William Reid's Sonic Sacrilege
James Rotondi / Guitar Player
07.1992
07.1992
"If there was a boat sinking, and it was me and you," muses guitarist/songwriter William Reid, "and we were friends, having a drink, but there was only one place [in a lifeboat] left, we would scratch each other's eyes out, rip each other's throats open to get there." Reid doesn't say this menacingly. It's his way of shedding light on human nature--kind when safe, vicious when cornered. He and his brother Jim's band, the Jesus and Mary Chain, could be seen the same way. Their dark, brooding music, a combination of buoyant pop songcraft and blistering feedback shriek, has earned them as much condemnation as critical praise. When I speak to Reid, he seems every bit the thoughtful lad from East Kilbride, Scotland. But pushed to defend themselves, the Chain's reputation is for scathing attacks on sacred cows, and their sensually disturbing lyrics, like this one from the new album Honey's Dead [Def American], can be land mines of controversy: "I wanna die just like JFK, I wanna die in the USA."
Reid was inspired by the music and attitudes of the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the punk movement, bands who proved to him that "you didn't need to be a great technician to make a record or to play guitar. You didn't need to be Eric Clapton to play. You can just pick it up, and as long as you've got an imagination, you can do okay." Reid's playing, captured on earlier albums Psychocandy, Darklands, and Automatic, is still the sort that can elicit groans from more technical-minded players, but there's no denying the intensity of his attack.
Running his Gibson 330 semi-acoustic through any number of fuzz boxes, Reid manipulates feedback with the use of vibrato, toggle switches, and sheer proximity to his Marshall 50-watt amps. Sizzling high-frequency feedback accompanies the clean major-to-minor rhythm changes in "Almost Gold," while gradual wah-wah waves open and close the chord textures on "Teenage Lust," in which sounds like pebbles falling through a steel pipe break apart in a jagged clipping. At times the barrage, a screaming match between amp and guitar, occurs almost without William's interference; he's often walked offstage to let his carefully placed instrument finish the set
for him.
But here's the rub: The songs aren't written that way. It's not as if the Reids make a lot of noise, yell a bit, and call it a tune. "If a song doesn't sound good on acoustic guitar, it gets thrown in the dump. That's the way we've always done it," explains William. "People are always
surprised by that. It's easy to make noise, but not to write a good song. Playing an electric guitar, you can get fooled; playing chords that you think are powerful just because they're loud, and that what you're singing is somehow a powerful song, when it's not really the case."
And with all that dynamic response and microphone-shredding tone, he must have those amps cranked, right? "Not really," says Reid. "In the studio we're not loud at all, and on stage I wouldn't say we're real loud. Good guitar sound comes from tone, not volume. Volume is something that only impresses you if you're in the room. If you turn the amp way up and stand in front of it, that feels good. But when it's going through hi-fi speakers, it doesn't feel as good. So you've got to start with a good sound."
In the studio, Reid likes to hook up his MESA/Boogie and Fender Twin Reverb alongside his Marshall, running one guitar through them all simultaneously, then sending each amp to a different channel, to be blended in the mix. He likes his semi-acoustic Gibson for "the dynamics. What I don't like about solidbodies is that you don't get a lot of dynamics when playing rhythm," he suggests. "It seems to be really compressed and sustainy. Whereas with this guitar, even if you were to put it through five fuzz pedals, you can still hear a jangle, a crispness."
The crisp edge and dangerous aura around the group's efforts is not easily won. Reid admits to being a bit overwhelmed by the creative and personal demands of the rock business, and he harbors some trepidation towards the whole recording process. "Ideas can drain you, and writing songs really leaves me shot sometimes. Especially when you don't know if what you're doing is good. You can't tell until all the components are in place. Somewhere near the end you start thinking it's going good, and it's a relief. But at the beginning, it's that blank page. That scares the shit out of me."
Reid was inspired by the music and attitudes of the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the punk movement, bands who proved to him that "you didn't need to be a great technician to make a record or to play guitar. You didn't need to be Eric Clapton to play. You can just pick it up, and as long as you've got an imagination, you can do okay." Reid's playing, captured on earlier albums Psychocandy, Darklands, and Automatic, is still the sort that can elicit groans from more technical-minded players, but there's no denying the intensity of his attack.
Running his Gibson 330 semi-acoustic through any number of fuzz boxes, Reid manipulates feedback with the use of vibrato, toggle switches, and sheer proximity to his Marshall 50-watt amps. Sizzling high-frequency feedback accompanies the clean major-to-minor rhythm changes in "Almost Gold," while gradual wah-wah waves open and close the chord textures on "Teenage Lust," in which sounds like pebbles falling through a steel pipe break apart in a jagged clipping. At times the barrage, a screaming match between amp and guitar, occurs almost without William's interference; he's often walked offstage to let his carefully placed instrument finish the set
for him.
But here's the rub: The songs aren't written that way. It's not as if the Reids make a lot of noise, yell a bit, and call it a tune. "If a song doesn't sound good on acoustic guitar, it gets thrown in the dump. That's the way we've always done it," explains William. "People are always
surprised by that. It's easy to make noise, but not to write a good song. Playing an electric guitar, you can get fooled; playing chords that you think are powerful just because they're loud, and that what you're singing is somehow a powerful song, when it's not really the case."
And with all that dynamic response and microphone-shredding tone, he must have those amps cranked, right? "Not really," says Reid. "In the studio we're not loud at all, and on stage I wouldn't say we're real loud. Good guitar sound comes from tone, not volume. Volume is something that only impresses you if you're in the room. If you turn the amp way up and stand in front of it, that feels good. But when it's going through hi-fi speakers, it doesn't feel as good. So you've got to start with a good sound."
In the studio, Reid likes to hook up his MESA/Boogie and Fender Twin Reverb alongside his Marshall, running one guitar through them all simultaneously, then sending each amp to a different channel, to be blended in the mix. He likes his semi-acoustic Gibson for "the dynamics. What I don't like about solidbodies is that you don't get a lot of dynamics when playing rhythm," he suggests. "It seems to be really compressed and sustainy. Whereas with this guitar, even if you were to put it through five fuzz pedals, you can still hear a jangle, a crispness."
The crisp edge and dangerous aura around the group's efforts is not easily won. Reid admits to being a bit overwhelmed by the creative and personal demands of the rock business, and he harbors some trepidation towards the whole recording process. "Ideas can drain you, and writing songs really leaves me shot sometimes. Especially when you don't know if what you're doing is good. You can't tell until all the components are in place. Somewhere near the end you start thinking it's going good, and it's a relief. But at the beginning, it's that blank page. That scares the shit out of me."
