Billy Duffy

“Going out on tour I needed a back up to my trusty ‘Sanctuary’ White Falcon and a very good friend of mine ‘Fat Rick’ Zsigmond of New Kings Road Vintage Guitar Emporium had one in his shop. As they don’t show up very often we did a deal on it and I used it extensively until I picked up the new touring ones in the 2000s. This guitar came very much like the ‘Sanctuary’ one as it’s from a very similar era so it had all the same stuff. I just changed the pick up to a more modern ‘TV Jones’ one because those pickups from the seventies were just horrible. I’m pleased to say Gretsch sorted that problem out and the ones on the White Falcons now are much better.” Billy Duffy, via his website

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "This is my favourite recording Les Paul. I occasionally take it on the road but mostly it’s for recording. I generally play songs from ‘Sonic Temple’ on the Les Paul Custom and songs from ‘Electric’ on the Les Paul Gold Tops. They just feel better for those particular types of songs."

On the [http://www.billyduffy.com/gear/gibson-les-paul-1960-reissue-gold-top/) of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "This one is just a regular production 1960 re-issue Gold Top that Gibson made in 2000. It was quite inexpensive but it just sounded really good. I did all the usual changes though: changed the pick-up and tuning pegs, took the scratch plate and pick-up cover off. I use this one all the time live. It’s a good, honest guitar. Nothing fancy or special but it really feels good and plays great.”

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "This one goes back to an offshoot of the Camp Freddy band and we played a party at on a stage in the parking lot of the Gibson Guitar Custom Shop in Nashville, Tennessee. Gibson flew us out there and we played a bunch of cover songs and we each got to pick a guitar that Gibson would make for us in the Custom Shop. I chose the TV Yellow Les Paul Junior and the guy who actually made it handed it to me and I played it in the gig there and then. It’s a very Plain Jane simple guitar designed in the fifties... Apart from them putting my name on the headstock, the only thing I had them customize was that I had them make it with the slimmer neck which is to my particular taste."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "This guitar of mine comes originally from an event in April 2007 at the Empire State building in New York for Mike Peters’ Cancer Charity ‘Love, Hope & Strength’. Mike, Dave Wakling (The Beat), Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) and I did a hike up the 1,600 steps to the top of the Empire State Building and then played a little gig there. Gibson sponsored the event and let us keep the guitars we’d played on the roof which in my case was a fabulous Gibson J-200."

Billy uses a 2010 Nash '63 Relic Esquire, according to this Guitar Geek rig diagram.

"The ‘Evil Twin’ to Billy’s Gretsch Signature White Falcon this colourway was launched as a limited edition model in December 2015. The spec is identical to it’s twin which in turn was based on his 1970’s ‘Sanctuary’ White Falcon with the only difference being this model has a luxurious black gloss lacquer finish instead of a white one."

“Around 1984 I decided that I wanted to get another single cutaway White Falcon like the ‘Sanctuary one as I loved the way it felt. Unfortunately at that time I couldn’t find one let alone afford one and I came across a Country Club that had the same feel. So, I traded the Double Cutaway Stereo Falcon for it. Originally it was a natural wood finish so I got it painted in London by a guy called Roger Giffin who was a guitar customizer under Kew Bridge. Instead of white I decided to get it painted black because I wanted to create my own ‘Black Falcon’ as I just thought it would look cool. The black guitar, white guitar ‘flim flam’ in the ‘Love Removal Machine’ video were the ‘Sanctuary’ Falcon and this Country Club. I don’t think I ever played live with it with the wood front though. I think I invented the Black Falcon before Gretsch did! When I got it painted by Roger Giffin, the paint that he used was supposed to be black but sometimes if you paint a guitar and there’s too much moisture in the air ‘clouding’ can happen. The finish got a bit cloudy like a milky black, almost with a green tinge to it. But in fact that’s what happens to some vintage black guitars anyway so more out of luck that good planning the Country Club became a black guitar with a vintage finish. Something else that happened was that in December 1989 we were on tour in Canada and it was extremely cold. This guitar was in a truck with the ‘Sanctuary’ Falcon and the paint lacquer finish on both of them cracked. But, it was in a very attractive 1950s way, which made both the guitars look kind of sexy and more vintage than they really are. It was a fortunate accident! So combining the clouding paint effect and the cracked lacquer I ended up with a guitar that almost looked like it had been antiqued.

Later on, as I usually do, I changed out the pick ups at the bridge as for a hotter one which was a TV Jones. In the 1990s or 2000s I swapped out the tremolo arm for a White Falcon one that Fat Rick from New Kings Road Vintage Guitar Emporium found for me. For a long time it became my backup live guitar to the ‘Sanctuary’ Falcon but was never my primary guitar. I just had it there in case I broke a string on the regular Falcon but I never did as the ‘Sanctuary’ one was so reliable that I never needed my spare. One final piece of trivia on this guitar is that in the 1980s Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera rented it to use in a video. He saw it in when I was having some work done on it and he asked to use it so I let him as I thought he was a nice guy and cool. It still is a very pretty looking guitar and one of my favorites.”

In this video

"January 2013 was very special to me as it saw the launch of my first ever signature guitar. The release of the Gretsch Billy Duffy Falcon (link) was something I could have only dreamed of as a young lad in London in 1981 when I bought my first White Falcon. Over the many years starting with Theatre of Hate and then more importantly with The Cult I suppose I made this ‘big white beast’ my own to the point where the guys at Gretsch asked to create my signature version.

Back in 1984 and just starting out as a musician I was unable to afford a second Falcon so I picked up a Gretsch Country Club with a similar feel. I didn’t like it’s natural wood finish as it looked like a piece of Danish furniture (really!) plus there was a lot of them kicking around in the ’70s and ’80s. So, I decided to create an ‘evil twin’ for my White guitar by getting it painted black!

At the time Gretsch didn’t have a Black Falcon available so I felt like I’d created a brand new model! You can read the full story of this guitar on my Gear pages here…

Gretsch Country Club

Ironically Gretsch did finally launch a Black Falcon in 1992 and I remember seeing pictures of one of my all time guitar heroes, Sylvain Sylvain (of the New York Dolls), playing one. Whilst it is a great looking guitar I didn’t feel the gold finish was me so never picked one up.

Fast forward to earlier this year, and following the success of my signature Falcon, I started talking to Gretcsh about the possibility of creating my Black Falcon vision as a Limited Edition model. They loved the idea so here it is…

Billy Duffy G7593T Black Falcon

As you can see it’s the same spec as my Signature White Falcon with all the same hardware but with a beautiful black gloss finish. Like my White one it plays like a dream ‘straight out the box’ and I’ve been using it extensively during the recent run of shows with The Cult.

Expect to see plenty more of this black beauty when we take our new album ‘Hidden City’ out on the road worldwide in 2016. And if you want to grab one of these for yourself you’d better hook up with your local Gretsch Dealer quick as they’re likely to sell out fast."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "Quite often if there have been Matchless amps that are available to hire they just don’t sound as good, and often they’re usually beaten up. So the Vox was always a better choice in that situation and it’s partly behind my choice to use them going forward as these AC-30s are widely available anywhere around the world we play."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "After the ‘Electric’ tour Jamie moved back to bass and I ended up having four Marshall amps, which are the JCM 800s... I still have those four Marshalls today, they’ve pretty much lasted through all the years of abuse, all the tours we’ve done and they’re pretty much all still running."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "The JC has been around, knockin’ around, and I’ve used it a lot. Basically has an amazing clean tone — a great chorus sound. It’s unbeatable. It’s become kind of a signature. You can definitely hear it on Dream Time and Love a lot. If you listen to 'Sonic Temple,' it’s featured there as one of the layers of the sound.”

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "I first bought them in ’86 and they all had that black front and I thought they looked a bit too ‘heavy metal’ for me, not particularly to my taste... so I had someone refinish the fronts with vintage Marshall speaker cloth to make them look more 1970s. Recently Marshall have re-issued some of these cabinets with the black fronts and whereas the contents of the cabinet are good old style speakers the front grille is the more modern Marshall look that they’ve run since the mid eighties and that’s the look I hate, the look I paid to get rid of, too heavy metal. They do also make that 1960 cabinet with the more traditional vintage basket weave so I’ve bought a couple of them as they look the same as the ones that I had made up back in the day."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "I’m a big fan of Matchless. Their amps were introduced to me by Bob Rock when I was recording ‘Sonic Temple’. I used them in the studio but didn’t use them live until after the ‘Ceremony’ tour. At that point I finally went and bought one in Los Angles and started using it in sessions and stuff. They’re a great sounding combo amplifier, better than a Vox AC 30 and better than a Fender Twin."

"So we did a gig in Oslo, and they gave me a thing called a JC-160, which I believe was a 4x10 [version]. I’ve never seen one since. That was the first amp I ever used [live with The Cult]," says Billy, in this interview.

In this section of Billy's website, he explains that he's been using the 1973X combo in the studio as pf April 2015.

In this photo posted by Vox Amplification to Instagram, Billy Duffy can be seen playing through his Vox Hand-Wired AC30HW2 combo amp.

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "People used to bribe the producer to tell them what pedals and effects I used to get the guitar sound in the beginning of the song, that whole kind of mystical Easterny sound. The story that goes along with that is, it was a whole BOSS pedal board. I definitely had two delays in it, ‘cause there are two delays working against each other —long and short delays. It’s 400 and 800 milliseconds, approximately, at the beginning of the song."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "It’s not an effect but a volume pedal. It literally just boosts the signal from the strings through to the amplifier, it sounds ridiculous to say it, a bit ‘Spinal Tap,' but it’s a pedal that’s really, really useful. For example if I’m playing a really heavy section of a song and I want to go straight into a clean section sometimes you’ll lose the volume so this pedal helps by keeping the volume whilst the tone changes.”

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, “This is one of the only pedals that I’ve got that is a an expression pedal, that you can effect it and it’s different every time you do it. The wah wah sound was very influential to me. Throughout my career I’ve always tried to improve what I do as a guitar player so originally I just had a regular Cry Baby but when I became famous enough to get them to modify them for me I did. I have a great relationship with Dunlop and they made me a personalized pedal based on the Cry Baby. Interestingly, Dunlop have now made a production pedal incorporating stuff that that they customized for me."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, “It’s a great useful pedal that’s also a mute.” There isn't much more information, but the pedal he owns is depicted quite clearly as part of his pedal boad.

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor Pedal is listed and depicted (complete with settings labeled on tape, laid just under the controls).

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, “I use all BOSS delays and I use their flanger and the Super Overdrive, still, on occasion. It [the Boss BF-2] is very much part of the early Death Cult and Cult sound and features heavily in the ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Fire Woman’ intros."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "Originally I used The Boss Super Overdrive ‘cos as it was given to me... Later on I got the ‘Tube Screamer’ and used to switch between the two. My Tube Screamers now have now been modified very simply but I use them for a slightly different kind of overdrive, for example in ‘Rain’ or ‘Sanctuary’ I use the Tube Screamer as my overdrive."

On the Gear page of Billy Duffy's website, he says, "I’ve ended up using the DD3 ‘cos it gives you that effect in an easily replaceable, robust, very reliable way. When I’m stopping on these with my motorcycle boots, when they’re on airplanes and the back of trucks I don’t want them to break. I use Boss pedals ‘cos they sound great and they’re made well. I could never take something on the road that wasn’t reliable, it would just create incredible headaches.”

A Morley George Lynch Tripler can be seen at 13:30 in this video, on Billy Duffy's board.