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Home , Big Dave McLean, Blue Rodeo, Fender Deluxe Reverb, Luke Doucet

Talking Roots, & Rock In Guitar SpeCMci’s al2013

By David McPherson

Take five guys – , Grant Siemens (Corb Lund), (), (Whitehorse), and Travis Good () – get them talking about their guitars, and before long, you’ve gathered enough material to write a treatise on each player. Over the course of a week in late March 2013, I chatted with this handful of acclaimed Canadian guitarists. Some, like Doucet, I had spoken with many times before; others, like James, I interviewed for the first time.

CANADIAN MUSICIAN • [49] Five Guys question, he chuckles, then rhetorically replies, “Who doesn’t remember their & Their Guitars first guitar?” Good started playing classical when he was nine years old instrumentals and early- to late-50s and took lessons from Red Shea – rock and rockabilly. Gordon Lightfoot’s longtime guitarist The hometowns and cities where who passed away in 2008. While Good each guitarist spent their formative does not recall the make of his first years also played a key role in their classical instrument, he does remember development, as did the early bands that his first electric was cheap and in which they played. All five describe Canadian-made. “It was a piece of shit, the guitar as a tool that guides their but man, did I love that guitar!” Besides being musical journey and takes them to new From there, Good was fortunate to passionate players, landscapes. They never tire of exploring get some pretty nice sounding second- these artists are all the palette of colours they can create hand guitars and gear from his dad and gentlemen. All five are using just six strings on their chosen axe, uncles – of seminal Canadian folk/country friends and they share an amplifier, and a few effects. Some are outfit The Good Brothers. “My dad always a mutual respect and self-admitted “gear heads.” Others are loves to tell the story about how he got admiration for each other’s “Tele nuts.” Some simply prefer to let me and my brother Dallas to play guitar,” playing. There is no competition. Over the instrument speak for itself and add Good says. “He lined up all the amps and the course of several decades, they’ve subtle textures – such as tremolo and the guitars in the house one day and said: each developed a unique style. When reverb –with pedals or amps when the ‘Don’t ever touch these!’” they’re fortunate enough to cross paths song calls for such flourishes. Luke Doucet’s dad was also a on the road, they are happy to trade Whatever colours they create or professional musician, but it was his licks and talk shop. whatever gear they choose to enhance mom who gave him his first guitar for his These five guitarists were their muse, these fine players constantly 13th birthday. introduced to the electric as teenagers. search for new, undiscovered sounds or “It was a relatively cheap plywood Some were self-taught; some took hidden chords that pop out of their heads guitar made somewhere in Asia,” lessons. Whatever their early education, at the most unexpected times. While Doucet shares. “I can’t recall the name, they all shared with me variations of they are busy touring they don’t practice Colin James

Guitars Stratocaster with Jumbo Frets (main) Gibson Les Paul Custom Larrivee Acoustic National Dobro Fender Stratocasters (various)

Amps Fender ’65 Reissue Deluxe Matchless Chieftain Amp Fender Vintage Super Reverb with JBL Speakers Leslie Model 18 Guitar Cab Amp

Effects Tim Blunt Trailer Trash Custom-Built Pedal Board Dunlop 95Q Wah Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer Keely Katana Boost OCD Distortion Pedal the following childhood memory: sitting regularly, but in between tours, they all BOSS TR-2 Tremolo alone in their basements or bedrooms take time to further hone their craft. Keely Compressor with the record player spinning, and But enough of my rambling; let’s hear BOSS Delay with Tap dropping the needle over and over from these five guys and their guitars. Korg Pitch Black Tuner again to learn particular guitar licks Road Rage True Bypass Looper from the likes of Jimmy Page, Pete My First Guitar Townshend, Albert King, and Stevie Ray Grant Siemens was 15 when he picked but it was a difficult instrument to play. Vaughn, to name just a few of their early up his first electric. “It was a Kramer The great thing about learning on a influences and guitar heroes. Striker,” he laughs. “I still own it. It’s difficult instrument is that it’s like being All five musicians were also the same guitar Eddie Van Halen had. on-deck in baseball where you have influenced by a variety of musical The funny thing is I wasn’t really into a weight on the end of your bat. You styles. Doucet, Siemens, and James’ Van Halen; it was an American-made swing the heavy bat until you get up to early education was steeped in the guitar that I could get for $250. It was the plate and then the bat feels light.” blues. Genres that caught Good’s a wicked deal and it had a Floyd Rose When Doucet finally moved on to ear early were classical, country, and whammy bar, which I thought was cool.” professional-grade instruments they were bluegrass. Cripps was drawn to surf-rock When I ask Travis Good the same easier to play. “If anyone ever asks me

[50] • CANADIAN MUSICIAN Grant Siemens the Epiphone was his main axe, but he does recall his first amplifier: a Corb Lund & The Hurtin’ Albertans Sears Vagabond. “It was a little 410 configuration and some of the speakers Guitars must have been ripped because it just Hahn Guitars 228 (main) overdrove like crazy.” ‘53 Fender Dual Professional Lap Steel From the moment Colin Cripps first Jerry Jones Baritone picked up an electric, he was crazy for Black Phoenix the six-string instrument. Cripps grew Gibson F-9 mandolin up in Hamilton, ON and his first guitar Hamm-tone D-18 Acoustic was a Telecaster copy. “I got it from Reggie’s Music when Amplifiers I was 15,” he recalls. “Subsequently, I Victoria Ivy League ended up working there. It was the first Fender Blackface Princeton Reverb job I ever had. I was so enamored with Fender Silverface Princeton Reverb guitars from day one.” Cripps worked at the store, which is now long gone, off Effects and on from the time he was 14 until he Sonic Research Turbo Tuner was 23. “The place had a big impact on Strymon Flint Tremelo my early guitar obsession,” he admits. Strymon EL Capistan Delay Durham Electroncis Sex Drive My Hometown Klon KTR Overdrive Ever since the 1960s, Winnipeg has Xotic EP Booster boasted a thriving music scene. The cold winters of the capital city seem what’s the best way to go about learning conducive to spawning some great how to play guitar I always tell them to guitarists. , Randy Bachman, start with an acoustic because they are Big Dave McLean — all passed through more difficult to play than electrics. You the “crossroads” of Portage and Main. don’t want to take any shortcuts.” Doucet grew up there, James moved Colin James is not one to take there as a teen, and Siemens still calls shortcuts. The six-time The Peg home. winner, who was recently inducted into “I love Winnipeg,” Siemens says. the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, “There is a great arts scene and it’s the first learned on a difficult instrument, too. only affordable place for a guitar player to The guitar was an acoustic owned by one live. Growing up here was a phenomenal of his older brothers. “It was a lefty, so musical experience because everybody is I had to turn it upside down just to get a killer player. Most of my favourite guitar going on it,” he says. players are from Winnipeg. I’m lucky I get The first guitar James really “had to to watch them every night, be friends with have” was later bought at a music store them, sit down and talk with them, and in downtown Regina; he was in grade steal their ideas.” six. “It was a sunburst Epiphone,” James Early in his career, Siemens recalls. “I would probably laugh if I saw was big into Winnipeg’s blues scene, it now, but it was a nice guitar.” often playing with Big Dave McLean. He doesn’t remember how long Later, as he honed his craft further,

CANADIAN MUSICIAN • [51] FIve GuyS The Bella vista. The guy who owned the place said he would hire us, but we & Their Guitars needed to have an adult in Wells record, Hoodoo Man Blues. that would be responsible for us since “Winnipeg was a huge blues town,” they were a licensed venue. as soon as says the 17-time Maple Blues award my dad joined the band we went from winner. Like Siemens later on, James playing The Kinks, The Stones, The Who, met and was infl uenced by Big Dave and Led Zeppelin to being a full-on blues McLean. “he taught me so much,” band playing the likes of , the guitarist recalls. “When I moved to howlin’ Wolf, and .” Winnipeg, the blues community went The blues was – and remains – an out of their way to teach me. Big Dave important touchstone for the 39-year- Siemens played with and bands like hound Dog would let old. “When I pick up the guitar now it’s songwriters such as me come down to these hotels on a still there,” Doucet explains. “It’s one of Dan Frechette and Saturday afternoon. I was underage, but the things I love to do the most … just sit Scott nolan. “Like most kids as long as I came onto the stage right for a little bit and ruminate on the blues.” in the Prairies, I started out from my hotel room and returned there sitting in my basement, bored,” afterwards, they would let me sit in for My Guitar Heroes he recalls. “It’s minus 40 outside, a couple of songs. That really meant a Siemens’ guitar heroes include a pair who played with Merle haggard: Roy nichols and James Burton. “I also really

PHOTO: STEVE DORMER dig Steve Crawford, Ry Cooder, and Keith Richards,” he comments. as the youngest of the guitar slingers featured here, Siemens grew up listening to and loving Doucet, Cripps, and The Sadies. “Those guys were all heroes of mine, too.” Colin Cripps Blue Rodeo

Guitars (1955) Fender Telecaster (1968) (1961) Gibson SG Standard (1964) Gibson ES-345 (1964) Rickenbacker 360-12 (1967) Fox Acoustic (2009) Martin D-28 acoustic (1965)

amps Vox AC-30 (1967) Bernie Amp (1993) Reverb (1966)

EffEcts Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Diamond Tremolo Ibanez TS-808 Tube Screamer Nice Rack Canada Boost Malekko Spring Chicken Reverb Dr. Scientist Reverberator Roland GP-8 Processor so what else are you going to do but play lot to a young kid. It gave me hope and the guitar? In grade six, you could take kept me going.” One of James’ guitar heroes was band or guitar. Both of my older brothers Doucet knows well the challenges Canadian . “I love amos,” took band and hated it, so I took guitar. of being a young kid with bigger he says emphatically. “he taught me I guess my teacher noticed something. aspirations – wanting to play gigs but a lot when I was a kid.” James’ other he hauled me aside, gave me a Muddy not being old enough to play certain guitar heroes include a trio of “killer Waters tape, showed me the pentatonic venues. Like James, the guitar slinger players”: albert King, albert Collins, and scale, and kicked me out of class. So I sat was also reared on the blues. When Stevie Ray vaughan. in my basement playing to that tape for he was 13, his dad moved back to “When I fi rst heard Stevie play on years. It just grew from there.” Winnipeg from new Orleans. It didn’t a David Bowie record, I was convinced When he was 16, Colin James quit take long for father and son to start I was listening to albert King,” he school and moved to Winnipeg from his playing together. recalls. “I thought, ‘Wow, Bowie got hometown of Regina. Immediately he “I hired him to play in my band,” albert King to play on his record.’ Then formed a blues band called The hoodoo Doucet begins. “a couple of friends and I learned it was this guy from Texas Men, named after his favorite Junior I got a little gig at a restaurant called called Stevie Ray vaughan. I started

[52] • CANADIAN MUSICIAN Luke Doucet Whitehorse

Guitars Gretsch White Falcon (2003) Fender Telecaster (1966) Shyboy Telecaster (2008) Creston Telecaster (2013) Harmony Stella Acoustic (1959) Larrivee Parlour Acoustic (1998)

Amplifiers Gibson GA18 (1959) Gibson GA18 (1961)

Effects BYOC Reverb BYOC Analog Echo Radial Switchbone ABY to read a few things about him and his guitar collection. No sooner had I started to listen to him that I met him! player Cliff Gallup. That spoke to me more playing electric guitar for a few years It was ridiculous,” James adds. “My than the blues. and I had to learn to play as quick as I band opened up a show for him and we “Everyone has their first guitar could. There is nothing like learning in became fast friends.” hero,” Cripps adds. “Mine was Pete front of people.” For his part, James’ good friend Townshend. It wasn’t like I wanted to Cripps loved early rockabilly and rock ‘n’ learn every Who song, but he was an My Playing Style roll. He discovered many guitarists thanks inspiration in terms of attitude.” “I like the fact, maybe just because I’m to Guitar Player magazine. “I loved Buddy When Good was 18, he joined his tied into the Canadian music scene Holly and Gene Vincent and that whole father and uncles in The Good Brothers. and I know a lot more people in it, but mid- to late-50s scene,” he says. “I loved “That was a serious crash course in it doesn’t seem like anyone is trying the music of the guitar players that came playing country and bluegrass,” he to be like someone else,” Siemens from that era, especially Vincent’s guitar comments. “At the time I had only been comments. “Everyone has a unique style

CANADIAN MUSICIAN • [53] Five Guys at Columbia who signed people like Dylan, but John Hammond Jr. was this & Their Guitars unbelievable acoustic-blues performer his sound. “Country, blues, and the who loved Robert Johnson and all that combination of the two are definitely my stuff,” he explains. “In the ‘60s, he was strong suits,” he says. “My playing style is also going to become the next Mick definitely a hybrid of these loves: country Jagger. He had the swagger and was my and blues with a bunch of Stax [Records] hero.” thrown in there because I’m a Stax nut.” When Good started playing with Doucet remembers ruminating for the whammy bar on his Gretsch guitar, a long time about the notion of having his playing style significantly changed. his “own sound” until he received some “It wasn’t on purpose,” he explains. “It and it’s a supportive good advice from dear-old dad. “I had a lot to do with the guitar. It took group – probably remember him saying, ‘Your style will a long time after I bought that guitar because there are as materialize on its own whether you like to even start playing it. I just thought it many guitar players in all it or not.’ The point he was making, and looked cool. It sounded good, but it was of Canada as there are in LA; the point I now make to other people if just so big and clunky that I couldn’t get that encourages you to sound they ask me the same question, is that my head around it. Then I realized I’m different.” it’s really important to learn repertoire kind of big and clunky, so maybe it was Siemens has always loved roots from people who have come before you. the perfect fit.” music and it’s the genre that defines There are people out there who will say Cripps says his style is usually dictated by the group of musicians playing with him at any given time. Travis (front) & brother “When you’re a kid, you’re a sponge,” Dallas Good of The Sadies. he explains. “You are so absorbed in wanting to learn the instrument and draw in as much as you can … you take from all kinds of things just to figure out if you are any good at it. You take some stuff from here and some stuff from there and then throw it all into this big pot. Eventually, I end up taking my strongest direction from the musicians I’m playing with and the importance of that vocabulary. Whatever style I develop is a product of that environment.” If Cripps had to sum up his style, he’d call it a melding of old-school ‘70s rock with rockabilly, and other influences from 1981 on. “The Edge defined for me the idea of a single instrument having a single voice,” he adds. “In some weird way, I’ve always been a bridge between these two camps.” Guitars & Gear “I’m a Tele nut,” says Siemens. “I’ve always played Telecasters. My main electric, a Hahn 228, is made by a guy named Chihoe Hahn. It’s a well-built, custom-made Tele-style guitar. It’s phenomenal … just how Leo [Fender] would have made it back in ’51.” The Gretsch White Falcon is Doucet’s go-to. “I love that instrument,” Travis Good you should never learn other people’s he says. “I love the way it sounds and licks because you will just sound like the way it feels.” The Sadies them,” he continues. “That’s bullshit! Back to Siemens for a moment; You are never going to sound like them. besides an obsession with Telecasters, Guitars You can learn all the Robert Johnson he is also a “reverb nut.” Gretsch Chet Atkins (1972) you want, but if you are learning Robert “I love reverb and tremolo,” he says. Gretsch Chet Atkins (1964) Johnson, Jimmy Page, Brian Setzer, Marc “If I’m going to use any kind of effects, Martin D-28 (circa 1980) Ribot, and Martin Tielli all at the same those are the two things I gravitate time, you are not going to sound like towards. I bought this thing called the Amps Robert Johnson. Instead, you are going Victoria Reverberato, which is just like Fender Vibrolux (circa 1960) to sound like a whole bunch of things all an external head that is two reverbs Fender Deluxe Reverb (circa 1970) mashed together. And, more likely than and harmonic tremolos. I bring that not, you are going to sound like you.” wherever I go. I can plug it into any amp Effects James modeled his early guitar and I get super lush reverb and amazing BOSS TU-3 Tuner playing after John Hammond Jr. “His tremolo.” dad was a famous record executive Doucet is also a reverb fan. In

[54] • CANADIAN MUSICIAN Five Guys & Their Guitars Good also favours a Gretsch when which was his guitar monitor back in the it comes to his axe of choice. “About all day. When The Good Brothers started I play with The Sadies are my two old getting proper monitors, they stopped Chet Atkins Tennesseans,” he shares. using amps on stage and I got them all.” Like Siemens, Cripps is fundamen- James’ first record contract tally a Telecaster player. “I also have an included a deal with Fender. He got old Gibson SG. That was my main guitar three “freebies” back in 1989 that all the years I played with Kathleen became his go-to guitars for many most cases, he relies Edwards. It’s funny, it changes depend- years. Only recently has he diversified. on his amp to deliver ing on what you think will give that “I got a Gretsch Sparkle Jet around the the effect. “My amp is music a voice or give your approach to time of the Little Big Band II record and a Gibson version of [the it a different take. I’m known for having I really enjoy that guitar,” he says. “I Fender Deluxe Reverb] – an a bunch of guitars and part of it is I’m also just got a brand new Olympic white Explorer G-18. It has a sound obsessed with them, but for me, the Strat with a matching head stock that that breaks up in a certain way approach has always been to use differ- I’m crazy about from the Fender custom that is really beautiful.” ent colours for different situations.” shop. I love it.” Beyond reverb, Doucet usually likes Good uses a pair of amps that were to keep things simple these days. “I find handed down from family members. On Practice you can use the sound of your fingers “The one that was my dad’s is an For most touring musicians, practice more if there is less happening between Autoharp Amp – an old Vibrolux. I also comes and goes. “Lately, I’ve been the guitar and the amplifier.” have an old [Fender] Deluxe Reverb, practicing a couple of hours a day when I’m not on the road,” says Siemens. “Sometimes, after a three-month tour, taking a break is often better practice than practicing because it makes you want to pick it up and play more. The last tour I got to play with a few of my idols: Buddy Miller, Kenny Vaughan, and Fats Kaplin, so that inspired me to pick up the guitar again and hone some more skills.” Doucet says he can go a long time without practicing, but all the while he is still listening and learning. “I hear music, melodies, rhythms, and notes,” he explains. “As long as there is music around me, I’m able to assimilate a fair bit of stuff and I can keep learning. I really appreciate the regimen of practicing. The months leading up to and after my Sleepwalk Guitar Festival, I find myself wanting to practice a lot because I usually have my head rocked pretty hard by the talent that is there.” Good was flattered to be featured amongst these other talented players and says he still has a long way to go with his guitar playing. “It’s weird,” he concludes. “I’m playing more guitar now than I ever have. I’m getting hooked in my old age!” n

David McPherson is a -based professional writer and corporate communicator; McPherson lives by his self-penned motto, “Music is the elixir of life.” With 14,780 songs on his iPod and counting and a growing vintage vinyl collection, he’s always discovering new music. Follow him on Twitter @ aspen73.

[56] • CANADIAN MUSICIAN