"I can’t possibly thank you enough for this awesome guitar…I was absolutely speechless when I opened the case and we saw my grandpa’s name on the pickups" These were Erich Lover’s words (Seth Lover’s Grandson) when he received, as a graduation present, this very special guitar sent by Seymour W. Duncan. The Gibson Les Paul was kindly donated by Gibson Guitars with the assistance of Ron Moe. Seymour loaded it with Seth Lover pickups.

Seymour really appreciated the relationship he built with Seth Lover, his "humbucker mentor". He wanted to surprise Eric with the legacy of his grandfather’s work. "I love the sound from the pickups and it gives me goose bumps every time I play it because I think about how you and my grandpa worked together on it."

Seymour and Seth Lover were associated for nearly 20 years. In 1994, they joined forces to release the Seth Lover Model™ pickup, an authentic re-creation of the "Patent Applied For" humbucker.

Seymour W. Duncan with his "humbucker mentor" Seth Lover.

Featured Artist: Mick Thomson of Slipknot
by Lisa Sharken
In the late ’90s, Slipknot emerged from Des Moines, Iowa and literally changed the face of metal with its masked nine-man lineup and extreme style. Comprised of some of the best musicians around, the group can also put on a theatrical show that few can rival.
The group has been working steadily for the last decade, with some members finding time to work on other projects between Slipknot’s tours and albums. Now, after a marathon two and a half years of nonstop touring and recording, the group took a long break, giving band members a chance to rest, recharge, and prepare for another full-on audio and visual assault of Slipknot.
Guitarist Mick Thomson, known to fans as “7,” recently had the opportunity to try out Duncan’s AHB-1 Blackouts pickups and was definitely intrigued by what he heard. A self-professed gearhead, Thomson is always in search of a better sound, and after replacing his pickups with Blackouts, his guitars now breathe invincible fire. He’s inspired and eager to get back to work. Thomson spoke with GroundWire about getting back into the groove with Slipknot and
rediscovering his love for playing guitar.
In what ways have your playing style and musical interests evolved?
Stylistically, I’ve had my voice for a long time. I do enjoy playing and listening to other styles of music besides metal, but I’m not suddenly turning into
an acoustic rock player like James Taylor. It would be too strange. But then who doesn’t grow up as a kid strumming simple open-chord changes on an acoustic? Music is everything–a variety of many styles. I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to learn to play anything from classical to jazz or blues. To me, having a very wide range of tastes for listening and playing stuff like that is important. You don’t have to get super serious, but you should be educated. I think you’re doing yourself a disservice when you limit your interests. So I listen to a lot of different stuff. I’m sure that if somebody pulled up next to me at a stop light and heard what was coming out of my car, they might not believe it was me. It’s a big scary guy with Ben Harper playing on his stereo! But great music is great music, and being influenced by another style can be very inspiring. Corey [Taylor, Slipknot’s lead vocalist] recently got me into Ray LaMontagne, who is mostly mellow–probably not the type of music you would assume that any of us would listen to. I’ll not be writing stuff that sounds remotely like what he does, but it’s inspiring. I hear that and then I want to create my own stuff that sounds like me. Till The Sun Turns Black is my favorite record of his. Influences shouldn’t make you sound like them. Influences should get you fired up and just keep your passion up.
Describe your introduction to Seymour Duncan pickups and your first
impression of Blackouts.
I think the first time I ever played Seymour Duncans, I was 12 years old. A kid I went to junior high school with had a Kramer® guitar with Duncan pickups, and it sounded infinitely better than whatever stock pickups were in the Hondo® guitar I had at the time. It certainly had a bigger and better sound. I’ve always liked the sound of a passive pickup, but when it comes to doing what I do, the bottom end washes out too easily and it isn’t tight. I love the upper harmonics and the richness of passive pickups, but with high gain at really high speeds, you can lose articulation sometimes, and that’s why I always liked active
pickups for what I do. They allow each note to be heard a little better,
so you can hear all those notes in fast runs.
I was very pleased after I installed the Blackouts in a couple of guitars, played them in different tunings, and with different string gauges. I thought they sounded good. There really weren’t any other options before Blackouts in terms of pickups that held up to my expectations of a pickup. What I think is cool about Blackouts is that they manage to balance all the best properties of the active pickups that I’d always used, but there was more of the harmonic
richness that I was getting from a passive pickup. In the past, I never recorded any of my leads with active pickups because they just didn’t have the tone I needed. For metal rhythm stuff, it was great, but I would always go to passive pickups for solos, like I did on the last record. Most of the solos were played on the neck pickup. What’s cool is that with Blackouts, I don’t have to switch. I can record with the same guitar and the same pickups the whole time, and not have to be switching things around. And live, I don’t have to be compromising the sounds that I got on the record.
Are all of your guitars set up the same or are some set up for a certain feel or tone?
The guitars that I play are all custom-built by Ibanez® and use the same
combination of a mahogany neck, mahogany body, neck-through construction, 24 frets, reverse headstock, and fixed bridge. That combination of woods really works the best for the music I play and matches well with the low tuning. It’s not too boomy on the bottom, and it’s got a nice midrange which projects, so you can hear the notes really well.
Typically, I’m tuned to C# with a dropped B, but all of the songs on the Iowa record were B with a dropped A. It’s just a standard dropped-D tuning, but with all strings dropped down really low.
I’m using D’Addario® strings–.011, .015, .018, .028, .038, .058. At home, I absolutely have a lot of them set up differently. Everything I have on the road that I’m going to play onstage is going to be extremely close in spec. Sometimes a certain neck will move a little more than another, especially when you’re exposed to conditions that we play in. Many times it’s fairly wet, and that’s not very good for the wood, the fingerboard, or all of the glue joints. They get a little variance. I keep my action as low as it can go without any buzz. But once you add in the extra adrenaline I have when I’m playing live, I have to raise it up a little. I dig in a lot and I don’t want my strings bouncing off the edge of the pickup and my 24th fret. I keep my pickups super close to the strings. Pickup height is very important, and I think that’s one thing that people really overlook. With Blackouts, you can get them right underneath the strings.
On most of your guitars, do you have both pickups set at the same height and angled the same on the treble and bass sides?
I do on the bridge pickup. On the neck pickup, I keep the bass side further away from the strings, just because the bass strings are naturally louder. But every guitar is different. You’ve got to fine-tune it by ear. You know what you like and don’t like, so experiment with it. Get a baseline and start adjusting things to see where it takes you. Sometimes it gets way out of line and you need to reset it back to what stock would have been, then start over. But every guitar is going to be different, so you have to set up each guitar based on how that guitar naturally sounds. I’m a total advocate of tweaking each guitar individually and knowing what you like. If you set something up in standard normal fashion, you’re not necessarily going to get the most out of that guitar.
What type of amplifiers and cabinets are you playing through?
I’ve got my 120-watt Rivera KR7 heads that run into Rivera 4×12 cabinets with 100 watt speakers Celestion did for me. They sound amazing.
What are your favorite songs to perform live?
My favorite song would have to be “Eeyore,” which is the hidden track on our first record, just for the speed and the downpicking throughout at such a quick tempo. It’s lots of fun for me to play. I like all of the songs, really, but “Eeyore” really stands out because I get the most fired up when I’m playing it. “Vermilion,” from Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses, is also cool because I’ve got a lead in it, and there are some cleaner parts where I back off a little bit. I enjoy playing that one a lot, too.
Is there a particular track you recorded that you’re most proud of?
I like “The Nameless,” which is also from Subliminal Verses, because it just changes a lot and it’s all over the place. It’s a lot of fun.
For more information on Mick Thomson and Slipknot, visit the band’s official website at www.slipknot1.com.
Lisa Sharken is Seymour Duncan’s New York-based artist relations consultant.

Featured Artist: Dino Cazares of Divine Heresy
by Lisa Sharken
Dino Cazares is certainly no stranger to the metal scene. Over the years, he’s been featured in nearly every major guitar magazine and is one of the best-known 7-string players. Now a new Duncan endorser, Cazares became the first guitarist to score a set of 7-string AHB-1 Blackouts active humbuckers, giving them a test drive while recording Bleed The Fifth—the debut album with his new group, Divine Heresy.
“I’m always looking for the best tone,” Cazares told GroundWire while discussing his experience checking out prototype 7-string AHB-1 Blackouts. “I really love the Blackouts. They sounded great as soon as I put them in my guitar, and I’m so happy that I got them in time to use on this new record. They’ve definitely made a difference in my guitar tone, and I was able to nail the sounds I wanted.”
Cazares went on to describe the ways in which his playing style has evolved, as well as the creation of Divine Heresy and gear used in crafting the group’s inaugural disc, which is scheduled for release in August.
”I’m proud to be part of the family at Seymour Duncan—a company with a living legend,” he asserted. “I’m hoping that these pickups will take me to that level of becoming a living legend myself.”
In what ways have your style and musical interests changed in recent years?
Most people know me from Fear Factory, but I left the group four years ago. Since then, I’ve done some producing for local bands, trying to help them out and get signed, and I’d been playing in my Mexican metal bands called Brujeria and Asesino, which includes bassist Tony Campos from Static-X. In both bands, everything was all sung in Spanish and we toured a lot through Latin America. I decided to leave all that behind to concentrate on something that was more universal. So I began searching for the right guys to play, and it took me four years to find people that were really very talented. I have a drummer named Tim Yeung who came from the bands Nile, Hate Eternal and Vital Remains. He is really a technical drummer. We were jamming for about six months, and then we started auditioning singers. I thought I was never going to find the right guy. The owner of Century Media, Robert Kampf, told me about a guy that I should check out. Robert gave me his phone number and I called him. He was excited just to talk to me and very confident that he was the right guy for the gig. So we sent him some music, he sang on it, and sent it back. We listened to it and thought he was great! His name is Tommy Cummings and he played with a band called Vext. He came out to Los Angeles and we started rehearsing. Then we recorded a demo and sent it to Roadrunner, Century Media, and all the different metal labels. We got signed to Roadrunner in Europe and Century Media in America. Right now, we’re mixing our debut album. I played bass on most of the record, and Tony Campos played on some songs because things started happening so fast and we hadn’t found a bass player. We hadn’t even played a live show yet when we got signed! We had done a demo and had enough songs for an album, and then boom! We were in the studio recording the album. As soon as we’re done, we’re going to audition bassists.
In terms of the style and sound, how is Divine Heresy different from your other bands and from your work with Fear Factory?
With Brujeria and Asesino, the music was a little more simple, and it was sung in all Spanish. What I was doing in Fear Factory was a little bit more on the cyber-metal/industrial side. This music is a lot more involved and more aggressive than what I was doing in Fear Factory. But when you hear my playing and guitar tone, you’ll know that it’s me.
In what ways has your playing style evolved?
I’m doing solos and a lot more riffs. There’s a lot more guitar work going on in Divine Heresy. With Fear Factory, I wasn’t doing much soloing. Solos were kind of dead at that time, but now solos are huge. The main thing that’s changed about me as a player is that I’m doing more solos. One of the other things is that my speed has increased immensely because Tim Yeung plays really fast. It can be pretty difficult at times to keep up with the drums, so I definitely had to build up my picking speed. It wasn’t that I couldn’t play fast, but I practiced with Tim to build up the endurance. The music we’re playing is much more intricate than what I was doing in Fear Factory. At times, Fear Factory was very simple and very stripped down. For me, this music has a much stronger attitude. This is my coming-back record, and I feel that I have a lot to prove. I really want people to hear what I’m doing now, and I’m just really excited to be out there again.
Tell us about the main guitar you’re currently using.
I’ve played Ibanez® 7-strings for 11 years now because they make the best 7-string guitars. All of my guitars are made out of lightweight mahogany, but the main guitar I’m recording with happens to be made out of basswood. It has a bolt-on maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. I think it’s hilarious because it’s
not actually what I’m going for, but for some reason, that particular guitar sounds really good. All my new guitars are neck-through-body with maple necks, mahogany bodies, ebony fingerboards, and jumbo frets. But this one that I used for the recording is the opposite, and it sounds really good.

Which Duncan pickups are you using?
I have prototype 7-string AHB-1 Blackouts active humbuckers, which I got while I was already in the middle of making the record. They came just in time! I had been using EMG® 707s prior to this. The EMGs were good, and they worked really well for the music I was playing before this. But I wanted something a little bit different and Seymour Duncan made some pickups for me that would fit in the same size slot, so I put the Blackouts right in my guitar. The first thing I noticed is that the volume was louder, so I had to turn my amp down a little bit. But I also noticed the Blackouts were really rich in tone.
What type of tone were you looking for?
I was looking for more low mids and more high mids, but just more of the mids in general. The AHB-1 has a very full and rich tone with all the highs, mids, and lows I want, where EMGs tend to be more scooped. I noticed right away that the Seymour Duncans were just rich in highs, mids, and lows all the way around. Wow! All I did was turn the amp’s volume down a hair, set the levels to record, and then tracked right away with them—the same day I put them in. I didn’t change any of the other amp settings for the highs, mids or lows. Everything was right where I wanted it. We’re in the mixing process now, and I noticed that a lot of the tones I would usually have to add to make my sound a little fuller are already there on the tracks I recorded with the Blackouts.
Describe the rig and effects you used in the studio.
I used a Marshall® Valvestate 100 watt head going through a model 1960A cabinet with Celestion® Vintage 30s in it, and that was killer. For effects, I used a Digitech® Whammy, an old Ibanez® chorus, and I also used a Line 6® Pod Pro for a lot of my effects as well because it has a wide variety of effects that I really like. I used the Pod for all of the clean parts with effects. The dirty stuff was straight Marshall with the chorus and Whammy.

What do you listen to for inspiration?
I listen to a lot of music. I like older Steve Vai stuff and all the old Van Halen stuff. I love Eddie Van Halen’s playing and guitar tone from back in the day. Of course, I love bands like Pantera, Slayer, Metallica, and all the new up-and-coming bands like As I Lay Dying, Unearth, Shadows Fall, Beneath The Massacre, Necrophagist, and heavy stuff like that. I like to keep up with all the new music that’s coming out. I think that as an artist, you have to pay attention to the climate of what’s out there. Some people don’t like to think it, but it is a very competitive industry. You want your record to sound better than everybody else’s, and you want it to do very well. Even though we’re all friends, there’s still that competitive nature between musicians. I’m very competitive, and I want to put out the best record possible. I want to blow everybody away!
By Lisa Sharken, Seymour Duncan’s
New York-based artist relations consultant.

Groundwire January 2007
Featured Artist: Ray Toro of My Chemical Romance
by Lisa Sharken
Meet Ray Toro, guitarist with New Jersey’s red-hot alternative punk-pop rocker group, My Chemical Romance. We had the chance for a long distance chat before MCR hit the stage in Germany to support its highly acclaimed new disc, The Black Parade. In just a few short years that included lots of touring and self-promotion, MCR quickly grew from a local indie sensation to an international phenomenon with a loyal and ever-increasing fan base.
Toro filled us in on what inspired him during his formative years as a musician and detailed the gear he uses live. We also got the scoop on how MCR crafted its monstrous guitar tones in the studio and what’s in store for the group in 2007. There’s a lot to look forward to and no doubt that we’ll be hearing a great deal more from these Jersey boys. The future is looking bright and seems to hold even greater success for this very promising new band!
Which players had the greatest influence on your musical style?
My two biggest influences have always been Randy Rhoads and Brian May. I was a fan of Randy Rhoads because he was one of the first players I can remember who mixed classical music with a metal and hard rock style of playing, and he did it very tastefully. It was really inspiring. “Dee” was just so moving because he wrote it for his mother and it was a classically-influenced piece. What I like about Brian May is that he views the guitar like an orchestra. His guitar playing is very symphonic. I’m just a huge fan of how he layers and harmonizes things like an arranger or a conductor. A little later, probably because of Randy Rhoads’ influence, I started listening to classical guitarists like AndrÈs Segovia and Christopher Parkening. I was obsessed with the way they would take classical pieces and arrange them for a single guitar with the way they have moving melody and bass lines that work together. Segovia was one of the guys who made classical guitar a respected instrument. When guitarists first started playing like that it wasn’t really looked upon as artistic. He traveled the world and was a champion for having classical guitar recognized as a concert instrument. Parkening was Segovia’s student and he carried on his legacy.
Have your listening tastes changed? Do you still listen to the music that influenced you when you started?
Yes. I don’t listen to much new stuff. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a music snob. I think that I’ve always been very careful about listening to current music and being influenced by it. I’m afraid of stealing stuff from it. But there are a couple of new bands that I like, Muse being one of them. I love Muse. They have great guitar work and great songwriting. They’re one of the few new bands that I can listen to nowadays. But pretty much, I just listen to the same stuff I used to listen to when I was younger.
With older music, do you tend to pick out things you hadn’t noticed before when you listen now?
Yes. That’s the best thing about music. Depending on what situation you’re in when you’re listening, you’re just in a certain head space and you’ll pick up on little things that you never heard before, especially when you’re listening to stuff like Queen or Pink Floyd. You’ll pick out things like harmonies or nuances in the guitar playing or singing, or you’ll hear little mistakes. I recently listened to Led Zeppelin and noticed that sometimes Jimmy Page’s guitar was going out of tune while they were recording, but it adds character. If you listen to “Stairway To Heaven,” you’ll hear how he’s doubling certain things on an acoustic guitar and he’s playing the same thing on an electric, and it’s panned left to right. These are things that I never used to pick up on when I was younger. But now I can hear those things and it gives me a different appreciation for the music.
When you had first heard these songs, was it on vinyl or CD? Most of the time you never could hear those very fine details as clearly on the original vinyl records as you could on remastered CDs, or even on the original version CDs.
You’re right. The first time I listened to stuff like Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Queen it was actually through my older brother and he had all this on vinyl. He was a huge influence on me and he was the one who showed me how to play guitar. He bought me my first real guitar and he introduced me to all that stuff. He introduced me to bands like Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, and also Motley Crue and Metallica. So he was my gateway into guitar playing and those styles of music.
Let’s talk about your gear. What are you currently using live?
Right now I’m using Marshall JCM 2000s® the DSL100 with two 1960A cabinets. I don’t use many pedals. I’m very basic. I just have a Dunlop Crybaby wah, Boss EQ pedal, Boss Pitch Shifter to do harmonies, Boss Chorus Ensemble, and Electro-Harmonix POG Polyphonic Octave Generator, which you can set up to play one octave below, an octave above, or two octaves above. You can make your guitar sound like a Hammond B3 organ when you use that in combination with the chorus pedal. It’s a really cool pedal.
My main guitar right now is a Gibson Les Paul Standard that I think is either from ’91 or ’93 which I picked up while on tour. I have Seymour Duncan Phat Cat (SPH90-1) P90-style pickups in it which are the size of a humbucker. They’re amazing. I’m really psyched about them. I have another Les Paul Standard which is probably from ’93 and it has a Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) in the bridge position and the neck pickup is whatever came on the guitar. My brother was the person who had turned me onto the JB. It was the first after market pickup I bought because he said that I had to get a Seymour Duncan JB!
What do you like most about your Duncan pickups and what types of tones do you go for with each of them?
For the Phat Cats, I call it a “meat and potatoes” tone. It’s very thick and punchy, just in the right spots. I use the guitar with the JB for songs that need a little more edge and more gain. The JB has a hotter tone and more gain than I get with the Phat Cats. It works really well for songs that are a little more riffy. A lot of our older material has more riffing going on with lots of single-note picked riffs, and there’s a lot more playing. On the new stuff, the guitar parts are a bit more simple. There are more chugging power chords and things like that. I find that the Phat Cats are better for that kind of stuff and I use the JB for the more shredding songs.
How are your guitars set up?
The action is not too low or too high. It’s at that sweet point. I’ve never been a fan of guitars with really low action. I know it can help you play faster, and I get that aspect of it, but you don’t feel like you’re playing. You can’t dig in. It feels almost too easy. As far as strings, I use .011-.052 S.I.T. strings. For picks, I’ve always used Dunlop black nylon 1 mm picks. I think that’s what my brother used and I’ve used them since I started playing guitar.
How do you and Frank Iero [MCR guitarist] differ as players? What are the most recognizable characteristics you each possess?
I’m more of a technical player. On the records, I play all the solos. I’m more into the harmonization of parts, so the harmonized leads on the records are usually me. I guess that’s what I bring to the band and my metal influence. Frank is kind of the counter to that. He’s very rhythmic in his playing and his lines. He plays all of the octave runs and the choruses, and the counter melodies to the main rhythm parts in the verses are his. The way he writes is very linked with what the vocals are doing. He listens very closely to what Gerard [Way, MCR vocalist] is doing and he finds a way to reinforce the melodies that Gerard is singing, but he adds some of his own things to it that either harmonize with what Gerard is doing vocally or with what I’m doing. He finds a really cool way of just fitting in the mix and hitting melodies that your ear wants to hear that fills in those gaps. He’s really good at coming up with very cool melodic lines on the verses and choruses. It’s a cool relationship that we have. Technically, he plays more of the leads, in a sense, and I play the rhythms, but I’m playing more of the leads in a solo sense. It’s just very different depending on which song it is and we do whatever works best for the song.
Did your studio rig for recording The Black Parade differ much from the gear you use live?
We used the guitars we play live as our main guitars in the studio. I’m not a big gearhead. I go more on feel and I’m used to the way that my guitar feels. I’m comfortable with it, so that’s what I used predominantly for the whole record, unless there were certain songs or parts that called for different tones that my guitar just didn’t sound right for. The main guitar I used was the Les Paul with Phat Cats.
When we went into preproduction in Los Angeles, my DSL100 that I use live broke down. So [producer] Rob Cavallo let me borrow a 100 watt Marshall JCM 800 series head which was the loudest and ballsiest amp I’ve ever heard. Since it sounded so good in preproduction, we used it on the recording. I’m not sure what model cabinet we were running it through, but it was a Marshall. That was the main setup. On occasion when we were going for different textures, like throwing in an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff or another distortion pedal, or any other kinds of effects, we usually ran it through a Hiwatt head. That was pretty much it. We tried to stick to the basics and not get too crazy. We did use a Roland midi guitar synthesizer for all sorts of cool sounds. We used that any time there was a heavier riff on the record. We usually doubled it two octaves lower than the actual note. A lot of the stuff you’re hearing is just straight guitar tones that are very layered. On certain songs, like “The End,” which is the intro to the record, when the tone gets really heavy and the single-note riff comes in, we stacked it by tracking the lowest octave on the guitar to the highest. It’s that Brian May-type mentality of making the guitars very symphonic. Once in a while there’s a chorus pedal or a phaser, but we’re not a very heavy effects-driven band. We like to plug straight into the amp and go. Rob has a huge collection of stompboxes and that’s how we were introduced to the POG. He’s got tons of vintage guitars too, and we used a few of them. For clean verses, like on “Mama” and “I Don’t Love You,” we were using one of his Teles. I think I used one of his Strats for the solo in “I Don’t Love You.” So we did use other guitars for certain parts, but the guitars we play live were the main ones used to record.
Using your own guitars also makes it a bit easier to recreate the sounds on the record when you go out to play the songs live.
Yes. And like I said, for me, the most important thing is being comfortable. Obviously, every guitar plays different and you just get used to how certain guitars feel. I think that when you’re comfortable with the guitar that you’re playing, you’ll play better.
Do you have any particular favorite tracks from the album?
My two favorite tracks are “Welcome To The Black Parade” and “Famous Last Words.” “Welcome To The Black Parade” is like our “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s probably the most epic song on the record. I love how it came together. It’s a song that we had been writing since the start of the band, but it started out in a very different form. It started out very similar to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” which sounds really weird as a comparison. It was very slow and very chordal-based. The melody that Gerard would sing and just his style of singing was, wellÖ the closest thing it sounded like to to us was “My Way.” And it used to be called “The Five Of Us Are Dying.” It didn’t make our first indie record because we just didn’t have the time to finish it. We brought it back for Revenge, and it was another situation where it just wasn’t feeling right. So it didn’t make that record. Then it was one of the first things we looked at when we started writing this record. If a song didn’t work for the first or second record, we like to go back and revisit it because sometimes you just don’t have it in you to write the song at that particular time. That song had about five or six different movements and the closest thing I could relate it to is Green Day’s “Jesus Of Suburbia,” where you have all these different parts of a song which all work together. When we moved to LA to work on the record, we decided that the song still wasn’t working, so we tried adding that fast punk beat and then it felt really good. We tracked the whole thing and then Gerard felt that the lyrics weren’t saying anything to him, and neither was the chorus. So we changed a few things. What’s really cool when you write music is sometimes all you have to do is change a chord progression and that completely changes the face of the song. So we basically just changed one note in the chorus and it let Gerard go somewhere else that he wouldn’t have gone, and that’s where the hook of the song came from. I just have very fond memories of that song because it started out in a completely different form. It’s been a part of this band for five years, and it took that long to really finish the song and define what it truly was about. Then on top of that, the song was just so much fun to record with all the horns, the piano, backing vocals, and do all the layering with the parts. It was a very complex and fun song to record. Five years ago we would never have thought that the song would have ended up becoming what it did.
“Famous Last Words” is another of my favorites because lyrically and musically, it’s not one of the most uplifting songs on the record. I just think the song is very powerful. It’s a little simpler than “Black Parade” in a sense, but it has those same movements. It starts out very small with just the vocal and single guitar, then it grows from there and gets to this apex, then breaks down again only to get brought back up. That was one of my favorite songs to write and record. It was written very late in the writing process, and at a very hard time. I think that the song is an example of showing things that the band went through because we went through some hard times and ended up coming out on top. When I listen to it now, it makes me think of that period in the recording process.
The band has grown so much in a short time and achieved a great deal of acclaim, particularly with this album.
The band has always moved very fast, even from the beginning when it was just three of us. We’ve always found ourselves in these situations where it was “put up or shut up.” I guess it’s just our attitude and where we come from as people, and what we’ve gone through growing up. We just never quit and we work our asses off. That’s what we have always done. So things have moved fast, but for us it’s like a lifetime of work. As far as the musical side of things, I think this band tends to think one or two records ahead into the future. There was a time before we started writing for The Black Parade, when we were almost writing the album that should have come out after Revenge. A lot of the songs were similar feeling and similar sounding to what we did on Revenge, and a lot of that got scrapped once we really started writing for The Black Parade. After we had written “The End” into “Dead!,” we would rehearse them and we linked those two songs together. We knew they didn’t feel like anything we had done before. We thought that those songs raised the bar for us, and a lot of the songs that we had been writing on tour and some of the songs that were written while we were in New York got scrapped after that because they didn’t measure up. The writing process was fun because we were always trying to match what we had done the week before or even surpass it. We always try to top ourselves, and not only in albums, but also from song to song.
Has touring become more exciting for the band this time around?
You spend so many months writing and recording the record, and during that time the record is just yours. It’s the band’s and just the four or five guys who worked on the recording. You sometimes play it for select people, but no one actually has a copy to take home and listen to. What’s great is that finally after six or seven months of writing and recording, the record is now out there “living” and being a part of peoples’ lives. To finally be able to play those songs live for people, it’s just the best. Our fans have been awesome and just super supportive through all of this. They’re excited to hear new stuff. But we’ve never been in this position before because when we wrote Revenge we were a very small indie band and no one was really excited for Revenge to come out. We built it up to where it got, but when that album came out there weren’t many people who were excited, and we built it from there. It was completely different from this experience where we’ve now built up a fan base and they are excited to hear the new music. So it was very nerve wracking because you want people to appreciate what you did — what you worked hard for and worked hard on. The fans have been awesome and we’re finding that they are singing the new songs louder than the older stuff at the shows. It’s that support and an over all sense from people that they really love the new record. It just feels great to go out there and play these songs for people.
What does the band have planned for 2007 and what are you looking forward to most in the coming year?
We’ll be touring more and more in 2007. Right now we’re doing smaller shows just to get our feet wet and play live. We were off for so long recording that it takes a while to get back in shape and you just want to ease into it. It’s been cool to get reacquainted with the fans and reacquainted with playing live. Next year is when we’re going to step up the show a notch and bring out more production, so the shows will be bigger and the songs will feel bigger. Right now we’re playing the songs a little more stripped down than we would like, but it’s just to get reacquainted and get back into playing live. In 2007 we’re going to play a lot of parts of the world where we’ve never been before. Playing your first show in a new country is the most exciting thing, and that excitement never goes away. There are a lot of places where we haven’t played yet, so I think that’s what I’m most looking forward to.
Tell us about what you recall to have been your most memorable gig or gigs with the band so far.
On this tour, the first show that we played was in Bournemouth, England. It’s a pretty cool place and that gig was awesome. We had such a great time and it was nice to get back and play real shows again. We had been doing a lot of tv and radio performances leading up to the release of the record, and then after that as well. But those performances just didn’t feel like real shows. It was maybe one or two songs, or even if we played a full set, the place was lit for tv so I couldn’t get into the vibe of those shows. So this gig in Bournemouth was the first show we played in a while where it was a real My Chem show, and it felt great to play the old songs again and to finally play the new material. The audience was really great and it was a lot of fun to get back out there.
As far as past memorable gigs, we played Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, which was just awesome. I used to go to shows there all the time there to see my favorite bands like Metallica. My brother took me to that show and it was just incredible. To play places like that, those are the shows that usually go down in my memory as my favorites — when you have a direct connection to that venue or that city, it makes it just that much more special.
I’m sure there were a lot of hometown people there who were cheering you on.
Yes. Our families usually end up being the loudest people in the crowd.
That can sometimes make you even more nervous compared to playing in front of people you don’t know.
It is true because you definitely want to play your best and give them a good show. That’s usually what you’re thinking about. But it’s distracting when you’re looking out in the crowd and trying to find your family and all the people you know.
What advice would you give to other players who are trying to create their own identity in a two-guitar band?
The best way to create your own style is to just be yourself. You can be influenced by what other people do and take the little bits that you like from the different players that you appreciate, but never completely cop someone’s style. Put your own flavor to it. Play what makes you feel good and that’s how you develop your own style. One of the fun things about playing with another guitarist is working on parts together. It’s kind of what music is about — working together as a team. When two guitar players can bring in what they do, make it bigger and better, learn from each other and influence each other, that’s a cool thing. Frank and I have been able to do that and we’ve kind of rubbed off on each other. It’s great to have that experience and it helps you to grow as a musician.
For the latest news on My Chemical Romance and updated tour information, visit the band’s official website at www.mychemicalromance.com.
By Lisa Sharken, Seymour Duncan’s
New York-based artist relations consultant.

Artist Spotlight – moe.
Interview with Chuck Garvey and Al Schnier of moe
by Lisa Sharken
Many of the most creative musicians are also the biggest gearheads around. Perhaps because of their experimental nature, more of these types are turning up in jam bands. Today, jam bands fuse a broad variety of styles and provide the ideal forum for musicians to be expressive and openly creative. This environment allows the freedom to explore beyond traditional boundaries. With respect to both gear and styles, the attitude is that anything goes, as long as it fits within the context of the music. One band which strongly embraces that mantra is moe.
moe.’s guitarists Chuck Garvey and Al Schnier come from different musical backgrounds, but share many similarities in their gear choices, and occasionally in their playing styles. Chuck had grown up listening to Mick Ronson, Pete Townshend, Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, David Gilmour, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Trey Anastasio, as well as jazz artists like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Cannonball Adderly–having also played saxophone for about 10 years. On the other side, Al is heavily influenced by Jerry Garcia, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, the Beatles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Alex Lifeson of Rush. Between them, there is certainly a vast array of influences to draw from, but they are also just as inspired by each other and their healthy competition as guitarists. A pair of undeniable gearheads, Chuck and Al were enthusiastic about sharing every detail of their stage setups with GroundWire. Each unraveled the assortment of gear incorporated in his rig, and explained how they carve individual tones and textures to effectively complement each other, as well as to shape the over all sound of moe.
Describe the setups you each use onstage.
Chuck: My main guitar is a Terry McInturff Sportster with humbuckers and a 5-position switch, so I can do tapped single-coil sounds and humbucker sounds. I’d played Strats for pretty much most of my guitar life, and this was the first guitar with humbuckers that I was really excited about besides the Telecaster Thinline, which I also have on the road right now. But the Terry McInturff guitar really does a lot of different things. I don’t like changing guitars and I tend to just use the McInturff all the time.
I’ve gone through a lot of pickups in the McInturff. Right now I have a ’59 in the neck and a new Custom 5 in the bridge. It’s an Alnico pickup and its tone is somewhere between a PAF and the JB. It’s cool. It has a little bit more output and it does the tapped single-coil sound pretty well.
The Tele Thinline is a ’72 with the stock humbuckers in it and a maple neck. The pickups sound a bit like single-coils to me. When I started playing the McInturff, I got into using humbuckers. I just didn’t like Les Pauls too much. It’s a scale thing. The McInturff is longer scale and it feels much different. It’s all mahogany and has a chambered body, so it’s a pretty meaty guitar and it’s got some qualities that I haven’t been able to find in anything else.
I also have a ’94 Fender Custom Shop Strat with a rosewood fingerboard that I bought in ’96. It’s pink champagne sparkle–super ugly! It had Texas Specials, but I put two Seymour Duncan Duckbuckers and a Twangbanger in it. The Twangbanger is in the bridge position. It’s not noiseless like the Duckbuckers, but it’s more like a Telecaster pickup for a Strat. It’s got a little more body to it and higher output. It’s actually a really good-sounding pickup, and it worked out great.
For pedals, I use a Teese RMC-3 wah, Fulltone Deja’Vibe 2, Analog Man Bi-Comprossor, Analog Man Beano Boost, Klon Centaur, and Foxrox Electronics Octron. After that is the delay, which is either a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo or the Moogerfooger 1045D analog delay. I also use a Lehle 1@3 A/B/C amp switcher to switch between my tuner, which is a Peterson, my Matchless Lightning and the 4×12 cabinet, which is my main guitar sound, and a THD Univalve head which drives a Framp-Tone talk box.
Al: I currently have two electrics on the road. One is a 1968 Gibson ES-345 that’s been rewired from stereo to mono. The other guitar is a ’74 Tele Custom with a factory Bigsby and maple neck, which has become my main guitar. The Fender Custom Shop is building me a thinline version of that guitar with a Bigsby and rosewood fingerboard. It will have a Duncan BG Esquire pickup in bridge, which is a Tele-size stacked version of the Pearly Gates. It sounds like a single-coil, but doesn’t have as much of the snap and has a growl to it. So it captures the Tele vibe and has the extra P-90 growl and gain, and the same sort of mid-spectrum where P-90 lives. It’s a tone I really like.
My effects chain starts with a Fulltone Clyde wah, old DOD 440 envelope filter, Fulltone Full-Drive 2, Diaz Texas Ranger, Analog Man Bi-Comprossor, then a boost pedal called The Force made by a Japanese company called JT Products. After the boost, I go through an Ernie Ball volume pedal, Z-Vex Lo-Fi Loop Junky, Boss DM-2 analog delay, then a modified Boss DD-6 digital delay, which I use for the reverse function. It was modified by Analog Man with a high cut so it sounds like an analog pedal. In reverse mode, when you turn the effect off, the delayed signal will continue until it naturally decays. From there, I go to a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo, Analog Man Bi-Chorus, Diaz Tremodillo, then an A/B switch which selects the channels on my amp.
The amp I am currently using is a Matchless HC30 with a 4×10 cabinet loaded with Weber speakers. I use channel A for rhythm and channel B for lead. Lately, I’ve been relying more on just the amp for my lead tone. Or I’ll use the amp with the compressor for sustain or to change the tone a little bit, or maybe the Texas Ranger, if I want to go for some mid boost in a particular solo section. But I’ve been very happy just playing through the amp.
Many of moe.’s albums were recorded live. Does the live show provide the best example of your music?
Chuck: Most of the live albums that we have are part of a series that we started called Warts and All, where the entire show is included–from front to back–with every dumb thing that we say in between songs, mistakes and jokes. We wanted to have a good example of what we sound like live and make it available to people who were not necessarily in the taping community, because we allow taping of our live shows. But how we represent ourselves onstage is 90 percent of our personality. But then again, we all really enjoy being in the studio because it’s a different creative setting. When you’re onstage you’re living more for the moment and creating something on the fly. When we’re in the studio, we’re trying to create something that is going to stand up for years. It’s just two different mindsets. But we’ve been trying to get to manage the two so they can coexist.
When we play live, I live for the moments when the entire band is improvising as an ensemble, and we’re all going somewhere, like a school of fish. We’re not talking about it, but the whole band moves in a complete 90-degree direction and we take it to the Nth degree! When it’s a spontaneous improvisation, I think that’s really amazing, and I think that a lot of our fans want to be there when that kind of stuff happens. That’s when all of us want to do it and why we all want to be a part of it.
Al: We definitely thrive in a live setting and that’s where our fan base comes from. That’s the mainstay of what moe. is. We enjoy taking chances and having those moments when everybody in the room gets chills because something cool just happened that nobody could have anticipated, and probably couldn’t be recreated. Those are the moments that make it all worthwhile for the band and fans alike.
How do you differ as guitarists?
Chuck: I think we do a lot of similar things, but many times, when I’m doing something very specific, Al is doing a counterpoint to it, or the other way around. Tonally, if Al has a very bottom-endy sound, I’ll choose a thin sound. We try to complement each other that way. But as far as the styles go, at this point, I think we do a lot of similar things. We each do very textural things and spastic Jimmy Page-like things. So for the most part, I think we are fairly similar.
By Lisa Sharken, Seymour Duncan’s
New York-based artist relations consultant.

Troy Van Leeuwen
by Lisa Sharken
Guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen is roused and ready to go. “Coffee is my life blood!” he exclaims as he savors the last few sips of a Starbucks while en route to rehearsal. Van Leeuwen and Queens Of The Stone Age had recently completed Lullabies To Paralyze, and were readying for a spring and summer tour when we caught up.
Our conversation began with an engaging chat about the curiosities of the Jim Rose Circus, and then moved on to discussing the exceptional accessibility of fine cuisine in New York City, before we got to talking shop about guitars and gear. Van Leeuwen eagerly shared his preferences for gear and tone, but admitted that he has been sworn to keep secret some of the mystique of how Queens get their unique tone.
Who were your initial influences as a musician?
I’ve always been into music. My dad played me Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and all of his record collection before I could remember. Right off the bat, I loved rock and roll, but it took me a while to get the guitar. I was a drummer first. I was attempting to learn how to play drums by listening to Led Zeppelin. Eventually, I figured out it was going to be next to impossible to play like John Bonham. That’s a pretty “stock” influence because everybody listened to Zeppelin. But there’s so much in those records to be learned, and that’s how you learn — by ear.
Later, I was given a guitar by an uncle and I actually had more of a knack for it. And I would have to say that Jimmy Page was the first influence I had as a guitar player. There were so many textures and different sounds that he got. The riffs that he had were undeniably great. Every one of them. Even the mistakes he made were great. So to me, that was a great first influence. Even on this new Queens Of The Stone Age record, there are mistakes that we kept for character. That’s kind of what my philosophy is. If you can make mistakes, which you inevitably will, you figure out how to land from your fall, and that makes it interesting. That’s where you find the cool stuff and the unique playing. It’s when you’re trying to do something and you stumble onto something else. Some people call them “happy mistakes” or “happy accidents.”
So Page would be my first major influence, and then there were tons of players that I listened to. I always liked David Bowie’s choice of guitarists. He always had the knack for choosing really great players from Mick Ronson to Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp. I don’t even like King Crimson that much, but I thought what they did with Bowie was amazing.
Which players were you trying to emulate?
Of course, Jimmy Page was one. I think it’s probably next to impossible to achieve the kind of tones that someone like Robert Fripp or Adrian Belew got, but it’s fun trying! The guitar player from Bauhaus, Daniel Ash, is someone who has really unique tone as well for atmospheric stuff. I’ve always liked his playing. I also like Marc Ribot, who played for Tom Waits. I like his tone and the way he plays.
What is used in your live and studio set ups?
Well, there’s a limitation to this answer because we have a “sworn-to-secrecy” policy, which comes from Josh [Homme, guitarist/singer]. He’s been working on his sound for a long time and doesn’t want us to give up the information. There’s a bit of mystique because Queens has a unique sound. So I can’t tell you what type of amps I’m using, but I will say that nearly every track on this record was done with some sort of hollowbody guitar, even bass. And every guitar that I use has a Duncan pickup in it, if it doesn’t have the stock pickup. I have an ES-135 that I really love which is maybe five years old. That’s my main one. I helped to design a guitar with Yamaha which may come out at the end of the year. It’s a hollowbody with a Bigsby and three P90s. That’s kind of a unique sound, as well, and having the option of three pickups is cool. I also play a Chandler lapsteel with a big mahogany body and little palm trees as fret markers.
As for effects, I can tell you there’s nothing too outlandish. I use a Dunlop Crybaby wah, Guyatone Spring Reverb, and Lexicon Vortex, which is the easiest tap delay to use. Analog delay sounds better, but I think that it’s better for me to tap out a tempo on that thing live. Onstage, I’m playing lapsteel guitar and keyboards, so I’ve got enough to do. I can’t lean down and change my echo setting. I rely on using a switching system. I’ve been using the Ground Control GCS for years. It’s easier for me to program stuff and hit one button, rather than tap dancing around, and I like the fact that it cuts down noise, too. I also use an MXR Dyna Comp compressor to keep the sustain, and a Maxon Overdrive — the one like the old Tube Screamer. Those are great pedals for just a little overdrive and a little boost. I’ve used the new Duncan boost pedal as well, and that’s a great straight boost. It’s like an MXR Micro Amp — a linear boost.
Which Duncan pickups do you favor?
I’ve always used the Seymour Duncan Custom and sometimes I’ll use a JB. I’ve experimented with using different ones for the neck and the bridge, but I almost always end up using the Custom.
How are your personal guitars set up?
Well, the lapsteel is a little high, for obvious reasons. I use straight open E tuning on it. There’s no strange tuning going on with any of the other guitars either. It’s all either straight E or C (standard tuning dropped down), and there’s maybe one song that’s in D. I like the action on my guitars set kind of high, especially for C because it gets a little floppy. So I like to use heavier strings to compensate. On the Es, I’m using a .011-.052. On Cs, I’ll use a .012-.056. For some guitars tuned to C, I’ll even go .013-.058, depending on the way the guitar plays and the way the tension feels. The sets all have a wound third string. I use Ernie Ball strings on all guitars. On the lapsteel, I just use a heavier gauge because you don’t need to bend, and I think a heavier gauge has “more matter,” so it goes you a better sound.
Which kind of picks do you prefer?
I have to have a thicker pick with a grip. I use the silver Hercos .075mm ones, like Jimmy Page.
Do you make any effort to use the same equipment onstage as was used in the studio?
Not at all. Whatever works in the studio is what works in the studio. I could plug straight into the board, if that’s what it called for. I like to have stuff in the studio that’s vintage and I like to keep things as pure as possible. But when it comes to the road, I like to use stuff that works consistently. I don’t like stuff that’s vintage and cool, but breaks down. So that’s why I’ll use a switching system and new pedals. I don’t care about using vintage pedals over new pedals. The difference live is so minute. First of all, you’re in a hall or a theater which changes the sound. Then it’s going through a mic, then through a PA. And live, it’s not as much under the microscope as in the studio. Unless you’re bootlegging the performance, it’s not going to make that much of a difference to the listener. Your fingers are more important.
Describe your style and tone.
I’m someone who likes to serve the song. I can play solos, but I’m more into the texture of something that serves the music, whether it’s an ambient thing, or something that’s slapping you in the face. The song dictates what I do as a guitar player. And if for some reason the song doesn’t call for a guitar part, I’ve been playing a lot of lapsteel lately, so that’s another texture to use. I’ve put the ego of a guitar player aside to serve the music. I think that’s more important.
The tone Queens have is very “unforgiving,” meaning that you can’t hide behind it or use an effect to cover a mistake. It’s a very undistorted, thick tone. So I’m definitely on my best behavior as a player because any kind of a mistake just sticks out. Of course, there are mistakes, but you have to be ready to make up for them.
How do you and Josh differ both sonically and technically?
We’re both very fluid players, but his fingers definitely have a different tone than mine. Sometimes in a live situation, we like to mess around because we have a great sense of harmonic relevance and we play off each other. I call it “dueling banjos,” just because it’s kind of goofy that we both play solos at the same time. Somehow, we’ll end up harmonically doing the same pattern, almost like we’re having a conversation. That’s fun for both of us because we’ve never really had that relationship with other guitar players. I’ve always either played around the other guy or had to be the guy. So I would describe Josh as a born lead guitar player. But I think he shares the same musical philosophy as me: Play what serves the song.
What have you been listening to recently?
Earlier, I was talking about Bauhaus and Daniel Ash, and I always go through this kind of phase, which is something that I listened to in my later teens. It’s what people consider goth music, but I consider it just some dark, theatrical, poetic stuff. Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, early Cure, early Nick Cave, and things like that, it’s so not rock, but it rocks! It’s some of the best drum-n-bass stuff. It’s heavy rhythm and just dark. That’s stuff I always come back to, and I’m in that phase right now. It’s that and Funkadelic. I’ll listen to any punk rock like Fear, Black Flag, Ramones. Those are in my CD player right now.
Are there any new young bands that you enjoy?
I do listen to some new stuff. I like Interpol, and there’s a band called Division Of Laura Lee that I’ve been listening to, and Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, which is a Swedish band that’s like Nick Cave. I really like Outkast. I think Outkast is like the Funkadelic of the millennium. The music they put out is so filled with spirit and it kind of seems like they fall into the hip-hop or R&B genre, but they’re really breaking ground, as far as the way they record and the sounds they get. It’s unique. With Queens, we pride ourselves on having a unique sound. I think they do, too, and that’s the key. I’ve also like the new Modest Mouse record. I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head.
These days, you fill up an iPod with your favorite stuff, and then put it on shuffle so it’s random. There could be Johnny Cash right next to Black Flag or Bryan Ferry or Roxy Music. It’s just random and it’s only the good stuff. But what I listen to tends to change at times. I’m going to listen to more music when we get out on the road. But while we’re rehearsing, all I’ve been doing is listening to Queens. For the last couple of months, that’s just where I’ve been. The second I get on the road, the CD collection just expands.
What tips can you offer on crafting a distinct style and tone?
You have to venture out, find a path, and make mistakes. As you’re making mistakes, try to play through them and correct them through your playing. It’s not easy, but that’s the only way to learn. Playing has to be something that you strive to do, and to never stop learning. I’ve been playing for some 20-odd years and I still feel like I’ve got stuff to learn. If you ever stop learning, you might as well stop playing. A true player is somebody who always has to be figuring stuff out. Billy Gibbons is a great example. That dude is a badass player.
Lisa Sharken is Seymour Duncan’s New York-based artist relations consultant.

Neil Zaza
by Lisa Sharken
A consummate musician, Neil Zaza possesses both impeccable technique and a prodigious sense of melody, drawing frequent comparisons to legendary players such as Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Though Zaza may be best known by other musicians — and perhaps a well-kept secret to some, his profile has grown rapidly and his popularity is expanding worldwide.
We spoke with Zaza soon after he returned home from a triumphant tour of the Far East in support of his latest release, Melodica. He provided details on the exciting trip, and explained how music is an essential bond between people everywhere. Additionally, we got the dirty details on Zaza’s musical background, his current live rig, and the new signature model NZS-1 Cort guitar which features his favorite Duncan pickups.
What inspired you to begin playing guitar? Who were your initial influences and how have they changed over time?
The very first time I heard the open chords of Van Halen I, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. That left a real mark on me. From there I discovered the players of the day that would have an eventual fingerprint on my music — guys such as Michael Schenker, Randy Rhoads, Brian May, and Neal Schon. I can still hear a lot of their influences to this day in my playing. A few still stick with me in my approach to playing and to melody. First and foremost would probably have to be Neal Schon for his whole singing and melodic approach to the guitar. There isn’t a guitarist alive that couldn’t hum at least one of his solos. I think my vibrato is fashioned more after Michael Schenker than anyone. The guys that really hit me when I listen to them now are Steve Lukather and Andy Timmons. Those guys are devastating!
How would you describe your style and tone?
If I had to sum up what I do in one word it would be “melodic.” I think every project that I do and song that I write now is steeped more in what the song is saying, where the melody is going, and seeing the tune as a whole rather than just worrying about ripping some fast solo. I would say that I have a very sustaining tone that is not too bright, but has definition an punch. My pickups have a lot to do with that!
What are you currently using in your live setup?
I am playing my Cort Neil Zaza Signature guitar through a pedal board consisting of a Boss TU-2 tuner, Keeley compressor, Vox wah, Keeley Nova wah, MXR Phase 90, and prototype Keeley pedal that will be eventually a Neil Zaza signature pedal. I also use a Boss DD-5 digital delay in the loop of my amp. For amplifiers, I am using either a Mesa/Boogie Road King or a Wizard 50 or 100 watt head into a 4×12 cabinet. All my cables are George L’s. If I am on tour overseas and can’t bring an amp, I use either a SansAmp Tri-AC or a Hughes & Kettner Tubeman into the return of a tube head.
Tell us about the development of your new signature model Cort guitar and its key features. What were you looking for in playability and tone?
I am really excited about my new Cort signature guitar NZS-1! When they approached me, I said I would only do it if it was the highest quality, and the perfect axe for me. We worked months on different prototypes, materials, and components and I really feel this raises the bar. It features an American basswood body with a 20 mm maple top, three-piece maple neck with ebony fingerboard, Tone Pros bridge with strings through the body, Sperzel locking tuners, and two Seymour Duncan humbuckers — a Custom Custom in the bridge and a ’59 in the neck. I also have a coil tap switch that will take me from humbucker to single coil in no time flat.
How are your personal guitars set up?
My action is low, but not insanely low. I want it to fight back a little bit. I use Ernie Ball .010-.046 gauge strings. If I use anything lighter than .010s, I bend them through the roof and my stretches are hard to control.
What types of picks do you prefer?
Dunlop Tortex 2.0 mm (purple).
When did you discover Seymour Duncan pickups?
I have always known and loved Seymour Duncan pickups. They have been in a few of my guitars and I always thought the tone was crisp and defined, while at the same time full-bodied, no matter which one I used. I think Seymour is the real deal in that he lives it — it is his art and he has mastered it, but continually strives to improve it. He knows and understands the heritage of the pickup, but he is writing his own chapter in its history. I really respect him and the products that Seymour Duncan puts out.
Which models are you currently using and what do you like most about the tone of the pickups?
I am using a Custom Custom in the bridge and a ’59 in the neck position. What I love about the pickups is that they are very clear and defined without being too harsh or brittle, and warm enough without being muddy. They cut through great, but still have a fullness to their tone. They even sound great when I coil tap them. I have the best of all worlds with these pickups in my guitar.
Tell us about your recent tour of the Far East.
The tour took me all over Asia, to countries like China, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, and Taiwan. It was an amazing tour because the fans were fanatical, and in fact, many of the shows were sold out or over capacity. Every night was something different in a positive way. One night in Guangjou, the crowd charged the stage! At the shows in Jakarta and Surabaya in Indonesia, it was so packed in and rowdy that I was scared there was going to be a riot! And at the sold-out show in Seoul, the fans were singing back my solos to me as I played them. It was a tour I will never forget, and I can’t wait to go back next year.
What were the highlights of the trip?
I guess aside from the above, the greatest highlight was the realization that music is truly universal, and regardless of where we all come from, we are all united in song. It didn’t matter that we didn’t speak the same language or we were all from different countries. It was always about the music. Every night these fans came out to be entertained and hear their favorite song of mine. It didn’t matter how long I had been flying or how tired I was, as every concert was a chance to perform for new and old fans. It is something I will always remember, and the concept itself is the highlight of the trip.
Do audiences differ around the world?
Asia is just wilder than say the U.S. or Europe. In China and Korea, the crowds are intense and very vocal. They listen and react to everything you do on the guitar, and are extremely loud. Indonesia is just absolutely insane and rowdy, whereas my crowds in Taiwan and Singapore have been more reserved, but appreciated it in a more reflective way. Europe is like that as well.
What advice can you offer to other players on crafting their own unique style and tone?
I think that is the greatest goal there is–to find your own voice on the guitar. While we always want to emulate our heroes and sound like them, you really have to use them as a starting point, and then forge ahead and find out what it is that makes you special on the instrument. Find your individual voice through the forms of gear, musical styles, vibrato, and all the components that make up a player. Try every axe, amp, pickup, and different types of strings. Use what works and what makes you play better, and be more confident in trying to realize the tone you are hearing in your head.
The beautiful thing about the guitar is that it really reflects the player’s touch, velocity, muting, and hand movement. There is really no instrument so personal as the guitar. It is a matter of taping into that and finding what you are made of.
How do you warm up before a gig?
I basically run through some scales and just mess around a bit. There is no set routine that I do. I might run through some tunes or I might play a few tunes. Whatever it is, I have to warm up so I don’t blow my hands out.
Can you offer some tips on practicing? How someone can maximize their efforts to get the most out of practice time?
The most important thing you can do is practice slowly and articulately. Make sure both hands are working together, and not just one hand doing pull-offs or the other hand picking wildly. They must both work together. Be sure that you understand what you’re playing and the choice of notes, so it’s not just a bunch of whacking around.
What are you currently listening to for enjoyment? What would we find on your playlist this week?
I have been glued to Jellyfish Spilt Milk for the duration of this tour. It is the one album I always listen to with my iPod
Lisa Sharken is Seymour Duncan’s New York-based artist relations consultant.

Groundwire: Jeremy Popoff of Lit
by Lisa Sharken
Lit emerged in Orange County, California back in 1990, building up a strong local following after years on the club scene. With its 1997 debut album, Tripping The Light Fantastic, Lit scored big at college radio and then landed a deal with RCA Records. The group’s subsequent major label disc, A Place In The Sun was released two years later and generated several major hits with “My Own Worst Enemy,” “Miserable,” which featured Pamela Anderson in the video, and ” Ziplock.” 2001’s Atomic also charted successfully with “Lipstick & Bruises.”
Back with a new self-titled and self-produced fourth album that’s garnering rave reviews, GroundWire spoke with guitarist Jeremy Popoff to learn how he achieved his tones on this latest disc. We also picked his brain about his influences and main inspirations for playing guitar and writing songs.
Describe your studio rig.
I ran through a Morley A/B/Y box into two Marshall heads. I had three in the studio with me–a JMP 50 watt, and another JMP, and on some of the stuff I used an early-’70s Marshall® Super Bass head that’s just ugly sounding. It’s hideously thick and bottom-heavy, but it works blended with my other amps. I use it live a lot. I played through two Carvin Legacy cabinets that have 25-watt Celestion greenback speakers in them, and they sound great with my heads.
It was pretty much my straight-up, live rig–two heads and two cabinets. I had them sitting next to each other, not separated or in different rooms, and I just let them bleed together. We threw up some mics all over the place–hanging from the ceiling and in the corners–and moved them around until it sounded real.
For effects, I used my live pedalboard which is just an old-school row of stompbox pedals. I have the Morley® Bad Horse wah, which I really like a lot, the Boss® SD-1 Super Overdrive, PH-2 Phaser, DD-5 Digital delay, MXR® Phase 100, Digitech® Whammy–the original red one, Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor, and Boss TU-2 tuner.
My main guitars are Fender® Custom Shop Teles® which only have one pickup–the Seymour Duncan? Parallel Axis Original Trembucker?;and a volume knob. I love the Trembucker. I was turned on to it when we were making the A Place In The Sun record. Once I tried it, I had Fender® change all my guitars and put Trembuckers in them. I also have a couple of Guild® Bluesbirds which Seymour made me two custom Trembuckers for. He somehow fit it into the smaller case and it sounds awesome. Other than that, I also used the acoustic guitar from my living room.
Which pickups were originally in your main guitars? What impressed you most about the Trembucker?
When we were recording A Place In The Sun, I had a couple of Teles and Strats® which all had Fender® Lace Sensor™ pickups. I liked them and they worked for me live, but in the studio, they never really delivered what I was looking for. So I would generally not use my live guitars in the studio. I would use Les Pauls® or look for something that sounded good. Then Alex Perez at Fender loaned me a Strat with a Trembucker in it to try in the studio and see what I thought of that pickup. I plugged it in, and it was just awesome! The guitar sounded somewhere between a Strat and a Les Paul. It kind of scooped somewhere in the middle and had the characteristics of both guitars. I really loved how the pickup sounded, and I also loved how it looked. It was different. It was cool. I had a new guitar built with a Trembucker, and it sounded so good that I had all my other guitars equipped with them. After that, everything improved. My live sound improved, and I was able to use my own guitars in the studio, and they always sounded great. So I first used the Trembucker on A Place In the Sun, then on that tour, and I’ve been using it ever since.
How are your guitars set up and what type of picks do you prefer?
I like the action kind of low, but I play really hard. My right hand is just drilling the strings, so I should go to a heavier gauge, but I just like the standard set of Fender Super Bullet .010s. For picks, I use the .60 mm orange Dunlop® Tortex ones.
Which players have been most inspirational in developing your style, technique and tone?
There are so many. I was a huge Iron Maiden fan when I was a kid, and that was the first concert I ever saw. In fact, seeing that concert was probably the main reason I wanted to play guitar. I was also a big Judas Priest and Ozzy fan, but as a kid, I was never really good enough to play many of those songs, so I’d get frustrated. I’d watch Glenn Tipton play, then go in my room and try to play the same thing, and I’d just want to quit. But then I started getting more into songs and songwriting, and started to write my own songs. I couldn’t figure out other people’s songs, so I’d make up my own! Then as I got better, I started to appreciate so many different styles and players. I’ve never really been a huge fan of shredders, but I’m impressed by it, and then after about two minutes I need to hear something else. I need to be moved by more than just speed and tricks. I need to hear a song. Growing up, I was also a big George Lynch fan, then I got way into Hendrix as I got older, and there are a lot of new guitar players that I think are killer, like Chris Cheney from the Living End. He’s probably one of the best guitar players out there now, in my opinion. I love watching that guy play and hearing his records.
What else are you currently listening to?
I really dig that new Jet record a lot. I also like the Used, and A.F.I.–that guitar player, Markus Sopholese, is really awesome. He’s kind of a metal shredder. Brand New is also a great new band. Then the standard CDs that live in my CD changer all year round are Elvis Costello, Elton John, Def Leppard Pyromania, AC/DC, and Boston. Tom Scholz is another one of my favorite guitar players and I always forget to mention him! He was very influential on my playing because his work in Boston was probably the first example I heard of a guitar player whose riffs and solos were as melodic as the melody in the song. They almost become hooks themselves, which is what I’ve always tried to do. I’m more impressed when a guy can hit one note and give me goosebumps than hit a hundred in the same amount of time. Tom Scholz is rad like that.
Can you offer any advice to other players striving for an identifiable sound and style?
My advice would just be to practice, practice, practice. But honestly, I’m the worst guy for advice because I’ve gone against the rules. For me, it was more about the vibe and the attitude–just slinging your guitar low and going for the throat. That’s my deal. I’m not knowledgeable about theory and I’m not a technical player. I didn’t take lessons and I just do my thing. I do what inspires me–whatever makes me want to play guitar. I think that sometimes when you take lessons or try to emulate another player, you’re just going to sound like that person.
What tips can you suggest for becoming a better songwriter?
The best advice I can give is the more songs you write–no matter how stupid or lame they are–the more you do it, the better you get. I started looking at my favorite songwriters and learning who their favorite songwriters are, then I went backwards to see what makes everybody tick. Just find your own niche and go for it.
Lisa Sharken is Seymour Duncan’s New York-based artist relations consultant.

Artist Spotlight: Frank Cavanaugh of Filter
Meet Filter’s bassist, Frank Cavanugh.
Cavanaugh recently spoke to me about his basses, gear and advice to players.
Kellie Stoelting: Tell us about the basses you play and how they’re set up.
Frank Cavanaugh: I play the Washburn M-13 bass. I met David Karon at Washburn and he convinced me that we could design a product that would have no frills and basically be a workhorse of a bass guitar. Along with Robert Stevens (Higher Power Linear Planar Design), the design team at Washburn set out to make a ‘next generation’ bass. It’s a bass that doesn’t play like an axe; it’s a bass that plays like a gun. The bass was designed around the Seymour Duncan Basslines STK-J2B Hot Stack® for Jazz Bass® . We designed a bass that would be like the Russian AK-47. It can take a beating and still function perfectly.
When I play live, I’ve got three tunings: dropped C – CGCF, dropped A – AEAD and dropped D – DGDA. The dropped A and C guitars are set up like a 5-string but with no high string. In effect, this makes the M-13 the most versatile bass guitar in the world. The M-13 can utilize any string gauge and tuning.
KS: Which amps were used to record the tracks on The Amalgamut?
FC:I used a variety of different rigs to achieve different sounds. For my dropped D sound, I used an Ampeg SVT 4-Pro along with a Producers Pack, a Sans Amp or a Mesa Boogie V-Twin pedal. For my dropped A and C tunings, I used a SVT 4-Pro in conjunction with a Crown K- power amp. This supplies me with my feces-liquifying and ball-crushing sub bass tones. For my cabinet setup, I use four Ampeg Classic 8×10’s. I also use a Randall iso-cab for recording.
KS: Do you have any words of advice for aspiring musicians out there?
FC: Never let anyone tell you what you can and can not do. We all write our own story. If you really want to be good, jam with as many people as you can, because nothing can match the unpredictability of humanity. If you can roll with the punches, you will naturally become the best.
Kellie Stoelting is Seymour Duncan’s Artist Relations Manager.

Artist Spotlight: Geno Lenardo of Filter
Meet Filter guitarist and co-songwriter Geno Lenardo. Lenardo’s interest in music and playing guitar began in high school, when he was introduced to groups like U2, the Police, the Smiths, the Cure and Joy Division. He took guitar lessons, but had also studied piano in school and then went on to attend the esteemed Berklee College in Boston as a composition major with a minor in piano performance. After starting classes at Berklee, Lenardo quickly realized that his true interests were in playing guitar and in modern music. Finding it difficult to relate to the strict traditional structure of the music regimen in the composition and piano departments, he switched his major to music production and engineering, then continued his studies at Berklee, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in audio engineering. After graduating, Lenardo moved to Chicago and landed a job as an intern at Chicago Tracks Recording, the studio where one of his favorite bands, Ministry, had cut their discs. While working in the studio, Lenardo met and befriended the members of Ministry, as well as producer/programmer/ bassist Paul Barker and engineer Critter, who helped him to advance in the ranks and begin working as an assistant engineer.
Lenardo was later hired to work with Critter on an album with New York City group Chemlab. During that time, he had the opportunity to demonstrate his skills as both a writer and guitarist, then ended up taking a gig touring with the band. While working with Chemlab, Lenardo met original Filter member Brian Liesegang, who encouraged him to audition for the group. He was hired as a touring guitarist for the band’s Short Bus tour, then later signed on as a full-fledged member, co-writing tracks on Filter’s second album, Title Of Record (released in ’99), and the group’s new disc, The Amalgamut.
Lenardo recently spoke to GroundWire about his latest six-string acquisitions and the gear he used to record the new tracks.
GroundWire: Tell us about the guitars you play and how they’re set up.
Geno Lenardo: My first guitar was a Kramer® Striker that I had for about a month before I got my first Fender, which was a black Contemporary Stratocaster® that I bought at Guitar Center in Chicago. Since then, all of my guitars have been Fenders. During the Short Bus tour, I met Alex Perez from Fender’s artist development department. He was so cool and he made us several Custom Shop guitars. What I primarily play are Stratocasters with rosewood fingerboards that are just really heavy. I ask Alex to find the heaviest piece of wood that he can. All of my guitars have Seymour Duncan pickups in them. The Parallel Axis Trembucker™ has been the primary one. I’ve used that for the last five years or so [see Custom Guitar Spotlight], but on this album, I started using the Invader™ because I was going for a more saturated sound. The Invader has a really high output and it’s a bit brighter and has more definition than the Trembucker.
When I started writing for this album, I experimented with different tunings and we ended up using three. The other two Filter records are entirely in dropped-D. On this album, I used two tunings other than a dropped-D. One is a dropped-C tuning, which is CGCFAD (dropped-D, transposed down a whole step). There was also a prototype guitar that Alex sent to me, called a Subsonic™, which is a baritone guitar that’s tuned AEADF#B. I had Alex put an Invader in one and we used that on “The Missing” and “Columind.” It has an ultra heavy tone.
The Subsonic uses a special set of strings, but the dropped-C and dropped-D guitars are set up with D’Addario .010-.052 gauge. I like the action pretty low, but for dropped tunings, you’ve get some buzzes going if it’s too low. As far as the pickup height, I kind of monkey with it and I really don’t leave it set in one place. With high-gain settings, I’ll get a howling if the pickups are too high. But if you back it off too much, you’re not getting as much saturation. It’s almost like a proximity effect for a vocalist with a microphone. So I actually adjust the action and the pickup height as I’m recording. I just tune it to what I want to hear. When you’re recording, you can really sit there and work on your tone. Live, I tend to lower the pickups a bit. I do a lot of toggle work to create a rhythmic gating effect when I’m playing, like in “Hey Man, Nice Shot.” All my guitars are wired so the middle position on the switch is off and I can toggle either direction to get that effect. For picks, I use Dunlop .73 mm Tortex, which are the yellow ones.
GW: Which amps were used to record the tracks on The Amalgamut?
GL: The Marshall® JMP-1 is the primary preamp we use for guitar sounds, plugged in direct through the cabinet emulator outputs, but I was also using the Marshall JCM 2000 TSL 100 on a lot of stuff. We also used the Groove Tubes® Speaker Emulator a lot. For a little brightness and more grit, I used a Hughes & Kettner® Tubeman Plus which is great for “topper” tones that you’d put on top of a main track. I also used the H&K Triamp and a Diesel amp on a few things. But the Marshalls have all the balls and that’s my main tone. A lot of it ended up being recorded direct because I was really liking the aggressiveness of that in-you-face sound. The combo that I have going with the Duncan Trembucker going into the Marshall stuff and then into the H&K Tubeman, it was just giving us killer tones.
GW: Which guitars will you take on tour?
GL: I’m going to have at least six because we’ve got three tunings and I’ve got to have a backup for each. Alex Perez just got me two Custom Shop guitars that are amazing. One of them is a Strat with a rosewood neck that’s hand-painted in tiger stripe camouflage and has a green mirror pickguard. It’s got an Original Parallel Axis Trembucker in the bridge position and Hot Rails in the neck position. I have another Strat that I call my GTO guitar. It’s a deep copper sparkle with black racing stripes and gold hardware. That one has an Invader and Hot Rails. I’ll have another Strat for dropped-C tuning. I have my Doc Holiday Tele®, which is black with white binding, but has a Strat neck and a Trembucker. That’s the guitar that I used on “Welcome To The Fold.” I also have a red Strat with a rosewood fingerboard and just one Invader in the bridge position. It’s a real meat-and-potatoes guitar. I’ll have the Subsonic, too.
For this tour, we’ve decided to bring out another guitar player. He’s actually an old college roommate of mine from Berklee named Alan Bailey. It’s cool because having another guitar player is going to free me up to do other things. There are a lot of counter melodies in our music and sometimes I can’t do them live because then the rhythm guitar part is gone. In some bands you don’t really miss it, but for Filter, you want that underpinning going, especially on songs like “Welcome To The Fold.” When I’m playing a melody or doing the solo, there’s just this big hole in the rhythm and the bass just wasn’t filling it. So we decided to add someone who will just play the basic rhythm parts. Alan is an extremely competent and accomplished player. He was guitar major at Berklee and can play all sorts of stuff like blues and jazz, and he can solo his ass off. I think it’s going to be great and I’m really looking forward to playing with him in the band.
Lisa Sharken is Seymour Duncan’s New York-based artist relations consultant.