Stacy Jones

Matt: When you head out on the road do you prefer to bring a truck load of guitars with you, or are you a one guitar at a time kind of guy?

Stacey: In the studio I have a great arsenal. I’ve been buying vintage guitars for 15 years now, so you name it, I’ve got it. One of my recent purchases was a ’62 Gibson Hummingbird that I’m really loving at the moment. I also have a ‘70 Les Paul Gold Top, which was originally owned by the guitarist in Metal Church. I bought that from him, via a guitar shop in Seattle, back in about ’98. I think he was the only owner of the guitar, he had bought it as a kid, and it had appeared on a Metal Church album cover. A little bit of guitar trivia for you.

I’ve got a ton of guitars in the studio right now. I don’t have anything crazy, like a ‘50s Les Paul Junior, nothing crazy like that. But I’ve got a lot of good ‘60s Fenders and a couple of ‘70s Les Pauls that are awesome. Anyway, that Gold Top was sitting in the studio on a guitar stand, and one of the guys tripped on a cable and knocked it over and broke the headstock off. I just got it fixed and I’ll get it back this week, I can’t wait. Jamie actually used that guitar in the “Flavor of the Week” video, and he uses it live as well.

For me, I really like to use a ’62 Jazzmaster when I play live with Hi-Fi. I bought it years ago and routed it and put a humbucker in it. I’m a big fan of Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth and Kurt Cobain, and I kind of emulated their style and aesthetic early on when I was learning to play. So I have a lot of Mustangs, Jaguars and Jazzmasters and with the Jaguars, a couple of them I routed out and put humbuckers in there. I have a beautiful jazzmaster that I think is a ’65 that I use a lot. With Hi-Fi I use that Jazzmaster and a Les Paul that I really like as well.

Matt: Does your studio set up differ from your stage rig?

Stacey: I keep things pretty simple. My role in Hi-Fi is to just provide the meat. I have two settings distorted and really distorted, loud and louder. Normally I play all the rhythm parts, but for this record Jamie and I both played rhythm because we 99% of it is live off the floor.

So in other words, when we got a drum track we got a bass and two rhythms guitar track as well, because we were all tracking live together. There’s this intangible quality you get with four guys playing live at the same time. There’s no beat detective or anything with this record, we just did it live and then added overdubs later.

Generally speaking, I use a Marshall JCM2000and I’ll put a 421 or a 57 on that and a Royer, a little darker mic, and I have a Bad Cat combo amp that I use. So I have this wall of distortion from the Marshall and I’ll mix in the chimey, clean stuff from the Bad Cat, and that really works well for me. That’s in the studio, and on stage I’m really simple, I really just set up the Marshall and I’m good to go.

Matt: Does your studio set up differ from your stage rig?

Stacey: I keep things pretty simple. My role in Hi-Fi is to just provide the meat. I have two settings distorted and really distorted, loud and louder. Normally I play all the rhythm parts, but for this record Jamie and I both played rhythm because we 99% of it is live off the floor.

So in other words, when we got a drum track we got a bass and two rhythms guitar track as well, because we were all tracking live together. There’s this intangible quality you get with four guys playing live at the same time. There’s no beat detective or anything with this record, we just did it live and then added overdubs later.

Generally speaking, I use a Marshall JCM2000and I’ll put a 421 or a 57 on that and a Royer, a little darker mic, and I have a Bad Cat combo amp that I use. So I have this wall of distortion from the Marshall and I’ll mix in the chimey, clean stuff from the Bad Cat, and that really works well for me. That’s in the studio, and on stage I’m really simple, I really just set up the Marshall and I’m good to go.