guitardom buzzword. It's often used in marketing speak for the next-best pedal offering organic, free-range, USDA-approved tone. (Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but you get the point.) Nothing Scott has selected for her stomp station can be described as subtle or translucent. Even her delays and reverbs accentuate weird, supernatural flavor crystals.
The filth and fury comes in the potent pairing of a Joyo Vintage Overdrive and EarthQuaker Devices Palisades. Next is the Death By Audio Echo Dream 2 that brings in modulation, delay, and boost/fuzz. She claims this is her "most-utilized" pedal. She really likes how the echo and fuzz circuits interact with the Joyo. The EQD Afterneath brings in ambient, deep, spelunking reverbs. Beefing up the Afterneath and filling it out with faux synth vibes is the Electro-Harmonix POG2. Another favorite application for the POG2 is pulling its attack all the way down and dramatically gliding into the notes. The Empress Vintage Modified Superdelay is a complex, time-bending tool that sprinkles in modulation, reverse delay, and compression, plus the grit and saturation heard in the old tape echoes. The last pedal is a Meris Enzo that is equal parts inspiring and frustrating. The multi-voice synthesizer reacts differently to each note played by Torres. "I have a hard time getting it under control and taming the beast, but that's what I love about it."
The cozy, clean, all-in-one command center was custom built by Onkel Amplification.
Make no mistake, Swan can play the guitar. His style is equal parts violence and grace, with pit stops at all points between. He terrorizes the frets as well as he tenderly dances on them—and the results can be chaotic or calming. But what most excites him about guitar is making it not sound like a guitar.
"I really like those tones that take the guitar far away from its normal sounds," Swan explains. "I like to layer those with typical guitar tones, and to mix cool sounds with interesting-playing parts. I need both of those elements to enjoy the experience."
"I'm self-taught, so I don't know music theory, so when I'm writing I don't know what things are going to sound like. I'm just messing around and seeing what catches my ear. It's similar to the way I explore pedals. I don't quite know what's going to happen, but if I come across something that I enjoy, I'll use it and don't question it."
The afternoon of Dance Gavin Dance's headlining show at Nashville's Marathon Music Works, Swan detailed his signature Kiesels (and the other Kiesel he's been preferring), explains how the Friedman Small Box is (phenomenally) filling the void of his favored vintage Rockerverb, and breaks down why his pedals help him embrace the textures and tones of other instruments.
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"I like jumping around to different types of guitars," admits Dance Gavin Dance guitarist Will Swan. Over the years, he's taken the stage with 6-strings from Fender, Gibson, Kauer, and Halo.
"I was opposed to signing to any particular company because I'd be tied down to that and wouldn't be able to play something else if I got the feeling to," he adds. However, after meeting Kiesel's VP Jeff Kiesel and touring their factory, Swan was comfortable with the SoCal custom shop knowing his wandering tastes would always be served.
"I just realized they do so many things so well. I can go to Kiesel and play all the varieties I want and not have to compromise on tone or anything, since they're so flexible on what they offer," he says. He worked alongside Jeff to design his signature model based on their LP-style CS6 (or California Singlecut). Highlights include a mahogany body decked out with a 4A flamed-maple top, a 5-piece mahogany neck paired with an ebony fretboard, and a set of Kiesel's Beryllium humbuckers. He landed on those because they're lower output and more classic-sounding. This is the first iteration of his namesake guitar. He puts D'Addario XLs (.010–.042) on all his 6-strings, and is typically tuned to standard. He attacks the strings with Dunlop Nylon 1.0 mm picks.
You won't see Will's name or signature emblazoned anywhere on the instrument, but the dead giveaway it's his is the swan silhouette inlay at the 12th fret.
Here's Will's latest signature. Kiesel provided it for him before DGD's current headlining tour with Polyphia.
"The shameless self-promoter in me says I should use the signature, but I just go for tone and feel," admits Swan. So while he tours with a pair of his signature Kiesel WS6 models, he says this is his current crush: a custom Delos model with Kiesel Lithium single-coils. (Fun fact: Only Jeff Kiesel is able to pull off this splashy purple flame finish.) Swan has used the Delos extensively on the last two Dance Gavin Dance releases (2018's Artificial Selection and 2020's Afterburner).
"For all my stuff, I swear by my Orange Rockerverb 100," said Swan in an interview with PG in 2016. "It constantly just kills every other amp." And while that may still hold true for the guitarist, he has retired his beloved Rockerverb from the road. In its place now sits a Friedman Small Box 50W blaster.
"This amp does both extremes I need: heavy drive and crystal cleans." So he loves the amp's versatility, and while it does harken back to vintage Marshall mojo (with its EL34s), Friedman's interpretation gives such yesteryear sounds a modern platform.
The Small Box feeds a Friedman 2x12 Vintage Cabinet that is loaded with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers.
"I love synth pedals," declares Swan. "I'm always looking for a good synth pedal. When I found the SY-300, it blew my mind." He's twisted his guitar signal on the past four DGD records with that big blue Boss box. The two note repeaters in this drawer are the Strymon El Capistan and MXR Carbon Copy.
Another of Swan's favorite and heavily used pedals is the Eventide PitchFactor. He's warped notes with that modulation machine since 2015's Instant Gratification and continues to explore new wormholes and unearth inspiration from its many functions. Continuing the theme from the previous photo, he's working with three more synth-y pedals from Electro-Harmonix: a C9 Organ Machine, a Mono Synth ("it makes cool fart sounds"), and a Synth9. The remaining sound swirler is the EarthQuaker Devices Grand Orbiter phaser.
The final drawer keeps the madness moving with a DigiTech Whammy and a Death By Audio Rooms reverberator. And since the Whammy is stowed in the rack, he abstains from the foot-controlled, pitch-shifting function and only uses the octave for the bridge of fan favorite "We Own the Night."
Giving order to his rack full of pedals is the Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro MIDI controller. Sneaking into the shot is an Ernie Ball VP Jr volume pedal that Will uses only for killing his signal for tuning.
