Progressive metal sometimes defies the usual music categorisations with a certain level of pride and intentional intricacy. The nature of it includes the desire to expand upon musical ideas, experiment with sounds and to challenge the structures set out beforehand. All going to plan, it should push a band into new musical explorations although certain expectations of intense musicianship as well as unrestricted song lengths are generally par for the course. Broadening their horizons musically and evolving stylistically, American progressive metal band Between The Buried And Me [BTBAM] will again be touring Australian shores soon. In anticipation of their upcoming shows, Australian Guitar’s Paul Southwell discussed all things guitar equipment related plus other music topics with one half of the twin guitar team, BTBAM guitarist Paul Waggoner.
AG: You’re using Paul Reed Smith [PRS SE] maple top guitars these days. How did getting into those guitars come about for you?
PW: In 2008, we did a tour with Dream Theater and Opeth in the States and Opeth played Paul Reed Smith guitars. I’ve always loved those guitars and had salivated over them in guitar stores. Anyway, we met an artist representative from PRS who was interested in what we were doing so we jumped at the opportunity to play PRS. They are great guitars, extremely versatile and very dynamic. You can sort of get away with playing a multitude of styles on those guitars. They have served us well now for a few years.
AG: For guitar pickups, you’ve got Bare Knuckle Black Hawks in there too.
PW: Yeah, the Bare Knuckle Black Hawks are in my guitars and that was born out of talking to the owner of Bare Knuckle. He helped me pick out those pickups as he knew what our sound was like and that it needed a high output pickup that offered dynamics so that it would sound good for clean, lead guitar and lower gain sounds. So it is the perfect pickup when you’re playing all kinds of genres like we do, going from clean to distortion to lead sounds to compressed clean sounds. It is hard to find a pick up like that but the Black Hawks are a good balance for me because they are really high output so for the heavy stuff they track well so you can really dig into those heavy riffs. For switching to the clean channel, they still retain some nice warmth and good dynamics. They respond well to the pick, feel good and hear your fingers. It is a big thing for me that they feel good. Once I find something I like, I tend to stick with it.
AG: In your opinion, are those pickups more responsive than say the active EMGs?
PW: Well, the EMGs are a different animal for me. I used EMGs for years and called them ‘the great equaliser’ because I feel that an EMG will make any guitar sound the same which can be good or bad, depending on what kind of sound you have or want. If you’re strictly a metal band playing on the distorted channel of your amplifier all of the time, then they’re great pickups and are almost an amp in your guitar. That is essentially what they are so they sound great in that respect. But, for me, they did not offer the dynamics that I needed. EMGs are hotter than the Black Hawks and a bit more compressed. The output is a bit more even though it doesn’t matter how hard you hit it, it is pretty much going to come out at the same volume. So, the Black Hawks offer more dynamics whilst still being an extremely high output passive pickup. I’ve just started loving passive pickups and am really into them.
AG: As BTBAM is a twin guitar band, are there particular pieces of equipment used to differentiate your sounds in a live setting?
PW: We use roughly the same guitars but for pickups, Dustie [Waring – guitars] uses DiMarzios, kind of a prototype pickup based on the Activator. We like a different kind of sound, which is good, because with electric guitars in a live setting, if they both sound the same, you lose a little bit of character and if using the same sorts of guitars, you should have a slightly different tone. As far as gain or gain saturation goes, we’re pretty similar but he tends to like a warmer, spongier sound with a little more low end. I tend to EQ my sound with a little bit more edge to it with some high mids in there to punch through the mix. I think it is a good balance when I hear us play simultaneously [using in-ear monitors]. I’ll have him in my left ear and me in my right ear or vice versa and it sounds good to me. I like it how we have different tastes on how we like our tone to sound. It works out well and we both use the [Fractal] Axe FX [pre-amp effects processor] to get our tones but we use different models. We’re essentially playing different amps so it gives you a different sound right off the bat anyway.
AG: Do you think you’ll get to the stage of not using tube amplifiers with cabinets live and instead use signal modifiers and pre-amps straight into [DI] the front of house PA?
PW: In the States right now we use the Axe FX before the amps into dual cabinets but for the very first time on our last European tour, we did it direct with the Axe FX directly into the PA. That is a totally different beast. Eventually you get used to a different character of sound. Going from that roar of the tube amps and the power amps is totally different from hearing it direct. I see why bands like Periphery and the Deftones do that and I’m sure we’ll see a lot more bands doing it. I would prefer to combine the two worlds by having the digital modeling amplifier running through a tube amplifier and into a cabinet. You get to take advantage of the new modeling techniques but at the same time retain some of that old school character from using tube power. I like some volume on stage too so that I can feel the sound as opposed to just hearing it through my monitors.
AG: Having the thump of the speaker cabinet or that movement of air must help your performance though, surely. Is it a psychological thing and difficult to be without?
PW: Oh absolutely. When you don’t have a cabinet on stage, it feels very empty. The Axe FX has these algorithms that you can adjust that supposedly simulate the thump and the air of the cabinet but it is not the same. Even though we use in ear monitors, you can still hear that ambient [cabinet] sound bleed which sounds pure and a bit meaner.
AG: Playing live, with all of the changes that exist in BTBAM’s music, do you need to use a noise gate to make the transitions smoother and quicker?
PW: We just use a gate for my heavy rhythm tone. I have a noise gate in my chain of effects and then the Axe FX. I don’t use a gate for anything clean or for my lead patch because I want to have that sustain on all the notes and I want it to squash out. Our rhythm patches are heavily gated to get through the transitions and to avoid feedback.
AG: Are you listening to the snare drum mostly to stay in time?
PW: I listen to everything when we’re playing live and have everything in my monitor mix. I like it to sound like the CD. We all have a click track in our ears as well so if push comes to shove, I can throw in that click track and play along to that. Sometimes, it is hard as our drummer is pretty wild and he’ll do some crazy fills, so when he does that I have to just concentrate on that click track so that I can keep in time.
AG: How do you arrange all the complexities of the music? It is a case of learning bite sized pieces or segments and themes? How do you learn it all?
PW: We are now so used to writing that sort of music. A fifteen minute long song with all of these changes is overwhelming but when you are writing the song and building it one piece at a time, it is so gradual that it is not overwhelming. We build upon ideas so everything starts taking shape relatively seamlessly. When you listen to a complex song for the first time, it is so much to take in but since we’ve built that song over a period of several weeks, we’ve had the benefit of being able to have a starting point and build from that. All that stuff becomes ingrained in your memory bank. It may have started as a two minute part and we built it from there. For me it is a different perspective because I am in the room when we are writing and able to learn it, a bit at a time. That makes it easier.
AG: When you’re coming up with the song parts, do you find that the equipment used, be it say volume pedals or channel switchers, induce you to write more complex songs?
PW: Oh yeah, you get access to different sonic textures so that at the tap of the button, you can change the mood, sound or vibe of the song. In some ways it is inspiring to have the technology where you can click a button and have a different sound come out of your amp. It makes it more conducive to writing music and definitely helps out a lot.
AG: Is that something that a known producer like Dave Bottrill will encourage you to do?
PW: Yeah, for any producer that is fine as they love to be challenged and most producers love to have dynamics on records. We’re always encouraged not only by ourselves but by whomever we’re working with on the record to experiment and try different things or sounds. Sometimes you’ll spend hours just trying to get a cool sound from your amp or from using a bunch of different pedals. A big thing when you are recording music is to find that perfect effect or tone. That is always a big part of the process.
AG: How would you say your guitar playing technique has changed over the years?
PW: The new thing about it is that I don’t so much focus that much on my technique. In my early years of playing heavy metal, technique was the big thing such as picking faster and working on arpeggios with a metronome. That is a big part of learning how to play guitar and becoming comfortable with the instrument. But, in the past few years I’ve focused on developing my ear and working on how to come up with the best melodies or the best chord voicing for a particular part. It is about developing as a musician. That is not to say that I’ve finished with technically improving as a guitar player. I’m always trying to challenge myself and do different things but there is just less emphasis on the technical aspects. It is more about creating something that sounds cool. That’s a big thing for me because for years, my main point of emphasis was to try to be the fastest or cleanest player or whatever but ultimately I found that was a waste of time as you could just go on You Tube and see some guy that can play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ at 1000 beats per minute or something so clearly I am not going to be the fastest. I am just trying to develop my own style and become the best at that as I can be. That’s my goal.
Between The Buried And Me continue to tour globally with a diverse range of music artists spanning from instrumental guitar bands to full-on, bludgeoning death metal. Technicality and devotion to their musical craft seems to be the unifying aspect of their various touring mates. So, given their imminent arrival here again soon, how has the huge variety of artists they’ve played with affected them and their approach to music?
AG: BTBAM is touring here again fairly soon. The previous tour was with Animals As Leaders in tow. Would you say that Tosin Abasi is the future of shred guitar?
PW: I think he is the present of shred guitar right now. He is part of a very important generation of guitar players who are pushing things to the next level. He is definitely respected in the guitar community and even outside of that, they have quite a fan base of people who like to hear cool music. He will probably be a big part of the future of guitar.
AG: Does touring alongside someone of that skill level motivate yourself and Dustie?
PW: Certainly and any time I see a good guitar player, it inspires me to push myself to new limits. He is a very different style of guitar player to me. I’ve never been interested in doing the seven or eight string thing as I’m a six string player. But, I really respect what they do and how they do it. Watching him and Javier Reyes [guitar] is great. It inspires me to write, be creative and to push myself technically. At the same time, I’m almost thirty five years old and it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I feel like I have developed my style over the last ten to fifteen years. So, I sort of have an identity as a guitar player and my goal is to expand on that to make my style work for what we do in a creative and hopefully a refreshing way with every new record that we write.
AG: BTBAM has toured with so many different bands of all sorts of different genres from Devin Townsend to Cannibal Corpse. What would you say it the common thread of all of those established artists that you’ve invariably learnt from in touring with them?
PW: Oh man, that is a good question. I think in some ways, particularly the bands mentioned, they are all steeped in heavy music or metal so that is probably the common thread. But the cool thing about it, in the case of Devin, is that even though he is known as a metal guy because of Strapping Young Lad or whatever, at the end of the day, he is a musician. He is somebody that loves music and loves to write music. That is something that is kind of the same with the way we are. Even though we are a metal band, we don’t limit ourselves to just that. We like to play other stuff and are just fans of music. When we do tours, we try to tour with other bands that have that similar a mind set. There are no rules and that is the coolest thing about metal. It is a blank canvas and you can kind of get away with doing whatever you want. There is no particular formula that you have to stick to and you’re not trying to be on the radio so you don’t have to write a three minute song and all of that stuff. So, there is just ultimate creative liberty there and so I think that most of the bands that we tour with have that same mind set. They just sort of do what they want and that is the coolest thing about it.