- 3 hours ago
Blues-rock powerhouse Samantha Fish sits down for an in-depth discussion about her number one guitar, a white Gibson SG. She explains why its versatility and comfort make it her favorite, demonstrates its various pickup sounds, and shares its history.
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MusicTranscript
00:15Well, to me, you know, everybody has their opinion about, you know, what makes a guitar
00:22sound, you know what I mean? Like, what makes it unique? And for me, I find that the SG
00:27is like my most versatile guitar in my whole arsenal. I'm just saying some people might
00:32disagree and think, no, it can only sound a certain way. But I feel like when applied to
00:37different, like I can just apply it to a range of songs and I can shape the tone in a
00:43way. And
00:44honestly, and it's also like my most comfortable guitar, like the way the headstock, the neck
00:48feels. I just, I feel the most comfortable playing it, you know, when I stretch out on
00:53solos and everything. And it's just, for me, it fit my personality. When I, when I first
01:00got it, it just felt like me. And I've had this one since 2015. It's, you know, I've reliqued
01:07it myself as well, you know, through the sweat and everything, just playing it. I didn't actually
01:13take any tools to it. But, you know, I just really love this guitar. It just, it feels
01:19good in my hands. I feel like I've got the most, you know, I don't like, I'm, I'm really,
01:24I can move around on it really, really well. And it's, it's expressive when I need it to
01:29be. And it also can like, I can tame it when I need to. And it just works for a
01:34lot of things
01:34and it rocks and it looks cool. So how did, how did you discover the SG? I mean, did you,
01:39a lot of people come to the SG through Les Paul's? True. Yeah. And they say, but Les Paul's
01:44too heavy. Les Paul's are crazy heavy. Um, I did have a Les Paul early on, um, in my
01:50career and I was like a Les Paul studio. So it was quite a bit lighter than the regular
01:53Les Paul. Um, but I don't know. I just, I think I was just drawn to it. You know, it's
01:59got the devil horns and, um, you know, when I was, I just done a record called chills and
02:04fever and I was going through this full on shift and it was like really a concept record. And
02:11so I was, I really was shifting my aesthetic to match the concept. And I was like, I need
02:16a new guitar. That's going to really, you know, match the vibe of this. And I don't
02:21know how or why I landed on the SG. I guess, you know, sometimes you're just naturally called
02:24to things, but I kind of, uh, chalk it up to three things, you know, Angus Young, um, sister
02:31Rosetta Tharp and, uh, Derek Trucks. And they can all make them sound good. So I was hoping
02:37I could too. That's great. Is it stock? Is it completely stock? Um, I think these are,
02:44I mean, it's been so long. So in my, my, my memory is fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure these
02:49are Klein pickups. So, you know, I might've turned up the heat on it just a little bit,
02:55but everything else really is stock. But, you know, over the years, things have fallen apart
02:59or I've needed to replace, you know, like the nut and the bridge pieces and stuff. So,
03:05you know, I'm, I'm usually kind of a stock player, but eventually you wear it down and
03:09you got to put new things in. And I sort of go off the recommendations of, you know, my
03:14luthier, my guitar guy at home and, uh, you know, just try to get it sounding and feeling
03:19as good as possible.
03:21I mean, you know, we got the, the, the, uh, the neck. It's like, it's woodier, you know,
03:28it's a little bit woolier. The mix of the two, a little twangier. Of course, the bridge
03:42is like the twangiest generally, you know, I mean, I like, I like the twangier sound for
03:54like rhythm sounds. It kind of keeps it a little thinner that might switch to the middle pickup.
03:58I don't really use the top as much and only on occasion, like if I'm on a backline amp
04:02that doesn't have my amps at home are really bassy. So I feel like a lot of times I end
04:07up on the bridge pickup just to kind of cut through the band. Um, but you know, like it
04:14just, it kind of depends on the situation, like which pickup I use, you know, I use my
04:18ears and I try to listen to the room and I try to listen to the band and, you know,
04:23I
04:23fiddle a lot on stage. I've had people say that to me over the years, like you're really,
04:27you're really tweaking things a lot. I'm like, yeah, cause I'm listening and I'm trying to
04:31find the best sound, you know, sometimes, sometimes it's like that. So do you play with the
04:36tone controls? Yeah, a little bit. Um, you know, a lot of times, I mean, if I'm being honest,
04:41I do fiddle a lot with the, with the knobs, but there's a lot of options here. I try to
04:46limit it.
04:47So I generally play with them open, just wide open. Um, but if it, you know, if, if, if it's
04:53still not sounding right, then I'll tweak it a little bit. So if you're on the, if you're on
05:00the bridge pickup and it's too twanky, you can roll that back, it kind of softens it
05:06up. Oh, that's too much. Right. See, that's when you're on a gig and you're like, okay,
05:11I'm playing with it too much. I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not helping the show at this point.
05:16So, um, but yeah, I mean, I do play with tone controls here and there, but I generally try
05:20to rely on pickups, volume switches, and then pedals are easier to hit with your foot than
05:26all this while you're trying to play guitar. Oh God. Well, I go into my volume pedal first.
05:33Um, and look, I probably, I'm going to get like 150 guitars telling me how I'm doing this
05:39wrong, but this is just what works for me. Um, and, and it's a hot mess, but it's been
05:45working for a long time. So, um, I generally, I go into, you know, my, my volume pedal first
05:51and I use that, I kind of cheat like volume swells with it, but you know, on soft songs,
05:57like I really love pedal steel. I've always loved the volume, like, I just, I don't know.
06:08I like to play with that and I'll do that in solos. And I see a lot of guitar players,
06:12you know, do that with their, uh, their volume control, but that's kind of far away from me
06:18on this guitar, most guitars, you know, so it's, I haven't found like a comfortable way
06:22to do that and pull it off effortlessly. So that's a good way to cheat it. I'm a cheater.
06:27Um, and then I go into a tuner, uh, poly tune, you know, it, it works. Um, and then I
06:34go into
06:34an analog man, the King of Tone, which is probably my favorite, you know, heaviest relied upon pedal.
06:41It just sounds like, like a tube amp really opened up, like, you know, warmed up full volume.
06:50It doesn't compress your tone too much, which, you know, it's sort of a drag and you don't even
06:56notice it sometimes until you hear like a recording of a show. I've had to combat this over the years
07:01where I'm like, I feel like if I'm stepping on all the pedals, then I'm getting like the monster tone.
07:06But what it's really doing is cutting your signal down and then out front, it just disappears. So
07:11that's something I've kind of had to really work on over the years. This one, I don't feel like it
07:18compresses anything. I'm not like a big fan of that. Um, but you know, you've got your kind of medium
07:33you've got your full open one. Like if you wanted to go and I need to get this one fixed.
07:38So you
07:40hearing that? Yeah. Oh, there it is. So you got, I have to like hit it six times to get
07:47it clean. Um,
07:48I probably need to clean it out with a, but it sounds really sound. So yeah, I like that one
08:07a lot.
08:07Um, the next one was a gift. It's called jail guitar doors. Um, and it's the MC five drive pedal.
08:15My tour manager gave me because we play kick out the jams. I'm a big MC five fan. Um, he
08:19used to,
08:20to work with them and, um, yeah, it just, I'm still like figuring this one out. It's just a massive
08:26pedal with a single button and like, and one knob, you know? Um, so you, you don't have many options.
08:46Yeah. It's pretty aggressive. So when I really want to like, I got, you know, you're, you're asking
08:51like, okay, what can I do more to throw this at people? You know, I hit that pedal. So my
08:55next
08:56one would be the, um, JBL mini foot fuzz, just this tiny little fuzz pedal. That sounds crazy,
09:03crazy. And, um, I might use it on a couple of songs a night. I use it on black one.
09:09Howlin'.
09:10Um, yeah, that's a fuzz pedal. I mean, there's a couple of different options on it. Um, I generally
09:29just try to turn the volume up. I keep the fuzz around, you know, one o'clock. Uh, so it
09:36doesn't
09:36get too muddy again. You know, now we're dealing with the compression stuff and trying to make
09:40sure it still cuts through, um, moving away from gain distortion pedals. I've, I've got, um,
09:47I go into the MXR carbon copy analog delay, which is just my favorite easiest to, I've, I've played
09:55around with a lot of different delays and there's some really incredible pedals out there, but that
09:59one for me, I mean, I do a lot of, like, I'll do a lot of effective stuff on the,
10:03on the stage. I'll
10:04get down on the floor and, you know, pin them together and do some like crazy chirpy, trippy
10:12effective stuff, you know? Um, and to me, this one is just the easiest to control. Like I know exactly
10:17where the sweep is. Um, but, and, and also what, what we're doing today, cause the amp doesn't have
10:24reverb, you can kind of cheat a little slap back delay reverb. So if I'm ever in a situation
10:32where the backline amp doesn't have a reverb, I kind of, I'll do that cause I don't, I don't
10:37have a reverb pedal for some reason. Um, why? I don't know. I should probably have one in
10:42my box, but this actually works. And so I've, I've, that was actually a trick that Luther
10:47Dickinson taught me a long time ago. And I just, I guess I stuck with it. Then I've got
10:52my micro pog, the nano pog, which is, you know, octave, just fun, weird stuff. I like
10:58to use it on Black Wind Howlin' and a couple other songs.
11:05Let me get the sound right. I like to put the sub up a little bit heavier.
11:16So you get the point of that one. Then we go into the tremolo, which is a new one for
11:19me. I just got it for the, um, the song Don't Say It. There's a, you know, let's get that
11:29effect. And then a super shifter, which I use very minimally, but I really only use it
11:33for like, um, dive bombs and this pedal has so many different uses, but I use it for one
11:39very specific thing. Just like taking it all the way up. I use it on a bulletproof, but you
11:46can like, it's my silly trick one. Um, and that's, I know it's got a million uses, but that's the
11:56only use I have for it. So that's the pedal board. So I've been wanting a 335 for several
12:03years. And, um, I just, you know, I'm, I'm very particular about, I'm particularly yet
12:10not, it's like this duality. Um, but when it comes to like going and picking out and purchasing
12:17a guitar for me, like I wait until like one comes along that I'm like that I need that,
12:21you know? Um, and this just kind of, it came across my feed and actually my, yeah, my friend
12:28Mike Zito had a sparkly Firebird and I was like, Oh, that's beautiful. Where'd you go?
12:32You guys, you need to go check out this, these guitar, um, this guitar shop in St. Louis. And,
12:38um, they had all these custom shop sparkly 335s and pretty much every kind of Gibson really.
12:45And I, I just, I saw this one. I was like, I have to have it. You know, it looks
12:49like a disco
12:49ball. Um, and I just knew it would look, it'd look great with, with, you know, my wardrobe
12:55and our lights and, and it just would, you know, you kind of see the whole picture, like
12:58it's going to fit right in. And I knew, you know, I knew what they sound like and you
13:03kind of hope that it's going to feel and play great, but I mean, you can't go wrong. I pulled
13:08it right out of the box and it played great. It's a Gibson custom shop. So, um, yeah, it's,
13:13it's a beautiful guitar. I've been wanting one of these for a long time because I really
13:16like how dark they can get, how resonant they are. Um, you know, when you're playing,
13:23when you're, you know, playing guitar. So like they just scream, um, you know, I can get a
13:27lot of feedback with the amp, like really controlled feedback when I need it. Um, and it just has
13:32great tone and.
14:08Um, I mean, it's just a great guitar. I love it. How, how does it differ? Do you think
14:14from the SG? Well, I mean, it's definitely, it's just got more body to it. You know, the
14:21SG, as much as I like work to, you know, I, I beef it up with, with pedals and with
14:28amplifiers,
14:28this one's just naturally got that. Like I almost have to tame it. Um, you know, you
14:33just have to approach things a little differently. Like I can come out and throw on my crazy MC5
14:39pedal and, you know, the turn the amp all the way up with the SG. And I'm still, I still
14:43got to work to, to kind of keep, keep the thickness of it. Um, with this one, you, you
14:49know, if I, if I plugged it in with that same kind of effect, it's like, it'd be screaming
14:53like wide open, you know, a lot of feedback and everything. So there's a little bit of a
14:56taming thing, but you know, knowing where the, the threshold is in the ceiling, you
15:01know, you, it just gives you a lot of dynamic to play with. So one's not better than the
15:06other. It's just, you got to approach it a little differently.
15:10Yeah. So, um, again, how, how do you use that? Can you just flip through the pickups
15:15for us and give us the sounds? Um, sure. And, uh, it's, it's going to sound a little
15:21different. Um, but like, you know, the, um, I'm actually going to just do it clean
15:26for you guys. So we got the neck pickup.
15:35Just a little woolier, you know, like the middles, nice blend.
15:42The bridge a lot, it's just twangy.
15:48Again, play with your tone controls, you know, Gibsons, they give you a lot of options here.
15:52Not as many as the Jaguar, but I know it's a fender, but you know what I mean? Um, so,
15:58you know, uh, twangy to, to woofy. It's kind of the, kind of the range. And then you blend
16:05the two and, you know, kick some other effects in there of mess with the amp and find your
16:12tone. It does sound pretty sweet. Like on stage through my setup, it's, you know, it really
16:17just, it, it sounds real creamy and beautiful.
16:21Have you, have you made any modifications to that or is it totally stocked?
16:24I didn't need them. Yeah. It's totally stocked. I mean, they, it didn't need it. I mean, I'm,
16:29I'm sure, I'm sure like somebody would be like, Oh, you should put these pickups in.
16:33It'll sound better for now. I really like what's in it. And it's just the stock stuff.
17:03Yeah.
17:05Yeah.
17:06Yeah.
17:07Yeah.
17:09Yeah.
17:09Yeah.
17:10Yeah.
17:11Yeah.
17:12Yeah.
17:12Yeah.
17:13Yeah.
17:13Yeah.
17:13Yeah.