A pair of Fender amps and a custom-built Baranik helped the Boston band’s guitarist come back from a broken arm.
When Brandon Hagen broke his arm a few years ago, his life changed in an instant. He’d been fronting Boston indie rock outfit Vundabar since 2013, and suddenly, he was unable to do the things he’d built his life around. Recovery came, in part, in the form of a custom guitar prototype built by Mike Baranik of Baranik Guitars. Hagen deconstructed and rehabilitated his relationship to the 6-string on that instrument, an experience that led to Vundabar’s sixth LP, Surgery and Pleasure, released on March 7.
On tour supporting the record, the band appeared at Grimey’s in Nashville for a performance on March 11, and PG’s Chris Kies caught up with Hagen to hear about his journey and learn what tools the guitarist has brought on the road. As Hagen tells it, his setup is less about expertise and received wisdom, and more about “intuitive baby mode”—going with what feels and sounds good in the moment.
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An A1 B4
Hagen’s No. 1 is this Baranik B4, a custom job that he received two days before leaving for tour. Hagen’s arm was broken when Vundabar was playing a festival in California a couple years ago, and Baranik, a fan of the band, stopped in to see them. He offered to send a custom prototype to Hagen—who was new to the field of boutique guitars—and the B4 was born, borrowing from the Baranik B3 design used for Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson and the Hofner 176 played by Jamie Hince of the Kills. The guitar helped Hagen fall back in love with guitar as his arm healed.
Hagen was searching for Strat-style clarity and jangle but with a hotter sound, so Baranik put in Lindy Fralin P-90s in the neck and bridge positions, plus a sliding, unpotted gold-foil pickup in the middle, wound by Baranik himself. A wheel control on the lower bout beside the traditional pickup selector switch lets Hagen blend the pickup signals without outright switching them on or off. Along with traditional master volume and tone controls, the red button beside the bridge activates a Klon clone pedal built into the back of the guitar. Hagen used a Klon on every track on the new Vundabar record, so it made sense to have one at his fingertips, letting him step away from the pedalboard and still create dramatic dynamic differences.
Hagen uses Ernie Ball Slinky strings (.011s), a step up from the .10s he used to use; he was chasing some more low end and low mids in his sound. His guitars stay in standard tuning.
Jazz From Japan
Hagen also loves this 2009 Japan-made Fender Jazzmaster ’62 Reissue JM66, which splits the difference between classic Fender chime and a darker, heavier tone.
Blending Fenders
Hagen’s signal gets sent to both a Fender Hot Rod Deville and a Blues Junior. He likes to crank the Junior’s single 12" speaker for a nastier midrange.
Brandon Hagen's Board
Hagen runs from his guitar into a JHS Colour Box, which adds a bit of dirt and can be used to attenuate high or low frequencies depending on which room Vundabar is playing. From there, the signal hits a Keeley Compressor, EHX 2020 Tuner, EHX Pitch Fork, EHX Micro POG (which is always on with subtle octaves up and down to beef things up), Boss Blues Driver, Way Huge Swollen Pickle, MXR Carbon Copy (which is also always on), and a Boss DD-7—Hagen loves the sound of stacked delays.
Shop Vundabar's Rig
If you’ve been on the path of this spring’s Rhett Schull/Zach Person tour, you’ve been treated to one of the coolest rock ’n’ roll double bills criss-crossing North America this year. Person, who is based in Austin, put out his second full-length record, Let’s Get Loud, in March 2024, and it was packed with alt-, blues-, and psychedelic-rock anthems built around his take-no-prisoners playing.
This year, Person is road-doggin’ it around the United States as a two-piece unit with just a drummer, and PG’s Chris Kies caught up with him before he and Shull played the Eastside Bowl in Madison, Tennessee, to see what goods Person is bringing for this spring’s shows.
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Customized Custom
This Gibson Jimi Hendrix 1967 Custom SG came from Gibson’s custom shop, and for Person, an SG with humbuckers is a hard combination to beat. He removed the Maestro trem system and had a tailpiece installed for tuning stability on the road, and he subjected the neck humbucker to a “Jimmy Page mod,” which entails removing the pole pieces to get closer to single-coil tones. This SG stays in standard tuning, with Ernie Ball or D’Addario strings (usually .010–.046s). Person digs Dunlop Flow Grip .88 mm picks.
Brown Sound
Person brought this 1967 Gibson SG Special back to life with a list of modifications and upgrades, including new pickups and a refinish, but its wood, neck shape, and original frets all made it worth it to him. The neck shape is narrow but chunky in Person’s hands, landing somewhere near the feel of Tyler Bryant’s 1962 Stratocaster. The pickups now are OX4 P-90s, and like the Custom, this one’s had its Maestro system amputated.
Jeannie Comes Alive
One Thanksgiving at his in-laws’ home in Dallas, Person mentioned how badly he wanted a Gibson LG-2 acoustic. As it happened, his father-in-law suspected his mother had one, which had been relegated to storage in a shed. Person and his wife’s father ventured through rain to dig it out, and sure enough, a very beat up LG-1 was withering away in its case. No local techs in Austin thought it was worth saving, except for Elaine Filion, who was used to taking on bigger restoration projects. Filion succeeded, taking the top off and installing an X-bracing system to turn the LG-1 into an LG-2-style guitar. Now, it’s got an L.R. Baggs pickup and bears the nameplate “Jeannie” on its headstock to commemorate his wife’s grandma, the original owner. Jeannie usually stays home, but Person brought her out specially for the Rundown.
Marshall Muscle
This Marshall JTM45 MkII is Person’s usual go-to. It runs just at breakup volume and gets pushed with some variation of a Pro Co RAT, his favorite dirt box.
Supro Signature
This Super Black Magick Reverb, Tyler Bryant’s signature, is along for the ride as a backup to the Marshall.
Zach Person’s Pedalboard
Person has done tours with just an overdrive pedal and nothing else, so by comparison, this two-tiered Vertex board is luxurious. Still, it’s compact and carries all he needs at the moment. The JHS Pack Rat is the core sound, set fairly heavy and dirty. The rest includes a Boss TU-3, EarthQuaker Devices Double Hoof, Vox Clyde McCoy wah, Boss BF-2, DigiTech Drop, Strymon El Capistan, and an Interstellar Audio Machines Marsling Octafuzzdrive. A TC Helicon Mic Mechanic rides along as a vocal effect so Person can keep control over his voice from night to night.
This is perhaps the most rare Iwase guitar: one volume, one tone, and a quality adjustable bridge, plus a raised pickguard and some beautiful shading on the burst.
And then my mind wandered to my college days, when I was an English major. I got to read and write every day, and I thought I was getting good at it until a professor raked me over the proverbial coals for using the word “unique” incorrectly when describing a local band’s sound. He really tore me up, because if I describe something as unique, it should be like none other—like a snowflake.
So, what about guitars? Is a custom-shop model unique if it has the same pickups and same scale as many others? Even if the body is shaped differently? Seriously, that professor would hand you your butt because, in his mind, you didn’t just choose words unless you understood their real meaning. Consider the super-rare Teisco T-60 … the model that Glen Campbell loved and played for much of his early career. I know of only four in existence. There are some Japanese collectors who own hundreds of guitars but don’t have a T-60. Does that make the T-60 unique, or simply rare? I mean, they were all hand-made and featured that original hole-in-the-body “monkey grip” … but unique? Talk amongst yourselves for a hot minute.
“In my waning days of collecting, I just want to have Voice stuff, because I met Iwase and connected with him immediately.”
I recently wrote about the passing of the great Japanese luthier Yukichi Iwase, whose small company (basically just him) produced some of the finest guitars and amps and carried the “Voice” label. A friend in Japan, along with his daughters, were in the process of clearing out his old workshop, and I’ve been trying to acquire everything from it that I can. I used to collect just Teisco stuff, and then I had a passion for the old Intermark/Pleasant guitars. Then I wanted to get all the old Yamaha stuff I could find. But now, in my waning days of collecting, I just want to have Voice stuff, because I met Iwase and connected with him immediately. He was a peach, and, yes, he was unique. Aside from being one of the earliest employees of Tesico, he was a brilliant fellow who could make just about anything from scratch, including guitars and amps. Left in his workshop were a few unfinished T-60s, some pedal steels, some amps, a really cool bass, an unfinished double-neck guitar, and a tiny guitar that is also truly worthy of the term “unique.”
“I know these pickups well enough to understand they are loud, crisp, and offer a full range of sounds,” our columnist says.
The latter is a small powerhouse of a guitar. It has one of his amazing pickups that looks like a big block engine stuffed into an AMC Gremlin. He somehow squeezed out a 23" scale, but the rest of the guitar is like a child’s 6-string or a travel guitar. I believe he only made one of these. The body design has an ocean-wave type of flow, and the guitar is very balanced and not hard on the eyes, even with the exaggerated features. One volume, one tone, and a quality adjustable bridge plus a raised pickguard—the only time I’ve seen this design on his guitars. His finish work was really nice, too, and he was able to get some beautiful shading on the burst. The headstock has a figured overlay and the neck profile is so sweet—curved perfectly with some fine wood.
To me, it seems to have been built around 1966, based on the tuners he used. I don’t have the heart yet to plug this into an amp, but I know these pickups well enough to understand they are loud, crisp, and offer a full range of sounds. So, what do you think? Rare? Truly unique?
