translated in terms of the customers you
MICHAEL POPE
continued from 14
deal with?
But yeah, I really love those early 90’s AC30’s.
[Casey] As soon as the Bethel gang jumped
They’re about as close as you can get to a 60’s
on the Portlander, and it was pretty much our
top boost without spending $5000 and taking
standard Portlander with a Bigsby and two
out (on the road) a piece of history.
[WM] That’s awesome. Are you a tube geek,
or are you just more like, “As long as it works?”
humbuckers, it just seemed to become the go-
Michael Pope Rig Rundown Courtesy of
WorshipGTR.com
to guitar for anyone in the worship industry we
deal with.
How tweaky do you get on your tubes? THE VERITAS CONNECTION One of the coolest things about boutique [WM] Michael has a pretty broad range of
[Michael] As long as it sounds good. I have brands is the unique relationship players your instruments in his collection. How much of
develop with the builders – and vice versa. what you send him varies from the “standard”
To add some additional depth of field to this instruments you produce?
NOS stuff for my amps in the studio, because it
does sound better and is more reliable, but for
touring we just use all JJ’s. They sound great
and we rarely have problems with them. We get
everything re-tubed about every six months or
so. I probably have a lot of JJ’s in my studio
amps as well.
[WM] Is there anything that you would like our
interview we reached out to Casey Marvin,
founder of Veritas Custom Guitars…
[Casey] He hasn’t asked for anything too
over the top. A lot of what he gets is just our
[WM] Hey Casey, tell us a bit about how standard because he’s kind of made a lot of our
you first got hooked up with Michael and the guitars a new standard. He starts playing them
Bethel guys? and people are like, “I wanna do what Michael
Pope is doing (laughs).”
readers to be praying for you about? [Casey] Bobby Strand, Chris Greely and I all worked at a church here in Portland called Solid [WM] Michael uses 11-49s which is pretty
[Michael] I’m getting married later this year. If Rock, and I worked on all their guitars. When much a “he-man” gauge. Does that present
Chris moved down there, Bobby moved shortly any unique challenges?
there was anything that I would ask for prayer
for, it would be for more grace and the capacity
to handle everything in front of me. I feel super
blessed and super stoked with life. I feel like I’m
in a great season and have been for a while.
But with touring all the time, recording all the
time, and getting married, it’s not the easiest
to juggle all of that. So please pray for more
capacity and more grace and more wisdom to
do it all the best that I can. It’s that hard trade
off of quality vs. quantity for me. I want to do it
all, but nothing is worth doing if you can’t do it
really, really well.
after, and they took some of my guitars with
them. They invited me to come down to tech [Casey] (laughs) There’s a way to set up a
for the You Make Me Brave live DVD, so I took guitar so a set of 11’s feel like 10’s. The way
seven guitars down there. That kind of set the that we make our guitars, with the 11’s they just
tone I think. have this body to them. You just get this extra
push behind your tone.
[WM] That first guitar you did for Michael
was that Goldtop which is not a traditional [WM] And speaking of Michael’s guitars,
Veritas instrument. don’t forget to check out some of his unique
instruments on page 13.
[Casey] Michael wanted a Les Paul, and
although I wasn’t doing knock-offs, I’d done a
few Les Paul style guitars before. At that point I
just wanted to build more guitars and was like,
“I’ll do it, but I don’t want to do a traditional
build.” So, I implemented a few things I thought
made it a better instrument. The heel contour
is molded into the body so you can access
those upper frets easier and I did some things
to make it more structurally sound. It’s all hand
carved – everything was done by hand.
[WM] Michael and the guys at Bethel did a
lot to put Veritas on the map. How has that
Saint of the Ring
16
Saint of the Strings
July 2017
WorshipMusician.com