Melbourne outfit The Sinking Teeth are passionate about their sound, with their new album recorded at Studios In The City by Jon Grace, Jason Huss, and Tom Larkin (Shihad/High Tension/Bodyjar) on a vintage 1974 EMI Neve recording console – and we’ve asked them about their gear setup, from a slightly-busted but no less beautiful Fender Jag to a gorgeous custom job from T Guitars.
In true rock fashion, they also explain to us that they don’t want a deck of pedals “that sound like God is wrapping up your notes and sending them back to you with confetti in the envelope”, instead preferring them to sound, well, “a bit fucked”. Right on.
You can hear these axes and pedals at work on the record below, and you’ll be able to hear them all live as the band kick off their eighth national tour tomorrow night, dates below.
2010 Fender Jaguar (Japan)
This is a heavily modified (& destroyed) 2010 Japanese Fender Jaguar. I’ve pretty much gutted & replaced (or not replaced) everything on this guitar at least once. It currently has a single Seymour Duncan “Hot Jaguar” pickup that I have wired to run directly to the Volume & Tone controls and bypasses all the switching that a normal Jaguar has. This makes it sound heaps fatter than a standard jaguar.
The body has a massive split through the timber on the back of the body & during a show in Paramatta in 2014 I broke the headstock in half. It’s covered in specks of blood and sweat and it’s a bit of a pig of a guitar but it’s got a lot of memories attached to it so it’s my favourite.
1977 Gibson Grabber
This Grabber is Julz’s pride & joy. Another guitar that has a whole bunch of issues that to some add character and other people absolutely hate. Because it’s so old the pickup has become somewhat microphonic and because Julz plays with a bunch of distortion it does have the tendency to get squealy in smaller venues but it sounds tough as fuck and has more mojo than Ritchie from The Bachelor.
Instead of having two pickups it has one single pickup on a sliding panel that you physically shift into a neck or bridge position to get different tones. Julz got it form the Swop Shop in Carlton and its cool to think about all the other owners it’s potentially had over the years. Maybe Ritchie owned it… probably not.
2015 T-Guitars T No.3 Standard (Single Pickup)
Andy at T guitars built this killer guitar for me. He’s a guitar builder based out of reservoir in Melbourne and has been absolutely killing it lately. More & more rad Australian bands are getting into these and they are really becoming a familiar guitar in the Aus music scene as a result.
Wil Wagner from The Smith Street Band is playing one at the moment & Courtney Barnett, Hockey Dad, The Delta Riggs & Gang Of Youths have also been using them for various things. They’re amazingly well made and compete with international brands in my opinion. This has a similar setup to my Jag but it also has a kill switch.
Fender Twin Reverb
Because we tour quite often on super restricted budgets Julz and I often borrow amps from friends interstate. Because of this both of us use super clean amps as a foundation for our tone and then use combinations of different pedals to get the sound we are after.
I use this Fender Twin & Julz uses a Gallien Krueger 700RB both of which are loud as hell, super clean sounding and easy to source. A sound engineer in Aukland once told me that “no self respecting guitarist uses distortion pedals”. I guess i don’t respect myself all that much.
Delay
I love delay. Both Julz and I have delays on our pedal boards. I churn through them, consistently searching for one that does all the things I want it to do. This year alone I have been through 6 different delay pedals and I have found my way right back at the start with a Line 6 dl4. Julz uses an old Marshall Echo Head.
Heaps of people search for beautiful sounding delay pedals that sound like God is wrapping up your notes and sending them back to you with confetti in the envelope. I like delay pedals that sound digital, glitchy and a bit fucked. This is one of those.
Sinking Teeth Tour Dates
18th November – The Edinburgh Castle, Adelaide
19th November – Crowbar, Brisbane
23rd November – Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney
24th November – Hideaway Bar, Enmore
25th November – The Basement, Canberra
26th November – Yah Yah’s, Melbourne
15th December – Amplifier, Perth
16th December – Badlands Bar, Perth
17th December – The Odd Fellow, Fremantle
