INTERVIEW: Funeral For A Friend’s Gavin Burrough
Funeral For A Friend’s sixth and latest album is Conduit. It’s one of the heaviest records the band has ever done, yet as always the brutality is tempered by some rather complex, almost jazz-like chords. Okay, maybe ‘jazz’ is stretching it a bit but they’re certainly more intricate than the voicings employed by most heavy bands. “It’s funny how other people interpret it,” guitarist Gav Burrough says. “When you’re writing it, it’s organic and it just comes out. So what we try to do is to not think about it. Continue reading
INTERVIEW: Steve Stevens
Steve Stevens is about to hit Australia for a clinic tour (an earlier scheduled tour was cancelled when Allans Billy Hyde went under – don’t worry, they’ve been bought by new owners now, but that’s another story). Stevens will be showcasing the latest and greatest gear from Roland and BOSS, including the Roland G-5 VG Stratocaster and Roland GR-55 Guitar Synthesizer, as well as offering insights into guitar playing and generally sharing his decades of knowledge and experience. I Heart Guitar caught up with Stevens to talk clinics, gear and his new project with Sebastian Bach.
I Heart Guitar has two tickets to give away in Melbourne and two in Brisbane. Enter by emailing iheartguitarblog AT gmail dot com with STEVENS in the subject line and answer this question: which 80s rocker did Stevens work with in 1993?
Every clinic is different: what can we expect from yours?
Well Roland are bringing me to Australia, and I’ll be demoing the new GR-55 as well as their new G-5 which is made by Fender, and also their Virtual Guitar, the VG Guitar. Regardless of the whole electronics side of it, the guitars themselves are really great. You’re going to get a great Fender Stratocaster, to begin with, and all the other stuff is like an added bonus. I’ve found that touring with it I end up carrying a lot less guitars with me because one guitar can replicate a 12-string, a Dobro and all these other things. So it’s been really handy for me.
That technology has really come of age recently. I remember trying some stuff about 20 years ago that was cool for the time, but you look back on it and it’s like “…Oh.”
Yeah. I was actually the first person to bring the GR-700 into the States. I was in Japan to do press for Rebel Yell and they brought me up to this very secretive room at Roland and they had the GR-700 there. I convinced them to let me bring it with me because we were getting ready to do the Flesh For Fantasy video. That was like the first guitar synthesiser I had from them. Continue reading
NAMM: Perri Ink. Custom Guitars
Check out these killer new releases from Perri Ink. Custom Guitars! Nick Perri has a great eye for cool guitar design, with flashes of the past and present and an eye to the future too – all filtered through the tastes and requirements of real working players.
The Show & Tell
The PERRI INK. “Show & Tell” was designed in part to pay homage to the band and record that gave company owner Nick Perri his start in the music industry, and also to very specifically nail three of the most significant tones used on the Silvertide record, “Show and Tell”. Aside from its comfortable body contours and stunning good looks (supplied by Casey Johnson at Headcase Kustom Art), it also features our most ambitious pickup configuration and wiring schematic to date. From a thick humbucking crunch in the bridge, to a P90 jangle in the neck, and a tapped and paralleled combination of both, this guitar can summon tones to cover ALL your bases.
Like all PERRI INK. Custom Guitars, the Show & Tell is American made, handmade, built to order, and includes a Certificate of Authenticity. Continue reading
INTERVIEW: Periphery’s Misha & Jake
It’s been a year since we checked in with Periphery and in that time the mighty djent machine has grown and evolved at a rapid, startling rate. In the wake of a successful tour with Dream Theater, Periphery’s place as the centrepiece of the djent movement is now firmly established. It’s a genre characterised by heavy syncopated riffs, punchy mid-heavy guitar tones, the use of extended range instruments, clean-to-scream vocals and some of the most outrageous lead guitar work ever committed to hard disc, and Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal builds on the strengths of the band’s self-titled debut in every way. It’s more melodic, yet more extreme. There are more shredding solos but more moments of guitaristic introspection too. More colourful and dramatic. I Heart Guitar caught up with Misha Mansoor and Jake Bowen to talk shop.
Last time we talked, you said you were planning two albums, one of which would be a concept album. Is this still the plan?
Misha: I think we had a lot of expectations, and I guess our gut reaction to that is to just say ‘fuck it’ and do whatever we want. What we’d originally hoped would happen was that we’d get a tonne of time off to just write. We’re at a point where there are so many ideas. All was going to plan but then we got a Dream Theater tour offer smack in the middle of that session. It kinda came to a decision. And no matter what, you never turn down a Dream Theater tour! Continue reading
NEWS: Lace Alumitone Deathbucker
I find it pretty interesting how pickups are such simple yet such complex things. Essentially just a bunch of wire wrapped around a magnet, the creative possibilities are practically endless and so, therefore, are the adjectives used to describe them. So as a result you end up with some very cool names for pickups: names like Tone Zone, Humbucker From Hell, Blaze, Liquifire and Crunch Lab from DiMarzio; War Pig, Nailbomb, Mother’s Milk, Black Dog, Abraxis and Holydiver from Bare Knuckle. Full Shred and Screamin’ Demon from Seymour Duncan. So you’ve gotta dig the appropriately named new Deathbucker from LACE.
Oh, it also looks pretty cool.
LACE Unveils the Alumitone Deathbucker Electric Guitar Pickup
Using patented and patent pending Lace “current driven” technology, the Deathbucker was designed by Jeff Lace, for high output with a heavy metal drive. Extreme output with thunderous bottom end, yet crisp highs allow the player the most versatile of high output pickups.
This new “current driven” technology is only available from Lace. It is considered one of the most revolutionary concepts in pickup design today.
Celebrating 30 years this year in business, Lace is known as the most innovative pickup company today. Products include the world famous Lace Sensor.
“This passive design yields active pickup performance with absolutely zero noise and no need for a battery” stated Jeff Lace. “In split mode, the unique Alumitone design is dead quite with full range” further stated Lace.
Another Deathbucker advantage is there is no volume drop in split mode and working as a single coil; noise is virtually eliminated in comparison to standard old style humbucker designs.
Deathbuckers are compatible with all guitars and other pickups. As an easy drop in replacement, the 4 conductor design needs only 250k pots. It is excellent for any playing situation from live to direct to board recording.
Deathbuckers are available in black and are shipping now.
For more information, visit their web site at http://www.lacemusic.com/.
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), Blunt, Beat (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Bandcamp or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com