for me to play some chunky stuff if I
need to, but it’s also fun and loose.
For that [28.5"-scale] Jag, I’m using
a custom set of .011, .014, .018, .032,
.044, .056. We had a bunch of old
strings that weren’t part of full sets, so
I experimented until I landed on that
combination. Teppei is not as picky, so he
just uses whatever gauge I’m using.
Thrice’s main
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r er
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plays a Fender
Jaguar Baritone
Custom during
a set at the
2015 Wrecking
Ball festival in
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How democratic is your songwriting
process?
Teranishi: It’s actually a pretty
democratic process. We all bring stuff
to the table. Even Riley [Breckenridge,
drummer] will bring guitar parts
sometimes. That also makes it challenging
because you don’t have one person calling
all the shots and everything can be a big,
drawn-out discussion. But that’s a part of
what makes us Thrice.
And do you build the songs around
vocal melodies or chord progressions?
Teranishi: On this record, we wrote
around melodies a lot more than we have
in the past, and I think that shows. I feel
like it’s a more melodic record in a lot
of senses. There was a lot of this: “I got
this cool melody, but it’s not working
with this chord.” Then Dustin would try
to tweak the chord progression to fit it
around the melody, which we have done
in the past, but I think we did a lot more
of that this time around.
Kensrue: We often begin with some
kind of riff and then I just start singing
nonsense over it until I find something I
like. Melodies come pretty quickly—it’s
the lyrics that take a long time.
When recording this album, what were
your main guitars?
Teranishi: I used my Gibson ES-335
a little bit, a Tele, and obviously the
baritones. The one that I revisited for this
record was an early-’70s cherry red Les Paul
Standard that I’ve had forever. I actually
used it a lot on the earlier records—I think
it was almost exclusively on The Illusion of
Safety and it probably saw some action on
The Artist in the Ambulance. I hadn’t played
it in a long time, but I broke it out and
used it on quite a few tracks.
Is your touring rig pretty close to what
you recorded with?
Teranishi: Yeah. In the past, like with
Major/Minor, we wanted to track live, so
that was as straightforward as possible.
But this record was a lot different
because our producer, Eric Palmquist,
was intentional about trying to pull
some different tones out of us. He set up
maybe four or five different amps at the
same time and he’d mix and match in
the control room to get the kind of tones
that he wanted.
He relied heavily on a ’66 Fender
Bassman that was pretty much running
all the time, and he was also running a
Marshall JCM800. He had some other
amps that I didn’t even really look at,
but the one that really stuck out to me
was this little Watkins Scout. It’s this
tiny, old amp that I think was maybe 10
watts. It had a sweet, creamy, nice and
compressed distortion that I thought
sounded really cool. For the clean tones,
we used a lot of the Roland Jazz Chorus
combo. We would start recording, and
then Eric would say, “Play the part,”
TEPPEI TERANISHI’S GEAR
GUITARS
• ’72 Les Paul Standard
• Nash T-Model
• Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom
(renamed Jaguar Bass VI Custom in 2006)
AMPS
• Vox AC30
90 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2016
Photo by Perry Bean
EFFECTS
• Walrus Aetos Power Supply
• Walrus Descent
• JHS Panther Cub
• Walrus Julia
• JHS Pulp ’N’ Peel
• JHS Double Barrel
• Walrus switcher
• Mojo Hand FX Bayou Tremolo
• Mission Engineering expression pedal
• Line 6 M5 Stompbox Modeler
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