Music is the universal language
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” - Luke 2:14
Norse Guitar Feeds
World Class Violinist Dave Kline Talks About His Music, Performing and Songwriting
By: Rick Landers
Dave Kline
Dave Kline, four strings, plucking and a bow; electrified. These are the ingredients that Kline brings to the stage and into the studio. Pull in some more world-class musicians and they stir a cauldron of some of the best music you’ll ever hear.
Moving to the States from his native England in the Seventies, Dave brought with him experiences he gathered at music gatherings where artists, now legendary, influenced and inspired him.
Rather than mention them here and now, it’s better to hear the story behind the names directly from him.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Mr.Kline rolls out stunning riffs on his violins, guitars and piano. And “stunning” isn’t limited to his musical fireworks, but includes some of the most emotionally stirring instrumentals in his songwriting quiver. And, at times, he occasionally reaches back to songs composed by some of his music heroes.
Besides being the bandleader of his own Dave Kline Band, Dave’s weighed in with others, including: Veronneau, Chick Corea, Dwight Yoakam and more.
“Great music man! Great tunes and such warm renditions. I love your musical universe … it’s so fresh and creative …And keep the music fires burning bright. You know why? Simply because you can! And do it so well.” Chick Corea
In the studio, along with adding session work on others albums, Dave’s rolled out several of his own releases, including: Eclectricity, Life’s Little Mysteries, and Shifting Borders. And, he’s got a stack of more compositions he’s written that his fans can anticipate hearing on future albums.
Now home-based in Northern Virginia, he lays down tracks in his own studio and has played at some of the finest music venues in the area, including the legendary Blues Alley, The Music Center at Strathmore, the Creative Cauldron, Earp’s Ordinary, Gypsy Sally’s, along with other venues and festivals.
Whether Dave’s punching our fiery licks on his violin or venturing into some of the most refined, polished romantic tunes you’ll ever hear, he’ll tug on your heartstrings or get you revved up in a most perfect way.
Guitar International is honored to present violinist extraordinaire, Dave Kline, to our readers.
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Dave Kline
Rick Landers: Occasionally, we’ll interview people who aren’t specifically known as guitarists. But, I know you also play guitar.
Dave Kline: Well, I’m actually, if I say so myself, a pretty good fingerpicking guitarist. In fact, on most of my albums, I play all the acoustic guitar on them.
Rick: Oh, really? Okay.
Dave Kline: Yeah. And every now and again, I’ll pull out a guitar and play a guitar piece. In fact, I’m playing a guitar piece next week; a piece that I just recently wrote, and I grew up in that English folk, rock folk blues tradition of guitarists. I’m sure you’re familiar.
Rick: Sure. Davy Graham and others.
Dave Kline: My first live appearance on stage as a musician was with guitar, as a matter of fact. And I played at an open mic that was run by David Bowie. David Bowie had an open mic night that he did once a week down at the Three Tons pub in Beckenham, Kent. And it was the first time I ever got up on stage, and I played a tune written by Davy Graham, a fingerpicking tune called “Angie”.
Rick: I know it.
Dave Kline: Okay. Took me freaking forever to learn how to play that, because its got this synchopated part where you’re playing a baseline, and then you’ve the lick on top of it. I must’ve put a hundred hours into that thing, but I actually learned how to play it.
Rick: David. Bowie, that’s wild. Yeah, I guess he wasn’t famous at that point.
Dave Kline: He was just on the cusp. I don’t think his first album had been released yet. It’s funny, I seem to hook up with these guys who were just about making it, and then they make it, and I’m not around, but the pub probably had 300 people in it.
Rick: Packed?
Dave Kline: To the gills, so he was seriously popular, and he got up there and he did his own tunes, as well.
Rick: What year was that?
Dave Kline: That was 1966.
Rick: Oh, so it was well before he came out with Hunky Dory and stuff like that. In the early Seventies when I first heard him, I was living in England, and when I came back home, nobody knew who he was. Yeah, ’74.
Dave Kline: Well, he was big in Beckenham, Kent.
Rick: I bet he was a character. So what came first? You’re saying you played guitar. Did you learn that first, before violin?
Dave Kline: No, violin was first. Actually, piano was first.
Rick: Oh, well, let’s talk about all three of those then.
Dave Kline: Okay. So in 1955, when I was five, my brother and I and my mom all went to the same school. She was a teacher. That was a horror story, but she was my teacher at one point.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Rick: Oh boy…
Dave Kline: Heaven help me! And my brother and I went to the same school and down the road from the school was a piano teacher. And my mom hooked us up, and we both did a piano lesson at the same time. I really wanted to do the lesson. My brother couldn’t care less, or so it seemed, and we fought like cats and dogs anyway, and he just baited me .Well, I probably baited him just as much. So, the piano teacher put up with it for about a year, and then she said, “I can’t do this anymore.”
And quit on us. So, I learned the basics of piano, and I know how to write on piano. I come up with some very creative stuff on piano, but it’s not a performance instrument for me. The instrument I really wanted to learn was violin. And when I was a kid, my mom had a classical music long playing record collection, some of them 78’s, actually.
She had several records by a Russian violinist named, David Oistrakh, who’s considered by many in the top 10 ever violinists. And when I was between the age of two and four, I did nothing but listen to those albums. I was glued to those albums. So, I wanted to learn violin, and they picked me up a half-size violin when I was seven.
And unfortunately, the lessons were incredibly disappointing to me because I wanted to learn Mendelssohn’s violin concerto. And the teacher wanted me to learn, “Twinkle Little Star” and it just did not go over well. And she was not friendly in the least.
Anyway, I hated the lessons and I refused to practice, which I regret that because I consider myself pretty good today. And if I had put the work in that I needed to, I could have ended up playing Mendelssohn’s violin concert, but partly I was too lazy and partly just a rejection of the way it was taught.
Rick: What about guitar?
Dave Kline: Guitar, okay. So, then I learned violin and I took lessons from one teacher or another. I was in the school orchestra in the second violins, and then when I was 12, my brother, my parents bought my brother a guitar, a real cheap, terrible guitar. And I’m the one who started playing it.
He played a little bit, but not much. And then my parents decided to buy me one, and they actually bought me a nice little Oscar Teller, German nylon string guitar, which I have to this day, as a matter of fact. Great little guitars. And I got that when I was 15.
I just spent a lot of time playing and learning and teaching myself how to play fingerpicking style. And I was really into Bert Jansch. And I used to go see Bert Jansch and John Renbourn in Pentangle playing at a hotel on Tottenham Court Road in London on Sunday nights. They played in this hotel. I used to go out there regularly, and there was nobody in there. There’d be half a dozen people in the audience. The band was amazing
Rick: Yeah, I’ve seen them. I saw ’em in Warwickshire. Was Danny Thompson with them?
Dave Kline: Danny Thompson was on Upright Bass. Yeah. Danny Thompson. They had the gal, Sandy Denny singing, and then John Renbourn and Bert Jansch.
I sort of emulated their style of playing as much as I could. I had actually taken one year of classical guitar lessons, which was very good for technique and that gave me the facility on the right hand, I think, to be able to play fingerstyle. Yeah, I was into those guys.
I was also into flamenco. There was a flamenco guitarist named Manitas De Plata. I don’t know if you’re familiar.You’ve got to listen to Manitas De Plata. He, in my opinion, no invalidation of Paco de Lucía, but Manitas De Plata was just amazing.
If you can actually get some long playing records of his, absolutely amazing. My parents took me to see him playing live in Royal Festival Hall in London, and he came on stage. He didn’t have a guitar strap, he just held the guitar like this, and he played nonstop for an hour playing flamenco, the most incredible thing you ever heard.
And he had no mic, and you could hear him clear as a bell. It was just amazing. So I’m a huge fan of Manitas De Plata, from the Camargue, which is an area in southern France. A lot of gypsy guitarists are from that area. In fact, his nephew was the lead singer for the Gypsy Kings. Came from the same area.
Rick: So, did you listen to folks like John Martyn and Nick Drake back in the late Sixties, early Seventies?
Dave Kline: Not a lot, A little bit. John Martyn, a little bit. Nick Drake. I didn’t really know. No, I did listen to folks like Rory Gallagher, the great Irish guitarist, saw him at the Marquee, and I listened to a lot of American rock, the West Coast rock, Airplane, all that sort of stuff. The Doors, Janis Joplin…
Rick: San Francisco. Great stuff. Yeah. Scott McKenzie…
Dave Kline: Actually ended up there in 1971, ’72 in San Francisco.
Rick: Let’s move to violin. And when you were playing violin, what were kind of the challenges? I think its probably more complex than playing guitar, from what I can tell.
Dave Kline
Dave Kline: Well, the challenge with playing violin is you’ve got to get over that initial hump, when it sounds like a cat being killed.
But once you get past that point, you’re not driving everybody nuts.
It is not that difficult an instrument to play, but it’s a difficult instrument to play really well. And what it takes is it takes a lot of dedication and practice. And like I said, I didn’t do that.
The top classical solo violinists practice 10 hours a day for 15, 20 years, and then they get to the point where they almost don’t need to do that anymore.
But, that’s the level of intensity of playing. It’s like an Olympic gymnast type thing. You have to just do it and do it, and do it and do it. And it’s just tremendous amount of work. I didn’t go that route. But, what I did do was when I went up to college, I had to quit it.
The final straw for me was the school orchestra and the most boring pieces of music on the entire planet. I love classical music, but this guy chose the worst pieces, and it just was utterly boring. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
And that’s the point where I started taking up guitar. So, I went up to college, and I decided within a few weeks that the subject I was studying at college was absolutely useless. So, I didn’t even bother to do it anymore. And instead, I spent hours a day jamming on guitar, probably somewhere between five and eight hours a day, jamming the second semester.
I said, “Why don’t I bring up the violin and see what happens with that?” There were 20 guitarists and nobody else. So, I brought the fiddle up there, and I soon basically taught myself again from scratch, but with just figuring out how to improvise. And that’s where I got my chops. I spent three years playing violin for probably five hours a day, jamming. And that was the source of my abilities on the instrument.
Rick: Did you focus then on violin and just set aside the guitar? Or were you just sort of playing with whatever song came up? You decided to play one or the other?
Dave Kline: No, I was still playing guitar, and I was writing on guitar, but I would say I was primarily playing violin. I got a real resurgence on playing it of my goal to play it. And so I concentrated on that and everybody loved it.
Rick: Were you playing mostly open mics, and were you getting gigs, paid gigs when you were in England, or?
Dave Kline: No, I just jammed around and I stayed in college because in England, the government pays for your college, and once you are in, it’s hard for them to get you out, and you basically got guaranteed for three years. And so that’s what I did. And I just jammed around at the college and played there, but I didn’t really do too much in the way of open mics, but I saw a lot of guys playing.
I was also really into a cat named Stefan Grossman, ragtime stuff, and he played at a little place called Bunjies (Coffee House & Folk Cellar), which was a little folk club coffee house in a basement off of Tottenham Court. And so I used to see him a whole bunch, and I kind of figured out some of what he was doing, and I can play ragtime style guitar, as well.
Dave Kline
Rick: Before you get on stage, do you do exercises ahead of time to warm up your wrist and your fingers? I would think that your wrist, you’re moving that around a little bit more on a violin than a guitar. Plus you’ve got the bow that you’ve got to deal with.
Dave Kline: Yeah. No, I don’t really do any warmup. I probably should. I mean, well I do a little warmup usually because we do a soundcheck. Sometimes we need to do a rehearsal before a gig. But I don’t specifically do warmup exercises.
I rarely practice scales. I definitely don’t go the normal route. Which, it’s funny because there’s holes in my musical education; I can read, but I’m not a sight reader. There’s cats that can come on stage. They’ve never heard the music. They’ve never seen the music. They come on stage and they just start playing Coltrane off a chart.
And I’m like, “screw you”. It’s like, I can’t do that. I can’t even hardly write charts and things like that are sort of, they’re a little bit of a hole. And some of my musical theory, sometimes I’ll be with some musicians, they’re really into the niceties of this chord, is, it’s a G6 + 13/11th going to….I’m like, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
Rick: That’s where I’m at too.
Dave Kline: And there was a point where a good friend of mine, sax player, his uncle is actually the musical director for the Bolshoi Ballet, and he’s really up there in theory, actually learned saxophone as a classical instrument, but also plays jazz. And I said to him, “I want you to teach me, fill it in for me. All the things that I don’t understand on music.” He says, “You don’t want to do that.” It was interesting. He says, “You don’t want to do that. I said, “Why not?” He says, “You’ll lose what you have.”
Rick: I agree.
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Dave Kline: And which brings up another interesting story, which I don’t know if I’ve told this, but Yehudi Menuhin, he’s a British violinist, top of the league, top of the heap, was very famous back in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties. And he actually did a couple of albums with Stéphane Grappelli.
Rick: Wow.
Dave Kline: Where they did duets. But Stéphane had to write out every word, every note that Yehudi played. And I heard an interview with Yehudi the way he was being asked about this, and he said the biggest regret he had as a musician was that he could not improvise. He simply couldn’t do it.
And that’s what classical music, classical musicians, there’s maybe one in 500 or a thousand that can improvise because you are taught to not play anything unless you see it written on the page. It’s a very stultifying method of teaching. And luckily, because I was so undisciplined as a kid, I didn’t have that problem. And so I never ran into that barrier. And my friend was saying, you’ll lose your spontaneity as a musician.
Rick: And I think some musicians that are terrific musicians don’t know how to read music. And John Martyn, who was one of my favorite guitar players, and I think he was absolutely brilliant, was asked in an interview if he read music and if knew the circle of fifths and all that. He said, I don’t want to know that stuff. But, he was absolutely brilliant. I think working outside the lines is what some do, because they don’t know any better. You don’t…
Dave Kline: Know any better. That’s right. It works.
Rick: But it works.
Dave Kline: But it works, exactly.Yeah. I mean, Béla Fleck doesn’t know how to read music.
Rick: And friends are saying, I wasn’t expecting you to go there, but it works. And so I think there’s a certain creativity that you feel, when you’re not bound by that structure or that paradigm.
Dave Kline
Dave Kline: And I heard, and I’m not sure if this is true or not, that Segovia didn’t know how to read music.
Rick: I think that’s true. I think I read that recently. I was reading last night about violins, and how those made by Stradivarius are the Holy Grail. Have you ever played anything like a Stradivarius?
Dave Kline: I have not. And, in fact, there was a point where I almost was able to borrow a Stradivarius for an album, but it didn’t work out, unfortunately. And we have a friend that has access to one, but somehow we just never hooked up.
And that’s a good reminder. I need to do that. ‘Cause I really want to get to play that. And I know they also have some, I believe, at the Library of Congress. Yeah. One of these days I’m going to try to get myself in to play one of those.
Rick: Get in there and grab one.
Dave Kline: Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, about 12, 13 years old, my violin teacher sold it to another student, a Stradivarius violin for the grand sum of 1000 pounds Sterling.
Rick: A lot of money back then.
Dave Kline: But oh my God, now you can’t get one for less than three million,
Rick: I would think it’s like the old ’58, ’59 Les Pauls that were 200 bucks back in the Seventies, they were just old used guitars, and now they’re like half a million bucks. They’ve gone up and down a little bit. They’re right around half a million bucks, plus. So what are you playing now?
Dave Kline: I’ve got a couple of violins. The main instrument that I have was actually made by a local maker, McCluskey. And I like it. I think it’s a decent violin. It’s not high level, but I didn’t pay a high level price for it. But the prices on violins are insane. I also have another violin, which is an 1890 Bailly violin, which is a well-known French maker. And that’s a higher level violin. Nowhere up there near a Strad, but it’s a nice violin.
Rick: And so how many do you have?
Dave Kline: Well, okay, I’ve got those two violins. I’ve got two electrics. I’ve got another couple of acoustic violins, cheap ones, old ones, or one that I had since the Seventies, late Seventies. But, I grew accustomed to it. I can make it sound good, but I wouldn’t say it’s any great shakes as a violin.
Rick: What do you look for when you’re buying a violin? Or has it been a while since you bought any?
Dave Kline: Yeah, just the sound really. I really don’t know enough to really make a very educated decision on ’em. But the one I got to buy, I wasn’t really interested in the fact that it was a well-known maker. I just wanted the sound, but the value of that violin has increased considerably since I bought it, which is just a perk.
Rick: You’ve played with a lot of groups, and I know you played with Chick Corea and Dwight Yoakam, but what about the Dave Kline Band? Tell me about the group, how it got pulled together, and a little bit about the members and what they bring, not just the instrumentation they bring, but what they bring as far as personality traits that really help you congeal, as a group.
Dave Kline: Alright, so the first instrument that I wrote music on was actually guitar. And I did quite a bit of guitar writing of one kind or another, and actually recorded an album on cassette, believe it or not, in about 1989. And that was all guitar music.
And then I had a collaboration that I created an album with a guy in about 1995, mostly his stuff, but some of it I wrote. And that was my first writing of music in my current style. And then in around 2000, I started writing prolifically and decided to do an album.
In fact, I did the album at BIAS Recording Studios (Springfield, Virginia). Bob Dawson was the engineer. And since then, I’ve had various iterations of musicians that I play with, but I’m really, really happy with the current band. Are you going to have a chance to come and see any of the shows at Blues Alley this month?
Rick: I’m going to try. I did see you when you got your most recent bass player. That was his first night I think he played with you. He was brilliant.
Dave Kline: Brilliant. C.J. Turman. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If you get a chance, and I’m happy to put you on the guest list, Rick, for this coming Tuesday, if you can make it. We’ll have Buddy Spier. Do you know Buddy?
Rick: I know the name, but I don’t know him offhand.
Dave Kline: Buddy Spier owns a studio called, I think three-nineteen something. It’s right in the same complex that Q Recording is in Falls Church (Virginia). He’s a producer and he splits his time between here and Nashville, and he does a lot of recording sessions.
He is a phenomenal guitarist, and he and I are just a really, really in sync. So we play off one another, and it’s a real juggernaut that gets created. I’d been wanting to play with Buddy for ages, and I finally roped him into a gig with me, which he loved, down at that barbecue joint in Northeast, D.C..
Anyway, I played there with him, and one lady in the audience just came rushing up towards the stage and she was like, just freaking out, like having a religious experience. It really was that kind of, just out there. So the band, this coming Tuesday is going to be Buddy,T.J. on bass, Olaolu Ajibade on drums, who you saw playing also. And then there’s a keyboard player named Dan Paul, who used to be in this area. And I played with him a few times.
He moved up to New Jersey, but he’s coming down for a couple of these gigs with me. He’s great. I love him. He’s excellent, excellent keyboard player. So, we’re going to do a lot of originals, some stuff that we’ve rarely played because it’s on the more difficult end of things, and some brand new material. So, really thrilled with what’s going to happen there.
Last week I played with D.D. Jackson, who’s a New York Emmy winning composer and keyboard player. And David Murray, who was founder, co-founder of the World Saxophone Quartet. And so we played a gig, some of D.D.’s material and a bunch of mine, and we had a two minute standing ovation. It was just amazing. Incredible. Completely blew the place apart. Yeah, that’s true.
Many people saying, “That was my all time favorite gig ever.” That best show ever that they’ve been to. Yeah. Cool. So really, really happy. And a lot of what made that gig is the rhythm section of Olaolu and T.J., and Buddy was basically playing a rhythm guitar on that gig. So, that rhythm section was just amazing. And it allowed me and D.D. and David Murray just to wail. So now we’re going to do all of my material and seldom heard or never heard material of mine this coming Tuesday.
Ken Avis, Lynn Veronneau and Dave Kline
Rick: Blues Alley. Right?
Dave Kline: Blues Alley. And I also have Lynn Veronneau and Ken Avis. My band generally includes Ken, who is also excellent on guitar and vocals, Lynn on vocals, Olaolu, and T.J. or another bass player, essentially and myself. But for these gigs, Ken and Lynn are going to be special guests for it on top of those guys. So it’s going to be amazing. And then the 21st, I’m doing a violin summit with Zach Brock from Snarky Puppy.
He’s the violinist with, I don’t know how familiar you are with Snarky Puppy.
Rick: I’ve heard the name. That’s about it. I’ll look ’em up.
Dave Kline: Yeah, check him out. They’re really a great funk, jazz band, and they sell out the Anthem. It’s a 5,000 seat venue, very, very, very popular. So excited to do the violin summit with Zach. And then later, we are going to team up with Senator Tim Kaine on harmonica and vocals.
Rick: Yeah, I’ve seen him.
Dave Kline: And we’re going to do a Western swing, Eastern jazz night. So we’re going to do a whole bunch of Western swing tunes, which Ken’s going to sing a bunch of ’em. Tim’s going to sing some. Lynn will sing some stuff. And we’ve got Susan Alcorn. I don’t know if you know her. She’s an out there pedal steel player, but she used to play with Asleep At The Wheel.
So she’s done a lot of Western swing, so that should be a really fun gig too. So I’m just really thrilled with where it’s going. Pretty much sold it out last week. I think the last show is going to be sold out for sure. It’s going to be less filled for the other two shows. And Harry Schnipper at Blues Alley is really pushing me a lot of power. He loves what I do, and he’s really trying to help me move forward and hook up with different collaborators and get a name.
It’s a tough business. It is. You’ve got to keep banging your head against that wall, man, and don’t stop. You can’t say it hurts. You just have to keep banging the head and you bust through the wall. So, that’s the name of the game.
Rick: Yeah, there’s some serendipity to it. And even though it’s collaborative, it’s also kind of a competitive arena too.
Dave Kline: Look. The Beatles played for three years in dives in Hamburg, Germany, playing cover tunes, nothing, and the Bee Gees were together for 15 years before they made any kind of impact.
Rick: Yeah, they were little kids.
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Dave Kline: I saw a documentary on Stevie Ray (Vaughan). He was playing dives in Austin, Texas, an audience of 60 people, just spinning wheels. And finally, somebody walked in there who had a connection to the Monterey Jazz Festival.
And talked the Monterey Jazz Festival on giving him a shot, and they put him on a minor stage somewhere.
Rick: I thought he played with David Bowie at Montreux Jazz Festival…
Dave Kline: Maybe he was playing there and he got him to sit in with him. I don’t know. But, that was what broke things open for him. You’ve got to be playing the right music at the right time and have the right guy see you, and you got that combination. Then it happens. I’ve had some of these sorts of connections happen from time to time, but they’re never the one to where they completely broke through. So it’s a little bit like when I used to do door to door sales, believe it or not.
Very uncharacteristic for me. But there was a famous saying, which is “Every time you got the door shoved in your face, you were one step closer to a sale.” And if you had that attitude, you would make sales because you didn’t take it as a failure. You have to just keep your eye on the mountain and just keep going.
Rick: Yeah. Do the next gig. Just do the next gig. Just keep doing them.
Dave Kline: And my motto is, “Every gig has to be better than the last”.
Rick: That’s a good one. Well, I saw you a couple of times at venues and actually in the studio, where you were terrific. I really want to thank you again.
When you kept going, I said, oh, we just kept going and Ron (Goad)) said, “Some people say, stop.” I said, “No, no, we were having fun and you were just cranking it out.” So then when I heard the recording, I thought I need a four and a half minute song, so we’ll make two. We’ll do an extended version. So that was pretty terrific. So anyway, I forgot the point that I was trying to make. But yeah, you just keep playing it. Eventually something breaks through, although there are some really fine musicians, and they just never quite get those three elements together and others just pop out of it all. Good for them.
Dave Kline: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a combination of things, you have to work on yourself. I’m not a good schmoozer particularly, but the more you can schmooze, the better you’re going to do. I’ve learned how to put on a show and talk to the audience and I’m very relaxed and comfortable doing that now. But you need to be able to do that off stage too, and schmooze with people that you need to schmooze with.
But I was always a tremendous introvert, tremendously introspective. And there’s an element to that that helps you as an artist, but at the same time, you have to be willing to push through that as an individual in order to make connections, in order to recognize it is a business. You do have to sell.
You have to sell to a market. And musicians, and I’ve had this, an attitude on that. It’s like, I don’t do hype. Well, no, don’t do hype, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t sell a market and make yourself known and promote what you are and what you do. And if you don’t do that, it is like you build a better mousetrap. Nobody’s going to come unless you go, I got a mousetrap, here it is.
Rick: I guess there’s a fine line between bragging and marketing, but part of it is one of the same.
Dave Kline: Yeah, and to be frank with you about areas that I’m lacking in. But at the same time, those somehow are sort of a strength, as well. And I know what my strengths are, and it’s like when I write music, I don’t sit down trying to write something that’s different. I just write. But I bring together all the different influences that I have and my own imagination, my own creativity, and I just write, and it comes out with my own unique voice.
Rick: You can say it’s your own signature,
Dave Kline: And that’s one of the things that you have to have as an artist, f you’re going to get somewhere. You certainly have to have your own voice and not try to sound like anyone else. Now, there’s nothing wrong with learning other people’s stuff. Now, I always resisted that. I never wanted to play anybody else’s stuff, really.
But there’s nothing wrong with that. But what is wrong is if you do that because you want to try to sound like them, as opposed to you’re going to assimilate by osmosis, what is it they’re doing? And then you add that to your own brew.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s your own voice that counts. It’s your own creativity. That’s important, because that’s what inspires people. I mean, it’s all about, to me, inspiring other people by giving them something that’s aesthetic, creative and innovating, exhilarating and inspiring them to themselves, increase their own imagination and creativity. That’s what I want to do with people.
Rick: Just to sing along.
Dave Kline: Yes, sing along. I mean, I always say the audience is the most important part of the show because not only are they there, and if they’re not there, if a tree falls in the forest, no one’s there. Right? Yeah. But it’s also if an audience is sitting there and they’re listening too and they’re getting your music, they are creating your music with you.
Rick: That’s true.
Dave Kline: They are themselves creating at that point in time. And I always like to remind the audience of that, because they don’t necessarily think of themselves as musicians, but actually they are. If they’re in an audience and they’re being at a show with musicians, they are being musicians in their own way. They’re being creators in their own way.
And to me, that’s what it’s about. Because there’s so much about this world which creates things for you or forces you into being created by something else. Life’s running you. And if you can inspire people to start running more of their own life by just enhancing their creativity or their own imagination, then you make a better world. And that’s where it’s at for me.
Rick: Good. You’ve played a lot of different venues, but you also play on the street and you busk, and I’ve seen at least one video of you busking, and you’re having a great time. And so tell me about some of your favorite venues, and then what do you get when you’re out there and you’ve got passersby coming, listening, some of them ignoring you, others stopping and being wowed by you?
Dave Kline: Yeah. Well, I’ve done several of those types of gigs recently. They have, actually, none of ’em have been strictly busking, not putting the mug out there for the money type thing. They’ve all been paid in one way or another, but they’ve been that type of a gig.
We just did a gig in Georgetown. They had some three stores open on the street, so the local people put on a little show, and they hired Veronneau. And I was playing with them to perform that thing you probably saw with me and Ken Avis, which looked like busking on the street, but was actually a paid gig, but we were doing it right on the street.
And yeah, it’s great because people will just walk by and they get it, and you are giving ’em something they don’t normally get, and it actually changes their life. It makes ’em think about things. It makes ’em look at things. It makes ’em stop for a second and not just continue on with the mundane, but go beyond that. And I love that. So I love doing those types of venues.
I love playing places like Blues Alley. I prefer to play in intimate clubs with about 150 people in them because you’ve got a great good size audience, but it’s intimate enough where you feel that you are really communicating with the audience.
I told the sound guy to not turn the lights all the way down at the gig the other night, because I like to see the audience and engage with them. You might feel safer with all the lights down, you can’t see anyone. But that’s not the purpose; to feel safe for the artist. It’s to engage. And so I really like the intimate type venues.
Rick: So, more that they’re listening rooms, rather than a loud bar.
Dave Kline: If I know that it’s going to be a bar situation or a background music situation, most of the time I will refuse to do it. I will not take the gig, because to me, what’s the point? You might as well put your jukebox on.
Rick: I was going to say, you might as well be a jukebox, especially straight cover songs. You’re better off with a jukebox. It’s actually probably cheaper for the venue. Like you say, even if it’s a cover, you can change covers enough so people can figure out it’s a cover, but it’s got a different angle or various angles come into it.
Dave Kline: Yeah, that’s right.
Rick: Do you have any albums coming out, or do you have one recently that you can you talk about how that came together?
Dave Kline: Well, the last album, Shifting Borders, was 2017, which by the way, went to the top of the Roots music charts. Both the fusion and the jazz charts, and stayed there for 16 weeks. So, I was really happy about that.
But I keep threatening to bring out another album. I’ve recorded several things at Blues Alley gigs, but there’s always, and I’ve worked at them, to mix ’em, but it is very difficult to mix live music because you get so much bleed on the tracks. I’m hoping that this last gig was recorded, which if that comes out good, that will be a fantastic album with D.D. Jackson and David Murray on it.
I think that’s something that will be really worth releasing. But yeah, I’m planning on doing some recording with the current band with Buddy Spiers and T.J. and Olaolu, and probably doing it over at Buddy’s studio. And then we can, Dan Paul has a fantastic full size grand piano up in where he is, so he can do tracks remotely and we can mix ’em in.
I want do some recording there and do some tracks also with Ken and Lynn. So yeah, I’ve got a bunch of material that has not been recorded that I want to record. So, definitely looking to do that and to produce it a little bit differently to really make it just have a certain impact by production.
I usually produce my own albums, and it’s a little hard to do that actually. I want to get input from the guys, particularly Buddy on the next album. I think we can take it somewhere really great.
Rick: So when you’re on stage, what are some of the key elements that for you, makes a gig exciting? And I don’t mean exciting like rah rah, but maybe internally. It’s so satisfying. Those elements come together and it’s almost like a perfect gig.
Dave Kline: It’s funny. As I said, I tend to be quite introverted in many ways, but when I’m on stage, a really great gig starts with me being completely extroverted. And most of the time I am, and I start out with the attitude of just, I’m just going to, I almost have the attitude of a prize fighter, and I’m going to knock the audience out, and by the impact of the music.
What I found is if you can do that with the first tune, that from there on out, the audience is with you. They’re no longer spectators, but they’re involved. And it’s that interaction between the audience and the band. And if the band is doing the same within the band, if you have that connection within the band where the players are at a level musically and energy wise, where they’re playing off of one another, then that creates a juggernaut. So you get this juggernaut going inside the band, and then you get a juggernaut going between the band and the audience. And if you get that happening and the music’s good, you have a complete blowout gig.
Rick: I’m sure you’ve had a lot of wonderful experiences while you’ve been on stage performing. Is there a gig that you’ve played recently that always brings a smile to you? Or maybe one, maybe years ago, but you did talk about working with Spiers in that last gig, and it sounds like that was one of ’em. Are there?
Dave Kline: That was like, “Oh my God, this is where it’s at.!” Because he and I, we were actually playing a blues tune, and it was just, the synergy was just amazing. And when you get that happening, it’s like Gestalt theory. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And that’s what happens.
That’s what happened there. It was like boom, the music took on a life of its own. And I guess that in a way, not meaning to sound arrogant at all here, but what you’re doing, what are you doing when you create music, really, you’re creating life, aren’t you? And that’s what’s satisfying,
I think, because you are creating life in a way; that’s right here, right now. It’s never been created quite like that before and will never be created quite like that again. And if you get that synergy and that explosion happening inside the band and with the audience, everybody in that room is creating life at the same time.
Dave Kline
Rick: So are those the moments when you get that synergy in the audience, how would you value that compared to when you’re sitting there and you come up with some lyrics and you go, “Whoa, where’d that come from? It’s perfect.”
Dave Kline: Well, that’s a good point. They’re two completely different experiences. One is the composition, the joy of composition, and the other is the joy of performance. And they are two different things. Because what happens with me is generally the stuff that I write almost writes itself.
And I don’t spend a lot of time, I’m notorious behind a console, I will tweak forever, but when I’m writing, I write the piece, it’s done. And I might rearrange it if I come up with a better idea on arrangement, later for live performance, but the actual piece is done, and I’ll write a piece in half hour. And that’s the way it is. It’ll be like that from then on.
The satisfaction on that is partly the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve just created something that’s outside of the material universe. I think that’s what you’re doing. So, I get the personal satisfaction of knowing that I am being, that I am doing that, and I am creating that. And with that also, there’s a sense of, I hear how it could be. Sometimes I’ll play an idea of a tune or a tune I’ve written for somebody else, and they don’t get it because they’re not envisioning what it’s going to be, like with the band. And I do, and I can see how that’s going to transfer over to that live performance concept.
Rick: Are you writing songs with lyrics, or are you doing mostly instrumental?
Dave Kline: I do write songs with lyrics. I’m a bit closed mouth on that.
Rick: I’ve got to hear some of them. Well, that’s what I’ve got, is there anything we’ve missed?
Dave Kline: That was a really thorough, I didn’t know I had all that in me. Thank you.
“I can hear Ritchie Blackmore fans crying out!”: Deep Purple’s Simon McBride on switching from tube amps for amp modellers
One by one, it seems the amp purists are falling. Some of rock’s most notable old guard – who tend to prefer tube amps over their modern-day digital counterparts – have been experimenting with amp modellers as of late, and have been mightily impressed with the results.
Take Joe Bonamassa, as a prime example. The blues maestro is an avid collector and lover of vintage gear, so much so that he has two museum-style locations in Nashville and LA – Nerdville East and West, respectively – dedicated to the stuff. But even JoBo recently revealed he’d made the switch to digital, at least partially, after sharing that he’d been using Fender Tone Master amps on tour.
“When I first plugged into it, I realised this s***’s good. I really wanted to dislike it! But I couldn’t,” the guitarist said last month. He also revealed that he was prepared to “take a lot of s**t” for his adoption of digital modelling gear.
Deep Purple guitarist Simon McBride has also made the switch to digital, and like Bonamassa, acknowledges fans who might criticise him for doing so.
“I have a lot of amps, but for most of the Purple stuff I use my live rig, which is the [Neural DSP] Quad Cortex,” he tells Guitarist in a new interview.
“I can hear a lot of Ritchie Blackmore fans crying out, going, ‘No! He’s using digital stuff!’ But it’s brilliant.”
As for why he chose to incorporate a Quad Cortex into his rig in 2025, the decision ultimately came down to a desire to streamline his setup.
“I had to change my sound a bit because you’re dealing with Don Airey, who plays keys, the Hammond and Leslie, and a Marshall head and cabinet,” McBride explains. “He’s in a very similar frequency range to [my] guitar, so I had to figure something out to make the guitar sound more powerful.”
Guitar World notes that McBride asked Engl – who made Steve Morse’s signature amp and gave him his own Artist Edition head – to tweak it and give him more power to occupy his own areas of the frequency spectrum.
“I asked them to tweak it and put a lot more power in the lower mids and low-end. I knew the Leslie and Hammond didn’t have that, so that could be my little space and would cut through but also make me sound powerful when we play a riff together.”
GW notes that while the guitarist doesn’t explicitly say so, he insinuates that his Engl amp has been captured and incorporated into his Quad Cortex.
Many high-profile guitarists have now adopted amp modellers, including James Hetfield, Nita Strauss and Mike McCready.
The post “I can hear Ritchie Blackmore fans crying out!”: Deep Purple’s Simon McBride on switching from tube amps for amp modellers appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats accuse Damon Albarn of being a “pop diva” after he allegedly forced their set to end early
Psychedelic metal band Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats allegedly had their set cut short at Roskilde Festival after Damon Albarn “threw a hissy fit” and accused them of being “too loud”.
This is according to Uncle Acid themselves, who shared a statement on social media after the alleged incident took place, in which they apologised to fans and thanked the festival crew for “trying to intervene”.
Gorillaz were headlining the Danish festival’s Orange stage on Thursday 2 July while Uncle Acid’s played on the Legune stage. Danish media outlet Politiken reports (via NME) that Albarn spoke to the crowd during his set, saying, “Is it supposed to be possible for me to hear the other music so clearly? We can just stop playing and listen to the other thing instead, that’s fine with me.”
Uncle Acid’s statement reads: “Apologies to everyone who came to Roskilde festival hoping to see us play a full set last night. Pop diva Damon Albarn of the novelty cartoon act Gorillaz threw a hissy fit while we played, threatened to storm off stage before finally getting our set shut down because we were ‘too loud’.
“They were the only headliner of the whole weekend who couldn’t cope with playing at the same time as other artists. Unfortunately we only managed 25 minutes of assaulting his precious ears from our stage half a mile away before his goons came over and pulled the plug.”
They conclude, “Despite us being below the festival dB limit and offering to turn down FOH to continue the show, they wanted us off. Thanks to the Roskilde crew and stage manager who tried their best to intervene but it was ultimately out of their hands. Orders from above. p.s to our Danish fans….we love you and we’ll see you next year in Copenhagen.”
While Gorillaz fans in the comments are disputing the claims, Roskilde Festival has provided a statement on the matter to NME. It calls the incident an “extremely unfortunate situation for everyone involved”.
“We are sincerely sorry for the disappointment caused to both our participants and the artists, all of whom had been looking forward to a fantastic experience. The decision was made as a result of a combination of wind conditions and technical factors that adversely affected the sound production. When staging a large outdoor live event, shifts in weather and wind conditions can occasionally create operational challenges.”
It adds, “As the weather forecast indicated that windy conditions would continue Friday, we decided to make a series of adjustments and rotations to the programme. These measures were taken in order to reduce the risk of similar situations and ensure the best possible experience for both our participants and the artists.”
Guitar.com has reached out to representatives of Gorillaz for comment.
The post Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats accuse Damon Albarn of being a “pop diva” after he allegedly forced their set to end early appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Dreams come true”: Gojira guitarist reacts as Kirk Hammett uses his Jackson signature model onstage with Metallica
It already houses Greeny – the legendary ‘59 Les Paul Standard once owned by Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green – and a host of other now-iconic instruments like his ‘79 Flying V and ESP “Ouija” guitar – but it seems Kirk Hammett’s Metallica guitar arsenal just got a little bit bigger, as he’s added Gojira guitarist Christian Andreu’s newest Pro Plus Series signature model.
Andreu’s new signature arrived back in March, and boasts the unique accolade of the first-ever Jackson Rhoads model to feature an EverTune bridge, the patented design favoured by metal guitarists for rock-solid tuning stability.
It turns out Andreu’s love affair with the Rhoads shape started at just 15, when he saw Kirk Hammett wield the two-pronged design onstage with Metallica. Now, that moment’s come full-circle, after Hammett played Andreu’s own signature model onstage during one of Metallica’s London shows at the weekend.
Metallica hit London Stadium in the British capital this weekend for two back-to-back no-repeat sets to conclude their massive M72 World Tour. Gojira and Knocked Loose were in support.
Sunday’s show saw the likes of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ride the Lightning, Blackened and Enter Sandman, while Friday’s set included Creeping Death, Fade to Black, Master of Puppets and Seek & Destroy, the latter of which Hammett wielded Andreu’s signature model for. Watched fan-filmed footage below:
A starstruck Christian Andreu takes to Instagram in a wholesome new post: “London, you fought fire with fire! Thank you Kirk for using my custom Jackson Rhoads guitar on Seek! Dreams come true.”
Gojira’s own set on the night packed in 11 tracks, including Stranded, Silvera, Amazonia and Mea culpa (Ah! Ça ira!), the song with which the French metallers won a Grammy after performing it during the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
Metallica’s M72 World Tour has now wrapped, but the metal titans will head to Las Vegas for a residency at the Sphere later this year. For a full list of dates, head to the band’s official website.
The post “Dreams come true”: Gojira guitarist reacts as Kirk Hammett uses his Jackson signature model onstage with Metallica appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Wet Leg frontwoman disagrees with guitar’s “loser gatekeepers” who think songs need “20-plus chords” to be good
Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale is a big believer that some of the best songs have just two chords, and that music doesn’t need to be overly complicated to be respected.
Looking back on her own journey into music, she’s faced a “demystifying” process after coming up against musicians who feel guitar music in particular should have vast numbers of chords and complex solo arrangements.
Speaking of her own early listening habits, Teasdale’s own interests in guitar music piqued with music that felt fun and even at times a little bit trashy. In an interview with The Cut, she recalls learning songs by Kings Of Leon and revelling in the indie rock era of the 2010s.
“The first song I ever tried to play on guitar was Molly’s Chambers by Kings of Leon — back when the band was super-trashy and fun. It was a real epiphany to learn that you don’t have to be a virtuoso guitarist to enjoy playing music with your friends,” she says.
“It’s been a bit of a journey demystifying music-making for myself. I’m not from a musical household, and I even got kicked out of my GCSE music course because I was too far behind the rest of the class, which is kinda hilarious.
“There are so many loser gatekeepers who want you to believe that you need 20-plus chords in a song for it to be worthy. In reality there are so many bangin’ songs that literally are just two chords.”
She goes on to add, “I was also a big fan of PJ Harvey before I realised that I could make music myself, and Björk. Everyone in the band is a fan of Big Thief. When I started going to gigs and festivals, it was very much that indie rock era: Alt-J, Mystery Jets, the Wave Pictures. I love the Strokes.”
Find out where you can catch the band on tour via the official Wet Leg website.
The post Wet Leg frontwoman disagrees with guitar’s “loser gatekeepers” who think songs need “20-plus chords” to be good appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Taylor Momsen on “powerful and rare” Chris Cornell: “His work speaks to me on a level that nothing else does”
Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless has been reflecting on the genius of Chris Cornell and her love of Soundgarden.
The Pretty Reckless toured with Soundgarden on the last tour with Cornell in 2017, which was cut short due to his sudden passing. Her reflections about his work land after the release of new album Dear God from The Pretty Reckless, in which she explores grief and depression.
Speaking to NME, she says, “I can only speak for me, I can’t speak for the world, but for me all of Chris Cornell’s work speaks to me on a level that nothing else does. When something touches you that way, it’s hard to put into words just exactly why.
“There is just this connection, and it’s like it is speaking to you on a level that is so deep that it feels like a part of you. I’ve listened to his solo work and to Soundgarden so many times, but every time I listen to them, it evokes something different in me.”
She adds, “There is the sheer amount of depth and sensitivity and aggression… [but] also, it’s so smart. It’s musically exquisite and complex — like this never-ending onion where you discover something new about it and about yourself every time you listen to it. I think that is so powerful and so fucking rare. It’s coming from a place that’s so deep and so powerful that it touches your soul.”
Momsen is also asked about the recent news that Soundgarden are hoping to release the final album they worked on with Cornell before his death. According to guitarist Kim Thayil, it had always been a goal for the band to complete the record, and releasing it would feel like a gift to the fans, and to Cornell too.
Momsen says, “Oh, man, I don’t think that’s my place to talk about. But what I will say though is that I love those guys. I’m so excited and proud of them and everything that they are doing, and just stay tuned.”
The news of the project arrived alongside the announcement that Soundgarden were due to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
Speaking to Rolling Stone at the time, Thayil said: “Our objective and goal was always to complete that. I probably have OCD enough to not want to leave something unfinished or incomplete like that, so I think the more we can attend to our body of work and our catalogue…
“I think everyone in the band feels that way. I don’t just want to attend to my work, but the collective work, and in this case specifically, the work of Chris.”
The Pretty Reckless’ new album, Dear God, is out now. Find out where to catch them on tour via their official website.
The post Taylor Momsen on “powerful and rare” Chris Cornell: “His work speaks to me on a level that nothing else does” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“It’s the reason why I got into music in the first place” Towa Bird on reclaiming her status as a new generation guitar hero
Gamers of a certain age might remember FIFA 06 for its legendary intro movie, or the faces of a young Wayne Rooney and Brazil legend Ronaldinho gracing the cover. But for a young Towa Bird, the thing that had the most impact was the twanging electric guitar riff of LCD Soundsystem’s Daft Punk Is Playing At My House that blasted from the title screen.
Towa Bird on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Kristen Jan Wong for Guitar.com
Towa Bird is far from the only one initiated into the world of guitar thanks to a video game soundtrack, but with her its influence was a profound one. Today, the Hong Kong-born, British-Filipino artist is an internet-moulded guitar star, adored by both the music and fashion industries. She opened for Billie Eilish on her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour and appeared as a guitarist on Olivia Rodrigo’s Driving Home 2 U documentary. She’s a regular face for Italian high fashion brand Miu Miu, and has toured with her girlfriend Reneé Rapp.
It all feels a long way from when she would sit on livestreams sharing personal coming-out tales, cool viral guitar covers and original songs online to a few hundred followers. So, as Bird fizzles onto our Zoom screen for her Guitar.com cover interview, there’s plenty to celebrate.
Most pressingly, there’s her brand-new second studio album, Gentleman, which has been lauded for its riffy, hot queer tracks in the guise of 60s-meets-70s rock, dipping into riot grrrl territory as well as alt-pop and synth palettes.
Image: Kristen Jan Wong for Guitar.com
“It’s hard to sort of summarise two years,” Bird ponders casually, flicking through album anecdotes – flying between Los Angeles and New York, working with producer Patrick Wimberly (the former member of Chairlift who has credits with MGMT and Blood Orange), finishing writing last November and getting ready to let go of a year-long project.
“It’s really difficult not to attach your entire self-worth and the reception right before I put it out. I was so giddy, like a child, with excitement and joy,” she smiles. Soon after Gentleman dropped, however, Bird was ready to step aside and let fans and critics alike leave their mark on the album. “I knew I needed to anchor myself in this feeling, because I know as soon as it goes out, people put their two cents in and tell me their opinions and the feeling sort of changes,” she explains.
“Being a guitarist, that’s really fucking important to me. It’s the reason why I got into music in the first place”
Poster Girl
Bird’s star began to really rise with her debut album, American Hero, back in 2024 – but she never really imagined that songs like the amped up B.I.L.L.S or the lusty, smirking Drain Me would resonate with an audience so powerfully.
“It’s all truly been really fucking mind-blowing, to be honest,” she reflects. “I had no fantasy of where I would be; I know that a lot of artists grow up being told I’m going to become a pop star or a rock star, but I never felt that way.” That doesn’t mean she lacked ambition. Bird was working hard to build her career long before her solo career took off, most notably playing guitar on tour with Cassyette, before things fell into place.
Image: Kristen Jan Wong for Guitar.com
“I care so deeply about what I do and I put so much effort into it, but I never really had the fantasy element to it,” she explains. “I think that comes from a place of insecurity rather than security, because I never really gave myself the permission to have those big, big dreams.
“Coming from a mixed family, immigrant parents, and there’s a level of realness, and in their culture and that’s what they passed down to me. It’s much more of an American ideology to dream big and wish for what you want, and in the UK that’s not necessarily the case.”
The hard work has won Bird a broad and incredibly active fanbase – one that transcends the usual online guitar audience – and she admits that she perhaps downplayed her guitar artistry as a result.
Image: Kristen Jan Wong for Guitar.com
“With the first record, I had such a deep desire to prove myself,” she says. “I wanted people to take me seriously as an artist and as a singer-songwriter, and move away from the guitarist label. Now, in the second album, I feel much more excited about being a guitarist and that’s really fucking important to me – it’s the reason why I got into music in the first place.”
If her previous music wasn’t about celebrating technique, it still showed something fundamental and important – inspiring connection, resonating with the hum of the guitar, and finding a level of self-acceptance that she continues to build on.
“I definitely feel so much more aligned with who I am and, with the next album, I hope I’ll continue to get even closer,” she says. “I fell in love with this instrument, so I think it would be a disservice to myself and the audience to put that in the background. I think that comes with growing up a bit, becoming more confident in yourself, and remembering who you are.”
“I had no fantasy of where I would be… I never really gave myself the permission to have those big, big dreams”
Chord Theory
To understand how entwined Towa Bird’s artistry is with the guitar, and how she thinks about music, it’s worth noting that she chooses to talk about her musical evolution through her favourite guitar chords.
Back in the day, she proudly told an interviewer of her love of the Emaj7 chord. “I think that is sort of funny!” she reflects now. “It’s like a representation of where I was. The E major seven is a wonderful and colourful chord. It’s an extended chord, so there are more notes in the actual chord itself.
“It’s kind of funny because that’s representative of how I was trying to prove myself. Now, I’ve simplified, so I go for an E power chord, which is essentially the same. It’s basically all of the same notes, minus two, so it’s much more straightforward – it’s the people’s chord!”
Image: Kristen Jan Wong for Guitar.com
When it comes to her instrument of choice, while she’s become synonymous with her black and gold Gibson Firebird, she’s moved into a more semi-hollow direction of late – leaning on the indisputable charms of a cherry red ES-335.
“I’ve been really enjoying using it; it’s a big body,” she explains. “They’re just big and kind of like Beatlesy and like very 60s. The reason why I love it so much is because it’s huge and so resonant because of the acoustic body. You can feel the vibrations against your stomach and chest as you play it.
“It’s more of a holistic experience where you can feel the music. Instead of an extension, it feels much more like an attachment, and has a warm and nice sound. It’s very classic, and one of the oldest electric guitars, so it’s been around for most of popular music history.”
“I fell in love with this instrument, so I think it would be a disservice to myself and the audience to put that in the background”
Security Blanket
Bird’s first brush with guitars came at a young age, during school lessons when she lived in Thailand. In those early days, she persevered because of her dad’s insistence that she had talent, but nowadays the instrument is an extension of her sense of self. “It gives me a sense of security. When I’m on stage, and I don’t have my guitar, I feel fucking naked,” she admits.
There’s a throughline in her life and art, where instrument, identity and sound mesh. Bird had no intentions of becoming “the lesbian Mick Jagger”, but after watching an awe-inspiring Jimi Hendrix documentary (and plenty of old YouTube tutorials), Bird picked up enough tricks. Flipping the script, then, with Gentleman, was playful subversion, bringing her own queer lens to gender.
“When I was growing up, I never really saw myself fitting into any specific box in terms of sexuality or gender identity,” she says. “My androgyny comes from a place of comfort in the same way that a guitar made me feel really comfortable.”
Image: Kristen Jan Wong for Guitar.com
Olivia Rodrigo is a pop artist who is also credited with inducting a new generation of fans to the magic of guitar, and the celebration of music from a bygone age. It’s something that Bird got to experience up close, and has clearly left an impression.
“Honestly, one of the things that I feel about Olivia – while she’s on a different level – we’re sort of doing [things] in tandem,” she says. “I had Kathleen [Hanna] on my record and [Olivia] has Robert Smith, and she did something with David Byrne as well, recently. We’re bringing these legacy artists and bringing it to people who are maybe under 21.”
The Hanna collab in question is the track All Gone, which sees Bird and the Bikini Kill icon revel in skittering drums, power chords and buzzed-up vocals. It’s a demonstration and a reminder that riot grrrl music is thriving and the guitar scene is anyone’s game.
“When we were writing this record, we were sending reference playlists back and forth, and on every single playlist was a Bikini Kill song or one of Kathleen’s records,” Bird recalls. “So when we were looking for collaborations, we thought we should just fucking swing for it and it happened – I got my dream.”
“My androgyny comes from a place of comfort in the same way that a guitar made me feel really comfortable”
Making Gentleman was a long process for Bird – it took nearly 12 months for her to get the music to a place where she felt revived and authentic. You can hear that fresh enthusiasm in the guitars across the album, positively thrumming with hope and panache.
And Towa Bird is in no hurry to plan her next move – the thoughtfulness that has come to epitomise her guitar style playing out in her career, even as she jets around the world from New York to LA, Hong Kong and beyond.
“I’m not really rushing to make a decision. I’m trying to be okay with living in the unknown a little bit,” she says. “I’m doing well as a person and that is a foundation that is going to really help inform my next project. I’m writing from a place of security and joy, instead of desperation and approval seeking. I think a listener can really tell when it’s writing for oneself rather than writing for the world.”
Words: Z. Raza-Sheikh
Photography: Kristen Jan Wong
Location: 503DTLA
The post “It’s the reason why I got into music in the first place” Towa Bird on reclaiming her status as a new generation guitar hero appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Real Spring Reverb In A Tiny Package
Totally Guitars Weekly Update July 3, 2026
July 3, 2026 Due to changing circumstances on the home front, I am moving and purging a lot of stuff. This means over 60 years of musical memories in books and instruments. In honor of July 4, we are encouraging people to learn, or improve their music reading skills. We will be starting a new […]
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New Substack Post - In Search of the Best Finish for a Classical Guitar: Revisted and Revised
Podcast 556: Louis Campbell
Today on the podcast, we are joined by guitarist Louis Campbell, who talks to us about growing up playing traditional music, studying with Martin Simpson, his affinity for using the electric guitar like a piano, and much more.
You can check out his original music via his duo Spafford Campbell: https://www.spaffordcampbell.com
Above photo: York Tillyer
Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago (August 20-22, 2026) for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and live podcasts with some of our favorite artists.
This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands, performances by Hand Habits, Deep Sea Diver, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Shane Parish, Michael Daves and Antoine Boyer!
Register here: www.fretboardsummit.org.
We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).
Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com
The post Podcast 556: Louis Campbell first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
Olive Jones’ Unplugged Soul | Acoustic Guitar Sessions
Joe Perry is still hoping to buy back a red Höfner guitar that he regrets selling: “I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it… I regret having lost that”
Aerosmith’s Joe Perry has shared there’s one guitar of sentimental value that he’s hoping to be reunited with, after selling it on a whim and regretting it just a matter of months later.
The guitar, a red Höfner S-style guitar, was played by Perry in the 1990s when he would perform on the 4 July each year for Lake Sunapee locals with a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.
Speaking to Guitarist, he says, “I did that for a couple of years with that particular guitar, and as the years went on the guitar ended up getting back with my main collection. I was kinda in one of those moods at the end of the tour, and I had like 400 of these guitars that I never played.
“I said, ‘I gotta get rid of some of these things. It’s time to clean house a little bit.’ I earmarked a few guitars to go and somehow that guitar got on the list. And like three or four months later, I found out that it was gone and was like, ‘Next time, I gotta pay more attention to this. I’m not getting rid of anything else for a while.’”
Strangely enough, it was just a couple of years later that Perry came across the guitar again in a fleeting moment on a bullet train in Japan: “As the bullet train is pulling out 30 or 40 people follow us up there. As the train was moving along, I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it,” he remembers.
“The train was already moving, slowly pulling out, and the kid was holding it out with a Magic Marker. I’m thinking, ‘Man, I gotta get the kid’s number to see if I could buy it back or trade it for something else,’ because it did have some sentimental value, you know?
“But we were off to the next city, and at that point I didn’t have any ideas about how to get in touch with the guy. I suppose I could have tracked him down through the fan club and tried to figure out who it was, but it was lost.”
Perry is still hoping to get it back somehow. He says, “I’ll buy it back. I’ll trade it for something else, you know? It would be fun to get that back… I regret having lost that.”
The post Joe Perry is still hoping to buy back a red Höfner guitar that he regrets selling: “I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it… I regret having lost that” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I felt kind of bad about it”: Kirk Hammett offered Neal Schon’s Les Paul back to him after buying it for “half the price it was worth”
Kirk Hammett once copped a rare Les Paul owned by Journey’s Neal Schon for an uber-low price at an auction, and felt so guilty that he offered it back to him.
The guitar in question was sold via Heritage Auctions back in 2021 as part of a Neal Schon Collection. The model, which sold for $87,500 according to reports, is a 1957 Les Paul Standard fitted with P-90s, which had a rare factory black colour. Despite Hammett’s offer to give it back, it remains in his collection today.
Speaking at his live show in Dublin for Gibson’s The Collection: Kirk Hammett book tour, Hammett recalls (via MusicRadar), “This guitar used to belong to one of my all-time star heroes, a huge source of inspiration, Neal Schon. I got this in an auction, and I don’t know what was up, but I got this for like half the price that it was worth!”
He continues, “I felt kind of bad about it because I should have paid a fair price, but I paid a price that was lower than it should have been. So, I actually called Neal. I said, ‘Neal, do you want the guitar back?’ And he said, ‘No, man, you keep it. You buy it; you keep it.’
“Neal Schon, he’s such a cool, cool guy. I mean, he’s an amazing guitar player. He lives and breathes music. And to me, he’s just such an inspiration. I see how he conducts his life and how he plays, and his commitment and dedication to music. I was just like, ‘Yeah! That’s what I want to do, too.’ So I’m doing it.”
Watch the full conversation from The Collection live in Dublin below:
You can order The Collection: Kirk Hammett directly from the Gibson website. Find out where to see Metallica live on their M72 world tour.
The post “I felt kind of bad about it”: Kirk Hammett offered Neal Schon’s Les Paul back to him after buying it for “half the price it was worth” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Metallica have donated $100,000 to earthquake relief in Venezuela
Metallica’s charitable organisation, All Within My Hands, has donated $100,000 to earthquake relief in Venezuela, after the country was hit by back-to-back magnitude 7+ quakes last week.
On Wednesday, June 24, the South American country was struck by two massive earthquakes in quick succession, registering 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale. While the extent of the destruction hasn’t yet been fully assessed, over 68,000 people were reported missing within three days of the quakes, and the official death toll currently stands at over 2,500.
As per Blabbermouth, the United Nations reports that up to 6.8 million Venezuelans may be affected – a sizable chunk of the country’s 28.6 million total population. It’s also estimated that almost 60,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
Metallica’s $100,000 donation is going to Direct Relief, which is working with regional and local authorities to deliver emergency aid to those affected and support search-and-rescue operations. Direct Relief is also helping organise first-aid supplies, medicines and other healthcare for those affected by the earthquakes.
First established in 2017, Metallica’s non-profit All Within My Hands Foundation has donated millions to various causes around the world, from disaster relief to music education. To date the charity has provided grants of $19 million to education programmes through the Metallica Scholars Initiative, $8.8 million to food aid and $6.2 million to disaster relief.
The foundation notably donated half a million dollars to disaster relief efforts following the massive wildfires in California last year.
Speaking on Metallica’s own podcast – The Metallica Report – in 2024, the band’s frontman James Hetfield spoke about how much it means to him to be able to help people through All Within My Hands.
“There’s not really a better feeling in this world than helping someone else and doing it without telling [people] about it. There is something fantastic about that. It goes against everything that humans are – ‘I need this. You give me that. I need to take this,’” he said.
“Especially growing up in a band that was struggling, fighting for the only towel in the motel, or whatever it is, or ‘there’s a can of food there. I better get mine or else.’
“Just that sparseness mentality and having that key unlock it to be completely the opposite. Out of everything you’ve learned, despite everything I’ve learned, the corniest saying ‘it’s better to give than receive’ is so true.”
Learn more about the All Within My Hands Foundation.
The post Metallica have donated $100,000 to earthquake relief in Venezuela appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“We don’t hate Fender”: LSL Instruments praises Thomann’s lawsuit against Fender and hopes “normality” will return soon in its battle with the guitar giant
Boutique guitar brand LSL Instruments has provided an update on its ongoing legal battle with Fender, reassuring that it doesn’t have any hate for the company.
LSL Instruments was one of a number of brands to receive a cease-and-desist from Fender over alleged infringement on the Stratocaster body shape in recent months. It confirmed in June that it has hired attorney Ron Bienstock as its representative, who famously won a 2009 trademark case against Fender, in response.
Since then, instrument retailer Thomann has revealed that it is suing Fender over its campaign of cease-and-desists, and also confirmed that its sub-brand Harley Benton had received a letter over its guitar designs. While LSL is hoping for a return to normality, a new statement shares its gratitude for Thomann’s push back.
Johny Miller, Director Of Business Development at LSL Instruments, tells Guitar.com, “We have been getting a lot of old and new friends of LSL asking how we are doing through all of this. We are so appreciative of all the genuine concern from the guitar community. It’s kind of crazy. I have been doing this 25 years now. 10 of those years with [founders] Lance and Lisa at LSL, and the other 15 with two other well known brands and a handful of MI retailers.
“In all these years, I have known that there is in fact a ‘guitar community’ out there, but it has never been unified by any means until now. It is truly remarkable to say the least. What an unexpectedly positive outcome to something that started from such a negative beginning,” he says.
“To answer the question. We are stressed but we’re still here. We’re pretty well overwhelmed but very hopeful. Ron Bienstock has been so wonderful to work with and we are in good hands. Ron’s responses and Hans Thomann’s recent involvement have filled us with hope. Thank you Ron and thank you Hans! This stuff takes courage and the whole guitar world should be grateful for you both.”
Miller also confirms that LSL is still building guitars in the meantime, and will be releasing “a few new models” that are “different and unexpected” in the near future.
“I speak plainly here and can not speak for everyone else. We don’t hate Fender. Fender is Fender. We’d love nothing more than for them to exist and do what they do for people that want to own their products to support their legacy. But it has to happen the right way. That’s all we want for ourselves and every other builder out there as well. A chance to survive and have our brands, that we poured our life’s blood into for decades, outlive us. Anyone who is a ‘guitar person’ probably wants the same. We look forward to and hope for normality to return as soon as possible,” he adds.
“We also hope that Fender’s clear path to direct sales and retail locations worldwide is wildly successful. That statement may surprise you, but this would actually put a defining line between boutique guitars and Fender. We could finally be two separate realms with very little shared space. Unity in the boutique realm full of healthy competition and mutual respect, and a complete and total bifurcation between underdogs and giants. Full success on both sides. That sounds lovely doesn’t it? Stay unified guys! Unity prevails!”
Stay tuned to Guitar.com for further updates on the matter as we get them.
The post “We don’t hate Fender”: LSL Instruments praises Thomann’s lawsuit against Fender and hopes “normality” will return soon in its battle with the guitar giant appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e review: “This is a huge amount of fun”
$2,799, £2,699, taylorguitars.com
It’s barely been a year since Taylor’s launched its Gold Label series, but already Andy Powers’ more vintage-inflected take on the Taylor recipe is clearly proving an inspiring canvas – not just for the development of new standard models but increasingly as a starting point for collaborations with artists.
Taylor, as you may be aware, has taken a very considered and restrained approach to signature models over its first five decades, with only occasional offerings for the likes of Richie Sambora, Jason Mraz and Doyle Dykes getting the full artist instrument treatment.
Already, however, Gold Label has spawned one signature guitar – the rather impressive Trey Hensley 510e – and now we have another for a very different kind of musician, Ben Harper. Harper of course, was formerly a Martin signature artist, but in recent years has often been seen playing a slope-shoulder Taylor Grand Pacific 717e dread with an Indian rosewood back and sides, and a Sitka spruce top.
So what do you get the alt-rock superstar guitarist who has everything? Well, let’s find out.
Image: Adam Gasson
Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e – what is it?
The most striking thing to note about this new 512e is that it’s quite a departure from the Builder’s Edition Grand Pacific he’s more commonly associated with. The 512e is the first of the new Grand Concert-sized Gold Label models, and with its torrefied spruce soundboard and solid mahogany back and sides, it’s clearly meant to complement his existing guitars rather than replace them.
The Grand Concert shape is, of course, an iconic bit of Taylor design that has over 40 years of pedigree – it’s no surprise that it has arrived in Gold Label, one way or another. It’s also perhaps not a surprise that Harper was apparently so charmed by it when he first played a non-signature version – his Martin signature model was of the 000-adjacent M size, and there are similar vibes between the two.
The first thing I notice as I open the British Cocoa Bronco Taylor Deluxe hard shell case is that this is a visually striking instrument. Whereas the Gold label line has been an opportunity for Taylor to go nouvelle vintage with an aesthetic inspired by catalogue guitars of the mid-20th century, the Ben Harper Gold Label 512e leans into a Depression era vibe with a simple but effective design language.
Anyone still trumpeting the line that Taylor Guitars lack visual character needs to have one of these waggled in their faces for a bit.
Any torrefaction process will inevitably darken sitka spruce to a caramel colour and this guitar features a beautifully applied edgeburst to make the most of this colouration. This balances nicely with the cream scratch plate, inlays and body binding. The Honduran rosewood fretboard, bridge and peghead veneer lend a lighter shade of pale to the organic, desert-dwelling vibe.
Image: Adam Gasson
Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e – build and playability
This guitar is built around a 24-7/8” scale length and features a neo-tropical mahogany neck carved to Taylor’s standard specifications. As noted in previous reviews, this slim profile is ideal for guitarists who play the instrument with a wrap-around thumb approach to root six barre chords – it’s an immediate and comfortable squeeze.
The knowledge that the guitar features Taylor’s Action Control Neck design will bring peace of mind to many players who find regular action adjustments to be a part of guitar ownership.
The guitar feels balanced in the lap – albeit with the inevitable neck plunge typical of 14-fret smaller-body instruments. There’s no cutaway, but that’s par for the course with the Gold Label series at the time of writing and certainly not a dealbreaker in this case.
Similarly, the Sitka spruce soundboard is braced with Andy Powers’ Fanned V-Class bracing with Tonal Rout. Whether this newer approach will imbue the instrument with a voice that matches the vintage visuals remains to be seen.
Plugged-in duties are taken care of courtesy of Taylor’s new Claria active pickup and preamp, which features a soundhole-mounted control system allowing you to tweak your sound via volume, mid-contour and tone wheels. Once you remember which is which, it’s a simple enough arrangement.
Image: Adam Gasson
Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e – sounds
From seminal albums such as The Will To Live and Both Sides Of The Gun to various live EPs and albums, Ben Harper’s acoustic guitar work is characterised by a delicate balance of nuanced detail and articulation and earthy, warm tones to support his vocals. This is not an easy thing to pull off – especially in a brand-new guitar – but this 510e does a sterling job.
Gentle fingerstyle, with the fingertips only, brings out a breathy, whispery tone that is strong in the fundamentals as I’d expect from a mahogany instrument. The trebles shimmer nicely and the bass… well, it’s what you’d hope for with a smaller-bodied instrument played softly: articulate and supportive rather than dominating.
It’s time to inject some medium vibes with a .70mm tortoiseshell pick – the results are eye-opening as the torrified spruce soundboard works its magic. Gone is the slightly hazy fingerstyle sound, replaced with a treble-heavy and articulate shimmer. This is ideal for arpeggiated lines as well as open-string chords up the neck. The balance here is particularly impressive, and as the top benefits from the extra oomph, the bass perks up considerably too.
This is a huge amount of fun, and I can imagine this voice working extremely well in the studio in front of big fat mics with little need for EQ or compression – even when stacked over multiple tracks.
Image: Adam Gasson
While they might not be the first choice for the solo fingerstyle guitarist, Taylors do tend to love open tunings, and the Harper 512e is no exception. It does the shimmery, 11th chord DADGDAD thing very well indeed and dropping into a low-slung Orkney tuning (CGDGCD) yields a pleasing growl across the whole sonic spectrum, which also works beautifully with a slide.
Plugging straight into my studio desk reveals an immediately usable voice from the Claria active pickup system. This is a relief, and it’s worth taking a proper look here as the Claria pickup is streets ahead of the ES2 pickup that came as standard in Taylor Guitars for many years.
As with its predecessor, the controls are unlabelled, but the volume dial is on its own, closest to the bridge, whereas the mid contour and treble controls sit closer to the fretboard end in that order.
Whereas the volume control is smooth all the way from zero to hero, both EQ dials are notched in the centre, and this default position is a very musical starting point for my amplified explorations. It’s actually quite impressive how much of the acoustic voice of the instrument comes through the speakers, no matter how you attack the note.
Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e – should I buy one?
It is increasingly clear that Taylor has struck gold with their Gold Label Series, and I, for one, will be fascinated to see what comes next – especially as it seems to have opened up a rich new seam of artist collaboration.
As far as the Ben Harper Gold Label 512e is concerned, though, this is a characterful and vibey small-bodied acoustic guitar with a very musical and versatile sound. Add in the impressive new Claria pickup system, and it’s an impressive all-round package.
Image: Adam Gasson
Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e – alternatives
If you want a guitar with similar dimensions but more of a traditional Taylor sound and aesthetic, the new Next Generation 512ce ($2,799/£2,599) has a cutaway and even sports the same impressive Claria pickup system. Martin certainly offers a more conventional fit to the GL’s vintage sensibilities, and the all-mahogany 00-15M ($1,799/£1,849) certainly has a vibe about it, as does the similarly Depression-coded new Gibson L-00 Century 12-Fret ($2,299/£1,999).
The post Taylor Ben Harper Gold Label 512e review: “This is a huge amount of fun” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Martin’s new HD-28 Semiquincentennial is a love letter to 250 years of American history
Martin is marking America’s 250th birthday the best way it knows how: by building a guitar. The company has unveiled the HD-28 Semiquincentennial, a limited-edition model built on one of its most iconic acoustic platforms and infused with pieces of American history.
The release also marks 50 years since the HD-28 first debuted in 1976, America’s Bicentennial year. The guitar has since become one of Martin’s most recognised and beloved rosewood Dreadnoughts.
- READ MORE: Martin celebrates 100 years of its lacquer finishes with a limited all-koa Custom Shop model
Limited to just 250 guitars, the Semiquincentennial model features wood from the legendary Basking Ridge white oak a.k.a Holy Oak, a 600-year-old tree that stood through the Revolutionary War and generations of American history.
According to local lore, George Washington’s troops drilled within view of its branches, while Washington himself is said to have picnicked beneath it with the Marquis de Lafayette. Martin has incorporated wood from the historic oak into the guitar’s endpiece, heelcap, and Liberty Bell headplate inlay.
The patriotic theme continues across the reclaimed Sitka spruce top, which features original artwork by longtime Martin collaborator Robert Goetzl depicting a bald eagle, Independence Hall and a colonial-era American flag.
Credit: Martin
Underneath all of that, though, it’s still very much an HD-28. The guitar packs a Dreadnought body, solid East Indian rosewood back and sides, bold herringbone top inlay, and Golden Era scalloped forward-shifted X-bracing.
It also features a Golden Era Modified Low Oval neck profile, an ebony Golden Era modern belly bridge, bone bridge pins, antique white binding, and a Semiquincentennial star fingerboard design crafted from paua and mother of pearl.
Each guitar also comes strung with Martin Authentic Acoustic Lifespan 2.0 strings and includes a molded hardshell case.
“This is one of those projects where a lot of history comes together,” says Chris Martin IV, the sixth generation leader and current CEO of Martin. “Martin has been part of the American story for nearly 200 years, and our family has its own connection to the Revolution, so celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary feels especially meaningful.”
“It also brings us back to 1976, when Martin marked the Bicentennial and introduced the HD-28. Fifty years later, using that same model as the foundation for this guitar just felt right. It’s a really special way to celebrate the past while creating something that can carry the story forward.”
Learn more at Martin.
The post Martin’s new HD-28 Semiquincentennial is a love letter to 250 years of American history appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Guild revives its “radical” S-300 offset from the ‘70s: “The guitar was viewed as fairly radical when it was introduced”
Guild has resurrected one of the most unconventional offset electric guitars from its ‘70s catalogue. Nearly 50 years after its debut, the S-300 is making a return in the form of the new S-300 Deluxe, complete with two eye-catching metallic finishes and a handful of player-friendly updates.
Originally introduced in 1977, the S-300 never quite achieved the mainstream recognition of some of its contemporaries. But its futuristic offset body, exaggerated contours and unusual electronics earned it a loyal following over the years, turning it into something of a cult favourite among guitar enthusiasts.
“The S-300 was viewed as fairly radical when it was introduced nearly 50 years ago,” says Nick Beach, Product Manager at Fretted Instruments. “The guitar’s offset body had dramatic cutaways and contours that gave it a futuristic look, and its phase switch was also unusual at the time – but since then it has become increasingly popular and collectable.”
“With the new S-300 Deluxe guitar, we’re bringing back a classic with a few key changes to make it even more comfortable and giving players a choice of eye-catching metallic finishes.”
Credit: Guild Guitars
Those finishes come in the form of Neptune Blue Metallic and Vintage Sterling Metallic, both paired with a contoured mahogany body, a Soft U-profile mahogany set neck, an ivory-bound rosewood fingerboard sporting Guild’s Chesterfield block inlays and an oversized vintage-style headstock.
The guitar is sounded by a pair of HB-2+ humbucking pickups with Alnico V magnets, combined with dual Volume and Tone controls and a mini-toggle phase switch, delivering a wide variety of tones ranging from “old-school warmth and punch to cutting-edge crunch and clarity”.
Additional appointments include a 5-ply black pickguard, an Ultimate Angle Tune-o-matic-style bridge, vintage-style Guild compensated tailpiece and Grover G2 open-gear tuners.
The S-300 Deluxe joins the company’s Newark St. Collection, sitting alongside other vintage-inspired models including the Polara Deluxe.
Available now in Neptune Blue Metallic and Vintage Sterling Metallic, the Guild S-300 Deluxe carries a price tag of $799.99.
Learn more at Guild Guitars.
The post Guild revives its “radical” S-300 offset from the ‘70s: “The guitar was viewed as fairly radical when it was introduced” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Answered: what’s the point of a guitar’s string tree anyway?
String trees are one of those bits of guitar hardware most players have never given a second thought to – that little metal disc or bar pinning the high strings down behind the nut on your Strat. Some guitars have one. Some have two. Some don’t have any at all. And if you ask the average player what it actually does, you’ll usually get a shrug and a vague mumble about “keeping the strings down.”
String trees (also called string retainers or string guides) are about as simple as guitar hardware gets, and they’re routinely ignored until something goes wrong, at which point they get blamed for tuning drift, tone loss, and general bad behavior. Sometimes fairly, sometimes not. So here’s what they actually do, why some guitars need them, and why some don’t.
A Simple Solution to Headstock Design
The whole reason a string tree exists comes down to physics, and the angle at which the string crosses the nut. Once the string crosses the nut on the way to the tuner, it has to angle downward sharply enough to stay seated in its slot. That downward bend – called the break angle – is what keeps the string seated, keeps it ringing cleanly, and keeps it from popping out of the slot when you dig into a bend.
On a Gibson-style headstock with its angled-back design, somewhere in the 14- to 17-degree range depending on era and model, every string gets plenty of break angle and there’s no need for a string tree.
On a flat, Fender-style headstock, things get more complicated. The plane of the headstock sits roughly level with the back of the neck, which means the strings have to drop down to the tuner posts across a much shallower angle. The low E, A and D strings are usually fine – their tuners are close enough to the nut and their posts low enough that they generate adequate break angle naturally. But the G, B and high E strings, depending on layout, often don’t. The break angle of those strings is usually somewhere between 3 and 6 degrees without a string tree.
Image: Adam Gasson
So What Does a String Tree Actually Do?
A string tree is, mechanically, the simplest possible solution to this problem. It pins the offending strings down between the nut and the tuners, forcing them to make the bend the headstock geometry isn’t providing. With the tree in place, those strings sit properly in the nut, ring cleanly, and stay put when you bend.
Without one – and you can try this if you ever pull a tree off – the high E and B will buzz in the slot, lose volume, or in some cases actually skip out of the nut altogether under pressure. This is why Leo Fender added them in the first place. The original 1954 Stratocaster shipped without a string tree, but it didn’t take long for Fender to spot the problem and add a single round retainer for the high E and B. By the late 50s, the little disc-style “butterfly” tree had become standard issue. Telecasters got them too, for exactly the same reason.
Image: Adam Gasson
Why Do Some Guitars Have One Tree and Others Have Two?
Walk through a guitar shop and you’ll notice the variation. A vintage-spec Strat will usually have a single round tree pinning down the high E and B. A ’70s-style Strat or many modern American models often have a second one – usually a bar-style retainer – sitting further down and pulling the D and G strings into line as well.
The reason comes down to tuner post height. Vintage Fender tuners had relatively tall posts, which kept the strings sitting higher above the headstock face. As post heights got shorter on some models, and as headstock geometry shifted with the larger ’70s headstock, the D and G ended up needing their own retainer to maintain consistent break angle across the whole nut.
Fender’s modern answer has been staggered tuners: each post is a slightly different height, getting shorter as you move towards the high strings. With a properly staggered set, you can often get away with a single tree, and in some configurations no tree at all. EVH-style headstocks and a lot of boutique builds use this trick to clean up the look and cut down on friction points.
Tuning Stability
Here’s where string trees earn their reputation as a necessary evil. Every contact point between the bridge and the tuner is a potential source of friction, and the string tree is no exception. When you bend a string or work the trem, the string has to slide back and forth under that retainer. If it sticks – even for a moment – your tuning suffers. You’ll hear it as that familiar pinging sound when a string suddenly releases, and feel it as a guitar that won’t quite settle back to pitch after heavy whammy use.
Today, we have so many aftermarket solutions. Graphite-impregnated retainers, roller string trees, Graph Tech-style synthetic versions, and PTFE-treated trees all aim to reduce that friction. A few drops of nut lubricant under a stock tree will often do most of the same job for free. If you’re a heavy tremolo user on a Strat, this stuff is genuinely worth attending to.
Image: Adam Gasson
Do String Trees Affect Tone?
Strictly speaking, the length of string between the nut and the tuner doesn’t vibrate as part of the speaking length, so the tree itself shouldn’t have any direct tonal influence. But it does affect things indirectly. A string with insufficient break angle over the nut can sound dull, lose sustain, and sit unevenly in volume against its neighbours. The tree doesn’t add anything to the sound – it makes sure the string is doing its job properly, which is a tonal contribution in its own right.
I will admit that I am one of the aforementioned critics of string trees. But after trying to re-engineer a Strat neck myself, I can see why Fender opted to use string trees as a simple solution. Some builders out there, like Lucky Dog, make Fender-style guitars with an added headstock angle. When I’m building Fender-style instruments, I do this too, and prefer a 12 degrees angle, but it does require a lot more attention during the building process than a flat headstock. Simplicity is key, and as long as your tree is well lubricated and smooth, it’s a great solution for mass-produced guitars, and has kept Fender guitars stable and in-tune for decades.
The post Answered: what’s the point of a guitar’s string tree anyway? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
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