TONY PERRY
HAILS FROM TIJUANA, MEXICO
PLAYS IN PIERCE THE VEIL
SOUNDS LIKE CRUNCHY, MELODICALLY CHARGED MOSH-POP LATEST DROP THE JAWS OF LIFE
(LP OUT FEBRUARY 10TH VIA FEARLESS)
How did you first discover the guitar?
It was kind of an accident. I set out wanting to play drums, and I had a super cheap drum set – I was maybe 12 years old at the time – but it just wasn’t something I was able to keep up with. But a lot of my friends had picked up the guitar, so I’d go to their houses and see them playing something, and I’d be like, “How do you do that!?” I learned to play for a while before I was able to get my own.
What’s your current go-to?
Right now I have an arsenal of Stratocasters – they’re Fender Jim Root Strats, all mahogany body with the dual humbuckers and a nice, fast compound-radius neck. I’ve made a few changes to them, to kind of make them work a little bit better for what I do, but overall they’re just great guitars out of the box. So not a whole lot of changes. I’d played Gibsons and ESPs for a while, and when I started talking to Fender about playing their guitars, I didn’t really know what would suit me. It took a long time to narrow down what worked, but then I finally tried one of these and it ended up being perfect.
Who and/or what are your main influences?
I was into a lot of punk stuff growing up. I started with pop punk, then a lot of SoCal punk bands and things like that. But when that whole metalcore movement happened, when I was in high school, I really latched on to that, and it all kind of grew from there. There was also that the boon with post-hardcore bands – Thrice was a huge one, and then being in San Diego, our hometown heroes were As I Lay Dying.
Are you much of a gear nerd?
Yeah, to an extent. The more gear I get into, though, the more I’ve been into the new digital stuff. So I was big into the Kemper for a long time, and then right before we started touring again last year, I got a Neural Quad Cortex, and that’s been like my new toy.
Do you have any ‘white whales’?
I would like a Les Paul Custom. There’s a year range – I think it was the late ‘70s or early ‘80s – where they were doing them with maple necks. I’ve been wanting to find one of those, but not enough to the point where I’ve actually tried. Because I’m sure they’re out there; I bet if I spent some time on Reverb I could figure out where to find one.
What would your signature model look like?
That question! I think about that all the time. It would definitely be something with Fender, and to be honest, I’d probably end up stealing a lot of specs from Jim Root’s guitar. I’ve done a signature once and I did the slime design, and I have a black-and-white version of that that never really came to life. So maybe I’ll do something with that – the white drip design on some type of Fender body shape – that could be fun.
What advice would you give your past self?
I would definitely tell myself to not only listen to one genre of music, because I think broadening my tastes was the first step towards being able to play more difficult things, or being able to expand on my skillset – things I wouldn’t have picked up from the bands I was listening to at the time. But there’s something great about punk where you can learn a power chord and then start making up your own songs. Then you can go start a garage band and start making things work. That accessibility is awesome.
If you could jam with any guitarist, dead or alive, who would it be?
The first thing I ever learned, before I even owned a guitar, was the intro to ‘Dammit’ by Blink-182. So I think having a hang and playing some guitar with those guys would be really cool.