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| Guitar One Magazine Interview with Noel Gallagher |
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| Excerpt from the Sept. 2002 issue |
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| Q. What instruments and amps did you use on the Giants sessions? |
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| For this album, I decided that I wasn't going to use anything that I'd used on any of the previous three albums. I put away all the guitars and Marshall stacks I'd used on Morning Glory, Be Here Now, and Definitely Maybe. Then I bought loads of really weird pedals, old guitars, and small amps. In the past, I would just have a couple of 100-watt Marshalls, a Les Paul, and my Epiphone Casino, and that would be it. I wouldn't even try to experiment with guitar sounds, because I couldn't be bothered. |
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On tour Noel Gallagher uses Clark Tygers |
| Q. So what prompted you to toss out your old faithfuls? |
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| Well, again, I had the time. There was no pressure to have the record released by a certain date. When somebody gives you an infinite amount of time to produce a record, you tend to take quite a few days just messing around. |
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| Q. What were some of the "new" instruments you used? |
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| A Fender Strat and a '60s Telecaster that Johnny Depp bought me for my 30th birthday. And I just bought this really cool, wine-red '80s Les Paul Deluxe. But it wasn't so much the guitars that changed the sound of the album -- it was the amps. For example, I'd never used a Fender amp on any of my records. It was always Marshalls, Marshalls, and more Marshalls. |
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| Q. Did you try a bunch of Fenders, or stick with one or two models? |
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| The main amps were a Bandmaster and a blackface Princeton. |
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| Q. What were some of the tonal differences you noticed between the Marshalls and the Fenders? |
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| No disrespect to Marshalls, but they have one sound, and that's just about it. They're either really loud, or really quiet. But I found that each Fender amp has its own character. |
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| Q. Then I assume you used the Bandmaster and the Princeton for specific sounds? |
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| Yeah. I used the Princeton for clean sounds, and the Bandmaster would just be for loud, dirty sounds. |
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| Q. Are you bringing the Fenders on the road, or are you sticking with the Marshall sound for live performance? |
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| Well, neither, actually. I'm using Clark amps -- they're made by a guy in America. Spike [Stent, Giants co-producer] downloaded the information from the Internet, and I was intrigued by Clark's claim that he could replicate any tweed Fender, but with sturdy hardware so that they don't rattle around on tour. We couldn't try one out beforehand -- because he only makes the amps to order -- so we took a gamble and sent him some money. Four months later, this amp turns up at our rehearsal studio. We plug it in, and it sounds five times better than my Bandmaster! I don't know what this guy does, but he's a genius. |
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| Q. Which Clark model did you order? |
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| It's a Tyger, which is based on a late-model tweed Bandmaster. Spike ordered a replica of a '59 tweed Deluxe which Clark calls the Beaufort. |
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| Q. How do you dial in your live sound? |
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| I used to just turn up the amps as full as I could get them -- I never used distortion pedals or anything like that. But I started collecting Ibanez Tube Screamers recently, and I've got an old '70s model, which is the best pedal I've ever come across. So now I get a really good rhythm sound, and then kick in a Tube Screamer for the guitar solos. I like that so much better than having a loud guitar sound going all the time. |
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| Q. Good tone, and -- as a bonus -- you're probably saving your hearing. |
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| Absolutely -- and the rest of the band's, too. [Laughs.] |
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