7 things I stole from John Leventhal - Ask Zac 86

well hello friends and welcome to
0:59
another Ask Zac
1:00
today we are going to talk about john
1:03
Leventhal and specifically we're going
1:05
to talk about
1:06
seven concepts playing concepts musical
1:10
concepts that I've stolen from
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john I've interviewed him twice i
1:14
interviewed him for vintage guitar
1:15
magazine in print then i did a video
1:17
interview
1:19
of him for the true tone lounge and so
1:21
if you want to do that deep dive you
1:23
know watch those but here are practical
1:25
things that i have
1:26
stolen from john and used you know I've
1:29
never
1:29
like learned any of his licks note for
1:31
note except for you know
1:33
right there uh what i played in the
1:35
intro to uh to kind of
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showcase his playing but I've stolen
1:40
tons of concepts from him so that's what
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today's episode is going to be
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about all right guys if you've been
1:47
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1:48
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1:59
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2:03
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2:05
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2:06
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2:08
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it's a sickness or coffee mugs and other
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things all right
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let's get down to it straight into
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number one of seven
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so first thing that i
2:23
stole from john Leventhal was using a
2:26
capo on electric guitar
2:28
now to some of you younger guys this
2:31
might be
2:31
you know old hat and you might think
2:34
nothing of it
2:35
but for me as you know being a 48 year
2:39
old Texan
2:40
uh you know you didn't use a capo on
2:43
electric guitar if you did you would
2:45
have been
2:45
laughed out of the joint unless you were
2:47
albert Collins if you're albert Collins
2:48
you were given a pass
2:50
you know he was from from Houston and he
2:53
uh you know he just
2:54
you know he could do that but uh yeah it
2:57
was just not
2:58
acceptable and it was just kind of seen
3:00
as you know what's wrong with you i mean
3:02
maybe you use a capo on an acoustic
3:04
guitar but why in the world would you
3:06
use a capo on electric
3:08
well watching john play and seeing him
3:11
use one
3:12
it kind of made it to where oh this is
3:14
actually
3:15
acceptable and it is actually okay
3:18
and i found that you know nothing sounds
3:21
as good as open strings
3:23
and when you start tape on an electric
3:25
guitar
3:26
you're able to get open strings you're
3:28
able to get different
3:30
voicings and different you know stacking
3:32
of notes for chords
3:34
and you're able to pull the guitar out
3:37
of the range of maybe the b3
3:40
keyboards other things and you're able
3:43
to really make
3:44
the electric guitar pop out at certain
3:47
times
3:48
and do really interesting things
3:51
so here's an example of me
3:56
taking that concept and putting it into
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into play
3:59
so i was playing with some friends and
4:02
uh they wanted just kind of uh an intro
4:06
to this song
4:07
and at first i really didn't know what
4:09
to do and then i thought hey
4:11
I'll use a capo put a little tremolo and
4:14
a little delay on there
4:16
and play you know what in some ways is
4:18
kind of like a finger picked
4:20
acoustic part with a little bit of
4:22
double stops in there
4:24
so let's see I'm going to turn the
4:27
echo park pedal on let's see if i got
4:30
the uh
4:30
the delay i mean the tremolo going on
4:33
the old
4:34
1964 ac 10 that's been rehoused
4:44
there we go okay so this song
4:48
is in the key of d and I've capoed up on
4:51
the seventh fret
4:53
and I'm just gonna you know play what i
4:56
you know came up with
Capo
5:11
[Music]
5:23
you
5:26
[Music]
5:48
so then of course the band would come in
5:50
so uh
5:51
and i think maybe i extended that a bit
5:53
more than what i originally played
5:55
but that part really worked well
5:58
and that was just an example of me you
6:00
know blatantly you know kind of
6:02
thinking what would john Leventhal do so
6:05
cape boat on the 7th fret used a little
6:07
tremolo and delay
6:09
had both pickups on and just kind of did
6:11
a finger picked part
6:13
with a little bit of double stopping and
6:15
a few runs
6:16
uh you know these
6:20
[Music]
6:29
[Music]
6:40
that might not be something specifically
6:41
that he's played but i kind of
6:43
you know think of of those of those kind
6:46
of things
6:47
so you know the capo is just a fantastic
6:50
way
6:51
of of moving the guitar's
6:55
range around getting it out of the way
6:57
of other instruments
6:59
opening up other things you can play so
7:01
maybe you use it for overdubbing and you
7:02
play
7:03
a similar thing but it it helps you know
7:05
change things up and it's just a an
7:07
amazing tool and if you
7:09
have not been using a capo on electric
7:11
guitar
7:12
you should start number two is uh
7:17
is just feel free to modify your
7:18
telecaster so
7:20
and be a telecaster guy so john mainly
7:23
plays a tele and of course
7:24
you know I've been a telegui since i saw
7:27
you know albert lee and James burton
7:29
but you know Leventhal plays a lot of
7:32
telecasters he owns a lot of telecasters
7:34
because it's a sickness
7:36
and he's always changing necks around
7:39
and modifying guitars
7:41
changing out pickups changing out
7:43
bridges
7:44
and you'll see guitars he has with
7:46
full-size humbuckers up there some that
7:48
have mini humbuckers up there
7:50
some that have an ashtray bridge some
7:52
that have a godo bridge
7:54
he's and he's done some some interesting
7:57
wiring things
7:58
and so Dan strain danocaster
8:01
and i went to see john Leventhal play
8:04
with William bell and
8:06
pardon my reach I've got to find this
8:10
all right this is a William bell album
8:14
that john
8:15
uh produced and it won a Grammy and this
8:17
is probably the best r
8:18
b album I've heard in a very long time
8:22
very very long time this is fantastic so
8:26
for the album release john put together
8:29
an all-star band
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and they did a show i think in new York
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maybe Chicago and Nashville and so i
8:35
went
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and saw him in for the Nashville show
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with Dan strain
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and we were up close and we were
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watching him and he was playing a three
8:44
pickup telecaster had a you know single
8:46
coil
8:47
you know strap pickup in the middle and
8:48
normal bridge pickup
8:50
you can tell he had a five-way switch
8:53
and he was moving it around
8:54
and we were completely confused because
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they're just like that doesn't sound
8:58
like a middle pickup you know when he'd
9:00
have it in this position well
9:02
afterwards i asked john and he had
9:04
rewired his telecaster with a five-way
9:07
switch in a really unique way
9:09
that's really simple too that gives you
9:11
a really good
9:13
options as far as the the pickups so
9:18
three pickup telecaster normal five-way
9:20
switch
9:21
but he just switched the lugs
9:24
where the middle pickup and the bridge
9:26
pickup were wired
9:27
on the five-way what that does is this
9:30
in your number one position it's neck
9:33
pickup like you would expect
9:35
the number two position it's neck
9:38
and bridge the number three position
9:43
is the bridge pickup by itself the
9:45
number four position
9:47
is the middle pickup and the bridge
9:49
pickup
9:50
and then the position the number five
9:52
position is the middle pickup by itself
9:55
and the reason he did that is so that he
9:57
could get all the great telecaster
9:59
sounds which of course the neck pickup
10:00
by itself bridge pickup by itself
10:02
and then these two together and then he
10:04
could still get the middle pickup by
10:06
itself
10:07
and he could get the back two pickups
10:09
for that uh
10:11
you know 80s and 90s beer commercial
10:14
blues guitar sound
10:15
so anyway he did that so that was just
10:18
another uh thing so he's you know
10:20
he's a guy that'll swap necks on guitars
10:22
he has an old 1970 telecaster that
10:24
he's kind of been playing for a long
10:25
time and it's got you know like a fender
10:28
custom shop neck on it now and you know
10:30
it's had a bunch of different pickups
10:31
and
10:32
yeah just you know feel free to modify
10:35
guitars
10:36
however they they need to be modified so
10:38
that they serve you well
Altered Tunings
10:40
number three altered tunings um
10:45
in the past i would only think about
10:48
maybe
10:48
drop d you know where I'd lower this e
10:51
string to d
10:52
and you know which of course was used in
10:54
a fair number of of country songs
10:56
but uh you know john will use some
10:59
altered tunings especially
11:01
this one that you take the low e string
11:04
down two whole steps to c
11:07
and then you take your uh your a string
11:10
you tune it down one whole step to g
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so you end up with c g
11:16
d like normal g like normal b
11:19
like normal and e like normal and so you
11:21
just have these two that are dropped
11:22
down this one two whole steps in this
11:24
one one whole step
11:25
and that's the sound you hear like on
11:27
get out of this house
11:29
on Sean Colvin's a few small repairs
11:31
record
11:32
and that's uh it's it's great for
11:35
playing solo acoustic
11:37
because you can play kind of out of a g
11:39
shape
11:40
and you have you know you have the
11:44
you know uh you have this open
11:47
g string that you can hit then you have
11:50
this low c
11:51
string that's for your four chord and
11:53
then you can hit
11:54
you know this string for your five chord
11:57
for your d
11:58
or you can actually wrap your thumb
11:59
around here and you can hit that
12:01
on the second fret for a d note and it's
12:03
it's really neat
12:04
for acoustic guitar parts and also it's
12:06
really great for
12:09
stone stonezy rykuterish kind of rhythm
12:12
guitar things it's really
12:13
really neat and also it kind of that low
12:16
c kind of takes it almost
12:18
into like the baritone range and kind of
12:20
gives you
12:21
a really low kind of growly sound now he
12:24
uses
12:25
11s or 12s on electric guitar
12:28
which i don't and so that really works
12:30
well for tuning down that far
12:32
on a set of 10s it starts to get a
12:34
little bit floppy but
12:35
obviously on acoustic guitar it it works
12:37
great
12:38
but that's a wonderful trick it's a
12:41
wonderful thing to kind of put
12:43
you know in your bag and and pull out
12:45
when when needed
12:47
you know tuning down to c and g
12:50
and having that option all right
Minimalist Pedalboard
12:54
number four is is use a minimalist
12:57
pedal board so one of the reasons
13:03
that i interviewed john uh was because
13:06
there was basically no information on
13:07
him
13:08
on the web i looked all over the place
13:10
and there were some times where people
13:11
had commented about seeing him live but
13:13
there really just wasn't anything so i
13:15
contacted him and he was
13:17
kind enough to allow me to interview him
13:20
and we did that for the true tone lounge
13:22
and this was the day a day or two after
13:24
he had done the gig with william bell
13:27
and so all he had was a telecaster and a
13:30
pedal board and then he just used the
13:31
deluxe reverb that we had there
13:33
at the offices there and
13:36
i was amazed to see his little small
13:39
board because
13:39
remember i'd done all these interviews
13:41
with session guitar players and all of
13:42
them had these huge pedal boards
13:44
you know with tons of stuff on it all
13:46
sorts of gags all sorts of crazy sounds
13:49
that they would they would pull up and
13:51
and do and he just had a very
13:53
straightforward simple pedalboard no
13:55
gags on it at all and his sound
13:58
of course he's a great player and he has
14:00
great great hands but
14:02
it reminded me of the pedal board that i
14:04
used to use when i was growing up in
14:06
in texas you know i didn't have a bunch
14:08
of money and i just had a simple board
14:10
and all the pedals were in a row you
14:12
know just a single row
14:13
of a tuner and five pedals and they were
14:16
all simple and it was kind of like what
14:18
i used to use when
14:19
yeah when i was still back in texas
14:22
before i felt the pressure of having to
14:23
have all these different sounds and all
14:24
these effects and all these gags
14:27
and so i had most of the pedals he had
14:29
so i
14:30
copied his pedalboard setup which
14:33
is a tuner a mirage compressor
14:37
a uh analog man modified tremolo
14:40
a mostian pedal or sometimes that's the
14:43
thing that he changes around the most
14:45
is which overdrives in there but he's
14:46
used a mos torsion off and on since the
14:48
early 90s
14:49
a boss dm3 for slapback delay and then a
14:53
line six
14:53
echo park for tap tempo and longer
14:57
delay times and you know
15:00
and for me it was kind of freeing
15:02
because i had been using a pretty big
15:04
pedal board with a lot of stuff on it
15:06
and you know was doing all these gags
15:09
had all these different you know over
15:10
the top kind of sound effects and things
15:12
like that and it was nice
15:14
to simplify it and stop tap dancing so
15:17
much and concentrate on playing the
15:18
guitar
My Pedalboard
15:20
also and not sound like the grumpy old
15:23
man
15:23
but when you plug a guitar straight into
15:26
an amp
15:27
it has an interaction and a purity to it
15:30
that is lost when you start putting a
15:32
bunch of stuff
15:34
in between the guitar and the amp i mean
15:36
these guitars and amps were designed to
15:38
be
15:39
plugged straight into each other not
15:40
with a bunch of stuff and so i found
15:42
that you can use five or six petals
15:44
and that's in and that's about as much
15:47
as
15:48
i can live with as far as you know
15:50
messing with your tone it's like when
15:51
you
15:52
start getting up 10 20 you know petals
15:56
and and if you're a shoegazer or you
15:58
know if you like a bunch of effects
16:00
that's fine i mean sometimes for the gig
16:03
you have to have all these different
16:04
gags but i like to concentrate more on
16:09
getting a good pure guitar sound and
16:12
then
16:12
you know maybe using the capo using
16:14
slide
16:15
you know where i play and just to
16:19
to get a a variety of sounds that way
16:21
instead of relying so much on petals and
16:24
tap dancing
16:25
so minimalist pedalboard i'm uh all
16:28
aboard with that number five would be
16:32
low string melodies so i just played you
16:35
know at the intro of the show
16:37
i played the the sunny came home you
16:40
know lick
16:41
which the the high part was actually
16:43
played on a violin that he
16:45
fretted and played but then live he
16:47
would play the part
16:48
that i that i did and then you have the
16:51
uh
16:51
the low string part which you know this
16:53
is a pop song that got you know grammy
16:56
got the
16:56
you know song of the year and uh
17:00
yeah but yet he had this kind of clean
17:03
a little bit doinky sounding uh electric
17:06
guitar that really popped out
17:08
and really uh yeah
17:12
and uh i think it really you know made
17:14
help
17:15
make the song you know that that great
Live Example
17:17
intro
17:18
so another example uh of him doing that
17:22
kind of
17:22
thing would be uh
17:25
live i saw a
17:29
clip of him playing on austin city
17:30
limits with his wife roseanne cash
17:33
and they were doing a song called 500
17:35
miles which is off the list album which
17:37
is a fantastic record that i highly
17:39
recommend that you check out
17:41
uh all really should check out
17:43
everything that that john has produced
17:45
but
17:45
the list is a is a personal favorite and
17:48
on 500 miles
17:50
um the studio recording is acoustic
17:52
guitar
17:53
but live he did it all on electric and
17:56
he did this kind of thing which i
17:57
really enjoyed
18:00
[Music]
18:01
i had to make sure my tremolo was on
18:15
[Music]
18:27
and so it was interesting because he
18:28
played on the neck pickup but played it
18:30
really close to the bridge to get kind
18:31
of a fat
18:32
doinky sound and then he switched to
18:35
both pickups of course i think he was
18:36
using a
18:37
telly with a mini humbucker but then
18:39
played the double stops on the end and
18:42
they popped out so that was a again and
18:44
so i've used that a lot
18:46
where you know as guitar players we tend
18:48
to want to play
18:49
melodies higher up on the neck or maybe
18:51
in the mid
18:52
range of the neck but but on a
18:54
telecaster
18:55
you really have the advantage of being
18:57
able to play
18:59
these low string licks that you can use
19:01
in any type of music it doesn't have to
19:03
be country
19:04
you know to uh to really make some some
19:07
fun fun parts that will get you noticed
19:10
and of course always a tremolo is always
19:12
a nice thing to put on there for that
19:16
all right number six is
Sound Hole Pickup
19:20
get a sound hole pickup for your
19:22
acoustic guitar
19:25
so seeing john live um and when he was
19:29
playing acoustic guitar i realized that
19:30
he had
19:31
uh he had like this weird stereo cable
19:35
coming out of the guitar and i was like
19:37
what
19:37
what are you doing there and so he had
19:40
on his acoustic guitar
19:42
he had both an under saddle pickup that
19:44
was going to a di
19:45
for what you would think of as a normal
19:48
kind of acoustic guitar sound but then
19:49
he also had a sound hole pickup and i
19:51
think he was using some kind of fishman
19:53
i think he was using the fishman
19:54
humbucking pickup
19:56
and that was going through his pedal
19:59
board
19:59
and into his guitar amp and he was
20:01
blending the two
20:03
and so i decided to try it and so i just
20:05
picked up this is a 1980s bill lawrence
20:08
pickup and you can tell the 80s ones
20:09
because they have this font that looks
20:11
like this instead of just a
20:12
type you know normal type and
20:17
it's wonderful uh and i've used it live
20:20
and uh
20:21
and it's it's a wonderful thing to do it
20:23
really kind of broadens the sound of the
20:24
guitar it almost sounds like two
20:25
instruments
20:27
and i'll use a volume pedal on this
20:29
signal
20:30
and that way you can kind of pull it
20:31
back you know when you're wanting to be
20:33
more in the background and then when
20:35
you're wanting to kind of come forward
20:36
and kind of you know play a line
20:38
or just be more upfront you pull more of
20:42
this forward
20:43
and it's a really really great sound
20:46
and i've really enjoyed doing that and
20:49
that's
20:49
uh you know completely stole from john
20:52
and he does it even in the studio
20:54
of course where he'll just mic up the
20:56
acoustic but then also use a sound hole
20:58
pickup
20:59
like you know and he has a bunch of
21:01
different sound hole pickups i've seen
21:02
him with old diamonds you know from the
21:05
50s to
21:06
bill lawrence to the fishman all sorts
21:08
of things sometimes he'll just tape them
21:10
in place
21:11
and this is a really great you know and
21:14
cheap
21:15
you know thing that you can pick up that
21:17
really uh
21:18
no not trying to be funny
21:21
but that you can uh really you know give
21:23
yourself
21:24
a bigger acoustic sound and more options
21:27
and
21:27
and it's really nice when you're playing
21:29
acoustic and electric guitar to be able
21:30
to kind of
21:31
have a dual use of your electric rig you
21:34
know with the acoustic guitar
21:36
all right number seven is
Outro
21:40
uh another kind of philosophical
21:43
concept and it's something that i've you
21:45
know i've heard from multiple people but
21:46
uh
21:47
john you know really put it well about
21:50
getting
21:50
out of your headspace as a guitarist or
21:52
bassist or whatever instrument that you
21:54
play and to think like an arranger or
21:56
producer
21:57
and which really means to to be humble
22:00
and to serve the song to serve the
22:03
vocalist with with reverence
22:05
and that's what keeps people wanting to
22:08
work with you
22:09
and you know you know john will kind of
22:12
stretch out more
22:14
live but on on the record you know he's
22:17
uh you know has great reference
22:19
reverence for the
22:20
artist and the song and always does you
22:23
know what what
22:24
fits and uh yeah he's he's
22:27
set set the bar on that and uh really
22:31
enjoy that aspect of of his playing
22:34
so of course if you want to take a deep
22:38
dive
22:38
i really highly recommend that you watch
22:41
the
22:42
the interview that i've done with him
22:43
for the true tone lounge or that you can
22:45
read
22:46
the article i wrote that you know for
22:49
vintage guitar magazine again the
22:51
links will be in the description also
22:54
i'm going to make a spotify playlist
22:56
and you know because he's done so much
22:59
great work with sean colvin
23:02
mark cone with his wife roseanne cash
23:05
and many others and uh yeah
23:08
and really and that william bell album
23:11
is uh as a particular you know
23:13
favorite but uh you should you should
23:15
listen to those
23:16
and uh and glean as much as you can and
23:19
uh
23:20
and again it's not about you know
23:21
picking up licks as much as it is
23:24
picking up concepts and
23:25
and being inspired so all right guys
23:28
well i hope you've enjoyed today's
23:30
episode
23:31
and i'll see you next time bye