CHRISTOPHER VERNON

CURRENTLY PLAYING WITH

Belle Haven

USUALLY FOUND PLAYING

Venues like the Workers Club, Crowbar and Arrow On Swanston.

YEARS ON THE FRETBOARD

Coming up on 15 years now. I first picked up the guitar at ten years old on a family holiday in Anglesea and learned to play “I’m A Believer” by The Monkees on an old classical guitar that the family owned.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PLAYING STYLE?

Very hard and straight. I love simple power chord progressions with catchy leads, and I always tend to go for thicker strings onstage because of how hard I play.

FIRST AXE

A half-sized nylon string kids’ guitar. I spent roughly two years playing that before my father bought me an actual steel-stringed acoustic, which threw me off because I was so used to the half-sized guitar at the age of 12.

CURRENT AXE

The guitar that I’m using 95 percent of the time is a Fender Telecaster. It’s currently tuned to Drop B (B F# B E G# C#) and I use 58-11 gauge D’Addario strings. It has a custom Warmoth Fender copy neck, and I replaced the old Lil ‘59 pickups with Seymour Duncan JBs.

RIG/PEDALS:

I play my Tele into a Line 6 Pod HD 500X via a Line 6 G30 wireless. In the Pod HD 500X, I use all of the preamps and pedal effects digitally, but I run out into the power amp of my EVH 5153 50w, and from that into my Harley Benton 2x12” cabinet with Vintage 30 speakers. I don’t go direct because 80 percent of my tone comes from the guitar and the preamps in the Pod HD 500X, but the cabinet simulators have never really “done it” for me.

CURRENT RELEASE

Our second full-length album – You, Me And Everything in Between – which is out now on Greyscale Records.