Sonny Landreth

A CONVERSATION WITH SONNY LANDRETH (continued)

PM: Now, it sounds like the Dumble is a big part of your sound. Or is that the Demeter?

SL: Well, it's been all of them at different times. But actually, I've done most of my recordings--if you look back in the history of my career from the time we were just talking about with John, I've done the vast majority of my work with the Demeter. It wasn't until '95 I got my [Dumble] Overdrive Special. And all of '95 and '96, that was pretty much all I played live.

PM: They're incredible machines.

SL: Yeah. So I go in and out, depending--but I've been playing it mostly, yeah, pretty much exclusively now.

PM: Another Dumble guy, an old friend of mine, have you ever run into Steve Kimock in your travels?

SL: You know, I never have. I sure would like to meet him. He's a real talented guy. [see our interview with Steve]

PM: We played together for many years. He's a truly amazing Dumble guy, and a great slide and lap guy. I'd love to hook you up sometime.

SL: Yeah, I really would like to meet him. I'd love to hear his show. And we have mutual friends now, too. And I know he's been a Dumble guy from way back, too. And he's helped, I guess, the Two Rock guys.

PM: Oh, you know the Two Rock guys?

SL: I don't know them or anything, but I just kind of heard about them, from Dave Wilson's Tonequest magazine.

PM: Oh, yeah, right. I met him at the Glaser's not long ago. [Joe Glaser's is a legendary guitar shop in Nashville.]

SL: Right. Dave's a real nice guy. And he does a lot of interviews with people, and they go in depth with gear. So that's where I'd heard about him.

PM: Well, if I may, I'd like to hook you and Kimock up sometime. I'm going to get him to send you a couple of records, and I'll get your management to do the same, and get you guys on the phone. You guys should know each other, that's all.

SL: Oh, cool.

PM: Yeah, he's a wonderful guy. Let's see, while we're on the tech tip for a minute, can you say something about this Trilogy tuning bridge, and the TransPerformance tuning system?

SL: Well, one is a mechanical device in that you literally move levers by hand, and the other is computer driven.

PM: The TransPerformance is computer driven?

SL: Exactly. Dave Borisoff of the HipShot legacy--

PM: Oh, really?

SL: --he's the guy who invented the Trilogy. And he's a steel player himself, so he had the intimate knowledge of moving strings via gears with pedal steel, and that whole approach, and he took that philosophy in his later designs. And I've had it for years, and it really, really helped me, in terms of having one guitar that could do more than one tuning.

PM: You're switching tunings all the time.

SL: Yeah. But basically I write in the key for the song. And sometimes it's a compromise getting what I want on guitar with the right key for my voice. So it's somewhat limiting for me. But I'm essentially doing that, yeah. So when I'm changing guitars on the gig, if I'm doing that approach, they're all in different tunings.

PM: And the TransPerformance?

SL: The TransPerformance is like the Star Trek version. It's utterly amazing. Neil Skinn is the gentleman who invented this, and put many, many years of R & D and--he's had them up and running for a long time. Jimmy Page has been using them for years.

PM: Wow.

SL: The difference is, mine is the only one with the heavy gauge strings, 13 through 56. That was the first one for him to do that. So it took him some engineering time to figure that out.

[laughter]

SL: But it's amazing. It's computer based, and there's a separate motor on each string. Each string fits into an arm. So it literally--we're not talking virtual, we're talking literally--moves the strings, and you program all your tunings, and hit a button--boom. And it's very accurate and very, very fast.

PM: That is Star Trek.

SL: So that enables me to go out and do gigs sometimes with just the three of us, guitar, bass, and drums, but without a guitar tech--which I don't like to do, but sometimes you just do what you got to do. And more than that it's a great tool for me to go sit in with people. For example, recently, well, the Columbus Day thing, the Little Feet concert had a lot of special guests, and I got to be part of that. It was an amazing night. And there's this guitar that I could just literally switch when they had different keys or tunings, real fast.

PM: I heard about that show. Did it get recorded?

SL: Something went awry with that, and they didn't get the recording done like Rich wanted, I'm sorry to say.

PM: Oh, really?

SL: He was kind of overseeing that, and something got screwed up. I'm not sure what happened. I think what they got amounts to just basically a board tape, but they were shooting for something more than that.

PM: Truly.

SL: But it sure was a really, really special night.  continue

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