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 GEARED chats to blues/roots/country powerhouse and Grass Roots Music Festival co-manager 8 BALL AITKEN about his striking guitars – including the notorious Maverick and the brand-new “eight-ball” Maton 12-string.
GEARED: Could you tell us about your new Maton guitar, 8 Ball?
8 BALL AITKEN: I’ve been playing Maton guitars for a long time and they built this custom 12-string for me – and a custom six-string as well. It’s got a fantastic pickup in it and I play it through a bunch of pedals and an amplifier. It’s a real surprise and a guitar of my dreams – it’s covered in eight-balls!
G: Amazeballs!
8BA: It’s a wild beast – I had no idea what it was going to look like when I picked it up at the factory down in Melbourne a few weeks ago, and ... it’s a new toy syndrome.
G: It certainly looks like it packs a lot of attitude.
8BA: Yes!
G: How many songs do you play it on these days?
8BA: I play it on about half a dozen songs in the set – about half the time.
G: And the other Maton?
8BA: I play that for a lot of the time as well. My other guitar is a National; these days, I use three guitars. This Grass Roots Music Festival is all acoustic, so I’ll be using the Maton guitars and the National.
G: Sweet.
8BA: This National has a unique modification – I’ve put a really hot Seymour Duncan pickup in the front and I play it through a bit of a drive on my amp. My amp is quite rare as well.
G: Oh yeah?
8BA: It’s a Tech 21, made in New York. It was actually soaked for eight hours in 12 feet of water up in the flood in north Queensland – completely soaked – but it was hosed out straight away and it’s been working ever since. It’s done a couple thousand gigs now.
G: Talk about a hard-working amp...
8BA: That’s right – the water was really muddy and if it got dried, the amp would have been wrecked, but because it was hosed outward with fresh water, that got all the mud out of the circuit and the speaker. The only thing that needed to be replaced was a reverb spring, because it rusted. That’s been a really good amp for me over the years. I also use a Fender Bassman sometimes, but the Tech 21’s much more portable.
G: What pedals do you use onstage?
8BA: I use tremolo, reverb, chorus, a Tubescreamer for overdrive and I use a fuzz pedal sometimes and a wah-wah as well.
G: Which brand is the fuzz?
8BA: Boss. I use an Ibanez Tubescreamer, but all the other pedals are Boss.
G: Tubescreamer’s my favourite overdrive...
8BA: They’re good for a lot of things. I like the Blues Driver as well. Another thing I use is the Stomperoo stompbox.
G: I have a vivid memory of you playing the guitar with the flames...
8BA: The Maverick! It’s a pretty wild guitar and it looks like it’s a really big guitar, but it’s actually light, because it’s hollow. The pickups in it are really hot – Seymour Duncan humbuckers – so I have a pretty wild sound, a bit less beefy than a Les Paul, more like a 335. It think it’s got its own sound because the guitar being hollow sweetens the tone. There’s no block through the middle of it like a 335 would have and the flames coming out of it are actually hollow and they’re designed for tone: the guy in LA who invented them was actually trying to be an aeronautical engineer first and build aeroplanes, but his true love was music, so he ended up building guitars.
G: That guitar deserves its own story.
8BA: Oh mate, each guitar has its own story, that’s for sure.
G: Now let’s go back to the Grass Roots festival.
8BA: I’m the co-manager of the festival. When I went up to the [Mount Coot-tha Botanical] Gardens, I thought “this is just an amazing place for a gig” because it’s a huge amphitheatre up at the bandstand at Mount Coot-tha. I thought it would be good to get some of the music fans out of the Valley and the pubs on a Sunday and bring them into the park. This is the sixth year we’ve been running it now and we get a really good crowd up there – it’s all original local Brisbane music. It’s a great way to relax out there – people come up to enjoy themselves, lie around in the grass and have a really good afternoon.
G: Sounds like a perfect Sunday arvo – thanks 8 Ball!
Featuring 8 BALL AITKEN & HIS BAND, Blind Lemon, Hannah Acfield, Gooreng Gooreng and many more, the sixth annual Grass Roots Music Festival takes place at the scenic Mount Coot-tha Botanical Gardens in Toowong on Sunday Nov 21 from 10:30am to 5pm. 8 BALL AITKEN also plays Lennox Heads’ Lennox Point Hotel on Fri Nov 19, Goodna’s Royal Mail Hotel on Sat Nov 20 and Tweed Heads’ Seagulls Club on Fri Nov 26. Check out www.myspace.com/8ballaitken and www.grassrootsmusicfestival.com.au for more information.
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