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Unravelling The Mystery Of Guitar With DIESEL · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Diesel and I'm going to be performing this
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: weekend talking Guitars at the Sydney Guitar Show out at
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Home Bush.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Fantastic is or thanks for joining us today, brother. So,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: as you say, you're one of many performers taken part
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: in this weekend the Sydney Guitar Show, to be held
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: at Sydney Olympic Park this Saturday, March seventh and eight.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: So a bit of a change of pace for you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been to a few of these things.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty fun atmosphere and it just reminds me
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, kind of the excitement that I
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: used to get when I was a kid and I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: would go to like music shops, you know and just
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: be gawking at stuff like oh look at that, look
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: at that, you know, as they say, a kid in
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a candy store.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great weekend like beaturing guitars such as
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Dave Leslie, There's plenty of tash Walk, yoursel Rered, King
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Metal Mental name a few. But is it getting be
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: like a comic con for guitarist type thing.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, it's a bit like that. It's a really
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: great way for the community. The guitar community to kind
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of get to get together. And I mean, even though
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: it's guitar orientated, you know, I dare say, it's pretty
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: much you know, it's all about music really, and where
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: there's guitars, there's usually other instruments. So yeah, it's it's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: like it's really just an excuse for everyone to get together.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: True.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Not only is it going to be live performances, but
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: putters could also take part in workshops, their studio rooms,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: the kids rooms, immersive experiences.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: So as you.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Said, you don't really have to be a guitar not
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: to get someone out.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Of this, do you not? Not at all?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I mean even if you have like a slight kind
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of fascination or it's yeah, it's a great opportunity to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to kind of like roam around and really get a whole,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know, broad spectrum idea of what it's the guitar
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: ecosystem is about. And it's not you know, it's really
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: obviously not just about professional musicians. It's you know, the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: guitar is the most popular instrument in the world technically statistically.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, who doesn't have a guitar in
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: the house.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Not many people, I find out when I start asking
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: questions with people at my shows, for instance, I always find.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: That there's a guitar player in every house almost.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I've got a guitar in my house and I can't
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: even play it when people come over. There so many
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: guitarists didn't want to place made like and you all
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: get together, like when you start to get in the backstage,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: green room and stuff, do you still talk guitar?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Do you talk shop or have you sort of over it?
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: You just want to chill out.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I mean Brett Kingman, for instance, he's such a great
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: person to talk to Bergs as we call him.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: He gets his hands on so much gear.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: He's the go to to kind of to ask and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I've actually sourced a few things. I've got a pedal
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: on my board that's been the longstanding my delay, which
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I love. I love delay, And yeah, it's all delays
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: are not the same. There's definitely the case. And you
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: find out how things really sit when you put it
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in the situation of a gig.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: It's it's so so.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Revealing. It's all I can say. You can try something
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: out at home, even in a rehearsal, and you go, yeah,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: this is cool, it's going to work, and then you
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: take it to a show and it all falls apart.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So or it can just suddenly become the best thing
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: you've ever you know, like I love this. But yeah,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I've learned not to kind of like be too surprised
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: if I take something and it's an epic fail, you know,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: at the gig, it's just like, nah, that that was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a bad idea change change tack.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: And he put me.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Onto an amazing yeah pedal made by Free the Tone.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: It's a Japanese company and a lot of.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: My when I look down on my board, there's a
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: lot of Japanese stuff, so I'm not surprised now.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: The strat that I play, the strata caster, it's made japan.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Japanese, is pretty much a safe I would say, a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: safe bet. Their ethoughts is just like they don't make
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: crap and it's.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Part of their culture.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It's really like it's like almost like why would you
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: make something bad?
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: You know, It's like it's just not an option.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: So yeah, everything that I've gotten that has made its
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: way as stalwarts. Yeah, a lot of Japanese stuff. That's
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: all I can say. So, yeah, he put me on
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that because I was. I don't know how we got
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: on the subject, but I might have been might have said, hey, man,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you know what can you recommend for a delay?
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: And he was like try this thing and was yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: So yeah, people people like there's a whole new way
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of like discovering stuff now.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: You know. In my when I started out, it was,
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: you know, I used.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: To go and get magazines from music shops, the ones
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that they were like past expiring sort of thing, and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: they were sitting on the floor and they'd be like,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: you can help yourself to those. They're like three years old,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you know, And I would just look through and go, oh,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd love to have one of those, love
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to have one of those. And never know what any
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of this stuff sounded like. Now you can just wonder
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: what that pedal's like. Well, wonder what that guitar sounds like.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: What about a ten string? You know, after seeing Bad
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Bunny the other night, he's a guitar player, was just
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: shreding on this ten string Puerto Rican instrument called a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: quarta and it's just it's a twelve string, but it's
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: it's basically five double strings, so it's not a twelve string.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: It's a ten string and it's tuned from B upwards,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: so it's kind of like a i'd call it like
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: an ol toe guitar, not quite soprano. And it just
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: sounded incredible. Is tore my head off? So you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: like things like that. Now you can go on YouTube
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and and it's like just go down the rabbit hole,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: as we say.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I've never come back.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: Tire big like plank to your to your feet.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: So you get stuck, they can find you. All the
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: big guitar brands are going to be there too. From Fender,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: it gives them the p RS.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So where you sort of starting out, how important is
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: it to find the right guitar brand and how do
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: you find what?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I think you know a brand is you know they
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: they definitely have their they're very trademark.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: Well, they're very distinct, you know how.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: It's handed up like you've got Fender, Gibson and as
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: like two of the big ones, Gretch I would say,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: is it belongs there and they've got something very distinct.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: Rickenbackers are really distinct. And then you know.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: You've even got things like burns like from the UK,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: which that guy did some crazy designs that were like
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: so kind of like whoa, you know, trying something different.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: But let's face it, the Stratocast is probably the most
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: imitated design, and you know next to the Les Paul
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: which you know, Paul Rey Smith's is kind of like
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a hybrid of both of those. I guess you could say, yeah,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and everything is kind of derivative of those. You know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Leo Fender, he he just like did some incredible designs.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: You know, he had some help. He had some people
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: like Paul G.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Bigsby around him, who was you know, kind of more
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: into making motorcycle paths.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: And you can see that aesthetic all through the Fender stuff.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And you know, the testimony of his designs is this
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: is the synchronized tremolo on the strato cast, which you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: know I managed to like give it a lot of
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of welly, it stays in tune.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Of course you can go level up and go to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a locking tram, which is great too. But you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: for a design that came out how many seventy something
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: years ago, it's incredible. You know, there hasn't been a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: lot of advancements on that and as far as like
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: doing something and getting even the amps.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Too, which you know, did come out of the Radio book.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: That was a book that everyone sort of looked at
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and had radio designs and they just basically altered them
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and made guitar amps out of it.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: But a lot of the amps are all still from
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: that DNA.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: They're still like if you go back, it's like it
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: actually came from those first designs. So you know, they
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: say nothing new under the sign. It's a bit like that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's fun watching the things kind of evolve,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and it's the little things that devil's in the detail,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you know, like just things that I little tweaks that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I do to my instruments.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: There's not many instruments that I can just take off
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: the shelf and go as.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It's ready, you know, I'm ready to use this. It's like,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just not the case for me. But yeah,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: it's it's fun kind of I grew up in the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: age of customizing, you know. Eddie van Halen was like
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the poster child for that, and when when he started
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: doing things, it was like, I want to do that too.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I want to like, you know, get the tools out
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and a lot of I'm sure a lot of guitars
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: were absolutely, you know, like sacrificed.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: Because of that. You live and learn, don't you. You
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: got to make mistakes, Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: The guitarist, like you started topology with cars like board
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: versus like guitarists.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Look, I think you know those kind of people are
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: like they're going to be like that anyway, and good
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: luck to them and everything.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: But it's ridiculous.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: It's a ridiculous notion or even like you know, like
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: check out my guitar.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: It's got like really low action, it's really fast.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It's like it's not about that. It's like if if
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: it's that it feels comfortable for you, great, you know,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: but like if you if someone picked up my guitar,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: for instance, said just think, like.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: What the hell is this. It's like it's set up
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: for like not to be comfortable. It's set up for
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: like so I.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Can dig in and get a lot of sound out
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of it, and so it fights back kind of thing.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: And that's just how it feels good to me. You know.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not a light I mean I do
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: have a light touch at times when I'm playing other instruments,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: especially nylon up, I have to go to a different
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: kind of mode.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: But with electric, I'm yeah, I'm just kind of a brutalist.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: It's just like and I'm singing and playing it at
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the same time, so most of the time, so you know,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I don't have time to think about it like finessing
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: my little you know, hand to kind of like do
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: like it's just dig in and get as much sound
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: as I can out of it, so high action.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Kind of like an acoustic guitar.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I approached the electric almost like an acoustic same similar
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: gauge strings and.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And you personally, out of all that group there on
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the weekend, they're going to be taking a stage on
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Saturday night for what's being called Decoding the Dream.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: It sounds sounds exciting. Can you elaborate on it?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, look, David is gonna he's coming to basically
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: build something. In my mind of there's a guitar that
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I had perheap Fidelity the record that I made in
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: ninety two, and it was a seventies thin line Telly
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: that I put a Tremelo system on Floyd Rose and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: put some lipstick pickups. I completely like customize it, and
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: unfortunately the bridge kind of area of the wood just
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: kind of like caved in and it just became a disaster.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Really sadly, it was like, oh no, it's caving in,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and there wasn't much I could do it. But I
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: mean I could have taken as someone and they could
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: have repaired that whole thing, but I just let it go.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I sold it to a shop, knowing that they would
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: buy it because it was a seventy two I think
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: thin line Talians. They probably went and gave it just
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: repair used and got it all fixed and resold it.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: But I just you know, palmed it off and moved on.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And I just remember that guitar having an incredible like
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: kind of yeah.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: It was great.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: It was used on practically all the rhythm pasts and
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: some of the leads on that album, So it was
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a really really yeah, had a real character about it,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: something kind of different to everything else I had at
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the time. It was like this real quack that it
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: had grateful rhythm parts, really super clean, spanky sort of stuff.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: And yes, so I'm trying to.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Recapture that, like you know, capture Lightning and Ajar as
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: they say, but I think if anyone can do it,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: David can do it.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: And then that's what we're going to happen live on
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: stage in front of people.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well he's gonna, you know, do use some kind
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: of program or something.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell him what I'm thinking and he'll
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: sort of make it come in a virtual way.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: You know. You obviously you can't build a.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Guitar like they're on the streets right to get the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: tools out. I think the story of the guitar and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the way it's going to be built and everything people
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: will be able to follow.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: There'll be like a.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Obviously there'll be kind of like a progress report which
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: people can follow, and then eventually it'll be in my
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: hands and yeah, we'll get to hear it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: Which will be pretty exciting.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I'll just have to forget about it for a while
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: because it'll take them, take him a while, you know.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Just put it in the back of your head for
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: a bit.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think with custom shop orders, it's best
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to just forget about it when you order them and
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: just like let it be a surprise when it turns
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: out true.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: And from the Guitar Show, maybe you pick back up
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: on your diesel bor request take him back off and
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: it'd switch on March at that eighth. Then you hit
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Queensland or the Territory Act back to Queensland, Victoria Kidney
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: where you want things up at the Opera House six mate,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Like how do the Showman go?
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: So far been going really really good.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We've got two more two more bouts up in Queennsland
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and yeah we're getting in to some out of the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: way places like Alice Springs. I haven't been to for
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: over two decades, I think, so it's crazy.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now the whole request side of things made have
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: been any any surprise is there or anything that you've
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: gone on?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Jeez, then I'll about that.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Now that there's been surprising, So a few surprise songs
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, it's kind of like, okay, you can
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: hear me singing that. That's that's amazing. You know, I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: don't know what to say. It's like I'm no judgment,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like some people it's like it's a dreams
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: like fantasy football or something, you know, so I just
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: let them.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: Let them.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like get it, got to
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: get it out of this system. But it's been fun, like,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you know, just hearing and feeling people reaction when I,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: you know, give them a shout out and play a
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: song that specifically for a person or a group of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: people or a couple or something that it's just kind
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of yeah, that's another another level of connection at the show,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: which is really nice.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Indeed, all right, brother, well we'll let you go because
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I know you're a busy man, but thanks for the time.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: You will be at the Sydney Guitar Show this weekend
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: and then back out of the road. So I'm coming
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: along to Mansfield to say good mates a couple of weeks.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Awesome. Wait come, wait,