“I feel like a Telecaster just makes you play differently – for me, it’s a pretty unforgiving guitar”: Tyler Bryant on the new Tele that rivals his beloved ‘Pinky’ Strats – and how he’s journeying beyond “bone-headed rock ‘n’ roll”
As Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown return with Electrified, we check in with the man whose name is above the door for the story behind the record, and a debrief on how he got those reference-quality electric guitar tones.
Turns out, there were a whole bunch of guitar amps onboard, with boutique vintage replicas doing much of the heavy lifting and an untweakable battery-operated pinch-hitter in reserve. There were pedals, too – a dual-channel overdrive pedal, in particular.
What there wasn’t was a plan. But then, when you’re playing with your buddies you don’t need a plan.
Was there a particular track that kicked off your latest record, Electrified?
“One of the tunes that kicked it off is a deep cut, which is a song called Movin’. With this record, I wanted to keep it true to what the band is: a couple of guitars, a bass and drums.
“There’s always a temptation in the studio to make things bigger than they are, but with Movin’, it’s just a Telecaster plugged into a Princeton Reverb. I’ve been on a Blackberry Smoke and Black Crowes kick of late, so Movin’ was kind of a tip of the hat to that sort of blues and roots rock ’n’ roll.”
You mentioned the Telecaster, which is interesting as most people assume you have a pink Stratocaster in hand 24/7.
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“I feel like a Telecaster just makes you play a little bit differently – and, for me, it’s a pretty unforgiving guitar. But this Tele is a Custom Shop ’59; it was a gift from my wife [Rebecca Lovell] and, man, every time I try it, it always wins. The Telecaster is arguably one of the most rock ’n’ roll instruments ever created, and when it’s in open tunings, kinda like the Black Crowes, it definitely inspired me to tip my hat in that direction.”
The Tele aside, did you deploy any other interesting guitars on this record?
“I’ve got a bunch of old National resonators, and this one resonator I used is a student model, like one of these little three-quarter scale ones. It’s got this tiny scale and I’ve never changed the strings on it – it’s just a grungy little guitar I use now and then. And I’ve got a bunch of pink Strats, a whole arsenal of them, all in different tunings.”
Your use of open tunings seems more prevalent here than in the past.
“I’ve always had maybe a song or two in open G or open D, but I get bored when playing in standard tuning. I’ll catch myself doing the same tired lick that I always lean on, but I feel like every guitar player has like their go-to licks, where you walk into a guitar store, pick up the guitar and out comes those go-to licks. Sometimes, it’s fun to put the guitar in an odd tuning, just so your licks don’t come out.”
What does your overarching process for riff construction look like these days?
“Well, our process is pretty much, ‘Hey, let’s hang out…’ The guys in The Shakedown are my best friends, so there’s really not much of a plan. That hangout usually consists of either eating or jamming [laughs]. I mean… what else do you do? So we’ll start jamming and before you know it, maybe – if we’re lucky – we’ll have a song. And if everyone still has enough gas left in the tank after that, we’ll record it.”
The Shakedown features another outstanding guitarist, Graham Whitford. Tell us how you divide the guitar-playing labour between the two of you.
“The dynamic between us has really become natural over the years. He’ll play what he feels, like a song that suits him, and vice versa, you know? And if I’m ever carrying too much weight to sing and play at the same time, I’ll ask Graham to lighten the load and be like, ‘Hey, can you take this part or switch with me?’
A lot of it comes down to what I can sing and play at the same time, but there’s certain things, like with solos, where we had lots of fun on this record
“A lot of it comes down to what I can sing and play at the same time, but there’s certain things, like with solos, where we had lots of fun on this record. There were songs where Graham would take a solo, and then I’d fire into one, and we’d meet up somewhere. We’re just inspired by moments.”
Do you both choose different sorts of gear to differentiate from and yet also complement each other?
“Yeah, but ultimately, it’s whatever sounds best on the track. I’ve got a ton of amps set up in my control room and cabs mic’d up in the live room where we get going. We used all sorts of stuff. We were using this old Supro and a Tyler amp, made just outside of Nashville, and I was like, ‘Man, this thing is just insane.’
“I became friends with the guy at Tyler – he’d come over and bring amps to my house, and one day, he said, ‘Hey, I made a Dumble clone,’ or ‘Hey, I made this amp that’s like a low-watt Tweed.’ We used those sounds for almost the whole record.”
It seems you’re partial to tube amps as opposed to solid-state amps.
“I’d say it’s almost 100 per cent tube. However, you’ll notice that on the cover of the record, there’s this old radio amp that was made for me by this guy [Matt Richards] who has a company called Square Amps. He made me this little radio into an amp and it’s battery powered, so it’s completely solid-state.
“It runs on a nine-volt battery, and it’s hilarious because it’s got no parameters: it’s just either on or off. But I guess a Pignose might find its way onto a track, and I’ve got an old Peavey from when I was a kid. It’s just about whatever sounds cool!”
Were there any always-on pedals that defined your guitar tone on Electrified?
“I’ve got a pedal called the [Rodenberg Amplification] TB Drive [Shakedown Special], which is something I’ve been using for years; it’s a double-channel overdrive. I’ve normally always got one side of that on, but we did some different pedals on this record. I recently built a stereo ’board for the first time, 100 per cent stereo.
“I reached out to Tyler amps and had them build me two different amps and point the speakers in different directions. With the stereo ’board, you get crazy swirls and echoes, and then you pan the mics left and right. We did that on Trick Up My Sleeve for Graham – it turned out really cool.”
Is there a solo on Electrified that you feel best represents the player you are today?
“I’m really proud of the Trick Up My Sleeve solo. For me, it’s about complementing the song, and I think there were times in the past when I got to be a little self-congratulatory with solos, which is fine. Like, who doesn’t? Who doesn’t love that, especially if you’re the one doing it? But the older I get, the more I want to serve the song.”
Oh, man, I’m playing guitar all the time. Every day, I’m trying to become more well rounded and I’ve been playing guitar on a lot of records that aren’t just bone-headed rock ’n’ roll and blues
What new ground do you hope to tread as a guitarist as you move forward?
“Oh, man, I’m playing guitar all the time. Every day, I’m trying to become more well rounded and I’ve been playing guitar on a lot of records that aren’t just bone-headed rock ’n’ roll and blues. I’m trying to stretch out as a guitar player and would love to learn how to play bluegrass, but that right-hand technique is something I don’t possess.
“That’s not to say I couldn’t – it’s just that I didn’t grow up listening to and studying it. I didn’t read that Bible. But that’s the thing I love about guitar: you can never master it and you can always keep learning new stuff.”
- Electrified is out now via Rattle Shake.
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