Canadian Musician - March/April 2023 | Page 58

LETELLIER : Developing what [ my signature bass ] was going to be was a three , four , or five month process of Zoom calls between me and the builder , Yaniv Loria . First of all , not even talking guitars or wood or specs or nothing , just listening to music together and being like , ‘ What do you like about this ?’ and ‘ Well , I like this song or , and I really love this guy ’ s tone , and I love this .’ He really zeroes in on what it is that you love without you trying to overtly explain it . And then he told me what he thinks would give me that sound . And then we would discuss more . And then of course , the visual aspect comes into it . And it was just this very long process that really connected me to the guitar . And then he stopped talking to me about it . And he was like , ‘ Now , from this point forward , it ’ s a mystery and there ’ s going to be a surprise .’ It was really special when I arrived , and he brought it out . I ’ m almost in tears and I start playing — it ’ s made for me , for my scale , I got it made medium scale because I like to move around and do shit with the guitar and it ’ s easier on the body . My spine was rejoicing . It just screams me — it ’ s green , my favorite British racing green with a yellow and brown tortoise shell pickguard and vintage Thunderbird pickups , because it was based off of my favorite guitar ever , the black [ Gibson ] Firebird on Kiss ’ Alive ! that Paul Stanley has — that fucking black Firebird man , it does something to me when I see it . It ’ s such a sexy guitar and it broke when they were recording . It ’ s so sad because that is a gorgeous guitar . So , what we did is we took the Firebird body and basically flipped it over .
And that ’ s the Lightning Dove . I named it the Lightning Dove as an ode to the guitar that died .
CM : Are there currently any basses or pieces of equipment you ’ d like to add to your arsenal ?
SINCLAIR : I ’ m always in that mode , for sure . Looking around back in the day , part of the fun was to hunt . The internet has really changed that quite a bit . You can literally , if it pops into your head , the culture that we live in , you just click and buy . But I ’ m connected still with a number of really good friends I ’ ve made over the years and every once in a while someone will phone and say ‘ you won ’ t believe what I found .’ That usually gets my ears perked up . FRANCIS : I really want a Chadwick
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