the guitar is just one voice in an ongoing conversation.
“It’s not the featured piece unless it needs to be,
which I think is probably every piece of music. You never
want to be the thing overtaking something if you don’t
have to be,” he says. “It’s about fitting the right mood and
making sure the right thing is going on at the right time.”
Not that Docherty doesn’t have an extra gear under
the hood in terms of chops. He grew up listening to
Black Sabbath and Ritchie Blackmore and still plays
in a Toronto-based cover band where he can show off a
bit. But within July Talk, the right thing can either be the
perfect single note line and riff or just the right strange
sound effect.
Docherty has become a master of gear fiddling, coax-
ing esoteric and dreamy soundscapes out of a surprisingly
sparse array of pedals.
“I don’t think gear is that important. I’m using pretty
basic stuff. I have a delay, a reverb... It’s that kind of shit.
What the gear is doesn’t really matter; it’s more ‘I need it
to be atmospheric, I’ll use a big, huge reverb.’ Whatever
sounds good, sounds good.”
Weird, squeaking sounds are all over “Pay for It,” the
lead single from July Talk’s third album, Pray for It. A Fay
vocal line hovers over a haunting keyboard, heavily-
effected guitars stab in the background. It’s the type of
effect that can leave other players scratching their heads
– something that could only come from hours of screwing
around in the studio.
Rearranging & Reimagining with
PAUL MARC ROUSSEAU
Silverstein
Go-To Live Rig:
•@ Ernie Ball Music Man Valentine Custom Guitar
•@ Line 6 Helix Amp & FX Pedal Board
Paul Marc Rousseau has found himself in a more than
one odd situation amidst his music career thus far. Take
the simple fact that for the past eight years, he’s been
a guitarist for post-hardcore institution Silverstein. He
was, after all, originally a fan of the band who somehow
found himself becoming one of them.
As we speak, he’s found himself in yet another weird
place. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the cancella-
tion of all of Silverstein’s tour dates and he’s feeling the
need to be productive. But the band released their 10 th
full-length album, A Beautiful Place to Drown, just as the
crisis hit a tipping point. So while he sits at home, he’s
finding himself temporarily riffed out.
“I sit down in my home studio and try to do some-
thing. If within an hour it’s not working, I give up on that
and just start FaceTiming people and drinking wine,
usually,” he jokes.
52 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
“Almost never is it exactly what was initially envisioned.
We do a lot of rehearsing and we’ll have an idea what
a part should be, but generally, we get into the studio,
record something, and it’s: ‘I don’t know if that actually
works.’ Then you start trying a bunch of weird stuff out and
often, it’s big happy accidents like your guitar unplugs and
that into a delay pedal is what makes it on the record.”
Of course, then you have to recreate those happy ac-
cidents live. Or do you?
“Doing it perfectly, it’s generally impossible, but often
those types of parts are about spirit. If it’s a crazy, noisy
thing, that’s what you do – you bang your guitar, hold it
up to the speaker, and whatever way you can make a cra-
zy noise will work.”
July Talk tends to take their time between albums –
four years passed between their debut and sophomore
records and then another four years passed before Pray
for It. But aside from time, Docherty has found other
ways to keep the guitar fresh and interesting. The album
sessions saw him trying out some tiny one-watt amps,
part of his philosophy of getting weird to stay excited.
“Often, it’s trying to get yourself outside of comfort
zones – playing weird guitars that are kind of crappy or
trying things you wouldn’t normally. I grew up playing a
lot of heavier rock music so I’m a lot more used to play-
ing with a ton of gain. Seeing what happens when you
turn that stuff off is a lot of fun and a different way to
approach things.”