INSTRUMENTAL INQUISITION
Legendary LA studio guitarist and solo artist, Mike Landau has been recording outstanding albums for decades. Jason Sidwell caught up with him to discuss his gear, playing style and the stunning new album, Liquid Quartet Live.
This issue: Michael Landau on his new album.
THE GEAR GT: What did you use for the recording of Liquid Quartet Live?
ML: I used a Fender Custom Shop Strat that has two Lollar Imperial humbuckers (standard wind). The main amp was a Dumble Slidewinder, which is similar to a four-input style Bassman amp with two 6L6s. The cabinet is a Kerry Wright 4x12 open back with vintage Celestion G12-65s. The second amp (used for the wet pedal board) was a Fender Hot Rod Deville ML 212.
GT: What dictates you using single coils or humbuckers?
ML: Several years ago, when I started to tour in Europe a lot, I started using a Strat with humbuckers because I couldn’t deal with the single-coil hum at the clubs I was playing. I use a lot of gain from my overdrive pedals and at times the hum was way too overbearing. I love both humbuckers and single-coils though, it just really depends on the venue and my mood. Single-coils sound and feel more immediate to me when I play with my fingers instead of a pick. It feels like there’s nothing between my fingers and the speaker if you know what I mean; the sound coming out of the amp is instant. Because of some of the frequency cancellation that naturally occurs with a humbucking pickup, humbuckers have a ‘lazier’ feel to me, and sound more ‘cloudy’ on the top end; they have a looser feel than a single-coil, but obviously humbuckers have a round, crunchy sounding midrange. Both pickups serve their purpose very well.
GT: Do you prefer overdrive pedals to amp overdrive?
ML: I use both. I set my amps fairly loud with a medium breakup (volume around 5 or 6), then I get the rest of the gain from overdrive pedals. I mainly use the Maxon SD9 for high-gain sounds. My overdrive pedals are before my volume pedal, so the pedals and the volume knob on my guitar determine the amount of gain and distortion, and the volume pedal on my pedal board determines the overall volume.
GT: What do you look for in a good guitar amp?
ML: I use amps that have a loud, solid, medium breakup with a lot of headroom that can handle the high gain from my overdrive pedals. The 60-watt Fender Hot Rod Devilles work great for this.
GT: Do you still like using chorus?
ML: I use a short slap delay most of the time. It’s about 135ms with just one repeat and some modulation just on the delay, this creates a bit of a chorus effect but not in the traditional sense. I also use a Way Huge ‘Blue Hippo’ chorus pedal with the speed set fast, similar to a Leslie effect. I haven’t used the big rack chorus sounds in decades, it
served its purpose at the time though. Back in the 80s, I was trying to emulate the chorus sound that Pat Metheny would get. I ended up taking it to extremes back in those days, and at times I would often add a stereo harmoniser after the stereo chorus. I would use a +13 pitch bend on the left side, and a -13 pitch bend on the right side with a 20ms delay on one side and 25ms delay on the other.
THE GUITAR PLAYING GT: You’ve a unique sound - dark chord progressions, lots of space, bursts of fast licks, a wide dynamic range, switching between fingers and pick, pickup and volume and tone control changes. ..
ML: Like most musicians my age, I grew up on the music of The Beatles, Cream, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. But my grandfather was an alto sax player and arranger during the swing era; he mainly played with the Dorsey Brothers and occasionally with Benny Goodman so there was always a lot of great music around my grandparents’ house. Jazz, Broadway show-tunes, classical and of course the pop music of that time. All of these varied influences had an impact on me as a person and as a musician, and eventually it all comes out in some shape or form. As far as the wide dynamic range in my playing, I guess that would be the Gemini in me; the two different personality thing. I can’t play a whole set of live music at one volume level or the same mood; I need to mix it up to keep it moving, the yin and yang effect. I don’t like to hammer the audience by playing one monotonous level the whole night.
A great way to drastically vary the tone and the mood of a phrase on guitar is by using your fingers instead of a pick. I switch between my fingers and the pick all the time. When I really want an intimate, round tone, I tuck the pick between my first and second finger. This is a quick way to get a wide range of tone without changing the amp or pedal settings. When I see videos of myself playing I look ridiculous at times, constantly adjusting my volume or tone, or adjusting my delay pedal etc… but I can’t help it, I’m really just in search of the perfect tone for that phrase at that moment. To me that’s when the music, and guitar playing in my case, really satisfies me, and hopefully the listener. As far as musical visions go, music has to have integrity and honesty for it to interest me, whether it’s a jazz artist or a punk rock band, I’m drawn to the honesty, the intent and the commitment. I’ve always tried to live by this mantra when it comes to the bands and the music that I call my own.
GT: There’s a sense of jazz savvy in your vocabulary...
ML: I’ve been very fortunate to have played with Robben Ford many times over the years, both as a second guitar player in his band and also the band project we did together, Renegade Creation. Robben’s comping, phrasing and chord voicings are at the very top of my list of any musician. Robben and Allan Holdsworth are the biggest outside influences as far as voicing and comping are concerned. But over the years I’ve been drawn to a more spread out, simpler voicing approach. Take a Gmaj9 chord as an example… instead of playing (top to bottom) A-F#-D-G. I would omit the 5th and just play A-F#-G as my voicing. Leaving out the 5th makes the chord ‘lighter’; it has more of a singing quality when you simplify it, it doesn’t get weighed down by too many notes. This philosophy can be applied to any chord that is more than a simple 7th chord whether it’s Major, Minor or Dominant.
GT: How much room do you like for solos? Why are solos still important?
ML: I like a lot of space and mindful interaction when I’m improvising, and of course a collective listening. Solos are important because improvising in a musical context is a very powerful art form. It’s becoming more of an underground art these days, but there is nothing more thrilling than creating a mood with fresh melodic content in real time, and it doesn’t have to be intricate or highly advanced improvising, it just has to be honest and feel good.
GT: Do you pre-determine factors such as dynamics, fretboard positions, pickups, scales, use of pedals for each solo?
ML: No not really. If I’m doing a solo on a record, I normally do a couple of takes and then I either comp them together, or I punch into the track to fix any spots that will make it flow better.
THE ALBUM GT: Were the songs taken from a few gigs or just one night?
ML: We recorded two nights at the Baked Potato in November of 2019; we did four 75-minute sets, then chose the best performances from the different takes from both nights.
GT: What is your typical approach to getting to a good recorded guitar tone?
ML: We kept it very simple for this live record. We just used one SM57 on each amp about a half inch off of the grille, and about two inches from the centre of the speaker cone. We recorded the guitar flat with no EQ and no compression.
THE SONGS GT: What made you choose the songs that feature on the album?
ML: At this point, I have a large catalogue of songs to choose from because of all the bands I’ve written music for. I like to mix it up live and play new material and then throw in an old tune from the past. Because David Frazee is in the band, we’re able to throw in a few songs from the Burning Water band we had in the early 90s. That was a special time for me. Good friends and a good party.
CAN’T BUY MY WAY HOME GT: The solo has slinky and fast picked blues licks; the contrast is considerable. What are your thoughts on modern blues expression, post Jim Hendrix?
ML: I don’t really consider myself a blues guitarist but I’m a massive fan of that art form, especially the masters from the 50s and 60s. It won’t ever get any better than BB King, so I humbly bring in a bit of the blues into my mix of influences.
WELL LET’S JUST SEE GT: This is one of your newest songs; what inspired its creation?
ML: This is basically a David Frazee song, but I added the bridge before the solo. The subject matter is about the unfortunate common problem of priests taking advantage of our young people while hiding under the religion umbrella, but he gets what he deserves in the end, at least in our song anyway.
GREEDY LIFE GT: This is from your Renegade Creation band with Robben Ford. How did your approach differ here from the recording and live performances with Robben?
ML: On the studio version with Robben, he played the solo in the
“MY GRANDFATHER WAS AN ALTO SAX PLAYER; HE PLAYED MAINLY WITH THE DORSEY BROTHERS AND OCCASIONALLY WITH BENNY GOODMAN”
middle of the song. For this live version, we slowed the tune down a little to make it a bit heavier, and we opened up both solo sections for extended improvisation. That’s a Suhr Jack Rabbit tremolo. It’s a good one, lots of options on it but I usually just leave it set to the typical Fender smooth sine-wave setting. I respect the chord changes for the most part on that tune, and since they move in a parallel way, it’s easy to switch keys because the chords move every two bars. On the end it’s just a one-chord vamp. We all go nuts on the end, that one really stretches out when we play it live.
KILLING TIME GT: This is ambient, spacious, floaty and emotive. What inspired its creation and how has it evolved since you first recorded it?
ML: This is an old Burning Water song from the early 90s. I wrote the music to this one and David wrote the beautiful lyrics. These are some of my favourite lyrics he’s ever written, about being at the end of a relationship and staying together because it’s too painful to break it off. We’ve all been there… we’re simply killing time. This is another song that we stretch out in the solo section when we play live.
BAD FRIEND GT: This is an aggressive stomper. What pedal gives that big sound?
ML: I’m a big Kirk Cobain fan, and this is our nod to Nirvana. The sound is a Dry Bell Vibe Machine with a Maxon SD9 after it. I use the Vibe Machine mostly in the vibrato setting with a fairly fast speed setting and lots of depth to the pitch bend, it’s a great sounding unit, very light weight and small.
CAN’T WALK AWAY FROM IT NOW GT: This is the other new song on the album. What makes this one special for you?
ML: I like the simplicity and honesty of David’s lyrics. It’s a nice sentiment overall. It’s in a 9/8 time signature, which has a nice forward motion like a waltz. The groove is big and open and it’s fun to solo over. I leave lots of space when soloing on this tune and just let the thick groove carry the music.
RENEGADE DESTRUCTION GT: There is a sense of spontaneous energy here, almost evoking Jimi Hendrix when he played live. What aspects of Hendrix inspire you the most?
ML: Well, actually all the aspects of his playing inspire me. What a brilliant artist, an artist in the truest form. Even when Hendrix was laying down some of the most menacing sounds on guitar, there was also beauty in what he was playing… he made me feel like it was alright to temporarily lose my mind for a short while.
ONE TEAR AWAY GT: The guitar’s reverb and delay effects are beautiful here. In the solo here you have a ‘crying vocal’ technique. Some of it is string bends, other moments it's whammy bar. Can you discuss this aspect of your playing?
ML: This is the Dry Bell Vibe Machine again on the vibrato setting. I also added a healthy amount of the Strymon Timeline. I use the ‘Lo-Fi’ delay a lot on that unit; it’s similar to an Electro
Harmonix Memory Man analogue delay with modulated delays. That combined with the Dry Bell make a beautiful modulated delay sound. More and more these days I use the trem bar on the Strat instead of bending the note with my fretting hand. Most of the bending and vibrato is coming from the tremolo bar. I use a ‘thread sealing tape’ on my tremolo bar to keep it very tight, so even the slightest wiggle will bend the note and it’s easy to control the depth of the bend. I like the bar to be super tight, there’s no looseness or play in the trem bar; I don’t like it when the trem bar rattles around in the bridge. And to my ears, this type of vibrato is similar to the vibrato you get when you use a slide… I’m a big Derek Trucks fan as well. I like a tight fast vibrato on the notes at times, and the trem bar is great for this.
TUNNEL 88 GT: This is the first of the album’s closing instrumentals and brims with savvy and band interplay. Knowing the songs is imperative but how do you think a band reaches that point of great inter-communication?
ML: There’s a trust when you play with musicians that are great at their craft and are confident as musicians. I play better when people are really going for it and basically see where the mood will take us. I’m dictating the music a bit with what I’m playing, but I’m also going for a ride musically. And of course it’s always so important to listen closely to what your bandmates are playing. That should go without saying.
DUST BOWL GT: This is a very intimate instrumental to close the album. What inspired it and how open is it to improvising in a live setting?
ML: This is one of those instrumentals that I wrote while just playing guitar around the house. Sometimes a piece of music like this will just appear almost fully realised. All I have to do is record it on my phone so it’s not lost the next day. The form on Dust Bowl is a set form, but as with all of my songs the solo section is always open and improvised.
Michael Landau’s album, Liquid Quartet Live is available now.
“I USE A 'THREAD SEALING TAPE' ON MY TREMOLO BAR TO KEEP IT VERY TIGHT, SO THE SLIGHTEST WIGGLE WILL BEND THE NOTE AND IT'S EASY TO CONTROL"