Branden Campbell

"The Rickenbacker, I've used a lot of different ones. Obviously people switch instruments for tones, but we started exploring with different tunings as well. I use a Drop-D tuning with the Rickenbacker. It's not so much even for a heavy metal sound - people associate the drop-D with that kind of thing - but it's even more for a sort of droning. Like I'll do the open which would be the open-D string which now is the open-C. So for some of those songs it's like an open-C kind of thing. I think that when I stumbled upon the drop tuning because the action when I got the bass was really high, and it has a dual truss rod in it. So I didn't really want to mess with it; I didn't want to ruin it or anything like that. I figure I'm pretty well to get around standard stuff and poke around with my basses but I just didn't want to risk breaking the truss rod. To compensate for the high tuning I would just tune the bass down. It was with me all last year on tour and I'd always play it backstage and whatever. We were backstage, I think it was our last night on the Duran Duran tour last fall and Tyler said I have this idea for this song, which became 'Trust,' and he said 'Here play this,' and it was in that tuning. So the Rickenbacker when we recorded I knew I wanted to use that because it was already in the tuning and just ended up having that sound. Again, it's a good complement between like, it has the really low lows but it has a cutting top-end as well to it."

"The Hofner, it chose me. This one night at a truck stop, you know when you go in there and they have those dreamcatchers and those sweatshirts that have owls and wolves on them, there it was glowing like Sponge Bob's magic spatula. No, but I mean Hofners and Rickenbackers take us back to Paul McCartney. It's a real classic sound. I'm instantly drawn to a lot of classic and vintage gear, even if it's not an actual vintage piece if it's more retro I'm down with that as well. It just tends to lend itself to acoustic settings and stuff like that. That is the Club Bass Limited Edition, and it's limited because it has the cavern spacing which means the rear pickup is up in the middle instead of back by the bridge. It also has a limited dark violin finish on there which is classy. I love, props to Hofner for sending it out with the Pyramid Flatwounds on it."

"This is a 1961 Fender Precision, my hands-down favorite bass. Anyone that's played a 1961 Fender knows that there's some mojo to it. I think really to me the neck is so comfortable on this. It's nice and worn in on the back, it's a flatter shape on there so it's comfortable for my hands. I did actually add a couple things to it. When I found it it actually already had reissue pickups in it and the pickguard is replaced. I like the idea that it can be a player's bass. I didn't want something I was just going to put under my bed or not feel comfortable taking out on tour. I love these, they're called the Babicz Full Contact bridge. When I first got the bass it obviously played well but there were maybe a couple, not even dead spots, but maybe some spots that jumped out a little bit more here and there. And when I put this bridge on there it was just night and day. Part of it too was that I hit pretty hard with my right hand and so it really helps almost the way a limiter or a compressor would without affecting the tone. The pickups that I put in here were actually made in Chicago, they're called Hanson. These are the Neo-Punch P Bass pickups. What they do is they wire more like a classic Fender-style pickup but in the back they put in another neodymium magnet which gives it almost a little more hair on the note and breaks it up a little bit. It's got the original slab board, rosewood. The neck used to be finished, I guess now it is unfinished. This isn't a relic. This is how it was. I found this at Cowtown Guitars in Las Vegas when I was there on tour - it's a vintage shop. There's a local bass guy in Vegas who has been the bass player for Lenny Kravitz for many years and brought this in. I handpicked the Hanson pickups because of the way that they break up. It almost sounds like they have a natural compression to them that almost like if you're recording and you're through the board that they're going to put some sort of compressor on the bass. It sounds like that has already been done to them, but they're hotter other pickups and it also puts in a little bit of dirt. Kind of like a natural growl in there that I was using pedals to do before, something like a SansAmp bass driver. I'm getting that more out of the bass and having to put other things into the signal to do that. Everything else on here is original. I use the DR Fat Beams on there, just the regular 45-105 setup. I love this thing, it's well balanced. I can dig in and rock out with it with the pick. I can also just play with the fingers as well. This is number one, numero uno."

"Number two that's out with me right now is my '66 Guild Starfire which is a read hollow body. What you'll notice on there is that it doesn't have the regular Hagstrom Bysonic pickup, because that's normally what they would use in those Guild Starfires back then. But when they couldn't get those in from Sweden, the pickup that's in there is typically what you would see in the old Hagstrom solid-body guitars. Some people call it the Mickey Mouse pickup because it looks so cheap. But again, it's still just a single coil and it is the loudest yet clearest pickups of any of my basses. Again this was just a real awesome find that I got last year. It's a stock pickup but it's very unique. I love the sound, I wouldn't change it - Flatwounds tuned to E-flat. I tune it to E-flat so that I can use it exclusively on 'Everybody Talks.' The cool thing with that is that we doubled the bass with a synth-bass line and on the chorus, and what's unique about that bass is that it complements it and has a real natural topend that complents the synth-bass as well. So I'm bringing the dirt and the cut of the note and then we're getting that underbody with the synth."

"The Black Fender Mike Dirnt Precision P Bass, which I believe they designed after a mix between a '51 and a '55 style Fender. This one has a '59 custom shop pickup in it which is all stock. Yeah, Fender - I had another one of his basses that Fender sent to me early on which is now hanging at the Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Florida. They actually did a little thing for us there. Fender sent me a Mike Dirnt bass and said, "Hey Mike, you know Branden is from Neon Trees and he's this new bass player out on the scene. Just to let you know he's digging the bass.' It was a sunburst one, and so we played in Oakland sometime after that and he comes out to the show and says, 'Hey man, good to meet you. I've been working on my new record and thought that you don't have a dark Mike Dirnt bass. You have to have a black Mike Dirnt bass. I didn't just want to order one and have it be some not-awesome off-the-rack bass. I wanted you to have this one - I was playing it today.' It was really cool just down home cool guy. That really meant a lot o tme because he's a great rock-n-roll bassist. It's cool to play that bass because I can see how they spent the time on it to get that sound, that if you want you can totally dial in that pick and get that whole Green Day sound. So yeah that one is a cool one. Igot it last year. I added the thumb rest so I can get more of some finger funk out of it."

"It's actually a long scale. Most of the Gretsch basses are a short, maybe a 30" or a 30.5", and this is the long scale, and it's got an ebony fretboard. Yeah, I just love it."

"This is when we're out in the alley looking for pedalboards and guitars that this one came up. It's a '74 Gibson Ripper, refinished as you can tell but they put in a nice tint to the lacquer to give it a yellowed finish to it. This was a trade with a friend. We all know each other. We're all out on that bass junkie circuit. These pickups are also made by Hanson in Chicago. Hanson is a division of Lakeland, they make all of the pickups that are on the Lakeland and Hanson guitars. This one is great because it's so light, especially for being a neck-through. It doesn't look light but people that know Gibson basses know they're always super heavy. This one, like right away I felt how light it was and then just felt how good it played all the way up the neck, I was like 'Dude that's it - it's happening.' This will keep me warm until I can get back to the White Falcon in the nest."

Demoing the bass for Chicago Music Exchange, Branden says that he owns one and that it is one of his favourite basses (0:47).

Instagram post made during a 2013 Australia / New Zealand tour; BrandEn Campbell of NEON TREES on stage with his Fender Custom Shop Pino Palladino bass (upgraded with a Leo Quann BadAss 2 bridge)