Guitarist Jamie Hince, one half of the Kills, details the gear he and foil Alison Mosshart are touring with for their upcoming album, Ash & Ice. Hince changed his rig a bit since the last album (more amps and Bigsbys on everything), both for practical reasonsāa hand injury which affected his playing styleāand also because he was going for a cleaner tone.
Hince has a large collection of Hofner 176 and Galaxie guitars, but this sunburst 176 is his No. 1. He swapped out the stock pickups and put in three single-coil āsharkfinā or ābladeā pickups from a similar Galaxie model. āTheyāre just the greatest pickups Iāve ever heard,ā says Hince. āI like a really clear, clean sound thatās just loudākind of distorting because itās so loud.ā Hince now puts Bigsbys on all of his guitars to help with hand dexterity after an accident impaired the middle finger of his fretting hand. Hince uses the bridge and neck pickups mostly, as well as the Treble-O-Bass, which is a tremolo bass knob for overall tone and adding low end. He keeps several Hofner 176 axes on hand in different tunings, including standard, drop D, and C#.
Hinceās Gretsch Silver Duke is dated 1966, the only year of production for this model. About 100 of these guitars were made. It has TV Jones Duo-Tron pickups and Hince believes this model was heavily influenced by Grestchās Corvette model released in 1961 out of Brooklyn. āI like my guitars beaten up like this,ā he adds.
āI have so many Hofners,ā says Hince. āTheyāre not made that well, but they sound fantastic, if you can battle away with them.ā He added his secret weapon, the Hofner āsharkfinā pickups, to this T-Style. He uses .010ā.052 gauge strings with high action to complement his percussive attack.
This Supro Ozark 1560S is the same model as Jimi Hendrixās first guitar. Hince wrote the track āSiberian Nightsā from Ash & Ice based on the sound of this guitar.
Hince has increased his previous two-amp setup to four amp combinations, all on, for a blended tone. He uses a Divided by 13 FTR 37 for a bright reverby sound, a Selmer Zodiac for cleans, a Selmer head with Divided by 13 cab for a wooly low end, and a 1950s Magnatone 280. āI canāt get the sound I want out of one amp, thatās why I use all these,ā explains Hince. āItās not for volume.ā
Hince has been collecting Selmers since 1995, when he found three heads for 90 quids, or about $120. He now has about 10 Selmer heads. āTheyāve got really beautiful British tone, loads of low end, and you can blend all that in.ā
For dynamics, Hinceās pedalboard employs two first-generation Electro-Harmonix POGs for boost and octave shift. āIām kind of over the POG now, it served me good for a couple records but I always like changing the sound. This album was about using different tone amps. The one I canāt live without is the Boss DD-3.ā He uses two DD-3s for slapback delay sounds and a Fulltone Supa-Trem ST-1 for a nice variation in tremolo. Rounding out the board are a Radial BigShot ABY True Bypass Switcher, Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner, and several effects by The GigRig: a HumDinger, EvenFlo adapter, and a Distributor.
Alison Mosshart plays a Gretsch Corvette. Her main ride is outfitted with stars she applied when she dressed up for Halloween as the night sky and wanted her guitar to match.
Mosshart plays a Divided by 13 RSA 31 through a vintage Vox cab that came with one of bandmate Hinceās first-ever amps: a super rare Vox AC50 head.
Mosshartās pedalboard is small and straightforward: a Boss VE-20 Vocal Performer to loop vocals live on a few songs, a first-generation Electro-Harmonix POG, and a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner.
- All About Amps Vol. 1 ā shop.premierguitar.com āŗ
- PG Editors' Best Music of 2016 - Premier Guitar āŗ
- The Kills: The Beautiful Chaos of Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart ... āŗ
Celebrating 10 years of Revv & 5 years since the release of the G2, Revv is debuting V2 circuit revisions of the G2, G3, & G4, implementing new designs for more tone in 3 little pedals, in a limited edition colorway.
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Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
Hats off to Carmen Vandenberg of Bones UK, our celebrity Question of the Month respondent.
Guest Picker - Carmen Vandenberg, Bones UK
The cover of Soft, Bones UKās new album, due in mid-September.
A: My favorite method these days (and to be honest, from when I started playing) is to put on my favorite blues records, listen with my eyes closed, and, at the end, see what my brain compartmentalizes and keeps stored away. Then, I try and play back what I heard and what my fingers or brain decided they liked!
Bone UKās labelmade, Des Rocks.
Obsession: Right now, I am into anyone trying to create sounds that havenāt been made beforeābands like Queens of the Stone Age, Jack White, and our labelmate, Des Rocs! Thereās a Colombian band called DiamantĆ© Electrico who Iāve been really into recently. Really anyone whoās trying to create innovative and inspiring sounds.
Reader of the Month - Sam C. Schiff.
Sam spent endless hours trying to learn the solo Leslie West played on āLong Red,ā off of The Road Goes Ever On.
A: The best way to learn guitar is to listen to some good guitar playing! Put on a record, hear something tasty, and play on repeat until it comes out of your fingers. For me, it was Leslie West playing āLong Redā on the Mountain album, The Road Goes Ever On. I stayed up all night listening to that track until I could match Leslieās phrasing. I still canāt, no one can, but I learned a lot!
Smithās own low-wattage amp build.
Obsession: My latest musical obsession is low-wattage tube amps like the 5-watt Fender Champ heard on the Laylaalbum. Crank it up all the way for great tube distortion and sustain, and itās still not loud enough to wake up the neighbors!
Gear Editor - Charles Saufley
Charles Saufley takes to gear like a duck to water!
A: Learning by ear and feel is most fun for me. I write and free-form jam more than I learn other peopleās licks. When I do want to learn something specific, Iāll poke around on YouTube for a demo or a lesson or watch films of a player I like, and then typically mangle that in my own āspecialā way that yields something else. But I rarely have patience for tabs or notation.
The Grateful Deadās 1967 debut album.
Obsession: Distorted and overdriven sounds with very little sustaināKeith Richardsā Between the Buttons tones, for example. Jerry Garciaās plonky tones on the first Grateful Dead LP are another cool, less-fuzzy version of that texture.
Publisher - Jon Levy
A: Iām a primitive beast: The only way I can learn new music is by ear, so itās a good thing I find that method enjoyable. Iām entirely illiterate with staff notation. Put sheet music in front of me and Iāll stare at it with twitchy, fearful incomprehension like an ape gaping at the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Iām almost as clueless with tab, but I can follow along with chord charts if Iām under duress.
The two-hit wonders behind the early ā70s soft-rock hits, āFallinā in Loveā and āDon't Pull Your Love.ā
Obsession: Revisiting and learning AM-radio pop hits circa 1966ā1972. The Grass Roots, Edison Lighthouse, the Association, the Archies, and Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynoldsānothing is too cheesy for me to dissect and savor. Yes, I admit I have a serious problem.
