After self-releasing an EP, they expanded and electrified their sound with the help of Theo Ellis (bass/synths) and Joel Amey (drums/synths). Now sure, plenty of the band’s repertoire from their four official releases stays in the quieter, softer settings—creating maximum drama—but Joff and the gang give some animation to nearly every note played. (To give further cred to the group’s juxtaposition of floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee, in a 2015 PG interview Oddie cited John Fahey and Sonic Youth as two of his biggest influences.)
“On Blue Weekend, we leaned into our past quite a bit, where we layered up sounds with acoustic instruments. We used loads of 12-strings, banjos, resonators, and tenor guitars,” Oddie says about the band’s recent release. “We’re even performing an acoustic fingerstyle number—‘Safe From Heartbreak (if you never fall in love)’—each night, so it’s nice to get back there.”
Before Wolf Alice’s sold-out show at Nashville’s Cannery Ballroom, guitarist Oddie shared an hour with PG’s Chris Kies. The resulting conversation covered the cathartic process of building his first guitar during lockdown (a Jaguar-Jazzmaster hybrid) and why he switched to a pair of Fenders that are “a big sheet of paper that you can paint on.” Plus, he illustrates how every moment in a Wolf Alice set has a pedal, and those moments are unique and not repeated.
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The Joffcaster
After wrapping work on the band’s third full-length album, 2021’s Blue Weekend, Wolf Alice guitarist Joff Oddie had a wide-open calendar. The ongoing pandemic lockdowns and restrictions finally provided him the time he’d need build his dream machine. He dusted off the blank of mahogany under his bed and ordered some crude hand tools. He cut, carved, and contoured the Jazzmaster-y body (a shade bigger than Joff’s old No. 1 Jaguars) to his specs and stance. Originally, he was going to slap a parts neck and fretboard on his homemade body, but rolling with the momentum and confidence, he ordered more wood (torrefied flame maple for the neck and rosewood for the fretboard). To help with the Jag’s slinky 24"-scale length and make it easier to play the higher frets (especially for the chords in “Delicious Things”), Joff extended his guitar’s scale length to 24.75". And the neck profile is insanely thin (as in “Ibanez RG” shredder slim).
The rest of its bits are standard for an offset—a Fender Vintage-Style Floating Tremolo, a Mastery bridge, and simplified switching—while it growls with a set of Lollar Jaguars. All of his guitars take Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottoms (.010–.052) and he stings the strings with Dunlop Nylon Standard 1.0 mm picks.
“Plinky Plunky”
For most of the 10-plus years Wolf Alice has been electric, this 1962 Fender Jaguar reissue has been Oddie’s main guitar. He bought it completely clean, with student loan money, in Wood Green, London, off Gumtree (the U.K.’s equivalent to Craigslist) when he and fellow co-founder Ellie Roswell decided to amplify their music. “I don’t know why I bought it, to be honest. I remember seeing a Jaguar in a guitar shop when I was a kid and thinking, ‘that’s an ugly-looking guitar,’” he confesses. “I had started listening to Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and My Bloody Valentine in late my teens and early 20s, but I think I got it wrong, because they all play Jazzmasters [laughs]. I eventually fell in love with the eccentricities of the Jag.”
Years back, this worn-down jangle machine was upgraded with Lollar Jaguar pickups and an M1 Mastery bridge, and it has maintained that pedigree ever since. “Since putting a bit longer scale length on my build, giving it more resonance, I’ve noticed how the Jag’s shorter scale can have a deader, plinky-plunky sound,” admits Oddie. “For years I overcompensated the rest of my setup with my amps (bass on 10) and utilizing specific pedals to increase the Jag’s sustain.”
This one tends to appreciate distortion, gain, and fuzz, so Joff will strap it on for the heavier, more rocking songs like “Moaning Lisa Smile” or “Giant Peach.”
Sustainer Strat
“I’m not using this guitar to its full potential right now,” concedes Oddie. “I’m just scratching the surface and just using it as a Strat, but I did request it from Fender because it has the special stuff.” The Fender EOB Sustainer Stratocaster was co-designed by Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and his longtime tech (and Oddie’s current tech) Adam Cummings. It’s still stock and features the unique setup of a Seymour Duncan JB Jr. humbucker (bridge), a Texas Special single-coil (middle), and a Fernandes Sustainer (neck). It has a “really lovely clean sound,” so Joff uses this for the band’s softer songs, like “Lipstick on the Glass.”
Jangling with Johnny
“We’ve only just begun.” Oddie quotes the Carpenters when referring to this pristine Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar that sees stage time for Blue Weekend’s dreamy-pop number “How Can I Make It Ok?” He notes during the Rundown that the Bare Knuckle Johnny Marr single-coils give the guitar a “paddier, ’80s sound” and that “it’s one of the best guitars being made at the moment. It’s something really special.”
Picking the P
For Blue Weekend’s “No Hard Feelings,” Joff will put on this Fender American Professional II Precision Bass and pick out chords far up the neck while bassist Theo Ellis plays on a Roland RD-2000 Stage Piano.
Double Your Pleasure. Double Your Fun.
Joff once toured with a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III and a handwired Vox AC30HW2. Shortly after their first album, My Love Is Cool, Joff started to require more volume and less color. “For me, the Twin’s blank canvas—huge amounts of headroom with big, clean sounds—is a big sheet of paper that you can paint on.” These Fender ’65 Twin Reverb reissues are both on and are set in a double-mono platform. For European tours, he’ll sub out one of the Twin reissues for a proper ’70s silver-panel Twin Reverb.
Joff’s “Death Star”—Home to Oddities and Curiosities
“As ridiculous as this sounds, the concept of this board was to get as much functionality out of something that can also get on a plane,” says Oddie. “It also needed to be on the floor, because I’m not interested in having them in a rack offstage. I’m a control freak and I like to see what’s going on.” Let’s dive into this FAA-regulated pedalboard built by Matt Tag aka the Guitar Butler. Everything starts by going into the RJM Music Mastermind PBC, where Joff has meticulously mapped several presets for every song in Wolf Alice’s nightly setlist. Oddie employs a six-pack of complicated, deep workstations from Strymon (BigSky and TimeLine) and Empress (Nebulus, Phaser, Tremolo2, and Multidrive). Even broader sounds and tone splicing happen with Joff’s pair of digital power plants from Line 6 (HX Effects and HX Stomp). The lower right corner has a deuce of dirts (JHS Sweat Tea V3 and Analog Man King of Tone). And a heralded green giant (Electro-Harmonix Russian Big Muff) and trio of tiny tone teakers (Wampler Tumnus, Mooer Tender Octaver, and Mooer Yellow Comp) round things out on Joff’s main board. An auxiliary board to the side houses a Dunlop Cry Baby Wah and a Morley PVO+ optical Volume Plus.
Underneath the hood there are various power supplies from GigRig (Generators, Isolators, and high-current Timelords and Supanovas) and a Strymon Zuma.
Although the band that takes its name from an unconventional coming-of-age story by English novelist Angela Carter surprisingly claims to have not been directly influenced by the ’90s grunge and noise-rock its sound so often references (even while mentioning The Pixies in interviews), Wolf Alice has done something truly excellent with its interpretation of that era’s music. The 13 songs on My Love Is Cool are often painted in challenging sonic textures, yet ultimately Wolf Alice lives and dies by its melodic sense and a mission to serve its songs, typically favoring simple arrangements (the sparsely adorned, massive-sounding “Moaning Lisa Smile” is a fine example) that provide bedrock for the whisper-to-scream delivery of frontwoman, guitarist, and blooming musical heroine, Ellie Rowsell.
Nonetheless, the musician chiefly responsible for Wolf Alice’s swirling guitar textures and unfettered, substantial riffs is lead guitarist and songwriter Joff Oddie. With a Fender Jaguar or Strat typically resting on his right knee as he hunches over its strings, Oddie appears—as he’s carried by the music’s shifting tides—to almost be dissecting his instrument, plucking and stabbing, probing to find the spots where magic lies buried and ready for revealing.
secretly he quite likes it.”
Unlikely as it seems, given their ability to create a mighty caterwaul at whim, Oddie and Rowsell started performing at open mics as an acoustic duo in 2010. The foundation of the riff-driven rollercoaster ride “Fluffy,” from My Love Is Cool, reflects those origins. “The first version was made in my bedroom, with me and Ellie playing acoustic guitars,” Oddie relates. “From what I remember, it was a lot softer and had a bit more of a shoegaze element. I think it got more visceral in the rehearsal room and it simply stayed that way.” Wolf Alice’s current lineup, which includes bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey, came together in 2012. A year later the band released its debut EP, Blush.
From across the pond, Oddie spoke with Premier Guitar about his unexpected influences, functioning as a “band-focused” guitarist, his affinity for fingerstyle guitar, and his desire to raise a din in the studio and onstage.
What was your path to the guitar?
I must have been about 10 or 11 when I first picked up a guitar. My step-dad played in a band and they used to rehearse in a barn next to our house, so there were always guitars kicking around. I remember deciding one day that I wanted to play the guitar—as you do when you’re a kid—and my step-dad restrung some old acoustic he wasn’t using and gave it to me, along with a three-chord songbook. There were about 50 songs in it you could learn by just knowing C, G, and D7 chords. I sat down and learned “Imagine” by John Lennon.
What players would you cite as major influences?
The English folk revivalists of the ’70s were some of the best guitarists I’ve ever heard. I’m a really big fan of Michael Chapman, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Davey Graham, as well as the guys across the pond from earlier, like “Mississippi” John Hurt, Robert Johnson, and Elizabeth Cotten.
I remember my brother coming home from university and playing the first Nick Drake album [1969’s Five Leaves Left] to me in his car. I can’t say I loved it straight away, buts it’s the one now that I keep coming back to. I also remember seeing Michael Chapman play in my village hall—it’s tiny and intimate, and in the middle of nowhere—and I’m not quite sure why he was there, but I was completely bowled over with his playing. He became an instant hero, then and there. The rest was all just research after I got the bug.
I recently got put onto John Fahey by our tour manager in the States and I’ve been obsessed with him. He has a record called The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death and it blows my mind every time I hear it!
As far as electric players go, I’m a huge fan of Graham Coxon [Blur] and John Squire [the Stone Roses]. Amazing players! Other than that, I get really excited by people who just seem to have a total disregard for the traditions of guitar playing—people who make a lot of noise and use lots of pedals. I would say Lee Ranaldo [Sonic Youth] and Kevin Shields [My Bloody Valentine] are among my favorites where that style is concerned.
With his trusty main axe, a 1962 Fender Jaguar reissue with Lollar pickups and a M1 Mastery Bridge, Joff Oddie plunges himself into Wolf Alice’s high-energy live performances. Photo by Matt Condon
I’ve read that you started as a fingerstyle guitarist, although in Wolf Alice you play almost exclusively with a pick. How has your fingerstyle experience made its way into Wolf Alice’s sound?
When I’m not playing in Wolf Alice, I don’t tend to play a lot of electric guitar. I’ve always played acoustic at home. When you start fingerpicking, it really busts the instrument open and needs no other accompaniment. You get to a point where you are playing bass parts, rhythm parts, and leads all at the same time. In terms of learning about composition and how music is put together, it’s a great tool and it’s helped me a lot. I’m a self-taught fingerpicker, so I wouldn’t know if I use a specific style. It has made it easier to hybrid pick at times, and it’s a really useful creative tool to have. It did take me quite a while to get my head around using a pick when I started playing electric, though.
Joff Oddie’s Gear
Guitars
1962 Fender Jaguar reissue (with Lollar pickups and M1 Mastery Bridge)
Fender American Standard Stratocaster
Nash 1958 S-style (studio)
Amps
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III Mint Julep with Celestion G12P-80
Vox AC30C2X
Effects
Gig Rig G2 switching system
Morley Volume Plus
Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
Dunlop Cry Baby Wah Wah
Empress Compressor
Way Huge Red Llama Overdrive
Empress Distortion
Colorsound Fuzz Box
Line 6 DL4
Empress Tremolo2
Empress Phaser
Strymon BigSky Reverberator
Strymon TimeLine Delay
MXR M134 Stereo Chorus
Electro-Harmonix Nano POG
Electro-Harmonix HOG
Strings and Picks
Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky (.011–.054)
Dunlop Nylon Standard 1 mm picks
Ellie Rowsell’s Gear
Guitars
Fender Telecaster
T-Style with Bigsby
Fender Mustang
Amp
Vox AC30CC2
Effects
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
Pro Co RAT
Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
Line 6 DL4
MXR M134 Stereo Chorus
Fulltone OCD
Strings
Ernie Ball Super Slinky (.009–.042)
To set the record straight, what are the band’s influences?
The band really does listen to a pretty broad selection of music. Like I said earlier, I’m a big folk fan. Theo listens to a lot of grime music. [Editor’s Note: Grime is a hybrid style derived from UK garage, drums and bass, and dancehall music.] Joel has an encyclopedic knowledge of punk and hardcore, and Ellie listens to pretty much everything.
We all listen to Queens of the Stone Age, the Velvet Underground, Patrick Wolf, the Black Lips, and the Strokes—the kind of stuff that was around when we were growing up, really, as opposed to mainly ’90s stuff. On a songwriting level, the way the Velvet Underground married the ideologies of experimental and popular music had a pretty profound effect on me.
What gear did the band use in the studio for My Love Is Cool? Anything unusual?
I don’t know if there was anything particularly out of the ordinary used during the sessions. Some of the pedals we used really consistently were the Klon Centaur—which is such a classic now—a Colorsound Fuzz Box, an Empress Compressor, an Empress Tremolo2, and an Empress Phaser. We also pulled out an Electro-Harmonix HOG a bunch of times.
The real gem was this Nash 1958 Strat copy. If it’s not my Fender Jaguar you’re hearing on the record, then it’s probably that Nash. It was one of the best guitars I’ve ever played and if you see one in a shop, I urge you to have a go! They’re really some of the best guitars out there at the moment.
The guitar parts on the album all seem extremely focused on serving the songs, but there are really interesting atmospheric touches—particularly the feedback-with-atonal-bombs intro to “Giant Peach” and the ghostly background swells of “Swallowtail.” What are we hearing there?
We’re not really the kind of band to just throw guitar solos into songs for the hell of it. I believe good band-focused guitarists do what they have to—complement the song and what the vocalist is doing. There weren’t a lot of synths used during the recording, and a lot of the ambient parts were guitars through lots of pedals and amp combinations. We would send different split signals to various amps with designated effects chains going to specific amps to build a sound. Also, we would send a lot of drones through pedal chains to build a bed of sound.
The live and studio versions of “Giant Peach” build up to enormous waves of sound at several points. How did you get those sounds in the studio and how do you recreate them onstage?
There’s one main lead guitar track on “Giant Peach” that was a one-taker that runs through the whole song. That part is locked into the bass and drums because we wanted to retain as much “live” value to the track as we could. Under that, however, is a lot of layering of different tones to try and make it sound as fat as possible. I remember we tracked just the output of a distorted reverb in the biggest sounding parts of that song. That added a lot of depth and girth to those passages. As for live, it’s just about turning it up and moving around until you figure out the stage. Our soundman always tells me to turn down, but I think secretly he quite likes it.
YouTube It
The five-day Glastonbury Festival in the village of Pilton, Somerset, England, was among Wolf Alice’s major 2015 appearances, and their thrill-packed performance of “Giant Peach” on that stage is a scalding demonstration of many of the band’s guitar signatures. Ellie Rowsell kicks up the song’s stuttering spine of a riff, answered by Joff Oddie’s sputtering feedback entrance. At 1:00 Rowsell tosses off a brief melody before the group roars into a cascading wall of sound punctuated by a brief atonal squall from Oddie as the vocal begins. They have precise control of dynamics. After Wolf Alice brings the song to its psychedelic climax, they bust out a new heavy riff for the decrescendo that would sound like classic Black Sabbath if they played it an octave lower.