PhiliP Sayce
“This is my ‘Mother’ Strat that we’re talking about, a ’63 Stratocaster. I named her Mother because you’ve got to love your mother…”
Philip Sayce is one of the most formidably energetic blues guitarists out there – but he’s also a master of tone-tweaking, having put in the hours discovering what works in the unforgiving environment of night-after-night live shows. We joined Philip to talk about getting the best from Strats, Fuzz Faces and amps of all sizes…
When we meet Philip Sayce, he’s clearly a man who’s taken a long, honest look at his life and music – and emerged stronger for the process. He’s playing up a storm on the Keeping The Blues Alive At Sea cruise and he has a new album in the can that’s as raw and direct as any he’s made.
“It’s been a really intense year for me, personally, so a lot of that has gone into the music and I got to produce the record myself this time,” Sayce reflects. “My dad passed away and I took some time after that happened. He passed away just under a year ago and I went into the studio about four or five months after… I’m grateful to have this as an outlet and it really is an opportunity to express where I am now, where I’ve been over the last, let’s say, 18 months. I really think that it’s about finding that balance where the music is authentic and it’s blues-rooted music, which is where I come from. I’ve tried to do other things, you know, when someone [from a record label] says, ‘We want to hear a more ‘poppy’ song’, so you try it as an exercise to see what that would feel like and it just feels like I’m wearing somebody else’s clothes, you know? It doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t fit. So this is a snapshot of who I am and where I am right now.”
As well as being a purveyor of some of the most committed, fluent playing you’ll hear anywhere, Sayce is justly known as a tonehound and, during our half hour with him, he gave us a masterclass in roadproven tone tips for electric blues. Plus he showed us some of the licks and techniques that make him such a dynamic, expressive player. But first, it’s time to put a smile on your ’Face… You’re known as a devotee of the Fuzz Face in both Germanium and Silicon versions. Which version of the ’Face do you use the most and why? “Not to be too vague, I think probably it’s like a 60/40 split for me, with 60 per cent Germanium and 40 per cent of the time Silicon. And it depends on the amp, you know? Some amps are going to like one better than the other; for whatever reason they communicate better with each other. But I would say it’s about 60/40 in favour of Germanium, because I really like the way they clean up. Although I love the gain of a Silicon BC183 [transistor]… They sound very woody, but it’s just fun, you can’t stop playing them after a while. And they do clean up great, too. But the Germanium really has that thing going on. I’ve actually been using the Cesar Diaz Square Face for a while and that’s a germanium transistor fuzz. He built it for me in his basement when I was there and I remember this bag he pulled out – filled with these transistors. I don’t know how many were in there, thousands, and he went through and measured a couple and he goes, ‘Oh, you’re going to like this in this pedal. Here you go.’ And I’m still using it, so yes.” Some guitarists like to have one drive on the ’board that softens the front of the note, maybe something more fuzz-like, and then a different drive that is more of a clean boost or chucks a lot of clarity. Do you have that kind of thing on your ’board? “For a long time I was using a Klon and a Tube Screamer for exactly what you’re talking about. I used the Klon for tones that were a little bit cleaner – but push it forward, the sound. And then I would have the Tube Screamer,
“It’s about finding that balance where the music is authentic and it’s blues-rooted music, which is where I come from”
the 808, not necessarily for gain but just that sound – a little bit more of whatever we want to call it, a little more dirt. But recently I’ve pulled both of those off the ’board, because both were impacting my chain in a way that I didn’t like as much any more.
“And so I started using an MJM Blues Devil, which is by this gentleman [Michael Milcetic] in Montreal… I got that pedal from him many years ago and it’s like a Tube Screamer, the way that it sounds – it’s really good. I end up using that more for a dirty rhythm sound if I need it. But otherwise it’s either a Fuzz Face circuit or one of these Cesar Diaz pedals that he called a Texas Ranger. It’s based on the Rangemaster but you can have a trebleboost, a mid-boost or a low-boost. So I usually set it on the mid-boost. I just use that, really. And, again, work the volume knob for the different shades.” Has your ’63 Strat got particularly hot pickups – or a cooler voice? “They’re like five and three quarters, so like 5.7k… 5k to 5.9k, the three of them. They’re old; they’re ’58 pickups. The original ’63s that were in there went south a long time ago, so I got them rewound and they just didn’t sound the same, so a buddy of mine had a fresh set of ’58s that I bought from him. But they’re not hot wound.” You mentioned earlier that the neck on your Strat isn’t original… “Yes, so this is my ‘Mother’ Strat that we’re talking about. I named her Mother because you’ve got to love your mother… It’s a ’63 Stratocaster, so the neck that I’ve had on it, I’ve had refretted, I don’t know, like seven or eight times probably. And it’s a veneer ’board, right? So not a lot of rosewood on there to begin with. We’ve gotten to the point, because I’m using big frets, that we can’t do any more refrets. I got one done a while ago, but just haven’t been playing the neck as much, [so] I’m going to save it. And, concurrently, we’re also dealing with the CITES restrictions. Anybody into guitars needs to know about it. I mean, I still see people travelling with Brazilian rosewood guitars and I think, ‘Well, there’s got to be some permit you can get.’ But every time I go down that road, you call a government agency and they say, ‘Oh, you’ve got Brazilian, hey? Hmm.’ Or then you call on a different day and they say, ‘Oh, just take it’ and then…” You risk getting it seized… “Yes. And so, you know, I have two ’63 Stratocasters, both with Brazilian and I’m very thankful to have them and I love them dearly. And so this gentleman that I work with in Toronto, Brian Mascarin – he’s such an excellent, excellent luthier but he is up on it as well – he was telling me about someone’s guitar that was just seized, a well-known guitar player, and so he’s like, ‘I would not travel [with it].’
“So I started thinking about it and was looking into 50s [maple] necks. I was thinking, ‘50s necks are pretty expensive – you could pay 10 grand, 7,500 for a really nice one.’ The next thought was, ‘Okay, well, what am I going to do here?’ I did get an Eric Johnson neck for a while and I refretted it. It was a maple neck and it was great, really good. But in the end my buddy Nick helped me find this one. He goes, ‘There’s a ’66 for sale. Very good price.’ So I kind of went for it, particularly knowing that I was coming to Europe this summer, just didn’t want any shenanigans, right? Got the neck, got it refretted and just put it on and was like, ‘Okay, that’s good.’
“The profile is a little different, the fingerboard is Indian rosewood, so we’re okay there, and I dig the bigheadstock look. So, yes, it’s been on there I guess about two months now – maybe a month and a half – and I’ve played a couple of shows with it. I love it; it’s on there. That’s the story of Mother.” A lot of guitarists dial in great tone on their rig at home only to find that at stage volumes the whole thing collapses – because everything’s working in a different part of its performance envelope. How do you get around that? “Yes, so at home I can’t play super-loud because I have neighbours – unless I know everybody is out. But, yes, there’s actually an amp I found that Cesar Diaz had built that sounds unbelievable at this type of livingroom volume. And it also sounds unbelievable on 10. That’s the most amazing amp for at-home practising, recording, anything like that. I can’t say enough good things about this amp. It’s built into a Princeton, incorporating one of his – I think it’s a CD100 or a CD50 – because it’s got two 6L6s and he put a 12-inch EV speaker in it. So it’s this tiny little Princeton and it weighs over 50lb. I mean, it’s fucking heavy as balls, 60lb I think it is. And I noticed people will see it and they’ll be like, ‘That’s cool, Princeton.’ And then they hear it and they’re like, ‘What is going on there?’
“So that’s the perfect amp for low-volume practice, but for loud I totally agree. On most amps, like a Twin, for example, all the fun stuff happens when it’s really in fifth gear and it’s going. And then I stack the pedals on top. To get back to your point, we’ll rehearse before gigs and get those things dialled in and figure out if there’s something new to add to it. For instance, [for] these shows I think there’s a Twin Reverb in the backline, so we’ll have a quick enough soundcheck hopefully that there will be time to try to marry the sounds to get it close enough and then go for it. I hope.”