THE LINEUP
LA Guns’ frontman Tracii Guns adds to his long list of collaborations as he teams up with hard rocker Jack Russell for new album Medusa
Artist: Tracii Guns
Album: Medusa (Frontiers Music SRL)
Tracii Guns has long slung his Les Paul in bouts of rock ’n’ roll excess as a longtime hair-metal icon with his namesake band, LA Guns. But lately he’s been branching out through several side gigs, one of which features Jack Russell of Great White. Tracii joins us to dig into the tones behind his latest collaborative record (and beyond), Medusa.
What tones did you have in mind when you started the Medusa project?
“That record was really weird because, number one, I didn’t initially write anything. And number two, they [Frontiers Records] leaked the songs over to me one at a time. So I never had an overall picture of what I thought that record would sound like; it was like hors d’oeuvres, like, ‘Here’s an appetizer, now go create the main course.’
“But the good thing was that HeadRush had just come out with the MX5 [guitar effects and amp modeller], and I was really excited about it. So with each song I made a new patch, as each song sounded, to me, different. For example, on the single that came out, Tell MeWhy, you can tell it’s a Tele. But on other tracks, I used my Black Beauty Les Paul. It was a varied approach.”
Regardless of the record you’re on, your modern-yet-vintage sound always bleeds through. What shapes your tone?
“It’s a lot of stuff. But as I’m writing music, the HeadRush thing has become so important, you know? Especially during the pandemic – I’d write something and be like, ‘Oh, this needs to be aJoe Perry thing,’ or maybe I’d say,‘Ah, this sounds more like Randy Rhoads or Dave Murray.’
The luxury of the HeadRush is that it locks in vintage stuff, like a Soldano or so many different sounds for a rhythm track, for example. For me, my ears tell me what I want to hear. They tell my brain, ‘This is what you need.’ From there, it’s about tweaking the EQ, gain, and finding what feels nice to me.
“There’s a song on this album called Medusa, and I shaped my tone by picturing an old vintage amp with a lot of distortion – like an old Fender Bassman, with maybe a Tube Screamer, and kept nudging it from there. And then, for the rhythm track, I’ll look for something like an old Marshall Plexi, add a little distortion, and play with it until it feels right but still has the listener thinking, ‘Yeah, that sounds like what Tracii does.’”
Your solos are always very lyrical and seldom redundant. You seem like the type of player who would feel restricted sticking to typical
