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 GEARED gets geeky with MERCY ARMS guitarist KIRIN J CALLINAN, covering German Rickenbacker clones, Japanese digital delays and a whole lot of tone crafting.
GEARED: So what set-up do you use?
KIRIN CALLINAN: I use a Roland JC-120 amp, with a fuck-load of Boss pedals and other guitar pedals, and a Duesenberg [Double Cat] guitar, which is a German guitar – I’m not sure if you know it, but it’s absolutely beautiful. I really wanted one for a long time, and they sell them down at a guitar store called Jackson’s [Rare Guitars], they actually import them, I went in there one time with a Telecaster that I’m never played and had little attachment to, just to see out of curiosity what I could get for it and they ended up doing a straight swap with a Duesenberg which was kind of the guitar of my dreams. So it all worked out perfectly.
G: What delay are you using on the debut Mercy Arms record? It sounds like a tape delay.
KC: I’m so glad you said that actually. It’s not analogue, it’s a digital delay pedal (in fact two of them) a Boss DD-20, which would probably be my favourite piece of equipment. I very nearly got it tattooed on my arm, the image of one, probably a smart thing I didn’t, but I still quite like the idea. It has a great tape effect and also a great analogue effect on it as well, and it sounds really warm for a digital delay. We did use a bit of tape echo in there, but only for a bit more bizarre sonic noises rather than guitar tones.
G: Really? It sounds so organic and warm.
KC: It all went to tape, so it all does sound pretty warm, but the delay device itself is all DD-20. I absolutely love them, I kind of know them back the front because I’ve used them for a long time. The DD-20 is my absolute favourite pedal.
G: It looks quite space-aged.
KC: It does doesn’t it? That’s what I wanted to get tattooed, the simple outline – the two squares and the little screen and ... anyway.
G: People might laugh at you.
KC: That’s okay, they do anyway.
G: On the track Caroline, in the verses it sounds like you’re stomping down on an overdrive or distortion or something and you’re getting these weird explosions of feedback and reverb and stuff. What’s going on there?
KC: Well, I’m glad you asked Jakeb. It’s actually a Boss Metal Zone, which is a nasty-sounding pedal, I used it just with the distortion on full and the level also on full, in combination with a gated reverb. So it kind of explodes and cuts sharply, and then I’ve also kind of messed with a delay that’s incredibly short, like a tenth of a millisecond or something, and it causes the pitch to bend. A reversed delay. It sounds good. I just stomp on that Metal Zone and it goes wild and stomp it off. The idea initially was to make it sound like a huge ship creaking and crashing through the waves. It came out a bit more violent than that I think, which I like.
G: It does sound like big bits of metal crashing together.
KC: Exactly! Big bits of metal grinding. That was the initial concept I suppose.
G: So when you smash down on the Metal Zone does it take half a second for the gate to drop the volume down again?
KC: The gate is instant, but it does take half a second once I cut the Metal Zone for it to cut, depending on the time I’ve set the reverb to. It takes a about half a second to a second for it to cut again. It cuts sharply, I think that’s because I did two to give it a stereo effect that was kind of grinding either side. So one of them might cut and the other will keep going and that will trail off.
G: At the end of Shine A Light. The guitar is getting these weird electric pulse sounds.
KC: That’s just the DD-20 again, with the Metal Zone and then just really quickly changing the delay time so it all starts freaking out.
G: You really do know your way around that thing.
KC: Yeah I really do actually. I used to use this guitar synthesiser to make it look like I could play guitar, a Roland VG-88, and when we started gigging I was using that and making lots of noises, and it got stolen at a very early gig of ours, just before the show. All I was left with was my DD-20, so I had to really rely on that to get as many sounds out of it as possible, and I really exhausted the pedal before getting any new pedals. And so I’ve got two of them now that work in sequence with each other, and I’m probably better at the DD-20 than I am at guitar to be honest with you.
G: I know that feeling.
KC: I actually just got a looping pedal, the Loopstation, the RC-20XL. Before that it must have been two years since I got a new pedal. I thought I really should get new gear and keep making new sounds, and I just got to a point maybe. It’s good to try to push yourself to get the most out of what you’ve got before getting new things.
MERCY ARMS’ self-titled debut is out now through MGM. Check out www.myspace.com/kirinjcallinan for some rad sounds.
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